Zero Hedge

Opportunity Lost? Gained? Squandered?

Opportunity Lost? Gained? Squandered?

Submitted by Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

Another week with so many competing narratives driving markets. The information flow was coming so fast and furious that it is difficult to believe that Economic D-Day kicked off the week (it already seems longer than that).

Today, we will take a quick romp through how things seem to be playing out.

Opportunities Lost?

As anyone reading recent T-Reports knows, I was hopeful Warsh would take the stage on Friday and try to “shake things up.” Try to drive home some new (and in my view, much needed) paradigms. We got to discuss this ahead of Warsh’s speech on Friday morning on Bloomberg TV.

Warsh does deserve some credit for using the word “hike” three times at the start of his speech (but all in reference to the activity involving walking outdoors, rather than anything to do with rates). Not sure it was wise, as it likely set the algos off on the 2-year note, but I do applaud the effort to mislead the algos and speed readers.

In the end, bonds bear flattened. Stocks fell a little bit, but the bear flattening was the big takeaway from what I found was quite a boring speech, that really didn’t provide any new information.

The 30-year bond rallied initially and tried to hold on to those gains, but finished the day with higher yields. Part of that afternoon selling on longer-dated Treasuries could well be hedging (yield locks) for some IG new issues on Monday. As we wrote about in Yields Behaving Normally, both Bessent and Warsh need to pay far more attention to the massive supply of long-duration bonds (primarily from corporates in the “compute” space) and bonds in general (including increased global sovereign/quasi-sovereigns).

Had he gone down the path I would have liked to see, Friday might have even been messier than it was, but at least we’d have something interesting to discuss. Instead, I expect by the middle of next week, we will be back to lamenting the lack of specificity on the reaction function.

As the chair of the Fed, he has plenty of opportunities to speak, and people will listen, but the set-up for something more exciting than we got was almost perfect on Friday. An Opportunity Lost, in my view, but one that will be re-addressed as nothing is going to stop the data from coming in and the Fed from having to make decisions.

Opportunities Gained?

Every major news source is reporting increased oil flows out of the Middle East. Between alternative routes and increased passage through the Strait, pressure on the crude market is being relieved.

The blockade remains incredibly successful, preventing trade with Iran via the Strait. 

CENTCOM’s Commander, Admiral Brad Cooper, announced the Strait has been cleared of mines. Another very positive development on reducing the leverage Iran has.

The U.S. is also increasing staffing at embassies in the Gulf States, which is another step towards our view that neither the U.S. nor the Gulf Region has any interest in re-escalating “kinetic” warfare (the “cool” way to say shooting and blowing things up).

If we see renewed escalation, it seems likely to be initiated by Iran, and they don’t seem to have the will, or ability to do much at the moment (they have allegedly disabled some ships trying to transit, but no large-scale attacks on infrastructure in the region – which is the main fear). 

While we haven’t seen diesel or gasoline drop materially, the more oil that can make its way to refineries, the better.

Bessent’s announcement of Economic Outcast on Monday was a bit disappointing. Well, disappointing from launching concrete, obvious effects, that would really pressure the regime to give up (really needs to be tough on China to do that). But that also soothed markets which have less to worry about if we aren’t ramping up the rhetoric with China. A bit of a catch-22.

Basically, Bessent saying that we’ve put everyone on warning/high alert (and they have some time to change their behavior before we come down with the hammer) seems logical. It will take longer that way, but if the threat of the “hammer” works, then it will have accomplished the mission.

On the other hand, what happened to “Sanctioning a Major Financial Institution” on Friday? Maybe it is taking longer to get the legal side of things right, before implementing the sanctions? Maybe the “guilty party” has come to the table to negotiate a deal favorable to the U.S.? Those would be good outcomes and are plausible. But why make such a “direct statement” and not live up to it? On that topic, why didn’t this press conference happen the prior week, which seemed to be the initial target for launching the Economic Armageddon?

As a whole, the direction of travel on the issue of oil and energy products in the Middle East is heading in the right direction (less clear on nuclear deals and change of regime behavior).

Stories are hitting the tape this weekend about a major deal between the U.S. and Venezuela. We continue to see success in working with Venezuela since Maduro has been captured. Having said that, it is difficult to tell from the details provided so far, what the real impact is with this potential “deal.” If it is as good as the Truth Social posts say it is, that could be very good (primarily in the medium to longer term). But as we discussed last week, in the section Done Means Done, we have seen social media pronouncements, or soundbites (even soundbites from the Oval Office), that don’t always materialize the way they were initially touted.

Would be a great win, and I do think Venezuela can be a hub for processing, refining, and smelting materials that the U.S. needs.

Opportunities Squandered?

Since the trade negotiations fell apart (wow, that was only last Friday, that seems even longer ago), there has been a lot of discussion about who caused the deal to break down. Some argue that Carney views it as politically in his interests to not do a deal, even if he could have had a “good” deal. Others discuss last-minute demands on the U.S. side, which seems to fit in with the “art of the deal.” Where this all winds up, who knows.

We are going to lump this into the Opportunities Squandered section, though maybe not in the way you think this is going.

Let’s start with Canada. Let’s start a decade or so ago.

On Friday on Bloomberg TV (during the second segment), I say something that will probably get me in trouble, but once in a while you need to take that risk to get a soundbite across.

I argue that Canada cannot have BOTH a Green Economy and a Real Economy right now. I am not saying that over time you cannot achieve both a robust economy and one that is sustainable for your own nation and the world. I am saying that even if the ultimate end goal skews heavily towards sustainable and green, the priorities in the near term may have to be adjusted. You might never get to the “green” economy if you don’t survive long enough. We argued that the “energy companies of the future are the energy companies of today” during peak “Hopium.” By Hopium, I meant that the vision drove everything and ignored certain realities, that were really needed to turn that vision into reality. I’m not sure I’ve dug myself out of any hole I’ve dug myself into with this attempt at explaining my view, so I’ll just move on.

LNG exports. The U.S. has built a robust business around LNG. Not only is it bringing in revenue for America, and creating jobs, in America and abroad, but you could argue it is helping importers diversify away from LNG imports from less trustworthy, or reliable counterparties.

While there are a myriad of reasons why the U.S. can do better than Canada, and has done better, there is truth to the concept that Canada regulated themselves out of business. Or, more precisely, in this case, regulated themselves out of creating a new business.

This to me, is just another example of why ProSec needs to go global (and is going global).

  • If you have the resources, why not extract them?
  • Once you’ve extracted the resources, why not refine them?

As we’ve seen with the Strait, the bottlenecks occur primarily around the refined versions of oil. Yes, oil in itself is troublesome, but it is the refined products that are even more important.

Whether Canada listens to this wake-up call (and there are signs that they have been doing it — heck, we even have a tiny blip in the export line from Canada) is yet to be determined. As we’ve highlighted recently, Australia is planning on their first refinery in 60 years!

ProSec is going global. It is in every nation’s interest to ensure that their supply chains for things that are imperative to their existence are as stable, safe, reliable, and resilient as possible.

Having said that, we will discuss two other subjects in this section, even though I’m not sure they are squandered.

  • Trade with Canada.
    • At least some of what the U.S. needs for reshoring and, possibly more importantly, the compute build, does or could come from Canada. Aluminum. Data centers need it. Canada has it. There is very little evidence of domestic production that can come on-line quickly, hence, the cost of compute build will go higher. If I’m Canada, I’m trying to harness all the things at my disposal that go into compute and will try to maximize that revenue source (whether in the U.S. or elsewhere). Not sure Canada will do that, but I’m not sure why the U.S. is doing anything making it more difficult or expensive for the compute build, when they are facing enough cost, energy, and NIMBY hurdles.
    • Farming. Potash. The U.S. imports it at scale. It is an important cost to farmers. Canada has it. The U.S. may have it, but it isn’t readily available. I’ve lost track of what the U.S. is doing on some ag things. Importing ground beef from somewhere (presumably Argentina). Changing how the processing is done. Food costs are a key issue for many voters, so not sure what the nation gets more benefit from – tariffs or coordinated effort?
  • The China Summit.
    • While it is simplistic, my “working view” is that:
      • China is aiming to catch up on compute, faster than the U.S. can catch up on processing, refining, and smelting.
        • We are purposely avoiding the term – rare earths and critical minerals, because that tends to make people think about the rare earths and critical minerals themselves, rather than what is more important, which is processing, refining, and smelting. Not just rare earths and critical minerals, but even some basic commodities and metals.
    • If we think back to the “cards” on the table when the trade teams were negotiating in Geneva, to now, who has improved their hand?
      • I am not sure. Our compute is growing, but China seems to keep popping up as well. The admin is doing some great work on the processing, refining, and smelting side, but we started so far behind China that we need to continue to operate at lightning speed!

It will be interesting to see if I’m correct and ProSec truly moves global, or if countries will remain content to let others do the heavy lifting, even if it risks their economic future.

Bottom Line

I continue to like owning “compute” bonds on a yield basis (no rate hedge).

The Treasury bear steepener likely has more room to run, but we did have downward revisions to the prior year’s worth of jobs data. Not as draconian as last year, but another hint that the job market might be something the Fed needs to keep an eye on (especially as I don’t see how hiking helps war-related inflation or compute-build inflation). Will want to be adding to the front end. I remain indifferent on the long end, but suspect the global supply of debt will outweigh what Bessent has announced so far, and ultimately, the Fed will need to implement some form of Operation Twist to really shift the pricing of the long end.

If oil keeps coming down, it will help rates and equities. I remain concerned how much (in either direction) equities are being driven by the semis where the number of leveraged ETFs astounds me (creating mechanical buying and selling, amplifying every move).

I do think even with oil prices coming down, energy companies, globally, should remain a key overweight in portfolios (XLE is up 42% YTD) and global demands to harness and deliver energy are only increasing!

I don’t think I “squandered” the summer, but have to admit it went by a lot faster with a lot more work and angst than I would have hoped for! Enjoy this last week of summer and hope you have great plans for Labor Day weekend! (which is a holiday both in Canada and the U.S. though it is spelt differently).

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/30/2026 - 17:30

State Department Revokes Visa Of Iraqi National On FBI Terror Watchlist

State Department Revokes Visa Of Iraqi National On FBI Terror Watchlist

Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times,

The State Department has revoked the visa of an Iraqi national who was placed on the FBI's Terror Watchlist, ending her ability to enter the United States years after she received a high-profile award from the Biden administration.

