Dems Need A Serious, Grown-Up Approach To The Border

Authored by Ruy Teixeira via The Liberal Patriot,

Back in 1956, Elvis Presley recorded his massive hit “Don’t Be Cruel.” With all due respect to the King, this great song has many virtues but providing a guide to policy isn’t one of them. Yet it appears to be dictating Democrats’ current approach to the red-hot immigration issue despite its profound inadequacy in the policy realm.

Consider that Democrats have been unremittingly hostile to Trump’s immigration policy since he began his second term, despite its undisputed success in completely shutting down the southern border to illegal immigration. Instead, Democrats have focused relentlessly on the question of interior enforcement—that is, the activities of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) aimed at detaining and deporting illegal immigrants currently living within the United States. The general approach has been to portray all ICE actions as essentially illegitimate, arbitrary and, well, cruel.

Conspicuously lacking has been any recognition that, in fact, interior enforcement against illegal immigration is an entirely legitimate law enforcement operation and that ICE is the government agency charged with these legitimate activities. Therefore, what ICE does is presumptively legitimate not illegitimate.

Democratic treatment of ICE has turned this on its head; their activities are presumptively viewed as illegitimate and if there are any legitimate ICE actions, Democrats are being mighty quiet about it. Instead, characterizations of ICE as a modern-day Gestapo, Nazis, an occupying force, etc have become so common as to be unremarkable. This attitude has led Democrats down a path where their policy on interior enforcement against illegal immigration seems to amount to: “Don’t do it! Don’t be cruel!”

Of course, there is much not to like about how ICE has gone about their business, all of which has been copiously documented. This has been red meat to those sectors of blue America and their political representatives whose revealed preference is not to deport anyone. Think about those ubiquitous “In This House, We Believe” signs in liberal professional-class neighborhoods.

The ICE/interior enforcement issue hits the Daily Double for the “In This House, We Believe” crowd. No human is illegal. Check. Kindness is everything. Check. These may be utterly useless as guides to effective, sustainable immigration policy but they sure do get the juices flowing.

That’s why, from Los Angles to Minneapolis, Democratic activists have felt completely justified in interfering with ICE activities and Democratic politicians in refusing to cooperate with a duly constituted federal law enforcement agency. And that’s why, especially with the tragic recent death of Renee Good, calls of “Abolish ICE!” are beginning to ring out across wide sectors of the Democratic Party. There is no good ICE, only bad ICE. There is no legitimate ICE, only illegitimate ICE.

This is the logical terminus of an attitude that starts with no human being is illegal and kindness is everything. Since ICE’s remit is that illegal immigrants are, in fact, illegal and that the law must be followed, even if the outcome is not particularly kind, it only makes sense to get rid of the agency.

This is a terrible idea in so many different ways. As a very useful new memo from the reform Democratic group Searchlight points out:

[S]aying you want to “Abolish ICE”…means that you support getting rid of the agency responsible for enforcing immigration and customs laws, creating a lawless system where people who enter the country illegally can stay here indefinitely, leaving no agency charged with finding and removing them. This will, inevitably, incentivize others to come to the United States illegally. “Abolish ICE” is not some proxy for more humane immigration enforcement, or to change ICE’s culture to adhere to due process, or to impose accountability on rogue officers. It’s advocating for an extreme.

Unless you truly believe that the United States should not have an agency that enforces immigration and customs laws within our borders, and you want to increase illegal immigration, you should not say you want to abolish ICE…[W]e will always need a federal agency charged with deporting people who are in the United States illegally.

That’s clearly correct as a matter of policy. Democrats need to reflect that in how they talk about ICE or the momentum will continue to shift toward those in the party who simply want to get rid of the agency entirely.

And that would be a disaster. The reasonable—and popular—desire to reform ICE practices would inevitably be subsumed in a contentious debate about abolishing the agency. This is not likely to turn out well for the Democrats despite the solid basis in public opinion for some reform and pullback of ICE activities. Abolishing ICE will likely never be generally popular, despite its sky-high popularity with Democrats where there has been a recent spike in support.

Instead, as the Searchlight memo points out, Democrats will be setting themselves up for a rerun of the “Defund the Police” debacle, also driven by a viral incident (and also in Minneapolis!). A maximalist demand like “Abolish ICE” will serve only to signal a lack of Democratic commitment to immigration enforcement, just as defund the police signaled a lack of Democratic commitment to public safety. This is highly undesirable both for the Democrats politically and for the general cause of reforming ICE practices.

A further lesson from the recent past is provided by the Democratic reaction to Trump’s border crackdowns in his first administration. Seizing on some well-publicized excesses, Democrats pilloried Trump for being cruel and inhumane and promised to be different. And they were! They were kind and humane—and also completely ineffective at controlling the border and preventing abuse of the asylum system once they got back in power, producing the huge wave of illegal and irregular immigration that discredited the Democrats and helped Trump win the 2024 election. “Don’t be cruel” didn’t work out so well then and it won’t work out so well now, either in or out of power.

Democrats instead need to get beyond mindless slogans like “Abolish ICE” and blanket opposition to everything ICE does and embrace what I have termed immigration realism. That approach means taking on board the following realities of immigration into this rich country of ours:

1. Many more people want to come to a rich country like the United States than an orderly immigration system can allow.

2. Therefore, many people are willing to break the laws of our country to gain entry.

3. If you do not enforce the law, you will get more law-breakers and therefore more illegal immigrants.

4. If you provide procedural loopholes to gain entry into the country (e.g., by claiming asylum), many people will abuse these loopholes.

