Zero Hedge

UK Government Threatens Total Ban On X Over Grok Bikini Flap

UK Government Threatens Total Ban On X Over Grok Bikini Flap

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

The UK’s Labour government under Prime Minister Keir Starmer has escalated its war on online expression, now openly threatening to ban Elon Musk’s X platform entirely. Using the pretext of Grok AI’s image generation capabilities, Starmer’s regime is pushing for total control over what Brits can see and say online, exposing the thin veil over their authoritarian impulses.

This move comes amid a surge in Grok-generated sexualized images, but the crackdown reeks of selective outrage aimed at silencing dissent rather than protecting anyone.

Starmer issued the threat, declaring “This is disgraceful. It’s disgusting, and it’s not to be tolerated,” adding that “all options are on the table” to address what he called unlawful content on X. He emphasized, “X has got to get a grip of this, and Ofcom (The UK’s regulatory authority for the internet) has our full support to take action in relation to this. This is wrong. It’s unlawful. We’re not going to tolerate it.”

Labour MP Lola McEvoy doubled down, stating platforms like X “have no right to be accessed in this country” if they fail to comply with the UK’s draconian Online Safety Act.

Multiple sources confirm insiders are advancing plans to block the site, with the AI excuse front and centre.

Leaked WhatsApp messages have also revealed Labour MPs urging the government to abandon X altogether, labeling Elon Musk a “fascist” and arguing it should “show direction to others in the UK.”

One MP questioned why they couldn’t follow Trump’s lead with Truth Social, while others claimed their constituents are on Facebook instead.

Journalist Alison Pearson nailed the double standard: Starmer rants about “safety” on X while flooding the country with undocumented fighting-age males daily. What about the real threats to British women and girls from unchecked migration? He doesn’t give a damn about anyone’s safety.

Starmer, now the most unpopular UK Prime Minister in history with just a 15% approval rating, is also the most community-noted public figure on X, constantly called out for lies. He’s the fifth most ratio’d person on the platform—everyone exposes his deceptions. He can’t control X, and there’s no doubt that this is playing into the move.

Broadcaster Alex Phillips tore into him: “You don’t like X because you don’t like free speech. That’s why you want to close it down. You’re a thin-skinned megalomaniacal monster. We see you, Keir Starmer!”

Starmer’s threats have drawn international backlash. US Republicans, including Trump ally Anna Paulina Luna, warn of sanctions against the UK if the ban proceeds, labeling it a direct assault on free speech.

The post continues,

“…restricting the platform, including the dispute with Brazil in 2024–2025, which resulted in tariffs, visa revocations, and sanctions and consequences tied to free speech concerns against Brazilian officials over concerns related to censorship and free-speech violations.

Starmer should reconsider this course of action, or there will be consequences.

There are always technical bugs during the early phases of new technology, especially AI, and those issues are typically addressed quickly. X treats these matters seriously and acts promptly. Let’s be clear: this is not about technical compliance. This is a political war against @elonmusk and free speech—nothing more.”

Trump himself has signaled readiness to hit back, tying into his administration’s visa bans on Europeans pushing tech censorship.

Trump also recently suspended a $40 billion tech deal with the UK over its free speech crackdown, a move that underscores America’s commitment to First Amendment principles, and a clear sign that the President will not stay silent on Britain’s freedom crushing policies.

Trump has long been attuned to Britain’s erosion of rights, dispatching a “free speech squad” from the State Department in May to investigate cases of activists arrested for silent protests and online dissent. 

He’s even offered political asylum to UK “thought criminals,” including those prosecuted for gender-critical views or immigration criticism, positioning America as a haven for those fleeing authoritarian overreach.

The UK’s erosion of free speech has been accelerating, from jailing citizens over tweets, to branding criticising illegal immigration as hate speech, to criminalising ‘wrong’ opinions on sports commentators.

Even the likes of Google, which has previously demonetized, shadow-banned, and outright censored content that doesn’t align with leftist narratives, has expressed concern over the tyrannical potential of the Online Safety act.

Starmer’s focus on Grok also completely ignores that other AIs, like ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, enable the exact same image manipulations—putting people in bikinis or worse. All AI can do this, it’s clearly selective outrage.

The government has also not expressed any concern about the fact that Google’s AI gets basic historical facts wrong and skews everything toward woke/DEI, as well as giving bad health tips, encouraging suicide, and falsely accusing people of being rapists and racists.

Why single out X? Because it’s the one platform where truth slips through the cracks of mainstream control and free speech is fully embraced.

Starmer’s regime can’t hide behind “safety” forever. Banning X won’t erase the truth— it’ll only fuel the resistance. Brits deserve platforms where facts flow freely, not dictated by thin-skinned tyrants.

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, 01/10/2026 - 09:20

Economic Satisfaction Declines With Age

Economic Satisfaction Declines With Age

More than four in ten adults in the United States view their personal financial situation positively.

This is according to a new survey by Statista Consumer Insights, conducted between October 2024 and September 2025.

Economic Satisfaction Declines With Age | Statista

You will find more infographics at Statista

At 43 percent, this marks an increase of four percentage points from one year before.

A perception gap persists between age groups, with younger generations (18 to 29 year olds and 30 to 49 year olds) more likely to be content with their financial situation than those aged 50-64 years old.

Just 33 percent of the older age group said they felt positively, compared to 47 percent of the two younger age brackets.

Tyler Durden Sat, 01/10/2026 - 08:45

Germany's Conversion To Planned Economy, War With Russia As Driver

Germany's Conversion To Planned Economy, War With Russia As Driver

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

The president of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Moritz Schularick, makes no secret in an interview with the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung that the signs are pointing toward a war economy. It is bizarre to witness how economists succumb to the intellectual mediocrity of central planning.

Professor Moritz Schularick, president of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW), seems to have found the ultimate solution to Germany’s economic problems. In conversation with the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung (NOZ), the economist complained about a leadership vacuum in German arms policy. He sees it as central to an active industrial policy that could lead Germany out of its economic woes. Schularick expects that arms production will act as a, in his own words, “job booster.”

He said literally: “If we want Europe to truly stand on its own in defense soon and not remain dependent on the MAGA-USA, then Defense Minister Boris Pistorius must be given the order to work with European partners to eventually replace the USA and its capabilities.”

Fatal War Rhetoric 

“Order to march,” military self-sufficiency — the vocabulary is both revealing and dangerous. It seems politics and state-adjacent economic research are converging on a common path regarding military policy and increasingly centrally planned industrial management. A return to market principles seems like a fairy tale in circles of German economists—no one believes anymore in the curative power of freedom from climate diktats, overregulation, and fiscal burdens.

According to Schularick, politics should implement a top-level arms coordinator to manage investment funds in response to the Russian threat. Perhaps he envisions himself in this role? After all, over €500 billion in defense investments are planned by the end of the decade to reduce security dependence on the U.S.

Production Capacity Shortfalls 

Schularick criticized the extremely slow pace of ramping up arms production. Since the war began four years ago, nothing has been done to significantly increase production capacity.

“How many Taurus missiles are finished per month? Not even a handful,” he laments. A clear industrial policy deficit, he concludes.

Here, the new spirit of German economic “academia” emerges: everything revolves around the much-praised global steering, an active industrial policy now pursued by Brussels and Berlin, dangerously fed by state-aligned research.

What was long predicted with three-quarter conviction now seems to be happening. Central planners, including Schularick, apparently assume they can repurpose idle German industrial capacity for the defense sector. Civil car production, in their view, can easily be converted into tank production. Besides producing goods private households do not demand, this creates yet another subsidy-dependent industry, consuming resources from civilian production and artificially raising civilian costs.