The U.S. Department of State in Washington on March 28, 2025.Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Taif Sami Mohammed Al Shakarchi is no longer present in the United States, according to a statement released Friday by Assistant Secretary Dylan Johnson.

The revocation followed her placement on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Terror Watchlist. No further details on the underlying intelligence were provided in the department's announcement.

"Under President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, suspected terrorists will never be allowed to remain in the United States," the statement read.

Al Shakarchi was given the International Woman of Courage Award in 2022 by then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken and then-First Lady Jill Biden. The department said she had been recognized for her purported role in fighting corruption and her advocacy for "gender equity."

The award recognized "women from around the globe who have demonstrated exceptional courage, strength, and leadership in advocating for peace, justice, human rights, gender equity and equality, and the empowerment of women and girls, in all their diversity."

Al Shakarchi, also referred to in State Department materials as Taif Sami Mohammed, had served as Iraq's deputy finance minister. She was described at the time of the 2022 award as a longtime official in the Ministry of Finance who started out as a budget analyst in 1985 and rose to director general of the Budget Department. Officials then called her a front-line leader against corrupt practices and noted she was known as the "Iron Woman." She was listed as a political independent.

The 2022 ceremony, held virtually, was hosted by Blinken with Jill Biden delivering remarks. Twelve women from various countries received the honor that year.

The Trump administration has made clear it prioritizes removing individuals it views as security risks. In recent months, the State Department has revoked hundreds of visas in targeted efforts, including nearly 900 people targeted by a birth tourism task force launched in early August. Broader continuous-vetting operations have led to more than 175,000 visa revocations for a range of violations, crimes, and national security concerns.

The International Women of Courage Award itself continues under the Trump administration. First lady Melania Trump and Rubio presented the 2025 honors in April, recognizing women from countries including Burkina Faso, Israel, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Romania, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, and Yemen. The department has noted that more than 200 women from over 90 countries have received the award since it began in 2007.

Al Shakarchi's case stands apart due to the later watchlist designation. The State Department says its visa action is a straightforward application of its policy against allowing suspected terrorists to stay.

The department's release did not specify where she is now or provide additional biographical updates beyond the watchlist status and her departure from the United States.

Visa decisions rest with the executive branch, with courts offering limited recourse to many such revocations, a principle reinforced in prior Supreme Court rulings on related immigration matters.

The move arrives amid wider efforts by the administration to tighten scrutiny of foreign nationals already inside the country or seeking entry. Officials tie those steps to national security priorities under the Trump administration.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/30/2026 - 16:55

The Mother Of All Mean Reversions: Commodities Have Never Been This Cheap Versus Stocks

The Mother Of All Mean Reversions: Commodities Have Never Been This Cheap Versus Stocks

Across Wall Street, from Barclays and UBS to HSBC, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, a common view is taking shape: physical scarcity is emerging across multiple commodity classes, driving prices sharply higher and signaling a broader hard-asset squeeze.

Last week, UBS strategist Sagar Khandelwal issued a similar call heard across Wall Street, telling clients to “position for a commodity upcycle.”

On Saturday, Christopher LaFemina, who heads Jefferies’ global metals and mining research and is one of Wall Street’s veteran commodity experts, told clients that commodities remain historically cheap relative to US stocks.

LaFemina compared the S&P GSCI with the S&P 500, showing the ratio hovering near its lowest level in more than five decades. Similar troughs emerged during the Nifty Fifty and dot-com bubbles before commodities sharply outperformed stocks.

Previous upcycles in the ratio coincided with the 1970s oil embargo and inflation shock, the Gulf War, and the 2008 oil-price surge. Today’s depressed reading comes as retail and institutional investors remain bullish up to their eyeballs on hyperscalers and memory stocks while remaining highly concentrated in a handful of other AI names. And really, what could go wrong if the AI boom begins to deflate?

The trough in the ratio comes as traders ignore commodity markets, where the theme of scarce physical resources is rearing its ugly head:

Agricultural prices are soaring; copper is trading above $14,000 per ton in London; tungsten is above $3,000 per ton; uranium is back above $90 per pound; and many other critical materials (seen as the building blocks for the AI boom) are surging as demand accelerates. Electrification, AI buildout demand, rising power consumption, geopolitical fragmentation, including China’s weaponization of export supplies (tungsten and germanium), and years of underinvestment are colliding to create a perfect storm of constrained supplies across energy, metals, and other raw materials.

"The 10-year rolling change in the US dollar remains one of the most important macro developments in the world today," Azuria Capital's Otavio Costa wrote on X. 

It's time to focus on "scarcity in the physical world," according to veteran commodities strategist Jeff Currie, who also warned, "The illusion of abundance is likely behind us."

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/30/2026 - 16:20

Pentagon Strikes Iranian Island Target, In First US Military Action In Weeks

Pentagon Strikes Iranian Island Target, In First US Military Action In Weeks

Update(1615ET): Things have been quiet for many days and weeks on the military front when it comes to the Iran war, but on Sunday there are some emerging reports of new but limited US strikes. According to the latest late Sunday from Axios:

Senior American official: Earlier today, American forces attacked two Iranian launchers on Larzac Island. Revolutionary Guard forces were observed preparing to launch rockets carrying sea mines toward the Strait of Hormuz.

So despite the White House signaling a move away from military action and toward the economic warfare front, it's also clear that more sporadic tit-for-tat blows could follow. But Trump has lately made clear that military options are still on the table, and strikes will be utilized as needed.

*  *  *

Propaganda has always been a problem when it comes to the fog of war.  The internet and social media add a new dimension to the confusion as conflicting information is allowed to spread like wildfire using civilians and media outlets as tools for propagation.

The lack of confirmation is exploited, often by both sides, and the truth becomes lost in the mire.  That said, the facts on the ground will eventually see the light regardless of spin.  In the case of the war in Iran, the facts on the ground do not bode well for the Islamic Regime. 

Iranian leaders now openly admit that the US blockade has crippled around 35% of the nation's exports and imports while domestic prices continue to skyrocket by 60% or more.  This, however, is not the most immediate problem for the regime.  

It would appear that initial reports of gasoline shortages across Iran did not convey the true scope of the crisis.  In the past week alone more evidence from within Iran has hit social media, showing mass lines at gas stations and panic among citizens as rationing is introduced. 

Energy officials have acknowledged a gasoline deficit of roughly 15 million liters every day, warning that strategic reserves have reached “dark red” territory.

Iran has ten main operating oil refineries plus the large Persian Gulf Star condensate refinery, which is the country’s biggest gasoline producer, meaning, they do have the capability to produce their own domestic gasoline supply.  So, why the shortages? 

 

Some refined products are shipped into Iran from foreign sources and the US blockade is stifling that supply.  However, there is also the possibility that the blockade has forced Iran to shut down a number of oil wells due to lack of storage.  Depending on the type of well, a shutdown can cause extensive damage and prevent new production for years to come.  It's likely that Iran's crisis is rooted in an oil supply problem as much as a refining problem. 

The Iranians have recently called for a return to the standards set by the MOU agreement with the US, and they have also accused the US of committing "war crimes", arguing that the blockade is causing a humanitarian crisis.

The recent admissions of economic damage, the fuel shortages and the assertions of humanitarian crisis are a sharp tone shift from Iran's posture only a month ago.  Couple this with the 400% surge in ships traversing the Strait of Hormuz and it would seem that Iran is losing the war outright.  If the blockade continues for another few months the financial damage could be irreversible and repairing resource flows could take years.    

It's not enough for the regime to survive if the economy they oversee dies.  

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/30/2026 - 16:15

AI's China Syndrome: Who Will Control The World's Newest Energy?

AI's China Syndrome: Who Will Control The World's Newest Energy?

Authored by J.T. Young via Substack,

Ceding leadership in AI to China's Chinese Communist Party (CCP), what could go wrong?

Just about everything. Yet that is precisely what some here in the U.S.-and all in Beijing-want to occur.

America is currently being swept by misguided attempts to curtail AI's development and the development of the data centers on which AI's development will depend. Some of these stem from legitimate concerns (though often inaccurate) about what AI can and will do. Some stem from concerns about what data center development will mean for their communities. [The answer is jobs, investment, and growth-something that West Virginia's governor Pat Morrisey and statehouse leaders presciently see as they pitch their state for just such responsible development.]

However, some of this opposition also stems from foreign influence from those who would love nothing more than to see America not be the leader in a technology that has the potential to define this century's development and beyond.

The history of mankind's development could be shorthanded into a history of mankind's harnessing of energy. This history began with humanity's use of its own muscle power. It moved from our muscle power to harnessing (literally) the muscle power of animals. This power was supplanted by the power of the elements-wind (with sails, mills, etc.) and water (mills, dams, and more). Then there was steam. Then the internal combustion engine. Electricity. Nuclear. And yes, renewable forms as well.

We shifted back and forth between these as refinements were made to their production and application; however, they largely served first to supplement, and soon to supplant, our muscle power. Certainly, there were enhancements to our "mental energy" too, writing and the printing press, for example; however, it was not until relatively recently (in the 1940s) that the "mental energy" revolution exploded with the advent of the computer.

AI is different, and in that difference lies its potentially revolutionary aspect. AI offers the power to supplement our mental power far beyond what the computer can. Our mental power is the distinguishing feature of the human species, which underscores just what AI could do for humanity.

This brings us back to those who want to curtail America's leadership in this vast potential. Clearly, China's CCP is at the forefront of those who would like to see America not have this leadership. Even more, it is clearly at the forefront of those seeking to prevent American leadership in AI.

China's efforts to slow America's AI development are many. Undoubtedly, the CCP will find more ways, and more examples will come to light.

All this leads to the question: If America does not lead in AI, who will? China's answer is already clear. Even more important, then, is the question: What would China's leadership in AI entail? We can largely answer that question based on past and present experiences.

The virtual monopoly the West gave to China in rare earth mining, production, and manufacturing of products heavily dependent on these minerals has not served us well. It has given the CCP leverage in many instances. It has undoubtedly increased the price volatility of rare earth-dependent products, which has also encumbered the adoption of such products. It has also shifted these rare earth activities to a country with lower environmental standards (one even more pronounced in the past, when the West gave China its rare earth monopoly).

China's laxer oversight standards have had global repercussions beyond the environment. COVID's origin from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology is increasingly accepted; concerns about its safety and management standards were known years before COVID. At the very least, China's delayed revelation of important information about COVID allowed the virus to spread. The escape of an earlier SARS virus in 2004 is also widely known.

