A few hours had passed following the attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor, and Archibald MacLeish's mind was racing. While the rest of the country was paralyzed by the horrific December 7th, 194...
The Chicago Bears have been one of the greatest investments in the history of mankind, returning a total of 8.2 billion percent (and counting). From the franchise's inception in 1920 until now, th...
In 1944, the top marginal tax rate in the United States hit 94%. The justification? In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt said that the country needed "steeply graduated taxes.. to keep the cos...
Midterm elections usually aren't pretty for the party that is in the White House. Since World War II, the sitting President has lost an average of 26 House seats and 4 Senate seats. This is du...
It was the mid 1970s, and the United States had a big problem. During the Yom Kippur War, members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries imposed an oil embargo against the Unite...
Deep in the bowels of the New York Federal Reserve building, 507,000 gold bars - or 6,331 metric tons - sits behind 90-ton steel doors and reinforced concrete. There are 122 vaults in total in the...
As of the last update from the government, the United States owns roughly 261,500,000 ounces of gold, or around 8,133 metric tons. The "book value" for this gold is just $11 billion (we'll get to ...
It wasn't that long ago when Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and an assortment of other companies, was slumping. Musk, having grown frustrated over his DOGE initiative in Washington, lashed out at...
Canada's current federal debt number sits at $1.236 trillion. Since Justin Trudeau took office in November of 2015, the Canadian federal debt has increased approximately 102%, from $623.9 billion ...
In November of 2013, China's holdings of United States debt hit an all-time high of $1.317 trillion. At the time, China seemed to have an unquenchable thirst for United States debt. It was a win-w...
The Insurrection Act of 1807 has always been one of the most powerful, least-used tools in the U.S. President's arsenal. It allows the Commander-in-Chief to deploy federal troops within the United Sta...
Only a few US Presidents have pulled it off - winning the Nobel Peace Prize. It is one of the rarest honors in American politics, given to leaders who pushed for peace instead of power. So who made th...
Japan's real estate bubble of the late 1980s remains one of the most spectacular asset booms in modern history. Fueled by cheap money, speculative euphoria, and overconfidence in Japan's unstoppable e...
The United States has seen more than a dozen government shutdowns in modern history, but the longest one stretched on for 35 days between late 2018 and early 2019. What triggered it? The fight over a ...
How have the markets handled government shutdowns in the past? You might think that traders would panic at the thought of Washington grinding to a halt. The reality has been far more subdued. The U...