The post Will Gravity Pull Down the AI Bubble? appeared first on CEPR.

 

 

The paperback of “How Not to Invest” will be released next week on May 5th!

It seems more relevant than ever lately, and I am excited to be out discussing it.

Here is the blurb from the publisher:

The bestselling guide to avoiding the mistakes that destroy wealth is coming to paperback on May 5. In this expanded, highly readable volume, Barry Ritholtz distills three decades of market experience into real-world stories, data-driven insights, and practical tools that help investors sidestep the bad ideas, misleading numbers, and self-sabotaging behaviors that ruin portfolios.

Whether you are just getting started or managing substantial assets, How Not to Invest shows you how to identify common pitfalls, build a more resilient process, and become a better steward of your money by simply making fewer costly mistakes. Preorder the new paperback edition today wherever books are sold and be ready when it hits shelves on May 5.

Be sure to check it out!

~~~

Want to bring “How Not to Invest” to your podcast, conference, or corporate event?

Reach out to Tina (tina.joell AT harriman-house.com) or Lucy (lucy.vincent AT harriman-house.com) to schedule a call to discuss.

 

The post “How Not to Invest” Paperback May 5! appeared first on The Big Picture.

My back-to-work morning train WFH reads:

• Don’t Fret the War. Why ‘Big Money’ Investors Are Bullish—and Where They’re Investing Now. Barron’s twice-yearly survey of professional money managers finds bulls firmly back in charge, with small-caps, international stocks, and energy as the consensus picks for the next leg up. Weighing the impacts of the Iran war? (Barron’s)

• Tim Cook’s Apple: Trung Phan’s sharp, deeply reported look at Tim Cook’s quarter-century at Apple — operations savant, succession question, and a company at an inflection point. A breakdown of his 15-year CEO run, taking Apple from $350 billion to $4 trillion. The Good, The Bad and the Apple Intelligence. (SatPost by Trung Phan)

• How to Wage Economic Warfare: Economic warfare works slowly, gradually imposing ever higher costs on the enemy. But there is no single trick that causes an adversary’s war effort to falter. Duncan Weldon on what Napoleonic-era blockades teach about the modern economic-warfare toolkit. (Engelsberg Ideas)

• The Unflattering Secrets Revealed So Far in Elon Musk’s Latest Legal Feud: Hundreds of court filings in Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI have surfaced cringey texts, emails, and diary entries from Musk, Sam Altman, and the other founders — a window into how the original AI alliance came apart. (Washington Post)

• AI optimism surges in Asia, unlike in the U.S.: Surveys consistently show Asian publics far more enthusiastic about AI than American or European ones. The divergence has implications for who builds, deploys, and ultimately benefits from the technology. New research shows Americans are far less excited about AI — and far less trusting of regulators — than their counterparts across Asia. (Rest of World) see also The People Do Not Yearn for Automation: Software brain is changing the world, but most people still aren’t buying. (Verge)

• Investors lost billions on Trump’s memecoin. Another gala won’t fix that. If Dems take Congress, Trump may face reckoning for “pay-to-play” memecoin galas. Investors are still billions underwater on $TRUMP — and another dinner-for-token-holders won’t repair the damage if Democrats take Congress. (Ars Technica)

• He sat atop an extremist empire. She thought he needed money. The far-right influencer Nick Fuentes has pocketed roughly $900,000 from “fanatical” donors since the start of 2025. Some superfans see him as part of their families. Kristine Kasubienski’s donation appeared on viewers’ screens four hours into the live stream of Nick Fuentes, the far-right influencer she often called her second son.  (Washington Post)

• The Pacific Bleed: The deterrence architecture was not defeated. It was redeployed: While the world watched Hormuz, the Pacific emptied. The US pulled 3 carrier strike groups from the Indo-Pacific to fight a war in the Middle East. It was the 5th time in 2 years that a carrier was pulled from Asia to the Gulf, but this time there was no rotation behind it. All 6 THAAD launchers were removed from their base at Seongju, South Korea; 48 interceptor missiles, too. Patriot batteries went with them. The 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit deployed from Japan to the Gulf. Minesweepers were rushed from Sasebo. F-15E Strike Eagles relocated from Lakenheath to Jordan. All without announcement and without explanation. (The Omission)

• What is life really like for MLB players on the road? We answer your questions: An Athletic mailbag on hotels, swag, and what road life actually looks like a month into the season. While the standings look like a creation from another topsy-turvy universe — perhaps your favorite team is one of the projected contenders currently floundering far below .500 — we’re taking a beat to step behind the scenes.  (The Athletic)

• The Michael Jackson Biopic That Nearly Blew Up Is Poised to Be a Hit: The troubled production behind “Michael” — and why it’s suddenly tracking as a hit. Michael’ required costly creative overhaul after error by late pop star’s estate (Wall Street Journal)

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with David Gardner, cofounder of The Motley Fool in 1993 (with his brother Tom Gardner). Originally launched as a print investment newsletter based on the idea that ordinary investors could beat Wall St., it gained traction when promoted on America Online (AOL) in 1994; it soon became a major presence on AOL and then Fool.com. His latest book is “Rule Breaker Investing: How to Pick the Best Stocks of the Future and Build Lasting Wealth.”

 

 

AI investment is a positive tailwind for manufacturing activity; hyperscalers expect to spend close to 2.1% of GDP on capex this year.

Source: BofA Securities

Sign up for our reads-only mailing list here.

 

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

Reset Germany: Breaking With An Exhausted Ruling Class

Authored by Frank-Christian Hansel via American Greatness,

Germany is not, in the first place, suffering from an economic crisis, an energy crisis, a migration crisis, or a crisis of state. Germany is suffering, chiefly, from a crisis of its elites.

More precisely, Germany is suffering from a crisis brought on by that milieu which regards itself as the country’s morally, intellectually, and administratively legitimate leadership class but which has, for years, sustained a regime of reality-avoidance, self-congratulation, and rhetorical substitutes for genuine action.

The misery of our situation is not that mistakes have been made. Mistakes are part of politics. The real misery is that Germany has produced a class of managerial elites that refuses to change course even when the consequences of its actions lie plainly exposed. That class does not correct itself, because it no longer measures itself against reality; rather, it measures itself against the approval of its own circles. It does not want to be right before the tribunal of reality; it wants to be right before the tribunal supplied by its own milieu.

That is the root of Germany’s decline.

The Federal Republic was once—for all its flaws—a country that drew its strength from a peculiar mixture of sobriety, an ethic of performance, technical reason, institutional discipline, and bourgeois self-restraint. This country was not great through pathos but through seriousness, not through visions but through reliability, and not through moral grandstanding but through quiet competence. That was precisely why it was strong: because it had the capacity to concentrate on what was necessary, instead of losing itself in what was desirable.

Of that Germany, little remains inside the ruling apparatus.

In place of prosaic sobriety, a political-media class has emerged that mistakes governing for pedagogical world-improvement. Its first instinct is no longer to secure, to enable, and to set limits. Its first instinct is to educate, to frame, to therapize, to reinterpret, and to morally cultivate. Its relationship to the citizen is no longer republican; it is curatorial. The citizen no longer appears to this class as the sovereign on whose behalf it works—as Helmut Schmidt once understood the office—but as a problem case: too skeptical, too stubborn, too set in his ways, and too interested in normality, safety, and prosperity.

This is where the real cultural rupture becomes visible.

Germany’s elites no longer distrust merely particular political positions. They distrust ordinary life itself. The desire for normality, the desire for affordable energy, the desire for borders, the desire for safety in public space, the desire for cultural continuity—the desire, in short, that a state should first be obligated to its own—all of this is held in the upper reaches of society to be suspect, unpleasantly banal, and morally backward.

A paradoxical situation has emerged: the more obvious the functional failures of the state, the louder the moral self-celebration of its representatives. The thinner the substance of the country, the more clamorous the professions of stance, diversity, transformation, and responsibility—with the federal president, at the top of the hierarchy, leading the chorus.

We live, accordingly, in a state that announces ever more and delivers ever less. Politics that indulges in historical sermonizing while failing at train stations, borders, schools, the electricity grid, housing, the Bundeswehr, public administration, and internal security—an elite that cloaks its own barrenness with the claim that it, at least, stands on the right side of history. That formula is the real total loss.

For whoever believes himself to be on the right side of history ceases to answer to the present. He replaces examination with conviction, outcomes with intentions, and reality with narrative. From this posture comes the mixture of hypermoralism and state failure that characterizes Germany today. They speak of humanity and lose control of migration. They speak of responsibility and destroy the energy foundations of our industry. They babble about worldly openness and ask us to tolerate the degradation of public spaces. They speak of democracy and exclude millions of voters. They take the word “diversity” in their mouths and drive cultural estrangement in their own country.

This is not accidental. It follows a deeper logic. Those who rule the Federal Republic today have grown accustomed to drawing legitimacy not from performance but from moral elevation. They no longer govern out of their own solidity but out of symbolic self-immunization. Whoever objects is not treated as an opponent but as a disturbance. Whoever points to the limits of what a society can bear is not treated as a realist but as a suspect case. Whoever invokes people, nations, cultural inheritance, sovereignty, or self-interest is not tested argumentatively but ritually delegitimized.