Germany’s “Rediscovered” Work Ethic in War Mode 

Schularick grows euphoric about the promising future of the war economy, astonishingly rediscovering a work ethic long absent in Germany. He notes production is still mostly single-shift, five days a week. Implicitly, we learn, these are the jobs of Germany’s economic future.

No one seems to think about what should be produced in the coming years to avoid empty shelves after just three weeks in a potential conflict. It’s not just about armored vehicles but also future technologies like autonomous systems, satellites, AI, or robotics, Schularick adds. Everywhere, German industry has fallen behind.

Where does this competitive disadvantage come from, the central planner wonders? Perhaps from German policy and the Brussels bureaucratic apparatus acting as internal antagonists?

The interview highlights the widening gap between economic reality and the hermetically sealed ivory tower of politics, state-backed research, and sympathetic media, which promote this massive economic mismanagement while failing to critically assess Russia’s actual military strength, which is not capable of a continental invasion.

We’ve seen this playbook during the COVID era: once set in motion, the state-affiliated media machine drives narratives across newspapers, radio, and social media bot armies, suppressing open discourse. Stories of Russian occupation are defended in apocalyptic tones, wearing the public down.

The Central Planners’ Dreamworld 

How do technocrats like Schularick, Merz, or von der Leyen envision converting production lines to military goods in practice? Beyond financing, there’s the question of knowledge transfer. Do blueprints come from the Internet or Boris Pistorius’ ministry?

The knowledge transfer required to build a centrally planned war economy from civilian industry is immense and time-consuming. Even after decades of bitter experience with green transformation—which only drove capital out of Germany—political learning curves remain negative.

Was this the goal? Ironically: to push industry into a corner with climate policies until it falters, then fill freed capacities with arms production?

Beyond the failed climate subsidy business emerges a new extraction pillar: the European defense sector. Whether this experiment can withstand real-world economic conditions—falling productivity, rising debt—is doubtful. Central planners like Schularick will surely have an explanation: they were blocked by forces opposed to European integration, joint war economy, and Brussels debt accumulation.

The Illusion of Central Planning 

No deep economic expertise is needed to see that militarization is doomed to fail. A brief glance at 20th-century history is enough. Beyond massive resource mismanagement, there are issues of national sovereignty, divergent EU geopolitical interests, and a divided Union—especially an Eastern bloc wary of conflict with Russia.

That even economists like Schularick succumb to the lure of powerful central planning shows they are not immune to personal vanity. Surely, they hope their institutes benefit—perhaps with a ministerial-level position as arms coordinator. Who knows which job descriptions are already circulating in Berlin and Brussels.

It is tragic, yet the motto everywhere seems to be: “After us, the flood.”

* * * 

About the author: Thomas Kolbe is a Germany graduate economist. For over 25 years, he has worked 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 Sat, 01/10/2026 - 08:10

Alaskans Spend The Most (Per Capita) On Alcohol, Utah (Surprise) The Least

Alaskans Spend The Most (Per Capita) On Alcohol, Utah (Surprise) The Least

Alcohol consumption patterns in the U.S. vary sharply depending on where people live.

Cultural norms, climate, income levels, and access to services all shape how much residents spend on alcoholic beverages. This visualization, via Visual Capitalist's Bruno Venditti, maps alcohol spending per adult across all 50 states.

The data comes from SmartAsset.

Alaska Leads by a Wide Margin

Alaska ranks first, with adults spending nearly $1,250 on alcohol in 2024.

The state’s top position is often linked to isolation, harsh weather conditions, and limited access to healthcare and addiction services. Higher prices due to transportation costs also push up total spending.

Rank State Alcohol spending (2024) 1 Alaska $1,249.76 2 Wyoming $1,237.84 3 Colorado $1,202.45 4 Massachusetts $1,185.54 5 Rhode Island $1,155.82 6 New Hampshire $1,119.73 7 Oregon $1,104.87 8 Hawaii $1,095.34 9 Washington $1,070.99 10 Montana $1,051.01 11 Vermont $1,039.04 12 New Jersey $1,037.31 13 Virginia $1,019.08 14 California $1,001.37 15 New Mexico $994.06 16 Maine $985.08 17 Texas $972.04 18 Florida $959.37 19 Minnesota $954.14 20 Nevada $949.91 21 North Carolina $943.46 22 Georgia $943.08 23 Arizona $881.96 24 Connecticut $875.41 25 South Carolina $838.57 26 Missouri $835.55 27 Arkansas $834.54 28 Maryland $825.88 29 North Dakota $822.97 30 Louisiana $805.73 31 Michigan $805.06 32 South Dakota $804.83 33 New York $804.53 34 Iowa $801.79 35 Delaware $800.65 36 Kansas $800.42 37 Nebraska $795.17 38 Wisconsin $793.37 39 Pennsylvania $780.53 40 Illinois $774.28 41 Alabama $754.48 42 Indiana $750.66 43 Kentucky $736.76 44 Idaho $731.29 45 Ohio $704.12 46 Tennessee $693.70 47 Oklahoma $690.82 48 Mississippi $641.12 49 West Virginia $616.81 50 Utah $606.42 -- State Average $897.57

Wyoming and Colorado follow Alaska closely, both exceeding $1,200 per adult.

Regional Alcohol Spending Trends

Many of the highest-spending states cluster in the West and Northeast. Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire rank in the top 10, alongside Oregon and Washington.

At the other end of the spectrum, Utah reports the lowest alcohol spending per adult at just over $600. A large religious population and stricter alcohol regulations help keep consumption and spending well below the national average.

Several Southern and Midwestern states, including West Virginia, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Oklahoma, also fall near the bottom of the rankings. Cultural attitudes, stricter alcohol regulations, and lower average incomes all help explain these patterns.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out Mapping Incarceration Rates Across the U.S. on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

Tyler Durden Sat, 01/10/2026 - 07:35

Russia On Paris Ukraine Summit: Western 'Peacekeeping' Troops Would Be "Legitimate Combat Targets"

Russia On Paris Ukraine Summit: Western 'Peacekeeping' Troops Would Be "Legitimate Combat Targets"

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

The Russian Foreign Ministry on Thursday repeated its long-standing objection to troops from NATO countries deploying to Ukrainian territory as part of a potential future peace deal, as Ukraine and its Western backers continue to push the idea.

"The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs warns that the deployment of military units, military facilities, warehouses, and other infrastructure of Western countries on Ukrainian territory will be classified as foreign intervention, posing a direct threat to the security of not only Russia but also other European countries," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

Zelensky, Macron, and Starmer sign the ‘declaration of intent’ in Paris on January 6. Source: Office of Ukrainian president.

"All such units and facilities will be considered legitimate combat targets of the Russian Armed Forces," Zakharova added. Her statement came after the UK and France signed a "declaration of intent" committing to lead a troop deployment to Ukraine.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the declaration "paves the way for the legal framework, under which British, French and partner forces could operate on Ukrainian soil," though the document is lacking in details on what the force would actually look like.

The declaration was signed after Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a gathering of the so-called "coalition of the willing," referring to the countries willing to send troops to Ukraine. US envoy Steve Witkoff and President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, also attended the meeting.

While the US hasn’t committed to sending troops, it has signaled its willingness to provide air support and other types of assistance for European troops in Ukraine.

Zelensky’s office said in a statement on the coalition of the willing gathering that Ukraine "values the United States’ readiness to support forces tasked with preventing a recurrence of Russian aggression."

Meanwhile some rare EU voices are belatedly urging more muscular diplomacy and not confrontation:

The insistence on a Western troops deployment to Ukraine, the US willingness to provide a "NATO-style" security guarantee for the country, and Zelensky’s refusal to cede any territory to Russia make the chances of a peace deal being reached extremely unlikely.

