Germany's Pension Time Bomb: $2+ Billion In CRE Losses Expose Cracks In The Fiat Era

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe,

A shock for the insured members of the Versorgungswerk Zahnärzte Berlin-Brandenburg (VZB). According to a report this week by Bloomberg, losses at the private pension fund total €1.1 billion. Roughly 50 percent of its invested capital has effectively been wiped out—channeled into private loans to non-listed companies, including rPlanet Earth in California, a shrimp farm in northern Germany, and, repeatedly featured on the investment menus of German pension funds, U.S. commercial real estate.

The auditors, advisors, and executives involved now face what may become a legal marathon. Much suggests that VZB ventured well beyond the traditional risk framework that would normally be considered prudent for a professional pension institution.

A similar fate befell the Bayerische Versorgungskammer (BVK). Last year it recorded accounting losses of up to €853 million. Once again, U.S. commercial real estate exposures were at the center of the turbulence, including properties such as the Transamerica Building in San Francisco—an internationally recognized problem asset.

Unlike VZB, however, BVK has substantial financial reserves. The assets it manages still total around €170 billion. On this robust capital base, it secures retirement benefits for physicians, lawyers, and numerous other professional groups.

The Bloomberg report further lists additional pension schemes displaying a similar pattern: recurring write-downs in the U.S. commercial real estate segment. Among the affected institutions are the Kirchliche Zusatzversorgungskasse des Verbandes der Diözesen Deutschlands (KZVK), the BASF Pensionskasse, the Telekom Pensionskasse, and the Apotheker- und Zahnärztefonds Schleswig-Holstein.

Nationwide, at least 18 pension institutions have taken unscheduled write-downs totaling more than €2 billion on commercial real estate investments since 2020. The system is under pressure—but it is not yet tottering. German pension funds collectively manage around €300 billion in assets. Nevertheless, pressure on asset managers to recalibrate risk profiles to a changed interest-rate and market environment is likely to intensify in the coming years. But where can reliable returns still be found when the classic portfolio mix of safe sovereign bonds—upon which entire pension systems were built over decades—appears to belong to the past?

Few will be able to avoid adding equity risk going forward. Allocations to precious metals—and possibly to Bitcoin, the so-called digital gold—as assets without traditional third-party risk appear to be a logical option. Equity stakes in the energy sector are also likely to gain significantly in attractiveness. In particular, the economic superpowers U.S. and China are on the verge of a massive AI and nuclear power boom, developments that are likely to be reflected in capital markets.

Yet many portfolio managers have remained anchored to the old worldview: sovereign bonds and commercial real estate—precisely those segments that, against the backdrop of high public debt and negative demographic trends, are increasingly losing structural stability and thus implying growing downside risk—remain dominant building blocks of portfolio strategy.

This traditional portfolio approach promised stable income and attractive yields. What was overlooked, however, is that structural shifts have fundamentally altered the underlying data: the rise of remote work, sweeping restructuring within the American economy, and the accelerating deployment of artificial intelligence have significantly reduced demand for conventional office space. What was intended as yield-enhancing diversification has, in many cases, turned into concentrated risk—with substantial consequences for the stability of the affected pension institutions.

Mounting pressure under expansionary monetary policy led to a gradual shift away from the liquid, stable-yielding, long-term sovereign bonds that had proven themselves over decades, toward higher-yielding but significantly more illiquid asset classes. Many asset managers tilted portfolios toward private debt, real assets, and promissory note loans backed by real estate covenants—extending even into high-risk mezzanine financing for non-listed, speculative projects.

The sharp interest-rate hikes that followed years of monetary expansion in 2022 hit the real estate sector with full force. Insolvencies increased, default risks slipped beyond the effective control of auditors, while asset managers responded to monetary volatility and swelling public debt by assuming ever greater risks.

The combination of prolonged ultra-low rates followed by abrupt tightening has exposed the weaknesses of many investment strategies.

The deep cracks now visible in the financial architecture of German pension funds are systemic. Years of low-rate policy aimed at financing highly deficit-ridden state budgets, along with the economic damage inflicted by lockdowns during the Covid years, have dramatically increased pressure on both investors and pension portfolio managers. In essence, we have been living under this policy regime since the great debt crisis a decade and a half ago.

Pension liabilities require a minimum return on invested capital. The crisis in bond markets is pushing investor strategies further along the risk curve into asset classes that traditionally did not appear on the radar of these institutions’ portfolio managers. Put differently: high volatility and the selloff at the long end of top-rated sovereign bonds reflect a fundamental reassessment of inflation and debt risks currently underway in government bond markets. The fiat credit-money system is entering a particularly volatile phase.

How private pension funds and insurance systems will ultimately be financed and backstopped remains unclear. Will state guarantee funds step in if losses escalate into systemic risk and entire institutions begin to wobble?

Experience from the rescue practices during the great financial crisis suggests that governments may once again act in line with the protective umbrella strategy associated with former German Chancellor Angela Merkel. That would mean placing large bond issues on the market, underwritten by the European Central Bank, to secure payment flows and obligations of affected institutions. Market distortion follows market distortion—an intervention spiral designed to stabilize the financial structure in the short term, yet failing to resolve underlying problems and sending fatal signals for further misallocation of capital.

For individual investors, it is crucial to recognize that many central banks have gradually reduced their bond holdings after years of large-scale asset purchases.

The fact that major central banks—such as China’s—are increasingly backing their balance sheets with structurally expanded gold reserves is a clear warning signal.

How stable is our banking system, really? How large are the third-party risks hidden in balance sheets? And how liquid will bond markets remain in the coming years if even formerly fiscally reliable states like Germany issue hundreds of billions of euros in new debt?

The fact that numerous states worldwide have begun expanding strategic energy and commodity reserves is another strong signal. It suggests that future currency systems may, sooner than expected, once again become more tightly linked to real scarcities—whether precious metals, energy, or broad commodity baskets.

The era of unbacked fiat credit money, at least in its current form, is gradually drawing to a close. German pension funds must incorporate this reality into their calculations—sooner rather than later.

* * * 

About the author: Thomas Kolbe, a German graduate economist, has worked for over 25 years as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination.

Tyler Durden Sun, 03/01/2026 - 10:30

Amazon Warns Of "Degraded" AWS Service In UAE After "Power Issues" Amid Middle East Conflict

Iran's retaliatory attack ramped up on Sunday after the U.S.-Israeli Operation Epic Fury killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday morning. Follow-on strikes were reported in Israel, across multiple Gulf states, and maritime incidents affected commercial shipping lanes in and around the Strait of Hormuz.

One notable and unexpected point of disruption has emerged in the Middle East critical infrastructure on Sunday morning, with Amazon reporting that its Middle East (UAE) data center region has experienced a power issue that degraded internet connectivity and impaired cloud service availability.

AWS reported that its ME-CENTRAL-1 Region (mec1-az2), which refers to a specific cluster of AWS data-center infrastructure in the United Arab Emirates, is experiencing operational issues due to a "localized power issue." AWS stated that the severity of the incident is "degraded."

"Other AWS Services are also experiencing error rates and latencies for some workflows. We have weighed away traffic for most services at this time. We recommend customers utilize one of the other Availability Zones in the ME-CENTRAL-1 Region at this time, as existing instances in other AZ's remain unaffected by this issue," AWS wrote on its status page, adding, "We are actively working to restore power and connectivity, at which time we will begin to work to recover affected resources. As of this time, we expect recovery is multiple hours away."

UAE Data Center Map 

Data Cables Map 

The AWS status report made no mention of whether the power disruptions were due to Iranian missile or drone strikes on UAE critical infrastructure, such as transmission lines or power generation facilities.

Earlier, the UAE Ministry of Defense announced that the "country was subjected today to a blatant attack by Iranian ballistic missiles, which was dealt with by the UAE air defenses with high efficiency, and a number of missiles were successfully intercepted."

BREAKING:

The air defense systems of the UAE are countering Iran’s air attack against the Emirates tonight pic.twitter.com/Hui0VESXFF

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) March 1, 2026

Beyond the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan, and Israel have been subjected to Iranian retaliatory attacks - this is mostly because US military installations are in these countries.

Qatar's Ministry of Defense issued a statement saying: "The State of Qatar expresses its strong condemnation of the targeting of Qatari territory with Iranian ballistic missiles."

The UAE has confirmed a temporary closure of its airspace as an "exceptional precautionary measure."

One key question is whether the conflict is now spilling beyond military targets and into civilian critical infrastructure. If that line has already been crossed, U.S. hyperscalers expanding in the UAE, including Microsoft, whose commitment totals about $15.2 billion and includes significant AI and cloud datacenter spending, may need to be reassessed given the fiery geopolitical climate.

Tyler Durden Sun, 03/01/2026 - 10:15

Tens Of Thousands Stranded Amid Mass Airspace Closures At Mideast Hubs: "It's Chaos Here"

The US State Department is warning all American citizens to exercises extreme caution when traveling abroad amid the ongoing US-Israeli military operation against Iran, which has included two days of heavy bombing aimed at regime change - and which has already resulted in the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and some 40 top military leaders.

"Following the launch of U.S. combat operations in Iran, Americans worldwide and especially in the Middle East should follow the guidance in the latest security alerts issued by the nearest U.S. embassy or consulate," a fresh weekend US notification says. "They may experience travel disruptions due to periodic airspace closures. The Department of State advises Americans worldwide to exercise increased caution."

Explosions at Dubai International Airport following Iranian strike.

Not only is Israel's airspace closed, as Iranian retaliatory ballistic missiles rain down, but much of the Gulf nations have restrictions and airspace closures in place. This after at least two regional airports have been struck.

"One person has been killed and 11 injured at airports in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, as Iran launched attacks across the Middle East in response to a massive and ongoing attack against it by the US and Israel," BBC reports.

Abu Dhabi authorities said a drone targeting Zayed International Airport (AUH) was intercepted, resulting in "falling debris" which killed one person and injuring seven.

Dubai International Airport, one of the busiest hubs in the world, has also been hit and suffered damage. So it's not just the skies over the region which are dangerous at this moment, but in some cases the very airport terminals, especially if located just across the Persian Gulf from Iran, amid its broader retaliation targeting US bases and those Arab states hosting them. The Iranians appear to be going straight after Gulf civic infrastructure, given the same is being done to Tehran.