5. Once these illegal and irregular immigrants gain entry to the country, they will seek to stay indefinitely regardless of their immigration status.

6. If interior immigration enforcement is lax, such that these illegal and irregular immigrants do mostly get to stay forever, that provides a tremendous incentive for others to try to gain entry to the country via the same means.

7. If you provide benefits and dispensations to all immigrants in the country, regardless of their immigration status, this further incentivizes aspiring immigrants to gain entry to the country by any means necessary.

8. Tolerance of flagrant law-breaking on a mass scale contributes to a sense of social disorder and loss of control among a country’s citizens, who believe a nation’s borders are meaningful and that the welfare of a nation’s citizens should come first.

9. There is, in fact, such a thing as too much immigration, particularly low-skill immigration, and negative effects on communities and workers are real, not just in the imaginations of xenophobes.

10. If more immigration is desired by parties or policymakers, from whichever countries and at whatever skill levels, then immigration should be regular, legal immigration and approved by the American people through the democratic process. Backdooring mass immigration over the wishes of voters because it is “kind” or “reflects our values” or is deemed “economically necessary” leads inevitably to backlash. Wheelbarrows full of econometric studies on immigration’s aggregate benefits will not save you.

Obviously, the current Democratic vogue for treating all ICE activities as illegitimate and susceptibility to dumb maximalist slogans like “Abolish ICE” points them in precisely the wrong direction for dealing with the thorny and complex realities of the immigration issue. They’re just setting themselves up for future failure.

In short, it’s time to stop coddling the “In This House, We Believe” crowd and adopt a serious, grown-up approach to immigration and immigrants. “Don’t Be Cruel” isn’t gonna cut it.

Tyler Durden Sat, 01/17/2026 - 12:50

DOJ Probes Gov. Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Over Alleged Effort To Obstruct ICE

The Justice Department is investigating leftist Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey over an alleged conspiracy to impede federal immigration agents during deportation operations, sources familiar with the matter told CBS News.

Sources say the probe centers on statements Walz and Frey have made about ICE and Border Patrol agents deployed to the sanctuary city in recent weeks. Subpoenas have not yet been issued, but sources said that could be nearing.

Details remain scant about the specific comments by Walz and Frey that DOJ investigators have focused on, but there is a recent interview in which the mayor acknowledges the existence of a network of left-wing nonprofits organizing pressure campaigns in the city. He stopped just short of identifying which nonprofits were involved.

POLITICAL VIOLENCE: Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey refuses to reveal the identities of the NGOs he's working with to organize protests in his city. The DOJ is investigating the groups with funding and directives from Soros and CCP-linked NGOs. pic.twitter.com/C9cWgIZ5VN

— @amuse (@amuse) January 8, 2026

The focus of DOJ investigators and the White House should be the rapid-response efforts of militant left-wing groups and rogue nonprofits that were quick to activate their foot soldiers to unleash a pressure campaign against ICE agents. It was not just Minneapolis; this dark-money-funded NGO network was activated in other sanctuary cities, like New York City, within hours.

New York City councilwoman Vickie Paladino said it best on X:

ICE is doing what should be very mundane work of deporting people who aren't allowed to be in the country anymore, by law. Just as they have for years.

However, a bunch of lunatics, encouraged by the media and reckless democrat officials, have decided that basic immigration enforcement is 'literally fascism' and declared war, turning routine enforcement activity into dangerous civil war cosplay. And people are getting hurt because of it.

The federal government has every right to enforce immigration law, in every jurisdiction of the country. The legal fiction of the 'sanctuary city' is completely irrelevant.

Municipalities don't get to set their own immigration policy, and they don't get to obstruct federal law enforcement.

And they certainly don't get to foment and deploy an army of dangerous foot soldiers to physically attack federal agents, for no other reason than a political disagreement over immigration law. It's actually insane that this even needs to be said.

These people are coming dangerously close to committing insurrection, and the consequences of that will be monumental. This is not the fight they want, and everyone with even half a brain should be urging these Democrats to seriously back off immediately.

If Democrats believe our immigration laws are wrong, we have an election coming up in November and they can run on an explicit platform of repealing these laws, ending immigration enforcement, and re-opening the border.

But they won't, because they know that platform is a loser outside of a very few very far-left districts. So they'll continue to pretend that routine immigration enforcement is actually a replay of 1939 Germany, and continue to send mentally unwell liberal women and antifa activists out to risk injury and legal peril in order to win a few news cycles.

Very very sad. And it needs to stop.

ICE is doing what should be very mundane work of deporting people who aren't allowed to be in the country anymore, by law. Just as they have for years.

However, a bunch of lunatics, encouraged by the media and reckless democrat officials, have decided that basic immigration… https://t.co/GRNTwTZ1hs

— Councilwoman Vickie Paladino (@VickieforNYC) January 16, 2026

The manufactured chaos in Minneapolis is part of the Democratic Party’s dark-money-funded NGO network that has spent years sparking riots and chaos nationwide - remember the nation-killing days of BLM riots. This network was also part of the Los Angeles riots last summer, where Marxist protesters burned Waymo vehicles.

President Trump has finally received the memo.

And so has Scott Bessent at Treasury.

