Waste Of The Day: Texas Southern Univ. Spending, Inventory In Shambles

Authored by Jeremy Portnoy via RealClearInvestigations,

Topline: Texas Southern University has no idea where most of its inventory is located, ignored safeguards meant to prevent overspending, and reported inaccurate information to the Texas Comptroller, according to a state audit released Dec. 31. 

Key facts: University policy requires inventory to be physically counted every year, but a count has not happened since 2019, according to the audit.

Auditors randomly selected 60 pieces of property owned by TSU, and university employees were unable to locate 50 of them. 

Every piece of property must have a “custodian” responsible for its care. Half of the university’s property either had no custodian or had a custodian who no longer worked for TSU.

The university’s purchasing system was equally disastrous. Employees need signed approval before making purchases to ensure the school does not spend more than its budget allows. But auditors reviewed 60 random purchases and found that not a single one had approval.

Purchases over $25,000 must include a written contract, but 77% of a random sample of purchases had no contract. When contracts did exist, they could often only be located after “extensive research,” and 97% of them had incorrect information.

The school’s reported expenses were “significantly inflated” because school employees recorded many purchases twice in the university’s accounting software.

The university’s financial statements from 2023 and 2024 were completed months after the state deadline and contained “significant errors,” including misstating how much the school spent paying back bond debt.

In a written response, TSU President J.W. Crawford III agreed with all of the audit’s findings. 

Background: TSU is one of the nation’s largest public, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, or HBCUs. It received $111 million in state funding and $130 million in federal grants and contracts in fiscal year 2025. 

TSU had not been audited since 2006, according to Crawford.

Both the auditors and Crawford blamed some of the issues on staffing vacancies in warehouses and the Information Technology department.

Financial records support that claim. Payroll data obtained by Open the Books and university financial statements both show the school’s payroll expense decreased between 2019 and 2024 — a rarity for any college or public entity.  The nearby University of Texas at Austin, for example, increased its payroll by more than $500 million in the same timeframe.

Open the Books has not yet obtained Crawford’s salary. His predecessor, Lesia Crumpton-Young, made up to $434,000 in a single year.

Search all federal, state and local salaries and vendor spending with the world’s largest government spending database at OpenTheBooks.com. 

Critical quote: “The results of the State Auditor’s report released today on Texas Southern University are beyond disturbing,” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said in a statement. “The Governor, Speaker, and I have already taken action by putting a stop to any spending on any contracts other than ongoing university expenses to keep the school open. 

“It is my hope, for the sake of the students at the university, that TSU can continue. However, to do so, dramatic and permanent changes must occur immediately to comply with state standards.”

Patrick also directed the Texas Department of Public Safety to investigate any potential criminal wrongdoing at TSU.

Summary: Any entity receiving hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer funding should be able to track how the money is being spent.

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com

Tyler Durden Wed, 01/21/2026 - 19:15

Operation Of Australia's Largest Coal Power Station Extended To 2029

Authored by Rex Widerstrom via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The 2,880-megawatt Eraring coal-fired power station will continue to operate until 2029, operator Origin Energy has announced.

Eraring coal-fired power station, the largest in Australia, on the shores of Lake Macquarie southeast of Newcastle in New South Wales, Australia. Nick Pitsas/CSIRO

The facility is the country’s largest power station by output and is situated on the banks of Lake Macquarie, north of Sydney in New South Wales (NSW).

In an announcement to the ASX (pdf), Origin said the move would reduce risks to system security, highlighted by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) in its recent Transition Plan for System Security.

That report warned that, in NSW alternative energy assets required to “maintain system security are not currently scheduled to be operational before the announced retirement date of Eraring Power Station.”

“We’ve taken the decision to extend Eraring’s operations after assessing a range of factors, including the needs of our customers, market conditions and the important role the plant plays in the NSW energy system,” Origin CEO Frank Calabria said.

“Good progress has been made on the delivery of new energy infrastructure, including major transmission works and projects like our large-scale battery at Eraring, but it has become clear Eraring Power Station will need to run for longer to support [a] secure and stable power supply.”

The decision is aimed at providing more time for the delivery of renewables, storage, and transmission projects, he said. It also reflected uncertainty about the reliability of Australia’s ageing coal and gas fleet.