Tyler Durden Sat, 01/10/2026 - 07:00

How A Techno-Optimist Became A Grave Skeptic

How A Techno-Optimist Became A Grave Skeptic

Authored by Roger Bate via the Brownstone Institute,

Before Covid, I would have described myself as a technological optimist. New technologies almost always arrive amid exaggerated fears. Railways were supposed to cause mental breakdowns, bicycles were thought to make women infertile or insane, and early electricity was blamed for everything from moral decay to physical collapse. Over time, these anxieties faded, societies adapted, and living standards rose. The pattern was familiar enough that artificial intelligence seemed likely to follow it: disruptive, sometimes misused, but ultimately manageable.

The Covid years unsettled that confidence—not because technology failed, but because institutions did.

Across much of the world, governments and expert bodies responded to uncertainty with unprecedented social and biomedical interventions, justified by worst-case models and enforced with remarkable certainty. Competing hypotheses were marginalized rather than debated. Emergency measures hardened into long-term policy. When evidence shifted, admissions of error were rare, and accountability rarer still. The experience exposed a deeper problem than any single policy mistake: modern institutions appear poorly equipped to manage uncertainty without overreach.

That lesson now weighs heavily on debates over artificial intelligence.

The AI Risk Divide

Broadly speaking, concern about advanced AI falls into two camps. One group—associated with thinkers like Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares—argues that sufficiently advanced AI is catastrophically dangerous by default. In their deliberately stark formulation, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies, the problem is not bad intentions but incentives: competition ensures someone will cut corners, and once a system escapes meaningful control, intentions no longer matter.

A second camp, including figures such as Stuart Russell, Nick Bostrom, and Max Tegmark, also takes AI risk seriously but is more optimistic that alignment, careful governance, and gradual deployment can keep systems under human control.

Despite their differences, both camps converge on one conclusion: unconstrained AI development is dangerous, and some form of oversight, coordination, or restraint is necessary. Where they diverge is on feasibility and urgency. What is rarely examined, however, is whether the institutions expected to provide that restraint are themselves fit for the role.

Covid suggests reason for doubt.

Covid was not merely a public-health crisis; it was a live experiment in expert-driven governance under uncertainty. Faced with incomplete data, authorities repeatedly chose maximal interventions justified by speculative harms. Dissent was often treated as a moral failing rather than a scientific necessity. Policies were defended not through transparent cost-benefit analysis but through appeals to authority and fear of hypothetical futures.

This pattern matters because it reveals how modern institutions behave when stakes are framed as existential. Incentives shift toward decisiveness, narrative control, and moral certainty. Error correction becomes reputationally costly. Precaution stops being a tool and becomes a doctrine.

The lesson is not that experts are uniquely flawed. It is that institutions reward overconfidence far more reliably than humility, especially when politics, funding, and public fear align. Once extraordinary powers are claimed in the name of safety, they are rarely surrendered willingly.

These are precisely the dynamics now visible in discussions of AI oversight.

The “What if” Machine

A recurring justification for expansive state intervention is the hypothetical bad actor: What if a terrorist builds this? What if a rogue state does that? From that premise flows the argument that governments must act pre-emptively, at scale, and often in secrecy, to prevent catastrophe.

During Covid, similar logic justified sweeping biomedical research agendas, emergency authorizations, and social controls. The reasoning was circular: because something dangerous might happen, the state must take extraordinary action now—action that itself carried significant, poorly understood risks.

AI governance is increasingly framed in the same way. The danger is not only that AI systems might behave unpredictably, but that fear of that possibility will legitimize permanent emergency governance—centralized control over computation, research, and information flows—on the grounds that there is no alternative.

Private Risk, Public Risk

One underappreciated distinction in these debates is between risks generated by private actors and risks generated by state authority. Private firms are constrained—imperfectly, but meaningfully—by liability, competition, reputation, and market discipline. These constraints do not eliminate harm, but they create feedback loops.

Governments operate differently. When states act in the name of catastrophic prevention, feedback weakens. Failures can be reclassified as necessities. Costs can be externalized. Secrecy can be justified by security. Hypothetical future harms become policy levers in the present.

Several AI thinkers implicitly acknowledge this. Bostrom has warned about “lock-in” effects—not just from AI systems, but from governance structures created during moments of panic. Anthony Aguirre’s call for global restraint, while logically coherent, relies on international coordination bodies whose recent track record on humility and error correction is poor. Even more moderate proposals assume regulators capable of resisting politicization and mission creep.

Covid gives us little reason to be confident in that assumption.

The Oversight Paradox

This leads to a troubling paradox at the heart of the AI debate. If one genuinely believes advanced AI must be constrained, slowed, or halted, it is governments and transnational institutions that are most likely to hold the power to do so. Yet these are precisely the actors whose recent behavior gives the least confidence in restrained, reversible use of that power.

Emergency framing is sticky. Authority acquired to manage hypothetical risks tends to persist and expand. Institutions rarely downgrade their own importance. In the AI context, this raises the possibility that the response to AI risk entrenches brittle, politicized systems of control that are harder to unwind than any individual technology.

The danger, in other words, is not only that AI escapes human control, but that fear of AI accelerates the concentration of authority in institutions already shown to be slow to admit error and hostile to dissent.

Rethinking the Real Risk

This is not an argument for complacency about AI, nor a denial that powerful technologies can do real harm. It is an argument for broadening the frame. Institutional failure is itself an existential variable. A system that assumes benevolent, self-correcting governance is no safer than one that assumes benevolent, aligned superintelligence.

Before Covid, it was reasonable to attribute most technological pessimism to human negativity bias—the tendency to believe that our generation’s challenges are uniquely unmanageable. After Covid, skepticism looks less like bias and more like experience.

The central question in the AI debate is therefore not just whether machines can be aligned with human values, but whether modern institutions can be trusted to manage uncertainty without amplifying it. If that trust has eroded—and Covid suggests it has—then calls for expansive AI oversight deserve at least as much scrutiny as claims of technological inevitability.

The greatest risk may not be that AI becomes too powerful, but that fear of that possibility justifies forms of control we later discover are far harder to live with—or escape.

Roger Bate is a Brownstone Fellow, Senior Fellow at the International Center for Law and Economics (Jan 2023-present), Board member of Africa Fighting Malaria (September 2000-present), and Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs (January 2000-present).

Tyler Durden Fri, 01/09/2026 - 23:00

Visualizing All Of The World's Silver Reserves By Country

Visualizing All Of The World's Silver Reserves By Country

Silver prices surged to new all-time highs in December, extending a powerful end-of-year rally supported by geopolitical uncertainty and a weaker U.S. dollar.

Silver futures briefly touched around $80, marking an unprecedented 160% rally in 2025 that outpaced even gold. Against this backdrop, Visual Capitalists Bruno Venditti notes that understanding where the world’s silver reserves are concentrated provides crucial context for future supply dynamics.

The data for this visualization comes from the U.S. Geological Survey’s Mineral Commodity Summaries (January 2025). It estimates total global silver reserves at about 641,400 metric tons.

Peru’s Dominant Reserve Position

Peru stands out as the single largest holder of silver reserves, with an estimated 140,000 metric tons. This represents roughly 22% of the global total, giving the country a uniquely strategic position in the silver market.

Behind Peru is a cluster of countries with substantial, but smaller, reserve bases. Australia, Russia, and China each hold between 70,000 and 94,000 metric tons, collectively accounting for about 40% of global reserves.

Production Powerhouses vs. Reserve Depth

Mexico offers a striking contrast between production and reserves. It leads the world in silver production, yet holds just 37,000 metric tons of reserves, or about 6% of the global total. Currently, Mexico’s mining sector relies on intensive extraction with fewer projects with established reserves in the pipeline.