EXCLUSIVE: Treasury ⁦@SecScottBessent⁩ tells me that the Trump Administration will launch investigations into left-wing nonprofits that serve as a front for violent protests and criminal obstruction of ICE operations. It’s time to stop left-wing terrorism in America. pic.twitter.com/roorsk4XLA

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@christopherrufo) January 9, 2026

It is time for the Trump administration, as General Flynn has said, to address the American people about the Democratic Party’s ongoing color revolution operation that uses the protest-industrial complex to spark riots and chaos.

This is manufactured chaos at its best and really shows Democrats do not actually have a pro-America platform or any economic plan for the working class; they only have protests, riots, and chaos, with an end goal of their Marxist militant faction to loot and destroy.

Tyler Durden Sat, 01/17/2026 - 12:15

West Virginia Lawmakers Propose Bitcoin Investments With State Funds

Authored by Micah Zimmerman via Bitcoin Magazine,

West Virginia lawmakers introduced legislation this week that would authorize the state treasurer to invest a portion of public funds in bitcoin, precious metals, and regulated stablecoins, marking a significant step toward integrating digital assets into state-level finance.

West Virginia Senate Bill 143, introduced by Sen. Chris Rose during the 2026 regular legislative session, would create a new section of state law titled the “Inflation Protection Act of 2026.” The measure permits the Board of Treasury Investments to allocate up to 10% of funds it oversees into gold, silver, platinum, and certain digital assets, subject to existing investment rules.

Under the bill, the West Virginia could invest in digital assets that maintained an average market capitalization above $750 billion over the prior calendar year.

That threshold currently limits eligibility to only bitcoin, without naming the asset directly in statute. 

At the end of the digital bill, there is text that says “The purpose of this bill is to empower the Treasurer to invest in gold, silver, and bitcoin.” 

The bill also allows investments in stablecoins that have received regulatory approval at either the federal or state level.

The proposed 10% cap would apply at the time an investment is made. If asset prices rise and push the allocation above that threshold, the board would not be required to sell holdings, though it would be barred from making additional purchases until the allocation falls back below the limit.

The legislation includes detailed custody requirements for digital assets. Holdings would need to be secured either directly by the West Virginia treasurer through a defined secure custody system, by a qualified third-party custodian, or through a registered exchange-traded product. 

The bill outlines standards for key control, geographic redundancy, access controls, audits, and disaster recovery.

In addition to holding digital assets, the bill would allow the treasurer to pursue yield-generating activities. Digital assets could be staked using third-party providers if legal ownership remains with West Virginia. The treasurer could also loan digital assets under rules designed to avoid added financial risk.

Precious metals investments could be held through exchange-traded products, by qualified custodians, or directly by West Virginia in physical form. The bill allows for cooperative custody arrangements with other states, subject to rules established by the treasurer.

West Virginia retirement funds would face tighter limits. Under the proposal, retirement systems could invest only in exchange-traded products registered with federal or state regulators, rather than holding digital assets directly.

The bill grants the treasurer authority to propose implementing rules, which would require legislative approval.

The proposal reflects a growing interest among U.S. states in using bitcoin and hard assets as long-term stores of value for public funds. 

West Virginia and other states exploring bitcoin

Several states have explored or enacted similar measures allowing limited exposure to digital assets, though most have relied on exchange-traded products rather than direct custody.

Most recently, Rhode Island lawmakers reintroduced Senate Bill S2021, which would temporarily exempt small Bitcoin transactions from state income and capital gains taxes, allowing up to $5,000 per month and $20,000 annually to be tax-free.

Introduced January 9 by Senator Peter A. Appollonio, the bill was referred to the Senate Finance Committee and is framed as a pilot program to reduce tax friction for everyday Bitcoin use. 

This marks the second consecutive year Rhode Island legislators have proposed a targeted Bitcoin tax exemption.

West Virginia Senate Bill 143 has been referred to the Senate Committee on Banking and Insurance, with a subsequent referral to the Committee on Finance. 

Tyler Durden Sat, 01/17/2026 - 11:40

Rieder Meets With Trump As Fed Chair Decision Looms, Hassett Now Out Of Contention

Rick Rieder, senior investment executive at BlackRock, met with President Donald Trump yesterday, according to Bloomberg, a development that has intensified speculation around who Trump will choose as his next chair of the Federal Reserve.

The meeting immediately elevated Rieder’s standing in what is now a narrowing field of candidates. Rieder is best known as BlackRock’s chief investment officer for global fixed income, a role that has made him one of the most influential voices in bond markets over the past decade. While he has never served inside the Federal Reserve or in a government policy role, his public views on monetary policy are closely followed by investors and policymakers alike.

Rieder has consistently argued that interest rates remain higher than necessary given how the economy is evolving. He has said the Federal Reserve should be open to cutting rates toward what he views as a more neutral level, often pointing to something closer to 3 percent over time. His thinking reflects concern that keeping policy too restrictive for too long could strain credit markets and slow growth more than intended, particularly as inflation pressures cool unevenly across sectors.

Rather than focusing narrowly on inflation, Rieder tends to emphasize overall financial conditions and market plumbing, a perspective shaped by decades spent navigating bond markets through crises.

He has suggested the Federal Reserve has leaned too heavily on backward-looking inflation metrics and risks overtightening by keeping rates restrictive for too long, even as growth cools and financial conditions do some of the work for policymakers.

