Authored by Darlene McCormick Sanchez via The Epoch Times,

The Trump administration’s border crackdown is slowing the flow of deadly drugs into the country to the point that cartel profits have plummeted.

​Border czar Tom Homan said during an appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Thursday that President Donald Trump’s operation to go after the Mexican cartels has been successful, and that they are now focusing their drug operations on Europe and Asia.

​“Cartels are going broke,” Homan said. “They know it’s hard here.”​

Sara Carter, director of the National Drug Control Policy and a CPAC speaker, said that securing the U.S. border has meant fewer illegal immigrants and drugs, especially fentanyl.

​“We’ve seen a decrease in fentanyl coming into our country of around 56 percent to 57 percent, which is phenomenal,” she said.

“You’re holding China accountable and telling them we are watching the supply chain, and you will be responsible if we see more deaths in our country.”

​The cartels securing fentanyl precursor chemicals from China and India know what they are doing, she said, adding that cartels and America’s adversaries want “to break us and to create this massive casualty event.”

Discussing the impact of policy changes, Carter said that under the Biden administration, the cartels made hundreds of billions of dollars from human trafficking and the sale of narcotics.

She said adversarial countries pushing drugs onto American streets, such as China, amount to a “proxy war” against the United States.

​Homan and Carter applauded Operation Southern Spear, in which narcoterrorists carrying drugs on boats in the Caribbean were destroyed with U.S. military air strikes.

​Carter said stopping drug runners in the Western Hemisphere was part of the president’s America First strategy. Carter’s comments are supported by a recent study that also points to a sharp decrease in fentanyl deaths.

​The January study suggested that the decrease in deaths, which started in mid-2023, was due to a disruption in the supply chain of fentanyl precursor chemicals from China, creating a shortage of fentanyl on the streets.

​With less fentanyl, dealers and cartels stretched their supply, according to the study. Fentanyl and other street drugs are often cut with substances such as baby powder or sugar.

Opioid deaths that started to drop under the previous administration are continuing their downward trend. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) under the Trump administration intensified enforcement operations, putting pressure on the global fentanyl supply chain, forcing narco-terrorists such as the Sinaloa Cartel and CJNG Cartel to alter their business model.

DEA lab testing showed 29 percent of fentanyl pills analyzed during fiscal year 2025 had a potentially lethal dose, a significant drop from just two years earlier, when 76 percent of pills had enough fentanyl to kill.

The purity of fentanyl powder has decreased to 10.3 percent in fiscal year 2025 from 19.5 percent in 2024, the DEA said. 

Global energy flows are being rewired across Eurasia as the Russia-Ukraine war and the latest U.S.-Iran conflict disrupt Gulf energy flows in what may be the worst energy shock on record.

One major new development is that roughly 20% of global LNG flows remain shut in the Gulf region because of the Hormuz chokepoint, with QatarEnergy warning last week that 17% of its LNG export capacity could be offline for three to five years.

That brings us to Goldman commodities expert Samantha Dart’s warning to clients about five months ago, in which she said the “largest-ever LNG supply wave” was set to hit, pushing prices lower.

The question now is whether Dart’s warning still holds, given that the Iranian attack on Qatar’s Ras Laffan gas facility wiped out about 17% of the country’s LNG export capacity, causing an estimated $20 billion in lost annual revenue and threatening supplies to Europe and Asia. Repairs are expected to take three to five years.

Dart’s pre-US-Iran war view was that natural gas prices would remain relatively stable through 2027 before peak glut materializes by the end of the decade, triggering U.S. LNG export cancellations. However, the Ras Laffan disruption may have derailed that oversupplied outlook, as LNG markets could remain tight for years.

Another key development, with Qatari LNG flows hampered, is a recent note from Criterion Research President James Bevan, who wrote: “What had been framed as a two-horse race for global LNG market share now looks considerably more one-sided. The beneficiary is clear: U.S. Gulf Coast LNG.”

And just like that, with Qatari LNG flows hampered for years, the question now is whether Dart’s bearish forecast of the “largest-ever LNG supply wave” will likely have to be revisited. We’ll see what she says in the next update.

Gold or Bitcoin: which can anchor the next reserve system? 