Silver in Green Technology

Global silver demand is poised to soar in the next decade, driven by emerging technologies like electric vehicles and solar power.

Silver demand from solar alone has grown from less than 50 million ounces (Moz) a decade ago to an expected 160 Moz in 2023.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out Mapped: Which Countries Hold the Most Gold Reserves? on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

Tyler Durden Fri, 01/09/2026 - 22:30

Congressional Budget Office Projects Lower Than Expected US Population Growth

Congressional Budget Office Projects Lower Than Expected US Population Growth

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said on Jan. 7 that the U.S. population will likely grow by only 15 million people in the next 30 years, a decline from its last estimate.

The office projects 364 million people living in the United States in 2056, up from the current population of around 349 million.

The population growth will be 0.3 percent on average in the next 10 years, but will go down to an average rate of just 0.1 percent between 2037 and 2056, CBO projects.

The population projection is down 2.1 percent from the 372 million CBO estimated in a January 2025 report, and the 383 million it projected in a 2024 estimate.

The drop stems from declining fertility rates and lower numbers of immigrants coming to the country, according to the budget office.

For a generation to replace itself in the absence of immigration, the fertility rate needs to be 2.1 births per woman.

The fertility rate in the United States peaked in 2007 at 2.12 births per woman. It dropped to 1.6 births per woman in 2024, the most recent year for which data on fertility were available when the CBO compiled the new projections.

CBO projects the rate will decrease to 1.58 births per woman in 2026 and to 1.53 births per woman in 2036, and that the rate will not drop further in the following 20 years.

Women born in other countries are more likely to have more children. CBO projects the fertility rate for those women to fall from 1.79 births per woman in 2026 before flattening at 1.66 births per woman in 2036. Native-born women will have 1.5 births per woman in 2032, down from 1.53 births per woman currently, and stay around that rate through 2056, according to the office.

The office acknowledged its projections are “subject to considerable uncertainty” and that changes from the projections would impact the actual population.

President Donald Trump has attempted to increase the birth rate through various actions, including introducing taxpayer-funded savings accounts for newborns and making a deal to lower the cost of fertility drugs.

Immigration

CBO said that without net immigration, or more immigrants coming to the country than those leaving, the population would start shrinking in 2030.

The immigration projections are down from 2025, when CBO estimated net immigration would be 2 million in 2025, 1.5 million in 2026, and an average of 1.1 million per year from 2027 to 2055.

CBO said in 2025, just 410,000 immigrants were added. It also now projects an average of just 330,000 more immigrants entering the United States than leaving each year from 2026 to 2036, although it does forecast an increase to 1.2 million a year in the following two decades.

The reduction is partly because of a drop in illegal immigration under President Donald Trump, demographers said. CBO said the combined net immigration of three types of immigrants—people who illegally entered the country, people who illegally stayed after their legal status expired, and people who were paroled during the Biden administration—plummeted from 2.4 million in 2023 to 1.3 million in 2024 and negative 360,000 in 2025.

CBO said its immigration projections were uncertain, in part because future actions from Congress or a president could impact immigration.

Trump and administration officials have used a variety of methods to stem illegal immigration and strengthen vetting procedures, including a visa ban on applications for immigrants from some countries and deploying Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in U.S. cities to track down immigrants who are in the country illegally.

Trump’s tax and spending legislative package, passed by Congress and signed in July, included roughly $150 billion to ramp up immigration enforcement and deportation agenda over the next four years.

Even if the limits on immigration and increased deportations end with the Trump administration in three years, “it’s still a demographic shock,” said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, of the new forecast.

Tyler Durden Fri, 01/09/2026 - 22:00

Even Google's Founders Have Had Enough Of California, And Are Saying Adios

Even Google's Founders Have Had Enough Of California, And Are Saying Adios

Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin quietly began unwinding portions of their financial empires in California in the days leading up to Christmas, according to corporate filings reviewed by The New York Times, as progressive lawmakers consider a proposed billionaire wealth tax. This development confirms our earlier note that California is on an accelerated path toward self-destruction.

Here are the new details from NYT's report that further confirm our previous reporting:

In the 10 days before Christmas, an entity connected to Mr. Brin, 52, terminated or moved 15 California limited liability companies that oversee some of his business interests and investments out of the state, according to documents seen by The New York Times. Seven of the companies — including those that appear to manage one of Mr. Brin’s superyachts and his interest in a private air terminal at San Jose’s international airport — were converted into Nevada entities.

Mr. Brin is joining Mr. Page, 52, in reducing his California presence. More than 45 California limited liability companies associated with Mr. Page filed documents last month to either become inactive or move out of the state, according to state records. A trust with ties to Mr. Page also purchased a $71.9 million mansion in Miami’s Coconut Grove neighborhood this week, according to a deed seen by The Times.

Another entity jointly managed by Mr. Brin and Mr. Page moved out of California and to Nevada on Christmas Eve, according to a filing seen by The Times.

The shrinking financial footprints of both Google founders in the state (plagued with an continued exodus) coincide with a proposed California ballot initiative backed by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (S.E.I.U.-U.H.W), which would impose a one-time 5% tax on the assets of residents worth more than $1 billion, applied retroactively to those living in the stateJose's Jan. 1.

Bill Ackman said it best on X, "California is on a path to self-destruction. Hollywood is already toast, and now the most productive entrepreneurs will leave, taking their tax revenues and job creation elsewhere."

Even Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn and a Democratic mega-donor who funds questionable left-wing causes, called out S.E.I.U.-U.H.W's proposed billionaire tax. He wrote on X that this is a "horrendous idea" that might force tech founders and executives to flee the state.

"The proposed CA wealth tax is badly designed in so many ways that a simple social post cannot cover all of the massive flaws. One well-documented example is the horrendous idea to tax illiquid stock in the proposal. Poorly designed taxes incentivize avoidance, capital flight, and distortions that ultimately raise less revenue," Hoffman wrote on X earlier this week.

Elon Musk was among the earliest high-profile billionaires to leave California, citing high taxes and radical left-wing state leadership.

Tyler Durden Fri, 01/09/2026 - 21:30

Meritocracy Vs. Credentialocracy

Meritocracy Vs. Credentialocracy

Authored by Steven Kritz via the Brownstone Institute,

It is generally acknowledged that the Baby Boom generation (of which I am a member) has been the most successful, socioeconomically speaking, in the history of this planet, and the prospects for the generations following to match or surpass us are not looking good. As a confirmation of the disparity, I recently read that while Baby Boomers make up approximately 20% of the current US population, they possess more than 50% of the wealth.    

In speaking with others of my generation, I have come to realize that very few Baby Boomers have even a modicum of insight as to how that success happened. The typical pabulum that I get from my peers is that they got their education and worked hard, implying that it should be no different for the younger generations. 

To be fair, I can see several historical and sociological factors that would lead Boomers to think this way. First of all, many of our parents pounded into our heads from an early age that going to college was the key to success. Some things just don’t change from generation to generation! In fact, when Boomers entered the work force en masse during the 1970s, we were the largest new worker cohort in the history of the country, and approximately 30% of us had a college degree, up from, at most, 10% for previous generations. 

However, despite our educational advantages, the 1970s was a disastrous time economically for everyone, but especially for those entering the workforce, and those permanently leaving the workforce, due to retirement or disability. We were plagued by two recessions, two huge oil shocks, and stagflation. Engineering as a career was absolutely dead. Add the extremely challenging geopolitical environment both at home and abroad, and we experienced an era when it was virtually impossible to get ahead solely through one’s education and hard work. 

