Spot gold hit a high of $2,393 per ounce on Friday, eclipsing a month-long high of roughly $2,388 hit on June 7. The new high also appeared to have broken the downward trend triggered after gold prices hit a peak of $2,450 in mid-May.

The surge in gold prices came after the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released the latest employment numbers on Friday.

Total U.S. nonfarm payrolls grew by 206,000 last month, lower than that of May. It was also the second-lowest payroll growth this year.

In addition, the agency revised down nonfarm payroll numbers for May by 54,000 jobs and for April by 57,000 jobs. The unemployment rate grew by 0.1 percentage point on a monthly basis and was 0.5 points higher compared to June last year.

Dismal job numbers signaled a potential softening in the labor market, boosting expectations of a Federal Reserve rate cut in the coming months and triggering a rally in gold prices.

According to the World Gold Council’s Mid-Year Outlook report, gold has been one of the best-performing assets so far in 2024. It netted a 12.74 percent gain in the first six months of the year, coming only second to stocks.

WGC predicts gold prices to remain range-bound if current market expectations continue as is, which includes the Fed keeping interest rates between 5.25 to 5.5 percent, a restrained recovery in the economy, the U.S. dollar remaining flat to slightly down, and geopolitical risks continuing to create uncertainty.

“However, there’s a clear path for gold to outperform from here, likely fuelled by Western flows. Conversely, in the event that central bank demand drops drastically, rates remain high for longer and Asian investor sentiment flips, we could see a pullback in the second half,” the group predicted.

Interest Rates and Gold

Investors are now closely watching Fed action on interest rates to determine the likely direction of gold prices. The Fed raised rates from 0.25 percent in March 2022 to a range of 5.25–5.50 percent in July 2023, and rates have remained at that level until now.

The 12-month inflation rate has been above 3 percent for every single month since June 2023, higher than the Fed’s target of 2 percent. This is preventing the Fed from committing to cut interest rates.

During the recent policy-making meeting in June, Federal Reserve officials said that the agency could even raise rates if inflation continued to remain elevated.

Investors estimate that rate cuts could start in a couple of months. According to the CME FedWatch tool, an overwhelming 92.2 percent of interest rate traders expect the Fed to hold the current rates at its upcoming meeting this month, as of July 6 at 7:30 a.m. ET.

A sizable number of traders only expect an interest rate reduction of 25 points in the September meeting.

According to a July 4 post by the research group Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), gold prices are expected to continue strengthening in 2024-25 as the Fed and the European Central Bank (ECB) reduce interest rates.

“We expect gold prices to remain elevated in 2024, with the price averaging US$2,312/troy oz, up by 19 percent from 2023,” it said. “We forecast that the Fed and the ECB will continue to lower interest rates next year, and therefore expect gold prices to increase further to average US$2,498/troy oz in 2025.”

“Additionally, softer interest rates and safe-haven demand will revive interest in exchange-traded funds (ETFs). We expect net investments in gold ETFs to turn positive this year.”

Planned Parenthood, the country’s largest abortion provider, released its 2022–2023 annual report revealing the organization conducted 392,715 abortions during the period. “This puts abortions performed by Planned Parenthood in the top four leading causes of death in the United States, after heart disease, cancer, and COVID-19,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America group.

According to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), over 695,000 Americans died from heart disease in 2021, with 605,000 dying from cancer, 416,000 from COVID-19, and nearly 225,000 from accidents.

“Once again, pregnant women who walk into Planned Parenthood are sold an abortion 97 percent of the time, rather than helped to keep their child or make an adoption plan. Meanwhile, they saw 80,000 fewer patients, provided 60,000 fewer pap tests and breast exams, and even gave out less contraception, she said.

Ms. Dannenfelser blamed Democrats in Washington and several other states for backing Planned Parenthood abortions by sending them almost $700 million in taxpayer funds. This amount made up a third of the organization’s revenue, with Planned Parenthood ending the fiscal year with $2.5 billion in net assets, she noted.

Around 60 percent of women who have had an abortion “would rather have kept their babies if they just had more emotional or financial support,” Ms. Dannenfelser stated. “Democrats’ response? They demonize and strip funding from pregnancy resource centers that serve women and their children.”

Michael New, a social scientist and senior associate scholar at Charlotte Lozier Institute, pointed out that Planned Parenthood’s abortion number was a record for the organization, representing around 40 percent of total abortions performed in the United States.

While boosting its abortion numbers, Planned Parenthood also “continues to cut back on several health services,” he said. “Between 2022 and 2023, preventive-care visits fell by 31.0 percent, pap tests fell by 13.5 percent, cancer screenings fell by 1.4 percent, and adoption referrals fell by 4.5 percent.”

“In the past ten years, the number of abortions performed by Planned Parenthood has increased by 20 percent. Meanwhile, cancer screenings fell by more than 58 percent, and prenatal services declined by more than 67 percent.”

Despite cutting back on several healthcare services in 2022, Planned Parenthood continues to see an increase in government funding, Mr. New noted.

Funding, Election Issue

Republican lawmakers have been trying to cut back government funding for Planned Parenthood. In January last year, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) proposed a draft bill to defund the organization by instituting a one-year moratorium on federal funding for the organization.

“The nation’s largest abortion provider has no business receiving taxpayer dollars,” she said at the time. “Planned Parenthood claims these funds go to healthcare for women, but last year, Planned Parenthood performed a record number of abortions while also reducing the number of well-woman exams and breast cancer screenings it performed.”

In a Dec. 12 press release, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) questioned the funding provided to Planned Parenthood, citing a report by the U.S. Government Accountability (GAO) to point out that the organization received $1.78 billion in federal taxpayer funding in fiscal years 2019–2021.

The amount included $90.4 million the group allegedly “illegally siphoned” from the Paycheck Protection Program, a COVID-19 loan program aimed at assisting small businesses affected by the pandemic.