Last night, in a ZH debate hosted by Real Vision’s Ash Bennington, Peter Schiff argued for gold’s role as the future global reserve currency, while Mark Moss made the case for Bitcoin, arguing that it is gaining traction on sovereign balance sheets as of 2025.

They covered America’s dwindling reserve status, fundamental monetary properties, and the nature of governments. Here were some highlights for those short on time:

Gold: Tried and True

Schiff argued that Bitcoin does not meet the definition of money and therefore cannot compete with gold, which he described as the foundational reserve asset backing currencies.

He also pointed to current market trends, arguing that “foreign central banks are already moving more of their US dollar reserves into gold because they are losing confidence,” particularly in the U.S. government’s ability to repay debt without massive debasement. While acknowledging recent volatility, he maintained that gold’s decline is temporary and that “real rates are going to collapse, and that’s bullish for gold.”

At a more fundamental level, money must have independent utility, according to Schiff. 

“It has to be a commodity… [with] its own use,” pointing to gold’s role in “industry… jewelry… aerospace… medicine… electronics” as what makes it “better money than other commodities,” and distinct from Bitcoin, which may be transferable but is solely a digital ledger. 

pic.twitter.com/vqdszTUvVQ

— ZeroHedge Debates (@zerohedgeDebate) March 27, 2026

The Issue of Trust

Moss emphasized the importance of custody, arguing that gold ultimately depends on intermediaries (unless stored in one’s basement) even when ownership is legally binding. Governments are not trustworthy and if they or the institution holding possession of the physical gold decide to renege, well ultimately, “they have control over the asset.”

Shipping gold abroad is another matter, filled with counterparty risk and logistical burden. Money needs to be transferable and this is hindered “if [governments] won’t allow you to ship it… or receive it.”

At a more basic level, he argued the issue is unavoidable with physical assets: “you have to trust somebody… [and] trust that they’ll allow you to access it,” concluding that “as long as I don’t have possession of it, I have no control over it.”

pic.twitter.com/3oZ37kIuYu

— ZeroHedge Debates (@zerohedgeDebate) March 27, 2026

Will Central Banks accumulate Bitcoin?

Moss opened by framing Bitcoin within a broader shift in the global monetary system, arguing that reserve assets are moving away from a single dominant anchor toward a mix of holdings. As he put it, “the world is breaking apart… instead of having one… reserve asset, I believe we’ll start to have different assets held in reserve,” with countries diversifying across currencies, commodities, and other stores of value. Within that transition, he argued Bitcoin is already entering the conversation at the sovereign level, projecting that “Bitcoin will have a meaningful allocation in central bank reserves… in the next 20 years.”

Moss argued that if politicians are responding to Bitcoin holders, it suggests scale: “the adoption of Bitcoin is so massive… politicians are forced to bow down to the most powerful voting bloc.”

But is this classic pandering by the political class?

Schiff said “the Bitcoin community has done a very good job of bribing politicians,” framing recent proposals as the result of lobbying and campaign influence rather than monetary necessity. In his view, politicians are responding to a narrow but motivated group of voters, where “when a politician promises to buy Bitcoin… you’re like, yeah, I’m voting for that guy,” effectively bribing voters by promising to use tax dollars to bid up the price of Bitcoin.

The trend, however, may not last. “if the price of Bitcoin collapses, all the political firepower is going to go away.”

pic.twitter.com/4hvUQsKIPk

— ZeroHedge Debates (@zerohedgeDebate) March 27, 2026
 

Watch the full debate below or listen on Spotify.

*  *  * 25-Year Shelf Life

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

The student journalists at Loyola University Chicago’s Phoenix newspaper have issued a groveling apology for initially reporting the facts about the man charged with murdering 18-year-old Sheridan Gorman.

In an editor’s note, the paper stated: “Additionally, in the body of the original post, we described the man who was charged as an ‘illegal immigrant,’ using language provided by the Department of Homeland Security. That language does not align with Associated Press style, nor does it align with the values of this newspaper.”

It continued: “No human’s existence is illegal, and we quickly changed our wording to reflect that. We acknowledge the harm such language can cause and the power and importance of the words we choose to use. We deeply regret these errors, and we’re committed to continuing the high standards we hold for ourselves as journalists and members of the Loyola, Rogers Park and Chicago communities.”