None of these argue for security when it comes to AI oversight in China. How then could China be trusted in the development of a technology that is widely predicted to potentially be the world's most powerful?

There should be even less confidence in the CCP's deployment of AI. China regularly targets its adversaries (both at home and abroad) with every tool available-and increasingly with AI-making its citizens among the most surveilled in the world. There are growing reports of China's funding of U.S. protests. China's Belt and Road Initiative uses investment to gain influence and build dependency across the globe-particularly in developing nations.

China's direct aggression has been increasingly on display for years. There are its recurrent border conflicts with India. There is the building of island bases in waters near the Philippines (and other areas in the Pacific for years) and confrontations with that government. There has been the abrogation of its deal with Hong Kong for recognized rights, and its jailing of political opponents there. There have been continual threats of aggression against Taiwan; bellicose warnings have also been issued against Japan.

The CCP's internal repression is even greater than its external actions. Its recently passed "Ethnic Unity" law builds on past charges of genocidal practices against the Uyghurs and Tibetans. Internal surveillance, already severe, has only been enhanced by the CCP's use of AI.

If the CCP uses a myriad of ways to confront foreign governments and intrusive means against its own citizens at home and abroad, there is no reasonable expectation that it would not use AI against foreign nations and their citizens too.

The CCP desires AI supremacy, just as they have been allowed to have it in rare earth minerals. They are working to secure this for the obvious reason that AI has the potential to be far more valuable than rare earth minerals.

And because the West was shortsighted enough to cede China leadership in rare earth minerals, the CCP has some reasonable expectation of success in its AI efforts. That the West is so willing to allow its own culture and values to undergo assault from within (in contrast to the CCP's enforcement of its cultural hegemony internally with its new ethnic unity law) is just another signal to Beijing that the West is unwilling to defend its interests.

How fast China is progressing in the 21st century's technology race is evidenced by its leadership in the development of humanoid robotics and other areas. So, the threat is not only real; it is already here.

To recap, China's already using AI for surveillance internally and externally. China's oversight of its science has proven inadequate in medical research, just as its oversight of the environment has been. Yet some, such as Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), would not only have us ignore these warning signs, but dramatically exacerbate their potential for danger with AI by curtailing its development and de facto ceding AI leadership to China.

The history of energy has written the history of human development. This history of energy was largely one of supplementing muscle energy. The new revolutionary energy is not physical energy but mental energy. It is AI, and it will supplement humanity's mental energy. Beyond the question of what AI can do is who will control it?

We all recognize that AI will be overseen; such oversight is a hallmark of the U.S. However, doing so to the extent that it curtails AI development and renounces leadership in a technology of unprecedented power to the world's least accountable government is extremely naive. Doing so to a government that has demonstrated, and continues to demonstrate, that it will use all the means at its disposal to the detriment of those it perceives to be adversaries would be the biggest mistake in history-with potentially the most powerful technology in history.

J.T. Young is the author of the recent book, Unprecedented Assault: How Big Government Unleashed America's Socialist Left from RealClear Publishing. Follow him on Substack.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/30/2026 - 15:45

'No End In Sight': Democrats Make Trump Foreign Policy A Central Issue After 6-Months Of Iran War

'No End In Sight': Democrats Make Trump Foreign Policy A Central Issue After 6-Months Of Iran War

Via Middle East Eye

US Democrats on Friday slammed the Trump administration for dragging out the war on Iran to its six month anniversary, warning Republicans would pay the price in the upcoming midterm elections.

The joint US-Israeli attack on Iran, beginning on February 28, was initially meant to last a few weeks, by President Donald Trump's own estimates. Half a year later, the war has seen the US lose at least 18 of its troops and cost $100bn in military spending, most of which was approved by the Republican-controlled Congress late last month after Secretary of War Pete Hegseth requested additional funds north of $60bn.

AFP/Getty Images

The war has cost each American taxpayer around $600 to $1,000 in extra energy costs because of Iran's response in blocking the Strait of Hormuz, according to a Brown University study and estimates from Moody's Analytics. 

Estimates for the number of Iranian dead vary between 3,400, according to the UN’s OCHA agency, and 6,000, according to the Israeli military.

"Trump and his chief dealmaker [Vice President JD] Vance have failed to reach an agreement to end their war. Back in March, Trump and Vance said the war would be over 'soon' - but just this week, Trump said he is 'not in a hurry' to end the war," Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair Ken Martin said in a statement on Friday. The DNC oversees all party activities and vets candidates for elections.

"[They] dragged the US into a deadly and costly war they clearly cannot find a way out of - at the expense of the American people who are struggling to make ends meet. Trump and Vance explicitly promised no new foreign wars, yet six months in, there is no end in sight to the conflict that has driven up prices on everything from gas to groceries," Martin said.

"While Republicans claim they cannot bring down costs or fund affordable healthcare for everyday Americans, they continue to spend billions of dollars on a war no one wanted or asked for - and voters will remember this betrayal when they head to the polls in November.”

The Silver Bulletin, which tracks and analyses public sentiment, noted on Friday that repeat polling has shown around 37 percent of Americans support the US-Israeli war on Iran, while 55 percent oppose it. 

Half hearted opposition?

While Democrats in the House of Representatives latched onto an effort by the progressive wing of the party in late February to force a War Powers vote - which would insist on Congress having the power to declare war and not the president - it was not clear they would have actually opposed any attacks in their capacity as lawmakers.

Earlier this year, before the 28 February US-Israeli onslaught began, reports emerged that Democratic Party leadership was trying to curb more grassroots efforts to restrain Trump's war-making authority.

Establishment Democrats, many of whom failed to condemn Israel for what the United Nations and Holocaust scholars have called a genocide in Gaza, have not shied away from consistent condemnation of Iran, believing that, if not now, then at some point Tehran would have to be militarily confronted.

Iran itself had said that, while it must be ready for a war with the US - largely egged on by Israel - it would rather cut a deal that allows it the weapons it says it needs to defend itself as a sovereign state. 

A week before the US and Israel began joint air strikes, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA Director John Ratcliffe briefed House and Senate leadership on the latest Iran developments behind closed doors. The top Democrat in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, emerged only to say to reporters: "This is serious, and the administration has to make its case to the American people."

Four days earlier, Schumer said in a statement that "confronting Iran's ruthless campaign of terror, nuclear ambitions, regional aggression, and horrific oppression of the Iranian people demands strength, resolve, regional coordination, and strategic clarity".

Where things stand

If there is a diplomatic track that Trump is still pursuing, there are no signs that it's yet at a senior enough level to bear fruit. Two attempted ceasefires have quickly collapsed. 

Qatar's prime minister arrived in Iran on Thursday in a bid to seek a joint Iran-Oman solution to reopening the Strait of Hormuz. The talks have slightly lowered the price of oil this week, but Trump's new deployment of the USS Theodore Roosevelt for a seven-month stint in the region suggests tensions are not winding down any time soon.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday announced a new wave of sanctions against Iran and its "enablers", towards what he described as an "asphyxiation of this regime".  He called it "Operation Economic Outcast".

Most Democrats have all along shared the same hawkish attitudes and assumptions when it comes to Iran...

Using a "zero leakage approach", Bessent said the Treasury had "mapped every node, every facilitator, and every network that Iran has used to smuggle oil and evade sanctions", and that Trump had already made phone calls to counterparts around the world "with specific requests to cease their interactions with the regime". He did not specify which leaders, nor on what timeline they may act.

Then there's the critical shortfall in US munitions, given the Pentagon has moved many to the Gulf, as it strikes back at Iranian retaliation against US military bases and energy facilities in the region. A Reuters report this month said the US had exhausted its stockpile of sophisticated long-range missiles during the war on Iran, including surface-to-surface ATACMS and Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM). 

The Associated Press also reported a "beyond critical" shortage of advanced missile interceptors, especially Patriots, which have been used to shoot down Russian ballistic missiles in the war with US-backed Ukraine. 

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/30/2026 - 15:10

"Profound Game-Changer": Musk Launching New Turbine Blade Factory To Solve Shortage Threatening AI Boom

"Profound Game-Changer": Musk Launching New Turbine Blade Factory To Solve Shortage Threatening AI Boom

SpaceX is making an aggressive push into the power generation market, with The Information reporting that Elon Musk is preparing to address one of the most critical bottlenecks threatening America's data-center buildout: the shortage of advanced gas turbine components, particularly the blades and vanes needed to power massive data center campuses.

SpaceX is laying the groundwork for a new factory in Bastrop, Texas, that would manufacture high-temperature blades and vanes for industrial gas turbines. The move could allow Musk to circumvent the severe turbine blade shortage that has pushed availability toward 2030.

On X, Musk responded to the report, saying, "The limiting factor for nat gas turbine production is casting the blades & vanes. By doing in-house casting at SpaceX, we can accelerate nat gas turbines coming online by up to 18 months, which is a profound game-changer."

Musk previously warned about the shortage during a recent podcast, saying, "Turbines are sold out through 2030. In order to bring enough power online, SpaceX and Tesla will probably have to make the turbine blades and vanes internally. There are only three casting companies in the world that make these, and they're massively backlogged."

A Federal Trade Commission filing shows that Musk has acquired APR Energy, a provider of mobile gas turbine power plants used by data centers, utilities, and industrial customers.

Musk's acquisition of APR Energy also gives him access to a mobile fleet built around GE TM2500 and Mitsubishi FT8 turbines, which typically produce 20-35 MW per unit.

SpaceX is targeting roughly 10 gigawatts of AI computing capacity by the end of 2027, while Musk has said the company wants substantially more power and cooling infrastructure.

This all signals that Musk views the turbine shortage as a direct threat to SpaceX's data center buildout timeline. Rather than wait on constrained outside suppliers, he is moving aggressively to vertically integrate another critical layer of the AI infrastructure stack across his business empire.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/30/2026 - 14:35

Iceland Voters Reject Reopening Talks To Join European Union

Iceland Voters Reject Reopening Talks To Join European Union

Iceland voters on Saturday rejected a proposal to reopen negotiations to join the European Union, after the island nation of some 400,000 people chose to maintain independence after shelving its membership bid more than a decade ago.