Rieder has also raised eyebrows by downplaying fears around large government deficits, arguing that strong demand for U.S. assets and structural forces like aging demographics and high global savings make those deficits more manageable than critics claim. At times, he has gone further, questioning whether inflation slightly above target is necessarily harmful if it helps stabilize debt dynamics and sustain employment, a view that runs counter to the Fed’s traditional emphasis on price stability above all else.

Those views align with Trump’s long-standing criticism of the Fed for maintaining overly tight policy. Trump has made no secret of his desire for a central bank leader who is more willing to lower rates and less inclined to err on the side of restraint. Still, a Rieder nomination would be unconventional, putting a Wall Street asset manager in charge of the institution that sets the benchmark for global interest rates.

At the same time, Trump has begun to publicly rule people out. Last week he signaled that Kevin Hassett will not be his pick, despite months of speculation that the current economic adviser was a leading contender. Trump suggested he wants Hassett to remain in his current role, implying that moving him to the Fed would leave a gap inside the White House. That statement effectively removed one of the most familiar names from consideration.

Source: Polymarket

With Hassett sidelined, the race appears to be tightening around a smaller group. Alongside Rieder, the remaining names most often mentioned include former Fed governor Kevin Warsh and current Fed governor Christopher Waller. Both bring deep experience inside the central bank and would represent a more traditional choice, in contrast to Rieder’s market-driven background.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said the decision is coming soon. He has indicated that Trump plans to announce his Fed pick before, or right after Davos, signaling an effort to provide clarity well ahead of the end of Jerome Powell’s term.

With the field narrowing and Trump actively meeting candidates, Rieder’s appearance at the White House underscores that the president could be weighing both conventional and unconventional paths for the future of U.S. monetary policy.

Tyler Durden Sat, 01/17/2026 - 11:05

Maine Officials Say They're Expecting ICE Operations In Coming Days

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Top officials in Maine said they are expecting the Trump administration to send Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to the state for enforcement operations soon.

Democratic Gov. Janet Mills on Wednesday in a video uploaded on X said operations may be conducted in the state “in the coming days.”

Mills and other local Democratic officials appeared to make references to protests in Minneapolis that arose after an ICE officer fatally shot driver Renee Good after she drove her vehicle toward the agent. The ICE agent was struck by the vehicle and suffered internal bleeding in the incident, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE.

“If they come here, I want any federal agents—and the president of the United States—to know what this state stands for,” Mills said, referring to the operation. “We stand for the rule of law. We oppose violence. We stand for peaceful protest. We stand for compassion, for integrity and justice.”

My statement on speculation that the Federal government may conduct Federal law enforcement operations in Maine in the coming days pic.twitter.com/aNriEQv7aI

— Governor Janet Mills (@GovJanetMills) January 14, 2026

Aside from Mills, Lewiston Mayor Carl Sheline, a Democrat, wrote in a social media post that it was his understanding “that there will be ICE enforcement in ... Lewiston, Maine soon. I urge residents and businesses to know their rights and have a plan of action if ICE stops them in the street, visits their home, or visits their business.”

The mayor of Portland, Maine, also suggested that operations may be coming to his city.

“Portland rejects the need for the deployment of ICE agents into our neighborhoods,” Portland Mayor Mark Dion, also a Democrat, told local media outlet News Center Maine.

Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, Maine in a statement about potential ICE operations that he wants “to encourage everyone to look out a little closer for one another and be mindful of the rights that our Constitution gives to every man, woman, and child in this nation.”

DHS has conducted operations in a number of major U.S. cities since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, targeting illegal immigrants with an emphasis on violent criminal offenders. On Thursday, Trump warned he may invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy troops to quell protests and violence against the federal officers sent to Minneapolis amid an ICE push in the city.

“If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State,” Trump wrote in social media post.

Homeland Security also said in a statement that federal law enforcement officers on Wednesday were attacked in Minneapolis by three illegal immigrants with a shovel and broom handle in a bid to evade arrest.

The claims made by local Maine officials did not include details about the expected ICE operations, and DHS has not commented on their statements.

The Epoch Times contacted DHS for comment Thursday but did not hear back by time of publication.

Tyler Durden Sat, 01/17/2026 - 10:30



 

 

This week, I speak with Richard Thaler and Alex Imas award winning economists and co-authors of “The Winner’s Curse: Behavioral Economics Anomalies“. We discuss the psychology of spending at auctions, and the effects of draft picks on NFL team spending. We also discuss the anomalies of human behavior and decision making that challenge classical economic theories.

Thaler, a Nobel laureate and professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, is widely known as one of the fathers of behavioral economcis. He explains how he popularized BeFi by “corrupting the youth” — the next generation of students who were more open-minded about the many anomalies and problems that the broad principles of Homo economicus failed to explain.

Alex Imas is also a professor at Booth; he wrote the paper ““Selling Fast and Buying Slow: Heuristics and Trading Performance of Institutional Investors.”  A critique of active management that tries to answer the question “why do the majority of active managers underperform?” (See my prior discussion here and a chapter in “How Not to Invest.“)

A transcript of our conversation is available here Tuesday. If you would like to hear even more of these gentlemen, we had a conversation Live at the Economic Club of New York late last year.

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

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business next week with Bob Moser, CEO and founder of Prime Group Holdings, a private investor in unique real estate holdings. They created Prime Storage, one of the largest, privately-held self-storage brands in the world, with over 19 million rentable square feet of space and 255 locations across 28 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The firm has acquired over $10 billion in real estate assets.

