The post When It Comes to the Stock Market, Trump Is a Loser appeared first on CEPR.

Where The US Has Military Footholds In Europe

Since the beginning of his second term one year ago, President Trump has escalated his public campaign regarding his plans for acquiring Greenland, framing the autonomous Danish territory as a "national security necessity" due to its Arctic location, while the island is also rich in untapped mineral resources.

Trump's rhetoric has ranged from offers to purchase the territory from Denmark, including a direct payment to its residents, to veiled threats of military intervention, having notably stated in early January: "We are going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not, because if we don’t do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland, and we’re not going to have Russia or China as a neighbor".

That rhetoric appeared to peak last weekend and then drifted back into more diplomatic discussion after his flip-flop on possible kinetic action during his speech in Davos.

This push follows a pattern of assertive U.S. foreign policy, including the recent military raid in Venezuela to capture the country's President Nicolas Maduro.

The U.S. already operates a permanent military base in Greenland: Pituffik Space Base, a Cold War-era installation now staffed by about 200 personnel, down from a peak of 10,000. The base is critical for missile defense and space surveillance, but Trump argues that full U.S. control is needed to deter Russia and China, despite existing defense agreements with Denmark that allow for expanded U.S. military presence.

As Statista's Tristan Gaudiat notes in the map below, the U.S. also currently maintains over 50,000 troops across around thirty permanent bases in Europe (area of responsibility of the United States European Command), with important air hubs like Keflavik (Iceland), Ramstein (Germany) and Lakenheath (United Kingdom), or naval stations like Rota (Spain) and Souda (Greece).

These bases are not only tools of NATO deterrence but also leverage points for U.S. power projection around the globe.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Europe's reliance on U.S. military infrastructure is a double-edged sword.

While European leaders have condemned Trump's Greenland ambitions as "absurd" and a threat to NATO's unity, some also recognize their dependence on U.S. bases and security support.

On the other hand, in response to Trump's escalations, the EU and several member states could consider the possibility of restricting U.S. access to European bases - a move that could significantly hamper American operations in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Denmark, backed by the EU, has reaffirmed Greenland's sovereignty and warned that any U.S. annexation attempt would "destroy 80 years of transatlantic security links".

Furthermore, Denmark has boosted its Arctic defense budget and, alongside France, Germany and other European partners, has deployed small military contingents to Greenland for exercises, signaling unity and willingness to defend Arctic sovereignty.

Tyler Durden Sun, 01/25/2026 - 08:45

2026 Is The Year Of Balance Sheet Engineering In The Battery Storage Market

By Michael Kern of OilPrice.com

In the first quarter of 2026, the global energy storage market is no longer a playground for visionaries... it is a graveyard for the undercapitalized.

The data is rough. As of March 2025, QuantumScape sat on $860 million in cash against a trailing twelve-month burn rate of $331 million. This 2.6-year window is the "valley of death" made manifest in a ledger. 

While the early 2020s were fueled by the speculative highs of SPAC mergers and theoretical energy density, the 2026 market has pivoted to "Balance Sheet Engineering."

Success is now measured by manufacturing yield and the ability to exploit the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) Section 45X.

The gap between a patent and a production line has become a chasm that physics and finance are struggling to bridge.

Lessons from the Liquidation Slow-Burn

The history of next-generation batteries is written in the records of bankruptcy courts. We see the "polysulfide shuttle" not as a chemical reaction, but as a financial sinkhole.

OXIS Energy, once the titan of Lithium-Sulfur (Li-S), entered administration in 2021 and spent four years in a liquidation slow-burn. Creditors were still waiting for "intended dividends" in September 2025. They received pennies for a dream that promised 550 Wh/kg but delivered fewer than 100 cycles before the chemistry ate itself.

Physics is indifferent to venture capital timelines... and physics usually wins.

Pellion Technologies attempted to harness the divalent power of Magnesium-Ion, offering theoretical density that dwarfed lithium. But magnesium ions move through solid hosts like sludge. When Khosla Ventures realized the drone market couldn't fund the R&D required for automotive scale, they pulled the plug. Pellion is now "deadpooled."

Not every failure ends in an auction of lab equipment. Ambri, the MIT-born liquid metal battery firm, utilized a Section 363 sale in 2024 to wipe its slate clean. By selling assets to a consortium led by Bill Gates’s Frontier fund, Ambri shed its legacy debt while keeping its calcium-antimony tech alive.

In energy finance, "failure" is a terminal event for the middle class... but it is merely a recapitalization event for the ultra-high-net-worth.

How Sodium Neutralized Lithium’s Edge

While Western startups navigate insolvency, China has executed a violent pivot to Sodium-Ion (Na-ion). This is the "Great Bifurcation" of 2026.

The Western strategy is a high-stakes bet on premium "leapfrog" technologies like Solid-State. The Chinese strategy is a brutal scale-up of the "good enough."

In 2025, Lithium-Iron-Phosphate (LFP) prices in China crashed to $44/kWh due to massive overcapacity. Sodium-Ion, despite lacking the same scale, is hovering at $59/kWh.

• LFP Cost (2025): $44–$52/kWh
• Na-ion Cost (2025): ~$59/kWh
• The Friction: Sodium is currently more expensive than the lithium incumbent it was meant to replace.

But cost is only half the story. Sodium-Ion represents a geopolitical hedge. By deploying Na-ion via brands like CATL’s "Naxtra," China has effectively destroyed the pricing power of lithium miners. If lithium prices spike, the world’s largest manufacturer simply flips a switch to sodium.