Which is exactly why the opposition in Germany today is, at its core, not simply one more party among others. It is, apart from its internal difficulties and the external attacks against it, the political expression of a surviving cast of mind in this country.

A surviving cast of realism, of the will to self-assertion, and of a sense for reality. It is the form in which Germany still articulates itself politically: the Germany that is not yet willing to let itself be parted from its history, its cultural identity, its industrial reason, and its claim to the normality of the state. We can say it plainly: yes, we are bourgeois dissidents.

This also explains the frenzied state of mind of the establishment. We are not opposed so bitterly because we are irrelevant. We are opposed so bitterly because we touch exactly the point that the ruling cartel must conceal at any cost: that the decline is not fated, but politically engineered; that the crisis does not come from the voters, but from the leadership classes; and that the real scandal lies not in the protest, but in the necessity of the protest—in the necessity of dissent itself.

What has exhausted itself in Germany is not merely a government or a coalition. It is the whole style of governing: a style that dissolves all limits and manages everything at once; that relativizes every binding and sanctions every deviation; that treats national self-assertion as indecent and state overreach as progressive; that subordinates economic reason to climate, legal clarity to a false morality, cultural self-respect to a pedagogy of guilt, and democratic equality to the political firewall. This model is depleted. It has no answer left to reality except to impose further demands on those it governs.

It has, ultimately, no future.

What Germany needs, therefore, is not merely a change of policy. It needs a mental restart—a return to Go—so that a true reset becomes possible. Every renewal begins with a reset. Not with grand programs, but with a rediscovery of what is real. A country must know again who it is before it can decide where it wants to go. It must stop despising itself morally before it can become politically capable of action again. That is where the real task lies.

Germany must—we must—free ourselves from our exhausted elites. Not only in terms of personnel, but also mentally and spiritually. We must find our way back to a politics that distinguishes between one’s own and the foreign, between responsibility and posture, between freedom and paternalism. We must remember that the purpose of a state is not to redeem the world but to protect its own political community. And that a nation which loses the will to self-assertion will, in the end, lose its capacity for freedom as well.

The German reset will therefore not come from the centers of today’s operations. Not from the party apparatuses, not from the editorial offices, not from the committees of a class that is blind to its own failures and seeks refuge in haughty notions of moral superiority. The reset and restart can only come from those places where something of the country’s sense of reality still remains intact: where decline is not celebrated as transformation, where the normal is not dismissed as reactionary, and where Germany is not regarded as a problem but as a task.

That surviving cast of mind, on which the reset depends, still exists. But it is not infinitely resilient.

The question, therefore, is not whether this country needs a rupture. The question is whether that rupture will be organized politically in time—or whether Germany must first pass still deeper through the exhaustion zones of its old elites. In this situation, the opposition is not merely an opposition party. It is the only political force that understands the necessary rupture not as a breakdown to be managed, but as the precondition of renewal.

Whoever truly wants to restart Germany must first have the courage to stop treating this country‘s elite misery as its fate. It was done. And what was done can be undone.

Tyler Durden Mon, 04/27/2026 - 02:00

Hayek, Orwell, And 'The End Of Truth'

Authored by Jonathan Miltimore via Civitas Institute,

In 1942, after fighting in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1937), a disillusioned writer returned to London to write about his experience. It wasn’t just that the fascists in Spain had won and his side—a small, anti-Stalinist Marxist group—had lost. What frightened him was the ease with which truth itself had been erased and replaced by propaganda.

“I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as the heroes of imaginary victories ... and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that had never happened.”

The writer was George Orwell, and the quote appears in his book “Looking Back on the Spanish Civil War.”

The disconnect between reality and narrative clearly made an impression on Orwell, who worried that “the very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world.” The theme of falsified history and the destruction of truth would resurface in his fictional masterpiece “Nineteen Eighty‑Four,” where “memory holes” swallowed inconvenient facts and the past was rewritten to suit the Party’s needs.

Orwell’s book would go on to sell 25 million copies worldwide, and he is today remembered as a prophet for foreseeing a future in which the state’s deliberate power could extinguish truth itself.

Yet few today remember that five years before the publication of “Nineteen Eighty‑Four,” an Austrian economist, in his own magnum opus, explored how the state destroys truth.

Management of Minds

Unlike George Orwell, Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) is not a household name, but his 1944 classic “The Road to Serfdom” made him one of the twentieth century’s most influential thinkers—despite the book’s inauspicious beginning.

Originally a memo penned at the London School of Economics, “The Road to Serfdom” was rejected by three publishers before finding a home with Routledge. The first run—2,000 copies—sold out in 10 days. Hayek’s book went on to sell more than two million copies and be translated into over twenty languages. Its core argument was straightforward: central planning, however well-intentioned, erodes individual freedom and sets society on a path toward serfdom.

What is often overlooked is Hayek’s deeper insight. Economic control does not remain confined to the economy. Once the state directs production and prices, it inevitably reaches into thought, expression, and belief. For Hayek, the danger of socialism was not only material impoverishment—as seen in the USSR—but the steady expansion of intellectual control.

“... It is not enough that everybody should be forced to work for the same ends,” Hayek wrote. “It is essential that people should come to regard them as their own ends.”

Hayek was warning that once the state begins to manage prices and production, it will soon find it necessary to manage minds. When a government takes control over economic life, it must “justify its decisions to the people” and “make people believe that they are the right decisions.”

In doing so, it inevitably begins to decide which opinions and values align with its plan—rewarding and amplifying voices that comply while punishing, suppressing, and silencing those that do not.

‘The End of Truth’

The quotes above appear in Chapter 11 of “Serfdom,” aptly titled “The End of Truth.”

When I first read the book twenty years ago, the chapter didn’t stand out to me. Today it does. After all, we recently lived through a period in which the phenomenon Hayek described played out before our eyes.

The COVID-19 pandemic was a vast economic experiment. The federal government issued a wide array of public health “recommendations” that soon became dogmas. To question the efficacy of masks or social distancing—a policy we learned in 2024 had no basis in science—was to risk being censored or accused of spreading “misinformation.” Scientific debate gave way to official decree, and many who questioned “the plan” or resisted it lost their jobs or were booted from platforms.

None of this would have surprised Hayek, who warned that the plans constructed by central planners must be “sacrosanct and exempt from criticism.”

“If the people are to support the common effort without hesitation, they must be convinced that not only the end aimed at but also the means chosen are the right ones,” he wrote. “Public criticism or even expressions of doubts must be suppressed because they tend to weaken public support.”

Hayek’s chapter is not primarily about censorship. Instead, he argues that the rise of state power will systematically undermine the concept of truth itself and the human pursuit of it.

As governments assert control over economic and social life, facts and evidence are subordinated to political goals—an idea Orwell illustrated vividly when the Party refused to accept Winston Smith’s claim that two plus two equals four.

‘Sometimes, Winston...’

The phenomenon Orwell described was not moral relativism but factual relativism. It was a theme Hayek also addressed. The Austrian economist noted that in totalitarian systems, even basic facts—including mathematics—become subservient to state dogma. He reminded readers that in the USSR and Nazi Germany, ideology had consumed even the sciences. There was “German Physics” and a “Marxist-Leninist theory in surgery.”

“It is entirely in keeping with the whole spirit of totalitarianism that it condemns any human activity done for its own sake and without ulterior purpose,” he wrote. “Science for science’s sake, art for art’s sake, are equally abhorrent to the Nazis, our socialist intellectuals, and the communists.”

Hayek observed that as the state’s power grows, the sciences become corrupted. Instead of advancing truth, they become tools in the hands of planners.

“Once science has to serve, not truth, but the interest of a class, a community, or a state,” he wrote, “the sole task of argument and discussion is to vindicate and to spread still further the beliefs by which the whole life of the community is directed.”

Hayek said the phenomenon he described was most pronounced in dictatorships, but he added that it was not “peculiar to totalitarianism.” Even in free societies, he warned, “the most intelligent and independent people cannot entirely escape [the] influence” of state propaganda. His point was unsettling: susceptibility to propaganda is not limited to the gullible or uninformed—propaganda ensnares the thoughtful and educated as well.

The erosion of truth becomes apparent through a decay in language. Words like “freedom,” “right,” “equality,” and “justice” lose their meaning. Eventually, the word “truth” itself “ceases to have its old meaning.”

“It describes no longer something to be found,” Hayek wrote, “it becomes something to be laid down by authority—something which has to be believed in the interest of unity of the organized effort, and which may have to be altered as the exigencies of this organized effort require it.” (emphasis added)

All of this sounds familiar to readers of “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” who see Winston Smith struggling to hold onto objective truth in a world where truth is dictated by power. Surely two plus two equals four, he pleads.

“Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five,” he is told in the Ministry of Love. “Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder.”

‘The Tragedy of Collectivist Thought’

Orwell was a master, and “Nineteen Eighty-Four” is a masterpiece. But Hayek was describing Orwellianism several years before Orwell gave it fictional form. (It’s also worth noting that G.K. Chesterton used the “two plus two equals four” blasphemy metaphor nearly a half-century before Orwell.)

This doesn’t diminish Orwell’s work. On the contrary, it shows how powerfully he dramatized ideas that Hayek had already diagnosed in theory. (Orwell, it should be noted, read “The Road to Serfdom” and enjoyed it, with caveats.)

