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ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero
Doug Casey On Fort Knox, Government Secrecy, & The True Role Of Gold Authored by Doug Casey via InternationalMan.com, International Man: For decades, mainstream financial commentators have dismissed gold as a “barbarous relic.” Federal Reserve officials and policymakers routinely downplay its importance, insisting that fiat currency and central banking make gold obsolete. Yet, despite this public stance, the US government still holds one of the world’s largest gold reserves. So, what’s really going on here? If gold is truly irrelevant, why does the government still treat it as a strategic asset? Doug Casey: Governments hate gold because it’s a discipline on the amount of currency they can create. Gold is money. Governments can’t create it out of thin air. You might say that gold needs the government about as much as a fish needs a bicycle. Gold is not a strategic asset. It shouldn’t be viewed as something to buy or sell, like land, copper, or a factory. You don’t buy or sell money; that’s almost a contradictory concept. Gold is money itself, although fiat currencies are treated as money in today’s world. Confusing gold with fiat currency is one of the terrible notions created by Keynesian economists. It’s allowed mainstream financial commentators to dismiss gold as a pet rock. As you said, the Federal Reserve officials and policy makers routinely downplay the importance of gold. They believe that fiat currency and central banking have made gold obsolete. They’re 100% wrong. Despite their theories and stated beliefs, governments around the world have been buying massive amounts of gold in recent years. They’re dumping dollars. For 25 years after World War II, the major asset of other central banks has been US dollars. It made sense at the time because the dollars were convenient and guaranteed to be redeemed at $35 for an ounce of gold up to 1971. Now, however, the US government backs its dollars by nothing. Foreign governments can see that the US government is fiscally and monetarily totally out of control. They’ve seen the US arbitrarily confiscate assets, impose sanctions, and levy duties. They’re dumping dollars because it’s increasingly obvious they’re the unsecured liability of a bankrupt and unreliable government. They’re accumulating gold. The only solution to today’s massive monetary problems is to go back to classical banking practices. What that means is gold and only gold is used as money. US Government debt should not be monetized. And fractional reserve banking has to be abolished. There used to be a distinction between the two types of bank accounts—demand deposits (i.e., checking accounts) and time deposits (i.e., savings accounts). Banks have typically offered both, but they’re two totally separate and very different businesses. With demand deposits, you pay the bank to store your gold securely. You have the right to withdraw it at a moment’s notice and write checks against it, making it simple to transfer it on the bank’s books to another person. Time deposits are a totally different business. With these, you deposit money with the bank for X number of months. It must be for a fixed period of time to allow the bank to lend that money out for X number of months. The banks may pay you 3% and charge the borrower 7%, the 400 basis point difference covering overhead, risk of loss, and profit. Today, however, there’s no longer any distinction between time and demand deposits. Banks lend demand deposits, which is a fraud. It’s as if you paid the Allied Van Company to store your furniture, and they then rented it to someone else. Worse, when banks lend money today, it’s redeposited within the system. They lend it out again, it’s redeposited, they lend it out again, ad infinitum. It’s a giant daisy chain, an inverted pyramid of debt. It’s why banking is such a profitable business—until the inevitable happens. If any significant borrower goes bust, or if depositors want more than a minimum of cash, any given bank would be shown to be bankrupt. That’s why Central Banks like the Fed are critical to maintaining the fraud. They stand ready to create fiat to maintain confidence in the system. And regulate commercial banks to keep them from abusing the system too badly. Almost every bank in the world engages in fractional reserve practices. That practice puts them all in danger of bankruptcy. Sorry for the overly brief explanation. But the bottom line is that the entire system must be, and will be, reset. International Man: Given the secrecy surrounding Fort Knox, do you think the US government still possesses the 261 million ounces of gold it claims to have? Do you think the reluctance to conduct a full, independent audit is due to mismanagement, deception, or something more sinister? Doug Casey: Chris Weber recently did an essay about that in his March 3 letter. His publication is one of my favorites; I suggest you subscribe. You’ll see why I say that. In any event, go to weberglobal.net to get that letter, gratis. You should take advantage of a two-month trial for $60 as well. In fact, there’s never been a formal audit of Ft Knox. I doubt that the US government has anything like 261 million ounces of gold that it says it owns. In fact, most of the gold in Fort Knox is not even in good delivery .999 form; it’s what we call coin melt. The US government confiscated gold coins from the public in 1933. They were in wide circulation and everyday use. The government then melted them down—they’re 90% gold and 10% copper. There’s never been an actual audit of how much gold, of what purity, there is in Fort Knox. FWIW, the vault itself was inaugurated in 1936. We don’t know who owns whatever gold there is in Ft Knox, ostensibly 147 million ounces, because any amount of it may have been hypothecated for who knows what reasons. For that matter, the same is true of the gold stored with the New York Fed, another 110 million ounces. No one knows exactly how much there is, who owns what, or how much may have been loaned out. It impresses me as a dog’s breakfast. For many years, Ron Paul has fought to get an audit, but they’ve disregarded him. Hopefully, DOGE will be the impetus to dig into it so we can find out exactly how much is there and exactly who owns it. International Man: US citizens have virtually no financial privacy, facing severe penalties if they fail to disclose every detail of their financial lives to the government. Why is financial disclosure a one-way street where citizens are forced to comply while the government operates behind closed doors? Doug Casey: It’s naïve to believe that, just because some people call it “our democracy,” that we’re anything more than the capite censi—the “head count,” as the Romans termed the mob. The people who control the government, the Deep State, are the boss. I recognize that it’s very politically incorrect to say so, but the government is an entity onto itself with its own interests. Even though America is unique in world history for having been founded on the principles of personal freedom and a strictly limited State, it’s degraded over time. That’s natural, I suppose; the Second Law of Thermodynamics operates in absolutely every sphere. But today, it’s a fiction, a myth, that citizens no longer democratically control the State. We’ve devolved into an unstable multicultural domestic empire. In fact, you’re a subject, a veritable serf—albeit one with a high standard of living. At this point, the government is very much like The Wizard of Oz, hiding behind the curtain. The Wizard, you’ll recall, was not the friend of Dorothy and her companions. International Man: President Trump recently stated, “We’re going to go into Fort Knox to make sure the gold is there.” If it isn’t, he warned, “we’re going to be very upset.” What do you make of Trump’s comments? Do they signal genuine concern about US gold reserves, or are they just political posturing with no real intention of follow-through? Doug Casey: If it’s true that something has happened to the gold, it will trigger a genuine earthquake which will echo around the world. I’m afraid that if DOGE digs into the gold holdings in Fort Knox and the NY Fed, there won’t be anything near 261 million unhypothecated ounces of gold. If that’s the case, it would create such an upset that I’m not sure they’d dare disclose it. It would overthrow the world’s financial system because it would show that no figures are reliable and that it’s all a sham. This is potentially a very big deal. International Man: What are the investment implications of renewed scrutiny on US gold reserves—both in general and with the potential for a full audit of Fort Knox? Doug Casey: As I’ve said many times before, at approximately $3,000, gold is reasonably valued relative to the historical cost of everything else—clothes, food, houses, cars. But because the world’s financial situation is so shaky at this point and gold is, in fact, the only financial asset that’s not simultaneously somebody else’s liability, it seems to me that you should continue buying gold. It’s much better to own gold coins than it is to own dollars, which are just the accounting fiction of an unsound bank. As Matt Smith has pointed out recently—he explains all this in (LINK)—if gold was reinstituted as money, whether just between governments or in general society, it would probably have to be revalued at 25, 30, or $40,000 an ounce. At this point, continue buying gold even at $3,000 an ounce. The general public is still totally uninterested in it. That’s going to change when panic breaks upon the economic world in the near future. * * * The reality of government-controlled fiat currency is crumbling, and the world’s financial system is at a breaking point. As governments quietly accumulate gold while dismissing its importance publicly, what does that mean for your wealth and financial security? Doug Casey reveals the essential strategies to protect your assets in an era of monetary chaos in this new video. Discover the best ways to store gold, safeguard your savings from looming capital controls, and navigate the risks of financial repression. The window to prepare is closing. Click here to watch Doug Casey’s urgent briefing now. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 20:55
California Runs Scam To Fund Medical Care For Illegals And Still Falls $3.4 Billion Short California Gov. Gavin Newsom is seeking a $3.4 billion loan from the general fund to help a shortfall in the state's Medi-Cal healthcare program. The shortfall problem comes only a year after Newsom expanded Medi-Cal coverage to include millions of illegal immigrants. California's continuing deficits and mounting debts have some officials concerned that the additional subsidies to illegals will cause a fiscal emergency in the near future. There are at least 2.6 million illegal immigrants in the state according to recent estimates. However, California has operated on sanctuary laws since 2013 and does not track the migrant status of its citizens. Because of this, there is no way for officials to estimate potential costs associated with welfare programs and medical programs which illegals commonly tap into. Around 60% of all illegal migrants exploit welfare programs upon arrival to the US and access is generally dependent on which state they settle in. In 2024, California expanded the state’s Medicaid program (also known as Medi-Cal) in two major ways. First, the state opened up Medicaid coverage to illegal immigrants between the ages of 26 and 49. While the state had previously granted Medicaid eligibility to illegal immigrants in other age groups, the 26 to 49 age bracket is by far the largest in California (and nationally), comprising about 75% of individuals who are in the country illegally. The state's general fund is, technically, separate from the ample federal funding that California receives, and federal dollars are not legally allowed to go towards migrants. But the way in which the government cycles those dollars through its programs is deceptive and California is far more dependent on federal money than it claims. To fund Medi-Cal's growth, California has resorted to using a Medicaid money laundering scheme which forces federal taxpayers to indirectly pay for the state's mismanagement. The state's scheme tripled the taxes on Medicaid insurers, which generates revenue for CA's general fund. The state is then required to spend the same amount of money on Medi-Cal as the taxes they generated (the money goes back to the insurers). The tax is higher on Medicaid insurance plans because the state receives federal reimbursement when they pay those plans to provide Medicaid coverage. The federal government reimburses CA for the money they spend on Medicaid programs by 60%. The payments to medical insurers are then, essentially, used to open the spigot to federal funds which the state did not necessarily need. This adds billions in extra dollars for the state's general fund which is then used for illegal aliens. The federal government permits states to engage in these tactics within certain limits, though California's case is particularly egregious. Democrats often tout California as a "donor state" that gives more in federal income than it takes, but it is also the most indebted state in the country by half a trillion dollars. California runs an annual deficit of around $50 billion to $80 billion. Despite having the some of the richest citizens in the country and a high GDP, the state suffers the worst homeless epidemic in the US and is consistently in the red. The level of budget chicanery is off the charts. Poor governance and a refusal to secure the state from foreign invasion is leading to medical program shortfalls, even with billions in scammed federal funds. With the Trump Administration in the midst of federal audits and program cuts, it is likely that states like California that rely on hidden federal revenues will be hit the hardest. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 20:30
RFK Jr. Warns Against Vaccinating Chickens For Bird Flu Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. advised against providing vaccines to poultry amid a bird flu outbreak that has caused a steep increase in egg prices in recent months. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in Washington on Feb. 26, 2025. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images In an interview with Fox News on March 11, Kennedy said his primary concern with providing shots to egg-laying chickens is that the vaccine doesn’t provide complete protection against avian influenza. “All of my agencies advise against vaccination of birds because if you vaccinate with a leaky vaccine—in other words, a vaccine that does not provide sterilizing immunity, that does not absolutely protect against the disease—you turn those flocks into mutation factories,” he said in the interview. It is “much more likely” to jump to other animals at that point, Kennedy said, adding that officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health, and Food and Drug Administration advised against vaccinating birds. “It’s dangerous for human beings to vaccinate the birds,” he said. Since an outbreak of bird flu in the United States started in 2022, millions of egg-laying hens have been culled to prevent the spread of the virus. Egg prices have skyrocketed as a result, increasing to $4.95 per dozen on average in January 2025, according to recent data. “We’ve killed 166 million chickens. That’s why we have an egg crisis,” Kennedy told Fox’s Sean Hannity, adding that bird flu is not transmissible via eggs or food. “Most of our scientists are against the culling operation. They think that we should be testing therapeutics on those flocks. They should isolate. You should let the disease go with them and identify the birds that survive, which are the birds that probably have a genetic inclination for immunity.” The price for a dozen had consistently been about $2 for decades before the disease struck. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said recently that it expects egg prices to rise by 41 percent in 2025. But the USDA reported last week that egg shortages are easing and wholesale prices are dropping, which might provide relief on the retail side before this year’s late Easter, which is three weeks later than last year’s. It said there had been no major bird flu outbreak for two weeks. “Shoppers have begun to see shell egg offerings ... becoming more reliable although retail price levels have yet to adjust and remain off-putting to many,” the agency wrote in a March 7 report. As for bird flu spreading to people, the CDC has said the risk to the public remains low. “There is no known person-to-person spread at this time,” the CDC said in its most recent update on the virus, dated March 10. So far, 70 people have taken ill with avian influenza, and one has died. Officials in Louisiana in December 2024 confirmed the death of a person older than 65 who had preexisting health issues. The Trump administration has unveiled a plan to combat bird flu, including a $500 million investment to help farmers bolster biosecurity measures, $400 million in additional aid for farmers whose flocks have been affected by avian flu, and $100 million to research and potentially develop vaccines and therapeutics for U.S. chicken flocks, among other measures. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 20:05
Reality Check: Towns And States Don't Want Green Energy Authored by Steve Goreham via RealClearEnergy, Trump Administration actions to scale back renewable energy capture headlines, but citizens are also pushing back. Efforts to deploy wind and solar systems face a rising tide of opposition in towns, counties, and states. Mandates for electric vehicles and electric home appliances are being challenged. The combination of rising local opposition and Trump funding cuts threatens to end the transition to green energy. The green energy revolution in the United States has run almost unopposed for the last two decades. Driven by the fear of human-caused global warming, federal regulators enacted an expanding array of incentives for renewables in the form of mandates, tax credits, loans, and subsidies. States added incentives to push for the adoption of wind, solar, electric vehicles, heat pumps, green hydrogen, and carbon dioxide (CO2) capture systems. Twenty-three states have laws or executive orders requiring Net Zero electricity by 2050. Power companies have been forced to comply with state mandates. Since 2000, wind and solar have grown from near zero to about 16% of US power generation in 2024, wind (10.5%) and solar (5.1%). Twenty-two states have electric vehicle (EV) mandates, requiring all sales of new cars to be EVs by a future date, such as 2035. Tightening CO2 emission standards from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) force manufacturers to sell an increasing share of EVs. Plug-in EV sales grew from zero two decades ago to 8% last year. Climate policy advocates want homeowners to switch from natural gas and propane appliances to heat pumps and other electric appliances. In 2019, Berkeley, California became the first city to prohibit natural gas in new residential construction. Cities and counties in seven states now ban gas in new construction, including a statewide ban in New York. The wave of renewable energy programs promoted and subsidized included electric vehicle charging stations, CO2 pipelines, and green hydrogen production facilities. But it’s becoming clear that many towns, counties, and states no longer support the green energy movement. A rising tide of opposition threatens the deployment of renewables. Last month, the State House of Arizona passed legislation that would prohibit construction of wind systems on more than 90% of state land. The legislation would force new wind projects to be at least 12 miles from any residential property. The bill is being considered in the Arizona Senate. Oklahoma is the third largest generator of electricity from wind in the US. But attendees at recent rallies at the state capitol call for bans on new wind and solar projects. Local residents voice economic, environmental, and health concerns about renewable systems. The opposition to wind and solar has been growing for more than a decade and recently accelerating. In 2009, North Carolina banned new wind projects in 23 counties. Kentucky enacted an effective statewide ban on new wind construction in 2014. Connecticut, Florida, Tennessee, and Vermont have established bans which are effectively statewide. A 2023 study by USA Today found that the number of counties in the US with wind turbine restrictions or bans rose from two in 2008 to 411 in 2023. The number of blocking counties rose to over 500 in 2024 with Florida’s ban on wind systems offshore and within one mile of the coast. About 16% of US counties now ban or restrict wind systems. More than 100 counties restrict the deployment of solar systems. The number of counties that ban wind or solar is rising faster than counties which are deploying wind or solar for the first time. Journalist Robert Bryce has developed a Renewable Rejection Database. The database shows a cumulative total of 800 of wind and solar project rejections in the US since 2015. It shows a rising trend in rejections, including an especially large jump in solar rejections in 2022, 2023, and 2024. There are many reasons for rising opposition to wind and solar projects. Towns are concerned with the aesthetic impact of 600-foot-high turbine towers and acres of solar panels, the loss of farmland to sprawling wind and solar systems, low-frequency noise from wind turbines, and the impact on nearby property values. Retiring systems generate vast quantities of turbine blade and solar panel waste that fill up local landfills or must be shipped to landfills in other states. Wind and solar require more than 100 times the land compared to coal, gas, or nuclear power generators for the same average electricity output. While traditional power plants are usually located near cities, utility-scale wind and solar systems are spread over wide areas, often on ridge lines and located far from population centers. Therefore, renewables require long transmission lines and two or three times the transmission towers compared to conventional power plants. Residents often oppose the construction of new transmission as well. Some states have decided to overrule local opposition to wind and solar. A 2023 Illinois state law overruled restrictions or bans on wind and solar established by more than half of state counties. A 2023 Michigan state law also overruled local opposition from more than 20 counties. Local opposition can be bypassed in seven other states. In 2024, electric vehicle sales grew only 7% in the US. California and ten other states currently mandate that 35% of new car sales must be EVs in the 2026 model year. With slowing consumer adoption of EVs, these goals are impossible for all states except California. At the end of 2024, Virginia cancelled their EV mandate. Look for other states to cancel as well. As we mentioned, cities and counties in seven states have banned gas appliances in new construction, but in the last five years, 24 states enacted regulations prohibiting city and county bans on gas appliances. Most states want citizens and businesses to be able to choose the home energy that they prefer. Utilities are rethinking plans for renewable electricity. The artificial intelligence revolution may require Texas, Virginia, and other states to double power generating capacity within the next decade. Wind and solar systems can’t meet this demand. Nuclear plants are being restarted, coal plant closings are being postponed, and more than 200 gas-fired power plants are in planning or under construction. Carbon dioxide capture and green hydrogen projects are also being challenged. South Dakota just signed a law prohibiting the use of eminent domain to seize land for CO2 pipelines. CO2 capture projects in Louisiana face severe local opposition. And regional green hydrogen hubs are sure to be opposed. With Trump funding cuts and escalating local opposition to renewables, 2025 may be the beginning of the end of the green energy transition in the United States. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 19:15
Watch Live: SpaceX Readies Rescue Mission For Stranded Astronauts NASA's SpaceX Crew-10 targets a 7:03 pm ET launch of four crew members from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A to the International Space Station. The original launch, scheduled for Wednesday evening, was scrubbed due to a hydraulic system issue with a ground support clamp arm. Commander Anne McClain, pilot Nichole Ayers, mission specialist Takuya Onishi, and mission specialist Kirill Peskov will replace SpaceX's Crew-9, NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksanr Gorbuno, who arrived in the ISS in late September. The mission will also rescue Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Suni Williams, whose weeklong trip in a Boeing Starliner last June turned into a 9-month debacle. There were also politics with the Biden-Harris administration that led to a delayed rescue mission. "T-35 minutes until liftoff. Propellant load of Falcon 9 is underway, and Dragon's escape system is armed," SpaceX wrote on X. T-35 minutes until liftoff. Propellant load of Falcon 9 is underway, and Dragon’s escape system is armed March 14, 2025 Crew-10 is go for launch! Crew-10 is go for launch! pic.twitter.com/xyQzIJ7Abf March 14, 2025 Watch Live: Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 18:56
Lutnick Explains Trump Plan To Eliminate Taxes For Those Earning Under $150,000 US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick says President Donald Trump wants to eliminate taxes on those earning under $150,000 per year once the budget is balanced. U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick speaks next to U.S. President Donald Trump, as they make an announcement at the White House in Washington on March 3, 2025. Leah Millis/Reuters "I know what [Trump’s] goal is ... no tax, for anybody who makes less than $150,000 a year. That’s his goal. That’s what I’m working for," Lutnick told CBS News in a Wednesday interview. The on Thursday, Lutnick told Fox News: "What we discussed was when the president balances the budget, his first move is going to be—he has suggested that he would like to waive taxes for people under $150,000. That's aspirational." Watch: LUTNICK: "What we discussed was when the president balances the budget, his first move is going to be—he has suggested that he would like to waive taxes for people under $150,000. That's aspirational."pic.twitter.com/7V8sEmugWQ March 13, 2025 Lutnick also mentioned Trump's 2024 proposals to end taxes on overtime pay, tips, and Social Security payments - while the president has also touted the creation of an "External Revenue Service" to collect duties, and even floated ending all federal income tax if the tariff revenues are sufficient. "How about no tax on tips? How about no tax on overtime? How about no social security? How about all those things?" Lutnick said on Wednesday. As the Epoch Times notes further, Since taking office in January, Trump has issued tariffs targeting Canada, Mexico, the European Union, and China, as well as broader duties on aluminum, steel, and other products. When asked about tariffs in the CBS interview, Lutnick described them as “the most important thing America has ever had” and suggested that they’re “worth it” despite possible economic pain such as a recession. “The only reason there could possibly be a recession is because the Biden nonsense that we had to live with. These policies produce revenues. They produce growth. They produce factories being built here,” he said. But when asked about how Trump has imposed the tariffs against Canada, which has drawn retaliatory duties from the U.S. neighbor, Lutnick suggested that it only exists because of the United States. “You have to remember, Canada exists leaning on our economy,” he told Fox News. “Let’s face it, cars used to be made in America. Why did Michigan’s cars move to Canada to break out of the [United Auto Workers]? That is just unfair to American workers and American union workers.” He then asked “why we are doing all this business in Canada if they’re not respectful, if they’re not thankful, and they don’t want to do it?” The U.S. Commerce secretary’s remarks came as he met with the premiers of several Canadian provinces on Thursday about the tariffs, which drew praise from Ontario Premier Doug Ford. “We shared a tremendous amount of views back and forth, and I’m feeling very positive,” Ford told reporters near the U.S. Department of Commerce building in Washington. “I just look forward to reaching out again next week, but this, I can honestly say, was the best meeting I’ve ever had coming down here,” he added. Earlier this week, Ford had ordered a 25 percent surcharge on energy exports to three U.S. states in response to the 25 percent U.S. tariff before rescinding that decision ahead of his meeting in Washington. “Both parties are heated and the temperature needs to come down,” Ford told reporters, adding, “When you’re negotiating with someone [and] they call you and they hand over an olive branch, the worst thing I think I could do as premier of Ontario is ignore them.” Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 18:50
DOGE's Key Revelation Authored by James Varney via RealClearInvestigations, As Elon Musk and his tech team urge their fellow Americans to become “domestic auditors” to help rein in federal spending, people have been encouraged to use the Treasury Department’s usaspending.gov website to identify and track government finance. But usaspending.gov is wrong on the biggest picture, RealClearInvestigations (RCI) found. The total amount of spending across “all agencies,” as recorded at usaspending.gov, appears to be 50 percent higher than most experts interviewed for this article think it actually was. In Fiscal Year 2024, for instance, the website pegs total spending at $9.7 trillion, when several experts said it was probably around $6.5 trillion. No one could explain the much bigger figure. Officials with usaspending.gov conceded to RCI that their totals were wrong and said the error, which shows up in similar fashion for the last five fiscal years would be fixed soon. They offered neither an explanation for their higher total nor an estimate of what it should be. Two weeks later, the erroneous figures remain. Budget experts say the website’s seeming multi-trillion-dollar error illustrates a core challenge Musk and his colleagues at the Department of Government Efficiency face as they try to reduce Washington’s spending. In a twist on the classic Washington line, the problem is not just following the money but finding it in the first place. The federal government has become so big and so expensive that even experts have trouble navigating the morass of contracts, awards, grants, loans, and other items that have transformed the U.S. spreadsheet into a labyrinth pitted with dead ends and rabbit holes. “When you see the process has become so arcane even I don’t claim these are real, hard numbers, then you know the process is definitely and irreparably FUBAR,” said David Ditch, using the acronym for “fouled up beyond all repair.” He spent years poring over federal budgets and spending at the conservative Heritage Foundation before moving this month to the Economic Policy Innovation Center. Musk’s job may strike everyday Americans as ordinary in the sense that he’s trying to balance accounts, but Washington is a different animal, and several experts told RCI it stays that way on purpose. The complexity and layers Musk’s team has encountered are a feature, not a bug, according to this view. “Federal government spending is nebulous and almost designed to be that way because no one person benefits from it being straightforward,” said Lydia Mashburn Newman, a managing director at the American Institute for Economic Research. “No one is trying to get a holistic picture of what this or that agency is doing and the way money gets appropriated is very fragmented.” Newman has seen the beast from two sides, as a congressional aide and federal worker, and she says the comprehensive nature of DOGE is something new under the sun for the Washington bureaucracy. “There is no total view of the budget. Congress simply takes last year’s number and changes it, usually to a larger number,” she said. “So the unique thing about DOGE is that it is providing a top-to-bottom audit. It’s not just asking if the books balance, but what is the money actually spent on.” While Musk initially promised to cut some $2 trillion from the federal budget—and news accounts have focused on his efforts to reduce the federal workforce—DOGE’s real accomplishment so far has been to bring attention to the federal government’s broken accounting systems. Despite the hue and cry raised over DOGE, previous alarms have been rung by some other agencies only to be ignored. On Jan. 16, four days before Biden vacated the White House, the Government Accounting Office said it was “unable to provide an opinion on the reliability of the federal government’s consolidated financial statements for fiscal year 2024 and 2023.” The Office of Management and Budget has also flunked six of the 24 departments and agencies it looked at, including Labor and Education. The Defense Department has failed seven consecutive audits, while the Department of Education hasn’t gotten a “clean” opinion for three years. It is hard to pass an audit when you don’t follow the basic rules of accounting. Musk reported that he was having difficulty tracing $4.7 trillion in federal spending because the Treasury Access Symbol (TAS)—a code that links payments to budget items—was allowed to be optional for years and often left blank. In response, Musk tweeted, the Treasury Department now requires “all outgoing government payments have a payment categorization code, which is necessary in order to pass financial audits. ... All payments must also include a rationale for the payment in the comment field, which is currently left blank. Importantly, we are not yet applying ANY judgment to this rationale, but simply requiring that SOME attempt be made to explain the payment more than NOTHING!” At the Treasury’s usaspending.gov, which experts use regularly and consider valid despite the big topline errors, nearly $150 billion is slotted every year into an “unreported data” box. While Musk’s team is reportedly using advanced artificial intelligence systems to comb federal records, it will face a different challenge when tackling the federal employee retirement system. DOGE will confront the “sinkhole of bureaucracy”: records still kept on paper and processed almost entirely by hand by some 700 workers who toil 230 feet below ground in an abandoned limestone mine in northwestern Pennsylvania. The government’s use of antiquated systems helps explain some of Musk’s team’s biggest mistakes so far. This month, they claimed that millions of deceased people—some listed as more than 300 years old—are receiving social security benefits. It turns out DOGE probably misread the data sets, which includes millions of dead people not receiving benefits, in the antiquated, 1960s-era computer system Social Security still used to disperse more than $1.3 trillion to some 68 million people last year. Musk conceded errors will be made, but experts told RCI some are impossible to avoid when trying to get a visible net around the surging ocean of federal government spending. “Complexity isn’t an accident; it’s a consequence of a government that has grown far beyond its core functions and is tied down by a self-serving bureaucracy and public-sector union power,” said Romina Boccia, director of budget and entitlement policy at the libertarian Cato Institute. “That complexity isn’t just an inconvenience—it shields waste, fuels inefficiency, and makes reform harder,” she said. “A government that has grown too big and too far-reaching makes it difficult to track what’s spent, let alone rein it in.” Simply getting the information that Musk and some popular domestic auditors like DataRepublican have made public so far is an accomplishment. In the past, including Trump’s first term, efforts to put all the government’s financial laundry hanging on the line were met with indifference or resistance, according to Newman. “All this seems ordinary to most Americans, but before Musk sent his teams in to get information, it was very time-consuming to get data,” she said. “In Washington, that’s just protocol: You ask for something, and it could take months to get. But DOGE, in partnership with OMB, is no longer allowing the stone-rolling that plagued the last Trump administration.” One of the biggest challenges DOGE might face involves its effort to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse. As RCI reported last year, “Since 2003, when the government first started tracking improper payments, it is estimated that they have added up to more than $2.7 trillion, according to paymentaccuracy.gov, the public website where government agencies report their numbers.” That total is almost certainly a low-ball figure because the feds often rely on states, which also disburse money and often provide spotty accounting of their spending. That $2.7 trillion figure does include $764 billion in improper payments paid during the first three years of the Biden administration to the wrong recipients, for the wrong reasons, or in the wrong amounts. The federal government estimates that nearly 6 percent of its total spending went to improper payments during Biden’s presidency, according to OpenTheBooks.com. During its first four-year term, the Trump administration issued an estimated $673 billion in improper payments, which were about 5 percent of government outlays, the watchdog group said. Yet that money has proven extremely difficult to claw back. An analysis by the Associated Press, for example, “found that fraudsters potentially stole more than $280 billion in COVID-19 relief funding; another $123 billion was wasted or misspent. Combined, the loss represents 10 percent of the $4.2 trillion the U.S. government has so far disbursed in COVID relief aid.” All that DOGE has done so far has dominated headlines and infuriated an entrenched elite in Washington’s bureaucratic warrens. But Trump remains a steadfast supporter of Musk’s work thus far, and in typical fashion promises more to come: “In less than a single month, the Department of Government Efficiency has already saved over 55—this is just a short period of time—$55 billion, and we’re just getting started.” Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 18:25