The company originally planned to close it in 2025, then extended it to August 2027 after the NSW Labor government struck a $450 million risk-sharing deal for the ageing facility, which committed the state to covering a percentage of losses up to $225 million per year if given advance notice by Origin.

About half of Australia’s national electricity grid is powered by black coal-fired power stations such as Eraring.

Government Welcomes Extension

The state’s Minister for Energy Penny Sharpe welcomed the announcement in a statement.

“My number one job is keeping the lights on and putting downward pressure on power prices. NSW is making real progress in replacing ageing coal-fired power stations. Since the election, we have increased the amount of renewable energy capacity in operation by almost 70 percent. That’s equivalent to Eraring’s capacity,” Sharpe said.

“Current energy security projections show NSW is expected to have sufficient energy supply when Eraring closes in 2029, thanks to new renewable generation and storage coming online.

“The agreement reached with Origin in 2024 gets the balance right and has so far not cost NSW taxpayers a single dollar.”

The guarantee is due to expire in August 2027.

Extending Eraring’s life is not expected to affect Origin’s 2030 emissions reduction targets or its long-term ambition to achieve net zero by 2050, the company said.

Beyond 2029, Eraring will remain a part of the National Electricity Market thanks to its battery, the first stage of which commenced commercial operation in 2025, with the final stages expected to come online in the first quarter of 2027. Once all stages are complete, the battery will deliver 700MW, providing an average storage capacity of 4.5 hours.

The power station first started operating in 1984, and Origin paid $75 million to take it over when it was privatised in 2013.

Tyler Durden Wed, 01/21/2026 - 18:25

Oklo Upgraded At BofA On Meta Deal

Bank of America upgraded Oklo from Neutral to Buy following Meta’s recent, massive nuclear deal. According to the BofA report (available to pro subs), Meta's agreement with the hyperscaler provides investors with “tangible evidence advanced nuclear is moving from concept to execution.”

Meta prepaid $25 million for Phase 1 of Oklo‘s nuclear campus construction in Ohio for approximately 150 MW of energy. The funding is expected to be used for fuel procurement, site preparation, and early development ahead of final PPAs.

With 16 reactors expected to come online between 2030 and 2036, this drives BofA’s 2036 targets to $5.9 billion in revenue (vs. $5.5 billion prior), 117 units (vs. 111 prior), and 6.7 GW deployed (vs. 6.3 GW prior), leading to a price target of $127, up from $111 prior.

BofA analyst Dimple Gosai, who covers US cleantech at the bank, highlights the sequencing of a ramp to 1.2 GW thanks to the Meta deal, which moves “Oklo‘s opportunity set from ‘conceptual’ to ‘actively financed’ development.”

The bank also expects longer-dated cashflow thanks to continued progress on fuel supply and licensing. Specifically for the Ohio nuclear campus, Phase 1 is projected at 150 MW from two reactors online in 2030/31, Phase 2 adding two more reactors in 2032/33, Phase 3 adding four reactors in 2033/34, and finally Phase 4 adding eight reactors in 2035/36.

BofA has yet to take into account any of the fuel recycling potential with regards to the mega-project announced for Tennessee. The campus in Tennessee is expected to include recycling and reprocessing facilities to convert used nuclear fuel from traditional reactors into fuel for Oklo‘s fast-spectrum Aurora reactors, as well as process plutonium for use in their Pluto reactor design. Pluto reactors are expected to be deployed at the recycling site in Tennessee as well.

Oklo also has multiple other projects, including the Air Force has in Alaska and likely many other hyperscaler deals on the horizon.

Not long ago, OpenAI boss Sam Altman left Oklo's board to preclude any conflicts of interest, hinting at a possible deal on the horizon with OpenAI.

The positive news still need to be counterbalanced with potential construction and operation headaches of these novel reactor designs. While it is not the first time the US has constructed sodium reactors, the time it takes to achieve operational proficiency and maintain availability greater than 90%, similar to the current commercial fleet, could take years or even decades.

More in the full note available to pro subs.

Tyler Durden Wed, 01/21/2026 - 18:00

Fraud Is 'Fundamental' Part Of Child Transgender Medical Field

Authored by Darlene McCormick Sanchez via The Epoch Times,

One of the architects of the Health and Human Services (HHS) review of medical interventions for pediatric gender dysphoria said in a recent interview that fraud is an integral part of the transgender medical field.

