China Orders State-Funded Data Centers Not To Use Foreign AI Chips

Yesterday we said that with Beijing giving Trump a list of 4 "red lines" he should note cross (including i) Taiwan, ii) democracy and human rights, iii) China’s political system, and iv) development rights), the countdown to the end of the trade truce has started because there is no more certain way to get Trump to do something than to tell him he shouldn't. 

And in a move that will only accelerate Trump's anger, the Chinese government issued guidance requiring new data centre projects that have received any state funds to only use domestically-made artificial intelligence chips, Reuters reported.

In recent weeks, Chinese regulatory authorities ordered such data centres that are less than 30% complete to remove all installed foreign chips, or cancel plans to purchase them, while projects in a more advanced stage will be decided on a case-by-case basis, the Reuters sources said.

Some projects have already been suspended before breaking ground as a result of the directive, including a facility in a northwestern province that had planned to deploy Nvidia chips, one of the sources said. The project, being developed by a private technology company that received state funding, has been put on hold, the source said.

The move could represent one of China's most aggressive steps yet to eliminate foreign technology from its critical infrastructure amid a pause in trade hostilities between Washington and Beijing, and achieve its quest for AI chip self-sufficiency.

China's access to advanced AI chips, including those made by Nvidia has been a key point of friction with the U.S., as the two wrestle for dominance in high-end computing power and AI. Trump said in an interview aired on Sunday following talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping last week that Washington will "let them deal with Nvidia but not in terms of the most advanced" chips.

Beijing's response: if you limit technology, we will come up with our own. 

The move by Beijing, would dash Nvidia's hopes of regaining Chinese market share, while giving local rivals, including Huawei, yet another opportunity to secure more chip sales. Besides Nvidia, other foreign chipmakers that sell data centre chips to China include AMD and Intel. 

It remains unclear whether the guidance applies nationwide or only to certain provinces, although it is likely the case that this will soon become the norm unless something changes. The sources did not identify which Chinese regulatory bodies had issued the order. 

Unlike in the US where corporations are funding data center buildout - either through cash flow, equity or debt - AI data center projects in China have drawn over $100 billion in state funding since 2021, according to a Reuters review of government tenders. Most data centers in China have received some form of state funding to aid their construction, but it is not immediately clear how many projects are subject to the new guidance.

Beijing has long been irked by Washington's export controls aimed at impeding China's tech progress and has taken a series of measures, including retaliatory moves, to wean itself off US technology. In response, the US has been aggressively ramping up Industrial Policy to boost domestic rare earth mining and refining to ween itself off reliance on Chinese rare earth production. The latest trade truce gives Trump about a year to come up with a viable alternative and a domestic rare earth industry which has seen substantial, but still mostly insignificant, funding from the US. 

The US justified its restrictions by alleging the Chinese military would use the chips to increase its capabilities. China has discouraged local tech giants from purchasing advanced Nvidia chips over security concerns this year, while showing off a new data centre powered solely by domestic AI chips.

And in 2023, Beijing banned the use of Micron'sproducts in its critical infrastructure, which paved the way for a decision this year by the largest U.S. memory chipmaker to exit the server chip market in China, Reuters reported last month.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has repeatedly lobbied Trump and his cabinet to allow the sale of more AI chips to China, arguing that keeping its superpower rival's AI industry dependent on U.S. hardware was good for America's interests.
Its current share of the Chinese AI chip market is zero, compared to 95% in 2022, according to the company.

Excluding foreign chipmakers like Nvidia from big state projects would eliminate a significant portion of their China revenue, even as a deal is agreed to allow the resumption of advanced chip sales to China. The new guidance on data centres covers Nvidia's H20 chips, the most advanced AI chip the U.S. firm is allowed to sell to China, but also more powerful processors such as the B200 and H200, the sources said.

While the B200 and H200 are barred from being shipped to China by U.S. export controls, they remain widely available in China through grey-market channels.