Learn To Code? Visualizing The Decline Of American Software Developer Jobs The surge in tech hiring in the U.S. in 2021 and 2022 represented one of the most aggressive talent grabs in industry history, only to be followed by widespread layoffs and hiring freezes as economic headwinds and post-pandemic corrections hit the sector. This dramatic swing has reshaped the software development job market, leaving both companies and developers to navigate a new landscape of cautious growth and strategic hiring. This graphic, via Visual Capitalist's Kayla Zhu, shows the percent change in software development job postings on Indeed U.S. since Feb. 1, 2020 to Feb. 28, 2025. The data comes from Indeed via the Federal Reserve and is updated as of March 2025. Figures are seasonally-adjusted. The U.S. Software Developer Hiring Boom Is Over Below, we show the percent change in software development job postings on Indeed U.S. since Feb. 1, 2020 to Feb. 28, 2025. Date U.S. Software Development Job Listings (% change) 2020-02-01 0% 2020-05-01 -30.25% 2020-08-01 -30.70% 2020-11-01 -19.55% 2021-02-01 -1.33% 2021-05-01 26.10% 2021-08-01 51.31% 2021-11-01 92.90% 2022-02-01 123.28% 2022-05-01 122.18% 2022-08-01 93.37% 2022-11-01 54.40% 2023-02-01 22.23% 2023-05-01 -1.51% 2023-08-01 -17.80% 2023-11-01 -25.44% 2024-02-01 -27.13% 2024-05-01 -30.86% 2024-08-01 -30.41% 2024-11-01 -32.45% 2025-02-01 -33.36% 2025-02-28 -36.48% Breaking into tech as a software developer in 2025 won’t be as easy as it was before—job listings are at their lowest in five years, down more than 33% from 2020 levels. Software development job postings soared in 2021 and 2022 as tech companies expanded rapidly, fueled by economic recovery and a surge in startup funding. However, hiring slowed dramatically in 2023 as economic uncertainty, widespread layoffs, and reduced venture capital investment hit the industry. Some other factors behind the decline in software developer jobs include the widespread adoption of AI-powered software development tools that enhance productivity and a shift in focus by tech companies toward efficiency rather than expansion. Despite the overall decline in software development job postings, major tech hubs like the San Francisco Bay Area and New York have continued to see net job growth in the tech sector, including developer roles, over the past few years. To learn more trends in the programming world, check out this graphic that ranks the most popular programming languages on GitHub from 2014 to 2024. * * * We're almost out of green hats now (new batch incoming), but you can still support ZeroHedge with the purchase of a high-quality, sharp, ZeroHedge Multitool. Click pic... add to cart... (buy 2 for free shipping)... enjoy Multitool! Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 18:00
300 Beagles Per Week!? US Continues To Fund Dog Experiments in China Authored by Jeremy Portnoy via RealClearInvestigations, Topline: A Chinese lab is continuing to receive funds from the U.S. to conduct cruel studies on beagles, according to contracts obtained by the nonprofit White Coat Waste Project and shared with the New York Post. Key facts: The $124,200 contract was awarded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences using money from the Pentagon, for the experiments on beagle puppies — as well as mice and rats — at the Beijing-based company’s lab from September 2023 until May 2025. The Chinese company Pharmaron uses the funds to test pharmaceuticals for neurological disorders on 300 beagles per week, as well as mice and rats, White Coat Waste found. Some of the dogs are as young as eight months. Those that suffer organ dysfunction are euthanized, the contract states. Pharmaron’s proposal to the NIH promises to comply with the Animal Welfare Act and notes that “Beagle dog is docile, cute and easy to domesticate.” It describes how the hundreds of dogs, some as young as eight months, “will be reused” throughout the study “to save animals and decrease cost,” while saying those suffering organ dysfunction will be “euthanized.” The DOD’s Office of Inspector General conducted an audit in June, citing Pharmaron, as well as the Chinese biotech firms WuXi AppTec and Genscript Inc., as so-called “companies of concern” and blacklisted from doing business with U.S. firms. A bill to this effect passed the U.S. House of Representatives but was not voted on in the Senate. Background: The research contract is just one example of how the U.S. and China fund each other’s medical research, often resulting in payouts for government scientists and potential national security concerns at taxpayers’ expense. In 2023, 139 foreign companies licensed medical technology invented by NIH scientists, compared to only 102 domestic companies. The businesses included Pokrov Biologics Plant, which researched the weaponization of smallpox for the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and WuXi AppTec, a Chinese firm with alleged military ties and alleged access to American genetic information. Search all federal, state and local government salaries and vendor spending with the AI search bot, Benjamin, at OpenTheBooks.com. Critical quote: Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) claims the federal government spends $20 billion each year on animal testing. “Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency has elevated the problem of wasteful spending from think-tank white papers to a national cover story,” Malliotakis wrote in an op-ed in the Post. “With $36 trillion in national debt — more than $300,000 per taxpayer — there’s a lot of spending to slash. What better way to start than by cutting the $20 billion the government wastes every year on dead-end experiments that torture dogs, cats and other animals?” Summary: Contract oversight is difficult enough when funds stay within America. Foreign contracts open up even more issues and should only be awarded after strict scrutiny. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 17:40
Rutte Confirms NATO Membership For Ukraine Off The Table, Hints At Future Normalization With Russia In fresh comments NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte confirmed that NATO membership for Ukraine is off the table when it comes to negotiations with Russia to end the war. Rutte in an interview Friday was asked by Bloomberg TV’s Annemarie Gordern if Trump has definitely removed the issue of Ukraine’s accession to NATO from the negotiating table. Rutte answered "yes" and nodded in the affirmative when pressed. Image source: NATO The issue of NATO constantly expanding right up to Russia's borders, which especially ramped up in the mid-2000s during the Bush era, has been consistently identified by President Putin as a key motive in his ordering hundreds of thousands of Russian troops into Ukraine in February of 2022. Russia sees this as a continuation of a war in Donbass that was already burning since 2014, which saw CIA and Western intelligence assist Kiev in seeking to push back Russian influence. But the reality has always been that natives on the Donbass are overwhelmingly Russian-speaking and pro-Moscow. Rutte’s predecessor Jens Stoltenberg made a bombshell admission in a televised 2023 speech stating that the bloc's refusal to stop expanding east as a key reason for why the Ukraine war started. "President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement," Stoltenberg said at the time. "That was what he sent us. And [that] was a precondition for not invade [sic] Ukraine. Of course we didn’t sign that." Previous to those words, this was considered a 'pro-Kremlin talking point'. NATO chief Stoltenberg had even emphasized in the remarks that Putin "went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders." But apparently no lessons have been learned, and mainstream Western media has still by and large failed to feature the Stoltenberg admission as part of the narrative on the build-up to war. As for Rutte, he explained in the new Friday Bloomberg TV interview Europe could normalize ties with Russia when the war is over. "It’s normal if the war would have stopped for Europe somehow, step by step, and also for the US, step by step, to restore normal relations with Russia," he stated. Rutte just met with Trump in Washington on Thursday, and then said this... Yesterday, NATO Secretary General, Mark Rutte, was in Washington meeting with Trump. Today, Rutte is now confirming that NATO membership for Ukraine is off the table, and that relations with Russia need to be normalized post-war. I don’t know what Trump told Rutte behind… pic.twitter.com/lya8zbxOK3 March 14, 2025 "The Trump administration, the president himself, broke the deadlock in this war because he started to engage with the Russians. I think that’s positive for the Ukrainians," he stated, in another rare admission. This is a turning point in the rhetoric, as it means NATO's leadership has just backed Trump's efforts to negotiate a final settlement, but likely it will be a difficult, long path - also as Moscow clearly holds the cards on the battlefield at this point, resulting in all the leverage in diplomacy. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 17:20
You've Got A Blackout In Pennsylvania Authored by Athan Koutsiouroumbas via RealClearPennsylvania, Pennsylvania faces an unsettling prospect: California-style blackouts looming on the horizon. This is a troubling shift for a state that proudly stands as a net energy exporter. Yet, despite this enviable position, Pennsylvanians find themselves burdened with residential electricity costs that exceed the national average by 13%. Since 2018, the state’s residents have endured electric rate hikes outpacing those of neighboring states, resulting in a staggering 30% increase in energy costs. That’s driven monthly costs for electricity, heating, and gasoline to $669 per household – one of the nation’s highest. For two decades, energy demand in Pennsylvania held steady. That stability was upended in December 2022, when OpenAI unveiled ChatGPT, igniting an artificial intelligence boom that reverberated across the country. The ripple effects have reached Pennsylvania’s power grid, managed by PJM, the regional operator overseeing the Mid-Atlantic and parts of the Rust Belt. In late 2024, PJM warned that AI and data centers are projected to consume nearly one-sixth of the electricity generated in its territory. This is no small matter. The computational might of AI relies on vast amounts of electricity, and Pennsylvania – with its strategic location in the Northeast Corridor, affordable land, and abundant power infrastructure – has emerged as an ideal hub for these energy-hungry facilities. The numbers paint a sobering picture. Over the next decade, even under the most conservative estimates, the regional grid faces a shortfall of 80,000 megawatts of electricity. Pennsylvania contributes roughly 25% of the power flowing into this grid. A simple calculation reveals the scale of the challenge: to maintain its role as a supplier, the state must add at least 20 new 1,000-megawatt generation plants. Yet, as of now, not a single such facility is under construction, nor are there plans to break ground. As these facilities can take up to five years to build and the gap between demand and supply widens with each passing day, time is not on the side of policymakers. Considering Pennsylvania is known as the “Saudi Arabia of Natural Gas,” how did we get here? For one, many of the state’s energy policies have languished. These outdated laws struggle to accommodate the rapid evolution of technology and the economy it fuels. Blocking the construction of data centers and other AI facilities in Pennsylvania is short sighted as the regional electric grid is interconnected. The electricity to fuel them must come from somewhere or it will only draw more power away from Pennsylvania. Being “All of the Above” matters, whether it be nuclear, gas, renewables or other energy sources. For example, the politically “ruby red” state of Texas has more solar facilities than anywhere else in the country. It is also building 12 new natural gas projects to keep up with demand. Solutions exist, though they require decisive action. First, Pennsylvania’s energy laws must be modernized to reflect the realities of the 21st century. A forward-looking energy policy will unlock billions in private investment for new plants, balancing emissions goals with grid reliability. Twenty-two states have natural gas power plants under construction or in development. Sitting on the world’s largest natural gas reserve, Pennsylvania is shockingly not one of those states. Second, large-scale energy projects – whether natural gas plants, nuclear facilities, or renewable installations – need fast-tracking. The current pace of development is no match for the urgency of the moment. Leading at the federal level, President Trump has authorized expediting large-scale energy projects. However, there are nearly 2,500 smaller shovel-ready energy projects in the regional grid queue languishing that are poised to invest billions of private dollars into rural electric infrastructure improvement. Finally, the state should centralize its site permitting process for energy generation, cutting through the bureaucratic tangle that delays progress. Centralize permitting to slash years off timelines, signaling Pennsylvania is open for business. The irony is stark: a state that exports power to its neighbors now risks leaving its own citizens in the dark. This should be an opportunity for Pennsylvania to fully leverage its potential energy production advantage to serve as a magnet for any enterprise to locate here. The blackout threat is not inevitable. The tools to prevent this crisis are within reach – policy reform, expedited projects, and streamlined approvals. Will we act before the lights go out? Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 17:00
Trump's Envoy Was In Moscow As Ukraine Attacked Capital With Drones Moscow has been targeted by a wave of Ukrainian drones for a second time this week, with the defense ministry saying at least four unmanned aircraft were downed in the attack near the capital. Falling debris reportedly caused significant damage, resulting in emergency crews dispatched, with no reports of injuries. Widely circulating images showed damage to apartment buildings and houses in and around Moscow, however. The attack was accompanied by a direct overnight hit on Russia's southern Krasnodar region, unleashing a large fire at the Tuapse oil refinery on the Black Sea coast. The prior March 11 drone attack killed three people. Result of the prior drone attack on Moscow, March 11, 2025: AFP Krasnodar regional Governor Veniamin Kondratyev in a statement described that a large fire spread to over 1,000 square meters at the facility, which is among Russia's largest. In total, across Russia the fresh assault from Ukraine saw 32 drones intercepted across six regions overnight. Ukraine's government acknowledged the attack wave which "caused significant damage to Russia’s budget, reducing its ability to finance the war in Ukraine and weakening the military potential of the Russian army." Crucially, the attack happened while Trump's special presidential envoy Steve Witkoff was still in Moscow, though he safely departed the country as of later in the day Friday. Result of attack on Rosneft-owned oil refinery in Tuapse overnight... Ukraine attacks with drones Rosneft-owned oil refinery in Tuapse in overnight. #Ukraine#UkraineWar #Russia#Moscow#Tuapse #droneattack#Putin#Zelensky pic.twitter.com/aZQBu30ZT9 March 14, 2025 According to a summary of the Witkoff-Putin meeting: Putin met with Witkoff late Thursday after having kept the American waiting since roughly 12:30 p.m., according to flight tracking data and Russian reports, but ultimately sent him home with “signals” for Trump, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov told reporters. “A lot still needs to be done,” Peskov said of the cease-fire agreement, noting that Witkoff “presented additional information to the Russian side.” “We had very good and productive discussions with President Vladimir Putin of Russia yesterday, and there is a very good chance that this horrible, bloody war can finally come to an end,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Friday morning. Trump’s proposal was straightforward: Russia and Ukraine would halt all conflict for 30 days and conduct a prisoner exchange as signs of both parties’ commitments to finding a peaceful resolution. Witkoff departed Moscow Friday without a ceasefire deal in hand, after the Russia President demanded that during the 30-day pause in fighting that American intelligence to Kiev must be cut off, and further asking that Ukraine not train or resupply forces during the temporary ceasefire. Sky News reports, "According to footage posted of his motorcade leaving and returning to Moscow's Vnukovo airport, he was here for little more than 12 hours." The Trump special envoy had been kept waiting for 8 hours behind the scheduled time to see Putin. But the reality is that if Ukraine felt boldness to attack Moscow with drones literally as Witkoff was still there overnight, it is a clear sign that Zelensky is not interested in this short-term initial truce sticking. In the meantime European leaders are still trying to cobble together a plan that would see European troops deploy to Ukraine to enforce a ceasefire, which the Kremlin has said is an impossibility, and non-starter - as this would bring NATO troops directly to Russia's border and the front lines of the conflict. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 16:40
The Destruction Of The Democrats' Main Grifting Engine Is A Sight To Behold Authored by James Howard Kunstler, “The notion that Europe is able to pose a military threat to Russia does not even qualify as trashy propaganda for sub-zero IQs.” - Pepe Escobar “The left became hideously, ostentatiously, unapologetically corrupt (as ruling parties tend to do). They sold out bigtime and got bigtime rich. You want to know why none of them want to cut waste anymore? because they’re the ones stealing it.” - El Gato Malo on Substack In my quiet backwater of the Hudson Valley, an early spring drives all creation violently. The peaceful sleep of winter ends in twitches and spasms. The ground breaks open like one big egg and all living things emerge: green shafts of the crocus, scuttling sowbugs, slithering snakes, sleek garlic shoots, ‘possums in the compost bucket, ticks are back on the cat’s face, the ice in the river cracks in frightening booms, hungry songbirds infest the bare roadside lilacs, tiny voices trill darkly in the woods, a lone early moth in its first rapture of flight meets the pitiless windshield. You can feel it. The northern hemisphere of this planet shudders, rattles, and rolls into the most tumultuous spring in memory. Everything is in play, turning, turning, while forgotten consequence rises on vengeful wings like an aggrieved god of yore. Nothing will be as it was. A most wicked spell has been broken. What does it feel like to be able to think again? Messrs Trump and Putin sincerely seek to end the age’s stupidest war in Europe’s dumbest country, while the European Union and its outlier Great Britain go ostentatiously more insane every week. They bethink themselves storybook conquerors out of some retrograde history written by gibbering globalists. Macron and Friedrich Merz propose a grand invasion of Russia, as if Napoleon and Hitler had never existed, and they aim to get it done on about three days’ worth of ammunition. You first, Emmanuel, Merz insists. Non, non, pas de tout, Macron demurs with a deep bow. Keir Starmer, Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, and PM of an empire in late-stage sclerosis, does jumping jacks with pom-poms across the channel to cheer on France and Germany in their quixotic quest to conquer of Russia. “Go get’um lads!” he cries. Think of Sir Keir as a Monty Python archbishop as written by George Orwell under the direction of Franz Kafka — there’s what’s left of your jolly old England! Meanwhile Ursula von der Leyen rehearses her part as the wannabe Joan of Arc in this political psychodrama. Her sweet grandmother’s face will smile placidly as the flames tickle her penitent’s robe. She was born for this. A million deracinated Congolese perform the twerk mazurka around her flaming pyre while the muezzins sing out the call to prayer from every minaret around Brussels. Her Hanoverian ancestors weep for Ursula through the mists of the centuries. Was Satan himself behind the contract she signed with Pfizer for as much as 4.6 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccine at a cost of €71-billion? Where did the money come from and where exactly did it go, and what did Ursula finally have to show for it? The European Court of Auditors had a look at this tangled web and blew their lunches all over the rue Alcide De Gasperi in Luxembourg City. Snails, champignon, and shards of puff pastry on the ancient stone steps. A disgrace. You are not compelled to understand all these occult machinations roiling Europe at the moment, except to see that the continent wants to turn itself into the world’s premiere slaughterhouse once again after a seventy-year hiatus from the exciting frolics of World War Two. Almost everyone who lived through that episode is dead now. The cultural memory has faded. Europe is sick of lollygagging in the café, nibbling effete palmier and tartelette. They apparently want to wade across the chilly Vistula River and race to the east, like berserkers, hacking off Slavic limbs and heads along the way. No, it is not true that Donald Trump’s ancestors invented the trumpet, but shrill brassy notes resound all over America these days as his enemies ululate and rend their garments. Liz Warren is yelling from streetcorners like her head’s going to blow plumb off her shoulders. Randi Weingarten was keening on MSNBC like an oboe with a broken reed. The entire two month-long spectacle has been a musical extravaganza. The President and his sidekick, Elon, keep coming at the country’s resident blob-of-evil like pit-bulls on a pack of wild hogs. Shreds of bacon have been flying all over the Beltway. I could have told you years ago that the blob was mostly lard and little meat. Now you know. It’s a sight to behold for the ages. Yet, strange things keep happening day by day. The Democratic Party’s main grifting engine, the USAID, was deconstructed weeks ago, yet we hear that just this week USAID workers were ordered to go back into their offices to shred all their documents. Did they have anything to hide, ya think? Questions: 1) federal janitors pried the nameplate off the building back in February, and we must suppose that somebody also locked the joint up, or what?. 2.) How did these former USAID workers propose to get in the building and do their dirty-work? 3.) Why have we not heard that the FBI or the US Marshals Service was dispatched to prevent such a document shredding party? I wouldn’t worry too much about those cheeky federal judges around the country declaring and ordering this-and-that on Mr. Trump’s campaign to fire federal workers and close down useless agencies. This is a last-gasp ultimate lawfare operation. Let’s assume that Norm Eisen, Mary McCord, Marc Elias, and associates of theirs are the ringmasters in that circus. They will eventually be indicted for all manner of lawbreaking, possibly up to treason. And the SCOTUS will eventually put a sharp end to the judges’ monkeyshines. Judges do not administer executive action out of the executive branch. And Guess what: lawfare is not law. It’s just dirty-fighting dressed up in abstruse ceremonial language. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 16:20
Flu Vaccine Exposed: The Shocking NIH Discovery They Don't Want You To Know Via The Vigilant Fox, Two decades ago, CBS aired a bombshell report on the flu shot, revealing a truth that health officials didn’t want to admit. Despite flu shot uptake among seniors skyrocketing from 15% to 65%, flu deaths continued to climb. NIH scientists were devastated. They expected the data to confirm the vaccine’s effectiveness. But instead, their own research shattered that assumption. So they assumed other factors must be “masking the true benefits of the shots.” However, as Sharyl Attkisson reported at the time, “No matter how they crunched the numbers, they got the same disappointing result. Flu shots have not reduced deaths among the elderly.” WATCH: Atkisson, the reporter in the above clip, later left mainstream news to become an independent journalist focused on exposing Big Pharma, government corruption, and mainstream media lies. Going back to the story, the scientists looked at the flu shot data of other countries in hopes of finding more optimistic data. But what they found instead was “the same poor results in Australia, France, Canada, and the UK.” You can read their disappointing study here. Rather than re-evaluating their approach, health officials doubled down. The CDC refused to acknowledge the failure and instead proposed a “roundabout way” of protecting seniors. Their new strategy? Inject kids to “protect grandma.” Sound familiar? They used the same playbook during COVID. When the pharmaceutical product didn’t work as promised, they pushed mass vaccination of children—not to protect them, but to “shield vulnerable adults.” This strategy failed 20 years ago, yet they’re still pushing the same flawed tactic today—despite children having nothing to gain while taking all the risk. This disturbing reality prompted Kurt Metzger of The Jimmy Dore Show to say, “If they were doing this 20 years ago, they managed to make the same mistake again. That’s a little bit hard to believe it’s a mistake.” Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 15:40
Harvard Prof Calls For Firing Of Any Faculty Not Supporting "Gender-Affirming" Policies Authored by Jonathan Turley, The anti-free speech movement in the United States was largely an outgrowth of higher education where viewpoint intolerance has taken hold of many schools. Indeed, intolerance and orthodoxy are often defended on the left in the name of tolerance and pluralism. Harvard Professor Timothy McCarthy is one of those voices demanding the removal of faculty with opposing views in the name of tolerance. He recently told New York University’s Washington Square News that any faculty who do not support “gender-affirming care” should be stripped of their academic titles and fired. Many academics and citizens oppose “gender-affirming” policies on religious or other grounds. Some believe that school-enforced policies inhibit debate over gender dysphoria and the basis for various treatments and protections on both sides. McCarthy believes that no such debate should be allowed among faculty, declaring that “there’s a particular place in hell for academics who use their academic expertise and power to distort and do violence to people in the world.” He was targeting two professors at NYU who are affiliated with groups critical of surgical and chemical interventions for gender dysphoria. Professor McCarthy offered the usual nod to free speech and academic freedom before eviscerating both in his comments. He admitted that “a level of suspicion and inquiry into medical practices is healthy,” but then dismissed such views as harmful and mere efforts to “poison the waters.” There was a time when such intolerance was directed against the left and groups ranging from feminists to those in the LGBT community. Now, it has become a badge of honor, the expected bona fides that show the correctness and firmness of one’s views. The irony is crushing. Harvard’s Kennedy School website states that McCarthy “was the first openly gay faculty member” at the public policy school “and still teaches the school’s only course on LGBTQ matters.” When I first went into teaching, I had friends who still remained in the closet out of fear that their sexual orientation would undermine their chances for tenure or advancement. Likewise, far-left academics associated with the critical legal studies (CLS) movement were viewed as “poisoning the waters” of higher education and rightfully blocked from teaching. The left has now adopted the same intolerance and orthodoxy once used against it. Indeed, it has been far more successful in purging the faculty ranks of conservatives, libertarians, and dissenters. As we have previously discussed, Harvard is particularly notorious for this purging of both its faculty and student body. This year, Harvard again found itself dead last among 251 universities and colleges in the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) annual ranking. The Harvard Crimson has documented how the school’s departments have virtually eliminated Republicans. In one study of multiple departments last year, they found that more than 75 percent of the faculty self-identified as “liberal” or “very liberal.” Only 5 percent identified as “conservative,” and only 0.4% as “very conservative.” According to Gallup, the U.S. population is roughly equally divided among conservatives (36%), moderates (35%), and liberals (26%). So, Harvard has three times the number of liberals as the nation at large, and less than three percent identify as “conservative” rather than 35 percent nationally. According to the last student survey, only 9 percent of the class identified as conservative or very conservative. Notably, despite Harvard’s maintenance of an overwhelmingly liberal faculty and student body, even liberal students feel stifled at Harvard. Only 41 percent of liberal students reported being comfortable discussing controversial topics, and only 25 percent of moderates and 17 percent of conservatives felt comfortable in doing so. Among law school faculty who donated more than $200 to a political party, 91 percent of the Harvard faculty gave to Democrats. Professor McCarthy appears right at home in his public call for a further purging of faculty ranks. This is an area that has deeply divided the country, as was evident in the last election. Higher education should play a critical role in that debate by allowing faculty and students to engage with each other in civil and substantive debate. Instead of spending so much time and effort trying to silence those with opposing views, the left could instead focus on refuting these claims. Instead, it is replicating that same pattern of cancellations, deplatformings and firings that marked the last decade. It is the same approach used against academics who questioned aspects of COVID policies including mask efficacy doubts, natural immunity theories, opposition to the closing of schools, opposition to the six-foot rule, and the lab theory on the virus’s origin. They were also removed from faculties and associations. Yet, many of these views have since been vindicated. What was lost was not just free speech and academic freedom, but a rigorous debate that might have helped us avoid some of the costs of unsupported COVID policies. For example, some of our closest allies listened to skeptics on the need to close schools and opted to keep young children in school. They were able to avoid the massive educational and psychological costs that we incurred in this country. Much like Professor McCarthy, these skeptics were accused of “poisoning the waters” and spreading harmful ideas or disinformation. There is no difference between the intolerance of figures like Professor McCarthy from those who once sought the same measures against liberals, homosexuals, or feminists. Now firmly in control of higher education, many on the left are using their power to win public debate through retribution, coercion, and attrition. In the process, they are destroying the very essense of higher education for not just our students but ourselves. Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.” Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 15:00
