You’re highly intelligent imo. I like you….. I like all your posts even if I disagree. If you thought ( like me) that Trump wants a great outcome for all Americans, how would he go about destroying the FED ? What would that look like in your opinion?
Birdie’s back in the nest with your Monday, May 5th, 2025 🕊️📊 Technical Breakdown — scanning the skies with sharp vision 🦅 and serving trades with style 🎯💼. Here's the full daily swoop:
🟦 SPY (S&P 500 ETF)
🧭 Setup: Cautiously Bullish — but this bird’s not soaring yet 🐦
📊 MACD: Fresh bullish crossover ✅
📈 RSI: Rising but not hot (~61) = room to run 🚀
🪶 SMAs: Reclaimed the 9 & 18-day = short-term strength
📏 Bollinger Bands: Testing the upper band = pressure building 📈
🔊 Volume: Stabilizing = digestion after panic sellers stepped aside
🎯 Bias: Cautiously Bullish (Short-Term)
📌 Options Idea: Buy SPY 565 Call expiring May 17th
🎯 Give it 2 weeks to test higher — but don’t marry it if volume fades!
📉 RSI: Weak and rolling over = no strength in sight
📉 Volume: Bearish dominance intact
🎯 Bias: Bearish
📌 Options Idea: Buy USO 64 Put expiring May 17th
🛢 Use failed rallies as entries. Next support looks shaky.
🪙 GLD (Gold ETF)
🧭 Setup: Shiny uptrend cooling off, but still bright ✨
📏 Price: Pulling back to 9 & 18 SMA = dip opportunity
📊 MACD: Flattening, not rolling over = still trend-aligned
📈 RSI: Softening from highs = consolidation, not breakdown
🪙 Support: Near 290 zone — make or break
🎯 Bias: Bullish (Defined Risk)
📌 Options Idea: Sell GLD 290 Put / Buy 285 Put (Credit Spread), exp. May 17th
🧠 Smart premium play if you believe the dip holds — defined risk!
₿ Bitcoin (BTC/USD)
🧭 Setup: Clinging to trendline with tired wings 🐢
📊 MACD: Still turned up, but soft
📈 RSI: Hovering near 50 = indecision
📊 Volume: Stabilizing, but no breakout power yet
🎯 Bias: Neutral-to-Bullish
🚦 Watch $65K–$66K zone. It needs a shove or it’ll drift sideways.
✖️ XRP
🧭 Setup: Still in the doghouse 🚪
📉 MACD: Flat like the prairie
📉 RSI: Mid-range, not oversold, not overbought — just... meh
📉 Volume: Nowhere to be seen = no cavalry yet
🎯 Bias: Bearish (Short-Term)
📉 Technically oversold on longer timeframes, but don’t catch a falling feather unless volume comes in.
🪂 Final Bird’s-Eye View:
SPY is perching higher on better footing 🕊️, but volume must confirm. Oil is leaking confidence 🛢️, gold is shining on support ✨, and crypto is caught between flapping and falling. 🎢 Stay nimble, feather-light, and watch the volume like a hawk 👁️🦅.
Want a full volatility scan or earnings-season angle for Tuesday?
Bolivia’s fuel pumps are running on empty, an almost unthinkable crisis for a country once known for its vast natural gas reserves. Long lines of trucks and cars stretch through city avenues, with drivers waiting hours or even days for gas or diesel. Bolivia’s state-run energy model has produced a fuel shortage.
How did a nation that once enjoyed a gas surplus run dry in less than two decades? The answer lies in Bastiat’s lesson of “what is seen and what is not seen.” The 2025 crisis showcases the consequences of long-term extreme government intervention and reveals why only a return to free-market principles can refill the country’s tank.
Bolivia’s Current Situation
Since 2023, Bolivians have endured recurring fuel shortages. Drivers across the country face endless queues sometimes stretching 15 blocks or more. Truckers report spending entire nights in line just to secure limited diesel rations. By March 2025, seven of Bolivia’s nine regional governors declared a state of emergency, demanding urgent action from the central government.
Initially, the socialist government of President Luis Arce downplayed the issue, blaming logistics, hoarding, or “speculation.” But reality could no longer be denied. Ministers eventually admitted that the country lacks fuel because it lacks dollars; Bolivia has become so dependent on imports that it now spends a staggering $56 million per week buying fuel abroad.
