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The U.S. Capitol symbolizing rare midterm elections where the ruling party gained seats.
GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

The Three Times the White House Gained Seats During Midterm Elections

Midterm elections usually aren't pretty for the party that is in the White House. Since World War II, the sitting President has lost an average of 26 House seats and 4 Senate seats. This is du...

Aerial view of large white oil storage tanks forming part of the United States emergency petroleum reserve.
GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

How Many Barrels of Oil Does The United States Have In Its Strategic Petroleum Reserve?

It was the mid 1970s, and the United States had a big problem. During the Yom Kippur War, members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries imposed an oil embargo against the Unite...

Illustrated interior view of a reinforced concrete vault beneath Manhattan with massive steel doors securing gold reserves.
GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

More Than 35 Nations Store Gold In The United States. Why?

Deep in the bowels of the New York Federal Reserve building, 507,000 gold bars - or 6,331 metric tons - sits behind 90-ton steel doors and reinforced concrete. There are 122 vaults in total in the...

Gold bars resting on government documents, representing the United States gold reserves valued far above their official book price.
GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

How Much Gold Does The United States Own And What Is It Worth?

As of the last update from the government, the United States owns roughly 261,500,000 ounces of gold, or around 8,133 metric tons. The "book value" for this gold is just $11 billion (we'll get to ...

Three tall stacks of layered paper arranged like rising towers, symbolizing Elon Musk’s rapidly growing net worth approaching the one trillion dollar mark.
GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

Elon Musk's Net Worth Continues To Rocket Towards $1 Trillion

It wasn't that long ago when Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and an assortment of other companies, was slumping. Musk, having grown frustrated over his DOGE initiative in Washington, lashed out at...

A tall stack of official government documents casting a long shadow, symbolizing Canada’s rapidly rising national debt over the past decade.
GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

How Did Canada Double Its National Debt Over Just Ten Years?

Canada's current federal debt number sits at $1.236 trillion. Since Justin Trudeau took office in November of 2015, the Canadian federal debt has increased approximately 102%, from $623.9 billion ...

China is selling US Treasuries and buying gold. Sign of the times.
GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

Why Has China Sold So Much Of Its US Debt?

In November of 2013, China's holdings of United States debt hit an all-time high of $1.317 trillion. At the time, China seemed to have an unquenchable thirst for United States debt. It was a win-w...

Signed by Thomas Jefferson in 1807 the Insurrection Act grants presidents sweeping authority to deploy federal troops during domestic unrest or rebellion.
GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

The History of the Insurrection Act in America

The Insurrection Act of 1807 has always been one of the most powerful, least-used tools in the U.S. President's arsenal. It allows the Commander-in-Chief to deploy federal troops within the United Sta...

Only four US presidents have ever won the Nobel Peace prize - Roosevelt, Wilson, Carter, and Obama - each redefining American diplomacy.
GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

The Only Four US Presidents To Win The Nobel Peace Prize

Only a few US Presidents have pulled it off - winning the Nobel Peace Prize. It is one of the rarest honors in American politics, given to leaders who pushed for peace instead of power. So who made th...

Japan 1980s real estate and stock bubble burst into decades of deflation, bad loans, and lasting economic caution that shaped modern policy.
GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

The Rise and Collapse of Japan's Real Estate Bubble

Japan's real estate bubble of the late 1980s remains one of the most spectacular asset booms in modern history. Fueled by cheap money, speculative euphoria, and overconfidence in Japan's unstoppable e...

The 35 day 2018-2019 government shutdown, sparked by a border wall dispute, became the longest in U.S. history and cost billions.
GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

The Story of the Longest Government Shutdown in US History

The United States has seen more than a dozen government shutdowns in modern history, but the longest one stretched on for 35 days between late 2018 and early 2019. What triggered it? The fight over a ...

Since 1976 government shutdowns have rarely rattled markets, with the S&P 500 often rising as investors focus on bigger drivers.
GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

How the Stock Market Reacts to Government Shutdowns

How have the markets handled government shutdowns in the past? You might think that traders would panic at the thought of Washington grinding to a halt. The reality has been far more subdued. The U...

The 1963 Salad Oil Scandal nearly bankrupted American Express.
GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

The 1963 Fraud That Almost Killed American Express

The salad oil scandal of 1963 nearly destroyed American Express. A fraud involving tanks of soybean oil, water, and forged warehouse receipts cut deep into the financial system. AmEx, then a major iss...

Todd Graves earned the lowest grade for a chicken-finger-only restaurant plan, but turned Raising Cane into a multibillion-dollar empire.
GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

How a Failed Class Project Created Raising Cane's

Most business plans are forgotten. Some are laughed out of the room. In the case of Raising Cane's, the idea was graded at the bottom of the class. Todd Graves was a finance major at LSU in the mid...

Congressman Chris Collins tipped his son about a failed drug trial, pled guilty to insider trading, resigned, and was later pardoned.
GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

Chris Collins: The Congressman Who Went to Prison for Insider Trading

Chris Collins was a sitting U.S. Congressman when he became the first to be indicted for insider trading while in office. The case centered on a small biotech called Innate Immunotherapeutics, an Aust...



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