"More than 3,400 flights were canceled Sunday across seven airports in the Mideast, according to flight tracker Flightradar24," AP notes. "Airports in Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar’s capital, Doha, and Manama in Bahrain were among those closed."

Evacuation starts at Dubai International Airport after it was struck by Iranian suicide drones. pic.twitter.com/gPoWCAWjy6

— Lapo Pontecorvi (@LapoPontecorvi) March 1, 2026

Thousands are stranded at regional airports, and many are likely seeking refuge and shelter elsewhere in these cities, as major civic infrastructure from Bahrain to UAE to Kuwait could come under potential attack. "It's chaos here" - some stranded British travelers have said:

Thousands of Britons have been left stranded in the Middle East after global airlines grounded hundreds of flights due to US and Israeli strikes against Iran.

Iran and Iraq’s airspaces were closed due to the escalating military action, which has seen blasts reported in multiple countries across the region, and Dubai International Airport, the biggest global aviation hub, suspended all flights on Saturday.

Mike Boreham, who had been on holiday in Dubai with his wife, was due to get the 1.10pm British Airways flight back to Heathrow when the captain told the passengers the airspace had been closed.

And it goes the other way too. People from the Mideast and Mediterranean region who are trying to get back home often cannot at this point:

Tens of thousands of Israelis found themselves unable to return to Israel on Saturday after Israel and the US launched a major joint military strike on Iran.

As Iran responded by firing missiles and drones, Israel closed its airspace until at least Monday, the Transportation Ministry said, making travel through Ben Gurion Airport and other flight hubs impossible.

Rescue flights are being planned for when Israel reopens its airspace, with El Al announcing it was putting a wide plan in place and saying that its own ticket holders will automatically be assigned seats.

Dubai authorities are shutting down the entire airport after an Iranian missile struck Terminal 3 at Dubai International Airport, source in the airport told me. pic.twitter.com/zibMPKHgJi

— Ihtisham Ul Haq (@iihtishamm) February 28, 2026

Meanwhile President Trump has called for full regime change in Iran, after the Iranians have already appointed an interim successor to the slain Ayatollah Khamenei. This means that US-Israeli military operations there could continue for days more, and possible weeks, or even longer. 

The Middle East's travel woes, and possibly by extension and domino effect - some European hubs - could soon grow much worse. Of course, this is the least of the region's problems as broader war breaks out.

Tyler Durden Sun, 03/01/2026 - 09:55

EU Imposes Drastic Tariffs on Chinese Goods: Is A Trade War Looming?

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

Tensions in international trade policy are escalating on multiple fronts. After the U.S. Supreme Court initially declared the tariff regime implemented by President Donald Trump since April of last year unlawful, it appears the administration has explored new ways to stabilize its tariff policy going forward.

The signs on the international trade front continue to point toward turmoil. Not least, it is the ramped-up Chinese export machine that is increasingly in the crosshairs of U.S. protectionism and European defensive measures.

Beijing is using its massive export engine to offset deflationary pressures in its domestic economy—a result of state-induced capital misallocation and a shrinking population. Through export subsidies and other support measures, the government seeks to stabilize employment while boosting industrial production.

However, this comes at the expense of trade margins and production capacities in other countries, which increasingly fall behind in competition with China.

It was predictable that the still high-purchasing-power internal market of the European Union would attract attention, given the U.S.'s hardline approach. Europe risks becoming a de facto unloading hub for Chinese goods. The consequences are evident in the trade balance, which recorded a deficit of €305 billion for the EU economy last year.

Weakened by its own energy policy and the regulatory framework of the green transition, European manufacturers in nearly all industrial and consumer sectors face the global competitive arena with their backs to the wall. The ongoing deindustrialization has significantly contributed to many European business models losing ground in international competition.

Germany, in particular, appears as a sort of laboratory experiment: in trade with China, the country has now become a net importer of capital. The former know-how advantage of German engineering is no longer unassailable—it seems to be history.

European policymakers now appear determined to pursue a path of protectionism themselves.

On February 7, 2026, the European Commission adopted Regulation 2026/274, responding to the Chinese export surge with anti-dumping tariffs. The first targeted product group: ceramic and porcelain imports. Around 60% of the assortments in European e-commerce and physical retail come from Chinese production. Tariffs within this group were raised from 18–36% to a consolidated 79%.

The affected products include, among others, tableware and kitchen items made of ceramic, porcelain, and stoneware originating from China. This also includes items such as spice grinders, coffee mills, and pizza stones. The new tariff regime is set to last initially for five years.

The Commission acted without involving national parliaments—mirroring the approach frequently criticized when applied to U.S. President Donald Trump, particularly in trade matters. In precisely those instances where Brussels regularly demands transparency, multilateralism, and rule-based procedures, it now itself takes unilateral executive action. Viewed in this light, criticism of Trump’s unilateralism appears profoundly hypocritical.

The Commission’s executive action reflects a rather elastic interpretation of its mandate. Should it identify dumping practices by trade partners—as in this case—it may impose corresponding tariffs. Neither the Council of the European Union, the European Parliament, nor national governments are involved in this process—a clear indication of growing concentration of power in Brussels.

The consequences of this tariff move—which is likely to expand to additional product groups—impact not only Chinese exporters but also European traders. They report liquidity shortfalls, rising insolvency risks, and significant challenges in compensating pre-financed transactions. The interests of European consumers evidently play no role in Brussels’ decisions.

Should further categories such as e-bikes, auto parts, or tires be added, as is currently rumored, this could have tangible effects on consumer prices across the EU. Moreover, the tariffs apply retroactively to ongoing shipments, further exacerbating the financial strain on European traders.

Brussels’ drastic response indicates that parts of European industry are under severe pressure from Chinese imports—and that the escalation in trade policy has now reached a new level.

So far, the Chinese leadership has not reacted to Brussels’ tariff measures. Chancellor Friedrich Merz may place trade issues at the forefront during his visit to China from February 24–26, where he is also expected to meet President Xi Jinping.

Recall that last year the dispute over the strategically critical export of rare earths—dominated by China—nearly escalated twice. Beijing is not hesitant to wield its geostrategic leverage in trade policy and defend its interests with a firm hand.

Fundamentally, a recalibration has occurred. In its strategy toward China, the EU is first raising the tariff wall, ignoring potential countermeasures from Beijing. Starting July 1, 2026, e-commerce imports from third countries with a value under €150 will face a €3 flat-rate fee per package. This aims not only to complicate invoicing by Chinese companies via third countries but also to exert targeted pressure on trade channeled primarily through platforms like Temu and Shein.

According to the EU, these measures aim to curb unfair competition and stabilize the internal market. Of course, such claims must be taken cum grano salis. Europeans are, after all, the undisputed masters of hidden trade protectionism. Their regulatory catalogs—particularly in climate policy—contain numerous non-tariff measures with deep protective effects.

Global trade is increasingly moving within geopolitical spheres of influence. Europeans would be wise to align with U.S. rules and integrate into the Western hemisphere. Yet Brussels appears intent on simultaneously confronting both major trade blocs.

* * * 

About the author: Thomas Kolbe, a German graduate economist, has worked for over 25 years as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination.

Tyler Durden Sun, 03/01/2026 - 09:20

85% Of Babies In 2026 Will Be Born In Asia And Africa

In 2026, 85% of babies worldwide will be born in just two continents: Asia and Africa.

Where someone is born can shape everything from access to education and healthcare to long-term economic opportunity.

This map, via Visual Capitalist's Bruno Venditti, shows how global births are distributed across continents, based on population projections from the United Nations.

Asia Accounts for Nearly Half of Global Births

Asia is expected to see about 64.9 million births in 2026, accounting for roughly 49% of all births worldwide. Despite declining fertility rates in countries like China, Japan, and South Korea, Asia’s sheer population size keeps it at the center of global demographics.

South and Southeast Asia, in particular, continue to contribute large numbers of births each year. As a result, nearly one in every two people born in 2026 will be born somewhere in Asia.

Africa Makes Up More Than One-Third of Global Births

Africa is projected to record 47.6 million births in 2026, representing 35.9% of the global total. This reflects the continent’s high fertility rates and young population structure.

Many African countries are still early in their demographic transitions, with limited declines in birth rates so far. As population growth accelerates, Africa’s share of global births has been rising steadily and is projected to increase further later this century.

Smaller Shares in the Rest of the World

All other continents account for a relatively small share of global births.

Latin America and the Caribbean are expected to see 9.3 million births, or 7% of the total, while Europe accounts for just 4.6%. North America’s share stands at 3%, reflecting lower fertility rates despite population growth driven by migration. Oceania contributes 0.5% of births, and Antarctica, with no permanent population, records no births at all.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out The World’s Safest (and Least Safe) Countries on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

Tyler Durden Sun, 03/01/2026 - 08:45

AI Boom And European Bond Markets: A Deep Dive

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

The “credit pump” could rightfully claim its place as a symbolic flag of the European Union. With virtually unlimited access to the bond market, politics magically transforms an inexhaustible credit stream into political maneuvers and ideological wizardry. Through this manipulation of money, processes and institutions are transplanted into the real world that, under normal circumstances, could never have surpassed the fantasies and limits of political ideology.

Wind turbines in forests, fully electric cargo bikes in an industrial nation that destroys its own engines of prosperity in favor of an artificial green subsidy economy, plunging itself into trillions of euros in new debt – a historically unprecedented degrowth spectacle, which has not erupted into open revolt only because hundreds of thousands losing their jobs are somehow absorbed into the public sector or cushioned, if not sedated, by the largesse of the German welfare state.

The same applies to open-border policies. Here too, perpetual credit seems to lubricate a project designed to unlock new voter potential for the political left. This process becomes possible through the systematic destruction of monetary value. National debt is not merely a fiscal problem; it erodes the fragile economic fabric of society. Moreover, it sends the fatal signal that an overpowering actor like the state can override the limits of productivity, reason, and scarcity at the push of a button.

Thus, the so-called debt brake was a political paper tiger from the start: Germany abandoned the path of political seriousness long ago and joined the ranks of debt magicians. It has become a driving force in an ideologically overgrown swamp of debt, making the refinancing problems of heavily indebted Eurozone states increasingly visible year after year.

Leading the debt race this year is the magic duo Germany-France. Budget figures are falsified, accounting tricks like special funds have become the standard of self-deception. Both countries enter 2026 with new debt of roughly five percent each.