Which US States Import The Most From Canada And Mexico? Following Donald Trump’s imposition of 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, as well as retaliatory tariffs from Canada, trade across North America’s borders has suddenly become much more expensive. This map, via Visual Capitalist's Niccolo Conte, shows how much different U.S. states’ trade is impacted by these tariffs, by visualizing each state’s combined share of imports from Mexico and Canada in 2024. The visualization uses data from the U.S. International Trade Administration. Canada and Mexican Trade Partners Canada and Mexico made up 28% of U.S. goods imports overall in 2024, but some states have a much higher or lower share of their imports coming from the country’s northern and southern neighbors. In the table below is the data for each U.S. state’s combined share of imports from Canada and Mexico, which has the state of Montana leading the pack at 93%. State Combined share of imports from Canada and Mexico (2024) Montana 93% Maine 72% North Dakota 71% Vermont 71% Michigan 69% Wyoming 57% Oklahoma 56% Texas 49% Iowa 48% West Virginia 45% South Dakota 44% Minnesota 44% Utah 43% Connecticut 41% Colorado 38% Illinois 38% Nebraska 38% Missouri 37% Massachusetts 37% Ohio 35% New Mexico 34% Arizona 34% Wisconsin 31% Arkansas 31% Washington, DC 31% Rhode Island 30% Alaska 29% Alabama 28% New Hampshire 25% Louisiana 25% Kansas 24% Delaware 21% Mississippi 21% Washington 20% Idaho 20% North Carolina 19% Maryland 18% Georgia 17% Virginia 17% Tennessee 17% Kentucky 17% Oregon 17% Pennsylvania 16% California 16% Nevada 16% Indiana 16% South Carolina 16% New York 15% Florida 14% New Jersey 11% Hawaii 6% Following Montana in terms of import dependence on Canada and Mexico are Maine (72%), Vermont (71%), and North Dakota (71%), all states which share their northern border with Canada. Montana’s high import dependence is almost entirely on Canada, which alone makes up 92% of the state’s imports. The Treasure State’s shared border with the province of Alberta and its three oil refineries makes it a perfect importer for Canadian crude oil. 76% of Montana’s imports from Canada were oil and gas. Looking at southern states dependent on Canadian and Mexican trade, Texas (49%) and Oklahoma (56%) stand out. Despite being much closer to the southern border, Oklahoma is a similar case to Montana, with 50% of the state’s imports coming only from Canada and 79% of those imports being oil and gas. Texas (the second-largest state economy in the U.S.) is instead much more dependent on imports from Mexico, which make up 40% of the state’s imports overall. The top goods Texas imported from Mexico in 2024 were motor vehicles and their parts at 23%, followed by computer equipment at 22%. To learn more about the effects of Trump’s tariffs on his North American neighbors, check out this graphic on the areas in Canada that have the highest exposure to U.S. tariffs. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 14:40
DOGE, Elon Musk Must Hand Over Documents, Answer Written Questions, Says Judge Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and Elon Musk must give records to attorneys general that sued them, in addition to answering written questions, a federal judge ruled on March 12. White House adviser Elon Musk in Washington on March 9, 2025. Samuel Corum/Getty Images The U.S. government must give New Mexico’s attorney general and 12 other state prosecutors who sued it numerous documents, including those that DOGE and Musk created or edited regarding the termination of federal workers, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled. Chutkan largely granted discovery requests from the attorneys general, who say that the actions by Musk as DOGE’s public face are unconstitutional in part because he was not confirmed by the U.S. Senate. After the judge in February turned down their bid to block DOGE from accessing government data, the attorneys general said Chutkan should grant expedited discovery so they could confirm that Musk and DOGE “are directing actions within federal agencies that have profoundly harmed the States and will continue to harm them” as they prepare a motion for a preliminary injunction. Government lawyers opposed the motion. “The material the States seek is not relevant to their claims; nor should the Court require such discovery on an expedited timeframe before it has even had a chance to adjudicate the Government’s motion to dismiss,” the lawyers said. Chutkan said she was granting expedited discovery because it was “reasonable and necessary to evaluate Plaintiffs’ request for injunctive relief.” She turned aside government arguments that expediting discovery to support the forthcoming injunction motion was not a sufficient reason to speed up discovery. “Courts in this jurisdiction ... have consistently found that preliminary injunction proceedings are exactly the kind of circumstance warranting expedited discovery,” Chutkan said. The case centers on DOGE’s authority or purported lack thereof, and whether it has been working with or directing agencies to cut personnel and agreements. In one filing in the case, a White House official said that Musk, a special adviser to President Donald Trump, was not a DOGE employee and did not have the authority to make decisions. Trump later said that Musk was in charge of DOGE, while former consultant Amy Gleason was named as its acting administrator. DOGE has been assisting various agencies that have terminated tens of thousands of workers since Trump was sworn in on Jan. 20, according to Trump, Musk, and agency officials. Under the new order, which does not apply to Trump, the government must hand over documents on obtaining access to and making changes to federal databases, lists, and summaries regarding the cancellation of federal agreements, as well as documents created or edited in relation to the termination of federal workers. The deadline for discovery is 21 days. DOGE must also identify every individual who has served as the administrator of DOGE, or the functional head of DOGE since Trump took office; every person who is part of DOGE; and all agencies for which DOGE or Musk canceled or directed the cancellation of grants and contracts or the termination of employees, the judge ruled. Chutkan denied the plaintiffs’ request for two depositions, which the attorneys general said would be planned based on the government’s discovery production. “[E]ven though Plaintiffs agree not to seek to depose President Trump or Musk, the court recognizes that depositions impose a heavier burden than written discovery,” the judge said. “If Defendants fail to adequately respond to Plaintiffs’ written discovery, Plaintiffs may renew their requests for depositions.” This is the second order this week requiring DOGE to produce records. A different federal judge on March 10 ordered DOGE to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request, finding that it has been acting independently from the president. A third U.S. judge in February ordered a DOGE worker to sit for a deposition in a separate case that also seeks to block DOGE from accessing some government systems. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 14:20
FBI Investigating "Alarming Rise In 'Swatting' Incidents" Targeting Conservative Influencers FBI Director Kash Patel on Friday responded to a string of 'swatting' incidents targeting conservative media figures in recent days, which came on the heels of the Monday morning murder of InfoWars reporter Jamie White. Multiple conservative content creators, including InfoWars host Chase Geiser, Nick Sotor, Gunther Eagleman, 'Catturd,' and Trump impersonator Shawn Farash, have been targeted in swatting incidents, which typically entail fake or prank phone calls to emergency services that trigger an armed response from police officers to a particular address. "I want to address the alarming rise in ‘swatting’ incidents targeting media figures. The FBI is aware of this dangerous trend, and my team and I are already taking action to investigate and hold those responsible accountable," Patel wrote on X Friday morning. I want to address the alarming rise in ‘Swatting’ incidents targeting media figures. The FBI is aware of this dangerous trend, and my team and I are already taking action to investigate and hold those responsible accountable. This isn’t about politics—weaponizing law enforcement… March 14, 2025 On Wednesday, Geiser posted on X that he was "was just swatted again moments ago, just before 2AM," and that police officers "used a PA system to call me by name and order me to walk out of my house." Geiser was swatted twice within a twelve hour period, the first time Tuesday afternoon and again early Wednesday morning just before 2AM. He described the first incident on the Alex Jones Show, noting that he and his family weren’t at home when the police showed up at his house. Geiser said when he met the police in his driveway, they were still receiving 311 messages about his property. “So there was a campaign of swatting my property,” he told Jones. After the second incident, the Info Wars reporter posted on X that “6 to 8 police officers used a PA system to call me by name and order me to walk out of my house.” I was handcuffed in the middle of the street, presumably at gunpoint though I couldn’t tell because of the light being shined on my face. I was then led into the house where my wife was woken up and we were informed that they received a call from someone pretending to be me and threatening to kill my family. -American Greatness "I was handcuffed in the middle of the street, presumably at gunpoint though I couldn’t tell because of the light being shined on my face. I was then led into the house where my wife was woken up and we were informed that they received a call from someone pretending to be me and threatening to kill my family." Swatted for a second time in 12 hours. Here’s the video. Long live InfoWars. pic.twitter.com/H0nIt8NjcC March 12, 2025 Nick Sortor, another conservative influencer with over 900,000 followers on X, wrote on Thursday that his family members were swatted. "A dozen cops attempted to kick my dad’s door in at gunpoint,” he said Thursday, adding that “This is literal ... terrorism. And the FBI should treat it as such." "In my dad’s case, the caller told police my dad was killing my entire family, requiring them to intervene with deadly force. This is nothing short of attempted murder. They wanted the police to kill my father." Both my dad and my sister were swatted tonight. A dozen cops attempted to kick my dad’s door in at gunpoint. This is literal fucking terrorism. And the FBI should treat it as such. Before calling in the swat, this dumbshit sent my sister an email calling me a Nazi, of course.… pic.twitter.com/LVNgXZ16Im March 13, 2025 Also Thursday, conservative influencer Gunther Eagleman wrote on X that "my house was just swatted," and that someone had "called in a fake hostage situation." "Fortunately, I have good relations with law enforcement, and extra patrols will be added. I don’t tolerate threats and will find the culprit." The gloves are off. First off, my family is safe. My house was just swatted. Some ignorant fuck called in a fake hostage situation. Fortunately, I have good relations with law enforcement, and extra patrols will be added. I don’t tolerate threats and will find the culprit.… March 13, 2025 On Thursday night, Elon Musk favorite "Catturd" was swatted at his Texas residence, according to journalist Breanna Morello. 🚨BREAKING🚨@catturd2 was swatted for a fourth time last night. Many conservatives aren’t willing to go on the record when they’re swatted. I can confirm about 6 incidents in the last 48 hours. What’s the FBI doing about this? Well I asked, but the FBI has not issued a… March 14, 2025 Conservative radio host Joe Pags was also swatted. Yes -- my family and I were swatted. This is how it went down. Including the video I saw on my front door camera at 2:35am. How would you have reacted? This has to stop pic.twitter.com/uP5DeF6hSc March 14, 2025 Farash thanked Patel, offering to provide any information that "can be helpful." Thank you! We were swatted yesterday and are very happy to hear that this is a priority at the FBI. If there is anything that we can do or any info we can provide that can be helpful we'd be more than happy to share it March 14, 2025 My wife and I were swatted tonight. We are totally safe. Thank you to everyone who checked in. We are going to do whatever is necessary to find out who is behind these coordinated attacks and hold them accountable to the fullest extent. Thank you all for the support! pic.twitter.com/TRYsx0PF1d March 14, 2025 In response to the swattings, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) called it "pure domestic terrorism." Swatting = pure domestic terrorism https://t.co/S8p9B23oHy March 14, 2025 US Attorney for the District of Columbia Ed Martin released a statement Thursday night following the swattings. "Swatting is a violent criminal act," he posted on X, adding "If any perpetrators are discovered in the District of Columbia or originate from here, you will be arrested, we will put you in jail and prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law." Swatting is a violent criminal act. #NoOneIsAboveLaw March 14, 2025 Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 14:00
Stupidity And The 5 Laws Not To Follow Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com, Human stupidity is the one thing you can rely on in financial markets. I recently read a great piece by Joe Wiggins at Behavioral Investment, which discusses why “Investing is hard.” The entire article is worth reading, but here are the five key reasons investors often fail at investing: Sensible decisions will frequently make us look stupid, Crystal balls aren’t enough, Sentiment can overwhelm everything, A longer time horizon doesn’t guarantee success, and; Extremes matter. These are great points, particularly now that there is ample evidence that investors’ “crystal balls” have failed, with markets continuing to trade at extremes. Last week’s #BullBearReport made such a point. “At our 2025 Economic and Investment Summit, we discussed the exceedingly high valuations investors pay to own assets. The chart below shows the S&P 500’s current deviation from its long-term, exponential growth trend. At 147%, that deviation is among the highest levels on record and surpasses that of both the “Dot.com” and “Financial Crisis” peaks. Unsurprisingly, investors’ overpayment of future earnings has also pushed current valuations to some of the highest levels on record.” Rationalizing Exuberance Of course, as prices rise, investors must avoid “sensible decisions.” Instead, they rationalize current extremes and how they can become more “extreme-ier.“ As noted in that report, the following is a list of the most common rationalizations used over the last decade. Corporate managers have become so adept at their jobs that profit margins and equity valuations will remain at or rise from current nearly unprecedented levels. The Fed will always bail out the market. Technology companies are the best place to invest now and in the future, as they can continue to grow their earnings. Corporations, via stock buybacks, will continue to be the predominant purchaser of U.S. stocks. Liquidity flows to the financial markets are never going to stop. Central Banks can permanently prop up asset prices. Valuations don’t matter. Just the Fed. The stock market is a situation where you can’t lose. Buy stocks as they always go up. This time is different. “The following chart best encapsulates the last point. At no point in previous history have consumers been this confident about higher stock prices in the next year. Of course, that optimism is encapsulated by the rise in trailing one-year valuations.” That analysis got me thinking about an article I wrote in 2019 entitled “The 5 Laws of Human Stupidity” and how they apply to investing. The background was a study done in 1976 by Carol M. Cipolla, a professor of economic history at the University of California, Berkeley. The professor published an essay outlining the fundamental laws of a force perceived as humanity’s greatest existential threat: stupidity. Stupid people, according to Cipolla, share several identifying traits: they are abundant, they are irrational, and; they cause problems for others without apparent benefit to themselves According to Cipolla, the result is that “human stupidity” lowers society’s total well-being and there are no defenses against stupidity. “The only way a society can avoid being crushed by the burden of its idiots is if the non-stupid work even harder to offset the losses of their stupid brethren.” While we can’t do much about the seemingly rising level of “human stupidity,” we can apply Cipolla’s five basic laws to investing and the mistakes investors repeatedly make over time. Law 1: Always and inevitably, everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation. “No matter how many idiots you suspect yourself surrounded by you are invariably low-balling the total.” – Cipolla In investing, the problem of investor “stupidity” is compounded by a variety of biased assumptions. Individuals assume that when the media publishes something, superficial factors like the commentator’s job, education level, or other traits suggest they can’t possibly be stupid. We, therefore, attach credibility to their opinions as long as they confirm our own. This is called “confirmation bias.” If we believe the stock market will rise, we tend only to seek out news and information supporting our view. This confirmation bias is a primary driver of individuals’ psychological investing cycles, as shown below. I discussed this previously in “Bob Farrell’s 10 Illustrated Rules.” “As a contrarian investor, along with several of the points already made within Farrell’s rule set, excesses are built by everyone on the same side of the trade. Ultimately, when the shift in sentiment occurs – the reversion is exacerbated by the stampede going in the opposite direction.” As individuals, we want “affirmation” that our current thought processes are correct. Human beings hate being told they are wrong, so we tend to seek out sources that tell us we are “right.” This is why “social media” has become such a pervasive problem in the spread of misinformation. Individuals huddle into their own “echo chambers,” which exclude intelligent debates and, in many cases, actual facts. It is always important to consider both sides of every debate equally and analyze the data accordingly. Being right and making money are not mutually exclusive. Law 2: The probability that a certain person is stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person. Cipolla posits that stupidity is a variable that remains constant across all populations. Every category one can imagine—gender, race, nationality, education level, income—has a fixed percentage of stupid people. When investing, ALL investors, individuals, and professionals are subject to making “stupid” decisions. As we have shown previously, professional investors are just as subject to “buying high and selling low” as retail investors. Though we are often unconscious of the action, humans tend to “go with the crowd.” Much of this behavior relates to “confirmation” of our decisions and the need for acceptance. The thought process is rooted in the belief that if “everyone else” is doing something, then if I want to be accepted, I need to do it, too. In life, “conforming” to the norm is socially accepted and, in many ways, expected. However, “herding” behavior drives market excesses during advances and declines in the financial markets. As Howard Marks once stated: “Resisting – and thereby achieving success as a contrarian – isn’t easy. Things combine to make it difficult; including natural herd tendencies and the pain imposed by being out of step, since momentum invariably makes pro-cyclical actions look correct for a while. (That’s why it’s essential to remember that ‘being too far ahead of your time is indistinguishable from being wrong.’ Given the uncertain nature of the future, and thus the difficulty of being confident your position is the right one – especially as price moves against you – it’s challenging to be a lonely contrarian.” Investors generate the most profits in the long term by moving against the “herd.” Unfortunately, most individuals have difficulty knowing when to “bet” against those who are “stupid.” Law 3. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or a group of persons while deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses. Consistent stupidity is the only consistent thing about the stupid. This is what makes stupid people so dangerous. As Cipolla explains: “Essentially stupid people are dangerous and damaging because reasonable people find it difficult to imagine and understand unreasonable behavior.“ Throughout history, investors have been constantly drawn into investment strategies promoted by various “industry professionals,” ultimately leading to losses. Many of these professionals are generally “YouTubers” or media writers looking for clicks and views with sensational headlines. However, they don’t manage money or have real “skin in the game.” Others are trying to sell products like gold or annuities. However, if their predictions are wrong, no one holds them accountable, yet the damage they inflict on others can be significant. Despite the historical realities of investing, investors can suffer losses from being consistently told the “market is going to crash.” However, there is also the flip side, where retail investors are told to expect above-average market returns in the future consistently. Such has led to a surge in speculative trading in leveraged ETFs, options, and even “meme coins.” Unfortunately, there is no evidence that markets can compound high growth rates from current valuation levels. There is a difference between average and actual returns on invested capital. The impact of losses in any given year destroys the annualized “compounding” effect of money. “Unless you have contracted ‘vampirism,’ then you do NOT have 90, 100, or more, years to invest to gain “average historical returns.” Given that most investors do not start seriously saving for retirement until the age of 35, or older, they have about 30-35 years to reach their goals. If that period happens to include a 12-15 year period in which returns are flat, as history tells us is probable, then the odds of achieving their goals are severely diminished. What drives those 12-15 year periods of flat to little return? Valuations. Just remember, a 20-year period of one-percent returns is indistinguishable from ZERO with respect to meeting savings goals.” Individuals who experienced either one or both of the last two major bear markets now understand the importance of “time” in relation to their investment goals. Individuals who were close to retirement in either 2000 or 2007 and failed to navigate the subsequent market drawdowns have had to postpone their retirement plans, potentially indefinitely. Yet despite the losses incurred by both professionals and individuals, just a decade after the largest financial crisis since the “Great Depression,” individuals are piling on excessive risk once again under the guise that “this time is different.” Talk about stupid. You should turn off the media when it comes to your investing because investors “buy high and sell low” for a reason. “Greed” and “Fear” are far more powerful in driving our investment decisions versus “Logic” and “Discipline.” As Jason Zweig previously wrote: “The traditional explanations for believing in an investing tooth fairy who will leave money under your pillow are optimism and overconfidence: Hope springs eternal, and each of us thinks we’re better than the other investors out there. There’s another reason so many investors believe in magic: We can’t handle the truth.” All of which leads us to: Law 4: Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular, non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places, and under any circumstances, dealing with and/or interacting with stupid people is a costly mistake. There is a rising course of commentary that major bear markets and recessions are now a thing of the past. The Federal Reserve and central banks globally will quickly meet any significant event that will rescue a failing market. There is certainly reason for that expectation after the last 15 years of the Federal Reserve doing exactly that. Such is why today, more than ever, there is a palatable “fear of missing out” by investors. However, as we have seen throughout history, “stupid” people tend to do exactly the opposite during a crisis, unlike what “non-stupid” people expect. There are the “perennial bears” that keep investors out of rising bull markets with tales of “horror and destruction.” Then there are the “perennial bulls” who keep telling investors to “hang on, keep putting money in. You’re a long-term investor, right?” These are the ones who never see the bear market destruction until well after the fact and then simply say, “Well, no one could have seen that coming.” Non-stupid people, however, are conservative. They work to participate in rising markets but analyze the risk of loss and conserve capital during declines. As such, you can improve your outcomes by surrounding yourself with those who understand “risk and reward” and the “math of loss.” As Howard Marks stated above, sometimes being a contrarian is lonely. When we underestimate the stupid, we do so at our peril. This brings us to the fifth and final law: Law 5: A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person. Following the “herd” has always ended badly for investors. In every full-market cycle, there is an inevitable belief that “this time is different” for one reason or another. It isn’t. It has never been. And this time, it will not be different either. However, what has always separated the great investors from everyone else is their ability to act independently of the “herd.” Successful investors have discipline, strategy, and a drive to succeed. They don’t “buy and hold,” and they buy cheap and sell expensive. Lastly, they avoid major losses at all costs and deeply understand the relationship between risk and reward. They are the “non-stupid.” These are the ones you want to follow. Not the ones screaming at you on television telling you to “buy, buy, buy” or to “sell, sell, sell.” Remember that for every full-market cycle, our job is to participate in the first half of the cycle as prices rise and avoid the devastation during the second half. “Non-stupid” investors don’t spend much time getting back to even. “Getting back to even” is an investing strategy better left to the “herd.” As Joe Wiggins noted – “investing is hard.” * * * For more in-depth analysis and actionable investment strategies, visit RealInvestmentAdvice.com. Stay ahead of the markets with expert insights tailored to help you achieve your financial goals. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 13:40
Gabbard Nixes Choice Of Israel Critic For Key Post After Pro-Israel Voices Object For anyone desperate to see the Trump administration's hawkish and intensely pro-Israel element offset by bona fide America First voices in key intelligence positions, the selection of retired US Army Lt. Col. Daniel Davis to oversee the production of the President's Daily Brief seemed almost too good to be true. Alas, that has proven to be the case, as an eruption of objections and smears from Israel-supporters killed his job offer in a matter of hours. Retired US Army LTC Daniel Davis was poised to take a powerful intel post, but his criticism of US-Israel policy cost him the role (via The American Conservative) Davis is a senior fellow at Defense Priorities, one of few Washington think tanks that are skeptical of foreign interventionism and militarism. He first rose to national attention in 2011 when, as an Army officer, he blew the whistle on the jarring difference between the real-life situation in Afghanistan and the fraudulently false characterizations being voiced by top military officials. Fast-foward to March 2025: Trump Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was poised to appoint Davis to serve as the Deputy Director for Mission Integration. One of his chief responsibilities would have been compiling the President's Daily Brief (PDB), a highly-classified digest of intelligence assessments that's written for the president and distributed to a small group of senior-most officials, such as the vice president, national security advisor, and the secretaries of Defense and State. The role does not require Senate confirmation. If the US truly wants to avert a full-on war in the Middle East, we have to identify and resolve the underlying causes of the war, not just take out the leader of the side we dislike the most - and that means significantly curtailing Israeli actions that make war more likely, August 27, 2024 In addition to being a skeptic of the US proxy war in Ukraine and calling for the withdrawal of American forces from Syria, Davis has pointedly criticized US backing of the Israeli war in Gaza, and has argued that America's confrontationalist approach to Iran only serves to incentivize the country to begin developing a nuclear weapon. Those latter sentiments are anathema to Israel and its backers inside the United States. --and let me say before anyone else brings it up: to those who would scream "October 7th!" let me reply. The history of this conflict did not begin on that day. In the summer PRIOR to 10/7, the IDF was on a brutal fight against Palestinians. https://t.co/TLFzIunGGJ August 27, 2024 On Wednesday, the knives came out, with Jewish Insider sounding an alarm about the imminent ascension of the "anti-Israel" Davis to the critical post. From the Jewish Insider article, here a partial list of Davis's purported sins that made him intolerable to those who seek to perpetuate America's status quo, Israel-catering policies: He's criticized America's backing of Israel's war on Gaza. In a commentary on the ghastly civilian toll, Davis tweeted, "On a practical level, we give away enormous leverage and credibility globally to hold *anyone* accountable for acts of wanton violence, bc we not merely turn a blind eye to it, we cheer it on and supply the means to do more. On a moral level, this is a stain on our character as a nation, as a culture, that will not soon go away." He's quite reasonably asserted that Israel-Gaza hostilities didn't commence with the Oct. 7 Hamas invasion of southern Israel. "This goes back *decades* of repression and the Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip being effectively incarcerated, with limited or no freedoms, and no path to a future and a hope," Davis said on X. On free speech grounds, Davis criticized Sen. Ted Cruz for supporting policies that would cut off federal funds to universities that allow pointed criticism of Israel. "I’m sorry, Senator, but that is as unAmerican as anything has ever been done. You violate the very spirit of our constitution you claim to defend." He shared an article about the medical journal Lancet estimating that the death toll in Gaza was well above the count of casualties that had thus far been reported by Gaza's health ministry. In the context of mixed signals about the pursuit of a ceasefire in Lebanon, Davis said Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was "playing the US like a cheap fiddle...we are being used and it's embarrassing." He's stated that Iran is merely a "marginal regional power," and stridently opposes a US attack on the country's nuclear facilities. “I don’t know who Trump has hired for his advisor, who’s giving him such absurd advice, but hitting the nuclear facilities of Iran is far more dangerous and difficult than what he believes,” wrote Davis. On his YouTube show, "Daniel Davis Deep Dive," he hosted a guest who has rightly questioned Western claims that the Syrian government used chemical weapons against its civilian population, and has hosted UK MP George Galloway and retired Col Douglas MacGregor who've been "accused of antisemitism" -- a smear that's routinely wielded against people who merely criticize the actions of the State of Israel and the nature of the US-Israel relationship. Jewish Insider's flimsy indictment was immediately amplified by an assortment of neocons, including radio host Mark Levin, who insinuated that Davis is antisemitic. The Israel-backing Anti-Defamation League followed suit, saying "it would be extremely dangerous" for Davis to be named Deputy Director of National Intelligence. Florida Sen. Rick Scott piled on, telling Jewish Insider he was "absolutely shocked by [Davis'] comments: "President Trump is the most pro-Israel president in our nation's history, and I fully expect every member of the administration to enact his agenda and stand strong with our great ally, Israel." Davis was already undergoing the background check required for the job. However, within hours of the Jewish Insider article, he was told he wouldn't be coming on board. Citing a senior Trump administration official, the Times said Gabbard "reconsidered her choice given the criticism, and other officials confirmed the decision." Neocons quickly took to social media to spike the football. Laura Loomer expressed relief, saying that Davis "would be a national security nightmare." Levin credited Trump for barring Davis from the White House: According to news reports, Mr. Davis March 13, 2025 On the other hand, writing at Responsible Statecraft, Kelley Beaucar Vlahos lamented the killing of Davis' appointment: It is not surprising that the most strident voices in the War Party, particularly pro-Israel hawks trying desperately to manage the remembered history of the 9/11 wars, had it in for him. He is an anathema to everything they have stood for over the last two decades: he is against the U.S. trying to impose its interests and values on the world via foreign regime change, he believes the military is overextended and needlessly placed in harm's way overseas, and he has criticized the military industrial complex for risking troop readiness and basic conventional warfighting capabilities by deferring to the war profiteers in the industry. He has also echoed George Washington's warning about entangling alliances in his own warnings about unconditional aid to Israel and Ukraine. As the old adage goes, "personnel is policy." From the exclusion of the non-interventionist, America-first Daniel Davis to calling for Rep. Thomas Massie to be ousted from Congress, the Trump White House is plotting a course that diverges from the principles it supposedly espouses. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 13:20