Supporters of the 'No' campaign wave Icelandic flags during a rally against reopening Iceland's European Union accession negotiations in Reykjavik, Iceland, on Aug. 27, 2026, two days ahead of a national referendum. Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images

Heading into the vote, the "yes" camp was ahead by just 2.6 points - however opponents defeated the measure by a margin of 52.8% to 47.2%, according to RUV. 

A "yes" vote would have sent the government back to Brussels -  while any deal would have required a second referendum and ratification by all 27 member states. Now, the issue is shelved and moot.

Before the 'no' vote, Social Democrat Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir described the vote as "an opportunity."

Opponents suggested this was nothing more than deception - with the government trying to convince people "that we are not really applying, that we are merely looking into what membership would entail," Gudlaugur Thor Thordarson, a former foreign minister and current lawmaker for the opposition Independence Party, said in an interview with The Epoch Times. "If you apply to join the EU, you are applying to join the EU."

Membership, he said, would mean EU law overriding Icelandic law, a sweeping transfer of legislative and executive power, and the jurisdiction of the EU's courts on top.

Haraldur Ólafsson, a physics professor who chairs the eurosceptic movement Heimssýn, told The Epoch Times the question was worded so that people "find it very difficult to say no to discussions."

Applying without wanting to join, he added, makes "a fool of the European Union." "You should try to win over the people of the country before you submit an application, instead of submitting one in camouflage," he said.

Iceland Prime Minister Kristrun Frostadottir participates in a listening session on the upcoming referendum in Reykjavik, Iceland on Aug. 26, 2026. Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images

As the Epoch Times notes further, Iceland applied to join the EU in July 2009, months after its banks collapsed. Talks opened in 2010, and 11 of 35 policy chapters had been provisionally closed by the time a new center-right government froze the process in 2013. The fisheries chapter, the most sensitive of all, was never opened.

In March 2015, Reykjavík asked Brussels to no longer regard it as a candidate country.

The current government contends that the application nonetheless remains valid, a view the European Commission has endorsed. Thordarson disputes this. The "still valid" line, he said, was the product of government lobbying in Brussels and "came as a total surprise to all of us."

He also said that visits by European ministers to Reykjavík over the summer to urge a "yes" amount to "foreign interference."

Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares and his Austrian counterpart, Beate Meinl-Reisinger, both spoke favorably of Icelandic membership during visits to the country in June, with the referendum on the agenda.

France's Jean-Noël Barrot struck a similar note during an official visit in July, saying Iceland "had nothing to lose" by reopening talks.

The Greenland Factor

The government's own explanation for the timing points not to Brussels but to Washington. Frostadóttir's center-left coalition, formed after the late-2024 election, had pledged a referendum by 2027. In March it brought the vote forward, weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump renewed his push to acquire Greenland, which he said has become a national security concern for the United States because of increasing Russian and Chinese influence over the Arctic.

Foreign Minister Thorgerdur Katrín Gunnarsdóttir said it would be "both naive and irresponsible" not to take the moment in history into account.

Snærós Sindradóttir Bachmann, executive director of the European Movement in Iceland, told The Epoch Times that the vote is "about human rights and democracy, and about standing with like-minded nations against this threat from the West," a reference to Washington's pressure on Greenland.

"Greenland is 290 kilometers [about 180 miles] away from us. We have to be realistic," she said.

Eggertsson, for his part, said he was "very cautious about speculating that similar pressure will be directed at Iceland," citing the country's "strong and longstanding ties with the United States."

But as larger powers grow more willing to apply pressure, he said, "stronger cooperation with allies and like-minded countries becomes increasingly important." He added: "I would not frame this as turning away from the United States or from NATO."

Iceland has no armed forces of its own. A founding member of NATO, it relies for its defense on a 1951 agreement with the United States. In March, it also signed a security and defense partnership with the EU covering Arctic and maritime security, cyber issues, and economic security.

The Greenland episode weighs on her, Bachmann said, and she's concerned it does not seem to worry many of her compatriots.

Thordarson, who said he too objected to Trump's statements on Greenland, dismissed the argument as "a pretext" and a narrative that "does not hold up." Frostadóttir, he added, had not campaigned on a referendum on reopening accession talks.

Ólafsson was blunter: the government, he said, had blown the Greenland issue "light-years out of proportion."

Greenland has weighed on the debate "much less than people abroad would think," Oddsson said. "The topics actually being discussed are much closer to home: the currency, fisheries, agriculture, and questions of sovereignty."

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/30/2026 - 12:15

Druckenmiller Warning: The Bond Market Already Priced It

Druckenmiller Warning: The Bond Market Already Priced It

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

Recently, Stanley Druckenmiller wrote an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal. The “Druckenmiller warning” hit on August 24, and within a day, the financial press turned it into a soap opera. Some of the headlines were “Mentor scolds protégé,” and “Billionaire slams the Treasury Secretary.” Then, the revelation that he wrote it with the help of AI somehow became its own headline.

However, while the media was busy making headlines, the argument was lost. Stanley Druckenmiller did not forecast a debt crisis, nor pitch a trade. What he said was something difficult to fit in a headline, and it was something the bond market has already said for him.

What Actually Happened On August 19

On August 19th, the Treasury said it would double the size of its long-dated buyback operations to at least $4 billion. That operation will run from September 9 through November 4 (it hasn’t started yet) and is aimed at the long end of the curve. The timing of the announcement was the tell, and the heart of the Druckenmiller warning, as the move came right after yields hit their highest level in about 19 years. Yields dropped on the news, but by the next trading day, the bond rally was reversed. The long bond has hovered in the 5.2% range since then.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent then told CNBC the operations could run bigger than $4 billion. Days later, senior officials floated the idea of using the department’s nearly $950 billion cash account to help fund the purchases. What is crucial to understand is that these actions are a very different conversation from “liquidity support.”

You do not need to support a market you yourself describe as having strong, consistent sponsorship, and that strong sponsorship is the definition of a healthy market. However, the Treasury intervened anyway right after yields peaked, which is why the market read it as “price management” and shrugged.

What The Druckenmiller Warning Actually Says

I posted the link to Druckenmiller’s warning above, and encourage you to read the piece closely. When you do, you will realize that the popular summary falls apart.

Most notably, the article was not a claim that yields are about to spiral. What Druckenmiller suggests is that a 30-year bond at 5.5% is an “invoice,” not a “crisis,” nor was it a claim that the “bond vigilantes” have finally arrived. He actually described the opposite: a market he called “a pushover that had finally begun to clear its throat,” and the bond market has been too calm, rather than too violent.

However, Druckenmiller’s real target is structural. To wit: the long bond, in his framing, is “the only fiscal disciplinarian the U.S. has left.” He states that if you suppress that signal, you subsidize the one thing Washington does reliably well: “delay.”

While many currently point fingers at the Republicans, particularly as we approach the mid-term elections, the reality is that neither party has the will to touch entitlements with the market applying pressure. But more importantly, without that pressure, neither party has shown the will to touch them either. Such is why entitlements are called the “third rail of politics,” because if you touch them, your political career is toast.

There’s a second layer that most of the media coverage skipped. Historically, yield management has always started as a technical operation. However, as with most things in Government, it tends to end as a more permanent policy commitment. From 1942 to 1951, the Fed capped long Treasury yields to finance the war. Naturally, that cap outlived the war by years before the Treasury-Fed Accord finally killed it. The wall between managing the debt and managing bond prices was built on purpose. Unfortunately, that “wall” gets blurred by this intervention.

The last time this happened, it looked like this.

The gap at the center of the Druckenmiller warning is the space between what he wrote and how it’s being read. That gap is wide enough to matter. The table lays it out.

The Strongest Case Against The Druckenmiller Warning

To be fair, the bond bears have a valid point. Someone will wave the whole thing off as $4 billion against a market north of $30 trillion, a rounding error. So, what is all the fuss about? They are correct about the arithmetic. Four billion dollars cannot set the long end, and the recent round-trip in yields proves it. However, that also exposes the risk in the argument. You can’t call an operation both impotent and dangerous in the same breath without saying which one it is.

(The chart below shows the history and magnitude of previous buybacks. This is not unprecedented by any measure.)

There is a much better version of the pushback, and it comes from people like Jon Hilsenrath. He noted that a move in long yields isn’t purely fiscal information but also reflects dealer balance sheets, hedging flows, and the financing of levered positions. The March 2020 and 2022 gilt crises both showed that liquidity can seize up even when the fundamentals look fine. Furthermore, Bessent’s stated case is that the Treasury sees something about market functioning that outsiders don’t. That probably isn’t as crazy as it sounds on its face.

So where does that leave the Druckenmiller warning? In our opinion, it is much stronger than its critics allow, for one reason. The danger was never the four billion dollars. The mistake is the precedent: the signal that the Treasury will now step in to defend a price. Once the market believes that, every selloff becomes a test of official resolve, and the tests only get bigger. This is the very definition of “moral hazard” that we discussed previously. More notably, the bond market has already ruled on this point.

Bessent’s actions run counter to Kevin Warsh’s recent mandate to remove the “Fed Signal” from the market. For investors, this means we will need to watch the next moves from both Bessent and Warsh.

What The Druckenmiller Warning Means For Bond Investors

The future is currently uncertain. What will happen with oil prices, tariffs, and political policy? The mid-term elections are coming quickly, and there are signs of both economic weaknesses and strengths. The Fed is signaling it is backing away from market support, but the Treasury says it is still there. It’s all confusing, but for investors managing their own portfolio, it suggests several changes to both strategy and holdings.

  1. Do not buy the long bond for the buyback bid. A $4 billion operation is a backstop, not a floor under prices. Supply at the long end is getting heavier as deficits run near 6% of GDP. Furthermore, corporate issuance is competing for the same buyers. The 20- to 30-year part of the curve is now a political football. Political footballs trade with extra volatility.

  2. Own the belly of the curve, the 5- to 10-year part. That is where you capture most of the yield with far less duration risk. You also reduce exposure risk to whatever “policy commitment” the long end gets dragged into. At a 10-year near 4.7%, the coupon does real work as you are paid to wait. Just take that interest rate “carry” where the duration risk is SMALL.

  3. Lastly, it could pay to keep some inflation protection in the mix. If the Treasury escalates its interventions and funds long-bond purchases with bills or its cash account, that’s a quiet form of easing. However, that is occurring while inflation still runs above the Fed’s 2% target. In that environment, TIPS will earn their place in portfolios. But the risk is that you cap your returns if the term premium keeps grinding higher on increasing supply.