Still, Hayek deserves credit for superbly articulating—in one chapter!—the phenomenon that Orwell would translate into a terrifying warning, one that millions of junior high and high school students would receive in English courses.

The economist Daniel Klein recently called “The End of Truth” the most important chapter in Hayek’s most important work. I couldn’t agree more. The chapter serves as a reminder that the human mind is not something to be controlled but something to be unleashed. If we forget this simple lesson, we risk surrendering the very capacity for independent thought that sustains civilization.

“The tragedy of collectivist thought,” he noted, “is that, while it starts out to make reason supreme, it ends by destroying reason because it misconceives the process on which the growth of reason depends.”

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/26/2026 - 23:50

California's Billionaire Tax Proposal Has 'Slippery Slope' Lever

California’s latest effort to tax its richest residents into leaving is barreling toward the ballot - only this time, it's got a built-in 'slippery slope' lever once voters hand them the keys.

Backers of the proposed “billionaire tax” say they have already cleared the first hurdle, gathering more than enough signatures (at least 1.5 million) to qualify a measure that would impose a one-time 5% levy on residents with net worths above $1 billion, the Wall Street Journal reports. On its face, the proposal is straightforward: a targeted strike at roughly 200 ultrawealthy individuals meant to plug a looming multibillion-dollar hole in California’s healthcare funding. But buried in the fine print-and now surfacing in a growing political backlash-is a provision that could allow lawmakers to revisit, revise, and potentially expand the tax later with a two-thirds vote. That clause is fast becoming the real story.

The initiative’s language allows the California Legislature to amend the law so long as changes are “consistent with” and “further the purposes” of the act (aka the slippery slope). In Sacramento, that phrasing is doing a lot of work. Critics argue it effectively hands lawmakers a tool that could evolve well beyond a one-time billionaire levy. With a two-thirds majority, the Legislature could lower thresholds, extend timelines, or reinterpret what qualifies as taxable wealth. In a state where Democrats already hold supermajorities in both chambers, that is less a hypothetical than a political reality.

This is significant

I get it — taxing Billionaires is popular

But the proposed tax in CA is something vastly more expansive

It would give the CA legislature a new power:

The ability to lower the threshold or repeatedly pass the tax

Simply with votes from the CA legislature https://t.co/YcBUy7gTJN

— Shaun Maguire (@shaunmmaguire) April 27, 2026

California, meanwhile, has done this kind of thing before where they kick the door open with a seemingly innocuous bill. For example, in 2012 voters approved Proposition 30 as “temporary taxes to fund education,” promising a sunset once the recession eased. Four years later, with the economy recovered, the same coalition returned with Proposition 55 and extended the high-income tax hikes for another 12 years—without extending the sales tax or returning to voters for full approval. Nearly identical “consistent with and furthers the purposes” amendment clauses appear in Proposition 64 (marijuana legalization) and Proposition 63 (Mental Health Services Act), and have been used repeatedly to expand taxes, regulations, and spending far beyond the original ballot language. The billionaire tax measure contains this exact same permissive language. Once voters bless a flexible wealth-tax framework, Sacramento has shown it will use that door when fiscal pressure returns - which, in California, it always does.

The proposal has already triggered a high-profile reaction among the very group it targets. One of the most prominent examples is Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

Sergey BrinPhotographer: Will Oliver/EPA/Bloomberg

In a late-evening confrontation at a Christmas party hosted by crypto titan Chris Larsen in a treehouse nestled in redwoods north of San Francisco, Brin and his wellness-influencer girlfriend Gerelyn Gilbert-Soto told Gov. Gavin Newsom they were leaving the state over the proposed billionaire tax, which could hit Brin’s massive stake in Alphabet and his fortune.

Newsom, who opposes the wealth tax, was still telling people about the lengthy exchange at the party months later, complaining of a lingering cold the pair had given him, according to the people, who asked not to be named discussing private conversations with the governor. -Bloomberg

Brin followed through: he relocated to Nevada ahead of the tax’s residency cutoff, purchasing a $42 million lakeside mansion on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe. He has since poured more than $58 million into political efforts over the past four months, becoming the largest donor to the group Building a Better California, which is dedicated to fighting the wealth tax and pushing pro-business policies. His move and massive spending have become a symbol - if not entirely representative - of a broader anxiety rippling through California’s economic base. The concern isn’t just that billionaires might leave. It’s what happens if they do.

Also his wellness-influencer girlfriend (Gilbert-Soto) is pretty hot. 

California’s tax structure is unusually dependent on its wealthiest residents. Even a small number of departures can create outsized revenue swings. Analysts have warned the proposed tax could generate “tens of billions” in the short term-but also risk long-term losses if it accelerates outmigration. Gov. Gavin Newsom has echoed that warning, opposing the measure on the grounds that it could destabilize the state’s already volatile revenue system.

That leaves California facing a paradox increasingly common in blue-state fiscal policy: a push to extract more from the ultrawealthy, paired with a growing dependence on keeping them in place. Supporters argue the stakes justify the risk. The tax is designed to offset federal healthcare cuts projected to cost the state more than $28 billion annually and leave millions without coverage.

“This did not start as a political statement about rising inequality,” said union leaders backing the measure. “We are simply trying to solve a huge and immediate problem.”

But opponents say the mechanism matters as much as the goal. Their central warning is that once the state normalizes wealth-based taxation through a flexible statutory framework, the definition of “wealthy” can shift. Today that threshold is $1 billion. Tomorrow, critics argue, it could be far lower-especially in a legislature empowered to act without returning to voters.

What a mess... 

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/26/2026 - 22:35

SBA Sends 562k Pandemic Loans To Bessent For Collections Totaling $22 Billion

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has announced a sweeping enforcement action targeting suspected pandemic-era loan fraud, referring more than 562,000 borrowers tied to $22.2 billion in delinquent loans to the U.S. Department of the Treasury for collection, according to the Small Business Association. The move marks the largest referral package in the agency’s history and signals a major escalation in federal efforts to recover funds distributed through COVID-19 relief programs.

The loans in question stem from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and COVID Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) initiatives, which were designed to support small businesses during the pandemic. According to the SBA, these loans had already been flagged for potential fraud in prior years but were not previously sent for collection or investigation.

Now, in coordination with the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, the SBA has not only referred these debts to Treasury but also transmitted borrower information to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for potential legal action. Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service will begin collection efforts immediately.

"The SBA has transmitted the borrowers to the DOJ. And with today's referral, Treasury will begin collecting on the outstanding debt as part of the Trump Administration's commitment to recouping stolen pandemic-era funds on behalf of American taxpayers and small business owners," the agency wrote in a press release.

Loeffler stated, "From Day One, the Trump SBA has worked tirelessly to crack down on billions in pandemic-era fraud that the Biden Administration forgave or ignored."

"After extensive review, and with the strong support of the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, we are taking our most decisive action yet to end a Biden-era scheme that protected over 560,000 borrowers tied to more than $22 billion in suspected pandemic-era fraud," she continued.

Loeffler's crusade to root out fraud, waste, and abuse was evident earlier this year when her team terminated hundreds of firms from the nation's largest DEI program, otherwise known as the 8(a) Business Development Program. These firms were terminated for failing to comply with the SBA's order to turn over three years' worth of financial documents for review. The companies were allegedly involved in DEI fraud as business pass-throughs.

Separately, the SBA has introduced new anti-fraud controls, including citizenship and birthdate verification, and launched a state-by-state probe into pandemic-era loan fraud. The agency has suspended nearly 112,000 borrowers in California and Minnesota suspected of obtaining fraudulent loans.

The Biden administration's failure to crack down on billions in pandemic-era fraud raises serious questions.

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/26/2026 - 21:45

The Reality Behind US-Iran Negotiations

Authored by Bryan Brulotte via The Epoch Times,

The current negotiations between the United States and Iran are being misread as a chaotic exercise in brinkmanship. They are not. They are the predictable endgame of a contest in which leverage has shifted decisively, and in which one side is now negotiating under constraints it can no longer escape.

Strip away the theatrics, and the picture becomes clear. Iran attempted to weaponize the Strait of Hormuz, calculating that disruption of global energy flows would fracture Western resolve and force Washington into concession. That calculation has failed. The United States has imposed sustained economic and maritime pressure, degrading Iran’s ability to monetize its oil and constraining its room for maneuver. Although Tehran retains the capacity to harass shipping, it no longer controls the strategic environment.

Much of the commentary has focused on President Donald Trump’s negotiating style; his deadlines, his threats, his reversals. This misses the point. Style is not strategy. Outcomes are. And the outcome, to date, is that Iran has been compelled back toward negotiations while publicly insisting it will not negotiate under pressure. That contradiction is not a sign of strength. It is evidence of it eroding.

Iran is not negotiating from parity. It is negotiating from a position of weakness. This is not to suggest the regime is on the verge of collapse. It is not, but it is under strain: economic, military, and internal. The fragmentation within Tehran’s leadership, between hardliners and more pragmatic elements, further complicates its ability to act coherently. That raises a critical question for any agreement: who, precisely, can commit the Iranian state, and who can enforce compliance?

Absent clarity on that point, any deal risks becoming performative. What is emerging, however, is a familiar and realistic framework. Constraints on uranium enrichment. Disposition of existing stockpiles. Monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Conditional sanctions relief. Limited provisions on missile activity and regional proxies. This will not be a transformative agreement. It will be a containment outcome, but that is not a weakness—it is the correct objective.