Will Putin Agree To A Ceasefire? Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack, There are five compelling arguments for either scenario. Ukraine just agreed to a month-long ceasefire after talks with the US in Jeddah, but it’s conditional on Russia agreeing to the same, which remains uncertain. Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to pay his second trip to Moscow in just as many months later this week, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz plans to speak to Russian officials soon, while Trump said that he hopes to talk to Putin by Friday. All three will try to convince Putin to silence the guns. Here’s why he might not agree to do that: 1. Russia Wants To Liberate All The Occupied Territories Putin declared last June that he’d only agree to a ceasefire if Ukraine withdrew from the entirety of the four regions that voted to join Russia in September 2022 and publicly abandoned its plans to join NATO. That was shortly before Ukraine invaded Russia’s universally recognized Kursk Region. Agreeing to a ceasefire now with no guarantee that it’ll lead to the liberation of those five regions could result in the indefinite occupation of at least some of them if the front lines harden into a Korean-DMZ. 2. The Front Lines Might Soon Collapse To Russia’s Benefit It’s obvious that one of the primary reasons why Ukraine agreed to a month-long ceasefire conditional on Russia agreeing to the same, apart from resuming the US’ previously cut military and intelligence aid, is to prevent the front lines from soon collapsing to Russia’s benefit. Aware of this, Russia might decide to carry on – perhaps advancing while negotiating additional terms to the proposed ceasefire – in order to take full advantage of this, thus raising the chances of speedily liberating all the occupied territories. 3. Russia Wants To Scare Away Western Peacekeepers European peacekeepers might enter Ukraine during the month-long ceasefire, or some of their “mercenaries” who are already there might simply switch uniforms to then take on this role instead, which Russia already said would be absolutely unacceptable and make them legitimate targets. Keeping the conflict going might therefore scare them away from this and thus ensure that de facto NATO forces are kept as far away from Russia’s western border as possible. 4. Some Of The Russian Public Don’t Want A Ceasefire A significant share of the Russian public, including veterans of the special operation, are thought to be against any ceasefire since they’d consider it to be stopping halfway instead of finishing the job after all the sacrifices that were paid to get this far. The authorities are sensitive to public opinion on the conflict, especially from veterans, so their opposition to this might be taken into consideration more than outside observers expect and could thus push Putin a lot closer to rejecting a ceasefire than most other factors. 5. Putin Might Really Believe That Trump Is Bluffing And finally, the most decisive factor might be that Putin truly believes that Trump is bluffing about “escalating to de-escalate”, whether economically-financially through the strict enforcement of secondary sanctions against India, China, etc., and/or militarily by going all-in backing Ukraine. If that’s the case, then it follows that Putin only entertained negotiations to see whether he could achieve his maximum goals through diplomatic means, absent which he’d continue pursuing them militarily. There’s also the chance that Putin agrees to a ceasefire, which could be explained in the following ways: 1. Russia Wants To Avert Disproportionate Dependence On China Trump’s tweet last Friday suggested that he plans strict secondary sanctions enforcement against India and China if Putin rejects a ceasefire, which could lead to the first complying and thus placing Russia in the position where it would become much more dependent on the second. Russia has thus far relied on India as its friendly counterbalance vis-a-vis China, but if Putin is informed that this might no longer be the case if Russia keeps fighting, then he might opt for peace to avoid becoming China’s junior partner. 2. It Also Wants To Beat China To The Chase With The “New Détente” Putin wouldn’t just be rejecting a ceasefire, but also a “New Détente” with the US, which could lead to China replacing Russia in this arrangement if Trump travels to China next month like the latest reports claim and then negotiates a deal for ending their trade war. The recalibrated triangulation that might follow wouldn’t be in Russia’s interests, especially if the US gets China to comply with sanctions in order to coerce Russia into peace, so Putin might agree to a ceasefire in order to avert this scenario as well. 3. The “New Détente” Could Geopolitically Revolutionize The World Putin might calculate that beating China to the chase with the “New Détente” and becoming more of a strategic partner to the US than the EU are worth pragmatic compromises on Ukraine since these two outcomes could geopolitically revolutionize the world to Russia’s grand strategic advantage. If that’s what he’s thinking, then he might defy popular expectations to boldly agree to a ceasefire, after which publicly financed media would explain the rationale to Russia’s supporters at home and abroad. 4. Additional (& Even Secret) Terms Might Be Attached To The Ceasefire Building upon the above, additional (and even secret) terms might be attached to the ceasefire for guaranteeing that Western peacekeepers won’t enter Ukraine and that the US won’t maximally rearm it during that period, which Russia could get the US to agree to via creative resource diplomacy. Giving the US privileged access to Russian energy and minerals, especially the rare earth ones that it needs for competing with China, might be all that it takes for Trump to put the kibosh on those two aforesaid fears. 5. Putin Might Really Believe That Trump Is Serious And finally, the most decisive factor might be that Putin truly believes that Trump is serious about “escalating to de-escalate”, in which case he might prefer not to risk a Cuban-like brinksmanship crisis that could hypothetically end with Russia compromising on much more than if it agreed to a ceasefire. Putin is a pragmatist who prefers managing tensions instead of exacerbating them, with the only recent exception being the decision to use the Oreshniks as explained here, so he might take Trump up on this. Everyone will soon find out whether or not Putin agrees to a ceasefire, but whichever decision he makes, the five reasons that were shared for each scenario would compellingly explain his choice. It’s anyone’s guess what he’ll do since each scenario’s arguments are persuasive and he knows that this is his most fateful decision since the special operation. Putin might therefore ask their respective Kremlin proponents to debate amongst themselves in front of him one last time before making up his mind. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 13:00
OMG, Obama Was Also A Nazi... Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news, Well, well, well... look what crawled out of a time capsule. In a now viral clip, dating from 2011, Barack Obama is pimping his very own “Campaign to Cut Waste,” a quaint little crusade to stop taxpayers from funding crap like a website for forest rangers who apparently moonlight as SoundCloud rappers. “I’ll put their jams on my iPod,” Obama smirks, “but I’m not paying for their bandwidth.” Joe Biden, then just Obama’s loyal sidekick, got saddled with the gig, which is probably why nothing ever came of it. OMG. Obama was a Nazi too. pic.twitter.com/rN6DuombwL March 14, 2025 Elon Musk himself noted “Obama sounds exactly like DOGE!!” Obama sounds exactly like @DOGE!! https://t.co/k92s04pJdY March 14, 2025 Indeed, in June 2011 Obama signed Executive Order 13576 aiming to streamline government operations and save billions, including through selling excess federal property. Does this sound familiar? Obama announces his own 'DOGE' in 2011. Making the government more efficient is a bad thing now though. Got it? pic.twitter.com/oXpPjd8AQc March 14, 2025 Obama noted at the time “From the day I took office, I said that we would go through the federal budget line by line to cut out waste and make government more efficient. That’s what this executive order is about. We can’t wait for Congress to do this work. We can’t wait for them to get our fiscal house in order and make the investments we need to keep America great.” Keep America what now? He continued,”So today, I’m signing an executive order that will cut waste and promote more efficient spending across government agencies. We’re cutting what we don’t need so we can invest in what we do need.” Obama added, “I asked all of my Cabinet Secretaries to take a hard look at their budgets and report back on wasteful and inefficient spending at their agencies. And what they found was that certain spending—like buying promotional water bottles, paying for unused cell phones, booking unnecessary travel—is unacceptable.” So exactly what Trump and Musk are doing now then. “We’re on track to save billions by selling off excess federal property,” Obama further urged, adding “the Vice President and I launched the Campaign to Cut Waste to root out misspent tax dollars across every agency and department… this order is one more step to make sure we’re delivering a government that’s efficient, effective, and accountable to the American people.” But somehow now its fascist. OK? Weird how no one called him Hitler. March 14, 2025 All these democrats in 2010-2012 sound like they would be the number one supporters of DOGE March 14, 2025 So the leftist pivot is now ‘this…’Obama did it sensibly, not with a chainsaw.’ He did it with tact and skill and you posed with a chainsaw for a photo op while some people suffered from your decisions. Perception matters and optics matter. I don’t disagree with what you’re working on but consider the execution and methodology in which things were… March 14, 2025 Ahhhh, got ya. RIP fiddlin foresters pic.twitter.com/nTVG84YqU5 March 14, 2025 Maybe the fiddlin' foresters were not the most pressing thing to go after? No one is upset with the idea of DOGE. They are upset that you are causing mass hysteria all at once. Too many moving pieces and making a lot of mistakes. March 14, 2025 They certainly seem upset with DOGE. Obama wasn't cutting agencies in half or almost in their entirety. He was computerizing processes, getting rid of paperwork/paper files – nothing like DOGE. March 14, 2025 PIVOT! There's nothing wrong with DOGE in principle. What's in question is whether it's being applied correctly March 14, 2025 * * * 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. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 12:20
Beijing Fumes Over BlackRock's Panama Port Deal With CK Hutchison China's top office on Hong Kong affairs reposted sharp criticism of Hong Kong-based conglomerate CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd.'s deal with a BlackRock-led consortium to purchase Panama Canal ports. The commentary from the local paper Ta Kung Pao cited netizens who called the billionaire founder of the holdings company "spineless" and questioned which "side he should stand on," according to Bloomberg. It said that social media users have accused the conglomerate founded by billionaire Li Ka-shing of "spineless groveling," ignoring China's interests and "selling out all Chinese people" in the quick deal announced last week. ... Faced with such a major event and a matter of great justice, the relevant companies should think twice, think carefully about the nature and crux of the issue, and think carefully about what position and side they should stand on," the commentary said. -BBG Last week, the BlackRock-led consortium agreed to purchase a controlling stake in CK Hutchison's Panama ports for $19 billion. The Trump administration had highly publicized the Chinese-owned ports as a national security risk to US supply chains and the US military. Additionally, Panama holds a strategic position for Trump as he begins to revive hemispheric defense across the Americas. David Blennerhassett, an analyst at Quiddity Advisors, noted that the BlackRock deal with CK Hutchison is a "massive complex deal, one that may take the better part of 2025 to complete; therefore gyrations in the share price will occur as deal specifics and various regulatory approvals are addressed." On Friday, CK Hutchison shares dropped 7% in Hong Kong trading. Local paper Ta Kung Pao continued: "Faced with such a major event and a matter of great justice, the relevant companies should think twice, think carefully about the nature and crux of the issue, and think carefully about what position and side they should stand on." Bloomberg noted the port deal "involves only overseas assets" and is "unlikely to need Beijing's sign-off." Bloomberg Intelligence infrastructure analyst Denise Wong said the port deal is "widely perceived as commercially favorable for the company, valuing the port assets at the higher end of the industry range." CK Hutchison's market capitalization has only increased by $5 billion following last week's initial news release—just a fraction of the $19 billion the firm is expected to receive when the port deal is completed. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 12:00
Will Canada Join The European Union? By Bas van Geffen, senior macro strategist of Rabobank Brussels’ response to Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs has put the European Union in the US president’s crosshairs. Europe announced a 99-page list of American-made goods that may be subject to rebalancing tariffs from April 1, including motor cycles, food & agriculture products, and clothing. President Trump, of course, was not amused. He claims that the EU has imposed “a nasty 50% tariff on whisky,” adding that the US will shortly counter this with “a 200% Tariff on all WINES, CHAMPAGNES, & ALCOHOLIC PRODUCTS” unless the EU removes its tariffs immediately. Such a response was to be expected, after Canada’s earlier run-in with the American president. In his tariffs aimed specifically at Canada, President Trump had included a carve-out for energy imports, which would ‘only’ face a 10% tariff. That’s entirely in the US’ interest, as certain states rely heavily on Canadian energy. But Ontario also knows just how interconnected the US and Canadian power grids are. So, when Trump announced steel and aluminium duties earlier this week, Ontario threatened to levy export duties on electricity provided to the US. The US President was equally dismayed at the Canadian response, threatening an additional 25% tariff on Canadian steel and aluminium. Both sides backed down eventually, and neither the Ontario’s export duty, nor the additional US tariff went into force. However, Canada’s counterbalancing tariffs on US imports remain into force. Canadian and US officials had a “constructive” meeting yesterday, but the talks ended without any concrete results. Both sides will meet again next week. As Trump alienates both the EU and Canada, the President’s two targets are getting more aligned. EC President Von der Leyen called for greater cooperation with “like-minded countries, such as [...] Canada,” and according to one poll, Canadians see the EU overtaking the US as the country’s primary global ally in the next three to five years. In fact, 44% of respondents, believes Canada should join the European Union. Brussels is “honored” by the poll, but added that it is a non-starter: only European states can apply for EU membership. But if Trump can rename bodies of water, who is to say where Europe begins or ends? The Eurovision Song Contest also includes Israel and even Australia! All joking aside, is a hypothetical EU membership the safeguarding that Canada seeks? Yes, the European bloc has quite some power when it comes to trade and the size of its internal market. As long as the conflict remains purely trade-related, at least. If Trump presses on with retaliatory tariffs in response to Europe’s rebalancing tariffs on the US’ original tariffs, there’s a good chance that Europe may respond to those 200% tariffs. Such a tariff supernova is bad, but what is Europe to do if Trump decides to, say, withdraw military support until the trade dispute is settled to his liking? Rearming Europe is easier said than done, especially when Europe is in the midst of a trade war with the US. Even without that headwind, European procedures and regulation already make this a Herculean task. The urgency may be clear for European politicians, but members of national parliaments are still struggling with the costs involved with the European Commission’s plans– both in monetary terms, and the fear that it could encroach on countries’ sovereignty. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 11:20
Democrats Furious After Schumer Folds On GOP Funding Bill Congressional Democrats are in full revolt after Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) folded like a wet paper napkin and agreed to vote 'yes' on the House-passed government funding measure that effectively ends the shutdown fight as long as six more Democrats join Schumer and Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) who's a 'yes' as well. As it stands, the Senate will vote this afternoon to overcome a filibuster of the House's continuing resolution, which funds federal agencies through Sept. 30 at current 2024 levels, but also includes approximately $13 billion in cuts to nondefense programs, and $6 billion in additional military spending. It's unclear what time the vote will occur, as both sides are working to secure an agreement to allow senators to finish before the midnight shutdown deadline and head home for a weeklong recess. Schumer claims he has no choice, saying that a shutdown would be a "gift" to the Trump administration, and "the best distraction he could ask for from his awful agenda." "It is deeply partisan. It doesn’t address far too many of this country’s needs. But I believe allowing Donald Trump to take even much more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option," he said Thursday on the Senate floor. On Thursday night, Schumer went on MSNBC to pretend he was outraged, but just had to pass the bill (and call Republicans 'bastards.') 🚨DESPERATE CHUCK SCHUMER CALLS REPUBLICANS "BASTARDS"🚨 "It's much, much better not to be in the middle of a shutdown, which would divert people from the number one issue we have against these bastards!" "They're ruining democracy!" pic.twitter.com/9i90rfOv9z March 14, 2025 "It's much, much better not to be in the middle of a shutdown, which should divert people from the number one issue we have against these bastards, sorry, these people, which is not only all these cuts, but they're ruining democracy," he said. President Trump congratulated Schumer, posting to Truth Social: Congratulations to Chuck Schumer for doing the right thing — Took “guts” and courage! The big Tax Cuts, L.A. fire fix, Debt Ceiling Bill, and so much more, is coming. We should all work together on that very dangerous situation. A non pass would be a Country destroyer, approval will lead us to new heights. Again, really good and smart move by Senator Schumer. This could lead to something big for the USA, a whole new direction and beginning! DJT Democrats In Disarray House Democrats huddled at their annual strategy retreat in Northern Virginia on Thursday, where they bombarded their Senate colleagues with calls and texts urging them to nuke the GOP bill. That said, Democrats didn't have the cards... Let’s be blunt here: Democrats picked a fight they couldn’t win and caved without getting anything in return. -Punchbowl House Democrats also oppose the spending cuts contained in the GOP bill, warning that they will erode critical public services (grifts), and that fact that the GOP bill excludes specific language to limit what Elon Musk and DOGE can do as the Trump administration continues to slash federal agencies and programs unchecked by Congress, The Hill reports. But Schumer rejected their demands. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (a performance artist herself) led the charge against Senate Democrats, after House Democrats united against the GOP bill in the lower chamber. "There is a deep sense of outrage and betrayal," said AOC. "And this is not just about progressive Democrats, This is across the board — the entire party." "Just to see Senate Democrats even consider acquiescing Elon Musk — I think it is a huge slap in the face," she continued. "It’s an awful decision," said Rep. Joseph Morelle (D-NY). "People are angry. We were almost to a person in unison [on the House vote]. … And a significant percentage of their caucus is voting to allow the Republicans to do whatever they want to do." * * * Black hats are gone, but we've still got a few green ones left... Combine with multitool for free shipping. Click hat... add to cart... check out... receive awesome hat... * * * "Right now, they are openly saying that they will take this money that is in this bill and then they will just appropriate it for whatever they want," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA). "People have to know what Democrats stand up for, and they’ve got to see us fighting for them," she added. "And if we’re just the same, and we’re just going to enable Republicans to do what they’re doing, I think that’s obviously why people are frustrated." Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX) - head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said that the GOP bill is specifically designed to let Trump and Musk keep 'plundering.' "First and foremost, Senate Republicans should back down from screwing over their own constituents," he said. "And then second, Senate Democrats should do the same thing House Democrats did, which is fight for our constituents and block this bill." "Democrats were elected to fight for working people, not put up a fake fight." Speaking of fake fights... It's all an act... Rep. Thomas Massie says it's all an act... a "fake fight" in the House that "will become obvious when the Senate Democrats vote for this stinker." The low down on this CR. It’s a fake fight here in the House that will become obvious when the Senate Democrats vote for this stinker. pic.twitter.com/MPD9quy2aN March 11, 2025 As Punchbowl notes in its post-mortem... There’s a reason Republicans put Democrats in this position – because they know Democrats would eventually cave. And they did. During this whole fight, Democrats never managed to put Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Trump in a tough spot. There are plenty of policies House Democrats could’ve asked for in the CR — more money for certain programs, for instance — that would’ve placed Republicans in a bind. But they never made the case publicly for anything like that. Senate Democrats, meanwhile, essentially tried to have it both ways. They spent the last few days — which included three long and contentious lunch meetings — warning each other in private about the grave dangers of forcing a government shutdown. But in front of TV cameras, they were trashing the House GOP CR and insisting they wouldn’t vote for the funding measure. This won them praise from progressives, activist groups and House Democrats. Schumer, who didn’t take a public position until last night, fired a warning shot on Wednesday when he said Republicans didn’t have enough Democratic votes to pass the CR, basically threatening a filibuster. In the meantime, Senate Democrats pushed for a short-term CR intended to buy time for a bipartisan funding deal that was never going anywhere. This set up the Democratic base for disappointment for seemingly no reason. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 11:00
Trump Urges Putin To 'Spare The Lives' Of Ukrainian Troops Surrounded In Kursk President Trump has revealed Friday that he has held the second phone call of his current administration with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the prospect of ending the Ukraine war. The call, held Thursday, included a plea by Trump for Russia to spare the lives of Ukrainian soldiers currently surrounded in the Kursk region. Such a direct appeal like this by Trump is unprecedented. "We had very good and productive discussions with President Vladimir Putin of Russia yesterday" - Trump began a statement on Truth Social, before continuing, "and there is a very good chance that this horrible, bloody war can finally come to an end..." Kremlin handout/AFP That's when he stated in all caps, "But, at this very moment, thousands of Ukrainian troops are completely surrounded by the Russian military, and in a very bad and vulnerable position." "I have strongly requested to President Putin that their lives be spared. This would be a horrible massacre, one not seen since World War II. God bless them all!!!" - Trump ended with. Aside from the rare or even unprecedented nature of such a direct appeal from a sitting US President for Putin to spare the lives of Ukrainian soldiers, this a first top-level US acknowledgement that Ukraine is rapidly losing in its cross-border Kursk operation. Already as of Wednesday there were widespread reports that a Ukrainian withdrawal from Kursk is underway, and it's been confirmed that the key town of Sudzha has been taken back by Russian forces, along with well over a dozen towns and settlements in rapid fashion. The amount of Russian territory the Ukrainians still hold there has suddenly shrunk at least four-fold, and by many accounts Russian operatives continue closing in. Even the Financial Times has admitted that the writing is on the wall: Kyiv’s forces managed at one point to seize some 1,300 sq km of Russian territory. But over the first few weeks the area they were able to hold became a narrow wedge. “It is no secret that the zone of our incursion, it should have been wider,” Kariakin said. “A wide area along the border would have been much more comfortable.” Instead, Russian troops surrounded Ukraine’s occupying forces on three sides. It was a precarious position and became increasingly difficult to hold. War analysts consider it highly debatable and uncertain whether the risky cross-border gambit which started in August actually translated to any strategic advantage across the broader war theater: For Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former defense minister of Ukraine, the Kursk operation “served its purpose”: it diverted elite Russian forces and prevented them from opening up another front, he said. Others question whether the benefits outweighed costs to Ukraine’s defense effort on the eastern front. The tragic 'cost' has been tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops lost to an operation which had little to no chance of success in the first place. "High chance" of peace, Trump said... ❗️Trump stated that he spoke with Putin on Thursday Trump asked Putin to SPARE the surrounded Ukrainian troops in the Kursk region. Trump also noted that there are HIGH CHANCES of resolving the situation around Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/bI2aTGBfYz March 14, 2025 Sending masses of troops to invade and occupy Russian territory was essentially a suicide operation to begin with, for which Zelensky has come under intense internal and international criticism. Kiev has had to take more extreme measures to round up men to send to the front lines of late, and there have been reports of a lot of resistance and conscription officers roam the streets. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 10:40
Mass Cases Of EDS Reported All Over The World... Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news, A new global pandemic has taken hold with mass cases of Elon Derangement Syndrome breaking out all over the globe. Yesterday we reported on Greg, a guy who bought a Tesla just to smash it up with an axe. Shut up Greg. Symptoms of the disease previously seen in the U.S., including hysterical frothing, weird public tantrums and calling everyone who you disagree with a Nazi, have now also been reported in London. Cases of EDS have suddenly exploded in London. pic.twitter.com/y0tsji8jd2 March 13, 2025 These billboards and ads are popping up everywhere across the city in a coordinated effort to smear Musk for merely being associated with President Trump. These are appearing all over London. @elonmusk should find out who is funding this and sue the hell out of them. Defamation and libel, particularly where a company brand is concerned, are not protected by free speech. pic.twitter.com/SkR8lRKDuo March 13, 2025 British libel laws are quite stringent. Far-left activists put up another Anti-Elon Musk billboard in London. ‘Tesla The Swasticar.’ pic.twitter.com/hV33cehxhF March 14, 2025 The children running this ‘campaign’ likely have not considered the potential consequences of publicly associating at least two global brands, as well as Musk himself, with fascism. Nothing says "totally organic campaign" like super sized billboards. March 13, 2025 The billboards have been traced to a group calling itself ‘Overthrow Musk’. Tesla driving past our Tesla poster #TeslaBoycott pic.twitter.com/PXKgn3WyDZ March 13, 2025 They might be well funded but they can’t spell ‘surprise’. What a suprise. Ironically, they have an X account. The making of… the worst movie ever #TeslaTakedown pic.twitter.com/c4XB6gV2X5 March 13, 2025 They’re also actively placing these things on Tesla dealerships in London. The only remaining reason to pay Tesla showrooms a visit#TeslaBoycott pic.twitter.com/VBiN05BpHv March 14, 2025 The “dark money” group is operating as a non-profit organisation, meaning funding sources are not publicly disclosed. @elonmusk really ought to get his lawyers to track down whoever's doing this and sue the living shit out of them. March 13, 2025 Videos of posters being put up on the London Underground have been uploaded on TikTok by a group called ‘Everybody Hates Elon.’ It is unclear whether the two groups are affiliated. The billboards look like they’ve been paid for and sanctioned, while the tube posters just seem to be being placed by opportunists. We’ll soon find out though, the media is on it… i'M a RePoRTeR. cAn U HelP mE dO a JoURNaLiSm? March 14, 2025 More cases of EDS were witnessed at a Tesla showroom in the UK where eco-loons with Just Stop Oil poured orange latex over an Optimus robot and accused Musk of being a ‘fascist.’ Found two more @IfindRetards https://t.co/dvEAQam6vf March 13, 2025 Geniuses. Targeting an electric vehicle company while banging on about fossil fuels and climate change… and fascism or something. EDS is also quickly spreading throughout Europe: The EDS pandemic has now spread to Germany. https://t.co/C3KfW6Mzd2 March 14, 2025 Meanwhile, back in the U.S., deranged leftists are going beyond nasty posters, shooting up and firebombing Tesla dealerships. Mostly peaceful shootings. March 14, 2025 But MSNBC will tell you that shooting at people is just peaceful protest. President Trump has described the perpetrators as ‘domestic terrorists.’ Last month, posters clearly intimating that violence should be carried out against Musk were also seen in Washington D.C. Shocking bus stop billboard appears in Washington DC calling to ‘eliminate’ Elon Musk over his DOGE Department’s cuts to USAID. pic.twitter.com/jCvysoF1HP February 12, 2025 All of this is just making more people who are not bat shit crazy want to buy Teslas. I'm from Walthamstow. I love Tesla. March 14, 2025 So maybe I'll consider buying a Tesla after all. March 13, 2025 Best X or Tesla commercials ever. Makes me want to buy a Tesla 😂 March 13, 2025 You're just making him look cooler. March 13, 2025 * * * 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. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 10:25
Panicking Democrats Send UMich Inflation Expectations To Highest In 32 Years UMich inflation expectations exploded even higher in preliminary March data with medium-term views spiking to +3.9% - the highest since 1993... Source: Bloomberg There's just one thing... it's all Democrats... Republicans expect very little inflation over the next five years but Democrats expect a surge to +4.6%... Source: Bloomberg Short-term expectations are even more divided with Democrats expecting inflation to explode to 6.5% this year while Republicans expect no inflation... Source: Bloomberg Overall, consumer sentiment declined significantly... Source: Bloomberg UMich notes: While current economic conditions were little changed, expectations for the future deteriorated across multiple facets of the economy, including personal finances, labor markets, inflation, business conditions, and stock markets. Many consumers cited the high level of uncertainty around policy and other economic factors; frequent gyrations in economic policies make it very difficult for consumers to plan for the future, regardless of one’s policy preferences. But once again, it was all Democrats, who are now convinced that the US outlook has never been worse... Source: Bloomberg According to Democrats, this is the apocalypse, folks. No really, Democrat expectations for the economy have NEVER been lower, including the global financial crisis and COVID. For Democrats, this is the 10th circle of hell. What's more, Democrats are boycotting spending to prop up Trump's economy, and instead are sitting on cash... which according to them will be worth 6.5% less in one year as a result of runaway inflation. It appears legacy media propaganda works after all... Finally, the UMich (inflation expectations) data is dramatically different from all the other inflation surveys - including the New York Fed's... ...which makes us wonder who exactly are UMich surveyors asking these questions to? Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 10:11
Immigration Detention Facilities At Maximum Capacity: ICE Official Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), U.S. immigration detention facilities have reached capacity at about 47,600 beds, a top-level U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official said on March 12 in a call with reporters. An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent detains an illegal immigrant, in this undated file photograph. John Moore/Getty Images The federal government is now seeking more bed space for detained illegal immigrants, added the official, who requested anonymity as a condition of the call. ICE is now expanding its capacity with support from the Department of Defense, the U.S. Marshals Service, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Currently, ICE has funding to support an average bed space of more than 41,500 detainees, the official said, adding that ICE is working with lawmakers to obtain more funding to increase capacity. Throughout the 2024 campaign and after taking office, President Donald Trump vowed that there would be a mass deportation of illegal immigrants. Trump said that such a move is needed after the high volume of illegal immigration under the previous administration. Trump issued executive orders targeting illegal immigration and bolstering security along the U.S.–Mexico border. He has directed ICE agents to step up enforcement actions across major U.S. cities, with top officials including border czar Tom Homan saying they are targeting illegal immigrants with criminal histories or who are a threat to public safety. Orders and directives that the administration has carried out include declaring a national emergency along the southern U.S. border, halting some refugee admissions, ending the previous “catch and release” policy, requiring people who are seeking asylum in the United States to remain in Mexico while waiting for court hearings, limiting the temporary protected status of people from certain countries, declining to recognize birthright citizenship, and other measures. The number of encounters with illegal immigrants at the southern border has dropped significantly since Trump took office in January, according to recent data. Multiple lawsuits have been filed to challenge Trump’s order ending birthright citizenship, and several judges have blocked the order. On March 11, the First Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a federal district court’s block of the order and denied a motion from the Department of Justice’s legal team to immediately overturn the district court’s ruling. Another directive that has been challenged in court is Trump’s decision to send some illegal immigrants to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Earlier this month, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a suit to block transfers to the base, which had been used to house terrorism suspects following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Some of the illegal immigrants who were sent to the base have already been deported from Guantanamo Bay to Venezuela, officials have said. Homan said on March 4 that more funding is needed to continue the crackdown on illegal immigration, including for more beds and deportation flights. “We need more beds, we need more enforcement assets, we need more air flights. This operation is going to cost money,” Homan told reporters at the White House. “We’re hitting on all cylinders, but we need more money to do more.” The Epoch Times contacted the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, for comment but did not receive a response by publication time. Reuters contributed to this report. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 09:30