 

 

 

Current Published Books

 

 

 

The post MiB: Richard Thaler and Alex Imas on The Winner’s Curse appeared first on The Big Picture.

How The EU Is Messing Up The AI Boom

Authored by Thomas Kolbe via American Thinker,

Economic prosperity is created in free markets by innovative companies. Over 50 percent of globally operating AI unicorns are located in the U.S., while Europe plays virtually no role. The race for the next future technology is already decided.

It seems that economic history is repeating itself. On the stock markets, companies in the artificial intelligence and data center sectors are being traded feverishly. Massive capital flows into this technology. Much of it resembles the dot-com boom 25 years ago.

Structurally and regionally, little has changed since then: The U.S. and China are fighting for pole position, while the European Union’s economy remains largely on the sidelines, pushed into a spectator role by EU regulators.

Unicorns as a Measure of Innovation

An interesting measure of the EU’s lag in artificial intelligence is the number of so-called unicorns -- private startups valued at at least one billion U.S. dollars before going public. This metric is considered a valid indicator of a region’s innovative capacity -- and for the EU, the comparison with the U.S. is catastrophic.

About 1,700 such innovative companies currently operate in the U.S., while the EU has only around 280. The U.S. dominates this market with over 50 percent share, whereas the European economy lags far behind with less than ten percent of the global market.

This economic gap is also reflected in investment volume. Hyperscalers such as Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta invested over $320 billion in AI and corresponding data center infrastructure this year alone. More than 550 new projects -- with a focus in Virginia, Texas, and Arizona—are forming the backbone of a new economy.

Data center capacity in the U.S. grew by around 160 percent this year, while Europe’s capacity increased by only about 75 percent, equaling an investment volume of just under €100 billion.

With investments of around $125 billion, China’s economy also lags far behind the U.S. An interesting context -- especially from the perspective of European, and particularly German, policymakers -- is that nuclear power is gaining noticeable momentum in these regions.

Even if green-minded Germany refuses to acknowledge it due to its ideological stance against nuclear energy, the enormous energy demand of new technologies will in the future be covered to a significant extent by the expansion of nuclear power.

Among the few major projects in the European Union are the Brookfield project in Sweden, with an investment volume of around $10 billion, and the Start Campus in Portugal, which could also activate nearly $10 billion in investments.

Crash of Ideologies

Especially in AI, the ideological clash between the U.S. and the EU can be observed in practice and in all its consequences. While the U.S. relies on deregulation and private solutions, removing barriers for intense competition, EU Europe still adheres to the mantra of political global control. Nothing may happen unless Brussels officials have schemed it at their green table in all their wisdom.

The Draghi motto still applies here: Only massive public investments -- credit-financed and centrally planned -- will, in the view of EU statist planners, help overcome the enormous gap between Europe and the U.S.

In the simulations of the EU Commission’s master plan, now stretched over seven years under Ursula von der Leyen, everything seems surprisingly simple, almost simplified. The EU’s Invest-AI plan intends to borrow around €50 billion in loans and invest them in selected projects in the coming years. This is supposed to trigger private investments of €150 billion, ultimately creating four AI gigafactories.

Welcome to the socialist textbook world of “Habeckonomics”: a system in which state projects like Northvolt repeatedly fail. Yet as long as public guarantees, subsidies, and state-guaranteed purchase prices are in prospect, the small flame of political hope continues flickering in Europe’s lukewarm wind.

As usual, we also observe the typical European jungle of funding programs, subsidies, and steering projects. These include “Horizon Europe,” which is meant to strengthen computing power in science, the RAISE pilot, and the Gen-AI-4-EU initiative, together investing another billion euros in the EU’s digital infrastructure.

The Power of Competition

The ideological clash between the two major economic blocks, the U.S. and the EU, is producing strange effects. While the open capital market in the U.S. lets startups sprout like mushrooms from fertile soil, EU regulation -- especially under the Digital Markets Act -- has fostered a predatory mentality. That this was likely the Eurocrats’ goal from the start comes as no surprise.

Brussels imposed more than €3.2 billion in competition fines this year, mainly targeting U.S. corporations. Brussels has degenerated into a bureaucratic leviathan -- a parasitic glutton absorbing economic energy and generating ossified structures and economic vacuum.

In EU Europe, the motto is: the regulatory framework matters most -- and the state takes its cut. That private industry prefers other locations and withdraws capital matters little to Brussels’ extraction experts.

Against the backdrop of Europe’s massive descent into a climate-socialist dystopia, it is surprising that the roots of libertarian economic thinking originate precisely on this continent. Consider the great economist Ludwig von Mises, who repeatedly pointed out that it is the entrepreneur who drives the engine of the market economy through profit-seeking, and that without exception, decentralized processes create prosperity -- while state interventions regularly derail it.

Civilization-superior models like the free market sink in the waves of ideological EU infantilism. Its repressive climate socialism promotes the growth of corporatist structures in which politics and subsidized parts of the economy carry out the extraction, eliminating competition.

The rigid adherence to centrally planned control of the new tech industry tragically mirrors the timeline of the dot-com era. What Europe fails to understand is that groundbreaking innovation inevitably triggers an investment boom, often resulting in overinvestment and a stock market crash -- but ultimately leaving economically profitable structures permanently woven into the existing economy.