I was able to sidestep much of this, at least socioeconomically speaking, even though my dad had suddenly and unexpectedly died at the age of 42 in mid-December 1969. That’s because I spent the first three years of the 1970s finishing college, the next four years in medical school, and the final three years of the decade as an Internal Medicine resident. In those days, the cost of living, including college and medical school could be handled without too much difficulty, and the pay as a medical resident was sufficient for me to have a very nice apartment in Brooklyn, while also being able to save some money. As such, I didn’t enter the “real” workforce until the middle of 1980. 

The timing for me was near perfect! Beginning in the middle of 1982, the greatest economic boom in history launched, and due to significant gains in the areas of racial equality and women’s rights, all groups participated. In fact, every quintile of household income set a record in all but two or three years of this boom, peaking in 1999. 

Given that the 1980s and 1990s were in the wheelhouse of every Baby Boomer’s working career, I could see where the attitude would be that getting an education and working hard would lead to success. Extrapolating this thinking to the younger generations, it would make sense for Boomers to believe that the younger generations, having an even higher percentage with a college degree, just need to keep working hard and they will also achieve the same level of success. However, there are several major flaws in this thought process. 

Some of it stems from the fact that the Boomers were the first “me” generation. It resulted in an inability to see the world from other than a personal bubble that was easily filled with nonsense. One of the things that has been completely missed by the Boomers is that Gen X, which is currently in its peak earnings years, has not, and never will catch up to the Boomers in terms of wealth accumulation. 

Carrying this train of thought further, one might ask the following questions: (1) Are Boomers smarter than the generations that followed? I’d say no, except for people born between 2005 and 2020, who were permanently damaged by the Covid response. The extent of the damage won’t be known for another decade or two, since that cohort has not entered the workforce as yet. (2) Did the Boomers work harder than the generations that followed? 

While every generation believes that the younger generations are overrun by lazy bastards, it’s not true. The reason for this misconception is that the tools available to each successive generation to help them work more effectively (and generate more wealth) evolve from generation to generation. 

In order to explain the success of the Boomers, one has to look at the economic environment within which each generation lived during its working lives. The wealth creation of the 1980s and 1990s was not because Boomers were so great; it was because we operated in an economic environment that was conducive to success at a level that had never been seen before. That economic environment can be described in one word: Reaganomics. 

Very recently, the word meritocracy has come back in vogue. What I can state with near certainty is that the era when meritocracy reached its zenith in this country was during the 1980s and 1990s, and it was largely due to an economic environment that promoted it. Since the end of the 20th century, those favorable conditions haven’t existed, other than during the years 2018 and 2019.

From the foregoing, it should be clear that most Boomers put the cart before the horse when it comes to explaining our generation’s success…and our children are paying a heavy price for this lack of insight. What has been particularly difficult for Millennials is that their childhood occurred during the greatest economic boom ever, only to enter the workforce beginning in 2000, when everything changed, and not for the better. 

Having not been taught the real reason why the Boomers succeeded, the younger generations do not understand (and actively resist) the efforts by the Trump administration to reestablish the economic environment of the 1980s and 1990s. The only taste of it occurred in 2018 and 2019, when household incomes in every quintile finally broke through the records previously set in 1999, but it was overshadowed by the Covid disaster, which distorted everything. 

As mentioned earlier, the term meritocracy has been resurrected, but what is really being put forward is credentialocracy. They are not the same. If they were, the younger generations would be doing just fine, socioeconomically speaking. We live in a country where having more initials after one’s name imputes greater intelligence, superior level of achievement, and higher ethical standing. More than anything, the disaster known as the Covid response taught us otherwise, in that the best and the brightest made everything much worse than it would have been had we done absolutely nothing. Unfortunately, this lesson has not penetrated most peoples’ personal bubble; at least not yet.

To make matters worse, our so-called educational system has cheapened the value of a credential, while charging higher and higher tuition to obtain it. In fact, our educational system rewards teachers, not for how well the students they teach perform, but by how many post-graduate credits and degrees the teacher obtains. 

To me, this credentialing madness reached the height of perversity and insanity when it became clear that the CDC’s recommendations for protecting children’s health with regard to school closings, social distancing, masking, and “vaccine” mandates were dictated to the head of the CDC, Rochelle Walensky (who has MD and MPH credentials) by Randi Weingarten, head of the largest teachers’ union (who has a JD credential). This is backwards, and tremendous damage has been done. Want more? Despite the fact that uptake of the Covid shots has dropped to around 5%, it is my observation that among the highly educated, uptake is several times higher. Are the best and the brightest in the process of self-immolation? 

Clearly, we need to decouple meritocracy from credentialocracy, and we must return to a state in which meritocracy can flourish. This will require unlearning the progressive garbage that’s replaced critical thinking over the past 55+ years, and an economic environment that fosters individual initiative. Otherwise, we’re done, and you might as well stick a fork in us now.

Steven Kritz, MD is a retired physician, who has been in the healthcare field for 50 years. He graduated from SUNY Downstate Medical School and completed IM Residency at Kings County Hospital. This was followed by almost 40 years of healthcare experience, including 19 years of direct patient care in a rural setting as a Board Certified Internist; 17 years of clinical research at a private-not-for-profit healthcare agency; and over 35 years of involvement in public health, and health systems infrastructure and administration activities. He retired 5 years ago, and became a member of the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at the agency where he had done clinical research, where he has been IRB Chair for the past 3 years.

Tyler Durden Fri, 01/09/2026 - 21:00

Venezuela's Methane Problem Looms Over Trump's Oil Revival Plan

Venezuela's Methane Problem Looms Over Trump's Oil Revival Plan

President Trump’s push to revive Venezuela’s oil sector is colliding with a major technical obstacle: vast methane leaks from crumbling infrastructure that could scare off large international investors, according to Bloomberg.

Satellite monitoring shows huge plumes of methane rising from abandoned rigs, corroded pipelines and aging facilities across the country. Those emissions signal both lost revenue and deep operational problems — conditions that tend to deter major oil companies. As Clayton Nash of Tegre Corp. put it, “That’s one way that you’re going to know that you’ve got facilities that are not operated well.”

Each year Venezuela wastes about 13 billion cubic meters of natural gas through flaring, venting and leaks, roughly $1.4 billion in potential revenue. About a quarter of its total gas output escapes into the atmosphere — the highest rate globally and nearly ten times the world average. The scale of those leaks reflects decades of neglect, theft and underinvestment, leaving what remains of the system fragile and costly to repair.

Bloomberg writes that those realities complicate Trump’s effort to draw fresh capital. The White House is bringing U.S. oil executives to Washington on Friday to advance that plan, with the core message expected to be: “Do it for our country.” Yet analysts warn that political instability and Venezuela’s history of seizing foreign assets may keep major companies on the sidelines.

“We anticipate that large, publicly traded US and European majors will remain hesitant given their checkered history in the region,” said Quentin Peyle of Kayrros SA. “Instead, investment will likely come from smaller operators with a higher risk appetite.”

That shift carries its own risks. Smaller firms often lack the capital and incentives needed to modernize operations and control emissions at scale. Even if leaks are reduced, Deborah Gordon of RMI cautioned that “Venezuela’s fields will not only need an overhaul but also require careful operational management and oversight long into the future,” adding that the country’s extra-heavy crude would remain a major source of CO₂.

Restoring production near Venezuela’s former peak of almost 4 million barrels per day could require about $100 billion over the next decade. And the true condition of the infrastructure may remain hidden until output increases. As Nash warned, “You’re not going to find out how bad things are until you ramp up production.”

Tyler Durden Fri, 01/09/2026 - 20:30

Three Takeaways From Trump's Seizure Of A Russian-Flagged Tanker In The Atlantic

Three Takeaways From Trump's Seizure Of A Russian-Flagged Tanker In The Atlantic

Authored by Andrew Korybko,

The overarching trend is that the US is militarily reasserting its historical “sphere of influence” over the Americas, and enforcing the maritime component of “Fortress America” is so important for Trump 2.0 that it’s willing to rubbish the “rules-based order” over it and even risk an accidental war with Russia.

