To say it has been a crazy week would be a bit of an understatement. Between the US election and a unfounded health scare for 
I think what baffles me the most is just how far apart opinions are on this one. Add to that the belief that rhetoric is the absolute truth and I can't quite come to grips with where we are as a nation. While I am curious about some of the new policy stuff that will be potentially coming down the line, I personally can't get over is when you throw out all the MSM lies, conjecture, and speculation, the future president still said what he said and did what he did.
For other people that isn't an issue apparently, and as husbands, brothers, uncles, fathers, that's the part I can't wrap my head around. Do they just not care?
Sadly, I think that even if Trump went off the rails and tried to make himself dictator and throw democracy out the window (or something similar), these same people wouldn't say woah, wait a minute, that's a little too far... They'd be jumping on board. Which begs the question, how far is too far?
It's Friday though and Friday's belong to finance. I am going to have one more blurb about politics in a little bit, but I actually prefer not to talk about politics.
It is time again for another Finance Friday/Friday Finance. This is a series I started where I talk about random bits of financial stuff that I have seen, gathered, or experienced during the week. I hope as a reader you find it informational, entertaining, or both. I also hope it can generate some good discussion and edify the community.
How about that Bitcoin huh? It's nice to see the price pumping. I actually thought we might see $80,000 by the end of the week, but that is looking less likely now. Even with the rate cut, things seem to be stalled a bit at the $76,000 mark. Trust me, I'm not complaining. It will be nice when we start seeing the alts move a little more.
I knew as soon as I saw the 80th Anniversary of D-Day silver rounds I needed to get one for my nephew/godson. Along with sports, he is huge into the military and things like that, so I thought this would be a really cool round for him. It's one of two rounds I picked up to gift him at Christmas. It's been really great seeing the look on his face when he opens up the new silver each year. I plan on continuing this tradition until he is at least 18 and perhaps longer.
I think part of what I love about gifting him silver is that it gives me a reason to order more silver for myself as well!
Once again we have a nice depiction of Charlie on the back side. I have one more piece that I am going to give him which I will be sharing in a future post. I really like how well this round is made. The details is great and given that it was released in 2024, it is in great condition with crisp lines. I also like the diamond etching it has on both the front and the back.
As I mentioned in my opening, I am a little curious about some of the policy stuff that this new administration is going to implement. I can't help but think back to 2017 though when Trump in his first term assigned Ajit Pai as the chairman of the FCC. His all out war on Net Neutrality set the Internet back years if not decades in my opinion.
Is it possible the newfound affinity for crypto will give us a more favorable FCC chair this time? I honestly don't know. I can't help but be a little worried given current history though. It's interesting because I think Net Neutrality is one of those fringe things that no one really thinks about until it is in jeopardy or too late. What happens when CBDCs have dedicated bandwidth on the Internet and other crypto traffic gets pushed to a slow lane?
Maybe I don't understand fully how everything works, but it's possible right?
I'll be the first to admit that I don't know where parties stand on a whole host of issues. I've been saying for a while now that I think nuclear power will play a huge roll in the future growth of our nation and potentially the world. The advances in compact, small, and micro reactors is quite promising and exciting.
Whether you like AI or not, they aren't going to stop developing it and the future of AI is going to require tremendous amounts of power. It will be interesting to see where the upcoming administration stands on nuclear power. They will potentially have the "power" (pun intended) to kill these stocks that I think are going to be hot buys, or leave them dead on the reactor room floor.
Finally, as public school employees,
Being on the tech side of things, my job is probably still pretty secure, but my wife is a school social worker. There has already been a lot of rhetoric about how social emotional learning isn't necessary. Add to that the fact that they are pushing for more parent control of districts, when many of these parents can't even effectively parent, and that is a big concern.
I'm sure we will make it through, but as I mentioned, there are a lot of lower level things with an administration change that can end up being a big deal down the road.
All pictures/screenshots taken by myself or