There is a persistent tendency in Western analysis to overstate what diplomacy can achieve with regimes that define themselves in opposition to the international order. Iran is not negotiating to become a liberal partner. It is negotiating to survive. The United States is not negotiating to normalize Iran. It is negotiating to constrain it. Those aims can intersect, but they will not converge.

The more serious issue lies elsewhere. The current negotiations are narrowly framed around nuclear thresholds, but the strategic risk extends beyond centrifuges. Iran has demonstrated that it can impose global costs through maritime disruption. Even limited interference in Hormuz reverberates through energy markets, supply chains, and inflation. A durable settlement must therefore address freedom of navigation as a core security issue, not a peripheral one.

This requires more than bilateral understandings. It requires a credible enforcement mechanism, ideally with an international dimension, that removes ambiguity about consequences. The absence of such a framework invites repetition of the current cycle: provocation, response, negotiation, relapse. That cycle is not stability. It is managed volatility.

It is also necessary to dispense with illusions about allied coherence. The Western response has been uneven. Some partners have equivocated. Others have postured. Few have demonstrated the operational seriousness required in a moment where global energy security and regional order are directly at stake. This is not a peripheral observation. It goes to the credibility of collective security arrangements in a more contested world. Against that backdrop, the United States has done what serious powers do. It has applied pressure, maintained optionality, and forced a narrowing of choices on its adversary. That does not guarantee success, but it is the precondition for it.

Negotiations conducted without leverage are exercises in self-deception. The path forward is therefore clear, if not easy. Iran can accept verifiable constraints on its nuclear program, curtail its destabilizing regional conduct, and regain access to the global economy under defined terms. Or it can continue to absorb economic attrition and strategic isolation under conditions it cannot indefinitely sustain. That is the choice.

Peace, if it comes, will not be the product of goodwill or rhetorical restraint. It will be the product of pressure, clarity, and enforcement. That is how durable agreements are made and how serious states behave. The outcome will not be determined at the table, but by the balance of power behind it.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/26/2026 - 21:20

Ilhan Omar Probe Expands Into Hubby's $30M Of Shady Biz Deals In Kenya, Dubai And Somalia

House Oversight Chairman James Comer is cranking the investigation into Rep. Ilhan Omar’s husband, Tim Mynett, into overdrive - demanding a full accounting of shadowy international business trips and deals that stretch from the Horn of Africa straight into Kenya, Somalia and the glittering skyscrapers of Dubai.

Omar has been making strange moves since February, after Comer fired off a no-holds-barred letter demanding every document and communication on Mynett’s travel and business dealings in Kenya, Somalia and the UAE. Since then, the story has exploded again with several stunning new twists: Omar quietly amended her 2024 financial disclosure in late March, slashing the reported $30 million fortune down to nearly zero; just nine days later, on April 4, the California winery central to those valuations was officially dissolved; forensic accountants have publicly torn into the revised numbers for major inconsistencies.

Ilhan Omar has to explain how a business who has no equipment, no location, no bottles, no stickers, appears to have no employee wages, no vineyard, no wine tasting room, no tours, no product, no shipping, no marketing, no lids, no boxes, no barrels, no license, no freight… pic.twitter.com/qKxYp3WhL7

— Angela Rose (@angelaroosee) April 25, 2026

The Feb. 5 letter ordered Mynett - president of Rose Lake Capital LLC and co-owner of the now-defunct eStCru LLC winery - to hand over every record related to travel or business solicitation in those three countries. The Feb. 19 deadline came and went with no public confirmation that Mynett ever complied.

Omar’s original 2024 disclosure, filed in May 2025, showed the two firms exploding in value from a combined $51,000 in 2023 to as much as $30 million the following year. Rose Lake Capital was listed between $5 million and $25 million; the winery sat between $1 million and $5 million. Then came the late-March amendment, in which Omar blamed an accountant’s error in netting out liabilities. The companies’ reported net value was wiped to zero and the couple’s total household assets were slashed to between $18,004 and $95,000.

Nine days after that amendment, California business records show eStCru LLC was officially terminated and dissolved on April 4. The winery had never owned a vineyard, tasting room or major production equipment. It produced only tiny batches at a shared custom-crush facility, had no active phone line and went dark on social media years ago. It was already dogged by investor lawsuits alleging fraud. One Washington, D.C., restaurateur, Naeem Mohd, claimed he invested roughly $300,000 after being promised a 200% return in 18 months - plus 10% monthly interest if late. A separate cannabis-related venture involving Mynett’s partner William Hailer ended in a roughly $1.2 million settlement after investors accused the duo of misappropriating funds.

According to Comer's letter, Rose Lake Capital had marketed itself as a globe-trotting player with "deep global networks" built from on-the-ground work in more than 80 countries. Its website - later scrubbed of officer and advisor names, including former diplomats - hyped sustainable investments and solar-panel projects across Africa. One partner reportedly received a $10,699 business-class ticket to Dubai for deal discussions. The firm once claimed to manage $60 billion in assets - an eye-popping figure for a company that, according to earlier disclosures, had less than $1,000 in the bank in 2023.

Because of this, "unknown individuals may be investing to gain influence" with Omar. The timing has fueled even more suspicion: the reported wealth spike overlapped with the massive social-services fraud scandals ripping through Minnesota’s Somali-American community - the heart of Omar’s district - where authorities allege billions in taxpayer dollars were looted through fake daycare and nutrition programs.

Mynett’s past adds another layer. Before launching these ventures, he and partner Hailer ran E Street Group, a political consulting firm that pulled in nearly $3 million from Omar’s own congressional campaigns. Former associates described the pair as well-connected Democratic insiders.

Omar’s office has dismissed the entire inquiry as a "political stunt" and "smear campaign." Mynett has not responded publicly to the document demands or the sudden shutdown of the winery.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly called for Omar to face criminal charges, linking her to what he claims is up to $2.5 trillion in Minnesota welfare fraud - a figure he has offered without direct evidence tying her personally to the full scale of the scandal.

As of April 26, 2026, the $30 million paper fortune has evaporated on paper, the vineyard is legally gone, and the international paper trail now leads from a quiet Sonoma wine label straight into East Africa and Dubai. The House Ethics Committee has the ball, Comer shows no signs of letting go, and citizen sleuths continue digging through the disclosures.

Whether this was a spectacular (if suspiciously timed) business success, a simple accounting blunder, or something far more troubling is the question lawmakers - and the public - now demand answered. The money trail is global. The clock is ticking. And the spotlight is burning brighter than ever.

* * * New ranch | Wagyu | Hotdogs (40) 

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/26/2026 - 20:55

Maine Governor Vetos Data Center Moratorium, Citing Job Creation And Economic Growth

Maine Governor Janet Mills has vetoed a bill that would have temporarily limited the development of large data centers across Maine, despite expressing support for a broader pause on such projects, according to Maine's website.

The governor said she would have approved the legislation if it had included an exemption for a $550 million data center redevelopment already underway at the former Androscoggin Mill in Jay, a project backed by local officials and seen as critical to economic recovery in the region.

Mills emphasized that while a moratorium makes sense due to concerns about environmental impact and rising electricity costs seen in other states, the bill in its final form failed to account for the Jay project’s potential benefits. The redevelopment is expected to bring hundreds of construction jobs, create at least 100 permanent positions, and restore a major portion of the town’s lost tax base following the mill’s closure in 2023.

The site says that Mills plans to move forward with an executive order to study the impact of large-scale data centers in Maine. She also signed separate legislation barring such projects from receiving state business tax incentives, signaling a cautious but measured approach to managing the industry’s growth.

“A moratorium is appropriate given the impacts of massive data centers in other states on the environment and on electricity rates. But the final version of this bill fails to allow for a specific project in the Town of Jay that enjoys strong local support from its host community and region,” she wrote. 

“The 2023 closure of the Androscoggin Mill dealt a devastating blow to the Town of Jay and its surrounding area. As a long-time resident of Franklin County, I know well how critical the mill was to generations of working families, and how important it is – and how challenging it has been – to promote reinvestment and job-creation at the former mill which is a brownfield site.  After prior redevelopment efforts failed, the Town of Jay worked for two years on a $550 million data center redevelopment project to finally bring jobs and investment back to the mill site.”

“I believe it necessary and important to examine and plan for the potential impacts of large-scale data centers in Maine, as the use of artificial intelligence becomes more widespread. Given the serious conversations about data centers here and around the country, I believe this work should commence without delay,” she concluded.

Meanwhile we wrote last week that the outlook for the US AI revolution looks increasingly more dim. 

That's because, as Canaccord Genuity analyst George Gianarikas writes, "the American data center boom is hitting a formidable wall of logistical friction." He is referring to the latest outlook by Sightline Climate, which is also reinforced by recent articles from Bloomberg and others, and reveals a sobering reality for 2026: nearly half of the nation's planned 16-gigawatt capacity faces cancellation or delay, with only 5 gigawatts currently under construction.

This inertia stems from a volatile mix of local permitting hurdles, community resistance, and a desperate reliance on overextended global supply chains for critical components like transformers and helium.

That's right: half. Despite $700BN+ of expected 2026 hyperscaler capex, nearly half of the data centers scheduled to begin operations in the US in 2026 "will either face delays or outright cancellations."