​Nearly a year after President Donald Trump signed an executive order to protect “children from chemical and surgical mutilation,” Leor Sapir, who assembled a team of experts to produce the HHS review, emphasized that doctors relying on unproven gender-affirming guidelines are misleading patients.

​Sapir, an HHS report author and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, told The Epoch Times there is no solid evidence that puberty blockers, hormones, or surgery benefit children who reject their sexual identity, but that evidence exists that these procedures can cause harm.

​The 409-page HHS report states that psychotherapy, rather than unproven medical interventions, has greater benefits for children with gender dysphoria, reinforcing the need for evidence-based approaches.

​“Fraud is not just a feature, or, I should say, it’s not just something that happens in this field. It’s almost fundamental to the field itself,” Sapir said during an interview with American Thought Leader host Jan Jekielek that aired Jan. 15.

​Sapir said that doctors and organizations often rely on guidelines from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which he describes as an activist group that presents itself as a medical organization. The group is key in influencing current practice.

​WPATH doesn’t advocate for mental health assessments and helps make sure that the procedures are covered by insurance, he said.

​An Alabama lawsuit involving WPATH disclosed internal documents indicating that WPATH withheld negative findings about treatments for transitioning children, he added.

​Groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics, WPATH, and The Endocrine Society cite one another’s guidelines as evidence that the treatments are safe, he said.

​In part, support for medically transitioning children came about because it was framed as a civil rights matter, according to the report. Additionally, this led many in the medical community to neglect the evidence against it and to curtail debate.

​Medical organizations often formed specialized committees to recommend protocols for treating gender dysphoric children. For example, some committees focused on LGBT issues and, according to the report, members’ careers depend on supporting pediatric transitioning.

​The HHS report, titled “Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria: Review of Evidence and Best Practices,” was originally released in May 2025. While it received many positive peer reviews in November 2025, it also received backlash from those supporting medical intervention for gender dysphoria.

​Sapir noted that the HHS review is unique because it is the first to address the ethics of medically transitioning children and to critique the language that inaccurately describes the procedures.

​“It seems so intuitively obvious that this is ultimately an ethical debate,” he said.

​Ethical considerations include an examination of the risks and benefits of treatment and the idea of patient autonomy, which allows the patient to choose whether to have a procedure.

​The report situates medical ethics within a historical context, referencing the Hippocratic Oath and the principle of “do no harm.”

​One potential harm is that children with gender dysphoria often later identify as gay, so they are disproportionately impacted by transitioning.

“We know, based on research, that a significant portion of these kids, if not socially and medically transitioned, will actually come out to be gay later on in life,” Sapir said.

Medical ethics has shifted toward informed consent, strengthening protections for patients against unwanted medical interventions. But the doctor still has an obligation to protect and promote patient health, especially when it comes to children, according to the HHS report.

​“Patients don’t get to demand treatments from doctors. Doctors have a professional, ethical obligation to only prescribe things that are more likely than not to benefit their patients and not likely to harm them,” Sapir said. ​“But in the context of gender medicine, the principle of autonomy has been reinterpreted to mean the doctors have to give patients what they want.”

​The very idea that children, some as young as 8 or 9, are mature enough to understand the consequences of puberty blockers and medical transition is called into question in the report. Medical providers “often fail” to inform patients that there’s no strong evidence that the procedures benefit those with gender dysphoria.

The report noted that language has “distorted the clinical picture” in pediatric gender medicine. Therefore, doctors should use language that is accurate and not misleading.

​Terms such as “gender-affirming care” were also called into question by the report. The procedure of removing breasts in physically healthy females is referred to in euphemisms such as “gender-affirming chest surgery” or “top surgery” rather than a mastectomy.

Likewise, phrases such as “sex assigned at birth” used in the industry imply that sex is determined subjectively rather than biologically.

“The American Psychological Association style guide, for example, classifies ‘birth sex’ and ‘natal sex’ as ‘disparaging terms’” because they imply that sex cannot be changed, according to the report.

​The test used to determine if a child is transgender is to ask the child, the report says. Children know who they are, according to advocates of the gender-affirmation model.

​“There is a conscious, deliberate, systemic effort in the field of pediatric gender medicine to treat children, even children who are not even in puberty, as if they’re mature adults,” Sapir said.