The Russian-flagged Marinera tanker was just seized by the US in the Atlantic. It was earlier named the Bella 1 and is under US sanctions due to connections to Hezbollah. It sailed under the Guyanese flag from Iran to Venezuela and attempted to break the US’ blockade. It failed, turned around, changed its name to the Marinera, and received a temporary permit to sail under the Russian flag before being seized. Russian then demanded that its citizens on board be treated humanely and returned home.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth posted that “The blockade of sanctioned and illicit Venezuelan oil remains in FULL EFFECT — anywhere in the world.” This preceded Attorney General Pam Bondi threatening that criminal charges might be pursued against the crew. Her tweet and Hegseth’s other one about how the US will only permit “legitimate and lawful” energy commerce with Venezuela shows that it’s once again assuming so-called “police” functions. Here are three takeaways from this incident:

1. The US Is Surprisingly Nonchalant About An Accidental War With Russia

It was brazen even by the US’ standards to seize a Russian-flagged tanker, especially after Western media reported that Russia had dispatched ships and a submarine to escort it, which Russia didn’t confirm and none were nearby during the seizure. Nevertheless, Trump 2.0 calculated that there’d be no retaliation despite the deputy chairman of Russia’s parliamentary defense committee warning that “any attack on our carriers can be regarded as an attack on our territory, even if the ship is under a foreign flag.”

This incident interestingly occurred in parallel with the US backing European ceasefire guarantees for Ukraine that include British and French commitments to deploy troops there during that time even though Russia has repeatedly warned that they’d be legitimate targets. Quite clearly, the US is now surprisingly nonchalant about an accidental war with Russia, whether over seizing one of its flagged ships at sea or over NATO allies getting killed in Ukraine. This observation won’t be lost on Russia.

2. “Fortress America” Also Includes An Important Maritime Component

The goal of restoring the US’ unipolar hegemony over the Americas, which is described as the highest regional priority in its new National Security Strategy, can be referred to as building “Fortress America”. This isn’t being pursued just for reasons of prestige but also pragmatism in the sense of enabling the US to survive and even thrive if it’s ever expelled from the Eastern Hemisphere or decides to retreat from there since control over the hemisphere’s resources and markets would all but ensure this outcome.

As can be seen by this incident as well as Hegseth’s and Bondi’s posts about it, there’s also an important maritime component related to controlling the export of oil from Venezuela, which has the world’s largest reserves. This can only be achieved by maintaining the unilateral blockade and seizing all ships that violate it, both on law enforcement pretexts that embody the concept of extraterritoriality. Without this maritime component, “Fortress America” could never truly be built, but it’s not without some costs.

3. The US Is Dismantling The “Rules-Based Order” That It Built Over The Decades

The abovementioned point segues into the last one about how the US’ militarily enforced extraterritoriality vis-à-vis Venezuela dismantles the “rules-based order” that it built over the decades for maintaining its unipolar hegemony over the world after the end of the Old Cold War. This violates the international laws that the US used to selectively police across the world according to its arbitrary standards. Instead of international ones, the US is now policing its own, but also in pursuit of hegemony.

International law has increasingly become illusory due to the UN’s innate dysfunction, which is related to the deadlock among the UNSC’s five permanent members, with one usually vetoing significant proposals from the others. Even so, if the Great Powers abided by it in their ties with one another, then there’d be more predictability and less risk of war by miscalculation. The US is no longer interested in even that as proven by this incident, however, since building “Fortress America” now takes precedence over all else.

The trend connecting the three aforementioned takeaways is that the US is militantly reasserting its historical “sphere of influence” over the Americas, and this is so important for Trump 2.0 that it’s willing to rubbish the “rules-based order” over it and even risk an accidental war with Russia. The maritime component off of Venezuela’s Caribbean coast that’s been built before all else is justified by the administration as a law enforcement operation that prioritizes domestic laws over international ones.

Since this is taking place on the other side of the world where neither half of the Sino-Russo Entente has any military bases, they can’t challenge this even through indirect means, unlike how the US challenged Russia’s reassertion of its own historical “sphere of influence” in Ukraine through the ongoing proxy war. This doesn’t mean that the US’ grand strategic goal of restoring its unipolar hegemony over the Americas will succeed, just that if it doesn’t, then it’ll be due to intra-hemispheric reasons and not external forces.

Tyler Durden Fri, 01/09/2026 - 20:00

Watch: Conservative Honduran Lawmaker Narrowly Survives Bomb Hurled At Her In National Congress

Watch: Conservative Honduran Lawmaker Narrowly Survives Bomb Hurled At Her In National Congress

A shocking scene played out in a Latin American country Thursday, but this time it's not Venezuela, but nearby Honduras.

A Honduran legislator from the country's conservative National Party of president-elect Nasry Asfura was speaking to the press within the halls of the Honduran national congress, or just outside, when suddenly an explosive device was thrown, detonating just behind her head. The disturbing incident, which she survived, was filmed given the many cameras around at the time of the attack.

Opposition legislator Gladis Aurora Lopez was injured by an explosive device hurled at her in the Congress building.

Deputies had been summoned to meet, and the attack victim - Gladis Aurora López - collapsed to the floor during the explosion, her jacket left torn apart.

Witnesses immediately rushed her to begin giving her medical attention, and authorities in a later update announced that her injuries were thankfully not life-threatening.

Lawmakers had gathered to debate a proposal from LIBRE calling for an election recount, despite electoral officials having already declared a winner in December.

Quickly after, accusations and threats are flying, threatening to unleash severe infighting or instability among rival political factions.

Tomás Zambrano, head of the National Party’s congressional delegation, charged the outgoing governing leftist Liberty and Refoundation Party, known as LIBRE, with being behind the incident.

Zambrano denounced the incident as nothing less than attack on the National Party, and it comes at a sensitive moment, where a fiercely contested presidential election at the end of November led to a vote count that dragged on for weeks and ended in a disputed result.

The National Party’s candidate, Nasry Asfura, was eventually proclaimed the victor nearly a month later.

"Today I speak not as a representative, but as a Honduran," a fellow conservative deputy, Antonio Cesar Rivera, later stated on social media. "I condemn with absolute firmness the cowardly attack against Gladis Aurora Lopez and I stand in solidarity with her."

He linked the political violence to attacks on the Right, accusing LIBRE groups of attacking him, too. "Those who promote hatred and intimidation are attacking democracy," he wrote.

It's as yet unclear what an ongoing police investigation has uncovered, or just who the culprit was. But clearly the country's congressional building needs to quickly beef up its security protocol. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 01/09/2026 - 19:30

Prosecutor Calls Newsom 'King Of Fraud' For Oversight Failures

Prosecutor Calls Newsom 'King Of Fraud' For Oversight Failures

Authored by Dave Mason via The Center Square,

U.S. First Assistant Attorney Bill Essayli Thursday called California Gov. Gavin Newsom “the king of fraud,” accusing him of a lack of oversight on spending to address homelessness.

FILE - California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during a press conference in Los Angeles, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Eric Thayer, File)

Essayli made the comments on the “Fox and Friends” telecast, during which he discussed the federal fraud charges that were filed in October against real estate executives Steven Taylor and Cody Holmes for allegedly misusing grant money meant for homeless housing.

Holmes, 31, of Beverly Hills was charged with mail fraud charge that was allegedly linked to millions of dollars in grant money that the state paid Shangri-La Industries to purchase, build and operate homeless housing in Thousand Oaks, just north of Los Angeles. Holmes was Shangri-La’s chief financial officer.