Here is an example of the 40% allocation in a 60/40 equity/bond portfolio.

So, here is the question worth asking.

“If there’s no crisis, why not just own the long bond and clip the coupon?”

The answer is the escalation path, so you will want to watch the Treasury General Account. If Treasury actually deploys the $950 billion to defend a yield level, Druckenmiller’s “technical tool becomes policy commitment” line stops being theory, and the trade shifts toward steeper curves, more inflation protection, and shorter nominal duration.

The one thing that would push me to extend into the long end with conviction is the opposite of intervention. A credible plan on the deficit would do more for the long bond than any buyback. This is the real point of the “Druckenmiller Warning,” and it’s mine too. I’ve argued before that the debt problem is a crisis without a calendar. However, that is what the waiting looks like.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/30/2026 - 11:40

CIA Director Pushed Trump-Putin-Zelensky Summit During Moscow Visit: Report

CIA Director Pushed Trump-Putin-Zelensky Summit During Moscow Visit: Report

Yet another take has been issued, and more alleged details, on CIA Director John Ratcliffe's Tuesday trip to Moscow, which took place amid great secrecy and still even days later has only been subject of immense speculation.

Axios is reporting over the weekend that the CIA chief proposed a trilateral meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky - when he met with top Kremlin intelligence officials but was not granted a direct meeting with Putin himself.

NBC/Getty Images: CIA Director John Ratcliffe, left, held talks in Moscow with Russia's foreign intelligence chief, Sergey Naryshkin, this week.

"Of course, President Putin is immediately briefed on everything," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, calling the meeting "a positive phenomenon" while not giving additional details.

The war has quite obviously ramped up this summer, with tit-for-tat strikes expanding beyond just military and energy targets, to include food and retailing companies, and increasingly even civilian neighborhoods.

According to some details via Axios:

  • Ratcliffe's visit was partly aimed at determining whether Russia's heads of intelligence services could help convince Putin to move toward resuming U.S.-mediated negotiations with Ukraine, the sources said.
  • On Friday, U.S. officials briefed Zelensky on Ratcliffe's talks in Moscow and the proposal for a trilateral summit.
  • The Trump administration has raised the idea in the past. Zelensky has been on board, but Putin has rejected it.

Over in the Middle East, the Iran war has not gone well for Washington, and so the White House has recently pivoted back to seeking a war forward toward peace in Ukraine, needing a foreign conflict 'win'.

However, US admin officials have signaled they are not ready to force Ukraine into a 'bad' peace deal. Also according to Axios, "Zelensky's chief of staff, Kyrylo Budanov, told local media on Thursday that U.S.-mediated talks with Russia could resume in September."

As for Trump, on Wednesday he told Glenn Beck in an interview: "We would like to see the Ukraine war end," adding that his administration was "working very hard to get that war ended."

Concerning the CIA chief's visit to Moscow, some have said that it may have been focused on Iran, amid Washington warnings for Russia to cease helping Tehran, following prior widespread allegations that Russian intelligence provided targeting information of US bases and troops across the Mideast region.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/30/2026 - 11:05

Fly British Flags In UK And Face Jail... But Pakistan And Palestine Flags Get A Pass

Fly British Flags In UK And Face Jail... But Pakistan And Palestine Flags Get A Pass

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

Britain's largest local authority has spent a year treating the Union Flag and the St George's Cross as a public-order problem. On Saturday the picture sharpened again: the legal squeeze now circulating around Birmingham's flag war is being described as a ban aimed at England and the United Kingdom, while other national colours keep their place in the city's official life.

Birmingham City Council has gone to the High Court to stop "unauthorised attachments" on the highway. Breach of an injunction of this kind can mean unlimited fines and up to two years in prison.

The people named in the papers are the campaigners who put British flags on lampposts. But the council still finds time to raise other nations' flags outside the town hall and light the city library in foreign colours. To top it all off, they have reportedly confirmed that anyone raising foreign flags will be exempt from the new ban.

On 26 August the council submitted its application to the High Court. The named respondents include Raise the Colours co-founder Ryan Bridge, Elliott Stanley, Julian Keane, Ross Child, Billy Allison, Ben Cullen, Mark Keating and "persons unknown."

The catch-all clause is the point. If a judge grants the order, it is not only the named men who are in the frame. Anyone who keeps putting flags on lamp columns, railings or other street furniture without permission can be pulled into contempt proceedings.

Green councillor Jane Baston, cabinet member for equalities, communities and social justice, said: "The council is taking a lawful, proportionate and evidence-led approach to unauthorised attachments on the highway. This includes pursuing injunctive action based on the evidence gathered to date."

She added: "Our priority is to protect public safety, staff and contractor welfare, community cohesion and the responsible use of public funds. We ask residents and community groups to support this approach and to ensure any displays are placed only where permission exists."

The authority insists the action "is not directed at any particular community, belief or viewpoint." It says officers have "witnessed incidents that have involved harassment, intimidation or obstruction during removal activity."

That is the official script. The record of the last twelve months tells a different story about which flags trigger the machinery of the state.

Raise the Colours started in the Birmingham area last summer and spread across England. Thousands of St George's Crosses and Union Flags went up on lampposts, roundabouts and bridges. The council answered with safety language: attachments on tall columns, risk to motorists, LED upgrades, highways law. Flags twenty-five feet in the air became a danger to life.

Bridge has not offered the council the surrender it wants. On Talk TV he said he would keep going. "100% I will be carrying on. If I go to jail for it, so be it."

Times columnist Matthew Syed, sitting with Kevin O'Sullivan, refused to treat the flag as a social contaminant. "I believe in the flag, I believe in the nation," he said. "I think that if you don't have a strong sense of nationhood, it's very difficult to do anything." He further argued that without a coherent nation, you get caste, clan and tribe. You do not get a country that can function.

Former Metropolitan Police detective Peter Bleksley called the jail threat "absolutely scandalous." The Free Speech Union called it "truly mental." Reform UK's Birmingham group leader, councillor Jex Parkin, said: "It is extraordinary that we have reached a point where people peacefully displaying the Union Flag or St George's Cross could potentially find themselves before the courts, with breach of any eventual injunction carrying extremely serious consequences, including imprisonment."

He added: "The Union Flag and St George's Cross belong to everybody in this country. They should unite us, not divide us."

Conservative group leader councillor Robert Alden said the flags are "a unifying force celebrating our shared culture and heritage" and called on the council to enable formal neighbourhood displays instead of dragging patriots into court.

The phrase that is repeated ad nauseam in Birmingham is "community cohesion," yet it was not the governing principle when other flags were raised in the street.

For months after October 7 2023, Palestinian flags flew from lampposts in parts of the city. Nearly a third of Birmingham's residents are Muslim. The council did not race to the High Court. A leaked internal message from cabinet member Majid Mahmood, reported in 2025, explained the real constraint. On Palestine flags he wrote: "We are taking these down, but we need the support of the police due to issues that have cropped up when we first tried to take them down."

Reform UK's Robert Jenrick commented, "It is ridiculous that the council is taking down England flags and Union flags while Palestine flags are allowed to remain," adding "It's blatant two-tier bias against the British people."

Foreign colours get to stay, yet the national flag is treated as an attachment to be litigated out of existence.

The hypocrisy is not confined to protest banners. It is civic policy.

In July the Somali flag was raised outside Birmingham Council House in Victoria Square, with civic representatives present. The Library of Birmingham was lit blue and white for the occasion.

Reform UK's Birmingham group put the contrast in writing: "Only weeks ago the Somali flag was officially raised outside Birmingham Council House with civic representatives present. Earlier this month the Pakistan flag was raised outside the Council House at a ceremony hosted by the Lord Mayor."

"There is something badly wrong," the group said, "if Birmingham City Council can proudly accommodate the national flags of countries around the world while people are made to feel that displaying the Union Flag or St George's Cross is somehow provocative."

The same authority now determined to strip British flags from the streets has been happy to fly the Somali flag from the civic building itself.

The library routine is now a seasonal fixture. Green and white for Pakistan Independence Day. Orange, white and green for India. The same council that scrambles to criminalise British flags will bathe a landmark in another country's colours overnight.

Jamaica has had the same civic courtesy. Footage from Council House shows the Jamaican flag raised for independence day on the same steps now being used to lecture English residents about cohesion.

Last year a Pakistani flag flew over the central square.

They're seemingly happy to fly any flag at all, except for British ones. Why is that?

Here's why...

What happened to diversity being a good thing?

Councillor Alan Feeney, the Conservative shadow cabinet member for city services, said the obvious thing the cabinet will not. "This simply is not a priority for residents. Birmingham has an ongoing bin strike, roads filled with potholes and travellers breaking onto parks across the city, costing the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of pounds. The council's focus should be on dealing with these issues, not taking down flags that were placed as a symbol of national pride."

Labour's remaining voice on the council, group leader Nicky Brennan, offered the opposing theology: "We cannot allow a small group of people to attempt to divide the communities of Birmingham."

The communities he is referring to claim to be divided by the English flag. They are apparently knitted together by the Somali flag on the Council House and a library washed in the colours of Islamabad.

Birmingham is the prize because it is huge, broke, and demographically transformed. Almost a third Muslim. Large Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi and Somali populations. A political class that has learned to speak the language of cohesion while practising a hierarchy of flags.

The enforcement now taking shape singles out England and the UK while other countries' colours remain in the clear.

A nation that will jail a man for the Cross of St George, and light a library for Pakistan, has told its own people where they stand.

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 Sun, 08/30/2026 - 10:30

El Nino Fuels Atlantic Hurricane Drought As Dolly Eyes Florida

El Nino Fuels Atlantic Hurricane Drought As Dolly Eyes Florida

The 2026 Atlantic hurricane season has yet to produce its first hurricane, putting the Atlantic Basin within reach of its latest start on record. There's a big reason for this: The intensifying El Niño is largely responsible for the strong wind shear that disrupts tropical system development.

Four named tropical storms have formed through late August, including Tropical Storm Dolly, but none has strengthened into a hurricane during the season's first three months as peak hurricane season nears, around Sept. 10.

Focusing on Tropical Storm Dolly, the National Hurricane Center's latest update early Sunday shows that the storm is now a strong tropical wave and is set to produce showers and thunderstorms across Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and the northern Leeward Islands.

"The remnants of Dolly could bring heavy rains and gusty winds to portions of the Leeward Islands, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico over the next couple of days," the NHC wrote in an update earlier today. An accompanying cone of uncertainty map shows that the storm may track toward South Florida.