“While small businesses struggled to make ends meet during the pandemic, Planned Parenthood illegally siphoned over $90 million from the Paycheck Protection Program, specifically designed to help our mom-and-pop shops keep their doors open,” Ms. Blackburn said.

Commenting on the report, Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), co-chair of the House Pro-Life Caucus, said that federal taxpayer funds “should not be funneled to big abortion corporations like Planned Parenthood, which has killed over 9.3 million unborn children since 1970, including 1.11 million between 2019-2021.”

The Planned Parenthood annual report comes as abortion is one of the key themes in the upcoming presidential race. Democrats are pushing abortion as a central issue, running ballot initiatives in battleground states.

In Arizona, a ballot measure seeks to amend the state’s constitution to ensure that abortion is a “fundamental right,” even up to the point where a baby can survive outside the womb, which typically happens around 24 weeks. Nevada, Colorado, and Maryland also have abortion amendments planned out.

“The Democrats’ strategy heading into this election cycle was to put these measures on the ballot in every big swing state,” Republican strategist Marcus Dell’Artino told The Epoch Times.

Former President Donald Trump, who is running for his second term in the 2024 elections, has stopped short of echoing other Republicans’ calls for a national abortion ban, saying that the matter is best left to the states.

“My view is now that we have abortion where everyone wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both. And whatever they decide must be the law of the land. In this case, the law of the state,” he said in a recent video posted on Truth Social.

“Many states will be different. Many will have a different number of weeks, or some will have more conservative than others, and that’s what they will be. At the end of the day, this is all about the will of the people.”

The preprint review, published on March 15, examined whether receiving blood from COVID-19-vaccinated individuals is safe or poses a health risk. Many nations have reported that mRNA vaccine usage has resulted in “post-vaccination thrombosis and subsequent cardiovascular damage, as well as a wide variety of diseases involving all organs and systems, including the nervous system,” it said.

Repeated vaccinations can make people more vulnerable to COVID-19, it said. If the blood contains spike proteins, it becomes necessary to remove these proteins prior to administration, and there is no such technology currently available, the authors wrote.

Contrary to earlier expectations, genes and proteins from genetic vaccines have been found to persist in the blood of vaccine recipients for “prolonged periods of time.”

In addition, “a variety of adverse events resulting from genetic vaccines are now being reported worldwide.” This includes a wide range of diseases related to blood and blood vessels.

Some studies have reported that the spike protein in the mRNA vaccines is neurotoxic and capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier, the review stated. “Thus, there is no longer any doubt that the spike protein used as an antigen in genetic vaccines is itself toxic.”

Moreover, people who have taken multiple shots of mRNA vaccines can have several exposures to the same antigen within a small time frame, which may lead to them being “imprinted with a preferential immune response to that antigen.”

This has resulted in COVID-19 vaccine recipients becoming “more susceptible to contracting COVID-19.”

Given such concerns, medical professionals should be aware of the “various risks associated with blood transfusions using blood products derived from people who have suffered from long COVID and from genetic vaccine recipients, including those who have received mRNA vaccines.”

The impact of such genetic vaccines on blood products as well as the actual damage caused by them are currently unknown, the authors wrote.

“In order to avoid these risks and prevent further expansion of blood contamination and complication of the situation, we strongly request that the vaccination campaign using genetic vaccines be suspended and that a harm–benefit assessment be carried out as early as possible.”

Repeated vaccination of genetic vaccines can also end up causing “alterations in immune function” among recipients. This raises the risk of serious illnesses due to opportunistic infections or pathogenic viruses, which would not have been an issue if the immune system were normal, the review said.

“Therefore, from the perspective of traditional containment of infectious diseases, greater caution is required in the collection of blood from genetic vaccine recipients and the subsequent handling of blood products, as well as during solid organ transplantation and even surgical procedures in order to avoid the risk of accidental blood-borne infection,” it stated.

The review was funded by members of the Japanese Society for Vaccine-related Complications and the Volunteer Medical Association. Authors did not declare any conflict of interest.

Dangers With Blood Transfusions

The review pointed out that the genetic vaccination status of blood donors is not collected by organizations even though the use of such blood may pose risks to patients. As such, authors recommended that when blood products are derived from such people, “it is necessary to confirm the presence or absence of spike protein or modified mRNA as in other tests for pathogens.”

“If the blood product is found to contain the spike protein or a modified gene derived from the genetic vaccine, it is essential to remove them,” it stated. “However, there is currently no reliable way to do so.”

Since “there is no way to reliably remove the pathogenic protein or mRNA, we suggest that all such blood products be discarded until a definitive solution is found.”

The authors pointed out that cases of encephalitis among people who received blood from dengue vaccine recipients were reported as recently as last year. This suggests that the present system of tracking and managing blood products “is not adequate.”

Since genetic vaccines were implemented on a global scale for a massive population, “it is expected that the situation will already be complicated” compared to previous drug disasters.

As such, there is an “urgent need” for legislation and international treaties related to the management of blood products, the authors wrote.

The issue of blood transfusion from COVID-19 vaccine recipients has been highly controversial. In 2022, a court in New Zealand ruled against the parents of a sick infant son after they refused blood transfusions from vaccinated people.

The parents had asked the health system to allow blood transfusion from unvaccinated individuals, with donors who were already prepared to contribute. In its ruling, the court stripped the parents of medical custody of their son.

In Canada, doctors have also reported the trend of people’s resistance to vaccinated blood transfusions. Speaking to CBC in 2022, Dr. Dave Sidhu, the southern Alberta medical lead for transfusion and transplant medicine, said that parents of sick children were requesting unvaccinated blood.

“We’re seeing it about once or twice a month, at this stage. And the worry is of course that these requests might increase,” he said at the time.

In Wyoming, Rep. Sarah Penn (R-Wyo.) has sponsored a bill mandating that blood donated by people who have taken COVID-19 shots be labeled. Doing so will allow recipients who do not wish to accept such blood to reject them.

In an interview with Cowboy State Daily, Ms. Penn said, “For various reasons, many people have purposefully strived to keep the mRNA therapies out of their bodies, even to the point that some lost their livelihoods … Their concerns are warranted.”