Tyler Durden Wed, 01/21/2026 - 17:40

Trump Right About Arctic Security, NATO's Rutte Says

In what could have been the starting gun of Trump's de-escalation, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that the US President was right about security in the Arctic.

“When it comes to the Arctic, I think President Trump is right. Other leaders in NATO are right. We need to defend the Arctic,” the former Dutch prime minister said. “We know that the sea lanes are opening up.”

Rutte said that China and Russia were becoming increasingly active in the Arctic Circle, and acknowledged that this posed a problem for the alliance.

“There are eight countries bordering on the Arctic. Seven are members of NATO. That’s Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Canada, and the U.S.,” Rutte said.

“And there’s only one country bordering on the Arctic outside NATO, and that’s Russia. And I would argue there is a ninth country, which is China, which is increasingly active in the Arctic region. So, President Trump and other leaders are right, we have to do more there, we have to protect the Arctic.”

Furthermore, as Guy Birchall reports for The Epoch Times, Rutte also praised Trump for upping the contributions from many NATO member states to the alliance’s budget.

“Do you really think that without Donald Trump, eight big economies in Europe, including Spain, Italy, and Belgium, Canada, by the way, also outside Europe, would have come to 2 percent in 2025 when they were only on 1.5 percent at the beginning of the year?” Rutte said.

“No way. Without Donald Trump, this would never have happened. They are all on 2 percent now.”

NATO's Rutte:

I know many of you criticize Trump. But do you really think that, without Trump, eight big economies in Europe—including Spain, Italy, and Belgium—and Canada would have reached the two-percent defense spending target in 2025?

At the beginning of the year, they… pic.twitter.com/KVmv0J6hXO

— Clash Report (@clashreport) January 21, 2026

Rutte’s comments about NATO’s presence in the Arctic come as Trump’s stated ambition of annexing Greenland has driven a wedge between Washington and European allies.

Before departing for the summit, Trump expressed confidence that NATO and the United States would reach a deal on the Arctic island that benefits all parties.

“I think that we will work something out where NATO is going to be very happy and where we’re going to be very happy,” Trump said during a Jan. 20 White House press conference.

“We need it for national security and even world security. It’s very important.”

U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Second Lady Usha Vance tour the U.S. military's Pituffik Space Base in Greenland on March 28, 2025. Jim Watson/AP

During his speech in Davos, the president ruled out taking the island by force but remained forthright in his insistence that the United States must acquire the territory.

“People thought I would use force, but I don’t have to use force. I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force,” Trump said.

“We want a piece of ice for world protection, and they won’t give it. They have a choice: They can say yes, and we will be very appreciative, or you can say no, and we will remember.”

Trump also said that Denmark promised to spend “over $200 million to strengthen Greenland’s defenses” and that it has “spent less than 1 percent of that.”

He was referring to a 2019 commitment from the Danish government, made during his first presidency, when the idea of the United States taking control of the territory was first raised.

Copenhagen has not disputed that the implementation of that commitment has been slow.

Tyler Durden Wed, 01/21/2026 - 17:20

Twice Bitten, Thrice Shy: What Oil Majors Want Before Betting On Venezuela A Third Time

Authored by Kevin Stocklin via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump has encouraged American oil companies to reinvest $100 billion in Venezuela to spur energy production and to rescue Venezuelans from desperate poverty.

Oil companies, however, are taking stock of the decrepit state of Venezuela’s energy infrastructure after decades of communism, and seeing a number of critical impediments.

“We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies—the biggest anywhere in the world—go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure,” Trump stated in a Jan. 11 press conference following a meeting with top oil executives.

Venezuela has the world’s largest known oil reserves, estimated by rating agency S&P at 300 billion barrels, which are located in a region along the Orinoco River called the Orinoco Belt. At its peak—and with investment and expertise from oil majors including Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, BP, Total, and Norway’s Statoil—Venezuela produced more than 3 million barrels per day and was America’s largest foreign supplier.

America’s gulf coast refineries were built to process the heavy sour crude from Venezuela, and they can refine it much more efficiently than the light crude produced from fracking. But trade with Venezuela slowed to a trickle after then-president Hugo Chavez seized the assets of western oil companies in 2007, leading to the imposition of U.S. sanctions. Since Venezuela’s wells and other equipment were nationalized, output collapsed by about 70 percent and is currently less than 1 million barrels per day, according to statistics website Worldometer.