As with companies like Amazon, Google, or Microsoft, Europeans will look back in a few years at these months and examine this intercontinental economic bifurcation through the examples of OpenAI, Gemini, or Perplexity. The energy needed will come from French nuclear reactors and soon also from Polish nuclear power.

Tyler Durden Sat, 01/17/2026 - 08:10

Biden-Appointed Minnesota Judge Limits Federal Immigration Enforcement Actions At Protests

A federal judge in Minnesota on Friday ruled that federal immigration agents can’t detain or use nonlethal munitions and crowd dispersal tools on peaceful protesters who aren’t obstructing authorities, including when these people are observing the agents.

The decision, handed down by U.S. District Judge Kate Menendez - appointed by President Biden in 2021, stems from a lawsuit brought last month by six local activists.

These individuals, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Minnesota, said that Homeland Security (DHS)  personnel were infringing on their First Amendment rights when they observed federal agents performing their duties.

As Joseph Lord reports for The Epoch Times, after the ruling, Tricia McLaughlin, DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, issued a statement saying her agency was taking “appropriate and constitutional measures to uphold the rule of law and protect our officers and the public from dangerous rioters.”

She said people have assaulted officers, vandalized their vehicles and federal property, and attempted to impede officers from doing their work.

“We remind the public that rioting is dangerous—obstructing law enforcement is a federal crime and assaulting law enforcement is a felony,” McLaughlin said.

Protestors and federal agents have clashed during enforcement operations in recent months but intensified after an Immigrations and Custom Enforcement (ICE) agent fatally shot Renee Nicole Good during an encounter on Jan. 7 that was captured on video from several angles.

The incident has met with clashing interpretations, with some defending the ICE agent’s shooting as self defense and others alleging that he used excessive force.

Video shows that in the moments before the shooting, four ICE agents stopped their vehicle in the middle of the street, exited, and approached Good’s vehicle which was blocking their path. The footage also shows Good’s female partner, Becca Good, heckling immigration law enforcement.

As one agent attempted to reach into Good’s car and open her door from the inside, Good turned the wheel to the right, away from Ross, and accelerated her car, allegedly striking the agent, who fired his weapon, according to video and audio. The footage also records Good’s wife, who was outside the vehicle, telling her to “drive, baby, drive.”

Protestors took to the streets of Minneapolis on Jan. 10 following the shooting.

Attorneys for the federal side argued that agents operate under established guidelines to uphold immigration statutes and ensure personal safety.

They said officers have been attacked, harassed, and doxxed nationwide and in Minnesota, and that their responses have been appropriate and justified.

Under the new mandate, agents are barred from detaining drivers or their passengers  unless they are obstructing or interfering with agents. The judge said that trailing vehicles at a safe distance does not inherently warrant a traffic stop.

Safely following agents “at an appropriate distance does not, by itself, create reasonable suspicion to justify a vehicle stop,” the ruling said.

Menendez added that agents must have reasonable suspicion supported by solid evidence of a crime or active disruption to officers duties.

Peaceful assembly and oversight, without direct meddling, fall outside permissible reasons for intervention.

The Epoch Times reached out to DHS and the ACLU but did not hear back before publication.

Tyler Durden Sat, 01/17/2026 - 07:35

Peter Schiff: Printing Money Is Not the Cure for Cononavirus



In his most recent podcast, Peter Schiff talked about coronavirus and the impact that it is having on the markets. Earlier this month, Peter said he thought the virus was just an excuse for stock market woes. At the time he believed the market was poised to fall anyway. But as it turns out, coronavirus has actually helped the US stock market because it has led central banks to pump even more liquidity into the world financial system. All this means more liquidity — central banks easing. In fact, that is exactly what has already happened, except the new easing is taking place, for now, outside the United States, particularly in China.” Although the new money is primarily being created in China, it is flowing into dollars — the dollar index is up — and into US stocks. Last week, US stock markets once again made all-time record highs. In fact, I think but for the coronavirus, the US stock market would still be selling off. But because of the central bank stimulus that has been the result of fears over the coronavirus, that actually benefitted not only the US dollar, but the US stock market.” In the midst of all this, Peter raises a really good question. The primary economic concern is that coronavirus will slow down output and ultimately stunt economic growth. Practically speaking, the world would produce less stuff. If the virus continues to spread, there would be fewer goods and services produced in a market that is hunkered down. Why would the Federal Reserve respond, or why would any central bank respond to that by printing money? How does printing more money solve that problem? It doesn’t. In fact, it actually exacerbates it. But you know, everybody looks at central bankers as if they’ve got the solution to every problem. They don’t. They don’t have the magic wand. They just have a printing press. And all that creates is inflation.” Sometimes the illusion inflation creates can look like a magic wand. Printing money can paper over problems. But none of this is going to fundamentally fix the economy. In fact, if central bankers were really going to do the right thing, the appropriate response would be to drain liquidity from the markets, not supply even more.” Peter explained how the Fed was originally intended to create an “elastic” money supply that would expand or contract along with economic output. Today, the money supply only goes in one direction — that’s up. The economy is strong, print money. The economy is weak, print even more money.” Of course, the asset that’s doing the best right now is gold. The yellow metal pushed above $1,600 yesterday. Gold is up 5.5% on the year in dollar terms and has set record highs in other currencies. Because gold is rising even in an environment where the dollar is strengthening against other fiat currencies, that shows you that there is an underlying weakness in the dollar that is right now not being reflected in the Forex markets, but is being reflected in the gold markets. Because after all, why are people buying gold more aggressively than they’re buying dollars or more aggressively than they’re buying US Treasuries? Because they know that things are not as good for the dollar or the US economy as everybody likes to believe. So, more people are seeking out refuge in a better safe-haven and that is gold.” Peter also talked about the debate between Trump and Obama over who gets credit for the booming economy – which of course, is not booming.