“The Republican Voters Against Trump campaign will target moderate Republican and Republican-leaning voters in key swing states with video testimonials of people sharing in their own words what caused them to break with Trump,” the Republican Accountability PAC said in a March 12 press release.

“Traditional Republican voters who have long supported the party but have concerns about Donald Trump proved decisive in the 2020 election. By targeting these voters and reaching them with credible messengers, the campaign will establish a permission structure for them to withhold their support from Trump again.”

Doing so will create an anti-Trump coalition that “holds the key” in the 2024 presidential election, the group said. In the 2020 race, the anti-Trump PAC ran a similar campaign that featured over 1,000 video testimonials. This time, the group will show over 100 testimonials.

The current campaign will feature one and two-time Trump voters who have decided not to support the former president due to the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol, the criminal cases against him totaling 91 felony counts, and other issues.

President Trump has pleaded not guilty to all four criminal indictments, and has repeatedly dismissed the charges as efforts by his political adversaries to jeopardize his 2024 presidential run.

Ethan, a Trump 2020 voter from Portage, Wisconsin, who is featured in the anti-Trump campaign, said in a testimonial: “I voted for Donald Trump in 2020. January 6 was the end of Donald Trump for me. The peaceful transfer of power is one of the defining pieces of our democracy, and I could not believe that someone I had formerly supported would get behind an effort that would throw that under the bus … There is no choice. Donald Trump is not a viable option. I will vote for Biden.”

President Trump has previously pointed out that he had urged people to be peaceful before, during, and after the Jan. 6 protests that took place at and around the U.S. Capitol, which Democrats have labeled an “insurrection.” Back in February 2021, President Trump was acquitted by the Senate of an insurrection incitement charge related to the events of Jan. 6.

The anti-Trump PAC intends to deploy ads on television, streaming, radio, billboards, and digital media, with the campaign running in six states—Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

The group was founded by Republican strategist Sarah Longwell, a long-time critic of President Trump. It has the backing of multiple billionaires.

Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn’s co-founder, gave $4 million to the organization last year, according to a Forbes analysis of Federal Election Commission filings. He has donated to Democrat causes. Seth Klarman, who manages the Baupost hedge fund, donated $1 million.

“Former Republicans and Republican-leaning voters hold the key to 2024, and reaching them with credible, relatable messengers is essential to re-creating the anti-Trump coalition that made the difference in 2020,” said Ms. Longwell.

“It establishes a permission structure that says that—whatever their complaints about Joe Biden—Donald Trump is too dangerous and too unhinged to ever be president again. Who better to make this case than the voters who used to support him?”

Support for Former President

The campaign against President Trump comes at a time when he is leading the polls against Democrat rival, President Joe Biden.

According to a March 11 update from Morning Consult, 44 percent of registered U.S. voters in a survey said they will support President Trump in the 2024 election, a one percentage point lead over President Biden.

Among Independents, President Trump again has a one percentage point lead. The former president was more popular with his party members than President Biden. While 89 percent of Republican voters said they would choose President Trump, only 85 percent of Democrat voters opted for President Biden.

Among President Trump’s 2020 voters, 90 percent said they would vote for him again. For President Biden, only 84 percent of his 2020 voters said they would support him this time.

Currently, President Trump has the backing of 1,078 delegates to become the presumptive GOP nominee for the 2024 election. He needs the backing of 137 more delegates to hit the 1,215 threshold, a target that could be achieved this month.

President Trump recently notched a massive win on Super Tuesday, winning 14 out of the 15 contests against former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. Following the results, Ms. Haley dropped out of the Republican primary race. After his dominating win on Super Tuesday, Republican lawmakers rallied behind President Trump.

“The @GOP presidential primary is over. President Trump’s resounding Super Tuesday victories have solidified it. It is time to listen to our voters and unite the Republican Party,” Alex Triantafilou, chairman of the Ohio GOP, said in a post on X following the GOP primary. “We must get on to the work of ending the disastrous presidency of Joe Biden.”

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) in a post on X praised the former president, saying that he has “made history running the strongest Republican primary campaign ever.” She called for voters to “rally around President Trump as our Republican nominee who will defeat Joe Biden this November to #SaveAmerica.”

Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) called President Trump’s Super Tuesday win a “rout” and asked donors and political professionals to “unite behind our nominee.”

Last week, the former president challenged President Biden for a debate on key issues facing America, saying that he is willing to take part in such debates “anytime, anywhere, anyplace.”

“The debates can be run by the corrupt DNC, or their subsidiary, the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD),” he said.

During the 2020 election cycle, President Trump and President Biden debated each other twic.

In a post on Truth Social on March 12, President Trump outlined his priorities once he reenters the White House: “My first acts as your next President will be to Close the Border, DRILL, BABY, DRILL, and Free the January 6 Hostages being wrongfully imprisoned!”

The peer-reviewed study, published in the journal NPJ Vaccines on Feb. 28, examined how vaccine attitudes and recommendations changed among health care personnel (HCP) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Researchers conducted a survey in January 2023 and compared the results with an earlier survey from September 2021, finding that health care personnel recommendations for vaccines “decreased substantially for nearly all vaccines and patient populations.”

In addition, trust in the CDC “decreased [from 79 to 73 percent], as did support for HCP COVID-19 vaccine mandates [from 65 to 46 percent].”

“This is concerning as HCP have long been the most frequently used and credible source of vaccine information, especially given public suspicion of vaccine information from pharmaceutical companies and government, and encouragement from HCP is strongly associated with patients vaccinating against COVID-19,” said the study.

Researchers found that health care personnel not vaccinated against COVID-19 were “far less likely to recommend vaccinating to their patients.” And even in the case of vaccinated personnel, they required regularly updated resources “to confidently discuss vaccines with hesitant patients.”