That’s more than double what it spent just five years ago: $1.5 billion in 2019 vs. $3.3 billion in 2024. Bolivia must now import 86% of the diesel and 54% of the gasoline. This dependence leaves the country vulnerable to foreign currency disruptions, and as the broader economy has declined, Bolivia’s reserves have dried up, making it harder to pay suppliers.
Meanwhile, subsidized prices at the pump are unsustainable. Bolivians pay about $0.53 per liter, around 35% less than what Americans pay on average, and less than half of what neighbors like Peru or Brazil charge. These state-mandated low prices force the government to sell fuel below cost, draining public funds to cover the gap. Worse, cheap fuel creates an incentive for smuggling. Officials estimate that “reverse contraband” (fuel smuggled out of Bolivia to be resold abroad) costs Bolivia about $600 million annually.
In short, Bolivia loses dollars on both ends: overpaying for imports, then watching that fuel slip away.
State Control: The Root of the Problem
At the heart of the crisis lie politicized management, price-fixing, and short-term thinking. What citizens see are cheap fuel prices; what they don’t see are the long-term distortions, dwindling investment, mounting subsidies, and now, actual scarcity.
“There’s no rice, and we have sick people, there’s nothing. This government lies to us… If we don’t rise up, who’s going to help us?”
– from an interview by Red America TV
Prices set by decree scare off private initiative. No business wants to import or produce fuel only to sell it at a loss. Exploration and refining halted as a result. Between 2014 and 2023, petroleum production fell by 54%. Natural gas production dropped by 45%. Yet consumption kept growing, due to artificially low prices. A shortage was inevitable.
The government also relied heavily on past surpluses without reinvesting. Bolivia enjoyed a gas export boom in the early 2010s, but the government treated it like a bottomless piggy bank. Instead of reinvesting in exploration or infrastructure, much of the revenue went to subsidies and other political projects.
By 2023, gas exports had fallen from $6.6 billion to about $2 billion. The state model encouraged short-term consumption at the expense of long-term sustainability.
These shortages are not the result of global shocks; they are the predictable outcome of central planning. Responsible policy adjustments were postponed for political gain.
Before and After State Ownership
The past three decades tell a clear story: market-driven growth followed by state-driven stagnation.
In the 1990s, President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada partially privatized YPFB and welcomed foreign investment. The results were transformative. Major gas fields like San Alberte and Sábalo were discovered, and pipelines connected Bolivia to Brazil and Argentina. By the early 2000s, gas production had tripled. Exports boomed, becoming Bolivia’s main revenue source.
But in 2006, Bolivia took a U-turn. President Evo Morales nationalized the sector—not by expelling foreign companies outright, but by increasing state ownership through YPFB. The government collected over $50 billion in gas revenues, using them to fund social programs. Poverty fell, and Morales’s popularity surged, fueling the illusion that state ownership had delivered prosperity.
But that boom was built on momentum from earlier reforms and high global prices. By the late 2010s, the cracks were showing. Gas production declined sharply. By May 2023, output was down 45% from its 2014 peak. The government renegotiated export contracts to avoid penalties for non-delivery.
At home, Bolivia began importing fuel in bulk, and soon, even natural gas.
Private Fuels and Energy: The True Solution
To escape this crisis, Bolivia must abandon the statist approach and embrace a free market. That means ending fuel subsidies and price controls, welcoming private investment, enforcing property rights, and competition in the energy sector. There will be short-term pain, but the alternative is indefinite decline.
Economists, like Roberto Laserna, have warned against Bolivia’s “state-resource boom” mentality. Sustainable growth requires market-led diversification.
Bolivia must follow. Let private enterprise lead in a competitive environment, a rules-based energy sector. If it does, recovery will follow, and the pumps might be full again.
My direct deposit that was supposed to hit on the first did not. The bank says "nationwide disruption that is currently impacted multiple financial institutions "
XRP!
I do agree with a lot of what you say btw. Steven Osborn
Greg,
You’re highly intelligent imo. I like you….. I like all your posts even if I disagree. If you thought ( like me) that Trump wants a great outcome for all Americans, how would he go about destroying the FED ? What would that look like in your opinion?
Boycott all Crypto Scams.
Buy physical gold.
Great. Still good time to accumulate BTC and XRP.