Of course, the obvious next question is does China have the technology to actually achieve parity with the US.

With the latest directive, the Chinese government is carving out even more market share for domestic chipmakers. China has a range of AI chip companies, from the most prominent, Huawei Technologies, to smaller players such as Shanghai-listed Cambricon and startups including MetaX, Moore Threads, and Enflame.

While products from these Chinese companies already rival some of Nvidia's offerings, they have struggled to crack the market. Developers used to Nvidia's reliable software ecosystem have been reluctant to adopt domestic alternatives.

Lastly, while the move would help boost sales of domestically developed chips, it also risks widening the U.S.-China gap in AI computing power. U.S. tech giants like Microsoft, Meta, and OpenAI have spent or allocated hundreds of billions of dollars to build data centres powered by Nvidia's most advanced chips. Meanwhile, leading Chinese chip manufacturers like SMIC are facing supply constraints due to U.S. sanctions on semiconductor manufacturing equipment that have hit advanced chip production capacity.

In the end, the most likely endgame is one where both Beijing and DC directly fund their domestic AI industries to win the next "arms race" which will be who gets to AGI first, as the cost for not getting there first will be existentially staggering. As such, we expect a substantial spending spree from the US government to fund even more progress as Trump seeks to expand the tech gap with China, which in turn will further blow out the US budget deficit and lead to an even faster growth in the US federal debt in coming years. 

Tyler Durden Wed, 11/05/2025 - 18:50

US Household Debt Hits Record $18.6 Trillion As Student Loan Defaults Explode

The NY Fed published its Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit.

Surprising exactly no-one, the report showed that total household debt increased by $197 billion (1%) in Q3 2025, to a new record high of $18.59 trillion. split between $13.5 trillion in housing debt and $5.1 trillion in non-housing debt.

“Household debt balances are growing at a moderate pace, with delinquency rates stabilizing,” said Donghoon Lee, Economic Research Advisor at the New York Fed. “The relatively low mortgage delinquency rates reflect the housing market’s resilience, driven by ample home equity and tight underwriting standards.” 

Some details:

• Mortgage balances grew by $137 billion in the third quarter and totaled $13.07 trillion at the end of September 2025.
  • Mortgage delinquency rate rose to 0.83% from 0.82% prior quarter
• Credit card balances rose by $24 billion from the previous quarter and stood at $1.23 trillion.
  • Delinquency rate at 12.41%, highest since 2011
• Auto loan balances held steady at $1.66 trillion.
• Home equity line of credit (HELOC) balances rose by $11 billion to $422 billion.
• Student loan balances rose by $15 billion and stood at $1.65 trillion.

In total, non-housing balances rose by $49 billion, a 1.0% increase from Q2 2025. 

Taking a closer look we find that...  

• The pace of mortgage originations increased with $512 billion newly originated in Q3 2025.

The only silver lining in the report is that housing debt levels and delinquencies have stabilized: “Household debt balances are growing at a moderate pace, with delinquency rates stabilizing,” Donghoon Lee, an economic research advisor at the New York Fed, said in a press release accompanying the figures. “The relatively low mortgage delinquency rates reflect the housing market’s resilience, driven by ample home equity and tight underwriting standards."

While that is true, let's see what happens to the US housing market once the avalanche starts, tipped off the by scramble to sell everything in the mecca of Capitalism, New York City, which is now controlled by a communist. 

Moving on: 

• There was $184 billion in new auto loans and leases appearing on credit reports during the third quarter, a small dip from the $188 billion observed in Q2 2025.

• Aggregate limits on credit card accounts continued to rise by $94 billion, representing a 1.8% increase from the previous quarter.
• Home equity lines of credit (HELOC) limits rose by $8 billion, continuing the growth in HELOC limits that began in 2022.

Of course, with rising debt, come rising delinquencies, and in the case of student debt, absolutely explosive ones.