Study Participants

The study was conducted among 1,207 participants made up of four types of health care personnel—pediatricians; family medicine doctors; physicians assistants, nurse practitioners, and nurses; and pharmacists. Almost all personnel (96 percent) had received at least one COVID-19 vaccine, with 82 percent taking booster shots.

The most frequently boosted personnel were pediatricians, followed by family medicine doctors, pharmacists, and nurses. Almost three-quarters of respondents had high trust in the CDC, which was found to be critical with regard to receiving COVID-19 vaccines.

“Most HCP with high trust in CDC [90 percent] were boosted, compared to [61 percent] of HCP with low trust in CDC,” the study said, adding that those with high trust in the CDC were nearly six times as likely to be boosted compared to those with low trust in the CDC.

Among those surveyed, 46 percent supported COVID-19 vaccine mandates for health care personnel, with supporters observed to be much more frequent among the boosted population. Among the 218 health care personnel who had not yet taken the booster shot, the most common reason was concern about side effects, with 44 percent citing this issue.

Other major reasons cited included the speed of vaccine development and approval (27 percent), low risk of infection (27 percent), and discomfort with the Emergency Use Authorization (24 percent).

Over half the personnel said that a key challenge to vaccinating patients against COVID-19 was the concern raised by the patients. Sixty-four percent pointed to patient concerns about the necessity of vaccines, 60 percent to the safety, and 54 percent about the effectiveness of the jabs.

Health care personnel who had received booster shots recommended three brands of COVID-19 vaccines more frequently than those who had not been boosted: Pfizer-BioNTech (38 percent of boosted versus 12 percent not boosted), Moderna (46 percent versus 11 percent), and Johnson & Johnson (8 percent versus 2 percent).

The study was conducted by five researchers based in the United States, out of which four declared competing interests.

Two of them received research support from Merck, with one serving on the advisory boards of Merck, Janssen, Sanofi, and Moderna. Both received funding from the Vaccination Confidence Fund, which is jointly funded by Facebook and Merck.

A third researcher serves as a consultant to Pfizer on meningococcal B vaccine. The fourth individual is a paid health advisor to the University of Roehampton, which provided guidance on pandemic recovery and preparedness, including views on vaccines, to the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations.

Vaccine Mandates for Health Care Workers

Health care workers were subjected to rigorous COVID-19 rules during the pandemic. In 2021, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a rule mandating all American health care workers be vaccinated, which applied to about 76,000 health care providers covering roughly 17 million workers.

Health care workers protested the mandate. The Pennsylvania Health Care Association warned that the Biden administration’s proposal had the “potential to exacerbate an existing workforce crisis and jeopardize access to care for tens of thousands of vulnerable residents.”

“After seventeen months of providing tireless care at the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, long-term care continues to face a troubling trend of federal and state governments threatening and punishing the same healthcare heroes they once supported and rallied behind,” it stated.

In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the Biden administration to continue imposing COVID-19 vaccination requirements on most health care workers who were employed at places receiving funding from Medicaid and Medicare.

There are multiple studies among health care workers showing adverse effects following COVID-19 vaccination. A 2022 study on health care employees in Iraq found adverse events among vaccinated workers.

“The adverse effects associated with the Pfizer vaccine were significantly more prevalent in females than in males. Following the first dose, the participants experienced more adverse effects with the AstraZeneca vaccine. Following the second dose, more adverse effects were associated with the Pfizer vaccine,” it stated.

Another study among health care workers published in February 2024 found that 84.6 percent suffered at least one side effect after the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Some of these side effects included headaches, muscle pain, and chills.

A recently published study in the International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research found links between vaccine hesitancy among individuals and their knowledge of vaccinated people affected by side effects.

“Knowing someone who experienced a health problem following COVID-19 injection reduced the likelihood of injection,” the study stated. Such individuals “were more likely to oppose injection mandates and passports.”

Among those who were aware of at least one person who experienced COVID-19 injection adverse events, they said they knew about 57 deaths following vaccination.

“The health issues reported ranged from serious problems such as cardiac arrests and other heart-related problems, blood clots and other circulatory problems, to neurological issues, as well as milder effects such as feeling sick, headache, fever, etc.”

Rivian announced its Q4, 2023, and full-year results on Feb. 21, revealing that the company will be reducing its salaried workforce by roughly 10 percent. In an email to staff, CEO RJ Scaringe said that layoffs would be implemented on Thursday. “Our business is facing a challenging macroeconomic environment—including historically high interest rates and geopolitical uncertainty—and we need to make purposeful changes now to ensure our promising future,” he wrote, according to Business Insider.

The company told the outlet it employed 16,700 workers in total, which includes both salaried and hourly workers. In 2023, Rivian cut its workforce by 6 percent, which followed another 6 percent staff reduction implemented in the prior year.

Along with the layoffs, Rivian also announced that it expects to produce only 57,000 vehicles in 2024, far lower than the 81,700 units estimated by analysts polled by investment research firm Visible Alpha.

Following the announcement of workforce reductions and lower-than-expected 2024 production numbers, Rivian shares declined. At the end of Wednesday, the firm’s shares were at $15.39. By the end of Friday, shares fell to $10.07, a decline of almost 35 percent in just two days.

Year-to-date, shares have fallen by over 52 percent. Rivian’s $10.07 stock price is more than 90 percent less than the nearly $130 it was priced at back in November 2021.

The Amazon-backed EV maker’s share price collapse comes as many electric vehicle makers are readjusting expectations in the face of softer demand.

A Jan. 4 survey report from KPMG that polled 1,000 auto executives from 30 nations found that confidence in electric vehicles among automakers in the United States and other countries has dipped as many are concerned that their large bets on EVs may take longer to pay off.

“Just a year ago, executives were excited about the prospects for transforming the industry with new kinds of cars. Now, they remain optimistic, but they are more sober about how difficult it will be to manage the transition and preserve or increase profits,” it said.

While several news EV models are flooding the market, demand for the vehicles has “weakened,” KPMG stated while noting that some players may end up under “extreme pressure” as competition heats up.