Hamas To Free American Hostage After Direct Trump Admin Intervention Hamas on Friday announced it is preparing the release of hostage Edan Alexander, who is an American citizen serving in the Israeli military, along with the bodies of four other dual nationals previously slain. Alexander was manning a military post near the Gaza Strip on October 7 when the base was overrun by Hamas gunmen pouring in from Gaza. The US-designated terror group further announced it "affirms its complete readiness to initiate negotiations and reach a comprehensive agreement on the issues of the second phase while calling for the occupation (Israel) to fully implement its obligations." The group says it wants to salvage the fragile truce which has been holding. Hamas stopped short of issuing the names of the four deceased that it plans to release. Alexander's background is that he is a 21-year-old from Tenafly, New Jersey who volunteered to join the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) after high school. US Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff has this week said that securing his release is a top priority for the White House. Newsweek and other describe this is a big diplomatic win for President Trump: US President Donald Trump had urged the release of the American hostage along with the remaining Israeli hostages, sending an ultimatum to Hamas last week. Trump has since met with several hostages released by Hamas during a first phase of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire between Israel and the militant group. Alexander's release would be a boost for Trump's strong push to get hostages released, which has included contacts with Hamas that had surprised the Israeli government. he was the last surviving American hostage. That the White House appears to have bypassed its Israeli ally on this is a huge blow to the Netanyahu government. As for the Israeli prime minister, one regional report says he is currently gauging public opinion on the possibility of renewing the war in Gaza: The Israeli public is largely tired of the war on Gaza and “convinced that Netanyahu is incapable of managing it”, Israeli analyst Ori Goldberg says. The prime minister is gauging public opinion and “waiting to see which shoe will drop”, Goldberg told Al Jazeera. “The shoe that calls for the continuation of the war, which demands a great deal from Israelis, or the shoe that is ultimately calling for [a discontinuation] of the war and the understanding that Israel must take home all the hostages and it has no choice. “So far, Netanyahu has been able to read the public very well, but I’m not sure that’s the case any more,” he added. Life in the Strip itself is still fraught with extreme dangers given how destroyed the enclave is. Humanitarian workers are reporting that civilians are getting badly hurt upon returning to their dilapidated homes. Walls or structures have crashed down on them. Footage from Oct.7: ⚡️Another video of hostages taken by Hamas into Gaza pic.twitter.com/xQHgHZB8Ob October 7, 2023 "The buildings are so damaged they’re collapsing on them. Just two days ago, we had a young man – a wall fell on him, broke his spine, and tore his left kidney off his aorta," Dr Feroze Sidhwa, a trauma surgeon with MedGlobals, told Al Jazeera. "So we had to remove his left kidney or he would have bled to death." The doctor further described that high prices at markets and and lack of humanitarian aid mean "people are turning on each other sometimes and disputes are becoming violent." Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 08:55
Futures, Yields, Gold All Jump After Schumer Caves To Keep Government Open US equity futures and global stocks rose as the threat of a US government shutdown receded, removing at least one element of uncertainty confronting investors. Meanwhile, gold hit a record above $3,000 an ounce as the precious metal already anticipates the stimulus flood that is coming over the horizon.As of 8:00am S&P futures are higher by 0.9% as a stopgap funding bill is set to pass in Congress after top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer caved and opted not to block the measure. That helped lift the mood after the benchmark index extended its three-week rout beyond a 10% correction on Thursday. Nasdaq 100 futures advanced 1.2% with Nvidia leading premarket gains among the Mag7. In Europe, the Stoxx 50 advances 1.3% with outperforming sectors including consumer staples and materials; Asian stocks were also higher. Bond yields are 1-3bp higher this morning; the USD fell as the EUR surged after politicians agreed to a deal to drown Germany in debt to fund "military spending." Commodities are higher led by Oil (WTO +1.0%) and Iron (+1.5%). Since yesterday’s close, there has been some positive developments on macro policies: meeting between Lutnick and Ontario’s Ford was viewed as positive; the US government managed to avoid the shutdown. Internationally, China will hold a press briefing next Monday to outline some additional measures boost consumer; Japan announced the largest pay hike in over three decades (+5.36% average pay gain and +3.84% base pay vs. 3.8% JPMe vs. 3.7% last year), a positive catalyst for consumption growth, yet not enough to push the yen higher. Today's calendar includes March preliminary University of Michigan sentiment at 10am where consensus expects a 63.0 print. In premarket trading, Nvidia is leading gains among the Magnificent Seven stocks as the group attempts to stage a rebound after the S&P 500 tumbled into its first 10% correction in almost two years. Alphabet +0.9%, Amazon +1.2%, Apple +0.5, Microsoft +0.7%, Meta +1.5%, Nvidia +2% and Tesla +1.7%. Applied Optoelectronics surges 55% after the maker of fiber-optic networking products entered a warrant agreement with Amazon. Ulta Beauty jumped 6% after reporting earnings per share for the fourth quarter that beat the average analyst estimate. Here are some other notable premarket movers: Crown Castle rises 5% after agreeing to sell separate parts of its fiber business to an EQT AB fund and Zayo Group Holdings Inc. for a combined value of $8.5 billion. DocuSign jumps 9% after the e-signature software company posted quarterly results that beat expectations and gave a billings outlook that’s seen as positive. Gogo rises 13% after the in-flight broadband company forecast revenue for 2025 that beat the average analyst estimate. Peloton Interactive gains 6% as Canaccord upgrades its rating and says the company is set to reap the benefits of being the “clear leader” in the connected fitness market. Radius Recycling soars 110% after Toyota Tsusho’s US unit, Toyota Tsusho America, agreed to buy all shares in cash for $30 a share. Rubrik surges 18% after the data security software company gave an outlook that is stronger than expected. Semtech rises 12% after the semiconductor device company gave an outlook that’s seen as better than feared. Xponential Fitness drops 31% after the franchiser of boutique fitness brands gave disappointing full-year forecasts. Spot gold briefly rose above $3,000/oz for the first time while broader risk sentiment improved after Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer dropped his threat to block a Republican spending bill, thus lowering the chances of a US government shutdown on Saturday. “It looks like the budget bill is still going through despite some opposition from Democrats and this has lifted sentiment in the US and probably there is also some spillover effect to Europe,” Julius Baer & Co. economist Sophie Altermatt said. “This might be just some reprieve, given we had so many uncertainties with erratic policy moves in the US,” she added. Avoiding a government shutdown would remove a concern for traders, already fretting over threats to the world economy from President Donald Trump’s tariff war. Two months into Trump’s presidency, $5 trillion has been erased from US stocks. Those risks are spurring demand for haven assets, with investors the most bullish on Treasuries relative to stocks for at least three years, according to Bloomberg Markets Live Pulse survey. It’s also pushed gold to successive record highs, with the yellow metal now up more than 14% year-to-date. “Gold is in a secular bull market,” said Peter Kinsella, head of foreign exchange strategy at Union Bancaire Privee UBp SA, who expects prices to reach $3,300 an ounce by year end. “For sure, that’s down to uncertainty caused by US trade policies but central bank demand is also a big factor.” Some strategists reckon relief could be on the horizon for risk assets after the recent selloff. While the S&P 500 has plunged 10% off its February peak into correction territory, Bank of America’s Michael Hartnett said there’s unlikely to be a slide into a new bear market: “Fresh declines in stock prices will provoke flip in trade and monetary policy,” Hartnett wrote in a note, recommending buying the S&P 500 at 5,300 points, a 4% drop from current levels. In Europe, German conservative leader Friedrich Merz reached a tentative agreement with the Green party on a debt-funded spending package for defense and infrastructure. The deal needs to be approved by party lawmakers and would release defense spending from debt restrictions and set up a €500 billion fund for infrastructure investment. The Stoxx 600 climbs 0.4% as miners gained on expectations of economic support measures from China, even as benchmark indexes headed for a second straight week of declines. Carlsberg jumps on an upgrade from RBC, while Kering sinks after appointing a new artistic director to its key Gucci brand. Here are the biggest movers Friday: Carlsberg gains as much as 4.1% after it and its peer Heineken were upgraded to outperform at RBC, noting the companies have been “prudent” in setting expectations in what is in an unusually “opaque” outlook Adecco gains 3.6% and Hays gains 7% after BNP Paribas Exane upgraded Adecco to outperform, and double upgrades Hays to outperform, as staffing agencies are moved to the top of broker’s sub-sector preferences Sectra gains as much as 12%, the most since December 2023, after the Swedish healthcare and cybersecurity firm reported 3Q earnings which beat expectations on most metrics, including revenues and profit European sectors with heavy China exposure are getting a boost on Friday as the Chinese benchmark stock index rallied the most in two months on expectations of economic support from Beijing Brunello Cucinelli shares rise as much as 3.7% as a broadly in-line set of earnings from the Italian luxury goods maker demonstrated its resilience against a tough backdrop for the broader sector Kering falls as much as 10%, the biggest one-day drop in a year, after the luxury goods maker caught investors off-guard with its surprise appointment of Demna Gvasalia as Gucci’s new artistic director Universal Music Group slumps as much as 11% after shareholder Pershing Square offloaded shares in the music company at a discount to yesterday’s close. Shares have fallen below the offer price BMW falls as much as 4.5% after the German automotive firm reported disappointing guidance and missed expectations in its 4Q report, with analysts flagging the firm’s margin outlook as a particular disappointment Swiss Life shares fall as much as 6.2%, the most in a year. The financial services company reported results that matched expectations, but were deemed insufficient by analysts Bodycote slumps as much as 18%, the most in five years, after the heat-treatment specialist delivered its FY results, with analysts cite automotive and industrial weakness for likely mid-single-digit cuts GN Store Nord shares are among the worst performers in the Stoxx 600 Health Care Index on Friday morning, after Bernstein re-initiated coverage of the stock with an underperform rating El.En shares dropped as much as 8.5% in Milan trading, the most since May 16, after the Italian medical devices company reported FY earnings, indicating a “complex” outlook for 2025 Earlier in the session, Asian equities also advanced, propelled by a rally in Chinese shares as investor optimism for more policy support rose ahead of a press briefing on government efforts to boost consumption. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose as much as 0.9%, with Tencent and Alibaba among the biggest boosts. China’s onshore CSI 300 Index and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng China Enterprises Index each jumped more than 2%. China optimism rose on the announcement that officials from the finance ministry, commerce ministry, central bank and other government bodies are scheduled to hold a briefing on consumption Monday. The news provided traders further assurance that Beijing is determined to fix one of the weakest links in the economy. Word of the press conference “fanned expectations” for policy support, said Shen Meng, a director at Beijing-based investment bank Chanson & Co. “But if it falls short of providing details on increasing income, such optimism may weaken to some extent.” Stocks in Japan and Australia also rose, and US futures rebounded following the S&P 500’s drop into a technical correction Thursday. Rising prospects for a stopgap funding bill to avoid a US government shutdown provided some reassurance for markets amid continued concerns over economic growth and tariffs. In FX, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index drops; The Japanese yen is the weakest of the G-10 currencies, falling 0.7% against the dollar even as Japan’s largest labor union group said its workers secured the highest pay deal in more than three decades. The pound falls 0.2%, extending its drop after data showed the UK economy unexpectedly shrank at the start of 2025. The Euro jumped above 1.09 after German conservative leader Friedrich Merz reached a tentative agreement with the Green party on a debt-funded spending package for defense and infrastructure. The deal needs to be approved by party lawmakers and would release defense spending from debt restrictions and set up a €500 billion fund for infrastructure investment. In rates, treasury futures trend lower into the early US session. Treasury yields are cheaper by 1bp to 3bp across the curve with 10-year trading around 4.18%, cheaper by 3bp on the day with bunds lagging by 4bp in the sector and 10-year French bonds lagging 2bp. Bunds slid to lows of the day and French 30-year yields rose to the highest since 2011, after a report that German parties have reached an agreement with the Greens on a debt package. Advance in US stock futures adds to cheapening pressure on Treasury yields with University of Michigan sentiment data the focus for the US session. In commodities, WTI rises 1% to ~$67 a barrel. The upbeat mood is evident elsewhere as Bitcoin climbs rises 3% toward $83,000. Gold traded briefly at a record price just above $3000 before modestly fading gains. Looking at today's calendar, the US economic data calendar includes March preliminary University of Michigan sentiment at 10am. Fed officials are in external communications blackout ahead of March 19 policy announcement. Market Snapshot S&P 500 futures up 0.9% to 5,576 STOXX Europe 600 up 0.4% to 542.64 MXAP up 0.5% to 185.46 MXAPJ up 0.9% to 581.19 Nikkei up 0.7% to 37,053.10 Topix up 0.6% to 2,715.85 Hang Seng Index up 2.1% to 23,959.98 Shanghai Composite up 1.8% to 3,419.56 Sensex down 0.3% to 73,828.91 Australia S&P/ASX 200 up 0.5% to 7,789.68 Kospi down 0.3% to 2,566.36 German 10Y yield little changed at 2.88% Euro little changed at $1.0854 Brent Futures up 0.9% to $70.51/bbl Brent Futures up 0.9% to $70.51/bbl Gold spot up 0.0% to $2,990.02 US Dollar Index little changed at 103.93 Top Overnight News US equity futures are rallying after Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer dropped his threat to block a key spending bill, cutting the risk of a disruptive March 15 shutdown. BBG US Senate Minority Leader Schumer said he will vote to keep the government open and not shut it down. It was separately reported that multiple US Democratic Senators and aides indicated sufficient Democratic support for cloture on the House-passed continuing resolution in Friday morning’s vote: Punchbowl. US President Trump is to sign executive orders on Friday at 12:00EDT/16:00GMT. US Vice President Vance said can never predict the future but thinks the economy is strong when asked if he could rule out a recession, according to a Fox News interview, US Treasury Secretary Bessent said they hopefully won't get a recursive 'Biden-flation' and said they are very vigilant and it could happen again. Bessent added that before they can bring down inflation, they also want to help affordability and as they bring down inflation, they want to bring the absolute price level down through deregulation and bringing down interest rates for house payments and car payments. Merz Said to Reach Tentative Deal With Greens on German Debt: BBG Ontario Premier Doug Ford lauded his Thursday meeting with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick as “positive” and “productive” after their public rift over tariffs on imported goods. “We shared a tremendous amount of views back and forth, and I’m feeling very positive,” Ford told reporters outside the U.S. Department of Commerce building. The Hill Chinese stocks jumped on Friday after Beijing promised new measures to help consumers, defying a Wall Street sell off and pushing the country’s main stock index into positive territory for the year. Chinese authorities announced late on Thursday that they would hold a press conference on “boosting consumption” on Monday. FT China is increasingly concerned not just about US tariffs, but also the risk that Washington will direct other countries (like Mexico, Brazil, etc.) to ramp duties on Chinese imports as well. NYT China may slash pay by 50% for fund managers who underperform their benchmarks, people familiar said, as part of a broader overhaul of the country’s mutual fund industry. BBG Ukrainian drones attacked Moscow for the second day in a week, as US special envoy Steve Witkoff left the country, Russian news services reported. The attacks also triggered a massive fuel tank fire at one of Russia’s biggest oil refineries. BBG The UK economy unexpectedly shrank 0.1% in January, hit by declines in manufacturing and construction. The pound slipped. BBG Investors are the most bullish on Treasuries relative to stocks in at least three years, according to a MLIV survey. As tariff policies threaten US exceptionalism, some 77% see bonds giving a better volatility-adjusted return over the next month. BBG Tariffs/Trade Canada's Finance Minister LeBlanc said they agreed to continue discussions in the meeting with US Commerce Secretary Lutnick, while they have been clear that they will not reopen USMCA provisions on dairy and didn't discuss that with Lutnick. Canada's Industry Minister Champagne said there was a mutual understanding that there is an impact on both sides of the border from tariffs and they talked about issues around economic security and national security with US Commerce Secretary Lutnick. Furthermore, they talked about Canadian aluminium steel and how they can help the US Ontario's Premier Ford said they had a productive meeting with US Commerce Secretary Lutnick and will have another meeting next week, while he feels temperatures are decreasing and said it was the best meeting they had since tariff talks began. ECB President Lagarde said US President Trump's policy decisions cause concern and warned trade conflict will damage the worldwide economy, according to an interview with BBC. A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk APAC stocks were mostly positive as risk sentiment gradually improved following the negative lead from Wall St where the S&P 500 slipped into a technical correction amid tariff concerns after President Trump threatened 200% tariffs on EU wine and champagne. ASX 200 gained as strength in mining, materials, resources and utilities atoned for the losses seen in the energy, financials and tech industries. Nikkei 225 staggered at the open with pressure from recent currency strength but then recovered soon after as the yen steadily pared its recent gains. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp advanced with the Hang Seng resuming the outperformance which has helped the index notch gains of around 22% so far this year, while the PBoC reiterated support pledges and stated that it will lower rates and the RRR at a 'proper time', keep liquidity ample and guide social financing costs lower. Top Asian News China's financial regulator said financial institutions should boost financial support for consumption and will provide loan renewal support to eligible personal consumption loan borrowers. DeepSeek is focusing on research over revenue and customers from sectors such as healthcare and finance bought API access to DeepSeek’s R1 and V3 models. Furthermore, DeepSeek's founder declined to entertain interest from China’s tech giants and venture and state-backed funds to invest in the group for the time being, while it may find limited access to NVIDIA's (NVDA) new generation of more advanced chips a potential bottleneck in the long run and could consider future partnerships that can help solve this issue, according to FT citing sources. Rengo, Japan's largest labour union, says first-round data shows average wage hike of 5.46% in FY25 (demand of 6.09%); initial wage hike exceeds 5% for the second straight year. Chinese regulators have issued a requirement for the labelling of AI generated content. China Feb YTD Aggregate Financing (CNY) 9.29tln (exp. 9.757tln); M2 Money Supply 7% (exp. 7%); New Yuan Loans 6.14tln (exp. 6.38tln) European bourses are mostly firmer, in what has been a choppy session thus far; initial weakness at the cash open has been entirely pared with indices generally towards the top end of the day's ranges. European sectors hold a slight positive bias; Basis Resources tops the pile, buoyed by strength in the metals complex, amid the risk sentiment and strong Chinese price action overnight. Media is found at the foot of the pile. Consumer Products is also higher today, benefiting from the strength in Chinese trade overnight; though Kering (-13%) slips after appointing Demna as Gucci's artistic director, a move JP Morgan brands as "controversial". Top European News Germany's CDU/CSU to hold special parliamentary faction meeting this afternoon, according to Reuters sources Goldman Sachs cuts its UK 2025 GDP growth forecast to 0.9%, down from 1.0% previously. DIW institute says the German economy is expected to stagnate in 2025, down from the previously expected growth of 0.2%; economy expected to grow by 1.1% in 2026, down from the previously expected 1.2% BoE/Ipsos Inflation Attitudes Survey - February 2025. Median expectations of the rate of inflation over the coming year were 3.4%, up from 3% in November 2024. UK PM Starmer reportedly suffered a cabinet uprising over planned welfare and public spending cuts, but insisted tough choices are needed and said he will not bend fiscal rules to allow more borrowing, according to FT. EU Diplomatic Service proposes that member nations deliver military aid to Ukraine in 2025 worth at least EUR 20bln and potentially up to EUR 40bln, via Reuters citing a paper; aid to be provided in line with nations economic "weight". ECB's Villeroy says will be inflation to 2% this year in Europe; EU has the resources to retaliate against the US admin tariffs on wine and liquor. EU Envoys agree to remove three individuals from the sanctions list, agree to renew sanctions on more than 2400 individuals and entities. FX USD is flat after trading firmer for most of the European morning; now currently towards the lower end of a 103.79-104.09 range. Trade updates on Thursday included President Trump noting he will not change his mind on the April 2nd tariffs. As for US Government shutdown developments, things seem to be improving with US Senate Minority Leader Schumer suggesting he will vote to keep the government open and not shut it down. Focus ahead will be on the US UoM survey and then Trump executive orders thereafter. EUR is firmer and trading towards the upper end of a 1.0831-1.0875 range. There has been little by way of trade updates, after Trump threatened the EU with 200% tariffs on alcoholic products on Thursday, if the EU do not remove their countermeasures on the US. Focus today will be on any potential updates on German spending plans, after the debate in the prior session - Reuters reported that Germany's CDU/CSU is to hold a special parliamentary faction meeting this afternoon - a report which may be attributed to the modest upside in the Single-Currency; elsewhere, focus will be on a Fitch credit review on France. JPY is the clear underperformer today, with early morning losses facilitated by the risk-on mood; have peer CHF is also a touch softer. Further pressure was seen after Japan's largest labour union, Rengo, said the first-round data shows an average wage hike of 5.46% in FY25 (demand of 6.09%). There spurred some further pressure in the JPY, with USD/JPY lifting from 148.65 to briefly top 149.00. GBP is subdued in reaction to the regions softer than expected GDP figures, which saw the UK unexpectedly contract in January; the downside was primarily driven by a slowdown in manufacturing. However, such an outturn was not entirely unexpected given the jump seen in December's release. Money market pricing incrementally moved dovishly, and is ultimately unlikely to have too much of an impact for the BoE as it remains focussed on inflation and other price points. Cable saw some modest downside on the release, and currently trades towards the lower end of a 1.2918-59 range. Antipodeans are the best performing G10 currencies today, benefiting from the positive risk tone, which was lifted by remarks by a China's financial regulator who said financial institutions should boost financial support for consumption and will provide loan renewal support to eligible personal consumption loan borrowers. Fixed Income USTs hold a slight downward bias, in-fitting peers; currently sitting in a 110-24 to 110-31 range. Some of the bearish action stems from the positive risk tone, as well as a weaker-than-average 30yr auction on Thursday. Trade updates on Thursday included President Trump noting he will not change his mind on the April 2nd tariffs. As for US Government shutdown developments, things seem to be improving with US Senate Minority Leader Schumer suggesting he will vote to keep the government open and not shut it down. Focus ahead will be on the US UoM survey and then Trump executive orders thereafter. Bunds are on the backfoot by around 12 ticks, and currently just off the day's trough at 127.15. As above, pressure stems from the risk tone and as markets digest the latest Trump threats on the EU (200% tariffs on alcohol, should the EU not remove their countermeasures). For Germany, Wholesale Prices jumped Y/Y whilst German inflation figures were revised a touch lower. And on German spending, updates have been light thus far CDU/CSU is to hold special parliamentary faction meeting this afternoon, according to Reuters sources, Scheduled EU-specific events are light for the remainder of the day, but focus will be on Fitch's credit review on France. Gilts are flat but still outperforming today, with gains facilitated by the softer-than-expected UK GDP figures, which saw the UK surprisingly contract in January. A softer print than the market had been looking for, driven primarily by a slowdown in manufacturing. However, such an outturn was not entirely unexpected given the jump seen in December's release. Gilts are flat, but have held a downward bias in-fitting with peers; currently in a 91.67-92.03 range. JGBs are modestly higher as Japanese paper reacted to the latest Rengo update, with initial data pointing towards 5.46% avg. wage hike vs demands of 6.09%. Initial hawkish reaction as it highlights the continued wage pressures in the region, but this proved short-lived as it was less than initial demands. Commodities Crude is on a firmer footing with WTI and Brent currently higher by around USD 0.74/bbl and USD 0.70/bbl respectively. Upside today stems from a paring of the prior day's losses and in tandem with the pick up in sentiment. On Russia/Ukraine, Russian President Putin supported the idea of a ceasefire but stressed that the ceasefire must lead to a final settlement of the conflict and solve the root causes of the conflict. More recently, Russia's Kremlin said it held late night talks with US Envoy Witkoff; Russia and the US will determine a timing of Russian President Putin/Trump call once Witkoff has briefed Trump. Brent'May currently in a USD 70.00-70.75/bbl range. Spot gold is on a firmer footing, and has made a fresh ATH just above the USD 3k mark. ANZ sets its short-term price target of USD 3,050/oz. Base metals are entirely in the green, with the complex boosted by the risk tone and support measure commentary from China overnight. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Novak says global oil demand will rise during driving season and OPEC+ takes this into account; resumption of gas exports to Europe via Nord Stream pipelines is irrelevant for now. No talks about possible resumption of Russian oil exports to Germany via the Druzhba pipeline. Qatar lowered the May term price for Al-Shaheen crude oil to USD 1.29/bbl above Dubai quotes. Russian President Putin and Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince MBS discussed cooperation in OPEC+, as well as US-Russia ties and the Ukraine conflict. US President Trump’s administration unlocked a USD 4.7bln loan for TotalEnergies (TTE FP) Geopolitics: Middle East Israel's Channel 12 quoted an Israeli source stating if there is no progress in negotiations within the next two days, the team will return to Israel, according to Al Jazeera. US and Israel look to Africa for resettling Palestinians uprooted from Gaza, according to AP. UN Security Council agreed to the Russia and US-drafted statement condemning widespread violence in Syria's Latakia and Tartus, while the statement called for Syria's interim authorities to protect all Syrians, regardless of ethnicity or religion and to hold the perpetrators of the mass killings accountable. Geopolitics: Ukraine Russia's Kremlin says it held late night talks with US Envoy Witkoff, conveyed signals to US President Trump via Witkoff, Russia and the US will determine a timing of Russian President Putin/Trump call once Witkoff has briefed Trump. There are grounds for cautious optimism. Both sides understand there is a need for such a call. Putin got information from US Envoy on US thinking on Ukraine. Putin is in solidarity with Trump's position but there is a lot of work to do Ukraine Foreign Minister says the nation has begun forming a team to develop ways to control a possible ceasefire. EU Foreign Policy chief Kallas said she is quite optimistic G7 can reach accord on a joint communique and if they cannot agree on G7 communique, it shows division between member countries. Kallas also said it is most likely that Russia will say yes to the US proposal for a ceasefire with Ukraine but with conditions and the US is telling G7 members they understand the Russians may want to extend the process by blurring the picture. Furthermore, she said the red line is Ukraine giving away territory and that territorial integrity is an important element, as well as noted that without the EU, any deal cannot be implemented because there are elements for which Europe has the card. Saudi Crown Prince MBS and Russian President Putin spoke on the phone and the Saudi Crown Prince affirmed the kingdom's commitment to exerting all efforts to facilitate dialogue and achieve a political solution to the Ukraine crisis. Geopolitics: Other Senior officials from China, Iran and Russia hold talks in Beijing over Iran's nuclear issues, according to CCTV. US Pentagon has been tasked with providing military options to ensure US access to the Panama Canal, according to CNN. US President Trump said they are going to have to make a deal on Greenland and thinks the annexation will happen, while he added the US is going to order 48 icebreakers. US Event Calendar 10:00: March U. of Mich. Sentiment, est. 63.0, prior 64.7 March U. of Mich. Current Conditions, est. 64.4, prior 65.7 March U. of Mich. Expectations, est. 63.0, prior 64.0 March U. of Mich. 1 Yr Inflation, est. 4.3%, prior 4.3% March U. of Mich. 5-10 Yr Inflation, est. 3.4%, prior 3.5% DB's Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap After my promise of an exciting special announcement, yesterday we announced the launch of the Deutsche Bank Research Institute (DBRI), a new offering designed to provide valuable insights for corporates, investors and policymakers navigating today’s complex and rapidly evolving global landscape. The Institute will connect the world to Europe and Europe to the world, across geopolitics, macroeconomics, technology, and the evolving corporate landscape. Going forward, we will be delivering more in-depth analysis through engaging and accessible formats, including videos, podcasts, webinars, events and reports, which will be available on our new public Institute website. The inaugural paper for DBRI is called “What Germany’s economy needs now”, which lays out how the country’s economic prosperity has been under severe pressure from geopolitical and technological changes, which have exposed Germany’s structural weaknesses. It outlines a series of necessary reforms which will demand a historic effort from the next government. The challenges beyond the fiscal injections are enormous but the good news is that Germany has its future prosperity and security in its own hands. You can read the English version here and the German version here. Stand by for more papers over the coming weeks and months from our new Deutsche Bank Research Institute. Once again, the main driver was a fresh volley of tariff threats from President Trump, who made several posts criticising the EU yesterday. In terms of the latest, President Trump said that if the EU continued with its 50% tariff on American whisky, then the US would respond with a 200% tariff on EU wines, champagnes and alcoholic products. That immediately caused issues for several European beverage companies, with Pernod Ricard (-3.97%) posting the worst performance in France’s CAC 40 yesterday, and Remy Cointreau (which produces cognac) fell -4.67%. More broadly though, President Trump’s comments reignited fears that the EU could soon face a much more serious trade escalation, particularly with reciprocal tariffs set for April 2. Indeed, earlier in his post on the 200% tariff, he described the EU as “one of the most hostile and abusive taxing and tariffing authorities in the World, which was formed for the sole purpose of taking advantage of the United States”. Bear in mind that President Trump has said he considers VAT to be like a tariff, so that could cause considerable issues for EU member states. Matters weren’t helped yesterday by the potential threat of a US government shutdown, with funding set to run out at midnight tonight. However, after the US close, the Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said that he would vote to advance the Republican bill rather than see a shutdown. So that’s helped futures to recover a decent amount of ground this morning, with those on the S&P 500 up +0.76%. The Republicans do have a majority in both chambers of Congress, but in the Senate they only have a 53-47 margin, and require 60 votes to prevent a filibuster happening, so they had to get at least some Democratic support to pass their funding bill. Nevertheless, that news came too late to prevent US markets taking a fresh hit yesterday, with the S&P 500 (-1.39%) now down -10.13% from its record high, and surpassing the 10% threshold that makes it a technical correction. Moreover, the decline for this week alone now stands at -4.31%, which if realised would be the worst weekly performance since the week of SVB’s collapse two years ago. As in recent days, the Magnificent 7 (-2.49%) led the declines, moving back into bear market territory having shed -20.25% since its December peak. And even though tech led the losses, it was still a broad-based decline, with the equal weighted S&P 500 (-1.00%) struggling as 78% of its constituents lost ground on the day. Whilst investors were concerned about tariffs and the latest shutdown threat, there was little respite from the latest PPI inflation data either. To be fair, it was softer than expected, with monthly headline PPI flat (vs. +0.3% expected), taking the year-on-year rate down to +3.2% (vs. +3.3% expected). But the problem was that the components that feed into PCE inflation (the Fed’s target measure) were relatively stronger, which added to concern that the Fed would struggle to meaningfully cut rates this year. The 10y Treasury yield traded as much as +3.8bps higher on the day following the release, but the bond sell-off turned into a rally as risk sentiment soured, with 10yr yields down -4.3bps to 4.27% by the close. At the front end, 2yr yields were -3.1bps lower to 3.96%. Over in Europe, there were fresh developments over Ukraine as discussions around a ceasefire continued. Russian President Putin said on the ceasefire proposal that “The idea itself is correct and we certainly support it, but there are issues that we need to discuss”, in particular mentioning that Ukraine could use the ceasefire to mobilise and re-arm. So that fit with expectations that Russia would softly push back against the idea of a ceasefire without preconditions. Later on, Ukrainian President Zelenskiy criticised President Putin's comments as "very manipulative". President Putin was also due to meet US envoy Steve Witkoff last night but we have not yet heard any comments from that meeting. Elsewhere in Europe, the other big story for markets has been the start of the debate in the German Bundestag on changing the constitutional debt brake. The debate is being conducted with the old pre-election Bundestag, where the combination of the CDU/CSU, the SPD and the Greens still have a two-thirds majority. It still isn’t clear whether the Greens will offer support to the proposals, although talks are still ongoing. Nevertheless, the debate did include frustration between Merz and the Greens, with Merz saying “What more do you want than what we have proposed to you?” Meanwhile, Katharina Dröge, co-leader of the Green caucus in the Bundestag, said that “If you now wonder why the talks between us and you are going the way they are, then we can tell you: Because we don’t trust in your word”. With all that going on, European assets echoed the global risk-off move yesterday. That saw the STOXX 600 (-0.15%) post a modest decline, although there were bigger losses for France’s CAC 40 (-0.64%) and the German DAX (-0.48%). In the meantime, the move into perceived safe havens meant German bunds outperformed their counterparts, with 10yr yields down -2.3bps, in contrast to those on 10yr OATs (+0.5bps) and BTPs (+1.3bps) which rose slightly. Overnight in Asia, markets are performing well as it looked like the US would avoid a government shutdown. Moreover, Chinese markets got a fresh boost after it was announced that several government bodies would host a press conference on Monday about boosting consumption. So those developments helped support the major indices across the region, with gains for the Nikkei (+0.89%), the Hang Seng (+1.89%), the CSI 300 (+2.24%) and the Shanghai Comp (+1.56%). The main exception to that has been South Korea’s KOSPI, which has fallen -0.28%. Meanwhile in Japan, the country’s 30yr government bond yield (+3.0bps) moved up to its highest level since 208, at 2.61%. Lastly, there wasn’t much other data yesterday, although the US weekly initial jobless claims were better than expected over the week ending March 8, falling to 220k (vs. 225k expected). Moreover, the continuing claims for the week ending March 1 fell to 1.870m (vs. 1.888m expected). To the day ahead, and US data releases include the University of Michigan’s preliminary consumer sentiment index for March, along with UK GDP for January. Central bank speakers include the ECB’s Escriva and Cipollone. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 08:17
Bund Yields Spike As Germany's Merz Reaches Debt Deal With Greens, Claims (Unironically) "Fiscal Discipline Important" German conservative leader Friedrich Merz has reportedly reached a tentative agreement with the Green party on the giant debt-funded spending package for defense and infrastructure. “These were demanding discussions,” Merz, who aims to succeed Chancellor Olaf Scholz in the coming weeks, told reporters in Berlin after meeting with lawmakers, adding (unironically) that: "fiscal discipline remains important." As a reminder, Merz’s Christian Democratic-led bloc and the SPD are rushing to secure a supermajority in parliament to approve sweeping constitutional amendments that would release defense spending from debt restrictions and set up a €500 billion ($542 billion) fund for infrastructure investment. The agreement on Friday spelled out that the infrastructure funding would be earmarked for new projects - and that €100 billion will be channeled to the government’s existing climate and transformation fund, according to news organization RND, which appears to have been the bargain that Merz offered to get the Greens on board. Handelsblatt reported earlier that an agreement had been reached. The deal needs to be approved by party lawmakers. The result of all this is a stronger euro (for now)... “Game on again for the euro,” said Brad Bechtel, head of FX at Jefferies, adding that peace talks for Ukraine are adding to the currency’s momentum. “The market is cautiously optimistic that we are progressing in the right direction.” ...but bund yields are also spiking to recent highs... Merz said late Thursday that he’s “very optimistic” that the landmark debt-spending package will be approved after a parliamentary debate on Thursday laid bare a deep rift with the Greens. “What more do you want than what we have proposed to you?” Merz asked, prompting jeers from the party. “The headlines are providing some comfort that the Greens are on board with the proposals,” said Evelyne Gomez-Liechti, a strategist at Mizuho International Plc, adding that markets had been pricing some chance of the agreement not passing through. As Goldman Sachs Alberto Bacis notes, the narrative prevailing over the last 10 days is the following: Germany has pivoted towards a fiscal expansionary stance > they have plenty of room > defense and infrastructure spending will generate a massive growth turnaround for Germany and rest of the block, bringing the following externalities: 1/ ECB must remain restrictive 2/ Inflation will fly 3/ Sky is the limit for investments Bank of America’s sentiment survey published earlier Friday showed investors turned underweight on core euro-area fixed income for the first time since 2023. “Core Europe duration longs collapsed as future economic growth and bond supply get priced in,” BofA strategist Ralf Preusser and colleagues wrote in a note earlier. Finally, we note that while the agreement in Germany for a potentially huge debt package is predictably pushing German and other European bond yields higher. Bloomberg's Simon White notes that the asset swap’s fall has been modest this year, indicating there is no significant marking down of German credit risk. The asset swap-spread is a gauge of credit risk for government bonds. The spread for Germany has been falling as sovereign yields rise, but the move this year has been relatively contained, and is only marginally negative. That’s in stark contrast to France, where the asset swap-spread has fallen by much more, suggesting considerable more reluctance for bond holders to own French debt given that country’s budget troubles. Germany, the market is saying, is still good for it. Reuters reports that the German debt deal will exempt defense spending from the debt brake above 1% of GDP. In other words, "defense against Russia" is just a pretext to flood the economy with a new debt-funded fiscal stimulus, just like COVID. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 08:12
President Trump's Tariffs: A New Golden Age For American Aluminum Workers Authored by David Bossie via RealClearPolitics, President Donald Trump specialized in shattering conventional wisdom and challenging the status quo on his road to the White House in 2016. To this day, our president believes Americans are getting ripped off by unfair trade practices where country after country has gotten comfortable taking advantage of the United States due to our unparalleled generosity and wealth. So, he’s focused like a laser beam on fair trade and leveling the playing field so our manufacturing workers can compete with foreign competitors and prosper. President Trump has declared that by implementing targeted tariffs on foreign countries that hurt American workers, “our country will be extremely liquid and rich again.” Having served as President Trump’s deputy campaign manager in 2016 and as an advisor to his campaigns in 2020 and 2024, I was delighted to see him reelected in 2024 with a huge mandate to fight for our manufacturing sector and usher in a “Golden Age” in America. Make no mistake, our 45th and 47th president is determined to finish the revolution on American trade policy that he began by fixing the mistakes of the Biden-Harris years and strengthening Section 232 tariffs on aluminum and steel. As part of the shock-and-awe action of his first one hundred days in office, President Trump signed new proclamations to bolster the fair-trade policy introduced during his historic first term in office. By elevating tariffs to 25% on aluminum and restoring the 25% levy on steel, the Trump administration is making clear that they have the backs of thousands of American aluminum and steel workers and are resolute in their mission to create a multitude of new manufacturing jobs. While the globalists in the economic establishment and mainstream media react to targeted tariffs with their customary Trump-deranged hysteria, American manufacturers reacted with both joy and relief because President Trump is making good on another campaign promise. It must be repeated again and again – because the fake news media refuses to tell the truth – that this president supports robust trade, but it must be trade that is fair and reciprocal. This is the linchpin of the policy. Under the “America Last” mindset of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, foreign countries were free to exploit loopholes in Section 232 to flood the domestic aluminum and steel industry with cheap products. Canada, Mexico, Australia, and Argentina locked arms with D.C. swamp creatures to secure exclusions and exemptions, to the detriment of American workers. Australia’s aluminum exports into the U.S. have increased sharply and at the same time China and Russia have used loopholes to move aluminum through Mexico and Canada to flood our market. As a result of foreign countries cheating, Alcoa announced the permanent closing of its smelter in Washington State. Other closures have included a Century Aluminum plant in Kentucky, which idled production in 2022, and Magnitude 7 Metals in Missouri, which was forced to close in 2024. Many globalists claim that the aluminum tariffs will raise costs for consumers. This is the same stale argument we heard in the first Trump administration; it wasn’t true then and it isn’t true now. The tariffs didn’t impact the amount of steel or aluminum consumed, didn’t weaken the economy, and didn’t cause massive job losses. Conversely, capacity utilization for aluminum increased during President Trump’s first term and now major investments in the steel industry have been announced. While some globalist companies attack President Trump’s targeted tariffs, some are telling their investors that “if all countries are getting a tariff, the impact for us is zero.” And while some globalist leaders who own aluminum smelters in Canada attack President Trump’s 25% tariff, the reality is that he was elected to bring back good-paying manufacturing jobs to American plants, and this is a commitment he plans to keep. As President Trump has said time and time again, America is done subsidizing Canada and the rest of the world. Aluminum and steel manufacturing are critical to America’s defense industrial base. Continued dependence on foreign suppliers leaves us vulnerable and jeopardizes our national security interests. President Trump is putting America first, which means a do-it-all, do-it-now policy supporting domestic manufacturing, no more loopholes, no more exemptions, and no more of the failed Biden agenda. America’s “Golden Age” will only be achieved if we have a strong and stable industrial base. President Trump’s aluminum and steel tariffs will help save America and make our country great again. David Bossie is the president of Citizens United and served as a senior adviser to the Trump 2024 and 2020 campaigns. Bossie served as deputy campaign manager for Donald J. Trump for President in 2016 and deputy executive director for the Trump Transition Team. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 07:45
Consumer Stocks Drove Strength In China Ahead Of Policy Presser To Boost Consumption Consumer shares led the overnight gains in China after officials announced plans to hold a press conference on Monday to discuss measures to boost consumption in the world's second-largest economy. "The press conference on boosting consumption fanned expectations on policy support," said Shen Meng, a director at Beijing-based investment bank Chanson & Co., adding, "But if it falls short of providing details on increasing income, such optimism may weaken to some extent." Goldman's Lindsay Matcham commented on the overnight gains: "... risk on in Asia overnight with our China Humanoid Robot's basket (+5.5%) and CSI 300 reaching the highest level this year in anticipation of Chinese officials holding a press conference on measures to boost consumption ..." On a separate note, Goldman's Shubham Ghosh and Sean Navin provided more color on the gains: "Consumption names helped to drive the strength today as China Liquor and Consumption baskets closed the day +5.79 and 4.10% respectively. It is worth noting that next week there will be a consumption presser on Monday (NDRC, MoF, MoCommerce, PBOC, SAFE and MoHRSS to host presser at 3 pm on Monday)." Renewed optimism for policy support from Beijing sent the CSI 300 Index up 2.43%, the highest level this year. KGI Securities analyst Ken Chen said authorities will likely unveil new policies to subsidize consumer trade-in programs and efforts to strengthen the social safety net, including better childcare and elderly-care services. Hong Kong's Han Seng Index continued to power into a bull market this week, while the S&P500 Index closed down 5% on the year. Last week, China maintained its GDP growth target at "around 5%" for 2025. Beijing may need to unleash the monetary cannon this year to achieve this goal. At the same time, the country faces internal challenges of a persistent property market downturn and external challenges, such as a worsening trade war with the US. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 07:20
Manhattan Apartment Rents Hit Record High Amid "Irrational" Bidding Wars Manhattan apartment rents surged to new record highs in February, driven by intensifying competition as the spring housing market begins early. Last month, signed new leases in Manhattan rose 6.4% to $4,500—$100 higher than the previous record set in the summer of 2023—according to Bloomberg, citing new data from appraiser Miller Samuel and brokerage Douglas Elliman. Source: Bloomberg "It's one of the most challenging times to be a renter," said Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel, adding, "It's really an irrational market because such a large swath of it is driven by irrational bidding." Last month's bidding wars occurred during a traditionally cool market that doesn't usually heat up until spring. New leases driven higher by bidding wars topped 27%—the largest share on record. Miller noted, "I would argue that the volatility we're seeing in the economy with the tariffs and the uncertainty that's piling up is keeping consumers in rentals." More from Bloomberg: In Brooklyn, the median rent was $3,600, up 2.9% from a year earlier and $350 below the record high set in July 2023. But bidding wars were even more common than in Manhattan last month, happening in 35% of deals. And the average price per square foot hit an all-time high for the borough of $59.15, up 7% from a year earlier. In the part of Queens that includes Astoria and Long Island City, the median rent rose 7% from a year earlier — the fourth annual increase in five months — to $3,466. In a separate report, Corcoran COO Gary Malin said Manhattan's rental market last month "experienced one of the lowest vacancy rates in three years, as it fell to 1.66%," adding, "High prices and a competitive market continue to prompt many tenants to renew their current leases and simply stay where they are." Record high rents and migrant gangs... Tech and Wall Street talent will just go elsewhere for affordable and safer living, such as Austin, Texas. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 06:55
Why It's Silver's Time To Shine Now By Jesse Colombo of The Bubble Bubble Report Gold has been soaring all year, while silver has spent the past nine months languishing, leaving long-suffering investors wondering: Will silver always play second fiddle to gold, or is it finally ready to shine? Like many, I’ve been frustrated by silver’s lackluster performance, but in this report, I’ll highlight a growing number of reasons to believe its rough patch may soon be over. Silver may finally step out of gold’s shadow and embark on a sustained bull market of its own. The first key sign that silver is ready to surge is its decisive move above the $32 to $33 resistance zone, which has acted as a stubborn ceiling for much of the past year. This breakout is an encouraging signal, but the next crucial confirmation will be a strong, high-volume close above the $34 to $35 resistance zone—the same level that halted the late-October rally in its tracks. Once silver clears both barriers, the path should be wide open for the powerful bull market I’ve anticipated since April 2024. However, for this breakout to remain valid, silver must close and hold above both resistance zones; otherwise, all bets are off. I closely monitor silver priced in euros because it provides valuable insights by stripping away the influence of U.S. dollar fluctuations, offering a clearer view of silver’s intrinsic strength. In euro terms, silver tends to respect key levels such as €30, €31, and €32, forming well-defined areas of support and resistance. Recently, silver broke above the €30 level—a bullish signal—establishing it as a new support. Next, a decisive close above €32 (the late October high) is necessary to signal that the next phase of the bull market has begun. That said, for the breakout to remain valid, silver must close and hold above both resistance zones; otherwise, I would consider it invalidated. Although silver has traded in a choppy, erratic manner for much of the past year, it is in a confirmed uptrend, despite grinding higher in a frustrating “two steps forward, one step back” manner. This is evident in the 200-day simple moving average, a helpful tool for identifying an asset’s primary trend by filtering out short-term price fluctuations. More importantly, the 200-day moving average suggests that the odds favor further gains, as a trend in motion tends to stay in motion—much like Newton’s first law of motion, also known as the law of inertia. The even better news is that once silver fully breaks out, as discussed earlier, I expect it to rise in a much more orderly fashion rather than continuing its erratic price swings. One of the key reasons I believe silver is on the verge of a powerful new phase in its bull market is gold’s impressive rally over the past year. Historically, gold is a major driver of silver’s price, though silver often lags before catching up. With economic uncertainty rising and the risk of a recession increasing, I believe gold still has plenty of upside potential, as I discussed in this article. Based on historical patterns, gold could climb to roughly $3,380 in this leg of the rally alone, which would provide a strong catalyst for silver. As I’ll explain shortly, the higher gold climbs, the more undervalued silver will become relative to gold, making it increasingly difficult for silver to remain at these relatively low levels while gold continues to soar. Also, take a look at the chart below and notice how gold struggled from 2020 to early 2024 to break above the $2,000–$2,100 resistance zone, which acted as a price ceiling for much of that period. Despite multiple attempts, gold was repeatedly pushed back down. However, in March 2024, it finally broke out, igniting the powerful bull market we see today. I see striking parallels with silver’s $32–$33 resistance zone over the past year and believe that once silver manages to close above this level, it will soar just as gold did. In addition to gold, copper is another key metal that strongly influences silver’s price, as I explained here. This understanding led me to develop the Synthetic Silver Price Index (SSPI)—an indicator designed to validate silver’s price movements and filter out potential fakeouts. The SSPI is calculated as the average price of gold and copper, with copper adjusted by a factor of 540 to ensure gold doesn’t disproportionately impact the index. Remarkably, despite silver not being an input, the SSPI closely mirrors silver’s price movements. For several months, I’ve been closely watching the SSPI as it struggled to break above the critical 2,600 to 2,640 resistance zone, repeatedly emphasizing that a breakout above this level would be a strong bullish confirmation for silver. Thanks to recent impressive rallies in both copper and gold, that long-anticipated breakout has finally occurred, signaling that a significant move in silver is likely imminent. However, for this breakout to remain valid, the SSPI must stay above the 2,600 to 2,640 zone, which has now turned into a key support level. If it holds, it will further strengthen the case for a powerful silver rally ahead. Another strong indication that silver is on the verge of a powerful bull market is its breakout in April 2024 from a two-decade-long triangle pattern—a development I highlighted in my bullish thesis published in a widely read ZeroHedge article at the time: Even more exciting is the fact that silver’s logarithmic chart, dating back to the 1960s, reveals a cup-and-handle pattern, indicating the potential for silver to reach several hundred dollars per ounce during this bull market. In order to confirm this particular scenario, silver needs to close decisively above the $50 resistance level. The long-term gold-to-silver ratio chart clearly shows that silver is significantly undervalued relative to gold, suggesting that silver has substantial upside potential. As silver rises to close this gap, the ratio would decline. The current gold-to-silver ratio stands at 89, but if it were to revert to its historical average of 53 since 1915—without any increase in gold’s price—silver would be valued at a solid $55 per ounce (as compared to the current price of $32.65). Adjusting silver’s price for inflation further highlights how undervalued it is by historical standards. During the Hunt brothers-induced spike in 1980, silver reached an inflation-adjusted price of $196. In the 2011 bull market, driven by quantitative easing, it hit $71. Currently trading at just $32.69, silver has significant room to rise if it’s to catch up with these previous inflation-adjusted peaks. Another way to assess whether silver is undervalued or overvalued is by comparing it to various money supply measures. The chart below shows the ratio of silver’s price to the U.S. M2 money supply, providing insight into whether silver is keeping pace with, outpacing, or lagging behind money supply growth. If silver’s price significantly outpaces money supply growth, the likelihood of a strong correction increases. Conversely, if silver lags behind money supply growth, it suggests a potential period of strength ahead. Since the mid-2010s, silver has slightly lagged behind M2 growth, which, combined with other factors discussed in this piece, position it for a strong rally. One of the key factors keeping silver's price suppressed over the past year, even as gold surged, has been the heavy short-selling of COMEX silver futures by swap dealers—primarily the trading desks of bullion banks such as JPMorgan and UBS. This was a deliberate effort to cap silver’s price (check out an egregious recent example of this kind of manipulation). In the process, they amassed a massive net short position of 30,233 futures contracts, equivalent to 151 million ounces of silver—nearly one-fifth of the annual global silver production. This staggering figure highlights the immense downward pressure exerted on the silver market. What’s even more astonishing is how much of this massive short position in silver futures is naked, meaning it isn’t backed by physical silver. It’s merely “paper” silver being dumped onto the market to suppress prices. However, once silver finally breaks out, it could trigger a wave of short-covering—when traders who bet against an asset through short-selling are forced to buy it back as prices rise to limit their losses. As the price climbs, these traders become increasingly desperate to close their positions, further fueling the rally. If the buying pressure is intense enough, it could even lead to a short squeeze, dramatically amplifying silver’s upward momentum. Given the sheer size of their short position, bullion banks stand to lose approximately $151 million for every $1 increase in the price of silver—a setup for a major price surge. Now, just imagine what will happen as silver climbs by $5, $10, $20, and beyond from this point. The risk of an explosive silver short squeeze is further amplified by the astonishing ratio of 378 ounces of "paper" silver—ETFs, futures, and other derivatives—for every single ounce of physical silver. In a violent short squeeze, holders of "paper" silver could be forced to scramble for the extremely scarce physical silver to fulfill their contractual obligations. This would cause the price of "paper" silver products to collapse, while physical silver prices would skyrocket to jaw-dropping levels, potentially reaching several hundred dollars per ounce (this event is what may fulfill the price target implied by the cup and handle pattern I showed earlier). One key reason I believe silver will soon break free comes down to basic Economics 101: supply and demand. Over the past five years, silver demand has consistently exceeded supply, resulting in a persistent deficit—as shown in the chart below. In 2024 alone, the shortfall reached 182 million ounces, with an estimated additional 149 million ounces this year—and deficits are expected to continue for the foreseeable future. As a result, above-ground silver stocks are dwindling rapidly. While bullion banks can create unlimited amounts of paper silver to suppress prices, they can’t manufacture the real physical silver that is crucial for a wide range of industries, alongside growing investment demand. The persistent silver deficit stems from both dwindling supply and surging demand—a combination that, in an unmanipulated market, would naturally drive prices higher. That’s why I see silver as a beach ball being held underwater—pressure is building, and it won’t stay suppressed for much longer. On the supply side, global silver mine production has peaked and declined over the past decade as economically viable deposits become depleted—something the bullion banks have absolutely no control over. And as time goes on, this supply crunch is only likely to worsen. At the same time, demand for physical silver has skyrocketed across multiple sectors, with the biggest driver being the surge in solar panel manufacturing. As the world shifts away from fossil fuels toward renewable energy, this trend is only in its early stages. Silver demand for photovoltaic (solar panel) applications alone has nearly tripled over the past four years, increasing by an astonishing 143.1 million ounces. With global efforts to expand clean energy accelerating, this demand is set to grow even further. Another key factor likely to drive precious metals prices higher is the growing risk of a U.S. recession and the Federal Reserve’s expected response to it, as I recently explained: A recession would be extremely bullish for both silver and gold, as the U.S. Federal Reserve and government would respond with aggressive measures to support the economy. This would include slashing interest rates back to zero—and even into negative territory—while abruptly ending the current quantitative tightening (QT) policy and reviving quantitative easing (QE). In doing so, they will digitally create hundreds of billions—eventually trillions—of new dollars in a desperate attempt to stabilize financial markets and the broader economy. In summary, while most investors continue to overlook silver, it is well positioned to thrive and catch up to gold’s soaring price. As we’ve seen, silver remains incredibly undervalued by multiple measures—including the gold-to-silver ratio, its inflation-adjusted price, its price relative to the M2 money supply, and the persistent supply-demand imbalance, with physical silver demand outpacing supply for over half a decade. For these reasons and more, I don’t expect silver to stay this cheap for much longer. The final missing piece is a decisive technical breakout—one that propels silver into escape velocity. And as we speak, it may already be in the early stages of doing just that. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 06:30
The Marine Corps Informs Senate That Ukraine War Is Impacting Readiness The United States Marine Corps has warned that the constant support it has provided to Ukraine's military over the last three years of war has significantly drained its own supplies and could impact war readiness. This was the testimony of the second highest-ranked Marine, Gen. Christopher Mahoney (assistant commandant of the Marines), to a Senate subcommittee on Wednesday. "The Marine Corps has provided over $2 billion [replacement cost about $5 billion] in equipment and munitions to the Armed Forces of Ukraine via PDA presidential drawdown authority]," Mahoney said in his opening statement. Image: Department of Defense "Replacement and reimbursement for these inventory losses are needed to rebuild the depth of magazine needed to gain and maintain lost proficiency," the General added. He emphasized that "significant challenges" remain the meet production demands needed to replenish Marine Corps arms and equipment handed over to Ukraine: "Though some funds have been reimbursed through PDA replenishment funds, the defense industrial base (DIB) faces significant challenges in meeting production demands for replenishment." Mahoney continued, "New procurement lead times delay replenishment, as existing programmed deliveries take priority. To mitigate impacts, the Marine Corps has adjusted training allocations and inventory management." "However, continued high demand support may require the service to accept further risks to either training readiness or strategic readiness," the number-two top Marine general added. While he emphasized that the US Marine Corps stands read to defend the nation, it remains that the American military is facing "four disparate-threat state actors: China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea." He described the four as "colluding into a single, complex, and adaptive global threat system." "We remain the world's most elite fighting force with the most proficient combined arms teams and best small unit leaders," he said. "The extraordinary quality of our Marines remains our principal advantage." How much aid has the US actually sent Ukraine over the course of the war with Russia? The Council on Foreign relations has some new figures: The U.S. Congress has voted through five bills that have provided Ukraine with aid since the war began, doing so most recently in April 2024. The total budget authority under these bills—the “headline” figure often cited by news media—is $175 billion. The historic sums have helped a broad set of Ukrainian people and institutions, including refugees, law enforcement, and independent radio broadcasters, though most of the aid has been military-related. Gen. Mahony as expected also highlighted that the Marines have adapted to the new challenges presented by the last several years of conflict in multiple places. "We are innovating and adapting from lessons learned from the modern battlefields of Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, Red Sea, and our own exercises," he told the Senators. President Trump over the last weeks has also expressed deep concern that a blank check mentality towards Ukraine under the Biden administration served to weaken US military readiness, and the American economy more broadly. After a brief halt in arms shipments to Kiev starting last week and into the weekend, the US weapons pipeline has been declared back on after the Jeddah talks. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 05:45