Loyola University newspaper has issued an apology in the wake of the murder of freshman Sheridan Gorman…ostensibly to her accused murderer. The Phoenix was sorry for calling Jose Medina-Medina an “illegal immigrant” instead of a “Rogers Park Resident”…https://t.co/01UFG9ySL8

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) March 25, 2026

The suspect, 25-year-old Jose Medina-Medina, a Venezuelan national living in the United States illegally, faces charges in the fatal shooting of Gorman on a pier at Chicago’s Tobey Prinz Beach. Gorman, a Loyola freshman, was walking with friends when she was chased and shot in the head.

The case fits the pattern of endless preventable violence perpetrated by criminal illegals.

Worse still, Governor JB Pritzker attempted to shift responsibility by blaming President Trump for the murder:

Medina-Medina was apprehended by Border Patrol in May 2023 and released into the U.S. interior. Weeks later, Chicago police arrested him for shoplifting, but he was released again under sanctuary policies that shield illegal immigrants from federal immigration authorities.

Chicago Alderwoman Maria Hadden (D–Rogers Park) downplayed the incident, claiming “it sounds like, this might have been a wrong place, wrong time, running into a person who had a gun, they might have startled this person at the end of the pier.”

Gorman’s distraught family pushed back hard against attempts to minimize what happened. Their statement read: “What happened to Sheridan cannot be reduced to a ‘senseless tragedy,’ nor can it be explained in general terms about public safety.”

They added: “Sheridan was our daughter. She was 18 years old. She was doing something entirely normal — walking near her campus with friends. She should be here.”

The family continued: “Calling this ‘senseless’ is not enough. There must be a clear and honest accounting of what went wrong. We will not allow Sheridan’s life to be reduced to a talking point or a generalization. We expect leadership that is willing to confront hard truths and ensure that what happened to her does not happen again.”

Further: “Sheridan was a daughter, a sister, and a young woman whose life was taken in a way that should never have been possible. We are not interested in political arguments or in watching responsibility shift from one place to another. If there were failures—as the Governor himself has acknowledged—then every one of them must be identified, examined, and addressed directly. The location of those failures matters less than the willingness to confront them honestly.”

They concluded: “Our daughter is not a policy debate. She is a life that was taken, and that demands accountability.”

Governor JB Pritzker responded by acknowledging failures while pointing elsewhere: “This has been a terrible tragedy … there have been real failures. Those failures, of course, extend beyond the borders of Illinois. That’s their national failures, a failure to have comprehensive immigration reform, a failure of the president to follow his own edict to go after the worst of the worst.”

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson avoided taking ownership of the city’s long-standing sanctuary policies: “Let’s just be very clear, between the Safe-T Act and the welcoming city ordinance, the welcoming city ordinance was passed 40 years ago by the first Black mayor in the history of Chicago, and the Safety Act was passed under the governor at that time, who was a Republican.”

The family’s direct call for accountability stands in sharp contrast to the deflection and word games from officials and the student press. While the Loyola Phoenix regrets using accurate language from the Department of Homeland Security, the real harm remains the policies that allowed a twice-released illegal immigrant to cross paths with an innocent student.

Sheridan Gorman’s death was not inevitable. It resulted from repeated decisions that prioritized open-border practices and sanctuary protections over basic public safety. As long as leaders refuse to secure the border and enforce immigration law, more American lives will be lost to the same failures.

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

It’s one of those things that sounds nice on paper, but when missiles and drones are inbound, no one is going to want to be on a military ship sitting in the middle of the Strait of Hormuz: the United Arab Emirates, which has been among the hardest-impacted Gulf states in Iran’s ongoing retaliation, is pressing for a multinational maritime ​taskforce to reopen vital oil transit waterway, the Financial Times reports ‌Friday.

The UAE, with a navy that’s not really going to strike fear into any enemy (much less the Iranians), says it is willing to participate in a “Hormuz Security Force” to defend the strait and escort shipping. Dozens of countries are being asked to join, sources cited in FT say.

Source: Abu Dhabi Ship Building Company

And yet for all the public posturing and signing of ‘symbolic statements’ – not a single country with a strong military has actually stepped up with a concrete offer to provide warships and military assets (other than Israel, which is a direct party to the war).