In Rivian’s earnings release, CEO Scaringe admitted that the company will be facing “challenging macro-economic conditions” in the short term. As such, the firm is “aggressively focused on driving cost efficiency throughout the business.”

Dan Ives, managing director and senior equity analyst at Wedbush Securities, told the Los Angeles Times that Rivian’s vehicle projections for this year cast a “dark cloud around the story.”

“Cutting costs and headcount to reflect a softer environment and production issues … Rivian went from a Cinderella story to a horror show.”

Business Downgrade

Rivian was also hit with a downgrade on Friday, with UBS cutting its rating on the stock from “Buy” to “Sell.”

“We had been optimistic on [Rivian’s] product and brand ultimately winning out,” UBS analysts said in a note, according to Dow Jones Wire. However, “more tepid” demand for EVs now threatens the company, they wrote. The analysts cut their price target from $24 to $8.

Rivian’s current EV offerings, a full-size SUV and a pickup truck, start at around $70,000. UBS analysts noted that Rivian EVs were “high priced” and that there were risks to the company’s pricing and volume.

The EV maker plans to unveil its cheaper, next-generation EV R2 in March, which is expected to cost $45,000. However, UBS is not convinced it will have an immediate positive effect on the stock.

“Further out, [Rivian] growth is reliant on R2 … but we don’t believe production starts until late 2026, so meaningful financial impact isn’t until 2027—a long time to wait for a product the stock hinges on,” the note said.

A survey by Gallup last year showed that most Americans aren’t “completely sold” on EVs. Among poll respondents, only 12 percent said they were “seriously considering” buying an EV.

While 43 percent said they “might consider” such a purchase in the future, 41 percent stated they “would not buy” an EV.

Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, Jessica Caldwell, head of insights at Edmunds, said that “mass-market buyers have less income and a lot more questions.”

“We’ve been living in this wave of ‘Oh, EVs are great, they’re going to continue the accelerated growth and only going to get better,’ and now it seems like they’re (EV makers) hitting this reality point.”

Even though EV sales have seen growth over the past years, mass-market customers are not too taken with them due to issues like battery life, access to reliable charging stations, and vehicle range, she pointed out.

“It’s not always easy to set up a charger where you live … At the end of the day, for EVs to take off and become mass market, there needs to be major growth in infrastructure.”

The peer-reviewed study, published in the Cureus journal on Jan. 24, analyzed reports from the initial phase 3 trials of Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. These trials led to the shots being approved under Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) in the United States. The study also looked into several other research and reviews of the trials. It found that the vaccines had “dramatically lower” efficacy rates than the vaccine companies claimed.

Moreover, based on “conservative assumptions, the estimated harms of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines greatly outweigh the rewards: for every life saved, there were nearly 14 times more deaths caused by the modified mRNA injections.”

“Given the well-documented SAEs (serious adverse events) and unacceptable harm-to-reward ratio, we urge governments to endorse and enforce a global moratorium on these modified mRNA products until all relevant questions pertaining to causality, residual DNA, and aberrant protein production are answered.”

The authors also recommended an “immediate removal” of the COVID-19 vaccines from the childhood immunization schedule. They pointed out that children were at very low risk from the infection.

“It is unethical and unconscionable to administer an experimental vaccine to a child who has a near-zero risk of dying from COVID-19 but a well-established 2.2 percent risk of permanent heart damage based on the best prospective data available.”

Very Low Efficacy Rate

Following the first trials of Pfizer and Moderna, it was claimed that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines had a 95 percent reduction of symptomatic COVID-19. The study pointed out that this efficacy assumption was false.

Pfizer’s claim was based on the fact that only eight out of 22,000 vaccine recipients contracted COVID-19 during the trial compared to 162 out of 22,000 people in the placebo group. In total, 170 confirmed COVID-19 cases were reported in both groups.

However, the researchers pointed out that a large number of infections fell under the “suspected” COVID-19 category, which was ignored. A total of 3,410 such suspected cases were identified in the trial, which is 20 times the 170 confirmed cases.

“There were 1,594 such cases in the vaccinated group and 1,816 in the placebo. When factoring in both confirmed and suspected cases, vaccine efficacy against developing symptoms drops to only 19 percent, far below the 50 percent RR (relative risk) reduction threshold required for regulatory authorization,” the study said.

“Thus, when considering both confirmed and suspected cases, vaccine efficacy appears to have been dramatically lower than the official 95 percent claim.”

The study’s authors declared no financial support from any organization for their work. A few conflict of interest disclosures were made.

One author received a grant from Quanta Computer Inc. Another author, cardiologist Peter A. McCullough, declared employment and owning stock/stock options in The Wellness Company. A third author is the founder of the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation (VSRF).

Lives Saved Versus Deaths

Researchers criticized the Pfizer and Moderna trial reports for “exclusive focus” on relative risk or RR measure while omitting absolute risk reduction. They argued that absolute risk reduction “gives a better indication of a drug’s clinical utility.”

“Both types of risk estimation are required to avoid reporting bias and to provide a more comprehensive perspective on vaccine efficacy. Omitting the absolute risk statistics leads to overestimation of the clinical benefits of the vaccines.”

In contrast with the 95 percent efficacy rate using the RR measure, absolute risk reduction for Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were 0.7 percent and 1.1 percent, respectively, the study stated.

“An absolute risk reduction of approximately 1 percent for the COVID-19 mRNA vaccinations meant that a substantial number of individuals would need to be injected in order to prevent a single mild-to-moderate case of COVID-19.”

To prevent one case of COVID-19 infection, 142 individuals would need to be vaccinated with Pfizer’s shot, the study said. When it came to Moderna, 88 people had to be injected.

Taking into account these numbers as well as the infection fatality rates of COVID-19, the researchers concluded that roughly 52,000 people would need to be vaccinated to prevent one COVID-19-related death.

This would mean two lives saved for roughly 100,000 injections of the Pfizer vaccine. However, there is a risk of 27 deaths per 100,000 doses of Pfizer shot, the researchers calculated. As such, for every life saved by the jab, almost 14 lives would be lost due to the mRNA vaccine, the study stated.