Venezuela thus presents a massive opportunity for Western oil companies to rebuild what had once been a top global oil producer. But daunting problems remain.

“Commercially, the upside is long-life reserves, portfolio diversification, and service and infrastructure opportunities if the country becomes investable again,” Jason Isaac, CEO of the American Energy Institute, told The Epoch Times.

“But the investment case only works if companies can actually control operations, get paid, and move barrels transparently—otherwise the ‘gain’ is trapped capital and political risk.”

Venezuela Currently ‘Uninvestable’

On Jan. 9, Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods expressed little enthusiasm for an immediate return to Venezuela, stating in a meeting hosted by Trump at the White House that the country, in its current state, is “uninvestable.”

“We’ve had our assets seized there twice,” Woods said. “And so, you can imagine to re-enter a third time would require some pretty significant changes from what we’ve historically seen here and what is currently the state.”

In an aerial view, the Exxon Mobil Baytown Refinery is seen in Baytown, Texas, on Jan. 13, 2026. President Donald Trump has threatened to sideline Exxon Mobil from Venezuela's energy market after expressing that he "didn't like Exxon's response," while making a push for oil companies to begin investing there. Exxon remains interested and is prepared to send a team to assess the existing oil infrastructure. Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Patrick Pouyanne, CEO of Total, likewise said that he would consider investing in Venezuela again at some point, but it is “not high on my agenda.”

Venezuela first expropriated the assets of western oil companies in the 1970s and again in 2007. By contrast to many governments in the Middle East and Africa that had done the same, Venezuela refused to compensate oil companies for their losses, leading the companies to sue and win in U.S. and international courts, claiming damages of around $60 billion.

Oil companies will likely want these claims to be paid before putting new money into Venezuela, but the country has little means to do so. Oil production has dwindled to less than 1 million barrels per day and, even at that level, still comprise about two-thirds of the government’s entire budget. China has replaced the United States as the top importer of Venezuelan oil, currently buying an estimated 80 percent of it, but at a discount.

And while Venezuela faces tens of billions of dollars in claims from western oil companies, it is now indebted to China as well. According to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, Chinese banks have at least $10 billion in outstanding loans to Venezuela.

Venezuelan Crude Expensive to Extract

Beyond these factors, there are also technical problems. Venezuela’s oil reserves, though abundant, are a particularly dense and sulfur-rich form of crude oil that requires a level of investment and expertise to extract and process that only the world’s largest companies can provide, experts say.

“Venezuela has very large reserves, but when we’re talking about the actual production of them, they’re very difficult to produce and very expensive to produce,” Kenny Stein, a policy expert at the Institute for Energy Research, told The Epoch Times.

Another issue for America’s oil companies is that the full extent of the damage to Venezuela’s infrastructure has yet to be assessed, and the cost of rebuilding it could go well beyond the $100 billion figure that has been estimated.

“The total investment required is not immediately clear, given the lack of transparency under the Chavez and Maduro regimes, but it is likely to be substantial and exceed initial estimates,” Ryan Yonk, senior fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research, told The Epoch Times. “Rebuilding the oil infrastructure is likely to be a long-term project spanning multiple years and potentially decades, rather than the short-term expectations some hold for rapid development and immediate effect.”

Experts say that equipment located in Venezuela has not only been neglected but pilfered as well.

“The infrastructure, the wells, the pipelines, the entire oil industry in Venezuela has been really stripped down to the bone and is barely functional,” Stein said. In addition to theft by government officials, he said, “employees of the state oil company have been stealing copper from their facilities to sell to feed their families.”

Oil companies will likely want government co-investment in some form to help pay for the reconstruction, Yonk said.

Another issue when deciding whether to invest in Venezuela is that Western oil companies must weigh it against the alternatives.

“They could go to Brazil or Guyana, or places in the United States, that are all less expensive to produce,” Stein said. “There would be faster production, they’re not as volatile, and you’re not as much at risk of losing everything.”

Aerial view of an oil well in eastern Monagas, in Maturin, Venezuela, on Feb. 13, 1998. Bertrand Parres/AFP via Getty Images

What It Will Take

For all these reasons, it will take significant changes for Venezuela to attract capital again, experts say.