We are living in crazy times. I have a hard time believing that most of the general public is not awake, but in reality, they are. We've never seen anything like this; I mean not even under Obama during the worst part of the Great Recession." Now the Fed is desperately trying to keep interest rates from rising. The problem is that it's a much bigger debt bubble this time around , and the Fed is going to have to blow a lot more air into it to keep it inflated. The difference is this time it's not going to work." It looks like the Fed did another $104.15 billion of Not Q.E. in a single day. The Fed claims it's only temporary. But that is precisely what Bernanke claimed when the Fed started QE1. Milton Freedman once said, "Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program." The same applies to Q.E., or whatever the Fed wants to pretend it's doing. Except this is not QE4, according to Powell. Right. Pumping so much money out, and they are accusing China of currency manipulation ? Wow! Seriously! Amazing! Dump the U.S. dollar while you still have a chance. Welcome to The Atlantis Report. And it is even worse than that, In addition to the $104.15 billion of "Not Q.E." this past Thursday; the FED added another $56.65 billion in liquidity to financial markets the next day on Friday. That's $160.8 billion in two days!!!! in just 48 hours. That is more than 2 TIMES the highest amount the FED has ever injected on a monthly basis under a Q.E. program (which was $80 billion per month) Since this isn't QE....it will be really scary on what they are going to call Q.E. Will it twice, three times, four times, five times what this injection per month ! It is going to be explosive since it takes about 60 to 90 days for prices to react to this, January should see significant inflation as prices soak up the excess liquidity. The question is, where will the inflation occur first . The spike in the repo rate might have a technical explanation: a misjudgment was made in the Fed's money market operations. Even so, two conclusions can be drawn: managing the money markets is becoming harder, and from now on, banks will be studying each other's creditworthiness to a greater degree than before. Those people, who struggle with the minutiae of money markets, and that includes most professionals, should focus on the causes and not the symptoms. Financial markets have recovered from each downturn since 1980 because interest rates have been cut to new lows. Post-2008, they were cut to near zero or below zero in all major economies. In response to a new financial crisis, they cannot go any lower. Central banks will look for new ways to replicate or broaden Q.E. (At some point, governments will simply see repression as an easier option). Then there is the problem of 'risk-free' assets becoming risky assets. Financial markets assume that the probability of major governments such as the U.S. or U.K. defaulting is zero. These governments are entering the next downturn with debt roughly twice the levels proportionate to GDP that was seen in 2008. The belief that the policy worked was completely predicated on the fact that it was temporary and that it was reversible, that the Fed was going to be able to normalize interest rates and shrink its balance sheet back down to pre-crisis levels. Well, when the balance sheet is five-trillion, six-trillion, seven-trillion when we're back at zero, when we're back in a recession, nobody is going to believe it is temporary. Nobody is going to believe that the Fed has this under control, that they can reverse this policy. And the dollar is going to crash. And when the dollar crashes, it's going to take the bond market with it, and we're going to have stagflation. We're going to have a deep recession with rising interest rates, and this whole thing is going to come imploding down. everything is temporary with the fed including remaining off the gold standard temporary in the Fed's eyes could mean at least 50 years This liquidity problem is a signal that trading desks are loaded up on inventory and can't get rid of it. Repo is done out of a need for cash. If you own all of your securities (i.e., a long-only, no leverage mutual fund) you have no need to "repo" your securities - you're earning interest every night so why would you want to 'repo' your securities where you are paying interest for that overnight loan (securities lending is another animal). So, it is those that 'lever-up' and need the cash for settlement purposes on securities they've bought with borrowed money that needs to utilize the repo desk. With this in mind, as we continue to see this need to obtain cash (again, needed to settle other securities purchases), it shows these firms don't have the capital to add more inventory to, what appears to be, a bloated inventory. Now comes the fun part: the Treasury is about to auction 3's, 10's, and 30-year bonds. If I am correct (again, I could be wrong), the Fed realizes securities firms don't have the shelf space to take down a good portion of these auctions. If there isn't enough retail/institutional demand, it will lead to not only a crappy sale but major concerns to the street that there is now no backstop, at all, to any sell-off. At which point, everyone will want to be the first one through the door and sell immediately, but to whom? If there isn't enough liquidity in the repo market to finance their positions, the firms would be unable to increase their inventory. We all saw repo shut down on the 2008 crisis. Wall St runs on money. . OVERNIGHT money. They lever up to inventory securities for trading. If they can't get overnight money, they can't purchase securities. And if they can't unload what they have, it means the buy-side isn't taking on more either. Accounts settle overnight. This includes things like payrolls and bill pay settlements. If a bank doesn't have enough cash to payout what its customers need to pay out, it borrows. At least one and probably more than one banks are insolvent. That's what's going on. First, it can't be one or two banks that are short. They'd simply call around until they found someone to lend. But they did that, and even at markedly elevated rates, still, NO ONE would lend them the money. That tells me that it's not a problem of a couple of borrowers, it's a problem of no lenders. And that means that there's no bank in the world left with any real liquidity. They are ALL maxed out. But as bad as that is, and that alone could be catastrophic, what it really signals is even worse. The lending rates are just the flip side of the coin of the value of the assets lent against. If the rates go up, the value goes