Authors noted that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) “did not include absolute risk reduction measures” when reviewing vaccine data.

This action deviated from FDA guidelines “which state that both approaches are crucial in order to avoid the misguided use of pharmaceuticals.”

Serious Adverse Events

Researchers cited a September 2022 analysis to detail the pervasiveness of serious adverse effects (SAE) among the vaccinated group in the trials. The analysis looked at both Pfizer and Moderna trial data, discovering roughly 125 SAEs per 100,000 vaccine recipients. This indicated one SAE per 800 vaccines.

“The Pfizer trial exhibited a 36 percent higher risk of serious adverse events in the vaccine group (compared to placebo) … The Moderna trial exhibited a 6 percent higher risk of serious adverse events in the vaccine group,” the analysis stated.

“These findings stand in sharp contrast with the FDA’s initial claim that SAEs reported by the two pivotal trials were ‘balanced between treatment groups,’” researchers from the Jan. 24 study noted.

This discrepancy could be because the FDA only counted the number of individuals with serious adverse events rather than the total SAEs experienced by the trial subjects, they said.

Since a single person can have multiple SAEs, counting only individuals would produce a lower number than the total number of such adverse events.

“When the SAEs were viewed collectively, the risks in the vaccine group were substantially elevated beyond those previously determined by the FDA,” the researchers wrote.

The analysis found that the excess risk of serious adverse events of special interest (AESI) among the placebo group was 10.1 per 10,000 individuals. However, the risk reduction for COVID-19 hospitalization in this group was only 2.3 per 10,000 people.

This meant that the subjects were at over four times the risk of suffering AESIs after getting vaccinated than they were of getting hospitalized from the infection. In the Moderna trial, subjects were more than two times at risk of experiencing AESI than being hospitalized.

“To put these findings in perspective, the official SAE rate for other vaccines is only 1-2 per million,” the Jan. 24 study said. The 2020 analysis’ “estimate based on the Pfizer trial data (1,250 SAEs per million) exceeds this benchmark by at least 600-fold.”

Rushed Vaccines

In the Jan. 24 study, researchers noted that the safety of mRNA products was “never assessed” in a manner consistent with scientific standards for vaccines or for gene therapy products (GPT), which they claim is “the more accurate classification” for these jabs. “Many key trial findings were either misreported or omitted entirely from published reports.”

The usual safety testing protocols and toxicology requirements were bypassed by the FDA and vaccine manufacturers. As the two trials were terminated prematurely, there was never an “unbiased assessment” of potential serious adverse events.

“It was only after the EUA that the serious biological consequences of rushing the trials became evident, with numerous cardiovascular, neurological, reproductive, hematological, malignant, and autoimmune SAEs identified and published in the peer-reviewed medical literature.”

In addition, the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines produced and evaluated in the trials were not the same ones that were manufactured and administered to people around the world. The global vaccination campaign used a vaccine produced by a different process, which has been shown to have “varying degrees of DNA contamination.”

The researchers pointed out that several excess deaths, cardiac events, strokes, and other serious adverse events have wrongly been ascribed to COVID-19 rather than the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines since early 2021.

Injuries from these vaccines overlap with both post-acute COVID-19 syndrome (PACS) and severe acute COVID-19 illness, which end up often obscuring the vaccine’s contribution to such conditions. “Multiple booster injections appear to cause immune dysfunction, thereby paradoxically contributing to heightened susceptibility to COVID-19 infections with successive doses.”

For the “vast majority” of adults below 50 years of age, the perceived benefits of the mRNA vaccines were dwarfed by their “potential disabling and life-threatening harm.” The study said older adults may be at higher risk of such harm.

CDC and FDA Criticized

Commenting on the study, Mat Staver, the founder and chairman of nonprofit Liberty Counsel, said that in the paper, scientists “confirm what sound scientific research has been showing for years, that these shots have never been safe nor effective.”

“The FDA and the CDC are supposed to protect the people, but they have become the lapdog of the pharmaceutical industry. This must change.”

The CDC is currently under scrutiny for suppressing an alert for myocarditis from COVID-19 vaccination. Myocarditis is an inflammation of the heart muscle called the myocardium.

A document recently obtained by The Epoch Times shows that in May 2021, the CDC had prepared a draft alert for myocarditis related to the jabs.

The agency was supposed to send the alert to federal, state, and local public health officials and doctors nationwide through its Health Alert Network (HAN). However, the alert was never sent as some officials were worried about appearing “alarmist.”

The Epoch Times reached out to the agencies for comment.

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In 2023, gold prices jumped from around $1,823 per oz. to $2,062 per oz.—an increase of over 13 percent—making it the best year for the yellow metal since 2020. On Dec. 4, gold hit a record-high price of $2,135.40 per oz. For 2024, experts predict gold prices to move higher.

“Following on from a surprisingly robust performance in 2023, we see further price gains in 2024, driven by a trifecta of momentum chasing hedge funds, central banks continuing to buy physical gold at a firm pace, and not least renewed demand from ETF investors,” said Saxo Bank’s Ole Hansen, according to Reuters.

JP Morgan predicts gold to see a “breakout rally” starting in the middle of this year due to Federal Reserve’s interest rate cuts. The bank expects gold to hit a peak of $2,300. Meanwhile, UBS projects gold prices to hit $2,150 by the end of this year if the rate cuts were to take place.

Gold saw major ups and downs in 2023, as one event after another affected investor perception. In May, the U.S. banking crisis pushed gold down to a low of $1,810 per oz. by early October. However, the Hamas attack on Israel that month triggered tensions and gold prices have been rising since then.

In November, the SPDR Gold Shares ETF, a popular exchange-traded fund tracking gold, saw net inflows of more than $1 billion, breaking five consecutive months of outflows. This was also the strongest month of net inflow since March 2022, highlighting growing investor confidence in gold amid uncertain conditions.