The overall refinancing requirement of the Eurozone stands at €1.5 trillion. These are the gross issuances of government bonds necessary to roll existing debt forward and finance newly incurred deficits. 

This means around €100 billion more must be funneled into public coffers via the bond market. Will the legal framework be adjusted? Will major capital pools, banks, and pension funds be further coerced into the fiat credit system? Will the ECB once again step in massively as a buyer to dampen rising interest rates amid higher debt loads?

But how long can such a process sustain itself like a perpetuum mobile? When will the seemingly inexhaustible sources of the bond market run dry? The political camouflage will end when only the European Central Bank, as lender of last resort, keeps new debt liquid through massive market interventions. With each intervention, the money supply grows, along with doubts about the currency’s stability. Trust erodes, and the truth about the manipulation of interest rates, time preferences, and real costs – including the financial dimension of green transformation and migration into European social systems – can no longer be concealed.

This would be the moment of truth, the instant the house of cards of permanent debt starts to wobble. The crucial question is: which forces or developments could accelerate this process? Real resources for financing investments in the capital stock are limited. The state competes for credit to fund its social, climate, and military ambitions. It systematically displaces productive capital and lures scarce resources into unproductive channels with promises of returns, incentives, and subsidies. Growth dies; the nation’s prosperity diminishes.

If this is insufficient, additional credit is mobilized – if necessary, through central bank bond purchases. Meanwhile, pressure on the bond market intensifies: investors increasingly turn away from long-term government securities, while in the United States, the AI-driven economic miracle is heating up capital markets.

US tech corporations alone plan bond issuances of up to $360 billion this year to finance additional data centers and expand energy capacities. The European market is also under the sights of Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and others. Bonds worth €120–170 billion are expected to be placed on the Euro market, a growth of over ten percent compared to last year. The US economy is mobilizing all sources to anchor domestic growth with capital.

A tough competitor for sovereign issuers, as the private sector lures with dynamic business projects and generally higher returns. 

How much additional capital will flow from Europe to the United States? How large is the negative effect triggered by this American capital vacuum in the EU, which must mobilize resources to fund growing welfare states?

Clearly, interest rates will gradually rise, making refinancing and debt service in Europe more expensive. Budgetary room will shrink further.

And it becomes obvious what no one talks about: the massive downward movement of the US dollar against the euro is now a trap. Every investment from a European perspective in the United States, with a prospectively rising USD, becomes more profitable and yield-bearing. The strong euro acts as a second tariff barrier and intensifies the suction effect of investment capital into the US.

The Eurozone, and thus the economically closely interlinked EU member states, are coming under growing pressure. Geopolitically dependent on their energy suppliers, they remain rigid toward the energy and resource giant Russia. Europe walks a narrow line between dependence and self-interest.

Europe is strong when it relies on its regional competencies and strengthens intra-continental competition. Only this way can business models, engineering skill, and ideas emerge to meet the strong competition from China and the US on equal footing and maneuver into a better strategic position relative to competitors.

Ideologically, patriotic-conservative forces are called upon to end the climate-socialist madness, stabilize budgets, and put an end to the disastrous open-border policies – time is pressing for fiscal consolidation and state downsizing, even if Brussels and Berlin see it differently.

State downsizing and consolidation may sound like political fairy tales, yet Europe should never be written off. The continent has repeatedly emerged from severe crises and self-inflicted civilizational ruptures renewed and reinvented.

Capital and cultural foundations exist. Perhaps the American capital vacuum will help bounce Europe’s cultural decay – financed by the debt printer – off the wall of truth in the bond market.

* * * 

About the author: Thomas Kolbe, a German graduate economist, has worked for over 25 years as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination.

Tyler Durden Sun, 03/01/2026 - 08:10

Germany To Scrap Subsidy For Rooftop Solar

Germany is planning to abolish fixed feed-in tariffs for small rooftop solar installations as of 2027, saying that falling costs have made the technology economically sound without subsidies (narrator: "it isn't"), Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing a draft proposal for reforms it has seen.

At present, rooftop solar installations of any kind are eligible for guaranteed tariffs. But this could change in a few months, if the government approves the proposal of the German economy ministry to have subsidies abolished for projects of less than 25 kilowatts, according to OilPrice.

The ministry argues that the small rooftop solar are now often viable on their own without incentives, thanks to the lower costs.

“To strengthen the cost efficiency of solar expansion, a stronger focus will in future be placed on cost-effective solar parks,” the ministry’s proposal reads, as carried by Bloomberg.

The plans for a reform of the subsidies was first leaked by German media outlets.

“If the leaked draft is genuine, it would be yet another attack on renewable energy, following the grid package proposal,” said Ursula Heinen-Esser, president of Germany’s renewable energy association BEE.

Abolishing support for rooftop solar would have “disastrous consequences” for the sector and would deprive homeowners from participating in the energy transition, Heinen-Esser added.

The German Solar Association, BSW-Solar, also deplored the leaked draft proposal as “a frontal attack on Germany’s energy transition.”

Germany plans to boost onshore wind capacity to 115 gigawatts and solar capacity to 215 gigawatts by the end of the decade—targets which it will keep in the proposal for reforms. Europe’s biggest economy has a target to have renewables account for 80% of its electricity generation in 2030.

In solar, Germany is halfway through reaching its 2030 solar power targets, BSW-Solar said in June last year.

Germany saw the highest number of onshore wind turbines commissioned in the first half of 2025 for eight years, but the rebound in installations is still off track to reach the official targets, the German wind energy association, Bundesverband WindEnergie (BWE), said in the middle of 2025.

Tyler Durden Sun, 03/01/2026 - 07:35

In Sensational Ruling, Court Prohibits German State From Classifying AfD As A "Confirmed Right-Wing Extremist" Organization

Authored by 'eugyppius',

Old friends may remember the farce we experienced last May, when outgoing Marshmallow Interior Minister Nancy Faeser pushed her gaggle of goons in the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) to upgrade their political classification of Alternative für Deutschland.

No longer did the BfV consider the national political party to lurk under mere “suspicion of right-wing extremism,” oh no. They announced suddenly and with much establishment fanfare that they had determined the AfD to be “confirmed right-wing extremists.”

Faeser and her goons hoped this new designation would edge the AfD more firmly into Evil Nazi Fascist Hitler territory in the popular mind, thereby preparing the way for banning the party. According to the dumb Gender Studies-tier retards unassailable and unbiased experts of the BfV, the AfD were more definitely Evil, more definitely Nazi, more definitely Fascist and more definitely Hitler than ever before. They had such clear proofs of all the Evil Nazi Fascist Hitlerism lurking within the AfD that they could not even reveal them. Doing so, Faeser said, would compromise the mysterious sources and methods of her highly sophisticated political spy agency. Instead, the Interior Ministry leaked a classified dossier supporting the upgrade to sympathetic media like Der Spiegel, and these media promptly published earnest articles telling us all how absolutely Fascist and Evil and Nazi and Hitler all the secret evidence showed the AfD to be, because trust us bro.

What happened next is that somebody leaked the full 1,000-page dossier to the alternative news outlets Cicero and NiUS, both of which promptly published the full .pdf. It turned out to be one of the stupidest and most trivial documents I’ve ever read. The supersecret hyperspy sources tapped by the BfV? Google and social media posts. The supersecret hyperspy methods used by the BfV? Compiling interminable lists of potentially untoward or possibly impolite things AfD politicians uttered in googlable documents or on social media. It was so bad that almost overnight the dossier destroyed much of the momentum for an AfD ban – exactly the opposite of what its architects had intended. Even many establishment figures quietly admitted what a travesty the whole thing had turned out to be.

NEVERTHELESS: The establishment moved quickly to capitalise on the new extremist designation. Various state governments began plotting to cleanse the civil service of AfD members on the grounds that they were affiliates of an officially “extremist” organisation. In Rheinland-Pfalz they even toyed with the idea of illegally excluding AfD candidates from running in local elections also on the basis of this bureaucratic designation. The Social Democrats began pushing to initiate ban proceedings against the AfD, a move that – if successful – would grant the left parties indefinite parliamentary majorities both nationally and across many state parliaments, amounting to a kind of legal coup and casting us into a new DDR-light regime.

Meanwhile, the AfD filed suit with the Administrative Court in Cologne to overturn their upgraded designation because it was so obviously dumb and unfounded. They also asked the court to prohibit the designation temporarily, while their primary lawsuit is pending – a long involved process that will take years. The Cologne judges released their unusually extensive 55-page decision on the temporary injunction yesterday. For the party-banning speech-repressing opinion-monitoring enthusiasts of Our Democracy, it is a disaster.

From the Cologne court’s press release:

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) may not classify and treat the Alternative for Germany (AfD) as a confirmed right-wing extremist organisation until the conclusion of the main proceedings … The BfV must also refrain from publicly announcing such a classification …

In its decision today, the court has rejected the BfV’s assessment. We give the following reasons: According to the findings of the summary proceedings, there is sufficient certainty that the AfD houses some efforts directed against the free democratic basic order … These efforts, however, do not characterise the AfD such that its overall essence may be described as anti-constitutional.

That is very important.

Not only the AfD, but all political parties, have randos saying potentially or probably or even certainly anti-constitutional things.

To justify a ban, you need more than random people saying random things.

You need to show a) that the party is fundamentally opposed to the “free democratic basic order” (an ideological trinity consisting of human dignity, democracy and the rule of law), and b) that it exercises this opposition in an “aggressive” or “combative” manner. The BfV have hardly addressed b) at all, and their evidence has not convinced the court that a) applies.

To argue their case, the BfV seem to have positively emptied their archives, submitting not only the leaked 1,000-page dossier to the court, but also an additional raft of supporting materials running to 7,000 pages across 20 different binders and electronic files extending to 1.5 terabytes.

The court finds that some “anti-Muslim” demands formulated by the AfD in the course of the 2025 election campaign are contrary to the German Basic Law, because these would tend to vitiate “the equal practice of religion,” but the judges also find that these are insufficient to “establish the anti-constitutional character of the party as a whole.” The court further noted that the BfV “has not disclosed any intelligence information … even in court proceedings” relating to allegedly secret anti-constitutional plots within the AfD, which means that “we cannot assume to the detriment of [the AfD] that [the party] is pursuing such further plans internally.”