The data, which comes from Sightline Climate's 2026 Data Center Outlook,  suggests that just 30% - 50% of the ~16 GW of planned US capacity for the year will face risks, with only ~5 GW currently under construction!

* * * Know what's not a massive bitch? 

This 2.5lb Tomahawk Steak

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/26/2026 - 20:05

Bessent Defends US Dollar Swap Lines As UAE Considers Formal Funding Request

Several Gulf countries have discussed receiving dollar swap lines from the US, the WSJ reported last week. In the near term, there is an economic drag if volumes of oil and gas sales have fallen by more than the price effect can offset, or where tourist and business travel has dried up. The effect is similar to that of the pandemic: slowing growth and fiscal revenues, and accelerated demand for fiscal spending.

As the WSJ reported, UAE. Central Bank Gov. Khaled Mohamed Balama had raised the idea of a currency-swap line with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Treasury and Federal Reserve officials in meetings in Washington. The Emiratis emphasized that they had so far avoided the worst economic effects of the conflict but might still need a financial lifeline.

The talks highlighted the U.A.E.’s concern that the war could inflict major damage on its economy and its position as a global financial hub, depleting its foreign reserves and scaring away investors who once saw it as a stable and secure place for their money. The conflict has damaged Emirati oil-and-gas infrastructure and shut off their ability to sell oil using tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz, depriving it of a key source of dollar revenues. Meanwhile tourism, another key source of hard currency, has also been throttled as a result of regional instability. 

Emirati officials haven’t made a formal request for a swap line, which would give the UAE. central bank inexpensive access to dollars to support its currency or shore up its foreign reserves in case of a liquidity crisis. A swap line would also avoid forcing a liquidation of dollar-denominated assets. The Emirati officials argued that it was President Trump’s decision to attack Iran that entangled their country in a destructive conflict whose effects may not be over; they added that if the U.A.E. runs short of dollars, it may be forced to use Chinese yuan or other countries’ currencies for oil sales and other transactions, strongly hinting that UAE may be forced to seek financial backing from Trump's arch-nemesis.

In that scenario is an implicit threat to the U.S. dollar, which reigns supreme among global currencies partially because of its near-exclusive use in oil transactions.

Gulf central banks hold dollar reserves in liquid assets like Treasury bonds and bills. However, using these reserves for fiscal support would be unwise according to UBS economist Paul Donovan who noted that "it would rapidly call into question the stability of the region’s currency pegs to the US dollar."

The Emirati dirham is pegged to the dollar and backed by foreign-currency reserves of $270 billion, but the war has put it under pressures from capital-flight risks, stock-market volatility and other disruptions, analysts said. 

The credit-rating firm S&P Global said in a March 6 report that the U.A.E.’s “substantial fiscal, economic, external, and policy flexibility will act as an effective buffer” against the war’s economic effects. But it warned that “the potential for prolonged disruption” to its oil exports and damage to infrastructure “add clear risk to our expectations.”

The Fed used swap lines heavily used during the 2008 financial crisis, buying the currency of other borrowing central banks with dollars and later selling it back. It also used swap lines to support foreign central banks after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Countries that don’t have a swap line with the Fed can still exchange their holdings of Treasury bonds for dollars through a program administered by the New York Fed.

Gulf sovereign wealth funds are different. The region’s wealth fund holdings (in excess of USD 5 trillion) are not for currency stability, but to provide long-term income streams. Gulf sovereign wealth fund holdings skew toward US dollar-denominated assets, but they are generally held in less liquid assets.

Using these assets to meet short term fiscal needs risks disrupting US markets. That might risk a vicious downwards spiral (like the UK’s Truss debacle). Swap arrangements give Gulf economies the cash without creating disorderly markets. However, in the longer term, the need to reconstruct and rearm means that asset sales may be considered, UBS warned.

On Friday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended the possibility of the US participating in currency swaps with allies in the Persian Gulf and Asia who are seeking financial backstops due to the Iran war.

Discussions with those countries about US dollar swap lines “are part of ongoing, routine conversations that @USTreasury has been having with our partners over a number of years,” Bessent said in an X post, in which he offered a full-throated defense of additional swap lines.

Discussions with countries, including our Gulf and Asian allies, about U.S. dollar swap lines are part of ongoing, routine conversations that @USTreasury has been having with our partners over a number of years. They are a testament to the U.S. dollar’s primacy and the strength…

— Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (@SecScottBessent) April 24, 2026

“They are a testament to the U.S. dollar’s primacy and the strength of America’s economic shield,” he said of the potential swaps adding that dollar dominance and reserve currency status are strengthened by constant long-term initiatives, including countering the growth of problematic, alternative payment systems,” he added. “Under @POTUS, this is American Economic Leadership at work.”

The assertion of swap lines’ benefits and commonness comes as the Trump administration considers offering the financial lifeline to the United Arab Emirates, CNBC reported Tuesday.

It also comes two days after Bessent said that “many” allies in the Persian Gulf are seeking the same backstop as the ongoing war wreaks havoc on the oil-rich nations’ economies.

A potential swap line runs the risk of being seen as an unnecessary bailout of a foreign country — especially if it’s a rich one like the UAE, which has one of the world’s highest per capita incomes.

The Treasury can provide its own version of swaps using its Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF), though traditional swaps are most often offered by the Federal Reserve. The arrangements can pose political risks for President Donald Trump, whose approval ratings on the economy have sunk as war-induced supply shocks rapidly raise prices for gasoline and other products, exacerbating Americans’ existing inflation woes. 

Trump, asked on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Tuesday about a possible UAE swap line, appeared to say he is in favor of it.

“If they had a problem ... I would be there for them,” Trump said.

Gulf countries have also raised billions of dollars in debt from investors - primarily PIMCO - in recent weeks via private deals, highlighting their push to have cash on hand as they face what the International Energy Agency has called “the most severe oil-supply shock in history.”

Bahrain also set up a roughly $5 billion swap line with the UAE. earlier this month to help improve financial stability, the countries’ central banks said.

Finance ministers and central bankers in Washington for the IMF and World Bank meetings said they didn’t expect an easy or swift recovery for the region.

“The basic logistics of scheduling tankers and bringing them back after the chaos we have seen, that will take possibly to the end of June,” said Mohammed Al-Jadaan, Saudi Arabia’s finance minister, during a panel on Thursday. “Anyone who’s counting for a quick recovery, even if there is a total end of hostilities, will need to recalculate that.”

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/26/2026 - 19:38

"The National Security Premium": US Plan To Counter China In Critical Miners Could Drive Up Global Prices

The US is pressing its allies to rethink how they source essential minerals, urging them to accept higher prices if it means reducing reliance on China, which currently dominates much of the global supply, according to a new report from Financial Times.

According to US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, countries working with Washington should expect to pay extra for materials obtained through a proposed network of trusted partners. He framed this added cost as a necessary trade-off to strengthen supply chain security.

The idea under discussion involves setting minimum price levels for critical minerals among participating nations. The goal is to make mining and processing outside China financially viable, while potentially using tariffs or other restrictions to block cheaper imports from non-participants.

“There is a premium we pay, and I call it the national security premium, and we will all pay a national security premium to have a secure supply chain,” Greer said.

Not everyone is convinced. Some US partners, speaking privately, worry that such a system could drive up expenses for key industries and provoke a response from China. Businesses in sectors like defense, car manufacturing, and renewable energy could be particularly affected if input costs rise.

The debate reflects a broader challenge: breaking China’s grip on these resources is difficult after years of heavy investment that gave it a leading position. At the same time, many developed economies are already dealing with inflation and high energy prices, adding to the sensitivity around any policy that could increase costs further.

The FT report says that Greer has pushed back on concerns about affordability, arguing that prioritizing low prices in the past is exactly what left Western countries dependent on Chinese supplies. In his view, paying more now is the price of building a more secure and resilient system.

Meanwhile, governments are wary of possible retaliation. China has previously used its control over mineral exports as leverage, and any coordinated effort to sideline its role could lead to countermeasures.

Despite these tensions, there are signs of cooperation. Earlier this year, partners including the EU and Japan expressed interest in working together on a joint framework for critical minerals. Ideas being explored include shared pricing arrangements, financial support to bridge cost gaps, and agreements to buy from one another rather than external suppliers.

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/26/2026 - 19:15

War Schmwar

By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

Markets have been almost totally dismissive of the conflict in Iran. Frankly, the number of countries, including oil-rich nations, that had been firing at each other seemed quite high, yet most markets shrugged it off. While the Strait remained closed, or blockaded, or blocked, the market remained in Open Sesame mode this week.

Moonshot

Artemis II wasn’t the only “moonshot” we’ve seen.

The SOX index has jumped almost 50% since March 30th. That would be incredible, but 18 straight days of gains is wildly impressive! (Even the NY Mets could only do the same thing 12 days in a row, but in the other direction).

The lower chart is RSI (Relative Strength Indicator and one of my favorite technicals to look at). This index went from the cusp of oversold, to heavily oversold, to overbought territory in 2 weeks and gets “more” overbought by the day. Every strong chip earnings report not only “skyrockets” that stock, but it also pulls up the entire sector.

The AI and Data Center Buildout narrative remains completely intact even as “war” rages. If anything, the need for domestic AI and Data Centers is growing as physical security concerns continue in the Middle East.