Birdie’s back in the nest with your Monday, May 5th, 2025 🕊️📊 Technical Breakdown — scanning the skies with sharp vision 🦅 and serving trades with style 🎯💼. Here's the full daily swoop:
🟦 SPY (S&P 500 ETF)
🧭 Setup: Cautiously Bullish — but this bird’s not soaring yet 🐦
📊 MACD: Fresh bullish crossover ✅
📈 RSI: Rising but not hot (~61) = room to run 🚀
🪶 SMAs: Reclaimed the 9 & 18-day = short-term strength
📏 Bollinger Bands: Testing the upper band = pressure building 📈
🔊 Volume: Stabilizing = digestion after panic sellers stepped aside
🎯 Bias: Cautiously Bullish (Short-Term)
📌 Options Idea: Buy SPY 565 Call expiring May 17th
🎯 Give it 2 weeks to test higher — but don’t marry it if volume fades!
🛢 USO (Crude Oil Fund)
🧭 Setup: Still sliding down the barrel 🔻
📉 Price: Below all key SMAs = technical downtrend
📊 MACD: Diverging bearishly = momentum getting worse
📉 RSI: Weak and rolling over = no strength in sight
📉 Volume: Bearish dominance intact
🎯 Bias: Bearish
📌 Options Idea: Buy USO 64 Put expiring May 17th
🛢 Use failed rallies as entries. Next support looks shaky.
🪙 GLD (Gold ETF)
🧭 Setup: Shiny uptrend cooling off, but still bright ✨
📏 Price: Pulling back to 9 & 18 SMA = dip opportunity
📊 MACD: Flattening, not rolling over = still trend-aligned
📈 RSI: Softening from highs = consolidation, not breakdown
🪙 Support: Near 290 zone — make or break
🎯 Bias: Bullish (Defined Risk)
📌 Options Idea: Sell GLD 290 Put / Buy 285 Put (Credit Spread), exp. May 17th
🧠 Smart premium play if you believe the dip holds — defined risk!
₿ Bitcoin (BTC/USD)
🧭 Setup: Clinging to trendline with tired wings 🐢
📊 MACD: Still turned up, but soft
📈 RSI: Hovering near 50 = indecision
📊 Volume: Stabilizing, but no breakout power yet
🎯 Bias: Neutral-to-Bullish
🚦 Watch $65K–$66K zone. It needs a shove or it’ll drift sideways.
✖️ XRP
🧭 Setup: Still in the doghouse 🚪
📉 MACD: Flat like the prairie
📉 RSI: Mid-range, not oversold, not overbought — just... meh
📉 Volume: Nowhere to be seen = no cavalry yet
🎯 Bias: Bearish (Short-Term)
📉 Technically oversold on longer timeframes, but don’t catch a falling feather unless volume comes in.
🪂 Final Bird’s-Eye View:
SPY is perching higher on better footing 🕊️, but volume must confirm. Oil is leaking confidence 🛢️, gold is shining on support ✨, and crypto is caught between flapping and falling. 🎢 Stay nimble, feather-light, and watch the volume like a hawk 👁️🦅.
Want a full volatility scan or earnings-season angle for Tuesday?
Running on Empty
Bolivia’s state-owned fuel disaster.
Image Credit: Custom image by FEE
Economics
Bolivia
Fuel Shortages
Imports
Market Forces
Perverse Incentives
Smuggling
Subsidies
Fabricio Antezana Duran
Bolivia’s fuel pumps are running on empty, an almost unthinkable crisis for a country once known for its vast natural gas reserves. Long lines of trucks and cars stretch through city avenues, with drivers waiting hours or even days for gas or diesel. Bolivia’s state-run energy model has produced a fuel shortage.
How did a nation that once enjoyed a gas surplus run dry in less than two decades? The answer lies in Bastiat’s lesson of “what is seen and what is not seen.” The 2025 crisis showcases the consequences of long-term extreme government intervention and reveals why only a return to free-market principles can refill the country’s tank.
Bolivia’s Current Situation
Since 2023, Bolivians have endured recurring fuel shortages. Drivers across the country face endless queues sometimes stretching 15 blocks or more. Truckers report spending entire nights in line just to secure limited diesel rations. By March 2025, seven of Bolivia’s nine regional governors declared a state of emergency, demanding urgent action from the central government.
Initially, the socialist government of President Luis Arce downplayed the issue, blaming logistics, hoarding, or “speculation.” But reality could no longer be denied. Ministers eventually admitted that the country lacks fuel because it lacks dollars; Bolivia has become so dependent on imports that it now spends a staggering $56 million per week buying fuel abroad.