A significant prong of the constitutional protectors’ argument held that the AfD’s advocacy of “remigration” was itself openly unconstitutional. Importantly, the court completely disagreed:

… [N]o sufficient conclusions can be drawn from any plans pursued by [the AfD] … with regard to so-called remigration. The vague term “remigration” does not imply a concrete political goal in the sense of undifferentiated deportations … In the absence of a more concrete explanation of specific anti-constitutional intentions with respect to implementing a … remigration policy, such intentions are not apparent.

As I said, this is only a temporary ruling, but given the devastating wording of the court’s judgment, it seems unlikely that the judges in Cologne will ultimately uphold the “extremist” designation when to comes time to decide the main case some years from now. The constitutional protectors may also appeal this injunction, but they would be unlikely to win, and also too I think there is a substantial chance that their ultimate boss, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU), directs them to let this go. Whatever happens, the case for banning the AfD has taken a major, perhaps a fatal, blow. The fundamental problem this whole time has been that the AfD programme is pretty much constitutionally unassailable. Those who want to ban the party have had to hope against hope that the constitutional protectors could unearth secret AfD Nazi plans via their super advanced espionage methods. Instead they’ve spent years copying and pasting Facebook posts and they have basically nothing.

This case converges with other evidence suggesting that the German state – while it may presently wish to ban the opposition and repress its critics – increasingly lacks the internal resolve and coherence for this project.

I’ll write more about that tomorrow; today’s adventures (see below) interrupted my routine, but I wanted to get this news out there as soon as possible.

Tyler Durden Sun, 03/01/2026 - 07:00

Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetence, corruption and policy failures:

• Cabinet Apocalypse: A News Review in an Imagined Conversation: “Calling this meeting to order. That was a long speech that I just gave. State of the Union. Long speech. Not going to stand up and do that again next year. So let’s hear it. Plans to make sure I don’t have to. Plans to end the United States by a year from now. Around the table. Go. Start us off, Linda.” (Thinking about…)

• Binance Employees Find $1.7 Billion in Crypto Was Sent to Iranian Entities: Binance pledged to crack down on crime. But internal investigators at the world’s largest crypto exchange continued to find evidence of potential legal violations on the platform. After Internal Binance investigations uncovered massive flows to sanctioned Iranian entities — and employees who flagged it were fired. (New York Times) see also Binance—Whose Founder Was Pardoned—Now Holds 87% Of Trump’s Stablecoin: The exchange whose CEO received a presidential pardon now dominates the market for the Trump-linked USD1 stablecoin. (Forbes)

• ‘Don’t go to the US – not with Trump in charge’: the UK tourist with a valid visa detained by ICE for six weeks: A British traveler with proper documentation was detained by immigration authorities. The chilling effect on international travel to the U.S. is growing. Karen Newton was in America on the trip of a lifetime when she was shackled, transported, and held for weeks on end. With tourism to the US under increasing strain, she says, ‘If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone’(The Guardian)

• The Real Reason Anthropic Wants Guardrails: The Atlantic digs into what’s really behind Anthropic’s resistance to Pentagon pressure — it’s not just ethics, it’s a calculated bet on where AI’s long-term value lies. (The Atlantic)

• The Looming Taiwan Chip Disaster That Silicon Valley Has Long Ignored: If China invades Taiwan and cuts off its chip exports to American companies, the tech industry and the U.S. economy would be crippled. (NYTimes)

• They Fought for the C.I.A. in Afghanistan. In America, They’re Living in Fear. Afghan operatives who risked their lives working for U.S. intelligence are now in the U.S. — terrified of deportation by the government they served. A shooting in Washington, D.C., threw their immigration status into jeopardy — and brought attention to a long-hidden dimension of America’s war. (New York Times)

• X Really Is Pulling Users to the Right: Algorithmic radicalization has now come for the elites, too. It’s not your imagination. The platform’s algorithmic and editorial choices are measurably shifting its user base’s political orientation. (New York Magazine)  see also The Republican Party Has a Nazi Problem: How did the GOP become a haven for slogans and ideas straight out of the Third Reich? It’s not a fringe issue anymore. The Atlantic examines how extremist elements have become embedded in the GOP’s coalition and why the party can’t — or won’t — purge them. (The Atlantic)

• DoJ cases against protesters keep collapsing as officers’ lies are exposed in court: A string of embarrassing defeats for prosecutors as federal agents’ testimony falls apart under scrutiny as experts condemn DoJ effort to cast people as ‘violent perpetrators’. The pattern is hard to ignore. (The Guardian)

• 40 Iranian Doctors and Nurses Describe a Massacre: As street protests spread across Iran in early January, the authorities turned off the internet. Most of the world didn’t see the bloody crackdown that followed. We surveyed Iranian medical workers across 14 cities and 11 provinces about their experiences treating wounded protesters. Despite great personal risk, they shared their stories. Medical workers who treated victims of Iran’s 2022 protest crackdown break their silence, describing in harrowing detail what they witnessed in hospitals and morgues. (New York Times)

• I am a 15-year-old girl. Let me show you the vile misogyny that confronts me on social media every day: Anonymous: Objectification, hate, rape threats: the politicians debating online abuse mean well, but to truly understand, they need to see what I see. (The Guardian)

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business this weekend with Jeff Chang, cofounder and President of VEST. The firm manages over $55 billion in client assets across various “Buffered” and “Target Outcome” strategies. Backed by Y Combinator, the firm launched in 2012 and pioneered an approach to portfolio construction based on defined outcomes and engineered certainty.

 

Why English-speaking countries have especially bad housing crises is their common law systems (adversarial and litigious) vs judge-led civil law systems elsewhere

Source: @jburnmurdoch

 