Taylor, 44, of Brentwood, was charged with seven counts of bank fraud, one count of aggravated identity theft and one count of money laundering.

Essayli Thursday said the charges are the “tip of the iceberg” in an investigation he launched with a task force in April. He said more charges would be coming, probably later this month.

The state spent $24 billion in the last five years to address homelessness and can’t account for where the money went, Essayli said on “Fox and Friends.”

President Donald Trump on Tuesday on X said,  “California, under Governor Gavin Newscum, is more corrupt than Minnesota, if that’s possible??? The Fraud investigation of California has begun.”

Newsom’s press office fired back on X. It called Trump a liar and noted Newsom has “BLOCKED $125 billion in fraud, arrested criminal parasites leaching off of taxpayers, and protected taxpayers from the exact kind of scam artists Trump celebrates, excuses, and pardons.”

The Center Square reached out Thursday afternoon to the governor’s office, but did not get a response.

When The Center Square asked the White House Thursday about Newsom, the press office pointed to Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s comments during a press briefing on Wednesday. Leavitt told reporters that Trump has directed all agencies to look at federal spending programs “in not just Minnesota, but also in the state of California, to identify fraud and to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law, all those who have committed it.”

The Center Square also reached out to the U.S. Department of Justice, but spokesperson Ciaran McEvoy said the DOJ had no additional comment.

But two Republican legislators in Sacramento Thursday shared their views about Newsom with The Center Square.

“When you talk about the amounts of billions of dollars the governor’s spent in homelessness, he could almost buy a home for every homeless person,” state Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Huntington Beach, told The Center Square at the Capitol after Newsom’s final State of the State address.

“There’s no question there is waste in there, and certainly, we need to look to see if there’s fraud and abuse,” Strickland said. “So I welcome the investigation, because we need to maximize every dollar that comes into the state coffers.”

Strickland stressed he wants to learn the truth.

“Those who abused the power and those who wasted dollars and abused tax dollars should be prosecuted,” he said. “Then we should root out waste, because every dollar that is wasted is a dollar that we take from a hard-working citizen who is just trying to make it.

“In California right now, we have an affordability crisis and these are precious dollars, and by Gov. Newsom’s own admission, revenues are up, so California doesn’t have a revenue problem,” Strickland said. “It has a wasteful spending problem.”

Izzy Swindler, a spokesperson for Assemblymember Tom Lackey, said the Palmdale Republican has always supported oversight on spending.

“It is his belief that we should be accountable to our dollars and be able to track the results that come from the taxpayer funded programs,” Swindler said, answering The Center Square’s questions by email. “Accountability should always be at the forefront of discussions. Especially when we are referring to homelessness programs that have been allocated billions of dollars over the past few years.”

Tyler Durden Fri, 01/09/2026 - 19:00

Residential Electricity Prices Are Surging Even More

Residential Electricity Prices Are Surging Even More

We have been warning about this for months...

... and months....

... and now that even the deep state spies at the WaPo finally catching on...

... the future has finally caught up to the present,

As Bloomberg warns, rising retail electricity prices have become a political issue in several US states, especially in PJM, the Mid-Atlantic regional grid, which as we discussed recently, is woefully under-energized.

As Bloomberg says, paraphrasing us 5 months ago, "Power prices emerged as a a major campaign theme in off-year elections in New Jersey and Virginia in 2025, and will play a big role in 2026's upcoming national midterms and state elections."

This is just the start: as we discussed over a month ago, data center power demand could reach 106 GW in 2035, For context, the US had about 25 GW of operating data centers in 2024 (according to Bloom Energy). Which means that unless all these data centers somehow find behind the meter sources of collocated power, electric bills will, pardon the pun, go nuclear. 

A July report from the Department of Energy estimated an additional 100 GW of new peak capacity is needed by 2030, of which 50 GW is attributable to data centers. Those facilities could account for as much as 12% of peak demand by 2028, according to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Bloomberg's conclusion: "Affordability politics have mixed implications for climate (renewables are cheap, but some programs expensive), and for data centers, which take the blame for rising prices."

Our question: how long before Trump imposes price caps/controls on utilities ahead of the midterms (similar to those at PJM, which were the only thing that prevented a 60% spike in prices) to keep electric bills low, and sends IPP stocks freefalling.

Tyler Durden Fri, 01/09/2026 - 18:30

"The Giant Sucking Sound": Exodus From California Continues For Taxpayers & Businesses

"The Giant Sucking Sound": Exodus From California Continues For Taxpayers & Businesses

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

During the 1992 Presidential Debate, independent candidate Ross Perot famously warned that “there will be a giant sucking sound going south” due to the cheaper Mexican labor and lower regulatory demands on businesses. That sound is being heard again, but this time it is coming from California, which is virtually chasing taxpayers and companies out of the state with a massive state deficit, rising taxes, crippling regulations, and wasteful programs.

Recently, Gavin Newsom boasted, “California isn’t just keeping pace with the world — we’re setting the pace.”

Recent data shows he is right.

There is a record number of U-Hauls fleeing the state — more than any other state. Indeed, the only thing harder to find than a wealthy taxpayer in California appears to be a U-Haul.

According to U-Haul’s data, the state is again leading blue states in the exodus. The Washington Post noted this week that “California came in last. Massachusetts, New York, Illinois and New Jersey rounded out the bottom five. Of the bottom 10, seven voted blue in the last election.” Conversely, “nine of the top 10 growth states voted red in the last presidential election,” with Texas again leading the growth states.

The Post wrote that the conclusions are inescapable: “People want to live in pro-growth, low-tax states, while the biggest losers tend to be places with big governments and high taxes.”

What is most striking is how Democratic politicians and many voters are simply defying the data and logic. Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, who represents part of Silicon Valley, recently mocked billionaires moving to escape a planned wealth tax. Some of us have criticized the tax as perfectly moronic for a state with the highest tax burden, soaring deficit, and shrinking tax base.

The “2026 Billionaires Tax Act” would impose a one-time 5% tax on individual wealth exceeding $1 billion. While technically using 2026 wealth figures, it would apply to billionaires who resided in California in 2025. So you cannot hope to flee… at least with your wealth intact. It is a penalty for those who stay too long hoping that rational minds would prevail in California.

Yet, Rep. Khanna mocked his own constituents planning to flee the state, quoting FDR in saying ‘I will miss them very much.”

Indeed, you will. 

Democrats continue to act as if wealthy citizens are a type of captive audience. They are expected to be voluntary prey in a canned hunt for wealthy taxpayers. Many have chosen to take their money and businesses elsewhere.

As I discuss in my forthcoming book, Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution, there is a common myth that the top five percent of this country do not “pay their fair share.” However, putting that debate aside, the question is whether it will produce more revenue than it costs the state in the long run. As these politicians campaign on clipping the “fat cats” who are not paying their fair share, many are likely to follow the exodus to lower tax states with greater fiscal discipline.

From New York to California, Democrats are pitching new programs from free buses to state-run stores to reparations as their tax bases contract. San Francisco recently approved the reparations plan that could give up to $5 million to qualified residents. The city faces a billion-dollar deficit, yet it continues to assume greater debt obligations.

Once again, denying basic economics will only lead to a rude awakening when these leaders, to quote Margaret Thatcher, “run out of other people’s money.”

Tyler Durden Fri, 01/09/2026 - 18:05

Trump Says US Will Begin Strikes On Cartels In Mexico

Trump Says US Will Begin Strikes On Cartels In Mexico

Authored by Joseph Lord and Kimberley Hayek via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump announced in an interview aired Jan. 8 that the United States would begin launching strikes on cartels in Mexico.

“We knocked out 97 percent of the drugs coming in by water, and we are going to start now hitting land with regard with the cartels,” Trump told Sean Hannity from Fox News.