down. And with rates spiking to 10%, how far does the value fall? Enormously! And if banks had to actually mark down the value of the assets to reflect 10% interest rates, then my god, every bank in the world is insolvent overnight. Everyone's capital ratios are in the toilet, and they'd have to liquidate. We're talking about the simultaneous insolvency of every bank on the planet. Bank runs. No money in ATMs, Branches closed. Safe deposit boxes confiscated. The whole nine yards, It's actually here. The scenario has tended to guide toward for years and years is actually happening RIGHT NOW! And people are still trying to say it's under control. Every bank in the world is currently insolvent. The only thing keeping it going is printing billions of dollars every day. Financial Armageddon isn't some far off future risk. It's here. Prepare accordingly. This fiat system has reached the end of the line, and it's not correct that fiat currencies fail by design. The problem is corruption and manipulation. It is corruption and cheating that erodes trust and faith until the entire system becomes a gigantic fraud. Banks and governments everywhere ARE the problem and simply have to be removed. They have lost all trust and respect, and all they have left is war and mayhem. As long as we continue to have a majority of braindead asleep imbeciles following orders from these psychopaths, nothing will change. Fiat currency is not just thievery. Fiat currency is SLAVERY. Ultimately the most harmful effect of using debt of undefined value as money (i.e., fiat currencies) is the de facto legalization of a caste system based on voluntary slavery. The bankers have a charter, or the legal *right*, to create money out of nothing. You, you don't. Therefore you and the bankers do not have the same standing before the law. The law of the land says that you will go to jail if you do the same thing (creating money out of thin air) that the banker does in full legality. You and the banker are not equal before the law. ALL the countries of the world; Islamic or secular, Jewish or Arab, democracy or dictatorship; all of them place the bankers ABOVE you. And all of you accept that only whining about fiat money going down in exchange value over time (price inflation which is not the same as monetary inflation). Actually, price inflation itself is mainly due to the greed and stupidity of the bankers who could keep fiat money's exchange value reasonably stable, only if they wanted to. Witness the crash of silver and gold prices which the bankers of the world; Russian, American, Chinese, Jewish, Indian, Arab, all of them collaborated to engineer through the suppression and stagnation of precious metals' prices to levels around the metals' production costs, or what it costs to dig gold and silver out of the ground. The bankers of the world could also collaborate to keep nominal prices steady (as they do in the case of the suppression of precious metals prices). After all, the ability to create fiat money and force its usage is a far more excellent source of power and wealth than that which is afforded simply by stealing it through inflation. The bankers' greed and stupidity blind them to this fact. They want it all, and they want it now. In conclusion, The bankers can create money out of nothing and buy your goods and services with this worthless fiat money, effectively for free. You, you can't. You, you have to lead miserable existences for the most of you and WORK in order to obtain that effectively nonexistent, worthless credit money (whose purchasing/exchange value is not even DEFINED thus rendering all contracts based on the null and void!) that the banker effortlessly creates out of thin air with a few strokes of the computer keyboard, and which he doesn't even bother to print on paper anymore, electing to keep it in its pure quantum uncertain form instead, as electrons whizzing about inside computer chips which will become mute and turn silent refusing to tell you how many fiat dollars or euros there are in which account, in the absence of electricity. No electricity, no fiat, nor crypto money. It would appear that trust is deteriorating as it did when Lehman blew up . Something really big happened that set off this chain reaction in the repo markets. Whatever that something is, we aren't be informed. They're trying to cover it up, paper it over with conjured cash injections, play it cool in front of the cameras while sweating profusely under the 5 thousands dollar suits. I'm guessing that the final high-speed plunge into global economic collapse has begun. All we see here is the ripples and whitewater churning the surface, but beneath the surface, there is an enormous beast thrashing desperately in its death throws. Now is probably the time to start tying up loose ends with the long-running prep projects, just saying. In other words, prepare accordingly, and Get your money out of the banks. I don't care if you don't believe me about Bitcoin. Get your money out of the banks. Don't keep any more money in a bank than you need to pay your bills and can afford to lose.











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The Financial Armageddon Economic Collapse Blog tracks trends and forecasts , futurists , visionaries , free investigative journalists , researchers , Whistelblowers , truthers and many more

The FBI released a summary of its file from the Hillary Clinton email investigation on Friday, showing details of Clinton's explanation of her use of a private email server to handle classified communications. The release comes nearly two months after FBI Director James Comey announced that although Clinton's handling of classified information was "extremely careless," it did not rise to the level of a prosecutable offense. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced the next day that she would not pursue charges in the matter. "We are making these materials available to the public in the interest of transparency and in response to numerous Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests," the FBI noted in a statement sent to reporters with links to the documents. The documents include notes from Clinton's July 2 interview with agents, as well as a "factual summary of the FBI's investigation into this matter," according to the FBI release. Throughout her interview with agents, Clinton repeatedly said she relied on the career professionals she worked with to handle classified information correctly. The agents asked about a series of specific emails, and in each case Clinton said she wasn't worried about the particular material being discussed on a nonclassified channel.