Latest from Polymarket: What will be the name of the first hurricane in the Atlantic during the 2026 hurricane season?

A second area of low pressure was located about 125 miles south of southeastern Louisiana. Its thunderstorms have become more concentrated since Saturday, but surface observations showed that the system had not yet strengthened. Gradual development remains possible as it drifts toward the Louisiana and upper Texas coasts during the next several days.

 

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/30/2026 - 09:55

Taxpayers Lost $65 Billion On Obamacare Fraud Last Year

Taxpayers Lost $65 Billion On Obamacare Fraud Last Year

Taxpayers spent $65 billion on health insurance premiums for people who either didn't exist or didn't qualify for benefits in two federal programs in 2024, according to an Aug. 26 report from Paragon Health Institute.

Expanded Medicaid and Obamacare, the signature programs of the Affordable Care Act, improperly enrolled a combined 14.3 million people that year, researchers concluded.

Expanded Medicaid allows states to enroll people making up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level, versus up to 100 percent for traditional Medicaid. That limit was about $35,600 for a family of three in 2024.

Obamacare was open to people earning up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level at that time, about $103,000 for a family of three.

Both programs are administered through the Affordable Care Act Marketplace, with coverage provided by commercial insurance companies.

As Lawrence Wilson details below, via The Epoch Times, researchers estimate that about 34 percent of all Marketplace enrollees in 2024 were either fraudulent, duplicates, or simply didn't meet the benefit criteria.

And the number went up the next year, researchers said.

"Improper exchange enrollment increased by more than 26 percent from 2024 to 2025 - up to an estimated 6.5 million enrollees," the report stated.

Enrollment Problems

Researchers studied federal data from surveys, program enrollment, and spending and concluded that more than 9 million Medicaid expansion enrollees in 2024 probably didn't qualify for the benefit.

Those were likely people whose income was over the limit, did not meet citizenship, immigration, or residency requirements, or should have been enrolled in traditional Medicaid.

With Obamacare, the $0 premium policies made possible during the post-COVID years became a target for fraud, according to Paragon President Brian Blase.

Testifying before Congress in December, Blase said many people were enrolled in the program without their knowledge by unscrupulous insurance brokers, prompting the federal government to send a commission check to them - and premium payments to an insurance company.

These phantom enrollees are detected in part by their lack of activity once enrolled, Blase said.

Also, 28 states had more people enrolled in Obamacare than there were people in the state who met the income requirements.

Skepticism

Paragon had previously reported its enrollment analysis, though the cost calculation is new.

Based on previous reports, some observers have questioned the assertion that improper enrollment, particularly in Obamacare, is as widespread as the think tank concluded.

"There is no evidence of systemic fraud, waste, or abuse in [state-based marketplaces]," according to Covered California, the state's health insurance marketplace.

As for the lack of activity by some enrollees, America's Health Insurance Plans released a statement in 2025 saying, "A 'no-claims' year is evidence that a consumer stayed healthy or only had a few months of coverage - not that taxpayer money was misdirected or that their policy was illegitimate."

Others observers say Paragon's research method doesn't factor in all the variables. "There are a number of reasons why people who report incomes somewhat above 138 percent of the poverty line in a survey may be eligible for the Medicaid expansion," the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said about a previous Paragon report.

Yet in December 2025, the Government Accountability Office reported that investigators were able to enroll 20 nonexistent identities in Obamacare in 2024 by using Social Security numbers that had never been issued to any person and other easily created counterfeit documents.

Of the 20 false enrollments, 18 were still active in September 2025, costing taxpayers more than $10,000 per month.

Investigators also found 26,000 accounts that received subsidies in 2023 based on Social Security numbers that matched records in the Social Security Administration's death file.

Taxpayers paid more than $94 million in subsidies for one year based on false enrollments uncovered by the investigators.

Savings and Recovery

The federal government has taken aggressive action to root out improper enrollment over the last two years.

That includes suspending agents and brokers from the program for suspected fraud, reinstating data matching between federal programs to prevent duplicate enrollment, canceling phantom enrollments, and requiring Medicaid eligibility recertification every six months.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reported in January it had removed more than 1 million enrollees who were concurrently enrolled in Obamacare and Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program, or who had failed to file and reconcile previously received subsidies.

Another 250,000 were removed who'd been enrolled without their consent.

Those actions produced $10 billion in annual savings, according to a government statement.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/30/2026 - 08:45

Poland, US Discuss Establishing Permanent American Military Bases

Poland, US Discuss Establishing Permanent American Military Bases

Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times,

Poland and Pentagon officials are in discussions about possibly locating several American military bases in the country, Polish Deputy Defense Minister Paweł Zalewski said after a meeting of the North Atlantic Council at NATO headquarters in Brussels Aug. 27.

Zalewski said he met with Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby about plans for the bases and defense policy.

"The American presence in Poland can encompass various defense capabilities," Zalewski told Polish Radio after the meeting. "We believe it doesn't have to be concentrated in one place. Of course, there are several locations we want to discuss with the U.S. side where such a presence would be truly massive. However, we are still talking about several bases and several locations."

Poland formally requested new permanent U.S. military bases in June after Trump pledged to send 5,000 additional troops to the country. About 10,000 U.S. troops are already stationed in Poland, which spends about $15,000 for each, according to the country's defense department.

Poland's priorities are to secure defense capabilities the country currently lacks, such as reconnaissance and command functions, rather than simply increasing troop numbers, Zalewski said.

The bases would be a permanent strategy for the United States and not just a reaction to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, according to Poland.

"A permanent U.S. presence would reflect America's long-term strategic interest in the country, not merely respond to the recent activities of Russia," Zalewski said.

The discussion also included nuclear weapons logistics, according to the deputy defense minister.

He added, however, that Poland didn't want nuclear warheads stationed in the country.

"Poland does not want to have nuclear warheads on this territory," Zalewski said. "We want to participate in NATO nuclear deterrence but that does not mean to have nuclear warheads on our territory."

Poland's Minister of National Defense Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz appeared to clarify the comments in a statement on X later in the day.

"To dispel any doubts: Poland remains steadfastly interested in participating in the NATO Nuclear Sharing program," Kosiniak-Kamysz said in the post. "We are also conducting talks regarding the proposal for participation in the European nuclear protective umbrella. Our government's stance on these issues is unequivocal."

The Pentagon didn't respond to a request for comment about the bases by publication time.

Colby visited Belgium this week to meet with European allies and press them to increase their defense expenditures as Washington evaluates its policy toward the region.

The Pentagon asked the allies to assess their commitment to U.S. foreign policy goals as part of a European Force review launched in June by War Secretary Pete Hegseth. The review examines the future deployment of about 80,000 U.S. troops across Europe, with nearly half of them expected in Germany.

Colby introduced the new framework, which he dubbed "NATO 3.0," earlier this year.

Some countries are concerned the review will result in U.S. troop cuts in Europe. President Donald Trump has threatened to withdraw troops from countries that refused to help the United States secure the Strait of Hormuz during the Iran conflict.

In May, the Pentagon ordered the withdrawal of 5,000 troops from Germany after tensions flared between Trump and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz over the Iran war.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said Friday that Europe and Canada had accepted a more equitable share of defense spending since last year.

"Still, there is much more to be done and we'll get there," Rutte said.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/30/2026 - 08:10

Canada Is Poaching America’s Top Scientists

Canada Is Poaching America’s Top Scientists

Canada is taking advantage of growing uncertainty within the US academic system by offering hundreds of millions of dollars to researchers willing to move north, according to Bloomberg.

The Canadian government has committed C$504 million, or roughly $362 million, to support 64 scientists and scholars joining universities across the country. Three quarters of the recruits currently work in the United States, many at institutions including Harvard, MIT and the University of North Carolina. The remaining researchers are arriving from a dozen other countries, including China, Japan, Germany and the UK. Nearly half of the group coming from the US are Canadian citizens returning home.

The new arrivals include Sara Seager, a leading planetary scientist leaving MIT for the University of Toronto, and MIT materials scientist James LeBeau. The University of British Columbia is adding Brian Kuhlman, whose protein research was connected to work recognized by the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, along with Harvard computational biologist Curtis Huttenhower, who studies the relationship between microorganisms and human health.

Bloomberg writes that each researcher will receive support over an eight-year period, with their work concentrated in fields Canada considers strategically important, including health care, artificial intelligence, advanced computing, environmental science and commercially promising technologies.

The recruitment drive comes as US universities face federal research cuts, a more restrictive immigration environment and continuing disputes with the Trump administration. Canadian university officials say those pressures have left some researchers questioning their long-term prospects in the United States, creating an opening for Canada to strengthen its own academic institutions.

The awards are part of a much larger plan introduced by Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government last year. Ottawa intends to spend C$1.7 billion over 12 years to bring more than 1,000 researchers to Canada, including up to 100 internationally recognized scholars selected for heavily funded research chairs.

Canada has also proposed a faster immigration process for H-1B visa holders affected by changes in the United States, although that program has not yet begun. The European Union is pursuing a similar strategy through a €500 million effort to attract scientists interested in leaving the US.

Canadian officials are expected to name another group of research chairs in the coming months.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/30/2026 - 07:35

An Illegal Migrant Tried To Saw Off A Man's Head; You Won't Believe What The BBC Did Next...

An Illegal Migrant Tried To Saw Off A Man's Head; You Won't Believe What The BBC Did Next...

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

A leaked internal email shows a senior BBC executive reaching for the language of "solidarity" after a Sudanese asylum seeker was charged with trying to brutally murder a Northern Irish man in the street. The corporation's instinct was not to dwell on the victim, but instead to soothe colleagues "who have come to Northern Ireland and the UK from other countries."

A local man is carved up on a Belfast pavement, unrest follows, and the state broadcaster act as if the real emergency is that imported staff might feel "particularly vulnerable."

Investigative journalist Steven Edginton published the leak on Friday. Jack Whyte, the BBC's Chief Technology Officer, wrote to staff after the backlash that followed the attack on Stephen Ogilvie. Whyte said he wanted to "express our solidarity with colleagues who may feel particularly vulnerable or fearful at this time, including those who have come to Northern Ireland and the UK from other countries."

He condemned "hatred, intimidation, and violence in all its forms" and added that the BBC is "committed to fostering an environment where every colleague feels supported, included, and able to bring their whole self to work."