The West is playing for performance... China is playing for control.

Subsidy Lifelines

For the survivors in the U.S., the business model is no longer about selling batteries—it is about harvesting tax credits.

Section 45X of the IRA has become the primary revenue driver for firms like Peak Energy and Lyten. The credit provides 10% of the production cost for "electrode active materials." Because the legal definition is chemistry-neutral, it doesn't matter if the cathode is made of expensive lithium or dirt-cheap Prussian Blue.

The Foreign Entity of Concern (FEOC) rules have created a "supply chain wall." Because China controls 80% of the lithium refining capacity, standard Li-ion batteries are increasingly ineligible for U.S. consumer tax credits.

This has created a desperate demand for "FEOC-compliant" alternatives.

• Sion Power: Secured $75M in Series A funding led by LG Energy Solution.
• The Logic: LG isn't buying a chemistry; they are buying a 50 Amp-hour large-format cell production line in Arizona that doesn't rely on Chinese precursors.
• The Shift: Hiring former GM executive Pamela Fletcher as CEO signals that the "science experiment" phase is over.

You don't hire an automotive veteran to run a lab... you hire them to manage a supply chain.

A Solid-State Stalemate

If Sodium-Ion is the hammer, Solid-State is the ghost. Toyota, the undisputed leader in solid-state patents, has moved the goalposts again. Mass production, once promised for 2025, has been pushed to 2027 and beyond.

The technical friction remains the "yield" bottleneck.

Ceramic separators are brittle. In a laboratory, a 90% yield is a triumph. In a gigafactory, a 10% scrap rate is a financial death sentence. This is why companies like Solid Power have pivoted to a capital-light licensing model. They are letting BMW and SK Innovation take the hit on the CAPEX-heavy manufacturing while they collect royalties on the sulfide electrolytes.

The market has bifurcated into two distinct spheres:

1. The China-Sphere: Focused on LFP and Na-ion, driven by TWh-scale manufacturing and low-cost exports.
2. The Western-Sphere: Focused on High-Nickel and Solid-State, propped up by Section 45X subsidies and trade barriers.

The "PowerPoint Engineering" era is dead. The "Balance Sheet Engineering" era is here.

The winners of 2026 are not the companies with the highest theoretical energy density... they are the ones with the smartest tax lawyers and the highest manufacturing yields.

Tyler Durden Sun, 01/25/2026 - 08:10

Trump Slams Davos Elites Over "Green New Scam" As Climate Crisis Narrative Falls Apart

President Trump used his time at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to denounce the globalists' disastrous "Green New Scam" policies that have caused degrowth in parts of the West and helped spark an energy crisis with soaring power prices.

"You're supposed to make money with energy, not lose money. Here in Europe, we've seen the fate that the radical left tried to impose on America," Trump told the elites in Davos.

The Climate Hoax was created by the WEF Losers and President Trump just called them out to their faces.

“The United States avoided the catastrophic energy collapse which failed every European Nation that pursued the Green New Scam…perhaps the greatest hoax in History…” pic.twitter.com/Pq5mNDUKk6

— Liz Churchill (@liz_churchill10) January 21, 2026

Just a few years ago, Davos elites were betting big on solving their made-up climate crisis, which was used to loot taxpayers by diverting public funds into risky green energy companies and climate NGOs. But with Trump restoring common-sense energy policies centered on reliable fossil fuel power generation, and rolling back left-wing green policies that handed China and the East a competitive manufacturing edge, globalists were absolutely furious with the president this week.

Take, for instance, climate alarmist and grifter, Al Gore, on Tuesday booed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick during his speech at a VIP dinner in Davos.

The Financial Times reported the dinner "descended into uproar after combative remarks from Lutnick," with European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde leaving the event early.

Gore's behavior was just as embarrassing for the United States as Gov. Gavin Newsom's bizarre behavior. The unhinged behavior of both Gore and Newsom - both leftist - in the public domain is merely a sign that Trump is winning against America's left-wing.

Lutnick responded on X...

Thankfully, we didn’t come to Davos for Al Gore’s praise.

— Howard Lutnick (@howardlutnick) January 22, 2026

Let's circle back to the so-called "climate crisis" narrative, which was merely an information operation to sway public sentiment polls to pass the controversial Green New Deal into law in 2019, but failed to gain legislative traction. Following that failure, corporate media helped set and amplify the narrative, unleashing what amounted to a broad psyop on the American public about a planet in crisis. Then Democrats were able to push through the Inflation Reduction Act, a massive climate and energy spending package signed by former President Joe Biden in 2022.

As shown in the Bloomberg data below, as soon as the climate bill was passed and taxpayer funds flooded the green industry and NGOs by the tens of billions of dollars, the narrative of the world on fire because of cow farts and Taylor Swift's private jet almost disappeared.

Earlier today, Trump on Truth Social said, "Record Cold Wave expected to hit 40 States. Rarely seen anything like it before. Could the Environmental Insurrectionists please explain — WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GLOBAL WARMING???"

Of course, left-wing corporate media was furious with Trump ...

Trump is correct about the climate crisis agenda and how it amounted to one giant "scam." It served as a vehicle for Democrats to loot the Treasury, and the reckless spending that followed the IRA fueled the worst inflation storm in more than a decade, which Trump is now working to correct through common-sense energy policies that will bridge the power grid until reliable clean nuclear power comes online in the 2030s.

Tyler Durden Sun, 01/25/2026 - 07:35

Peter Schiff: Printing Money Is Not the Cure for Cononavirus



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

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











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

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