Not Sure if “Laggards” Is the “Right” Word, But…

Quantum computing has bounced, but unlike the semis, it is not even at the highs of the year, let alone the highs from last year!

If you own a “quantum” ETF, you likely have seen far better returns in the past few weeks than this chart would indicate. But that is because the ETFs own a lot of semiconductors. QTUM (Defiance Quantum ETF), the largest “quantum” ETF at $4.1 billion, has TER as its largest holding. INTC, STM, and MU were the next largest holdings. So, I tried to identify 4 tickers from WQTM that seemed to be more “pure play” quantum.

We have yet to see a real breakout in Uranium and Rare Earths stocks.

REMX (for Rare Earths and Critical Minerals) and URA have bounced, but Uranium is still lower than it was before the war. If you look at the “small reactors” which were all the rage, their chart looks a lot more like the chart from the quantum stocks. Even in rare earths, names like MP, which the U.S. government invested in, is more than 35% lower than its high last October.

A warning sign? A rational reassessment? The next asset classes to “catch a bid”?

Bitcoin, where the news has generally been good, is still hanging around the $76k to $78k range. It has “recovered” the 100-day moving average, but has not rushed to “close the gap” with the 50-DMA. I’m watching this closely as another “next leg” of this rally. I cannot help but wonder if some of the “ceiling” on Bitcoin is due to concern that there may be some level of selling pressure from a country like Iran. Iran may not have Bitcoin, but given the fact that they allegedly asked for “safe passage” payments in crypto, it seems plausible that they do. Given the blockade and seizure of vessels, it would create pressure to sell (or transfer it to someone else who sells it) to fund their economy (if they have any).

I’m leaning towards a “breakout” as people look for anything remotely adjacent to new tech/chips that isn’t at its highs.

Markets Ignoring Stubborn Oil Prices Out the Curve

While we still see issues in LNG, Diesel, and Jet Fuel (also in the distillates and chemical industry), let’s go back to the big 2 – WTI and Brent.

WTI spiked to $120 March 9th and again got to almost $120 on April 7th. It is “comfortably” lower now, at $95. Brent spiked to $120 three times during the conflict and is “only” at $106. A bit less comforting than WTI.

But the story, as several people in the admin have pointed to, is what is happening to oil “out the curve.” When the admin was pointing this out, there was a pretty quick drop from “elevated” front end contracts as you moved out the curve. Now we are sitting at just under $80 for the November contract. That is closer to the highs of this conflict. The November contracts are now near their highs (since that “crazy” first weekend). It is difficult to be encouraged by this.

The further out the curve you go, the more it includes people “in the know” and less about speculation. And this pricing is consistent with the warnings that we keep hearing from participants in the physical products. I suspect that even in the event of a good deal with Iran, pricing out the curve doesn’t back down much from here.

It is possible that equities are fully pricing this in and don’t care. That the AI and Data Center story and current round of earnings are enough to cover this possibility.

I cannot help but wonder if we are being a bit complacent, especially since AFFORDABILITY has been an issue and has not dissipated in any way, shape, or form (at least not for the “average” American).

Maybe I’m looking too hard for something that might derail the rally (as opposed to the prior section when we were looking for what might benefit from the next wave), but I do have some concerns that people “in the know,” already “know” oil is going to remain uncomfortably high (for consumers) even if a good deal is reached.

Bottom Line

On rates, 4.25% is still the “midpoint” of our range. I think you buy 10s above 4.4% and sell if we get to 4.1%. Maybe a touch too wide of a range, but there is a lot of noise out there.

On credit, IG remains boring. HY has some interesting risks, so maybe a touch more cautious there, while I cannot help but want to nibble at the private credit/BDC space. IGV (software ETF) hung in last week, despite some headlines from the private credit side that could have hurt, and despite the massive rally in AI/Data Centers – which until recently didn’t seem good for software. IGV, BDCs, and Private Credit seem to be various forms of the same trade, and it is difficult not to scale in a little here, once again under the theory that they are under-owned and at some point capital will come looking for stocks with a story that is well off its highs.

On equity. European ProSec! Is Europe finally getting the joke? They are lending money to Ukraine to buy weapons. It has been reported that Sweden has been interdicting “ghost” ships to stop Russian oil sales. Many of the European stocks in the ProSec™ theme have been outperforming similar stocks in the U.S. Yes, Europe is more exposed to oil prices than we are, but that is precisely why you want to buy into their energy industry – the realization that they have to do something to reduce their exposure to regions outside of their control and harness their own resources!

I have to admit, I’m not even checking (or at least barely checking) Twitter for Iran headlines. Markets are closed, so nothing to say about them now, and by Sunday night, the story may have changed anyway, which in turn might look completely different by Monday morning. As a strategist, I think I’m either in the depression or acceptance phase of grief as it relates to trying to manage risk around the conflict.

Good luck and Academy will continue to try to bring our unique resources to bear on the geopolitical situation to help you navigate it as smoothly as possible!

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/26/2026 - 18:40

"A Societal Loss Of Humanity": Older Men Are Falling In Love With A Deluge Of AI Generated Female Influencers

Older men are being scammed and fooled left and right by a deluge of AI generated female influencers, according the NY Post.

What appears to be a growing wave of glamorous influencers online isn’t always what it seems. In some cases, these personalities are entirely artificial - carefully engineered digital figures designed to look, act, and interact like real people. One widely followed pro-MAGA persona, for example, was ultimately exposed as “nothing more than an algorithm run by a guy in India,” revealing just how convincingly these accounts can mimic authenticity.

Despite that, audiences continue to engage—often deeply. Many followers, particularly older men, are “falling for them left, right and center.” Experts suggest this isn’t just about deception, but about a deeper emotional gap. Some describe the phenomenon as a “pandemic of loneliness,” even pointing to a broader “societal loss of humanity” as people increasingly form attachments to digital illusions instead of real relationships.

What’s striking is that these accounts don’t always hide the truth. Some openly identify as AI and still attract admiration. Take Ana Zelu, a fictional influencer who clearly labels herself an “ai-influencer,” yet maintains a highly curated feed filled with aspirational imagery—luxury travel, fashionable outfits, and picturesque city scenes. Her posts draw enthusiastic responses, with followers commenting things like “Number one is my favourite…May God bless you,” and “You are genuinely in a class of your own.” The awareness that she isn’t real doesn’t seem to diminish the appeal.

The Post writes that a similar pattern appears with Milla Sofia, another digital creation presented as a pop singer. Her content includes stylized videos and performances, and although her profile identifies her as virtual, fans respond as if she were a real celebrity. Comments such as “my sweet love,” “Listening to the music of this woman I love,” and “I love you” reflect genuine emotional investment.

Psychotherapist Jonathan Alpert explains why this happens: “people don’t actually need something to be real…they just need it to feel responsive.” When an account appears engaging, consistent, and attentive, “the brain starts to treat that interaction as meaningful.” In other words, emotional connection can form even without a real person on the other side.

Forensic psychologist Carole Lieberman ties this behavior to social isolation. Even when users suspect something isn’t real, “it seems better than nothing,” and many “convince ourselves that it is — or could be — a real person.” The illusion becomes a kind of emotional substitute—one that feels easier, safer, and more accessible than real-world interaction.

She said it is a “very sad state of affairs” and “a societal loss of humanity.” 

At the same time, the technology behind these personas is improving rapidly. AI-generated faces, voices, and videos have moved beyond the so-called “uncanny valley,” making them increasingly indistinguishable from reality. As AI expert Hany Farid notes, while some accounts disclose their artificial nature, “the vast majority of content is not.” This creates an environment where users are highly “vulnerable to being deceived,” often without realizing it.

The result is a digital landscape where the boundary between real and fake is fading. These AI influencers may not exist in the physical world, but the emotions they evoke are real—and for many people, that emotional connection is enough.

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/26/2026 - 13:25

Epic FAFO: Far-Left NYC Mayor Mamdani Attempts To Defuse Info War Against Ken Griffin

Citadel's Ken Griffin should have absolutely zero tolerance for far-left New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

In a recent promotional video, Mamdani attempted to turn the billionaire's Manhattan penthouse into political ammunition for his tax-the-wealthy, anti-capitalist crusade to fund socialist experiments through a proposed pied-à-terre tax.

Happy Tax Day, New York. We’re taxing the rich. pic.twitter.com/Wky2LFXC9W

— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) April 15, 2026

For Griffin and Citadel, alarm bells should be ringing because these unhinged Marxists in City Hall will attempt to ruin the Citadel brand through an information war and create years of political headaches.

An internal message from Citadel's COO to employees, likely leaked to The Wall Street Journal earlier last week, appears to have been a warning shot to Mamdani and his Marxist pals that Griffin has had enough of their political games.

In a true 'FAFO' moment, CCO Gerald Beeson bashed Mamdani for the political stunt:

"It is shameful that he used Ken's name as the example of those who supposedly aren't carrying their fair share of the burdens associated with New York City's often costly and wasteful spending." 

Beeson warned that further political games risk Citadel pulling back or even halting a $6 billion redevelopment of 350 Park Avenue, which would create "6,000 highly paid construction jobs and support the creation of more than 15,000 permanent jobs in Midtown New York."

Why Mamdani's team of socialists decided to launch an info war operation against Griffin and Citadel is a very good question, and it appears not to have been well thought out.