This is despite that for much of the past month of the war immense pressure has been exerted on allies by the Trump administration. But by and large they’ve shrugged and have said “this is not our war” – despite rising oil prices and global shipping disruption. 

At the same time, the Mideast/Asia regional country representing NATO’s second largest military, Turkey, is reportedly behind the scenes telling the Gulf (GCC) not to join the war.

“Turkey is conducting intensive diplomatic efforts to try and prevent Gulf Arab countries from joining the US-Israeli war against Iran, according to people familiar with the matter,” Reuters writes separately on Friday.

“Ankara has urged Gulf nations to act with restraint, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters,” the report continues. “Turkey has stepped up diplomacy, with Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan visiting Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar and holding calls with other regional counterparts.”

Turkey, which shares a far eastern border with Iran, does indeed have an interest in avoiding broader escalation in region – but it has also of late been a sworn enemy of Israel, especially during and in the wake of the Gaza War.

Reuters further reveals that there’s lots more “talk” but no action as yet:

Several U.S. allies have ⁠said they have no immediate plans to send ships to unblock the ​Strait of Hormuz, rebuffing a Trump request for military support to keep the ​vital waterway open.

France said on Thursday it had held talks with around 35 countries seeking partners and proposals for a mission to reopen the strait, but only once the U.S.-Israeli war ​on Iran ends.

It’s a big open question whether the United States itself will actually send warships deeper into Gulf waters near the strait. Some military analysts have warned of the immense risk and exposure, given reports that Iran has mined the strait, but also given the IRGC would without doubt send missiles and drones against any military vessels seeking to pass.

Haaretz: After initial sprint, Iran missile attacks settling into marathon pace. Similar trend to strikes in the Gulf documented by @ka_grieco.

Bad news, but unsurprising — Iran’s missile capacity steady after a *full month* of US/Isr war.https://t.co/UwOu5JcUkF pic.twitter.com/580b5IFeee

— Rosemary Kelanic (@RKelanic) March 27, 2026

Currently the ‘international community’ seems to be sitting around saying ‘you first’ while looking for others to lead. And all the while the White House seems to lack a coherent big vision strategy, or at the very least has not clearly communicated one. Trump is not going to be happy to hear that America’s wayward ally Turkey could be thwarting efforts to cobble together a Hormuz coalition.

Authored by Chase Smith via The Epoch Times,

A bipartisan House Ethics Committee panel found on March 27 that Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-Fla.) committed 25 ethics violations, a ruling that sets the stage for a sanctions hearing and a potential expulsion vote on the House floor.

The adjudicatory subcommittee, composed of four Republicans and four Democrats, deliberated until well past midnight before releasing its findings Friday morning.

The panel found 25 of 27 counts in the Statement of Alleged Violations proven by clear and convincing evidence.

The full committee will hold a sanctions hearing shortly after the House returns from the April recess.

The violations center on Cherfilus-McCormick’s alleged use of millions of dollars from her family’s health care company, Trinity Healthcare Services, to fund her 2022 congressional campaign through a network of family members and affiliated businesses.

Investigators also found violations related to her reelection campaign, financial disclosure failures, and use of her congressional office to benefit allies.

Thursday’s public hearing was the first open ethics proceeding against a sitting House member in nearly 15 years.

The ruling could fuel a Republican-led expulsion push and further divide a Democratic Caucus trying to retake the House majority in November.

Cherfilus-McCormick is running for a fourth term representing a southeastern Florida district.
 

Expulsion from the House requires a two-thirds vote.

Republicans have signaled they intend to push for it.

“I look forward to proving my innocence,” the congresswoman’s office told The Epoch Times via email.

“Until then, my focus remains where it belongs: showing up for the great people of Florida’s 20th District who sent me to Washington to fight for them.”

The congresswoman has maintained her innocence.

“This is an unjust, baseless, sham indictment—and I am innocent,” she said at the time of her indictment.

“The timing alone is curious and clearly meant to distract from far more pressing national issues. From day one, I have fully cooperated with every lawful request, and I will continue to do so until this matter is resolved. I am deeply grateful for the support of my district, and I remain confident that the truth will prevail. I look forward to my day in court. Until then, I will continue fighting for my constituents.”