“U.S. companies will not commit serious capital to Venezuela without a credible reset on rule of law,” Isaac said. “That means binding contract protections, enforceable dispute resolution, and a settlement framework for legacy expropriation and unpaid joint-venture debts.”

Oil companies will likely seek guarantees from the U.S. government that oil sanctions will not be reimposed, that whatever agreements they enter into will be honored, and that they can operate safely and repatriate whatever profits they may earn, he said.

“Without those conditions, any U.S. presence will stay limited to short-cycle, low-exposure activity,” Isaac said.

Exxon Mobil’s CEO stated that he is willing to take initial steps to help with Venezuela’s reconstruction “while these longer‑term issues are being worked.”

“We haven’t been in the country for almost 20 years,” Woods stated. “We think it’s absolutely critical in the short term that we get a technical team in place to assess the current state of the industry and the assets to understand what would be involved to help the people of Venezuela get production back on the market.”

If Exxon is invited by the Venezuelan regime and has security guarantees from the Trump administration, Woods said he is “ready to put a team on the ground.”

Chevron is the only U.S. oil major currently operating Venezuela, producing about 240,000 barrels per day in a joint venture with PDVSA, the country’s state-owned oil monopoly, though experts say much of that effort is simply to preserve the assets they already have in the Orinoco Belt.

“Chevron’s has continued to operate there, but basically doing the bare minimum to keep their wells from being ‘bricked,’” Stein said. “Because of the thickness and tar-like state of the oil, if you don’t keep it continually maintained and flowing at a minimum level, the well will be destroyed.”

Nonetheless, Chevron’s vice chairman Mark Nelson told Trump on Jan. 9 that he believed they could double their output in Venezuela immediately.

An incremental increase in Venezuela’s oil production is more likely than a rapid return to pre-Chavez levels, Isaac said, predicting that the country could reach approximately 1.3 million barrels per day within a couple years, and perhaps 2 million barrels per day within a decade.

President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with US oil companies executives in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on Jan. 9, 2026. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

Strategic and Economic Goals

Despite the hesitancy of oil majors to commit significant capital to Venezuela at this point, the Trump administration has stated its strategic interest in preventing China and other U.S. adversaries from stepping into the void.

During an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Venezuela had become “a crossroads for the activities of all of our adversaries around the world.”

For Venezuelans, however, the riches of oil have been both a blessing and a curse.

Calling Venezuela “a case study in the perils of becoming a petrostate,” a 2018 study by the Council on Foreign Relations stated that “since it was discovered in the country in the 1920s, oil has taken Venezuela on an exhilarating but dangerous boom-and-bust ride that offers lessons for other resource-rich states.”

In what has been called “Dutch disease,” developing countries that suddenly get rich from the discovery of natural resources develop a singular dependence on those resources, leaving other sectors of the economy to languish while government corruption and theft proliferate, with little of the wealth ultimately going to benefit the citizens at large.

For this reason, some analysts say that the best solution for Venezuela is to establish a system of free markets, democratic traditions, stability, and the rule of law, similar to what Poland and Chile have done since emerging from authoritarian regimes. Key elements of Poland’s reforms included a legal system that protected property rights, political stability under a democratic system, privatization of state-owned companies, a stable currency, and a tax regime that allowed investors to earn a decent return.

“Under the ‘warm embrace of communism,’ [Poland] was an economic basket case,” the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, a nonprofit founded by free-market economists Arthur Laffer and Steve Moore, stated in an op-ed.

Having embraced democracy and free markets, Poland recently achieved GDP growth rates of about 4 percent per year, and is predicted to overtake the UK in GDP-per-capita by the end of this decade, they said.

Tyler Durden Wed, 01/21/2026 - 17:00

The Quiet Spread Of AI-Generated 'Brainrot' Across Social Media

Authored by Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times,

Elephants drop-kicking crocodiles while breaking the laws of physics, bewildering deepfakes of politicians and deceased public figures, and seemingly animated children’s videos of Jesus fighting the Grinch: generative artificial intelligence (AI) is sweeping across online video platforms and may now account for a sizable portion of YouTube’s short-form video feed, recent research shows.