Whyte's wording is a tell. "Including those who have come to Northern Ireland and the UK from other countries" is the only group specified. Native staff who watched a man carved up on a Belfast street are left to infer that their fear does not count as vulnerability. Their anxiety is "hatred" adjacent, while the imported colleague's anxiety is a welfare priority.

A source inside the corporation put the omission in plainer English: "The BBC offered solidarity to foreign staff but not to native Brits who might be worried about illegal migrants beheading them."

The email was sent in June, after nights of disorder in Belfast. It has only now been dragged into public view. The attack was ugly enough to ignite streets. The official response was to flatten the language, script the aftermath, and treat public anger as the problem to be managed.

The assault took place back on June 8 on Kinnaird Avenue in north Belfast. Police later told a court they found a man armed with a knife sitting on another man. Officers pulled the attacker off. Bystanders had already piled in. People on the footage can be heard shouting: "He's trying to cut his head off."

Hadi Alodid, 30, a Sudanese national with an address on nearby Duncairn Avenue, appeared at Belfast Magistrates' Court charged with the attempted murder of Stephen Ogilvie, possession of a knife in a public place, and threats to kill an NHS radiographer. He used an Arabic interpreter, made no reply to the charges, and was remanded in custody. District Judge Stephen Keown refused bail, citing the risk of reoffending, harm to the public, flight, and public disorder.

Court evidence revealed that Ogilvie, in his forties, lost his left eye. His right eye was badly damaged. He suffered deep cuts to his head, face, neck and back.

A detective told the court that while Alodid was being treated for a hand injury he said: "I've killed someone, I don't know if they are dead." He is also alleged to have told medical staff: "I will kill you."

Alodid's route into the United Kingdom was the now-familiar Irish back door. Police and reporting established that he travelled from Sudan to Paris, flew to Dublin, then took a bus across the border into Belfast in February 2023 and claimed asylum the same day. In September 2023 he was granted leave to remain until 2028.

A local woman filmed near the scene described Ogilvie as someone she had known for years: hard of hearing, struggling with daily life, the sort of man who still offered help. She said two migrants had only moved into nearby accommodation four days earlier. Ogilvie, she claimed, had assisted them as they settled. She said the pair later jumped him, and claimed that a second Sudanese man was still at large.

Ogilvie's family released a statement of devastation, thanking those who intervened and the emergency services, and asking for calm. It also contained the now-standard paragraph: "We have many migrants who make a deeply valuable contribution to our country, including from within our healthcare system and hospitality sector, and we depend on them to make our country work."

Readers noticed the cadence. "Our loved one." Generic gratitude. A pivot from a butchered relative to the national faith in imported labour. Commentators said it read like a template. Subsequent reporting on the Home Office's Research, Information and Communications Unit suggested that suspicion was not paranoia.

RICU, set up in 2007 under the Prevent banner by former MI6 officer Charles Farr, sits in that grey zone between the Home Office and the security services. Professor Anthony Glees has described it as occupying "that kind of shadowy area between what the Home Office does and what the security service MI5 ought to be doing."

A Home Office spokesman would only say RICU "provides analysis on extremist use of propaganda and exploitation of the internet" and "cannot comment on its operations."

Sources quoted after the Belfast unrest said the unit worked with the PSNI's C3 intelligence branch to identify online "calls to protest," feed police a line that cast demonstrators as "unsympathetic thugs rather than activists," and make sure family liaison officers were "well briefed." One source said you can "see their fingerprints all over the statements released by the families of victims in these volatile situations - they usually have a similar tone."

The same Whitehall reflex is now in court on another front. Families of people killed or wrecked by foreign offenders are fighting the Ministry of Justice's attempt to keep nationality breakdowns of convictions sealed.

The Information Commissioner ordered the figures released. Labour's justice department appealed. Relatives of Rhiannon Whyte - the 27-year-old mother stabbed 23 times with a screwdriver by Sudanese small-boat arrival Deng Chol Majek - are among those demanding the data.

Alex Whyte, Rhiannon's sister, told GB News she felt "sick, disgusted and completely let down." Labour, she said, is "too afraid to admit" what open borders have done, urging "Open your eyes. You are so aware of what is happening, but you are too afraid to admit it."

Her mother, Siobhan Whyte, called the refusal "diabolical" and pointed to Home Office leaflets telling asylum seekers that rape is illegal and what the age of consent is. "They know they're a danger, and that's the sad reality of it."

They know publication would detonate the official story. That is why they spend public money to keep the information sealed.

This latest BBC leak sits on a pile of interventions that all point the same way: keep the public from connecting crime, culture and the people being moved into the country.

Culture department plans have sought to force platforms to boost BBC, ITV and Channel 4 content in users' feeds under the banner of fighting "disinformation," as if the remedy for lost trust is to pipe the least trusted institutions back into the algorithm by law.

The same project turned up in a media green paper aimed at YouTube's recommendation system: privileged placement for "trusted" public-service output, with legislation in reserve if the platforms will not play along. Independent creators who covered migrant crime without the approved adjectives would be the ones starved of reach.

Entertainment has been pressed into the same service. BBC fictional soap EastEnders brought in Ade Lamuye, a campaigner for "migration and racial justice," to help shape storylines. Lamuye has said "entertainment and media holds influence and power to make real change." The change, on the evidence, is to recast mass immigration as a moral test the audience must pass.

Children were not spared either. Pro-migrant charity Heard briefed producers on the CBBC series Pickle Storm, a comedy about a young "alien" fleeing persecution and settling in a British town. Heard described the work as a strategy to "tap into children's media and directly impact framing of migration in children's content."

The group has taken more than £4.5 million since 2021 from left-leaning foundations, including seed support linked to George Soros's Open Society Foundations. The BBC insisted the charity "had no power to influence editing or production." Heard's own materials said the input informed the second series.

When the newsroom itself is tested, the same muscle memory appears. Newsnight turned Nigel Farage's "pure cold rage" over the Henry Nowak case into "white cold rage," then shrugged it off as a misremembering. Critics noted that the inserted word was the entire point.

Fran Unsworth, a former BBC news director, has said the atmosphere inside the organisation had become intolerable. "Just dealing with the progressive editorial issues and the bullying around them all. It was incredibly difficult." Asked whether that culture pushed her out, she answered: "I would actually say it drove me out."

That is the same hierarchy that turns a sawing motion at a man's neck into a "stabbing," that treats rioters as the story and the attacker's immigration file as an afterthought, that will go to tribunal rather than print which nationalities dominate the sex-offence columns. It is the hierarchy that lectures the public about disinformation while handing activist charities the keys to a children's comedy.

The BBC collects a compulsory fee to tell the country what happened. After Belfast it told its own staff who mattered. Foreign colleagues who might feel unsafe. Not the public that had just watched an attempted decapitation in a residential street.

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 Sun, 08/30/2026 - 07:00

'Chexit': Global Asset Managers Are Fleeing China

'Chexit': Global Asset Managers Are Fleeing China

Authored by Anders Corr via The Epoch Times,

Fidelity International (FIL) is reportedly the latest fund manager to plan a pullout from its China fund. FIL launched a wholly-owned subsidiary in Shanghai three years ago, but a lack of demand from retail investors led to disappointing growth.

Reuters first reported the story. According to its sources, "A combination of fierce local competition, frequent leadership turnover and chronic struggles to build scale ultimately convinced global FIL executives that the China retail venture was untenable."

FIL has $1.18 trillion in assets under management (AUM). It started its China fund in 2023. The next year, Reuters saw an internal FIL document that said it needed more than $14 billion in assets to become profitable. After several years, it had reportedly reached only about $670 million (less than 5 percent of the goal) and began planning an exit.

Fidelity follows multiple other global asset managers that are backing away from China amid domestic competition and geopolitical tensions. These include Schroders, Legal & General, and Vanguard. The companies that left China were in stiff competition with domestic funds and Western China funds that had typically first been established through joint ventures (JVs) with Chinese institutions.

In 2019, Beijing invited global fund managers, for the first time, to establish wholly-owned China funds. The regime framed the invitation as part of a trade agreement, and the latter sought access to the Chinese public's $12.8 trillion in investable assets. For some of the international investors, it did not end well.

In 2020 and 2021, respectively, the Chinese regime issued permits to BlackRock and Neuberger Berman to start such funds. They both had ties to the regime and headquarters in Shanghai. In 2021, BlackRock raised $1 billion for its fund in its first week, which impressed other institutional investors. It was the first mutual fund owned by foreigners to be granted permission to sell directly to Chinese customers, and it did very well, at least at first.

Several other large asset managers converted their JVs into wholly-owned funds by buying out their JV partners. These then became the largest and most successful wholly foreign-owned public fund houses in China.

Some institutions, including Fidelity, Schroders, and BlackRock, launched greenfield, wholly-owned China funds, but they tended to be smaller than the converted JVs, delivered lower returns, and were disappointing in terms of growth. In 2018, Vanguard's Asia CEO mentioned a possible future China AUM of $5 trillion. But Vanguard was the first to close its Shanghai office in 2023.

The next year, Legal & General canceled plans to get a China business license and reduced its presence in Shanghai by about 80 percent.

Schroders, a British firm with AUM of $1.1 trillion, established a wholly-owned China fund management unit in 2023. But three years later, Schroders only managed $250 million. In May, news broke that the company planned to sell its China funds to a wholly-owned China unit of Neuberger Berman.

China has a $5.9 trillion public fund market dominated by domestic fund managers. Even as the smaller foreign-owned funds cut their losses in China, the larger ones are holding on.

JP Morgan Asset Management China is the largest foreign-owned fund with $34 billion in AUM. Manulife China has $17 billion, and Morgan Stanley China has $4.5 billion. These three funds started as joint ventures and then bought out their Chinese partners. Their returns tend to be better than those of new ventures, with about a third of their funds getting above 10 percent.

Most new foreign-owned funds posted a year-to-date return of less than 5 percent in June, which is far below the returns of the leading domestic fund managers. The top 11 Chinese companies each have more than $147 billion in AUM. Yicai has noted that the best 15 domestic funds had returns of at least 90 percent, which likely attracted some retail investors.

Domestic funds reportedly have multiple advantages over western funds, including brand recognition, established online and bank distribution channels, and low-overhead index and money-market businesses dominated by locals.

According to a Yicai Global source, "Most domestic fund managers have spent decades building out full product lines, gaining deep experience, earning a track record investors recognize, building local sales networks, and learning Chinese investors' preferences."