Cherfilus-McCormick also faces a federal indictment on charges of stealing approximately $5 million in COVID-19 disaster relief funds and using it for personal purchases, including a 3-carat yellow diamond ring.

Her brother, the former chief of staff, and the accountant were also charged in the alleged scheme.

She has pleaded not guilty.

Beijing moved into damage-control mode on Friday, with its foreign ministry dismissing a Reuters report that cited two senior Trump administration officials alleging that SMIC, China’s largest chipmaker, had sent chipmaking tools to Iran, as “false information.”

Asked about the report at a regular news conference in Beijing, foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said he was “not familiar with the situation” and added, “What I can tell you is that recently, some media have been keen on releasing news that seems correct but is actually wrong.”

Jian added that, “after verification, all such reports were found to be false information,” but he did not elaborate further.

The denial underscores just how sensitive Beijing is to headlines featuring Trump administration officials accusing SMIC of sending chipmaking tools to Iran.

“We have no reason to believe that any of this has stopped,” one Trump official told Reuters.

Those allegations build on a separate report about a viral video circulating on X that appears to show a Chinese company mass-producing Shahed-type drones.

One Trump official told the outlet that the SMIC tools sent to Iran could be used in any electronics that require chips.

Reuters noted, “It was not immediately clear what, if any, role the chipmaking tools have played in Iran’s response to the war, which was launched by the U.S. and Israel on February 28.”

What is clear, based on a separate report we first noted in early March, is that an Iranian drone that targeted the British Royal Air Force base at Akrotiri, Cyprus, contained a Russian-made “Kometa” satellite navigation chip using Western-made components.

Just so readers are on the same page, here is the current map of the two modern battlefields in Eurasia overlaid with natural gas pipelines.

Read: “Eurasia Energy War?”

Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

As I’ve been writing about, private credit has been under immense stress for months, with liquidity strains, redemption pressure, and growing questions around valuations all surfacing at once. And now with things on the verge of imminent collapse and literally all of f*cking Wall Street already on notice, one former major banking CEO has decided to offer up the King Solomon-like revelation that he believes things could get worse from here.

But, obviously, what he doesn’t realize is that the deterioration he’s warning about isn’t ahead of us. It’s already here.

“At some point there needs to be a forcing function or a reckoning that causes you to come to grips with what your balance sheet really is worth,” former Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein told Bloomberg this week. He continued: “The analogy I like to give is you accumulate tinder on the floor of the forest and eventually a spark will come. But the longer between intervals where there’s a spark that sets it on fire, the more that accumulates.”

Blankfein’s metaphor of tinder piling up in a forest misses one crucial point: the smoke is already in the air. When Blankfein warns that a spark will eventually force a reckoning in private assets, he’s describing a future event. But the market isn’t waiting for ignition, it’s already reacting. The forcing function he anticipates is not some external shock still to come it’s already unfolding inside fund structures, redemption queues, and valuation disputes. As I’ve written, it’s psychology.

And the psychology has shifted. The bid is no longer blind.

Look at the sequence of events just in March. Apollo Global Management capped withdrawals after double digit redemption requests. Ares Management restricted redemptions as its income fund came under pressure. BlackRock began limiting withdrawals in a major private credit vehicle. And just yesterday, more headlines hit showing big losses for Ares funds. Tinder, meet spark.

This is where Blankfein is late. The moment redemptions get gated, the psychology is already broken. Investors are no longer thinking about yield, they are thinking about access. They are no longer asking what return, they will earn they are asking whether they can get their money back. That shift is irreversible in the short term. Once liquidity becomes uncertain, every private mark becomes suspect. Every quarterly report becomes a negotiation with reality.

And once that realization sets in, the game changes completely. As Morgan Stanley and Cliffwater cap redemptions, and as funds across the space impose limits or gates, the narrative breaks. Investors do not wait for official markdowns…they front run them. They redeem preemptively. They assume the worst. That behavior is the spark Blankfein is looking for, except it is already happening.

As I wrote last week, even insiders have been saying the quiet part out loud. An executive at Apollo Global Management recently said that “all” marks in parts of private markets are wrong. Add in regulatory scrutiny with the SEC questioning private credit ratings and you have something more dangerous than a valuation problem: you have a credibility problem. And markets do not wait for numbers to adjust when credibility breaks. They reprice instantly in behavior.