RFK Jr's Ex-CIA Daughter-In-Law Tasked With Reining In Intel's 'Black Budgets' Authored by Philip Wegmann via RealClearPolitics, A glamorous woman in an unglamorous job, Amaryllis Fox Kennedy sits in a cavernous office that is entirely empty other than the leftover computers and keyboards still scattered about from when the last administration vacated the premises, leaving old copies of federal budgets bound in blue, red, and grey, stretching back decades and stacked nearly from floor to ceiling. Amaryllis Fox Kennedy (John Lamparski / WireImage file) It is not exotic like a dusty cafe in Karachi. It isn’t as chic as an art gallery in Shanghai. All the same, Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, or AFK as aides now abbreviate her name, is happy with her new post. “I like to be in the plumbing,” says the daughter-in-law of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Once the youngest female CIA officer at 22 and whose memoir of a life spent undercover was optioned to Hollywood, she adds, this place “is where you can have the most impact.” She is speaking from the Office of Management and Budget across the alleyway from the White House where, during her first interview since joining the new administration, the ventilation system can be heard kicking on and off. The onetime spy is now the associate director for Intelligence and International Affairs at OMB, a first-of-its-kind position and an assignment that is as influential as her path to it is ironic. President Trump had considered Fox Kennedy for CIA deputy director. Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, chairman of the powerful Senate Intelligence Committee, intervened. Lawmakers worried that if given that role, AFK might shatter America’s premier espionage agency. Their fears were not entirely unfounded. Since leaving the agency in 2010, she has become a prominent CIA skeptic. She has made the declassification of the JFK assassination files a personal mission. She managed the campaign of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. last year as he promised to renew the work of his late uncle, President John F. Kennedy, who once vowed to “splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.” Any attempts to assuage concerns failed. Her call, and a subsequent call from the White House to set up a meeting with Cotton, went unanswered. She was torpedoed behind the congressional curtain. Enter Russ Vought. Rather than working inside just one three-letter agency to reform it, the director of the Office of Management and Budget asked, why not bring the entire espionage apparatus to the president’s heel? Fox Kennedy accepted. Passed over for a job at CIA, she now oversees the entire CIA budget as well as the budgets for the 17 other agencies that collectively make up the intelligence community. This makes her the tip of the fiduciary spear, so to speak, in the ongoing White House war against what they see as a “woke and weaponized” government security establishment. The budgets, like the ones collecting dust next to her desk, and other bureaucratic authorities known only to the nerdiest of wonks, Fox Kennedy insists, are the very best tools “to put the Leviathan on the chain.” All of this delights Vought, who calls her addition to OMB “a huge deal,” a step toward policing the shadowy corners of the federal government he described as “nearly untouchable.” No clandestine budget or compartmentalized program will be beyond her purview. Instead, AFK will be free to follow the money. “The federal government has been weaponized against the American people, including our president, in ways most Americans have yet to realize,” the budget chief told RCP before likening the enterprise to “our own Church Committee within OMB to end the weaponization for good.” But what would you say you do here exactly? “My job is to arm Tulsi and John,” AFK replies, referring to Tulsi Gabbard, director of National Intelligence, and John Ratcliffe, director of the CIA, like old friends, “and all the amazing men and women in the intelligence community with everything they need to do their job – to do it safely and efficiently, protect this country, and execute the president’s agenda.” She continues with standard boilerplate about ensuring that “not a penny of taxpayer dollars is wasted.” A wonk would talk about the efficiency of government systems, while a spook would say something about an attempt at omniscience. She talks that way, too, to be sure, but AFK is unusual in that she attempts to humanize budgetary questions of national security. Every taxpayer dollar that comes through the door, says the mother of three, is a dollar that will not go to “a family’s vacation” or “someone’s kid’s ballet lessons.” Misuse of those funds, she has concluded, is nothing short of “a sin.” While she can sound a little like Marianne Williamson, the gadfly guru and perennial presidential candidate, years spent undercover while living as an art dealer abroad and recruiting arms dealers as assets has given AFK a hard edge. She reserves a special derision for those in intelligence who see themselves as separate from, and unaccountable to, civilian control. “Even when I was there,” she recalls of past colleagues at the CIA, “they would talk about both Democrats and Republicans, whoever was in the White House, as the temps. ‘Oh, we don’t want to bother the “temps” with that – they’re going to be gone in four years.’” As a result of that attitude, there were entire departments and “parallel command structures,” AFK reported, “that ‘the temps’ have never been allowed in.” Now, as a political appointee and a temp herself, her mandate is to break down those doors. “You can’t fund anything like the lawfare and weaponization President Trump encountered in his first term without a firehouse of money,” she said, adding that there was initially “a learning curve in the first administration around how to put the Leviathan on the chain and keep it there.” As a result, AFK continued, “the Leviathan made damn good use of that time. It had a head start.” Not that long ago, liberals lambasted the security state while conservatives rushed to its defense. But those roles have been entirely reversed during the Trump era. From the surveillance of the first Trump campaign and the Steele dossier to the dismissal of the Hunter Biden laptop as “Russian misinformation” and the subsequent social-media censorship, it is a story that has played out for the better part of a decade. “You realize the exact same offensive playbook that we used against people who were killing Americans, and were our greatest adversaries,” she said, “we are using it against the elected representatives of the people in this country, or against any American protected by the Constitution.” This sentiment makes Fox Kennedy at home in MAGA world and a pariah to Democrats. She comes most recently from the “Make America Healthy Again” wing of the GOP, a coalition where anything big (Big Ag, Big Pharma, and Big Tech, for instance) is viewed with skepticism. She still sticks out. Republican hawks are not known for looking to Sufi mystics for inspiration or talking about the need to root out terrorism by first acknowledging the humanity of the terrorist, as AFK has done. She possesses an undeniably different outlook on the world and a particular set of skills. The CIA assigned her a “nonofficial cover,” sending her abroad with a false identity but without any diplomatic protections. She learned beforehand, like all agents do, to lose a tail, break out of handcuffs, and in the worst-case scenario, to shoot her way out of a bad situation. That kind of training isn’t likely to come in handy at the White House. A career in analysis and human intelligence will. She first came to the attention of the CIA while in graduate school after developing a predictive algorithm to pinpoint where terrorist cells were most likely to develop (the ratio between hookah bars and madrassas was key). The career that followed took her from the Middle East to Asia, including a stint in Shanghai where she posed as an art dealer and, per her memoir, discovered that her housekeeper was keeping tabs on her family for Beijing. While AFK has become increasingly critical of the CIA, particularly with the counterterrorism measures deployed after 9/11, she still loves the agency. “The intelligence community, when the cancer of political weaponization and censorship and domestic propaganda is removed, I’d fund it all day long,” AFK insists, calling it “the most cost-effective, efficient, humane way to avoid war – 10 times out of 10.” The former agent says she just wants reform, specifically a return to an apolitical mission, which AFK insists yields better results anyway. She argues that human intelligence capabilities have been diminished in recent years as the intel agencies pursue priorities contrary to their core mission. “The majority of useful information that comes out of the intelligence community, for policymakers,” she said, came from other sources and methods. Recipients of the presidential daily brief, or PDB, a summary of intelligence and analysis presented in the Oval Office each morning, AFK reported being told is “basically” the same kind of information that can be read “in the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, and the New York Times.” A senior administration official, granted anonymity to speak candidly, did not dispute that characterization, telling RCP that both Democrats and Republicans have complained that in recent years the PDB intel has grown “stale.” Reform isn’t welcome in the intelligence community, especially when those three-letter agencies are predisposed to doubt the intentions of the reformer. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said as much when he seemed to warn Trump before his first inauguration not to pick a fight with spooks. “Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community,” the Democratic leader told Rachel Maddow of MSNBC in 2017, “they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.” One question is whether the Trump administration’s approach to the IC, generally, and AFK’s appointment, specifically, indicate a willingness to exact payback. “I think her intentions, at least from my point of view, are probably not all that wonderful,” said Loch Johnson, a professor at the University of Georgia whom the New York Times once dubbed “the dean of American Intelligence Scholars.” He sees an administration motivated not by good government, but by an appetite for “revenge more than anything else.” Legally and constitutionally speaking, Johnson told RCP, there is no doubt AFK “has a right to go out to the CIA and look at their budgets up and down.” Comparisons to the Church Committee, though, the Senate select committee that famously called the intelligence agencies to the carpet in the 1970s, may be premature. “The Church Committee was bipartisan, fact-driven and with strict adherence to the law,” said Johnson, who served as the top aide to the late chairman of the committee, Idaho Sen. Frank Church. “So no, I don’t think this is like it.” What Johnson thinks is all but certain is a clash. “You’re going to have Fox and others making public charges against these agencies, and that’s when they better have their facts right because the CIA and FBI – I don’t think this is inappropriate – have their own professional contacts on Capitol Hill,” Johnson concluded. “They will seek recourse.” The White House has already started its long march through the federal bureaucracy. Elon Musk shuttered USAID. Ratcliffe thinned the CIA herd of recently hired officers, though AFK predicts that only a “very small portion” of federal employees in the intel agencies, those who “allowed their trade craft to be turned inward against Americans,” will end up “on the chopping block.” When Trump clashed with Volodymyr Zelensky, warning the Ukrainian president he was gambling with another world war by demanding a U.S. security guarantee, AFK was on her feet across the street from the White House in the Eisenhower Office Building, cheering. “He was like Aslan,” she said, referring to the lion and protagonist of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books. Even in an administration defined by skepticism of foreign intervention, AFK stands out. She has been vociferous in her condemnation of what she sees as a proxy war with Russia. The sentiment most in fashion during the previous administration, that the U.S. stood with Ukraine, she wrote on social media last year, was “simply a jingle.” While that country burned, she argued, “the war hawks and the bankers” prospered. If and when that conflict ends, conservatives will clamor for an audit of the billions in financial and military aid sent overseas. David Sachs, Trump’s crypto czar, expressed such an appetite recently, telling Fox News that Ukrainian oligarchs had been “feasting” on that assistance and alleged that American weapons meant for the frontlines had been resold on the black market. A fledgling democracy, Ukraine struggled with endemic corruption even before the war, and while allegations of widespread black-market sales are yet to be substantiated, the Zelensky administration uncovered massive fraud to the tune of $40 million in weapons procurement. AFK was not surprised. “It’s like shipping a pallet of money,” she said of weapons sent overseas, “and walking away from it and then coming back two years later being like, but do you have proof that it’s not there?” The administration will soon resume weapons shipments to and intelligence sharing with Ukraine after Zelensky agreed to a 30-day ceasefire with Russia on Tuesday. Anything approaching an audit will likely have to wait. AFK, meanwhile, focuses her attention stateside. Hollywood had considered adapting her life into a screenplay. Apple was reportedly developing a TV series based on her memoir. Brie Larson was set for the starring role, with Fox Kennedy as an executive producer. The project has stalled since AFK entered politics, and her newest chapter, overseeing a sprawling intelligence apparatus from a quiet corner of the Office of Management and Budget, is not exactly glamorous. No one can argue that it isn’t influential. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 05:00
These Are The U.S. Cities With The Highest Value Homes A study by Badeloft USA examined high-value home density across cities using real estate data. After analyzing land area, average home price, and the number of properties exceeding that price, the study concluded that Miami leads in housing density, with the most above-average-priced homes per square mile. Miami tops the list with 105 above-average-priced homes per square mile, the highest density of premium real estate. With just 36 square miles of land, its limited space drives this concentration, making it a prime destination for luxury living. The city’s average home price stands at $584K. New York City ranks second, with 38 luxury homes per square mile. While its density is lower than Miami’s, it leads in total premium properties, boasting 11,000 across 300 square miles. With an average home price of $763K, NYC remains a global real estate hub. Las Vegas follows in third place with 26 high-value homes per square mile. Spanning 142 square miles, it has 3,701 premium properties, nearly double the density of Chicago, signaling its rising influence in the luxury market.Philadelphia ranks fourth, with 23 premium homes per square mile. It hosts 3,214 above-average-priced properties across 134 square miles. Despite having the lowest average home price in the top cities at $218K, its density reflects strong real estate growth. Washington, D.C., takes fifth place with 17 premium homes per square mile. With 1,225 high-value properties spread over 68 square miles and an average home price of $589K, it maintains a strong luxury market. Boston lands sixth with 14 premium homes per square mile. Though it has just 698 above-average-priced properties, its compact 48-square-mile size boosts density. With an average home price of $745K, Boston remains a high-end market. San Antonio ranks seventh, also with 14 luxury homes per square mile. Despite nearly 7,000 premium properties, its vast 500-square-mile area lowers overall density. Detroit follows in eighth place with 13 luxury homes per square mile. It has 1,803 high-value properties, but its $74K average home price—the lowest on the list—underscores its affordability despite growing premium real estate. Chicago comes in ninth, with 12 premium homes per square mile. With 2,759 above-average-priced properties across 227 square miles, its density is comparable to Honolulu, offering ample opportunities for buyers and investors. Honolulu rounds out the top ten, also with 12 high-value homes per square mile. Despite its ranking, it boasts the most expensive average home price at $773K, with just 826 above-average-priced homes, distinguishing it from other cities. A spokesperson from Badeloft USA commented: “High-value home density sheds light on how urban geography, land distribution, and market pressures shape housing trends. Cities with smaller land areas often experience concentrated demand for premium properties, while larger regions show more varied growth patterns." They continued: "These findings highlight the intricate balance between affordability, housing accessibility, and economic forces driving real estate markets. Buyers and investors should carefully consider these factors when evaluating opportunities in different markets.” You can see the full research by this link. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 04:15
Former Head Of Israeli Military Intelligence Welcomes 'Chaos' In Syria Via Middle East Eye The former head of the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate has voiced his support for the "power struggle" in Syria, adding that the "chaos" benefits Israel. "The chaos in Syria is beneficial. Let them fight each other. But Israel should remain silent on this matter and not make any public statements. It should act calmly," Tamir Hayman said in an interview with the Israeli Army Radio. Hayman, who now serves as the director of the Institute for National Security Studies, welcomed the conflict between the different factions in Syria, but added that Israel must stay quiet. "We wish victory to all forces, but we must do one thing, do this silently, and not talk about it." HTS member, via AFP He said while in the short term there appears to be power struggle in Syria, the new government is trying to extend its control. "Everyone is fighting each other. An agreement with the Kurds on the first day, a massacre against the Alawites on the second day, and a threat to the Druze on the third day... All this chaos in addition to an Israeli attack on the south... All this chaos is somewhat good for Israel," he explained. The former military commander was referencing the violence that began on last Thursday when gunmen allegedly loyal to Assad launched attacks on security forces in the coastal region, home to members of the Alawi community, to which Assad and most of his loyalists belong. Clashes spiraled into revenge attacks on civilians, leaving hundreds dead and thousands displaced. The killings have stoked an atmosphere of sectarianism and intimidation, and posed a massive challenge for the credibility of Syria's nascent government. Civilians belonging to the Alawi community were particularly targeted. Tensions in the area had been high ever since Assad's ouster, with Alawis saying they have been victims of occasional reprisal attacks. While the new Syrian administration's defense ministry said it had completed its operations against "regime remnants", residents of the coastal cities say violence has not ended, despite being reduced. Further destabilization and attacks Meanwhile, Israel carried out an air strike on the Syrian capital Damascus on Thursday, as its defence minister threatened Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, adding to the chaos in Syria. Israel's military said it was targeting what it described as a command center belonging to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which it said was used to direct "terrorist activities" against Israel. Major General (Ret.) Tamir Hayman, Wiki Commons Middle East Eye could not independently verify the claim. The strike took place in a residential area at the edge of Damascus, Syrian state media reported. The target of the strike was a Palestinian person, two Syrian security sources told Reuters. It was not immediately clear if anyone was wounded in the attack. Elsewhere on Thursday, Israeli forces advanced into the countryside in Syria's al-Quneitra region with tanks and military vehicles, detonating former military sites, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Last month, Israel carried out a series of air strikes on what it said were military bases in Syria, following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech demanding a "complete demilitarisation" of Syria's south. At least two were killed in the attacks. During the speech, Netanyahu made specific reference to Syria's Druze community, who live predominantly in the Sweida region. "We will not tolerate any threat to the Druze community in southern Syria," he said. Al-Qaeda affiliated terrorists in Syria led by Jolani are going from door to door and massacring Alawite families in the most cruel, sadistic ways. What we see on social media must only be a glimpse of the savagery that Jolani’s jihadists are committing. Entire families have been… https://t.co/FAQYKiKphf March 13, 2025 On Thursday, Israel's foreign ministry confirmed it had sent humanitarian aid to Druze communities in Syria over the past few weeks. Analysts have suggested that Israel's overtures to the Druze community are part of attempts to divide Syria. Israel has carried out heavy air strikes against Syrian military infrastructure since December, leaving the new administration - already battered from 14 years of civil war - with little capacity to respond militarily. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 03:30
Ukraine's Kursk Blunder Opens The Door For Russian Invasion Of The North The true purpose behind Ukraine's attack on the Kursk region of Southwest Russia has been hotly debated, mostly because the area holds little to no traditional strategic purpose. Not all seized territory has equal value in a war; some territory has no value. Some believe that the incursion was meant to open a door to an attack on the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant, which could then be held hostage or sabotaged, leaving a radioactive mess for the Russians to clean up. But the plant is too far from the border to be successfully captured by anything other than a large scale offensive force with superior logistics. Others argue that the mere act of invading Russian soil (no matter how useless) was intended to send a message to Ukraine's western allies that Vladimir Putin's "red lines" are a false front and that he would never respond with a nuclear defense. In other words, Kursk was supposed to encourage US and European officials to enter the war with boots on the ground. It remains to be seen if Putin would in fact use the nuclear option, but Ukraine certainly isn't worth taking the risk, at least not for the majority of western citizens. Kyiv has claimed that the action was designed to lure Russian troops away from the eastern front where they have been making significant gains, thus slowing the Kremlin's attrition machine and giving Ukraine a better position at the negotiating table. If this was the intent, then the plan failed. The momentum in Kursk was contained within a couple weeks of the operation and the Ukrainians have been stuck there ever since. In the past month their gains in the area have been whittled down and now their lines are imploding. It is expected that Russia will take back the last Ukrainian holdings within the next two weeks, but this is not the biggest problem Ukraine faces after the failure of their Kursk operation. At the end of February the Russians were already initiating cross-border strikes into the Sumy Oblast of Norther Ukraine and it looks as though these strikes might turn into a full invasion. As we noted at the end of December, the Kursk attack by Ukraine could end up backfiring in spectacular fashion. With tens of thousands of Russian troops amassed in the region, the fall of Ukrainian lines means the path is open for those same troops to come pouring into Sumy and cut the country in half. Vladimir Putin's recent appearance in Kursk and ample geolocation data in the town of Sudzha proves that the area is well under Russian control despite claims that the Ukrainians are holding. Russian incursions into Sumy have also escalated. The troop surge comes just as the Trump Administration positions for peace negotiations, an effort which is meeting resistance from all sides. Even US allies within NATO are insisting that the war continue until Ukraine gains back all of its lost territory (which they know is not going to happen). The precarious nature of peace talks is amplified by Putin's refusal to enter into a ceasefire agreement. Putin claims the ceasefire would serve no purpose other than to allow Ukraine to strengthen their lines. The western media continues to promote the narrative that Russia is using thousands of North Korean soldiers as "meat waves" to run Ukraine out of Kursk. We're still waiting for any significant evidence to back this claim but none has materialized. Russia has multiple ethnic groups within the country that "look Asian" and the presence of these people on the battlefield is not proof of North Korean troops. To this day there is no evidence of "meat waves" or a large contingent of DPRK soldiers. In any case, Kursk is lost to the Ukrainians, which will hopefully give Vladimir Zelensky and Kyiv motivation to finally agree to realistic peace negotiations. If not, then the Russians are perfectly positioned to invade Northern Ukraine and close in on Kyiv. Putin has presented two terms for any agreement: Ukraine must give up the captured Donbas region and allow the separatists to join Russia. And, Ukraine is never allowed to join NATO. Sadly, these were the basic terms at the very beginning of the war. Hundreds of thousands of lives (perhaps millions when the true tally is revealed) could have been saved if peace talks had not been interfered with in 2022. If peace is achieved now, at least World War III can be avoided. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 02:45
Britain Wants Ukraine's Minerals Too Authored by Mark Curtis via Declassified UK, When U.K. officials signed a 100-year partnership with Ukraine in mid-January, they claimed to be Ukraine’s “preferred partner” in developing the country’s “critical minerals strategy.” Yet within a month, U.S. President Donald Trump had presented a proposal to Ukraine’s President Volodymr Zelensky to access the country’s vast mineral resources as “compensation” for U.S. support to Ukraine in the war against Russia. Whitehall was none too pleased about Washington muscling in. When Foreign Secretary David Lammy met Zelensky in Kyiv last month he reportedly raised the issue of minerals, “a sign that [Keir] Starmer’s government is still keen to get access to Ukraine’s riches”, the iPaper reported. Lammy earlier said, in a speech last year: “Look around the world. Countries are scrambling to secure critical minerals, just as great powers once raced to control oil.” The U.K. foreign secretary was correct, but Britain itself is one of those powers, and Ukraine is one of the major countries U.K. officials — as well as the Trump administration — have their eyes on. It’s no surprise why. Ukraine has around 20,000 mineral deposits covering 116 types of minerals such as beryllium, manganese, gallium, uranium, zirconium, rare earth metals and nickel. The country, whose economy has been devastated by Russia’s brutal war, also possesses one of the world’s largest reserves of graphite, the largest titanium reserves in Europe, and a third of the continent’s lithium deposits. These resources are key for industries such as military production, high tech, aerospace, and green energy. In recent years, the Ukrainian government has sought to attract foreign investment to develop its critical mineral resources and signed strategic partnerships and held investment fora to showcase its mining opportunities. The country has also begun auctioning exploration permits for minerals such as lithium, copper, cobalt and nickel, offering lucrative investment opportunities. Media narratives largely parrot the U.K. government’s interests in Ukraine being about standing up to aggression. But Whitehall has in the past few years stepped up its interest in accessing the world’s critical minerals, not least in Ukraine. ‘Critical Minerals Work’ Map of minerals of Ukraine, 2022. (Zbigniew Dylewskie / Wikimedia Commons /CC BY 3.0) Nusrat Ghani, a trade minister in Rishi Sunak’s government, held at least 10 meetings on the subject of critical minerals in 2023 and the first half of 2024, government transparency data shows. Among the companies she met were giant U.K. mining corporations Rio Tinto and Anglo American, and arms exporter BAE Systems and military aerospace lobbyists, ADS. It is not clear if Ukraine was the subject of these discussions but one other prominent firm Ghani met to discuss “mineral supply chains” was Rothschilds, which has extensive interests in Ukraine. Ghani held a discussion with the Paris-headquartered global advisory firm in April 2023 while her successor Alan Mak did so the following year in May. Mak met the firm “to discuss Rothschild’s critical minerals work,” the data show. The corporation was invited to the 2023 Ukraine Recovery Conference held in London and is a member of the U.K.-Ukraine Finance Partnership. It has also been the main adviser to the Ukrainian Ministry of Finance since 2017. Rothschilds, on whose board sits former U.K. National Security Adviser Lord Mark Sedwill, has no less than $53 billion invested in Ukraine. ‘British-Ukrainian Partnership’ (GOV.UK) Writing recently in Unherd, researcher Sang-Haw Lee quotes a senior Labour figure saying the U.K. was involved in extensive negotiations for the whole of last year relating to securing exclusive access to Ukraine’s minerals, but that adequate government support was not forthcoming. Some other meetings have crept into the public domain. Last April, two prominent U.K. parliamentarians met one of Ukraine’s largest mining investment companies in London to discuss “British-Ukrainian partnership in the field of critical minerals mining.” BGV Group, which has investments of $100 million in Ukrainian mining projects, held discussions with then energy minister, Lord Martin Callanan, and Bob Seely, then a Conservative MP who sat on Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee. The company is seeking investors for its graphite and beryllium projects and said in a media release that “Ukraine has all the prerequisites to become one of Britain’s main suppliers of critical minerals crucial for advanced technologies and the green energy transition.” “As Ukraine’s ultimate European ally, the U.K. could leverage its strong position within NATO to help secure mining sites and transportation routes”, writes Andriy Dovbenko, the founder of U.K.-Ukraine TechExchange. ‘Vast Resources’ The U.K. government’s “Ukraine Business Guide” notes that “Ukraine has vast resources” and “a rich mineral base of iron ore, manganese, coal, and titanium.” Certainly, enhancing access to critical minerals has been a broad priority across Whitehall over the last three years. The U.K. produced its first-ever Critical Minerals Strategy in 2022 and updated this with a refresh” the following year. It identifies 18 minerals with “high criticality” for the U.K., including several present in Ukraine, such as graphite, lithium and rare earth elements. The U.K.’s strategy aims, among other things, to “support U.K. companies to participate overseas” in supply chains for these minerals and “champion London as the world’s capital of responsible finance for critical minerals.” As part of its critical minerals strategy, the government set up a so-called Task & Finish group, analysing the risks to U.K. industry, and including participants from BAE, Rio Tinto and ADS. The group highlights titanium, rare earth elements, cobalt and gallium as among the minerals with a supply risk to the U.K. military sector. Zelenskyy pouring water for Starmer during a NATO Ukraine Council session at the military alliance’s summit in Washington, D.C., in July 2024. Then President Joe Biden and NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg on right. (Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) The U.K. has also launched a Critical Mineral Intelligence Centre and established a Critical Minerals Expert Committee to advise the government. A report by the Foreign Affairs Committee on critical minerals published in December 2023 concluded that “the U.K. cannot afford to leave itself vulnerable on supply chains that are of such strategic importance.” A sign of how seriously the government is taking the issues is that it says it will “ensure consideration for critical minerals is embedded” in the free trade agreements it is negotiating with a range of countries. ‘Regulatory Structures’ Starmer and Zelenskyy in Kiev in January when they signed a 100-year partnership agreement. (Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street/ Flickr/ CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) Accessing minerals overseas often depends on loosening government regulations to enable foreign corporations to strike favourable deals. The 100-year partnership declaration commits the U.K. and Ukraine to “supporting development of a Ukrainian critical minerals strategy and necessary regulatory structures required to support the maximisation of benefits from Ukraine’s natural resources, through the possible establishment of a Joint Working Group.” The thrust of the partnership is to “support a more enabling environment for private sector participation in the clean energy transition” and to “attract investments of British companies in the development of renewable energy sources.” More generally, the two sides will “work together to boost and modernise Ukraine’s economy by progressing reforms that aim to attract private finance” and “boost investor confidence.” As Declassified recently showed, British aid to Ukraine is focused on promoting these pro-private sector reforms and on pressing the government in Kyiv to open up its economy to foreign investors. Foreign Office documents on its flagship aid project in Ukraine, which supports privatisation, note that the war provides “opportunities” for Ukraine delivering on “some hugely important reforms.” The U.K. supports a project called SOERA (State-owned enterprises reform activity in Ukraine), which is funded by USAID with the U.K. Foreign Office as a junior partner. SOERA works to “advance privatization of selected SOEs [state-owned enterprises], and develop a strategic management model for SOEs remaining in state ownership.” U.K. documents note the programme has already “prepared the groundwork” for privatisation, a key plank of which is to change Ukraine’s legislation. “SOERA worked hand-in-hand with GoU and proposed 25 pieces of legislation of which 13 were adopted and implemented,” the most recent documents note. ‘Geostrategic Rivalries’ Much U.K. foreign policy and wars can be explained by Whitehall wanting British corporations to get their hands on other countries’ resources. The 2003 invasion of Iraq was mainly about oil while decades earlier the U.K.’s brutal war in Malaya in the 1950s was substantially about rubber. Britain’s support for apartheid South Africa is significantly explained by the U.K. wanting continued access to South Africa’s massive mineral resources. But the main concern now is China, which is the biggest producer of 12 out of the 18 minerals assessed by the U.K. as critical. The Ministry of Defence’s major geopolitical forecast, its “Global Strategic Trends,” released last year, makes 57 mentions of minerals, noting that they “will become of increasing geopolitical importance” and could lead to “new geostrategic rivalries and tensions.” History suggests that Whitehall’s international strategy on critical minerals, and its scramble for Ukraine’s, will continue to shape U.K. foreign policy and contribute to these future international tensions. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/14/2025 - 02:00