That’s more than double what it spent just five years ago: $1.5 billion in 2019 vs. $3.3 billion in 2024. Bolivia must now import 86% of the diesel and 54% of the gasoline. This dependence leaves the country vulnerable to foreign currency disruptions, and as the broader economy has declined, Bolivia’s reserves have dried up, making it harder to pay suppliers.
Meanwhile, subsidized prices at the pump are unsustainable. Bolivians pay about $0.53 per liter, around 35% less than what Americans pay on average, and less than half of what neighbors like Peru or Brazil charge. These state-mandated low prices force the government to sell fuel below cost, draining public funds to cover the gap. Worse, cheap fuel creates an incentive for smuggling. Officials estimate that “reverse contraband” (fuel smuggled out of Bolivia to be resold abroad) costs Bolivia about $600 million annually.
In short, Bolivia loses dollars on both ends: overpaying for imports, then watching that fuel slip away.
State Control: The Root of the Problem
At the heart of the crisis lie politicized management, price-fixing, and short-term thinking. What citizens see are cheap fuel prices; what they don’t see are the long-term distortions, dwindling investment, mounting subsidies, and now, actual scarcity.
“There’s no rice, and we have sick people, there’s nothing. This government lies to us… If we don’t rise up, who’s going to help us?”
– from an interview by Red America TV
Prices set by decree scare off private initiative. No business wants to import or produce fuel only to sell it at a loss. Exploration and refining halted as a result. Between 2014 and 2023, petroleum production fell by 54%. Natural gas production dropped by 45%. Yet consumption kept growing, due to artificially low prices. A shortage was inevitable.
The government also relied heavily on past surpluses without reinvesting. Bolivia enjoyed a gas export boom in the early 2010s, but the government treated it like a bottomless piggy bank. Instead of reinvesting in exploration or infrastructure, much of the revenue went to subsidies and other political projects.
By 2023, gas exports had fallen from $6.6 billion to about $2 billion. The state model encouraged short-term consumption at the expense of long-term sustainability.
These shortages are not the result of global shocks; they are the predictable outcome of central planning. Responsible policy adjustments were postponed for political gain.
Before and After State Ownership
The past three decades tell a clear story: market-driven growth followed by state-driven stagnation.
In the 1990s, President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada partially privatized YPFB and welcomed foreign investment. The results were transformative. Major gas fields like San Alberte and Sábalo were discovered, and pipelines connected Bolivia to Brazil and Argentina. By the early 2000s, gas production had tripled. Exports boomed, becoming Bolivia’s main revenue source.
But in 2006, Bolivia took a U-turn. President Evo Morales nationalized the sector—not by expelling foreign companies outright, but by increasing state ownership through YPFB. The government collected over $50 billion in gas revenues, using them to fund social programs. Poverty fell, and Morales’s popularity surged, fueling the illusion that state ownership had delivered prosperity.
But that boom was built on momentum from earlier reforms and high global prices. By the late 2010s, the cracks were showing. Gas production declined sharply. By May 2023, output was down 45% from its 2014 peak. The government renegotiated export contracts to avoid penalties for non-delivery.
At home, Bolivia began importing fuel in bulk, and soon, even natural gas.
Private Fuels and Energy: The True Solution
To escape this crisis, Bolivia must abandon the statist approach and embrace a free market. That means ending fuel subsidies and price controls, welcoming private investment, enforcing property rights, and competition in the energy sector. There will be short-term pain, but the alternative is indefinite decline.
Economists, like Roberto Laserna, have warned against Bolivia’s “state-resource boom” mentality. Sustainable growth requires market-led diversification.
Bolivia must follow. Let private enterprise lead in a competitive environment, a rules-based energy sector. If it does, recovery will follow, and the pumps might be full again.
Implications Of Christ's Resurrection PT1
https://www.sermonaudio.com/sermons/420251515572404
Implications Of Christ's Resurrection PT2
https://www.sermonaudio.com/sermons/42025231972432
CHRIST is KING!
Federal Reserve protection RACKET!
https://thenewamerican.com/print/the-federal-reserve-protection-racket/
WARNING!
Anyone thinking about "investing" in Bitcoin, should read this FIRST!
https://thenewamerican.com/print/bitcoin-bailout/
My direct deposit that was supposed to hit on the first did not. The bank says "nationwide disruption that is currently impacted multiple financial institutions "