For anyone who’s been paying attention, none of this is new. This has been building for months, and it has been called out for months. The gates, the redemption limits, the quiet markdowns, the uneasy investor calls…it’s all been there in plain sight. The only thing that’s changed now is that it’s too obvious to ignore. What was dismissed as isolated stress is now showing up everywhere at once.

What Blankfein is describing as a future reckoning is, in reality, a lagging recognition of something already in motion. So the question is no longer what will trigger the downturn. The question is how far it spreads now that it has started. Because once investors collectively realize that liquidity is conditional and marks are questionable, the unwind becomes self reinforcing. That is not tinder accumulating. That is combustion already underway.

—

QTR’s Disclaimer: Please read my full legal disclaimer on my About page here. This post represents my opinions only. In addition, please understand I am an idiot and often get things wrong and lose money. I may own or transact in any names mentioned in this piece at any time without warning. Contributor posts and aggregated posts have been hand selected by me, have not been fact checked and are the opinions of their authors. They are either submitted to QTR by their author, reprinted under a Creative Commons license with my best effort to uphold what the license asks, or with the permission of the author.

This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stocks or securities, just my opinions. I often lose money on positions I trade/invest in. I may add any name mentioned in this article and sell any name mentioned in this piece at any time, without further warning. None of this is a solicitation to buy or sell securities. I may or may not own names I write about and are watching. Sometimes I’m bullish without owning things, sometimes I’m bearish and do own things. Just assume my positions could be exactly the opposite of what you think they are just in case. If I’m long I could quickly be short and vice versa. I won’t update my positions. All positions can change immediately as soon as I publish this, with or without notice and at any point I can be long, short or neutral on any position. You are on your own. Do not make decisions based on my blog. I exist on the fringe. If you see numbers and calculations of any sort, assume they are wrong and double check them. I failed Algebra in 8th grade and topped off my high school math accolades by getting a D- in remedial Calculus my senior year, before becoming an English major in college so I could bullshit my way through things easier.

The publisher does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided in this page. These are not the opinions of any of my employers, partners, or associates. I did my best to be honest about my disclosures but can’t guarantee I am right; I write these posts after a couple beers sometimes. I edit after my posts are published because I’m impatient and lazy, so if you see a typo, check back in a half hour. Also, I just straight up get shit wrong a lot. I mention it twice because it’s that important.

While the preliminary UMich survey was undertaken between February 17 and March 9, with about half completed after the start of the US military conflict in Iran, today’s final print includes the full month with all the conflict’s escalations (and de-escalations).

Expectations were for the headline sentiment index to tumble with expectations projected to fall most and consensus was right with the expectations tumbling from 54.1 to  51.7 and current conditions down from 57.8 to 55.8 (worse than expected). Put together, the headline sentiment index fall from 55.5 to 53.3 (worse than expected) – the lowest reading of the year…

Source: Bloomberg

Declines were seen across age and political party. Consumers with middle and higher incomes and stock wealth, buffeted by both escalating gas prices and volatile financial markets in the wake of the Iran conflict, exhibited particularly large drops in sentiment. Overall, the short-run economic outlook plunged 14%, and year-ahead expected personal finances sank 10%, while declines in long-run expectations were more subdued.

As UMich Survey Director Joanna Hsu notes: “These patterns suggest that, at this time, consumers may not expect recent negative developments to persist far into the future.”

Interviews for this release were collected between February 17 and March 23, with about two-thirds completed after the start of the US military conflict in Iran.

Year-ahead inflation expectations climbed from 3.4% in February to 3.8% this month, the largest one-month increase since April 2025. 

Long-run inflation expectations inched down to 3.2%.

Note that for both time horizons, interviews completed after February 28th exhibited higher inflation expectations than those completed before that date…

Only 28% of consumers expect interest rates to fall in the year ahead, down from 35% last month and nearly half of consumers 6 months ago.

Expectations for other elements of the economy, including personal finances, business conditions, labor markets, and stock markets, also deteriorated this month.

Decreases in expectations for personal finances and business conditions were much sharper for the short run than the long run.

However, Hsu concludes, “these views are subject to change, however, if the Iran conflict becomes protracted or if higher energy prices pass through to overall inflation.”