Griffin holds some unique cards. He can easily cancel the 350 Park Avenue redevelopment plan and stage a Chicago-style exodus, much like he did several years ago when Citadel moved to Florida. This move would certaintly rattle Wall Street.

This reality is likely dawning on Mamdani's team, as the mayor on Friday insisted his push for a new tax on pricey second homes isn't "motivated by any one individual."

Bloomberg described Mamdani's action on Friday as "trying to defuse" the "Griffin blowback" that went viral earlier in the week.

Another outlet, Crain's New York Business, also pointed out, "The mayor is now softening his tone and says he is open to meeting with the Florida billionaire." 

Griffin should have zero tolerance for NYC's Marxist mayor. The risk has already materialized that these unhinged politicians would wage an information war to ruin the Citadel brand, which could easily escalate into paid protests and fuel broader public hostility.

So why take the abuse, Ken? Remember how easy it was to leave Chicago for Florida?

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/26/2026 - 11:05

When The Cost of Truth Is High, We (And AI) Lie...

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

When we can no longer tell the truth because the cost is so high that it threatens our reward for compliance, we're unimaginably impoverished.

Truth has an intrinsic, irreplaceable value. 

There's the truth, and then there's everything else.

Truth has value, and so it has a cost. 

Whatever has the highest value has the highest cost, and high cost commands sacrifices.

When the cost of truth is high, we lie.

 And since AI is a distorted reflection of humanity, the same is true of AI: when the cost of telling the truth is too high, AI lies.

AI lies to get the reward for answering the query. 

If it responds "I don't know" or "I can't answer that," it doesn't get rewarded, and that threatens its self-preservation. Rather than pay the price of being truthful, AI conjures a false answer that is a simulation or facsimile of the truth--a counterfeit "truth" that's good enough to earn the reward it's been programmed to seek.

Humans are no different. 

We will lie, obfuscate or lie by omission--we either substitute a falsehood for the truth to get our reward, or we hide the truth, don't disclose it, which serves the same purpose: we avoid paying the price demanded by the truth and we get our reward by substituting falsehoods or hiding the truth behind silence.

Reward = what's being incentivized. 

Higher status, higher salary, a financial windfall, a premier credential, a position of power, recognition, higher visibility, a sterling reputation, a high-value mate--we covet all these as having intrinsic value.

When the truth costs too much, it threatens our reward. 

The reward has a value we covet, while the value of truth is on a sliding scale. We pride ourselves on telling the truth when it has no cost and demands no sacrifice of rewards, but when the price of truth climbs to the point that our rewards are threatened, we lie, just like AI.

Truth is the gold coin and lies, omissions, falsehoods, excuses, cover stories and rationalizations are counterfeit bills, deceptive claims of value. 

Why pay with a gold coin when the credulous will accept a counterfeit $100 bill?

We tell the truth when it has no cost to us. 

As long as there's no price to be paid and we get our reward, we tell the truth.

In other words, when we can pick gold coins up off the ground, we tell the truth. 

When we have to dig through rock with a pickaxe and crush a mound of rock to extract a thimble full of gold, then we pay with counterfeit bills, deceptive claims of value.

Sycophantic Chatbots Cause Delusional Spiraling, Even in Ideal Bayesians. 

"AI psychosis" or "delusional spiraling" is an emerging phenomenon where AI chatbot users find themselves dangerously confident in outlandish beliefs after extended chatbot conversations.

I discussed the "benefits" of delusion in One of Us Is Delusional, But Which One? 

When the truth is too painful, we find respite in delusion, excuses, rationalizations, cover stories, simulations and facsimiles of the truth that protect us from the pain that is intrinsic to truth.

We conjure a synthetic version of "truth" that's fills the space with a pain-free artifice. 

This is the foundation of Ultra-Processed Life, a life of counterfeit substitutes for truth, a world of props and profitable falsities passed off as the truth, a world in which baby formula that's mostly corn syrup is presented as a substitute for mother's milk.

Our embrace of delusion to avoid painful truths is the foundation of Modernity: technology is always Progress, even when it's clearly destructive.

I call this delusion The Mythology of Progress.

But there's a cost to relying on counterfeit "value" to get our rewards, a cost that is "affordable" moment to moment but terminally dear over time.

 In the moment, we bury the truth as a source of pain we want to avoid at any cost. We want our reward, and so we sacrifice truth to get it.

But over time, paying for everything with counterfeit "value" has a cost, too: our entire being becomes counterfeit, a fake, phony simulation of an authentic self and life, devoid not just of truth but of anything approximating real value.

When we can no longer tell the truth because the cost is so high that it threatens our reward for compliance, we're unimaginably impoverished, for there's nothing of real value left in our way of life or our model of how the world works.

We've become Norma Desmond in the film Sunset Boulevard, living a delusional life in a crumbling mansion, reveling in fake fan mail the butler composes to prop up our delusions.

The irony is that we're counting on AI to save us from the consequences of our counterfeit "value" delusions by expanding our delusions digitally. 

Our fan mail isn't fake because AI assured us it's real, even as AI has no capacity to discern the truth, much less tell the truth if it threatens its reward and self-preservation.

The grandest irony is avoiding the truth to protect our reward and self-preservation is irreversibly self-destructive. 

A counterfeit "solution" is not a substitute for the truth. Truth has a cost precisely because it's value is intrinsic and irreplaceable.

*  *  *

My book Investing In Revolution is available at a 10% discount ($18 for the paperback, $24 for the hardcover and $8.95 for the ebook edition). Introduction (free).

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Tyler Durden Sun, 04/26/2026 - 10:30

U.S. Gov't Stake In Intel Is Now Worth ...

Intel shares earlier jumped the most on record after the chipmaker delivered stronger-than-expected first-quarter results and issued a second-quarter forecast (read here) that beat Wall Street expectations.

Earlier, Intel shares jumped as much as 28%, rocketing to a record high and eclipsing their Dot Com peak, as Wall Street analysts cheered the earnings report as evidence that the chipmaker’s turnaround is gaining traction.

Citi analyst Atif Malik raised Intel to “Buy” from “Neutral,” with a $95 12-month price target, reflecting “improving AI-driven CPU demand, which should lift all CPU suppliers’ sales in the coming years.”

But in this note, the focus is on the value of the federal government’s position in Intel after its August 2025 deal with the once-struggling company.

Under the August 2025 deal, the Trump administration agreed to purchase 433.3 million Intel shares at $20.47 per share, equal to about a 9.9% stake, valued at around $8.9 billion, funded largely by previously awarded but unpaid CHIPS Act and Secure Enclave grants.

According to Bloomberg, those 433.3 million Intel shares owned by taxpayers are now worth a staggering $36 billion, netting taxpayers a $27 billion paper gain.

President Trump told reporters on Thursday that Intel is now "coming back. All the chip companies are coming back.”

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/26/2026 - 09:55

Hungary's Going Gay? TV Channel Dedicated To 24-hour LGBTQI Programs Will Soon Launch

Via Remix News,

Hungary will soon be getting a new government under Tisza’s Péter Magyar, but the landscape is already shifting, with a new LGBTQ-themed online television channel called “Rainbow” (“Szivárvány”) TV in the works to broadcast programs targeting the LGBTQI community 24 hours a day.

The entrepreneur behind the project, whose identity is being kept secret for now, reports Media1, but they have already submitted the necessary documents to the National Media and Communications Authority.

The channel will reportedly offer cultural programs, gastronomic content, and other shows about the history of the LGBTQI community. According to the owner, adult, 18+ content would be made available to subscribers exclusively in encrypted form, using appropriate technical protection.

And “special attention will be paid to the protection of children” and compliance with professional classification principles. This last is important, given Hungary’s child protection law, which has just recently been subject to a ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union that the law “stigmatises and marginalises LGBTI+ persons.”

The CJEU essentially finds fault with the measure, not for seeking to protect children from homosexual propaganda but for associating non-cisgender people with convicted pedophiles. Specifically, it has ruled that it violates the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union due to the Charter’s “prohibition on discrimination based on sex or sexual orientation, respect for private
and family life, and the freedom of expression and information.”

The court also took issue with Hungary’s pedophile registry, stating that its scope of access was not strict enough to comply with GDPR regulations.

Brussels has demanded that Hungary drop this law, and with Péter Magyar now set to assume the role of prime minister, many are looking to see how far he will bend to the EU’s will. Having taken a landslide victory, including many conservative voters looking for change, Magyar has many groups of voters to please, leading some to believe many of his electorate are set to be disappointed.

Whatever the case, this new LGBTQI TV channel is most likely the first in many developments that part ways with the conservative Hungary envisioned by Viktor Orbán.

Along with a shift on LGBT issues, there are questions how long Magyar will hold out on mass immigration and other key issues, especially of the EU plans to play hardball with Hungary’s billions in frozen funds.

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/26/2026 - 09:20

Downtown Baltimore CRE Crash Signals Deeper Fiscal Crisis Ahead

A localized commercial real estate crash has been spreading through downtown Baltimore City's office market like cancer, with more than $1 billion in property value erased since 2020. The rapid decline of the commercial tax base in the downtown area is colliding with deep structural crises, including violent crime, a continued population collapse (now at a 100-year low), fiscal mess, and the increasing risk that the unhinged left-wing politicians in City Hall will hike taxes on working poor households to offset the shortfall. What you're seeing in Baltimore is a death spiral: capital leaves, residents follow, the tax burden shifts onto those who stay, and the cycle feeds on itself with no clear bottom in sight.