Other Yicai sources note that to compete, foreign companies should localize their management, research, investment, and sales teams.

There may be other advantages less frequently noted. A Fitch Ratings analyst put it bluntly when discussing the entrance of foreign banks into China's retail banking space in 2007.

"Foreign banks don't break people's arms when they don't repay them, like some Chinese banks might," the analyst said. "They can't operate like that, so what they have to focus on is the high end of the retail market."

Another challenge is unspoken regime bias against foreign companies, combined with overregulation. In June, for example, China's top securities regulator targeted algorithmic trading, which is one of the West's bright spots, not only internationally but in China trading.

The measures hit domestic algo traders as well, but they block one avenue in which foreign firms hold an advantage. Regular domestic managers have closer ties to regime agencies and exchange relationships and, therefore, better access to market data and regulatory largesse.

This isn't the first time that foreign banks have been squeezed in China to the advantage of domestic actors. The British pioneered modern banking in Shanghai in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Banks from other countries, including Germany, France, Japan, and the United States, entered later.

But after the revolution of 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) took over the most lucrative businesses of the banks and forced them to maintain idle workers. This forced most of them out in the 1950s. The two major foreign banks that remained, Standard Chartered (under a prior name) and HSBC, lost market share. Starting in 1979, the CCP gradually reopened its financial sector to foreign entities while ensuring that its domestic banks remained dominant.

With an uneven playing field and unfair referees, China is not the best of opportunities for Western investors. In the case of companies like Fidelity, Schroders, Vanguard, and Legal & General, the numbers did not add up and probably never will.

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 Sat, 08/29/2026 - 23:20

AI Skepticism Outweighs Excitement In The US

AI Skepticism Outweighs Excitement In The US

Despite the tech industry’s conviction that the rise of AI is an inflection point that will change the course of humanity, many humans remain skeptical whether the new direction we’re headed in is the right one.

As Statista's Felix Richter reports below, the pace at which AI seems to be taking over parts of our lives, whether we like it or not, is especially worrisome to many.

In a recent Statista Consumer Insights survey, 31 percent of U.S. respondents said that they were worried about the speed at which AI is developing and 25 percent of respondents claimed to be avoiding AI wherever they can.

18 percent said they used AI but felt bad about it and another 28 percent simply don’t believe in the hype, saying they weren’t convinced that AI is as good as people say.

AI Skepticism Outweighs Excitement in the U.S. | Statista

You will find more infographics at Statista

At the other end of the spectrum, 28 percent of respondents said they were excited about AI, 19 percent said they liked to use AI for shopping and 15 percent described themselves as early adopters – always keen to try the latest AI features first.

The bottom line is that Americans are neither all in on AI nor are they fully against it.

Many people are mixing their excitement with a dose of skepticism, which is probably a good way of looking at a potentially life-altering technological shift.

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/29/2026 - 22:45

The Arday Tragedy: A Story Of Institutional Failure, Not A Witch Hunt

The Arday Tragedy: A Story Of Institutional Failure, Not A Witch Hunt

Authored by Lipton Matthews via The Mises Institute,

The recent death of Jason Arday has been met with widespread grief, but also with a disturbing rush to assign blame.

Much of the media narrative has positioned Nathan Cofnas as the villain, the man who exposed plagiarism and, in doing so, supposedly hounded a vulnerable academic to his death.

This is a convenient story, but it is not the truth.

Let us be clear. Nathan Cofnas did nothing wrong. Yet he has been suspended from his post as a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Philosophy and Moral Sciences at Ghent University. He brought to light legitimate concerns about Jason Arday’s academic record. That is the function of journalism and scholarly scrutiny. If the allegations were false, Arday would have defended himself more effectively. If they were true, then they deserved to be aired. The fact that Arday was mentally unwell is tragic, but it does not retroactively make Cofnas’s actions malicious. We do not hold journalists responsible for the pre-existing vulnerabilities of those they cover.

This is not the first time a scandal has broken around a prominent figure. Stephen Glass—once a star at the New Republic—saw his career implode when his fabrications were exposed. He did not retreat; he wrote a novel about his disgrace, turning infamy into profit. Jayson Blair—the New York Times plagiarist—did the same. Both men monetized their scandals. Jason Arday’s exposure came in the age of social media, so the venom was more intense, but the principle is unchanged. Public figures often exploit controversy for personal gain. That Arday could not do so is unfortunate, but it is not evidence of a uniquely cruel campaign against him.

What is striking about Arday’s case is the institutional support he received. Diane Abbott and prominent Cambridge academics rallied to his defence. Compare this to the treatment of Charles Negy, Linda Gottfredson, Arthur Jensen, Helmut Nyborg, and others who have been vilified as racists simply for engaging with research on intelligence and group differences. Gottfredson continues to be defamed by the disgraced Southern Poverty Law Center. Nyborg had to sue the Danish Committees for Scientific Dishonesty for falsely accusing him of scientific misconduct. Negy is not even a race researcher; he was penalized by his university for saying that black privilege is real. As Negy put it, “beyond affirmative action, special scholarships, and other set asides, being shielded from legitimate criticism is itself a form of privilege.” None of these scholars had the institutional backing that Arday enjoyed. He was given an opportunity on a platter of gold. However, he failed to distinguish himself and, when the scrutiny came, he could not withstand it.

The real lesson of this harrowing tale is not a racist media hounding a black academic to death. It is the intensity of what might reasonably be called black privilege—a system that elevates individuals to positions they are not prepared for, shields them from criticism, and then reacts with shock when reality intrudes. Mike Adams - a white academic - was badgered to suicide in 2020 by social media and his university simply because people found his tweets offensive. Unlike Arday, he received no institutional support from elite institutions, nor was there an outpouring of solidarity. The difference between his case and Arday’s is glaring.

Invariably, the hatred directed at Nathan Cofnas stems not from his role in the Arday affair, but from his wider writings on race and intelligence. Cofnas holds that racial differences in intelligence are partially genetic. This is controversial, but it is not unsupported. Psychologist Russell Warne has defended similar positions in his book In the Know: Debunking 35 Myths About Human Intelligence. Even if the hereditarian view is ultimately wrong, the environmentalist thesis has failed to produce a convincing alternative. Not much has changed since Arthur Jensen’s landmark 1969 report How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement? Robert Plomin’s more recent text Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are reinforces the point that parental influence is largely genetic. Cognitive gaps between blacks and whites persist even when both groups are similar in socioeconomic status, education, and other environmental measures. The reality is that—irrespective of the truth of hereditarianism—groups will differ in behavior and intelligence. If elites would simply accept this, we could stop obsessing over erasing every disparity and instead focus on helping people thrive where they are.

In an ordinary world, Jason Arday might have been a successful PE teacher, or even a comedian.

He had charm, energy, and a compelling personal story.

He died because Cambridge elevated him to a position for which he was not prepared, and the inevitable scrutiny crushed him.

When he was alive, Arday said he wanted the world to spin on an axis of love. But the truth is that the DEI fanaticism that elevated him, and ultimately destroyed him, was propelled by an excess of love for egalitarianism, a love so blind that it refused to see the human cost of its own ideology.

Jason Arday’s death is a tragedy. But it is not Nathan Cofnas’s fault. It is the fault of a system that prioritizes symbolism over substance, and then abandons its symbols when they fail.

If we want to honor Arday’s memory, we should begin by telling the truth about how he got there and who really put him in harm’s way.

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/29/2026 - 22:10

Meta Tests Robots That Can Swap Cables And Reset Servers At Its Data Centers

Meta Tests Robots That Can Swap Cables And Reset Servers At Its Data Centers

Kiss those data center technician jobs goodbye...

Meta is testing robots that can swap network cables, restart servers, reseat components, and perform other physical tasks traditionally handled by data center technicians. The experiments come as the company rapidly expands its AI infrastructure and seeks to operate facilities more efficiently, according to Wired.

Some employees worry about job security. One Meta worker estimated that a successful cable swapping robot could eventually take over as much as 80 percent of certain workloads. “We thought those of us performing the physical tasks were safe for a while, but not anymore,” the worker said.

Meta says automation does not mean it needs fewer people. Spokesperson Francis Brennan cited a shortage of skilled tradespeople and the company’s investments in training and hiring workers. Meta has launched programs teaching electrical, mechanical, and plumbing skills and partnered with trade unions on apprenticeships.

Still, robotics is part of Meta’s longer term strategy. Robotics manager Eric Xu has said robots could eventually assist with incident response, environmental monitoring, and preventive maintenance.

The company is experimenting with equipment from several manufacturers. A Kinova Gen3 arm is being evaluated for power cycling servers, while other machines are being tested for cable replacement. Some facilities already use a simple remotely controlled device resembling a mechanical finger to press power buttons and reboot equipment.

At its Altoona, Iowa, campus, Meta is testing dual arm Watney robots for cabling. At its newer Prometheus campus in New Albany, Ohio, ABB robots mounted on four wheel platforms are being used to reseat components and could eventually perform more work with less human supervision.

These projects build on simpler automation already deployed in Meta facilities. Self driving tugger robots transport heavy server racks, while wheeled inventory robots scan equipment and assist with inspections. Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have also explored robotics for data center operations.

Wired writes that the economics are attractive. Robots could provide consistent labor where qualified technicians are scarce and handle repetitive or hazardous work. They could also operate in hotter, darker, or otherwise less hospitable environments.

But current systems remain far from replacing technicians entirely. Meta’s inventory robots struggle with cables and corners, require humans to move them between buildings, and cannot reliably interpret some equipment indicators. Other robots need substantial charging time and remain slower than people.

Data centers were also designed around human dexterity. Complex cabling, particularly around advanced AI systems such as Nvidia’s GB300, remains difficult for robots. As one former Meta employee put it, “Things have been designed for human hands forever to make everything a five-minute repair.”

Even so, the experiments are changing how some Meta workers view their future. Employees have reportedly discussed fears that automation could eliminate jobs or shift remaining positions toward lower paid workers who mainly follow AI generated instructions.

That could also affect the politics surrounding data centers. Communities often justify tax incentives partly through the jobs these facilities create. If robotics significantly reduces employment, governments may reconsider those economic tradeoffs.

For now, humans remain faster and more adaptable. But as robotic hardware gets cheaper and AI improves, Meta is preparing for a future where machines perform considerably more of the physical work inside its data centers.

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/29/2026 - 21:35

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