After being accused last year of causing users to end up in psychiatric wards and allegedly helping multiple depressed teenagers take their own lives, generative AI tools are also inspiring new genres of online content.

AI-generated images and clips were found in 21 percent of the 500 short-form videos screened in a study released last November by the video editing software company Kapwing, with some of the channels analyzed amassing millions of subscribers and billions of views.

Some, such as India-based channel Bandar Apna Dost, were estimated to generate millions of dollars in YouTube ad revenue annually. These channels are found worldwide, with those based in Spain and South Korea garnering the “most devoted viewerships,” according to the study.

“Generative AI tools have dramatically lowered the barrier to entry for video production,” Rohini Lakshané, an interdisciplinary technology researcher, told The Epoch Times.

“So, the channel can churn out massive amounts of content and maintain a high frequency of posting. Channels using these methods can flood recommendation feeds simply by volume, irrespective of intrinsic quality.”

Here’s what we know about “brainrot” and “AI slop,” what’s at stake for viewers and content creators, and why you might want to pay closer attention when browsing social media.

‘Brainrot’ and ‘AI Slop’

Kapwing determined that 33 percent of the videos it screened after creating a new account on YouTube appeared to have the hallmarks of “brainrot” content, which Oxford defines as “trivial or unchallenging” and considered to deteriorate a “person’s mental or intellectual state.”

Existing long before the advent of generative AI, “brainrot” includes memes, humor, nonsensical skits, videos of children or animals engaging in “silly” actions or behaviors, and other forms of content that minimally engage users intellectually or convey little or no meaning beyond randomness or absurdity.

Combining generative AI with “brainrot” characteristics gives rise to the emerging genre many refer to as “AI slop,” which Kapwing defines as “careless, low-quality content” generated with AI tools that is intended to “farm views and subscriptions or sway political content.”

By its definition, what content may be considered as “brainrot” or “low-quality” can vary from person to person. For example, one person might describe all short-form “comedy” videos as “brainrot,” while another might find them genuinely entertaining and choose a different label.

The same may be said about “AI slop,” as some content creators, such as Montreat College language professor T. Michael Halcomb, use generative AI tools as an extension of their own academic work.

Halcomb, who also parodies “AI slop” and “brainrot” with his student-led comedy club, told The Epoch Times that he uses AI tools to make short-form videos based on posts he writes on his blog, deploying the technology to create video clips, clone his voice for narration purposes, and generate text on the screen.

There’s a lot of overlap between users that maintain a human element while taking advantage of AI tools and those merely using AI to create what others would refer to as “slop” or mass-produced content aimed at farming views, he said.

“I do think the human element isn’t completely gone. It just allows humans to speed up things,” Halcomb said, adding that even some of the so-called “AI slop” channels such as Spain’s “Imperio de jesus,” which features AI-generated animations of Jesus fighting Satan and the Grinch, play into “shock humor” and absurdism—driving curiosity among viewers.

There’s also a “lore” element to many of these videos, as the channel above has repeated story tropes that build on previous videos, which Halcomb compared to “inside jokes” in comedy, allowing one video to lead to another, and so on.

Looking at the Bandar Apna Dost channel, which, according to its creators, features a “realistic monkey in hilarious, dramatic, and heart-touching human-style situations,” the videos utilize AI for everything from their visuals to background audio.

The videos are popular, Lakshané says, because they mimic scenes from popular Indian films and display “the trope of a hypermasculine male protagonist who commits illegal or abusive acts or commits superhuman feats, and, at times, has an outlandish amount of social or political power.”

“The videos in the channel are disjointed and do not follow a storyline or narrative. No prerequisite knowledge or context is required to watch the short videos. There are characters, such as one with a likeness of the Incredible Hulk—named Hulku—which gives the videos an appeal and broad demographic reach,” she said.

Other channels may use less overt AI, or AI harder to detect for some viewers, like a video found by The Epoch Times, which “looks” like a real safari video of an elephant protecting another from a crocodile.

But once viewers see the second elephant drop kick the crocodile more than 30 feet in a way that breaks the laws of physics, it becomes much clearer that the video was made with AI, even though its creator seemingly went to great lengths to make sure the OpenAI-made tool Sora’s watermark only appears on a single frame—three seconds in—on the eight-second video.