Sign up for our reads-only mailing list here.

~~~

To learn how these reads are assembled each day, please see this.

 

The post 10 Sunday AM Reads appeared first on The Big Picture.

After The Iran Attack, Is Bitcoin Giving A "Green Light" Ahead Of Monday's Market Open

The first time Iran found itself in a major regional war with Donald Trump about to enter the White House, was April 13, 2024 when as part of escalating tensions with Israel, "Iran began an attack on Israel by launching dozens of suicide drones" on April 13, 2024. That said, it is s stretch to call that particular weapons exchange war, as both sides just wanted some theatrical appreciation rather than rearranging the borders of the middle East. What is more notable, is that the war started in the deep dark of a Saturday morning (April 13, 2024) when global markets were closed, and the only traded asset was crypto in general, and bitcoin in particular. The kneejerk reaction was sharply lower. 

The second time Iran found itself in a major regional war with Donald Trump (already in) the White House, was a little over a year later, on June 21-22, when in a much more serious and aggressive attack, Operation Midnight Hammer saw airstrikes, cruise missile attacks and B-2 bombers drop Massive Ordnance Penetrators on three key Iranian nuclear sites: Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan, all of which were quickly destroyed As a result, Iran's nuclear enrichment process was effectively (and literally) buried under a mountain, and then the major regional conflict was again promptly forgotten. What is most notable, is that that war, too, started in the deep dark of a Saturday morning (June 21, 2025) when global markets were closed, and the only traded asset was crypto in general, and bitcoin in particular. The kneejerk reaction this time too, was sharply lower. 

Fast forward to today, when in the most serious war between Iran and a coalition of US and Israel forces in decades, Iran was promptly "decapitated" as all of its top generals and IRGC personnel were killed, while also losing its spiritual head, the Ayatollah, who had led the country ever since those fateful days in 1978 when Shah Mohammed Reza-Pahlavi was replaced with Ruhollah Ayatollah, and an American embassy and its occupants were taken hostage. This conflict started shortly after the sun rose, as the attacking generals thought a night attack which everyone - and especially Iran - would expect as it is "meant" to be surprise would have little impact. They were right, and Ayatollah Khomeini was promptly vaporized. Where there was similarity to previous conflicts is that this one too started early on Saturday, when global markets were closed. Well, not all: bitcoin was trading. And, like the previous two most recent regional wars, Bitcoin's kneejerk reaction this time too, was sharply lower... but not for long, and shortly after it emerged that Ayatollah Khameini was dead and most of the army leaders had been killed, bitcoin - that weekend trading risk barometer - staged a remarkable rebound and was actually trading well above where it was before the currency sold off shortly after midnight on Saturday East Coast time.

Which begs the question: is the conflict now effectively over and is Wall Street getting the all-green signals? 

This is also the question asked by Academy Securities strategist Peter Tchir, who in a late Saturday note - when most of the latest development were already known -  wrote that he remains comfortable buying the market.

He explains why below: 

A lot was priced in. Brent has gone for $60 late December to $72 on Friday. Some of that move in energy prices likely tied to cold winter in America, etc, but away from the risk of conflict, the market was positioned for selling off. So far the "bad" news on the oil front should have been largely priced in.

• Insurance for shipping in region cancelled.  pretty standard
• Limited or no transit in the Strait of Hormuz. Should be expected

The "good" news on the oil front is that nothing has happened that would prevent transit if there is an off ramp. 

China supposedly has large stockpiles of crude and the U.S. in good shape, so a short disruption (a week or so) should have minimal impact. Spot oil contracts might go as high as $80 but am not expecting a big move out the curve

Furthermore, while it is early, so far intelligence and military in action have delivered at high levels for the US and Israel. Not so much for Iran.  Maybe they have another round up their sleeve, but according to Tchir, :"their calculus should be adjusted - to seek off ramp"

With confirmations stating that the leadership has been hit hard, what is the thought process of those assuming command:

You know that Isreal and the U.S. probably know who you are and possibly where you will be. That cannot be comforting.

Their weapon systems have performed as advertised (or maybe even better than expected).

Your weapons, like in prior attacks, and like Russia has experience, have not been as good as expected.

Which brings us to Bitcoin, which Tchir - and anyone else - views as a risk-on type of asset in this situation, has now recovered from small early loss to slightly highere. 

Putting it all together, Tchir - looking through the fog of war - says that he is optimistic for a "risk on" start to the week, while may sound a little bit callous, which is also why the Academy Strategist notes that "we can only hope that the events in the Middle East lead to a peaceful resolution, putting the Iranian people on a better path to prosperity and freedom, while minimizing the loss of life for everyone in the region."

Tyler Durden Sun, 03/01/2026 - 00:19

What A Taiwan Invasion Would Cost China

Authored by Antonio Graceffo via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Shortly after meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping in late October, President Donald Trump said China would never attack Taiwan while he is president because Chinese officials “know the consequences.” While support from the United States is welcome news for Taiwan, Trump’s words raise a real question: Does Xi actually know the cost of invading Taiwan?

A U.S.-made F-16V fighter jet taxis on the runway at an airforce base during the annual Han Kuang military drills in Hualien, Taiwan, on July 23, 2024. Sam Yeh/AFP via Getty Images

Much of the analysis of a potential Beijing attempt to seize Taiwan by force has centered on the Chinese military’s capabilities and Taiwan’s defenses, especially if supported by the United States. Many assessments conclude that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is not currently capable of defeating the U.S. military in a direct conflict.

However, analysts still warn of a worst-case scenario in which Xi, seeking to cement his legacy, launches a premature strike. Xi has tied his legitimacy to the “China Dream” of national rejuvenation by 2049 and has framed unifying Taiwan with the mainland as essential to achieving that goal.

The recent wave of purges, particularly of senior leaders such as former Central Military Commission (CMC) Vice Chairman General Zhang Youxia, has intensified speculation. With most of the commission allegedly removed and the CMC now effectively consisting of Xi and loyalist Vice Chairman Zhang Shengmin, some analysts argue that Xi has eliminated voices that could have dissuaded him from attacking Taiwan. Even if that was not his intent, the practical result may be similar. With little meaningful pushback inside the system, Xi could face fewer internal constraints if he chooses to act.

The German Marshall Fund and the Rhodium Group recently published “If China Attacks Taiwan,” a report examining the potential costs to Beijing of a prolonged war. The authors note they were not asked to adopt Xi’s personal perspective and acknowledge that Chinese authorities could misjudge the likely consequences.

Even when costs are high, national leaders sometimes proceed if perceived benefits or political pressures outweigh the risks. Xi could conclude that failing to act—particularly if he believes Taipei is moving toward permanent separation with U.S. backing—would damage his authority more than launching a risky military operation.

The study examines how a conflict would affect China’s economy, military capabilities, social stability, and international position. It warns that war could produce massive economic disruption, catastrophic military losses, serious social unrest, and severe sanctions. This brings the analysis back to three critical questions: What would the price of a Taiwan invasion be? Is Xi fully aware of that price? And does he care? The latter two only Xi can answer, but the first is measurable, and the potential impact on the CCP would be staggering.

In the report’s major war scenario, an invasion lasts several months and draws in the United States and its allies. The conflict begins with an amphibious assault and missile strikes on Taiwan as well as on U.S. forces in Japan and Guam. Although Chinese forces land on Taiwan, sustained Taiwanese and U.S. strikes disrupt resupply across the Taiwan Strait. After months of heavy fighting, the PLA withdraws to the mainland, having lost roughly 100,000 personnel. Taiwan suffers approximately 50,000 military and 50,000 civilian casualties. The United States loses 5,000 military personnel and 1,000 civilians, Japan loses 1,000 military personnel and 500 civilians, and the PLA retains control only of Kinmen and Matsu.

An aerial view of vehicles awaiting their export at a port in Nanjing, eastern Jiangsu Province, China, on Dec. 9, 2025. AFP via Getty Images

The report argues that a failed Chinese attack would impose severe economic, military, social, and international costs, and that it would be a mistake to assume Beijing would necessarily prevail. Even a limited military engagement could result in trillions of dollars in losses.

A 2022 Rhodium study estimated economic damage of at least $2 trillion to $3 trillion under conservative assumptions, while Bloomberg analysts projected costs closer to $10 trillion. In a prolonged war ending with Chinese withdrawal, the economic impact would extend beyond market disruption to systemic breakdown.

China is uniquely exposed because roughly 20 percent of its GDP and about 13 percent of its employment depend on exports, double the U.S. share. A major conflict would likely trigger a near-total embargo by G7 nations. After years of doubling down on high-tech manufacturing such as electric vehicles, semiconductors, and green technology instead of strengthening domestic consumption, China would have few alternative markets for its surplus output. Without export demand, large portions of its industrial base would idle, leading to a contraction in GDP potentially worse than during the COVID-19 pandemic period.

[ZH: And where, pray-tell, does the west get all of the 'shit' made during this embargo?]

Financial decoupling would compound the shock. The report anticipates the freezing of China’s roughly $3.39 trillion in foreign exchange reserves and places its $3.6 trillion in foreign direct investment at risk. Even if Beijing achieved military objectives, the global financial system could treat China as permanently uninvestable, effectively ending its role as a global financial hub. Hong Kong would likely lose its status as the primary gateway for international capital into the mainland.

Energy and food security add further strain. A months-long war could allow the United States and its allies to impose a distant blockade, cutting off 70 percent to 90 percent of the oil and roughly 40 percent of the natural gas that China imports by sea. Severe energy and food rationing could follow, increasing the risk of domestic unrest. With domestic demand already weakening, sanctions or a blockade would strike at one of China’s remaining growth engines.

The CCP’s legitimacy depends heavily on economic stability. A failed war that produces mass unemployment, shortages, a financial crisis, and long-term technological isolation could fracture the global economy into rival blocs, leaving China isolated for decades. Although the PLA has grown stronger, its economic vulnerabilities mean that the cost of a failed invasion could pose an existential challenge to the CCP itself.

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, 02/28/2026 - 23:40

The Transatlantic Divide In Language Learning

The benefits of learning a foreign language are extensive and go way beyond the ability to converse with people from other countries.

Speaking a second language broadens the horizon, takes the guesswork out of restaurant orders on vacation and even makes the Super Bowl Halftime Show more enjoyable.

It has professional benefits as well, as multilingualism is a much sought-after skill in today's globalized world. Even though you can get by pretty well speaking only English, learning a second, or third, language is always going to be worth it.

While learning foreign languages is ubiquitous in Europe, where most students start learning English as early as primary school, the story in the U.S. is completely different. Most European countries have a national-level mandate for studying languages at school but such standards are non-existent on the other side of the Atlantic where such legislation only exists at school district or state-level, if at all.

As Statista'a Felix Richter reports, according to the National K-12 Foreign Language Enrollment Survey conducted by the Americans Councils for International Education, less than 20 percent of K-12 students in the U.S. were enrolled in foreign language classes in 2014/15, the latest available data.

You will find more infographics at Statista

This is a far cry from the enrollment rates seen across Europe, as Eurostat data shows.

Many European countries have enrollment rates close to 100 percent, with an average of 91 percent of primary and secondary school students learning at least one foreign language across the European Union.

More than one in three students in the EU even study two or more foreign languages, showing that many student learn more than "just" English.

While English is by far the most widely taught foreign language across Europe, Spanish is the most popular second language in the U.S.

Of the 10.6 million students enrolled in a foreign language class in 2014/2015, 7.4 million studied Spanish and 1.3 million learned French.

Tyler Durden Sat, 02/28/2026 - 23:00

Fed Plans To Release Sweeping Bank‑Capital Rule By Late March: Top Regulator