“The cartels are running Mexico. It’s very sad to watch and see what’s happened to that country.

“They’re killing 250,000, 300,000 in our country every single year.”

The announcement comes just five days after Trump ordered an operation to capture and remove Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro to the United States to face criminal charges, including narco-terrorism.

Trump gave a warning to several Latin American countries following the U.S. strike on Venezuela and Maduro’s capture.

The president also warned Mexico on Sunday that it needs to “get its act together,” referring to drug cartels operating in the country.

“You have to do something with Mexico,” Trump told reporters during his trip back to Washington from Florida. “We’re going to have to do something. We’d love Mexico to do it; they’re capable of doing it, but unfortunately, the cartels are very strong in Mexico.”

Trump said that he had spoken to Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on a number of occasions, saying that the United States has offered to send troops into her country. However, he described her as “afraid” and that the “cartels are running Mexico,” not her

Mexico has repeatedly opposed U.S. proposals to fight drug cartels in the country.

“We categorically reject intervention in the internal affairs of other countries,” Sheinbaum said during her daily morning press conference on Monday. “The history of Latin America is clear and compelling: Intervention has never brought democracy, never generated well-being, nor lasting stability.”

Trump’s administration has intensified anti-cartel measures, including designating Mexican syndicates as terrorist organizations, a step he announced years ago. Officials say sea-based trafficking has been nearly halted, prompting a pivot to land operations.

Trump has previously said no formal war declaration is necessary.

“I think we’re just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country,” Trump said on Oct. 23, 2025.

U.S. officials have linked cartels to tens of thousands of American overdose deaths annually. Trump has criticized Sheinbaum for declining U.S. offers to dismantle the cartels.

Trump did not give a timeline for land strikes against cartels.

Tyler Durden Fri, 01/09/2026 - 17:15

Rio Tinto And Glencore In Talks To Form World's Largest Mining Company With $200 Billion Valuation

Rio Tinto And Glencore In Talks To Form World's Largest Mining Company With $200 Billion Valuation

Are we on the cusp of an M&A boom in metals and commodities, with prices continuing to soar? Or are deals just easier to get through under a new administration?

Regardless, Rio Tinto and Glencore have reopened merger talks that could create the world’s largest mining company, with a combined valuation exceeding $200 billion — more than a year after earlier negotiations collapsed, according to Yahoo.

The companies confirmed Thursday that they are discussing various deal structures, including an all-share takeover covering part or all of Glencore’s business. The market reacted swiftly: Glencore shares jumped about 10% in London, while Rio slipped more than 2%.

If completed, the transaction would eclipse any previous mining merger and create a giant capable of rivaling BHP. Copper is the central prize. With prices recently surging above $13,000 a ton amid supply disruptions and tariff fears, mining executives increasingly see copper as the industry’s most strategic asset. “It makes a lot of sense,” said Ben Cleary of Tribeca Investment Partners. “It’s the one big deliverable mining deal out there.”

Yahoo writes that for Rio, absorbing Glencore would sharply expand copper output and provide access to prized assets such as Chile’s Collahuasi mine. The move would also help reduce dependence on iron ore as China’s construction boom fades.

Although analysts have questioned whether Rio would accept Glencore’s large coal business, people familiar with the talks say Rio is now open to keeping it — at least initially — and could divest later. No final structure has been agreed.

The renewed talks follow major changes at both firms. Rio has a new chief executive, Simon Trott, who has emphasized cost discipline and simplification, while Glencore has highlighted plans to nearly double copper production over the next decade. In private, Glencore CEO Gary Nagle has described a tie-up with Rio as the most logical deal in the sector.

“This is Simon’s first test as CEO and I would expect his disciplined approach to be carried through to M&A,” said John Ayoub of Wilson Asset Management.

The discussions come amid a broader wave of consolidation after Anglo American’s deal for Teck Resources and earlier takeover interest from BHP. Under UK rules, Rio must decide by Feb. 5 whether to proceed or step back for six months.

Tyler Durden Fri, 01/09/2026 - 14:25

Micro Greenland Lender Whipsaws As Trump Headlines Ignite Investor Frenzy

Micro Greenland Lender Whipsaws As Trump Headlines Ignite Investor Frenzy

Shares of a Nuuk-based commercial bank, founded in 1967 to serve Greenland's private and corporate customers, have surged sharply as investors speculate that President Trump's "Donroe Doctrine" to secure the Western Hemisphere could ultimately involve acquiring Greenland.

The 42% rally in Bank of Greenland shares this year, which has since retraced roughly 20% of those gains, has been entirely headline-driven, linked to the Trump administration's efforts to acquire the mineral-rich, strategically located territory in North America, rather than by fundamentals.

Per Hansen, an investment economist at Nordnet Bank AB, said investors were piling into Bank of Greenland shares on the OMX Copenhagen Mid Cap Index, whose market capitalization stands at around 1.91 billion kroner ($298 million).

"Greenland could see massive investment," Hansen said. "I do not know, and investors do not know, what will happen, but it might happen. More investment means more business buzz."

In other words, investors are buying Bank of Greenland shares first and asking questions later.

Nuuk, Greenland

Overnight, Reuters reported that the Trump administration has considered sending lump-sum payments of up to $100,000 to Greenlanders in exchange for a vote to secede from Denmark and join the United States.

Trump has cited several reasons for acquiring Greenland, including its mineral wealth for military applications and the need for the Western Hemisphere to fall under Washington's geopolitical influence.

Hmm. 

The Bank of Greenland stock frenzy also follows recent U.S. regime-change operations in Venezuela that removed socialist leader Nicolás Maduro roughly a week ago, reinforcing perceptions of a more interventionist U.S. posture in the Western Hemisphere aimed at pushing China and Russia out of the region and dismantling socialist and Marxist regimes seen as plundering the wealth of nations. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 01/09/2026 - 14:05

Seattle Judge Blocks Health Department From Rejecting Head Start Grants With DEI Terms

Seattle Judge Blocks Health Department From Rejecting Head Start Grants With DEI Terms

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) must stop requiring that grant applications not include terms related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), including the term “pregnant people,” under a new order from a federal judge.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. delivers remarks during an event in the Oval Office of the White House on Oct. 16, 2025. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

They are also enjoined from firing any more Office of Head Start employees and closing regional offices.

HHS has said it does not comment on litigation.

The decision “ensures that Head Start providers can provide early education to children from diverse communities and backgrounds without the constant threat of being punished simply for following the requirements of the law,” Jennie Mauer, executive director of the Wisconsin Head Start Association, said in a statement.

Head Start is a federally funded program that provides care across some 17,711 centers to about 750,000 children from low-income families.

The lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union over several actions taken by HHS in response to President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20, 2025, executive order banning “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility“ and the “indoctrination of gender ideology.”

HHS, in an updated policy on grants, required applicants to certify they would not operate programs that advance DEI or discriminatory ideology.

According to court filings, HHS later returned applications with instructions to remove certain terms, including the terms “pregnant people,” “chestfeeding,” and “diversity.”

HHS also said that a Head Start center on an American Indian reservation in Washington state should remove eligibility criteria, which prioritized children from Indian families.

“Based on these instructions from the Office of Head Start, the program does not know what criteria it is supposed to use to determine enrollment for the program going forward,” Joel Ryan, executive director of the Washington State Association of Head Start and Early Childhood Assistance and Education Program, said in a filing.

The defendants told Martinez that they withdrew the certification requirement, making that challenge moot, and that plaintiffs had not shown the requirement, the mandated removal of DEI terms, and layoffs at the Office of Head Start caused the plaintiffs harm.

Tyler Durden Fri, 01/09/2026 - 13:25

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