A screen displays examples of AI prompt-created videos, made with Xai’s Grok app in London on Jan. 12, 2026. Leon Neal/Getty Images

Risks of AI-Generated Videos

As with the example above, many AI videos are intentionally generated to look as lifelike as possible, which increases the risk of deception and misinformation online, some organizations say.

AARP, a nonprofit and advocacy group for Americans aged 50 and older, warned last month that “AI slop” videos are making it increasingly difficult for some users to “detect what is real.”

The organization noted ChatGPT creator OpenAI’s decision in October 2025 to block “disrespectful” AI-generated “deepfake” videos depicting the likeness of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in its Sora 2 video creation app.

Quickly generated “AI slop” deepfake videos also permeated online platforms throughout the 2024 presidential election, and the Brennan Center for Justice warned last March that AI videos could have serious impacts on future voting cycles.

Science researchers are worried this phenomenon may creep into medical information and educational videos, where there are “specific hazards to learning from purportedly educational videos made by AI without the use of human discretion,” according to a study released by the National Library of Medicine in November 2025.

That study screened 1,082 online videos in the “preclinical biomedical sciences” educational category and found that 5.3 percent appeared to be “AI-generated and low quality,” suggesting the technology is still in slow adoption among online medical information content, but that its proliferation may be slowly increasing.

Even in the absence of misinformation, the “AI slop” videos that are sweeping across YouTube and TikTok have psychological impacts on users, Jeff Burningham, a tech industry venture capitalist and author of “The Last Book Written by a Human: Becoming Wise in the Age of AI,” told The Epoch Times.

“I think it’s pretty probably self-evident as to why it’s becoming popular, and it’s not something that I or we as a collective society should be proud of,” he said.

“It preys on kind of our most base desires. And I think it’s an indication of dopamine over discernment … [and] engagement over insight.”

Burningham says in his book that the real danger with AI isn’t necessarily the technology itself, but the “atrophy of human attention and awareness.”

A woman holds a phone displaying the Youtube app, in this file photo, on Aug. 11, 2024. Oleksii Pydsosonnii/The Epoch Times

Results of Experiment

The Epoch Times created a new YouTube account using a new email address on a private web browser to prevent previous browser cookies from impacting the type or genre of videos first seen.

We then analyzed the first 300 short-form videos shown on YouTube after initially logging into the account and found that the vast majority—88 percent—had the characteristics of “brainrot,” with little or no meaning beyond the absurd, random, or attention-grabbing.

However, some of these videos fell into gray areas, particularly within the amorphous “comedy” genre, making it difficult to pin down exactly how many would fit the “brainrot” category, which Halcomb says is largely subjective.

In our analysis, only 8 percent of the first 300 videos seen on the new YouTube account appeared to be AI-generated, with some using AI-images, while others—like the elephant video and another that features a woman hiding in her car’s hatchback to escape a horde of wolves trying to attack her—appear to be fully AI-generated video clips.

We did not see videos from any of the channels mentioned in Kapwing’s study under its “Most Subscribed AI Slop YouTube Channels,” which may come down to location or other variables, particularly if previous browser cookies can influence which videos a new account sees on the platform.

Another possibility is that AI slop, even though it’s increasingly growing in popularity, is simply not yet outpacing the other forms of so-called “brainrot” that The Epoch Times did see in its experiment: meme videos, people performing skits in front of their cameras, and bizarre attempts at comedy that are otherwise filmed and edited by real people.

Even if AI-generated content explodes in prevalence as some predict, its rise may not be as apocalyptic as some fear as long as humanity can face this existential reckoning moment as an opportunity to evolve, Burningham said, describing AI technology as a “cosmic mirror to humanity.”

“A reflection can be a powerful thing, because you see yourself a little more clearly, and with that, you know additional clarity—you’re able to pivot or change. Now, will humans do this? I don’t know,” he said.

“It’s hard to be optimistic, but this is the opportunity that I think that AI allows us. These things thrive because right now, attention is cheap and it’s fragmented in a million different ways, and we’re exhausted. But my fear, obviously, and I think the danger of AI slop is when attention collapses, so does wisdom, so does memory, and so does meaning, and that’s a scary place for humanity.”

Tyler Durden Wed, 01/21/2026 - 16:20

Peter Schiff: Printing Money Is Not the Cure for Cononavirus



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

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











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

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