An Oct. 31 update by the World Gold Council (WGC) revealed that global central banks collectively bought “an astonishing” 800 tons of gold in the first three quarters of 2023. This is a 14 percent increase in gold buying compared with the same period last year.

A May 30 survey published by the organization found that a majority of central banks expect the proportion of their total reserves denominated in gold to increase over the next five years, thus contributing to upside pressure on gold prices.

Gold and Economic Scenarios

The WGC has three different predictions for gold rates this year depending on how the economic scenario plays out, according to its Gold Outlook 2024 report.

If there is a “soft landing” of the U.S. economy, which WGC attributes a 45 to 65 percent probability, the organization expects gold prices to remain “flat with upside potential.”

In the less probable “hard landing” scenario—25 to 55 percent probability—WGC expects gold prices to move “notably higher” and hit a new record high.

If the U.S. economy sees a “no landing” scenario where inflation and economic growth reaccelerates, WGC foresees gold prices to remain flat and face downside pressure. The “no landing” scenario has the lowest probability at just 5 to 10 percent.

“If the no-landing scenario does occur, it could prove initially challenging for gold. While positive economic growth would support consumer demand and higher inflation would increase the need for hedges, it is likely that the combination of higher rates and a stronger US dollar would create a drag, as they did in September 2023,” WGC said in the report.

“But if inflation surged again, it could elicit an even stronger monetary response—leading us back to the spectre of a hard(er) landing further down the line and a strong case for strategic gold allocations.”

In 2024, WGC expects major global elections in the United States, India, European Union, and Taiwan to be a geopolitical risk. As such, “investors’ need for portfolio hedges will likely be higher than normal.”

“The probability of a recession is not insignificant. From a risk-management perspective, this would provide strong support to the case of maintaining a strategic allocation to gold in the portfolio.”

Downside Risks

While many experts are bullish on gold, some advise exercising caution. In an interview with Yahoo Finance last month, Rob Haworth, senior investment strategy director at U.S. Bank Asset Management Group, pointed out that lower interest rates and investor hopes for Fed rate cuts have contributed to surging gold prices.

“A key question for bullish gold investors is whether these trends can be sustained. A still-growing U.S. economy and few signs the Fed is close to considering interest rate cuts are likely to temper near-term enthusiasm for gold.”

Opimus CEO Octavio Marenzi also warned investors against blindly betting money on gold after seeing the recent spike.

“The biggest mistake is sort of chasing the market and [being] a day late into getting the hot investment classes after they’ve had a big rally and a big pop,” he said.

A key factor for gold prices would be the strength of the U.S. dollar. The dollar is typically inversely related to gold prices. As such, a strong dollar could restrict the upside movement of gold prices or even contribute to a decline.

JP Morgan is expecting the U.S. dollar to remain at “elevated levels” in 2024, suggesting that it could even hit “new highs.”

The IMF’s “Central Bank Digital Currency Virtual Handbook” published last week pointed out that the increased use of CBDCs can “reduce dollarization” of the global economy—a situation where countries move away from relying on the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency. De-dollarization would push up borrowing costs in the United States, making loans expensive for businesses and individuals, thus affecting economic growth. Stock market values can also crash, reducing the savings and investments of Americans.

In addition to de-dollarization, a CBDC “could increase risks of flight to safety from retail bank deposits in periods of market stress.” During times of market volatility, customers withdraw their deposits and move it into safe assets to avoid losing money in scenarios like bank collapses.

If CBDCs were available, pulling out funds from a bank and putting them in such assets will come across as a safe option for many people, thus triggering a bank run.

The organization pointed out that CBDCs could offer “a safe store of value and efficient means of payment, which can increase competition for deposit funding, raise banks’ share of wholesale funding, and lower bank profits.”

The IMF handbook was published as the organization’s Director Kristalina Georgieva promoted the use of CBDCs during the Singapore FinTech Festival on Nov. 15, arguing that such digital currencies could bring an end to the cash-based economy.

“CBDCs can replace cash, which is costly to distribute in island economies,” she said during a speech. “CBDCs would offer a safe and low-cost alternative to cash. They would also offer a bridge to go between private monies and a yardstick to measure their value, just like cash today, which we can withdraw from our banks.”

Back in May, Ms. Georgieva said that the world was heading towards widespread CBDC adoption without considering the risks involved in such a transition.

“What we are careful about is the choice between wholesale and retail CBDCs. We think that wholesale CBDCs can be put in place with fairly little space for undesirable surprises. Whereas retail CBDCs, they completely transform the financial system in a way that we don’t quite know what consequences it could bring,” she said during a discussion.

Wholesale CBDCs are meant to be used in interbank settlements as well as transactions between institutions and other market participants, while retail CBDCs are for use by the general population and other institutions.

A potential risk of retail CBDCs is that funds get pulled out from traditional commercial banks and deposited as CBDCs in central banks. The depletion of deposits will affect the lending ability of commercial banks, possibly worsening any banking crisis.

US Government CBDC

While the IMF pushes ahead with the promotion of CBDCs, Republican lawmakers are taking steps to prevent the U.S. government from issuing such digital currencies. In September, Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) reintroduced the CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act.

In a Sept. 12 press release, Mr. Emmer pointed out that unlike decentralized cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, CBDCs are designed and issued by a government “and [transact] on a digital ledger that is controlled by that government.” This could give the administration the power to “surveil Americans’ transactions and choke out politically unpopular activity.”

The bill imposes the following prohibitions:

• It prevents the U.S. Federal Reserve from issuing a CBDC directly to individuals, thus making sure that the Fed cannot mobilize itself as a retail bank and collect personal data of Americans.
• It prohibits the Fed from indirectly issuing a CBDC to individuals via an intermediary, thereby blocking the central bank from launching a retail digital currency through a two-tiered financial system.
• It bans the Fed from using any CBDC to implement its monetary policy. This ensures that the central bank is not able to use these currencies as a “tool to control the American economy.”