Escobar: Made in China 2025 – Revisited Authored by Pepe Escobar, The Two Sessions, part of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, held last week at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, were a pretty serious deal. Not only because the sessions set the framework for Beijing to confront serious economic challenges ahead. But also because of the stellar performance by Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who forcefully imprinted in the collective psyche of the Global Majority how China should be regarded as a premier source of stability in this extremely turbulent geopolitical juncture, standing firm “in the right side of History”. So let’s start with the key Wang Yi takeaways – which translate as de facto setting the tone for Beijing’s diplomacy throughout 2025. US-China: Beijing is ready to engage with Trump 2.0 on the basis of mutual respect. Yet “if the US continues to contain China, we will resolutely counteract.” It’s “fully possible” for US and China to become partners. But this should be seen as the paramount concept: “No country should fantasize that it can suppress China and maintain good relations with us at the same time.” The Global South: That is a “key force for maintaining world peace, driving world development and improving global governance”. These developing nations, accounting for over 40 per cent of global GDP, “hold the key to bringing stability to the world and making it a better place.” Wang Yi emphasized once again how China is “a natural member of the Global South.” Russia – and Ukraine conflict: Russia and China’s“mature and resilient relationship (…) will not be swayed by any turn of events or be affected by any third party.” Wang Yi defined Beijing’s position on the conflict as “objective and impartial” – and crucially did not call for Europe – or Ukraine – to be included in the upcoming US-Russia negotiations. His major point – which echoes Russia’s analysis: “Security is mutual and equal; the security of one country cannot be built on the insecurity of others.” Gaza: No Chinese endorsement of the Trump Gaza Riviera Resort and Casino gambit: “Gaza belongs to the Palestinian people”. And “changing its status by forceful means will not bring peace but new chaos”. Beijing supports the Egyptian peace plan. Once again, Wang Yi made it clear that “the crux of the cycle of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict lies in the fact that the two-state solution is only half achieved.” Europe: Wang Yi praised the “capacity and wisdom” of EU-China to “deepen strategic dialogue and mutual trust.”Beijing, at least in theory, believes that Europe could become a trusted partner. The EU and the European Commission (EC) in Brussels may have other – belligerent – ideas. South China Sea: Wang Yi went straight to the point on the manipulation of Philippines by “external forces”: “Infringement and provocation will backfire, and those acting as others’ chess pieces are bound to be discarded.” Yet he stressed the South China Sea remains “stable”, because China and ASEAN want it to remain so. Taiwan: Wang Yi forcefully stated that “Taiwan has never been a country (…) It was not in the past, and it will never be in the future.” Moreover, “seeking Taiwan independence is doomed to backfire, and using Taiwan to contain China will be nothing but a futile attempt. China will realise reunification, and this is unstoppable.” Made in China 2025 On Overdrive Now let’s focus on China’s extremely complex domestic equation. At the opening of the Two Sessions, Premier Li Qiang came up with a rallying call for the whole nation to rise up to a series of “very challenging” goals, including growth of 5% in 2025 (it was 4.9% last year). Essentially, to revitalize the economy, Beijing will issue 1.3 trillion yuan (around US$182 billion) in ultra-long special treasury bonds. The deficit-to-GDP ratio was set at around 4%. The official policy of “opening up” will reach the internet, telecoms, healthcare and education industries – meaning more opportunities for foreign investors and possible partnerships up and down the industrial supply chain. All those moving parts of the ambitious Made in China 2025 tech project will be on overdrive: AI, smart terminals, the Internet of things, 5G, plus a new mechanism set up for “future industries” to support hi-tech domains,including biomaterials manufacturing, quantum technology, embodied intelligence and 6G. Premier Li enthusiastically praised the role of regional growth drivers such as the Greater Bay Area – the super high-tech cluster in Guangdong province linked to Hong Kong. Predictably, he extolled the “one country, two systems” model and the further economic integration of both Hong Kong and Macau. Arguably this is the best analysis anywhere not only of why Hong Kong-based CK Hutchinson had to get rid of its port operations in the Panama Canal, but also because it offers a crisp Chinese evaluation of the “three powers” behind Trump 2.0: Wall Street, heavy industrial capital (energy, steel, mining) and Silicon Valley. CK Hutchison Holdings, founded in Hong Kong by notorious tycoon Li Ka-shing, essentially had to sell 80% of Hutchison Port Group, a subsidiary that owns 43 container ports in 23 countries, including a 90% stake in the Balboa and Cristobal docks at either end of the Panama Canal, because of hardcore geopolitics. Hutchison will continue to control its ports in China, including Hong Kong. President Trump made a huge fuss about the BlackRock-led deal. The view in Hong Kong is more pragmatic. Hutchinson was not eager to engage in a furious court battle in US courts – not to mention potential sanctions. So they chose to opt for a “strategic exit”. Finding Shelter From the Coming Storms Premier Li noted how consumption in China now is “sluggish” and, somewhat euphemistically, how there were “pressures on job creation and income growth”. Enter a promised “vigorous boost” to household demand, plus the creation of 12 million new urban jobs, with help focusing on fresh university graduates and migrant workers. In parallel, Beijing will expand its military budget by only 7.2% in 2025, reaching roughly 1.78 trillion yuan (US$ 245 billion). That’s not much compared to the Pentagon budget. It’s quite enlightening to observe the proposals of the Two Sessions – and the tone-setting by Wang Yi – in relation to the analysis by a certified Asian star such as former Singaporean ambassador to the UN Kishore Mahbubani. Kishore once again resorts to Sun Tzu, explaining how Chinese rulers always privilege the best way to win as not fighting kinetic wars. What matters is to coordinate expansion – epistemologically, educationally, economically, industrially, techno-scientifically, financially, diplomatically, militarily – under the aegis of deterrence. The bottom line is that Beijing will not be trapped by any possible, bombastic provocation coming from Trump 2.0. Once again, it’s all about “coordinated expansion”. Example. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute, partly funded by the Australian military, and frankly Sinophobic – and Russophobic – at least did something useful by developing a Critical Technology Tracker of 64 current, critical technologies. This is their latest report, fromAugust 2024. It shows that between 2003 and 2007, the US led in 60 of 64 technologies. China led in only 3. Cue to between 2019 and 2023: the US led in only 7, whereas China led in 57 – including semiconductor chipmaking, gravitational sensors, high-performance computing, quantum sensors, and space launch technology. All that is inextricably linked to the successful planning – and achieved targets – of Made in China 2025. Talk about two five-year plans back to back (Made in China was conceived in 2015). So this is what China 2025 will be all about: serious investments coupled with lots of partnerships with the whole Global South. Once again, in a sort of Sun Tzu framework tweaked by Bruce Lee, China is bound to use Trump 2.0 and the coming mix of confrontation, competition and periodic negotiation as a trampoline to expand its global reach even further. That might be one of the unstated meanings of what Xi Jinping told Putin in Moscow nearly two years ago: “Changes unseen in a century.” Beijing will be sure to find shelter from the storm – any storm. And without having to fight a single kinetic war. * * * Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge. Tyler Durden Thu, 03/13/2025 - 23:25
Trump Withdraws Nominee For CDC Director Dave Weldon Authored by Zachary Stieber and Emel Akan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), President Donald Trump is withdrawing his nomination of a former congressman to helm the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Dave Weldon, 71, is no longer under consideration to take the post of director of the CDC, a source familiar with the situation told The Epoch Times on March 13. The source said it was clear Weldon did not have enough votes for confirmation. Weldon had been scheduled to appear before the Senate Health Committee on Thursday to answer questions as senators prepared to vote on the nomination. The panel lists the hearing as canceled. A spokesperson for the committee did not return an inquiry. After canceling Weldon’s appearance, the panel voted to advance Trump’s nominees to head the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health, two other divisions within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The vote to advance Dr. Marty Makary, Trump’s nominee to direct the Food and Drug Administration, was 14–9. The vote to advance Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Trump’s nominee to head the National Institutes of Health, was 12–11. Republicans control the Senate. The party chairs each committee and has at least one more member than Democrats on each panel. A simple majority is sufficient to advance nominees and, when the full Senate votes, to confirm nominees. Trump had chosen Weldon in late 2024, a few months before he took office. He said at the time that Weldon would “proudly restore the CDC to its true purpose and will work to end the chronic disease epidemic.” The CDC is the nation’s health protection agency. It has about 12,600 staff members. Weldon is a U.S. Army veteran who represented Florida in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2009. Weldon chose to retire rather than run for another term. A bid for a U.S. Senate seat in 2012 fell short in the Republican primary. Weldon, who has not commented on the withdrawal, was a critic of the CDC while in Congress. He noted the CDC oversees vaccine safety while also promoting vaccination and introduced legislation that would have created a new, independent agency to monitor the safety of vaccines. Weldon said during a 2002 hearing on vaccines and autism that he would “never be satisfied that there isn’t some data suggesting that some children may have serious side effects,” including potentially autism, without more transparency. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has also said that autism is likely being caused in part by vaccines. The CDC says on its website that studies have found “no link between receiving vaccines and developing autism.” Tyler Durden Thu, 03/13/2025 - 23:00
What Comes Next After The Jaffar Express Terrorist Attack In Pakistan? Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack, Pakistan is reeling after this week’s hijacking of the Jaffar Express by the terrorist-designated “Balochistan Liberation Army” (BLA). It’s impossible to independently confirm the details given strict state censorship, but around 400 people were taken hostage, including servicemen traveling home on leave. The BLA demanded the release of what they described as political prisoners, but the military staged a daring operation to end the day-long ordeal instead. At least two dozen people were killed. The Baloch Conflict owes its origins to Balochistan’s contentious incorporation into Pakistan but has evolved in recent years to take on shades of “resource nationalism”. What’s meant by this is that some locals believe that their resource-rich region, the largest in Pakistan at nearly half the country’s size, isn’t receiving its fair share of wealth. The BLA and its supporters also accuse Pakistan of selling the region out to China. Pakistan denies these claims and has always blamed Afghanistan and India for the conflict. It therefore wasn’t surprising when the Foreign Office’s spokesman said on Thursday that “India has been involved in terrorism in Pakistan. In the particular attack on Jaffar express, the terrorists had been in contact with their handlers and ring leaders in Afghanistan.” While the Afghan dimension is likely true owing to the Taliban sheltering the BLA and its new de facto TTP allies, which the group considers to be a means of asymmetrically restoring the balance of power with Pakistan, the Indian angle is questionable. Pakistan’s accusation against India is premised on their history of proxy warfare against one another over the decades, which makes it reasonable to suspect India of backing Baloch militants against Pakistan as response to Pakistan backing Kashmiri ones against India, among others. There’s also Pakistan’s capture of Kulbhushan Jadhav in 2016, who Islamabad accused of being an Indian spy tasked with organizing terrorist attacks in Balochistan, while India has always insisted that he’s innocent of these charges. Taken together, they form the cornerstone upon which the Foreign Office put forth its latest accusation, but it’s bereft of proof and instead comes off as a deflection from the conflict’s indigenous causes and the Taliban’s indisputably more direct role in what happened. After all, the BLA receives sanctuary in Afghanistan, so the Taliban is much more to blame for what happened. Even if the Taliban pleads ignorance and claims that it can’t control its borders, which isn’t true, then that’s also a problem. Whichever way one looks at it, the Indian angle is therefore questionable, but Pakistan pushing it is meant to accomplish three goals. First, it’s intended to rally Pakistanis behind the government by blaming their historical rival for this latest terrorist attack. Second, Pakistan also hopes to rally the international community – or at least some of its SCO partners like China – against India. And finally, Pakistan might authorize kinetic action in Afghanistan, but on what it’ll present as an anti-Indian basis. Building upon the last point, this could resemble Russia’s special operation in the sense of how Russia militarily intervened in Ukraine on an anti-NATO basis after accusing the bloc of exploiting Ukraine as a proxy, which Russia claimed could become a launching pad for more aggression if it wasn’t stopped. Likewise, Pakistan might carry out comparatively smaller-scale strikes and/or incursions in Afghanistan and only target terrorist groups, but it could justify them on similar grounds. The benefit in presenting things this way is that Pakistan can continue to claim that it has no problem with Afghanistan per se, just with how its historical Indian rival is allegedly exploiting that country as a proxy, which could become a launching pad for more aggression if it isn’t stopped. The problem though is that this motive is much more questionable than Russia’s vis-à-vis NATO in its own special operation in Ukraine so Afghans as a whole might regard any larger-scale Pakistani kinetic action as a hostile act. Even if Pakistan eschews such a response to this latest terrorist attack for whatever reason, officially tying India into what happened suggests that it has no interest in addressing the conflict’s indigenous causes, instead preferring to blame everything on its neighbor like always. That’ll only lead to an even wider rift emerging between Baloches and the rest of the country, which can in turn result in more BLA sympathizers or even recruits, thus intensifying the already self-sustaining cycle of instability there. The larger that the BLA’s pool of sympathizers and recruits becomes, the greater the unconventional threat that Pakistan faces in Balochistan, which could embolden the military regime into doubling down on its controversial “preemptive” anti-terrorist policies like “forced disappearances”. The most effective way to reduce the aforesaid pool is to empower responsible locals through meaningful economic and political partnerships with the state for showing them that they have more to gain through unity. For example, Baloch veterans could be appointed to lead new projects in their home region, and these would be obligated to reinvest a percentage of their proceeds into local initiatives. These same figures and other similarly trusted ones could also be supported by the state as alternative community leaders for counteracting the pernicious influence of separatist-inclined tribal leaders. That’s easier said than done, but it should be attempted without delay otherwise the BLA’s pool will keep growing. The combination of political radicalism and state failure is most responsible for perpetuating the Baloch Conflict, not foreign forces, though the Taliban’s recent assistance has definitely been important. Without adequately addressing these indigenous causes, which requires a complete thinking on the part of the Pakistani government, outsiders will always be able to exploit this conflict. Accordingly, cross-border kinetic action in Afghanistan can be helpful, but a lasting solution requires much more than that. Tyler Durden Thu, 03/13/2025 - 22:35
Couple Acquires Top Secret 65 Year Old Abandoned U.S. Navy Barge Stocked With "Mysterious" Computers An Idaho couple has made an extraordinary purchase—an abandoned navy barge with a top-secret past. After keeping an eye on it for four years, they finally acquired the 65-year-old vessel, which has a history deeply tied to U.S. naval operations. This is no ordinary boat; its origins and purpose make it one of the most intriguing real estate projects out there, according to Supercar Blondie. The massive barge is a complex structure, built from various welded components. Originally, it was a powerhouse of a vessel, featuring a 300-horsepower engine and a 360-degree rotating propeller, allowing it to maneuver effortlessly. Though now retired, its design hints at the critical role it once played. The Supercar Blondie report says that the barge is docked on Lake Pend Oreille, Idaho’s largest lake, a body of water rich in history. The region has long been associated with mining, logging, and fishing, but beneath its 1,158-foot depths, secrets linger. The lake has served as an inland naval testing site, used for submarine and torpedo research—meaning it’s possible that military technology still rests beneath the surface. The true intrigue of the barge lies in its past role in acoustic research. The U.S. Navy used it as a monitoring station, where it housed advanced equipment to study the soundwaves of submarines and torpedoes. The vessel was equipped with an extensive system of underwater wiring, allowing the military to conduct covert testing beneath the lake’s surface. Now, the couple has ambitious plans to transform the historic vessel into a floating home. While the project presents significant challenges, they are determined to restore and repurpose the barge, breathing new life into its steel structure. It’s a massive undertaking, but one that promises to merge history with modern living in a truly unique way. Tyler Durden Thu, 03/13/2025 - 22:10
A Strategic Approach To Rightsizing The Intelligence Community & The Department Of Defense Authored by William McHenry via RealClearWire, The Intelligence Community (IC) and the Department of Defense (DoD) are vital pillars of national security, tasked with safeguarding the nation in an increasingly complex and unpredictable world. Rightsizing these organizations requires a strategic, mission-focused approach that prioritizes effectiveness and efficiency over arbitrary actions. This article proposes a methodology centered on a thorough reassessment of each agency’s mission, followed by a task-oriented restructuring process, with personnel considerations addressed only after a clear understanding of essential functions has been established. Mission Relevance: The Cornerstone of Strategic Downsizing The initial step in any initiative must be a rigorous review of the agency’s core mission. Is the original mandate of the organization still relevant in the contemporary geopolitics, technological landscape? Has the character of threats evolved, rendering some tasks obsolete while necessitating new areas of focus? The rise of cyber warfare in the last 20 years, for example, has demanded a shift in resources and expertise. Similarly, the increasing interconnectedness of the global economy has elevated the significance of economic security and its intersection with national security intelligence. This mission review must be more than a perfunctory exercise. It demands challenging established assumptions and engaging in honest assessment. External perspectives, including insights from the commercial sector, and former agency personnel, can offer valuable objectivity and help identify potential blind spots. This process may reveal that some organizations are performing functions that are no longer critical or that have become redundant due to the evolution of other agencies or the emergence of new technologies. In such cases, outright elimination of the agency or a substantial realignment of its mission may be the most appropriate course of action. Organizational Positioning: Optimizing for Effectiveness Once the mission’s relevance is confirmed, the next crucial question is whether the agency is optimally positioned within the government to execute that mission effectively. Are there other organizations better positioned to perform the same functions more efficiently or with greater synergy? Could a consolidation of overlapping responsibilities lead to cost savings and improved coordination? For example, certain intelligence analysis functions might be better integrated within a single agency, streamlining information sharing and reducing bureaucratic hurdles. Similarly, some support functions, such as human resources or IT, could be consolidated across multiple agencies to achieve economies of scale. This analysis should consider not only the current organizational structure but also potential alternatives. Could a new, leaner agency be created by merging elements of existing organizations? Could some functions be outsourced to the private sector, freeing up government resources for core mission tasks? These options should be evaluated based on factors such as cost, efficiency, accountability, and most importantly the potential impact on mission effectiveness. Task Analysis: Deconstructing the Mission Assuming the agency’s mission is deemed relevant and its organizational positioning appropriate, the next critical step is to deconstruct the mission into its constituent tasks. This involves identifying both the essential tasks, those that are absolutely vital to achieving the mission, and the supporting tasks, those that facilitate the execution of the essential tasks but are not directly responsible for mission success. This granular task analysis is crucial for understanding the agency’s operational needs and avoiding the pitfall of simply reducing personnel without regard to the impact on core functions. For example, in the context of intelligence, an essential task might be providing timely and accurate assessments of foreign threats. Supporting tasks could include collecting raw intelligence data, maintaining databases, and managing secure communications networks. By clearly distinguishing between these types of tasks, leadership can make informed decisions about resource allocation and personnel requirements. Experimentation and Optimization: Refining the Approach Once the essential and supporting tasks have been identified, the next phase involves experimenting with different approaches to accomplishing the essential and supporting tasks. This might involve exploring new technologies, implementing process improvements, or restructuring workflows. The objective is to identify the most efficient and effective ways to achieve mission objectives, minimizing resource requirements and maximizing output. This experimentation phase should be data-driven, with clear metrics established to measure the success of different approaches. Pilot programs can be used to test new ideas on a smaller scale before implementing them agency-wide. This iterative process of experimentation and refinement is essential for ensuring that downsizing efforts do not inadvertently compromise mission effectiveness. For instance, exploring the use of artificial intelligence for intelligence analysis or robotic systems for logistical support within the DoD could potentially reduce the need for human personnel in certain areas. Similarly, within the IC, exploring automated data processing and analysis tools could free up analysts to focus on more complex and strategic issues. Personnel Structure: The Final Consideration Only after the mission has been thoroughly reviewed, the agency’s positioning confirmed, the tasks analyzed, and the optimal approaches identified should personnel structure be considered. The required skill sets, number of personnel, and organizational structure should be derived from the needs of the mission, not the other way around. This ensures that the agency is staffed with the right people, in the right roles, to execute the essential and supporting tasks effectively. This approach may reveal that fewer personnel are needed than previously assumed, as process improvements and technological advancements may have increased efficiency. It may also highlight the need for new skill sets or expertise, requiring retraining or recruitment efforts. By focusing on the tasks first, personnel decisions become data-driven and aligned with mission requirements, rather than being based on arbitrary targets. This also allows for a more strategic approach to workforce development, ensuring that the IC and DoD have the necessary talent to meet future challenges. Conclusion: A Strategic Imperative Rightsizing the IC and DoD is a complex but necessary undertaking. The process outlined in this article, beginning with a reassessment of mission relevance, followed by task analysis, experimentation, and finally, personnel structure considerations, provides a framework for achieving meaningful and sustainable improvements while enhancing mission effectiveness. This approach requires strong leadership, a willingness to challenge the status quo, and a commitment to data-driven decision-making. By prioritizing mission effectiveness above all else, we can ensure that our intelligence and defense agencies are equipped to meet the evolving challenges of the 21st century. This strategic approach is not just about saving money; it’s about ensuring that these vital institutions are optimized for success in a dynamic and dangerous world. Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge. Tyler Durden Thu, 03/13/2025 - 21:45
Lynnwood, Wash. City Revokes "Bisexual Transwoman"'s Council Seat After Discovering OnlyFans Account The Lynnwood City Council in Washington may revoke Jessica Roberts’ appointment to the vacant Position 5 seat after learning she reportedly operated an OnlyFans account. Roberts’ now-deleted profile described her as “a bisexual transwoman” with graphic details about her body, according to a new report from My Northwest. Councilwoman Derica Escamilla, who voted for Roberts, said, “We were definitely unaware,” and is questioning the “blind” appointment process. Councilman Patrick Decker added, “I certainly had no idea of the views Jessica held and do not feel those views and activities are in keeping with the gravity and seriousness of serving the people of Lynnwood.” The My Northwest report says that the Lynnwood City Council will meet on March 13 to decide whether to rescind Jessica Roberts’ appointment after revelations about her personal life. Roberts defended her position, stating, “This would not impact my ability to do the job I was appointed to do or my ability to serve my fellow residents.” Council President Nick Coelho acknowledged concerns, saying, “New information has come to light... that would have weighed heavily on our decision.” He said: There are now concerns that very relevant information to our deliberation was — whether intentionally or unintentionally — withheld that would have weighed heavily on our decision. With this new information in mind, we have noticed a Special Business Meeting for this Thursday. Its aim is to build to a consensus on whether or not we wish to move forward with this applicant. I’d like to thank our residents for their patience as we let the process play out.” Roberts told The Lynnwood Times she created the OnlyFans account for confidence and “a little cash on the side,” but deactivated it to avoid wasting “taxpayers’ money, or the Council’s time.” “The reason the account was taken down was because I do not want to waste taxpayers’ money, or the Council’s time watching this turn into a debate on whether or not it’s socially acceptable for me to have an account,” she added. This follows a previous controversy where Rebecca Thornton withdrew just days after being appointed to the same seat. The report did not include any additional or explicit photos. And for that, we thank you. Tyler Durden Thu, 03/13/2025 - 21:20
Congressional Offices To Stop Receiving CCP-Run China Daily Authored by Lily Zhou via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), Beijing-controlled newspaper China Daily will no longer be distributed on Capitol Hill, chairmen of two House committees said on Tuesday. The U.S. Capitol building in Washington on March 10, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.), chairman of the Committee on House Administration, and Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), chairman of the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), said they are “pleased to announce that China Daily will no longer be circulated by National News to House offices.” “We took action to directly block the Chinese Communist Party from using the halls of the People’s House to spread its propaganda. We appreciate National News’s swift cooperation on this important issue,” they said. According to the Committee on House Administration, it worked with National News to find a solution after lawmakers raised frustration over the issue, and the distributor is currently winding down the distribution of China Daily in Congress. The Epoch Times has reached out to National News for comment. China Daily is one of several major state mouthpieces controlled by the CCP’s Central Propaganda Department. The publication’s Chinese website says its English edition “actively publicizes and explains Xi Jinping Thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era,” and strives to influence public opinion in favor of communist-ruled China. Its U.S. distributor China Daily Distribution Corporation has been registered as a foreign agent in the United States since 1983 under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). It’s among 17 organizations designated by the U.S. State Department as “foreign missions” in 2020. Among them, 14 are news publications or broadcasters. For years, China Daily has been delivered to Congressional offices along with other major publications to all Congressional offices unless they opted out. Some lawmakers have called for the end of China Daily’s distribution in Congress since 2020, when the publication came under scrutiny for paying major U.S. newspapers millions in advertisement dollars to run inserts that paint the Chinese regime in a positive light and downplay its oppression of Chinese and other peoples. The call was renewed this year by Freshman Rep. Abe Hamadeh (R-Ariz.), who used his first legislation as a congressman to target the distribution of China Daily and other CCP-controlled publications in Congress. His resolution, referred to the Committee on House Administration on Feb. 5, sought to ban the distribution of all CCP-controlled publications within House facilities. The congressman in February told EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” program the distribution of China Daily in Congress is “unacceptable” because the publication is “propaganda by a foreign government that’s trying to influence the highest echelons of the United States government.” In March 2024, when Secretary of State Marco Rubio was vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, he co-wrote letters to the heads of nine media companies which were accepting payment from China Daily, urging them to stop “disseminating CCP propaganda to an American audience.” Between November 2016 and April 2024, China Daily Distribution Corporation received $78.3 million in funding from its China-based headquarters. That’s almost 97 percent of its total income during the period, according to FARA filings. In the same period, the corporation spent nearly $81 million in printing and operation expenses, including almost $20.78 million in advertisement payments to various media outlets. Tyler Durden Thu, 03/13/2025 - 20:55
American Airlines Jet Catches Fire At Denver Airport Dramatic footage has surfaced on X of an American Airlines commercial jet engulfed in flames at Denver International Airport. BREAKING: American Airlines plane catches fire at Denver airport pic.twitter.com/DwQvCCRrNz March 14, 2025 BREAKING: American Airlines plane catches fire at Denver Airport, video shows passengers evacuating pic.twitter.com/BjYHQPUklZ March 14, 2025 There’s no word yet on the cause, injuries, or the number of souls on board. Footage shows passengers exiting the plane as the ground crew responds… BREAKING: Passengers evacuate after American Airline plane catches fire at Denver International pic.twitter.com/lHuARdBep8 March 14, 2025 Developing… Tyler Durden Thu, 03/13/2025 - 20:49
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