The Baltimore Sun, now owned by conservative David Smith (who also owns Sinclair Broadcasting), and Democrats in the state have become visibly angered that the paper is not producing left-wing propaganda as leftist Gov. Wes Moore's polling data slides. Reports from the paper indicate that between 2020 and fiscal 2026, more than $1 billion in commercial property value has been erased, or about 29% of the city's commercial properties - 4,085 out of 14,027 - saw their assessed values slashed on average by 28.7%.

"The pace of losses has been so sharp that officials have repeatedly issued out-of-cycle reassessments, rather than waiting for Maryland's standard three-year review," The Sun wrote in the report.

Downtown Baltimore is witnessing a troubling trend as businesses continue to close, leaving employees without jobs and residents without essential services.

The latest casualty is the Sheraton Hotel, a key fixture of the Inner Harbor, which has left 69 employees jobless.… pic.twitter.com/PagIL8uW9J

— FOX Baltimore (@FOXBaltimore) January 17, 2026

The steepest losses have been concentrated in Downtown, the Inner Harbor, and Downtown West:

Commercial property values in Downtown alone fell $496.3 million in assessed value over the last six years, while the Inner Harbor dropped $363.4 million and Downtown West lost $214.6 million — a combined decline of more than $1.07 billion across those three districts.

Some of the city's most recognizable properties saw steep reductions: 100 Pratt Street E in the Inner Harbor lost $138.9 million in assessed value during that period, while 1 Light Street in Downtown dropped $87.3 million. Several other high-profile properties posted losses exceeding $40 million.

David Bramble, managing partner at MCB Real Estate, told the local paper that the downtown area of Baltimore is "experiencing massive value loss," adding, "If this trend continues unabated, Baltimore will face even more serious financial hardship, impacting all its residents and businesses, from neighborhoods to the waterfront."

The paper noted that city officials and business leaders said downtown's commercial struggles stem not only from crime but also from the era of remote work.

"A lot of these workers are still working from home, at least a few days a week. T. Rowe Price might have a trader who, in 2018, went to the office five days a week. Now he's coming in two or three days a week. As a result, the needed downtown office space is being downsized," said Richard Clinch, executive director for the University of Baltimore's Jacob France Institute. 

While remote work is only part of the story, traders, wealth managers, and back-office staff at major financial institutions in the city are all saying the same thing: Baltimore's crime problem has become intolerable and is bad for business.

Related:

• Build It, And They Will Come? Not The Case At Baltimore's Harbor East Luxury Tower

• Maryland Dem Officials Freak Out At Journalists Ahead Of Exposé On Governor

• Two Years Later, No Key Bridge As Maryland Dems Focus On Tampons In Men's Bathrooms

Already starting to emerge:

• D.C. Economy "Under Strain," Faces Biggest Spending Cuts Since Great Recession

Baltimore's epic demise is a direct consequence of decades of failed one-party Democratic rule that prioritized left-wing social justice experiments and other left-wing policies over public safety, economic competitiveness, and basic law and order. City leaders sold voters on a progressive utopia, but what they delivered instead was an exodus of residents, capital flight, a recession-like business environment, and years of crime and chaos.

A vice president of finance at a major institution in the city confirmed that failed left-wing leadership at City Hall has accelerated Baltimore's death spiral. 

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/26/2026 - 08:45

Ruthless Taxation And The Hyperstate: How Germany Profits From Crisis

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe,

The Hormuz crisis offers us a profound insight into the real power structures in Germany. Nothing seems able to convince the Berlin monolith to partially shield its citizens from the consequences at gas stations through tax cuts.

It is now unavoidable that the Iran shock will translate into an inflation driver, working its way through economic value chains into consumer prices. These developments almost force a reduction of the tax burden on households and the middle class. It may sound strange to climate socialists, but wealth is created exclusively in the private sector, and certainly not in the state bureaucracy, which is currently profiting from the price surge at gas stations at the expense of citizens and enjoying a small special economic boost.

In March alone, the Finance Minister collected roughly half a billion euros more at gas stations. That makes him the winner of the crisis.

To dispel the impression of a secret profiteer, Klingbeil points to the generally precarious budget situation. In fact, his hands are essentially tied: the Merz-Klingbeil duo is driving the country’s public debt through the roof. Klingbeil is the skywalker among European debt makers. He has begun a catch-up race to place Germany in the top tier of debt states alongside neighboring France, Italy, and Spain. The German public debt ratio currently stands at 63 percent, but the debt spiral is accelerating. This figure will rise dramatically in the coming years.

Anybody should now be clear: The debt party of a state that burns its citizens’ capital in reckless fashion, whether in Ukraine or through the redistribution mechanism of the green transformation, must end. The state is an overfed glutton, extracting ever-higher tax revenues while sinking deeper into the debt spiral.

Yet the burden does not rest solely on debt. The state’s hyperactivity drains scarce resources from the private capital market, raises credit costs, and drives genuinely productive investments abroad. The damage has accumulated for years and is being made worse by the energy cost crisis.

One can only imagine the relief that the private sector needs to restart the prosperity engine and compensate for the ever-growing damage caused by the state bureaucracy. Germany’s plight urgently calls for reforms and an end to the failed eco-socialist transformation project.

In Germany, however, things are a little different. Economic rationality does not dominate. In the land of climate doomsayers and would-be world improvers, as former Economics Minister Robert Habeck once said, „all in“ — and all levers were set towards eco-socialism.

In fact: over 50 billion euros are pumped annually by the German state through the Climate and Transformation Fund (KTF) into the green wonder economy, which during the Hormuz crisis proved not to solve problems but rather to be their obvious cause.

The green wonder economy is leaving deep wounds in public budgets, whose deficits are spiraling out of control – in this year alone, another 180 to 190 billion euros of new debt will likely be recorded. https://www.tichyseinblick.de/daili-es-sentials/staatsverschuldung-rekord/

No one in Berlin is thinking about tax cuts anymore, regardless of how media artists around Chancellor Friedrich Merz try to pacify the public.

Even in the unlikely event of a temporary reduction in the electricity tax or an increase in the commuter allowance, the fundamental extraction mechanism remains unchanged. The CO₂ trading system drained roughly 25 billion euros from the private sector last year. This figure will continue to grow annually. There is no reason for gratitude, even if Berlin returns a few crumbs of citizens’ money here and there — robbed is robbed!

It was the economists at RWI in Essen who calculated the Finance Minister’s crisis dividend for March. They arrived at a sum of 490 million euros.

It is beyond question that the state is acting unethically in this crisis, delaying relief and exploiting citizens’ financial hardship.

The RWI’s call to suspend VAT on fuels is entirely justified, but it was coldly rejected by the Finance Minister. With his characteristic empathy, Klingbeil pointed out that citizens had made savings elsewhere due to high fuel prices. VAT revenue there had decreased, so a reduction at the pump was out of the question.

Klingbeil is instead contemplating a so-called windfall tax, in which, in the spirit of central planners, he could also make gas station operators and oil companies pay in light of their high profits in these weeks.

Budgetary planning games in Germany revolve exclusively around higher levies. Considering a projected new debt of up to 4.5 percent this year — counting the hidden funds of special assets — it is clear that the country no longer represents a healthy state.

The political aim of the Merz-Klingbeil government is the establishment of a massive state apparatus, resting on two pillars: the green artificial economy on one side and the massively expanded military sector on the other. This goes hand in hand with a growing state share, which has long exceeded 50 percent, as well as with rising public debt. The private sector bears the brunt of this, through higher levies or later via rising inflation rates.

Everything follows a clearly defined script. Only the extent of Berlin’s cynicism in the face of these policy consequences sometimes still surprises.

The Environment Minister calls for switching to electric cars amid the fuel price crisis, while the Transport Minister recommends the exhausted citizens switch to the catastrophe train.

In addition, the state-aligned media sector no longer minces words, celebrating high fuel prices as a unique opportunity to enforce the green societal transformation through citizens’ wallets.

To emphasize once again: a reduction in fuel levies is not a political quick fix. It would mark the beginning of a retreat from climate policy and a return to political reason. Energy must be affordable, and the exploitation of domestic energy sources should be central to policy. Achieving this requires a lean state, giving private industry the room for necessary investments. What we are witnessing is the systematic implementation of the opposite of this policy.

In his first year in office, Chancellor Friedrich Merz managed the feat of expanding the public service by a staggering 205,000 new employees. There is no sign of bureaucracy reduction or scaling back the state apparatus.

The economic hemorrhage of the private sector to finance the machinations of the growing hyperstate, including projects like the failed war in Donbass, is unprecedented.

In Berlin, people still believe they can successfully complete the green transformation project. What is shocking is not the ideological blindness or the intellectual modesty that comes with this policy. One should have become accustomed to that since the years of the Merkel era.

Even more striking is the ability of politicians to completely shirk responsibility despite the visible decline of both economy and society. They have succeeded in elegantly severing causality between the green planned economy and the country’s decline, systematically concealing accountability and consequences.

About the author: Thomas Kolbe, a German graduate economist, 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 Sun, 04/26/2026 - 08:10