Authored by Andrew Moran via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Long-awaited banking regulation—also known as the Basel III Endgame framework—will be released next month, said the Federal Reserve’s top banking regulator.

Michelle Bowman, vice chair for supervision of the Federal Reserve Board, in Washington on July 22, 2025. Ken Cedeno/Reuters

Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman, appearing at a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Feb. 26, confirmed that regulators are expected to release an updated Basel III proposal at the end of March.

But while this is the chief goal, Bowman hinted that the deadline might need to be extended.

She told lawmakers that officials at the Fed, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation have reached a consensus on the reproposal.

Basel III is a regulatory blueprint crafted in the fallout of the global financial crisis of 2008. It features a number of capital reforms and tighter requirements for how large U.S. banks measure credit, market, and operational risk.

In recent months, Bowman has teased that Basel III has retooled capital requirements, a move that could bolster lending by traditional lenders, particularly in the mortgage market.

“We’re very focused, as we were thinking about the Basel approach, in ways that we could right-size and recalibrate the approach for residential mortgage lending so that we could encourage the banks to get back into the mortgage business,” Bowman told senators.

“We’re refocusing our supervision in a laser focus on material financial risks.”

This comes shortly after Bowman suggested new mortgage capital rules for U.S. banks would be integral to the Basel III proposal.

Appearing at an American Bankers Association event on Feb. 16, Bowman stated that one change could tie a mortgage’s risk weight to its loan-to-value-ratio, effectively removing the one-size-fits-all approach. Another update could remove a provision requiring that banks deduct mortgage‑servicing assets from regulatory capital.

For years, critics have argued that the original Basel III proposal would have reduced lending due to higher capital mandates and would have led to higher funding costs for borrowers.

Proponents say higher capital requirements are necessary to prevent a similar financial crisis in the future.

But while the focus has been on Basel, Bowman argued that other issues also need to be addressed, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s stringent requirements and the sizable penalties banks face if they make mistakes on mortgage applications.

“I think it’s important that we think about this in a broader manner and holistically as we approach thinking about banks getting back into the mortgage space,” Bowman said.

Support for Homeownership

Overall, Bowman noted, the upcoming reproposal could spark affordable homeownership, ensure banks of all sizes come off the sidelines, and support market liquidity.

“My approach is to calibrate the new framework from the bottom up, rather than reverse engineer changes to achieve predetermined or preconceived outcomes to capital requirements,” she stated.

This comes as a group of eight major banking and housing associations urged regulators to ease mortgage capital requirements.

In a letter to the Fed, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the organizations stated that today’s regulatory environment discourages bank participation in mortgage markets, exacerbating housing affordability challenges.

The groups said they support current efforts to alter the Basel III Endgame rule, casting the process as an opportunity to strengthen mortgage‑market stability and create space for banks to play a larger role in home lending.

Homes for sale in Maryland on Nov. 12, 2023. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

“Adequate capital reduces the likelihood of bank failures that threaten broader financial stability, which can prove costly for households, financial institutions, and taxpayers,” the letter stated. “However, excessive capital requirements that are misaligned with empirically derived risk assessments can negatively affect the cost of and access to credit.”

Revitalizing the mortgage market has been one of the current administration’s objectives to ensure more households have an opportunity to become homeowners.

In his record-length State of the Union address, President Donald Trump noted that his economic agenda balances the needs of current homeowners and homebuyers.

“Low interest rates will help reduce the Biden‑created housing affordability crunch,” Trump said. “We want to protect those values. We want to keep those values up. We’re going to do both.”

As of Feb. 26, the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is 5.98 percent, according to Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey.

A recent National Association of Realtors poll found that 85 percent of U.S. voters believe homeownership is central to the American dream.

Tyler Durden Sat, 02/28/2026 - 22:20

Epstein Had More Female Accomplices: Some Were Masquerading As Victims

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

New revelations from Rep. Anna Paulina Luna expose Jeffrey Epstein’s network as a sophisticated honeypot operation likely tied to foreign intelligence, designed to compromise powerful figures through sex trafficking and blackmail.

Luna, leading the congressional probe, asserts the scandal runs deeper than previously known, with inconsistencies in plea deals for key female accomplices fueling suspicions of a cover-up to protect the elite.

Based on evidence reviewed in the investigation, Luna stated that Jeffrey Epstein was running an intelligence-gathering operation, stating “In my professional opinion, I do believe it was a honeypot operation.”

Based on our congressional investigation it is my professional opinion that Jeffrey Epstein was running a honey pot operation. I am calling on Oversight to bring these 4 women in for questioning as co-conspirators to child sex trafficking. pic.twitter.com/KmxEovN9hC

— Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (@RepLuna) February 27, 2026

“It has become very evident…that Jeffrey Epstein was running an intelligence gathering operation,” Luna continued, noting “We might be able to get justice.”

She elaborated, “I do believe that Jeffrey Epstein was targeting many politicians, many influential people, especially in regards to economic policy. I do believe that it was possible that not just (Bill Clinton), but Secretary Clinton as well as a number of other people were targeted.”

Luna called for subpoenas on four women identified as co-conspirators: Sarah Kellen, Nadia Marcinkova, Adriana Ross, and Lesley Groff.

?Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna drops BOMBSHELL, reveals she believes Jeffrey Epstein was running an Intelligence gathering Honey Pot Operation based on evidence and testimony.

She is also calling on on four co-conspirators involved in trafficking who she says are being… pic.twitter.com/WUgdiv2G34

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) February 27, 2026

These individuals received immunity under Epstein’s 2008 non-prosecution agreement, despite allegations of scheduling abuse, recruiting victims, and participating in acts.

Luna also highlighted other discrepancies, such as Susan Hamblin sending an email in which she told Epstein his “littlest girl was naughty,” yet receiving victim status and a plea deal.

? Rep Anna Luna just revealed that Epstein “victim” Susan Hamblin sent the “your littlest girl was naughty email”

“Susan Hamblin sent this email. She took a plea deal and was given “victim” status under previous DOJ. DOJ should look into charges.

Possible human rights… pic.twitter.com/NMIxgv1sLk

— Red Panda Koala (@RedPandaKoala) February 18, 2026

The Congresswoman also pointed to Nadia Marcinkova, who sent explicit emails as an adult co-conspirator but was granted victim status.

This email was sent by a woman named Nadia. The same Nadia that was listed as co-conspirator in the NY case. She was then given a plea deal and “victim” status.

There’s a big difference between minors that were victimized versus ones that became adults and then chose to do… pic.twitter.com/NOXGDdgg6m

— Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (@RepLuna) February 18, 2026

Luna demanded, “The DOJ NEEDS to re-open these cases, adding that the “Previous DOJ let them off.”

She added, “Why were a number of Epstein’s co-conspirators given plea deals for trafficking minors? Child sex traffickers do not deserve plea deals or immunity. EVER.”

Why were a number of Epstein’s co-conspirators given plea deals for trafficking minors? Child sex traffickers do not deserve plea deals or immunity. EVER. pic.twitter.com/wT4CEQz1Gd

— Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (@RepLuna) February 27, 2026

Barry Levine, author of “The Spider,” reinforced on Jesse Watters’ show that female co-conspirators received plea deals for trafficking.

Levine noted models from around the world were involved, echoing Luna’s foreign ties concerns.

Barry Levine knocked it out of the park on Watters right now. FEMALE Co-conspirators were given plea deals! There is a lot here. Trafficking etc. everyone needs to see this segment. pic.twitter.com/B2dfYbBLDG

— Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (@RepLuna) February 27, 2026

Jesse Watters highlighted, “Hillary did seem perceptive to the idea.”

BREAKING: Rep Anna Paulina Luna says Hillary was PRESSED on Jeffrey Epstein’s FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE TIES ?@RepLuna: “It’s safe to say, Epstein was TIED to Foreign Intelligence… RUSSIA, IRAN, ISRAEL” ?

“Hillary did seem perceptive to the idea” ?? pic.twitter.com/1GkJJG8Ynh

— Jesse Watters (@JesseBWatters) February 27, 2026

In another major development in the case, former President Bill Clinton testified under oath that President Trump was not involved at all with Epstein to his knowledge.

?? BREAKING: Democrats are DONE. President Bill Clinton testifies UNDER OATH that President Donald Trump WAS NOT involved with Jeffrey Epstein

"Trump has never said anything to me to make me think he was involved [with Epstein]."pic.twitter.com/seQ15pfTrI

— The Patriot Oasis™ (@ThePatriotOasis) February 27, 2026

Clinton stated, “Trump has never said anything to me to make me think he was involved [with Epstein].”

Luna confirmed, “President Trump has been exonerated. He is not considered a person of interest in our Congressional investigation.”

President Trump has been exonerated. He is not considered a person of interest in our Congressional investigation. Democrats continue to insist otherwise to smear him and sabotage his presidency. It’s a political game to them. pic.twitter.com/QlwlWE3YFd

— Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (@RepLuna) February 27, 2026

She accused Democrats of smearing Trump, saying, “Democrats continue to insist otherwise to smear him and sabotage his presidency. It’s a political game to them.”

“We had cooperation, we asked the victims directly and he was exonerated,” Luna said.

Fresh documents from the mass file release have also revealed a shocking intrusion into the FBI’s NYC office on Super Bowl Sunday in 2023, resulting in the loss of approximately 100TB of evidence.

FBI Special Agent Aaron Spivack detailed the breach in a declaration, stating, “500 terabytes of data was gone as a result of the intrusion. I was able to recover about 400 terabytes of that data, however. I was told to Google how to recover the data. No one else tried to help us.”

Spivack described discovering unusual activity: “Around 3:30pm or so we located the log files and began combing through, which is when we noticed strange IP activity that took place yesterday from two IP addresses. The activity included combing through certain files pertaining to the Epstein investigation.”

He continued, “I reached out to one of the case agents to see if they were in the office yesterday, thinking that maybe they inadvertently changed a setting on the NAS or if they noticed anything strange about them.”

Further investigation revealed, “Around 4/4:30pm we dove into the IPs and checked all of our computers to see which had the IPs in question. One computer, our discovery computer, matched one of them and is located in a room next to the lab. The other IP is one we don’t recognize, but it is the same address as the IP on our network, leading us to believe it was a computer that accessed our network somehow.”

Spivack concluded, “We were not able to identify the computer, but it had to have accessed our network either by being plugged into the network, or possibly by telnetting in virtually.”

This breach raises serious questions about security lapses and potential efforts to suppress evidence in the Epstein case.

These disclosures build on anomalies detailed in our prior reports, where DOJ documents referenced Epstein’s death as a “MURDER” and highlighted red flags like mismatched autopsy details and missing footage.

The inconsistencies point to elite protection of the operation. 

Theories that both Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were intelligence operatives linked to Mossad, other foreign entities and a “supra government” shielding elites have exploded online.

As demands for the full client list grow, these revelations expose a web of elite impunity. The public deserves unredacted truth to dismantle any remaining deep state shields.

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 Sat, 02/28/2026 - 21:00

If You're Freaking Out About A Future Jobless AI Dystopia...

Amid an armada of dystopian futurists, projecting linear thoughts into a future of 'AI uber alles', Marc Andreessen stands as a beacon of potential utopian light, seeing a future that looks very different and very positive for young and old alike.

In a brief few minutes, the co-founder of Netscape and VC firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) believes instead that we are living through a unique (and most incredible) time in history with the rise of AI coming right as human civilization needs it...

"we're going to have AI and robots precisely when we actually need them [with populations shrinking] to keep the economy from actually shrinking."

Simply put, Andreessen says that fears of AI-driven mass job loss are overly simplistic.

After decades of unusually slow technological change and low job churn, AI could restore historical productivity levels (exemplified by the period from 1870-1930), sparking opportunity, innovation, and net job growth rather than displacement. 

Declining populations and reduced immigration will make human labor increasingly valuable. AI's timing is "miraculous", Andreessen exclaims, preventing economic shrinkage from depopulation.