In March 2022, President Joe Biden signed an executive order asking the Fed to continue its ongoing research and experimentation of CBDCs and to evaluate the benefits and risks of a digital dollar.

Talking about the issue, Mr. Emmer said that “agency reports to that executive order have made it clear that the Biden Administration is not only itching to create a CBDC, but they are willing to trade American’s right to financial privacy for a surveillance-style central bank digital currency.”

“We’re not going to let this happen,” he said. The CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act “ensures the United States digital currency policy is in the hands of the American people—not the Administrative State—so that it reflects our American values of privacy, individual sovereignty, and free market competitiveness.”

On Sept. 20, the House Financial Services Committee passed the bill.

Back in April, Federal Reserve Board member Michelle Bowman warned in a speech that a CBDC may pose “significant risks, challenges, and tradeoffs.”

There is a “risk that a CBDC would provide not only a window into, but potentially an impediment to, the freedom Americans enjoy in choosing how money and resources are used and invested.”

A CBDC could also lead to the politicization of the payments system, potentially undermining the independence of the Fed, Ms. Bowman said.

In May, Florida’s House of Representatives passed a bill banning the use of CBDCs in the state. The bill defined money to exclude CBDC. Weeks before the bill was passed, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had pointed to China as a potential example of how CBDCs could negatively affect people.

“Look no further than China, in seeing the impact of centralized digital currency,” he said. “The People’s Bank of China uses its central bank to monitor citizen behavior, allowing for the surveillance of spending habits and to cut off access to goods and services.”

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“Year-ahead inflation expectations rose from 3.2 percent last month to 4.2 percent this month, the highest reading since May 2023,” an Oct. 27 survey report by the University of Michigan states. Coinciding with the surge in inflation, consumer sentiment fell to 6 percent in October after two consecutive months of little change.

“While consumers recognize that inflation has slowed down from its peak last summer, they cannot ignore that their budgets remain stretched and their purchasing power reduced,” chief economist Joanne Hsu, director of the surveys, said in an Oct. 27 statement from the university’s Institute for Social Research.

“Given the high-frequency and widespread nature of food and gas purchases across American families, it is no surprise that concerns over the prices of these goods loom particularly large in the minds of consumers. Even so, strength in incomes continues to support aggregate spending for the time being.”

About 47 percent of consumers reported that high prices—8 percentage points higher than in September—were eroding their living standards.

When talking about inflation, consumers “spontaneously pointed” to the prices of gas and groceries. “Spontaneous mentions of high prices for larger purchases like durables and vehicles have been relatively flat this month,” the Institute for Social Research statement reads.

Regarding personal finances, lower-income consumers saw little change, while middle- and higher-income consumers have seen declines since August, which is partly because of the “recent weakness in stock markets,” according to the statement.

One-year expectations of consumers’ personal finances dropped by 8 percent from last month, while year-ahead expectations of business conditions plunged by 16 percent, the survey report shows.

“The drumbeat of other negative headlines—war in the Middle East, the just-resolved leadership crisis in the House of Representatives, daily developments with Trump’s legal troubles, among others—has produced its own drag [on consumer sentiment],” Ms. Hsu said.

Consumer expectations on long-run inflation edged up from 2.8 percent last month to 3.0 percent this month, staying within the narrow 2.9 percent to 3.1 percent range for 25 of the past 27 months. This is also well above the 2.2 percent to 2.6 percent range seen in the two years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Inflation and Interest Rates

Consumer worries about inflation come as the Federal Reserve has been attempting to bring inflation down by raising interest rates. The action has resulted in the U.S. economy facing an environment of rising prices and elevated interest rates, putting pressure on household budgets and business finances.

Since March 2022, the central bank has raised its benchmark interest rate by 500 basis points to a range of 5.25 percent to 5.5 percent, which is the highest level in 22 years.

During the last Fed meeting, the central bank didn’t raise the interest rates. At the time, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell suggested that there may be no rate hike in the upcoming meeting scheduled for Oct. 31 and Nov. 1.

However, the Fed’s “Summary of Economic Projections” from September left the door open for one more potential rate hike.

Speaking at a business conference on Oct. 2, Federal Reserve Gov. Michelle Bowman said that interest rates may need to move higher to address inflation.

“Inflation continues to be too high, and I expect it will likely be appropriate for the Committee to raise rates further and hold them at a restrictive level for some time to return inflation to our 2 percent goal in a timely way,” she said.

Ms. Bowman warned that there’s a “continued risk that high energy prices could reverse some of the progress we have seen on inflation in recent months.”

Mr. Powell admitted that inflation remains high and that economic growth may need to ease to bring it down to the Fed’s target rate of 2 percent. Annual inflation in September was 3.7 percent.

However, the economy grew by 4.9 percent in the third quarter of this year, accelerating from the 2.1 percent growth in the previous quarter, which can put pressure on the Fed to raise rates.

Struggling Under Inflation

The elevated rate of inflation has made life tough for Americans. A Gallup survey published in May showed that 61 percent of U.S. citizens were facing financial hardship in their households because of elevated prices—the highest since 2021, when Gallup began to track the data.

“A relatively steady 15 percent of U.S. adults say the hardship created by inflation is ‘severe’ and affects their ability to maintain their current standard of living,” according to a May 18 Gallup survey report. “[This is] statistically similar to the prior two readings and has not varied greatly since the first reading.”
Lower-income Americans faced greater difficulty from inflation than people in the higher income brackets.

An April Gallup poll found that inflation was the top concern for Americans. While 35 percent said that inflation was the biggest issue; 11 percent cited the cost of owning or renting a home; and 9 percent saw “too much debt” as a major problem.

In a recent interview with CNBC, former Walmart CEO Bill Simon said that consumers had an “incredible 10-, 12-year run” when “markets were buoyant, interest rates were low, [and] money was available.”

But now, factors such as inflation and high interest rates are working to sap consumers’ propensity to spend, he said. “That sort of pileup wears on the consumer and makes them wary. … For the first time in a long time, there’s a reason for the consumer to pause.”