In even radical scenarios, explosive productivity leads to output gluts, collapsing prices, and massive real-wealth gains - equivalent to "giant raises" for everyone - while making safety-nets more affordable. 

Whether incremental or transformative, Andreessen sees the outcome as fundamentally positive economic news.

"...there's all this concern among young people that their jobs are not going to be there for them. AI is replacing them..."

Andreessen replies (emphasis ours): 

So the job-substitution/job-loss thing is very reductive. I think it's an overly simplistic model. And again it goes back to what I said at the very beginning which is we've actually been in a regime for 50 years of very slow technological change in the economy... like at half the rate of the previous era and a third the rate of like 100 years ago.

And so we're coming out of this kind of phase where we've had like almost no technological progress in the economy. We've had remarkably little job churn as a result of that relative to any historical period. And so even if AI triples productivity growth in the economy, which would like be a massively big deal, it would take us back to the same level of job churn that was happening between 1870 and 1930.

And if you go back and you read accounts of 1870 to 1930, people just thought the world was awash with opportunity. Right? At that rate of technological transformation, kids were able to develop new careers into new areas of the economy, building new kinds of products and services. A huge part of everything in our modern world today was kind of invented and proliferated during that period.

And so even if AI triples the pace of economic change in the economy, it's going to translate to a much higher rate of economic growth; it's going to translate to a much higher rate of job growth. And there will be some level of like task level and job level substitution that will take place but that will be swamped by the macro effects of economic growth and innovation that will happen and that then corresponding to that there will be hiring blooms quite honestly I think all over the place

And then again go back to the fact that this is all happening in the face of declining population growth and increasingly population shrinkage. So human workers in many, many, many countries over the next you know 10, 20, 30 years are going to be at more and more of a premium, literally because you're going to have shrinking population levels.

[While] we don't really want to get into you know politics particularly but it does feel like the world broadly is going to reverse course on the rates of immigration that we've had for the last 50 years. it seems to be kind of a broad-based thing happening - rise in nationalism, concerns about the rate of immigration - and immigration historically in countries like the US ha ebbed and flowed over time based on how the national mood shifts.

And so in a country like the US (or any country in Europe), if you combine declining population with less immigration, the remaining human workers are going to be at a premium not at a discount. And so I think that the combination of faster productivity growth, faster economic growth, and then slower population growth and less immigration - actually means there's going to be much less of this kind of dystopian/no-jobs thing. I just think it's probably totally off-base. 

"That is extremely interesting. So, what I'm hearing is you're not super worried about job loss. Is the key here that the timing kind of just works out, this population decrease, you know, like all these kind of have to line up for there not to be this massive job loss with AI?"

Andreessen replies (emphasis ours): 

Yeah.

Well, look, if we didn't have AI, we'd be in a panic right now about what's going to happen to the economy. Right? Because what we what we'd be staring at is a future of depopulation and depopulation without new technology would just mean that the economy shrinks. Right? 

So it would mean that the economy kind of itself kind of shrinks over time, the opportunity diminishes, and there are no new jobs, there are no new fields. There's no new source of consumer demand for spending on things. And so you would be very worried about going into period of severe decline or stagnation.

Essentially you'd be looking at these very dystopian scenarios of like an economy self-euthanizing over time. 

So you'd be very worried about the opposite of what everybody thinks that they're worried about. The only reason we're not worried about that is because we now know that we have the technology that can substitute for the lack of population growth and also for the for the lack of immigration that's likely.

And so, I would say the timing has worked out miraculously well in the sense that we're going to have AI and robots precisely when we actually need them, to keep the economy from actually shrinking. 

And that's just like a fundamentally good news story.

To get to the mass-job-loss thing that people are worried about, you'd have to look at like far, far, far higher rates of productivity growth. You'd have to look at rates of productivity growth that are 10, 20, 30, 50% a year - something like that - which are orders of magnitude higher than we've ever had in any economy in the history of the planet.

It's possible that we get that. I mean, look, I have my utopian temptation along with everybody else.

If AI radically transforms everything overnight, then maybe... let's play out the kind of utopian scenario. 

You get to a much higher level of productivity growth.

You get to a much higher level of technological change.

Corresponding to that you'll have a massive economic boom. 

You'll have massive growth in the economy and then corresponding with that you'll have a collapse in prices. 

And so the price of goods and services that are affected by (or commoditized by) AI will collapse.

There'll be price deflation and then as a consequence of price deflation everything that people are buying today gets a lot cheaper and that's the equivalent of a gigantic increase in wealth right across the society.

This is actually worth talking about because people I think people get kind of sideways on this issue.

So if AI is going to transform the economy as much as the utopians or dystopians (or whatever kind) think that it will, the necessary economic calculation of what happens is massive productivity growth. 

The consequence of massive productivity growth literally means mechanically more output requiring less input, right? 

So you get more economic output for less input, right? So you're substituting in AI for human workers.

And as a consequence, you get like this massive boom in output with much lower input costs. 

The result of that is you get lots of goods and services in all those affected sectors. The result of those gluts is you get collapsing prices, right? 

The collapsing prices mean that the thing today that cost you $100 now cost you $10 and now cost you $1.

That's the equivalent of giving everybody a giant raise, right? 

Because now they have all this additional spending power. 

That additional spending power then translates to economic growth, right? 

The development of new fields. Everybody's materially much better off very quickly. And then by the way, to the extent that you do have unemployment coming out the other side of that, it's now much cheaper to provide the kind of social safety net to prevent people from being immiserated, right? 

Because the prices of all the goods and services that a welfare program has to pay from, they're all collapsing, right? And so the price of healthcare collapses, the price of housing collapses, the price of education collapses, the price of everything else collapses because of the incredible impact that AI is having. 

And so in this kind of utopian/dystopian scenario that people have, there's no scenario in which everybody's just poor. In fact, it's quite the opposite.

Everybody gets a lot richer because prices collapse and then it's actually much easier to pay for the social safety net for the people who, for some reason, can't find a job.

And so, maybe we end up in that scenario. 

I mean, the optimistic part of me says, yeah, maybe AI is that powerful and maybe the rest of the economy can actually change to accommodate that and maybe that'll happen.

But the result of that is going to be a much better news story than people think it's going to be. 

Everything I've just described, by the way, is just a very straightforward extrapolation on very basic economics. I'm not making any like bold predictions in what I just said. This is just a straightforward mechanical process that plays itself out if you have higher rates of productivity growth, which are necessarily the results of higher rates of technological growth.

And so, to be clear, I think we're looking at a world that's not like radically transformed the way that maybe the utopians think that it will be or the dystopians think it will be. 

I think it'll be more incremental.

But I think that incremental shift is overwhelmingly going to be a good news process. And then even if it's much faster, it's also going to be a good news process. It'll just be a good news process in the other way that I described.

Tyler Durden Sat, 02/28/2026 - 20:20

Iran Says US-Israeli Attack Hit Elementary School, Killing 85+ Girls

Via Middle East Eye

At least 85 people, almost all of them young girls, have been killed in an air strike on a primary school in southern Iran, the Iranian judiciary said. The attack on Saturday morning hit Shajareh Tayyebeh schoolin the city of Minab, in Hormozgan province, as the United States and Israel began launching strikes on targets across Iran.

The victims were between seven and 12 years old, according to Iran's Tasnim and Fars news agencies. A staff member at the Minab school, who asked not to be named, told Middle East Eye she remains in shock at the intensity of the attack. Iran's foreign minister also featured the attack on social media.

Video posted on pro-government Telegram accounts shows Iranians searching through a destroyed school in Minab, via Telegram

Through tears, she said she used to watch the young girls playing at school every day. After today’s strikes, however, she saw their bodies lying on classroom benches and in different corners of the school.

She said she had stepped out of the school to take care of something when she suddenly heard a horrifying sound. Within seconds, a missile - or something like it - hit the school building. After hearing the blast, she ran back towards the school and was faced with a scene she says she would never forget. 

“I felt like I had gone mute. I couldn’t speak,” the staff member told MEE. “You could hear the sound of children crying and screaming.” When rescue teams arrived, she said, they began to understand the scale of the disaster.

“We still don’t know how many are under the rubble. Some are even saying more than 100. Some of these small children are severely injured. Their parents have come to the school, and this place has turned into a house of mourning.”

The air strike on the school left many inside the building trapped beneath the rubble. There were 170 female students at the school at the time of the attack. So far, at least 45 people have also been reported wounded.

Footage posted by Telegram accounts affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps appeared to show people digging through the rubble.

Smoke could be seen rising from surrounding buildings, while a wrecked car lay in the street. People were heard screaming and wailing; others appeared to be in shock. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi denounced the attack on X and said the deaths of the children would "not go unanswered".

"The destroyed building is a primary school for girls in the south of Iran. It was bombed in broad daylight, when packed with young pupils," he wrote. "Dozens of innocent children have been murdered at this site alone."

At least 70 people, including some 60 children, were killed when U.S. and Israeli strikes hit the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab, southern Iran, according to the Fars News.

The attack reportedly struck during school hours, with about 170 girls inside.… pic.twitter.com/G7dE0z660f

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) February 28, 2026

Country-wide attacks

US and Israeli strikes on Iran have also heavily targeted Tehran. Explosions echoed across the capital as Iranians set out for work on the first day of the week, before quickly spreading across the country.

Attacks were reported in a range of cities, including the holy city of Qom, as well as Karaj, Isfahan and Kermanshah. An overall death toll has not yet been released, but Reuters reported that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had been moved to a “safe location”.

US President Donald Trump said the joint attacks were aimed at "eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime".

"Short time ago, US military began major combat operation in Iran. Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating threats from the Iranian regime," he said. Trump also made a number of other statements and predictions without offering any concrete evidence, such as Washington's refusal to allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon.

"We are going to annihilate their navy. We are going to ensure that the region’s ‘terrorist’ proxies can no longer destabilise the region or the world. "We will ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon. It is a very simple message." 

Tyler Durden Sat, 02/28/2026 - 17:00

DOE Announces $171 Million For Geothermal Expansion

The DOE released a Notice of Funding Opportunity offering up to $171.5 million for next-generation geothermal field tests and resource exploration. 

The program targets field-scale demonstrations of enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) for electricity generation, along with drilling to characterize and confirm hydrothermal and next-gen prospects nationwide.

The funding splits into two initial open topics: up to $100 million for EGS field tests and $71.5 million for exploratory drilling. Letters of intent are due March 27, with full applications due April 30. The move directly supports President Trump’s Executive Order “Unleashing American Energy,” according to the agency.

Geothermal currently supplies roughly 4 GW of U.S. capacity, but represents only about 0.3% of total power generation. DOE estimates the resource base could support 300 GW or more by 2050 with technology improvements, delivering firm, 24/7 baseload power that complements intermittent renewables and meets rising demand from data centers and AI infrastructure.

Recent studies show that some of the best locations in the United States for new geothermal sites are in the western part of the country and some of the southern states. 

Assistant Secretary Kyle Haustveit of the Office of Hydrocarbons and Geothermal Energy stated the initiative will “directly support our commitments to advance energy addition, reduce energy costs for American families and businesses, and unleash American energy dominance and innovation.”

One of the only pure-play publicly traded geothermal companies is Ormat Technologies (ORA), which develops, owns, and operates geothermal power plants primarily in the U.S. and internationally. The company has recently expanded via long-term power purchase agreements with data-center operators (Google), underscoring commercial interest in reliable geothermal supply.

Some Democratic appropriators are pitching a fit, noting the $146.5 million tranche exceeds the $118 million Congress appropriated for geothermal in FY2025 and requesting further review. Proponents counter that successful pilots could unlock far larger private investment and help diversify the grid beyond wind, solar, and gas.

Tyler Durden Sat, 02/28/2026 - 16:20

"Expect Moderate Disruptions": Oil Tankers Avoid Strait Of Hormuz As Operation Fury Hits Iran

Automatic Identification System (AIS) vessel-tracking data indicate that multiple tankers abruptly reversed course near the entrance to the critical maritime chokepoint of the Strait of Hormuz early Saturday, following the U.S.-Israeli operation (Operation Epic Fury) targeting Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps command-and-control infrastructure in multiple Iranian cities.

Bloomberg reporter Stephen Stapczynski pulled data from the Terminal that shows shipowners of crude oil, crude products, and LNG tankers are avoiding the strait, even though the waterway remains open and traffic has not stopped entirely.

"A number of oil and LNG tankers are avoiding sailing through the Strait of Hormuz NYK has advised its ships to avoid the waterway," Stapczynski wrote on X.

A number of oil and LNG tankers are avoiding sailing through the Strait of Hormuz

NYK has advised its ships to avoid the waterway pic.twitter.com/oAubwJBjxs

— Stephen Stapczynski (@SStapczynski) February 28, 2026

Stapczynski noted. 

PLEASE NOTE: There are still tankers traveling through the waterway. Not a total halt right now https://t.co/pSzNZuBMoL

— Stephen Stapczynski (@SStapczynski) February 28, 2026

Less than a day before Operation Epic Fury began, Bloomberg macro strategist Michael Ball warned, "US military action on Iran would result in sudden-yet-tradeable risk aversion. The negative markets impulse only sustains if there's material disruption to regional oil production and shipping flows around the Strait of Hormuz."

Map: Strait of Hormuz

Sources told CNN earlier this morning that Operation Epic Fury was the result of "months of joint planning" and will involve several days of attacks. The key question is whether the operation against Iran will spill over into next week. If it does, that would suggest potential disruptions at the critical maritime chokepoint, which handles one-fifth of global seaborne oil and LNG flows.

Rapidan Energy Group analyst Fernando Ferreira commented on the situation, indicating:

Iran understands that threatening traffic through Hormuz is its most credible asymmetric lever. Even limited interference can raise oil prices and impose immediate economic costs on the US and its partners, increasing pressure on Washington to de-escalate.

We expect at least moderate disruptions to Gulf oil flows in the coming days, with the risk tilted toward something more severe if tensions escalate further. 

And here it is:

• FT: INSURERS TO CANCEL POLICIES FOR SHIPS IN GULF, HORMUZ STRAIT

Goldman analyst Adam Crook provided clients, shortly after the operation began, with an overview of how oil and gold were positioned heading into the weekend:

Tallulah Adams (Commods Sales): “We have seen significant engagement from the franchise in Oil and European Gas upside over previous weeks, being the most directly impacted Commodities in an escalation scenario (20% each of Global Oil and LNG flows transit through the Strait of Hormuz).

Oil remains the most direct and liquid expression as a geopolitical hedge – while a full closure of the Strait of Hormuz remains a tail scenario, even a disruption of flows through the Strait via other means (targeting of ships, insurance issues) poses an upside scenario closer to $100/bbl. Additionally, whilst not our base case, an attack on Iranian Oil infrastructure puts 2mb/d of Iran Crude exports at risk.

Despite a Middle East escalation remaining top of mind, positioning ironically feels cleaner (vs mid-Feb) with franchise flows skewed toward profit taking over the past week. This has kept a lid on call vols despite increasingly hawkish news flow + flat price moving higher in a high spot-vol correlation regime. Front month Brent implied volatility was at 60v on Friday, compared to a high of 90v in June last year. Meanwhile, 1 month 15 delta call skew was at 14 vols, compared to a 27 vol high last June. Net managed money (Brent + WTI combined) is sitting in the 59th percentile vs the previous 3 years. To play for a reprice in front vols and skew, we like owning front wingy outright calls.

Additionally, we have seen a re-engagement in Gold upside as prices have consolidated above $5000/oz and 5 day realised vols have compressed to 27v vs a 100v high. Gold upside flow has migrated from VKO’s/Continuous KO’s to a mix of vanillas/EKO’s/Digis. While ETF holdings have continued to build, the market feels under positioned from the fast-money community - net managed money on Comex is sitting only in the 17th percentile vs the last 3 years and SHFE positioning is on multi-year lows.

A synthetic weekend market via IG has crude oil prices up as much as 8%. 

IG has gold up nearly 3%. 

Related:

• Playbook For Iran Risk "oils Down To Disruption

• Supertanker Rates Soar As War Fears Put Strait Of Hormuz Chokepoint At Risk

Operation Epic Fury coverage:

• Iran Retaliates On US Bases In Five Countries Simultaneously As Tehran Bombed

• Iran Signals Ready To Deescalate After Defense Minister, IRGC Chief Killed In US-Israeli Strikes

The key question is whether this operation remains confined to the weekend or spills into next week. If a spillover does occur, it would be unequivocally bullish for Brent crude and gold futures on Sunday evening.

Professional subscribers can read more Iran ​​​​​research on our new Marketdesk.ai portal.

Tyler Durden Sat, 02/28/2026 - 12:15

We Didn't Just Get Expensive Electricity. We Built A System That Makes It Inevitable.

Authored by William Murray via RealClearEnergy,

Most Americans don’t think about electricity until the monthly bill arrives.

It comes once a month, often quietly, but lately it’s landed like a thud. Heating your home now costs hundreds more a month than it did just a few years ago. You use the same appliances. You flip the same switches. Nothing in your daily life has changed – except the price.

Why?

When one looks inside the electricity system, the experience is less like analyzing an immense machine than being fed into one, resembling the immortal scene in “Modern Times” where Charlie Chaplin’s factory worker is swallowed by the equipment he’s working on.

The American electricity market is not guided by an “invisible hand” of supply and demand, but an accumulation of misaligned rules laid down over decades. Layer upon layer of regulation, subsidy, mandate, and accounting rules to a point where the system became fixed in an upward, inflationary tilt, impervious to efforts to change.

There are at least a half-dozen federal environmental regulations that have more to do with rising electricity prices than tariffs or the data-center buildout, and a good example to start with is called Construction Work in Progress (CWIP).

As a new issue brief makes clear, it helped change who pays for America’s infrastructure.

Chief among these contrivances was the quiet transfer of financial risk from investors to the public. Before the 1970s, utilities had to finish building a power plant before they could charge customers for it. If a company wanted to build something, it had to take the risk. Investors would put up the money. If the project succeeded, they earned a return. If it failed, they paid the price.

But during the inflation crisis of the 1970s, power plants — especially nuclear plants —became vastly more expensive to build. Utilities argued they couldn’t afford to wait years to recover their costs. During a moment of civic weakness, state regulators started allowing utilities to charge customers while the plants were still under construction.

CWIP permanently shifted investment risk away from investors and onto ordinary people. Today, you can open your electric bill and pay for projects that don’t exist yet and may be cancelled in the future.

No banker in his right mind would accept such terms voluntarily. Yet millions of Americans are compelled to do so every month if they’re served by an investor-owned electric company.

This system could have operated below the waterline indefinitely, had it not collided with the renewable energy revolution of the last 15 years. Wind and solar generation increased fourfold between 2011 and 2020, reaching record output by 2024.

These sources have advantages. But they also have a basic limitation: they don’t produce power all the time.

So utilities must build backup systems. Extra transmission lines. Extra capacity.

None of this redundancy is free. Every mile of wire, every idle backup turbine, every overpriced and underutilized battery storage unit will eventually, without fail, appear on a customer’s bill.

And thanks to rules like CWIP, they can charge you while you wait.

Many of these policies came from a sincere place. Beginning in the 1970s and accelerating in the decades that followed, a network of public-interest law firms and environmental advocacy groups gained enormous influence over how infrastructure gets approved.

Their goal was to protect the public.

But over time, something else happened.

They built a system where stopping projects became easier than building them. Where delay became a strategy. Where lawsuits became routine.

Each delay added to costs. Each cost increase justifies charging customers sooner. Each increase made the next one easier to accept.

Even writers like the New York Times’ Ezra Klein — hardly a critic of environmental goals — have begun to acknowledge the problem. He has argued that well-intentioned rules have made it far too hard to build the infrastructure society needs.

People think this is an important admission by Klein and his ilk, but it is not.

These ‘well-intentioned rules’ were simply created by an earlier generation of Ezra Klein “Abundance” types who set up the public interest lawfare firms and NGO indulgences system in the first place.

Klein’s autopsy revealed only that the Left promotes things that make themselves feel better while making the world worse, yet their slobbering idealism protects them from feeling the shame of failed responsibility. There is a Kafkaesque process at work, filled with Orwellian word games that stymie everything. It’s a dirty, soiled, can’t-do spirit masquerading as something more noble and dignified.

Because the issue isn’t whether the goals were noble. Noble intentions don’t matter.

It’s that the results are what matter, and the results are failures.

There is, however, a remedy — not a technological breakthrough, but something far better (albeit rarer) in Washington: legislative clarity.

One promising approach is legislation such as Representative Troy Balderson’s “Affordable, Reliable, Clean Energy Security Act.” The bill seeks to establish clearer definitions of key terms like “affordable,” “reliable,” and “clean,” ensuring that investment risks are limited to cost-effective infrastructure projects only.

By recognizing the role of dispatchable resources such as natural gas and nuclear power, the legislation would also help ensure the grid maintains the reliability necessary to support modern life, all while meeting the standards of the Clean Air Act.

These reforms would not eliminate electricity price increases overnight. But they would begin to address one of the root causes: a system in which incentives increasingly misalign diverge from the interests of customers.

Electricity is not a luxury. It is a necessity that underpins economic growth, public safety, and household stability. Ensuring its affordability requires more than promises. It requires policies that encourage efficient investment, allocate risk appropriately, and maintain reliability.

Most of all, it comes from remembering a basic principle that once guided American growth:

You should pay for things when they work.

Not before.

Until that principle returns, electricity bills will continue their quiet climb upward, and Americans will continue to wonder why modern life feels harder to afford than it used to.

William Murray is a former speechwriter for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the past editor of RealClearEnergy from 2015-2017, and currently the chief speechwriter for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

Tyler Durden Sat, 02/28/2026 - 11:40

 

 

This week, I speak with Jeff Chang, President and Co-Founder of Vest. We discuss his journey into founding Vest and how he developed his views on the benefits of hedging via ETFs. We also talk about the creation of financial products geared towards hedging.

He explains how the largest issuer of structured notes was Lehman Brothers(!) and why Vest created a different firm without that same counterparty risk.

A list of his current reading/favorite books is here; A transcript of our conversation is available here Tuesday.

You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube (video), YouTube (audio), and Bloomberg. All of our earlier podcasts on your favorite pod hosts can be found here.

Be sure to check out our bonus Masters in Business episode this coming week with Bill Gurley of Benchmark Capital. We discuss his career, the current state of the Venture Capital space, and his new book,

 

 

 

 

Current Reading/Favorite Books

 

 

 

 

 

The post MiB: Jeff Chang, President and Co-Founder of Vest appeared first on The Big Picture.