As the NY Fed writes, aggregate delinquency rates remained elevated in Q3 2025, with 4.5% of outstanding debt in some stage of delinquency. Transitions into early delinquency were mixed with credit card debt and student loans increasing, while all other debt types saw decreases.

Transitions into delinquency (30+ days)...

... and serious delinquency (90+ days) increased across all debt types.

Total consumer bankruptcies jumped to 141,600 in Q3, the highest since the covid crash year of 2020. 

Taking a closer look at the ground zero of the current consumption crisis, namely student Loans, where outstanding debt stood at $1.65 trillion in Q3 2025.  

And the punchline: missed federal student loan payments that were not previously reported to credit bureaus between Q2 2020 and Q4 2024 are now appearing in credit reports. Consequently, student loan delinquency rates have continued to surge after a sharp rise in the first half of 2025. In Q3 2025, 9.4% of aggregate student debt was reported as 90+ days delinquent or in default, as compared to 7.8% in Q1 2025 and 10.2% in Q2 2025. Also of note in the chart below, the credit card serious delinquency rate is actually creeping up even faster, and hit 12.41%, the highest since 2011.

And the most remarkable observation: over 20% of all student debt by those aged 50 and over (!) is effectively in default (technically it is still delinquent, but if millions haven't made even a token effort to repay it in 90 days, one can safely classify it as in default).

That's millions of potential consumers whose credit rating is about to get obliterated and who will not have access to credit cards or other debt forms for a long time. 

More in the full New York Fed presentation.

Tyler Durden Wed, 11/05/2025 - 16:35

The Corrupt Anatomy Of The SNAP Panic

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

Americans ought to be deeply embarrassed at the national panic over the future of food stamps. The level of dependency on this program (42 million people and 22 million households) runs contrary to our entire civic culture and history.

It is a betrayal of the founding vision of commerce, independence, and agronomy. It reveals a fundamentally dangerous rot at the core of the functioning of the food system.

We can hope that the widespread meltdown over even the slightest pause in the program provokes a rethinking of the entire scheme.

The term food stamps is of course deprecated in favor of SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) delivered via an EBT (Electronic Benefits Transfer). This is all technocratic euphemism. They are food stamps. The name was changed to disguise the disgrace and the mode of delivery turned into a card that looks like any other.

It was much better when people had to deliver their stamps in front of other customers. At least that preserved some of the stigma with which it was associated. As for nutrition, not so much. The SNAP program amounts to a huge subsidy for the snack-food industry, which turns out to be the key lobbying force behind the entire thing.

The origin of the program traces to 1933. Its main point was not to save people from starvation but to save industry from a downturn at the onset of the Great Depression. The price of wheat, milk, and meat were falling dramatically. The problem was not a lack of demand but a huge overproduction brought about by market distortions.

To understand the economic issue, you have to go back to the Great War when wartime disruptions in Europe provoked reliance on U.S. production. U.S. exports of food expanded dramatically and so did the amount of farmed acreage. The industry kept growing throughout the 1920s, based in part on leverage and inflated expectations of urbanization.

The stock market crashed and this was followed by an immediate trade war that harmed U.S. exports. The bubble broke and prices began to drop dramatically. In other words, the market corrected exactly as it should have given the circumstances.

The market is a beautiful thing: it provided cheap food exactly when it was needed most. But in 1933, a new president took power who was not a fan of the market. He hired a slew of new appointees who imagined themselves to be social and economic planners. So instead of allowing the correction, Washington got in the business of propping up industry.

The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 had the government buying up surplus food from farmers and distributors and giving it away to people. This was plainly and purely a program of price support. That was the entire point. That’s why the program was administered by the Department of Agriculture, not some other welfare agency.

Meanwhile, the true American system of helping people did the heavy lifting. It was the soup kitchens and church pantries that truly got to work on solving the hunger problem. All the new food stamps did was keep food prices higher than they otherwise would be, and kept the agricultural industry from adjusting according to prevailing conditions.

From then to now, that has been the essence of the program. It’s an industry subsidy. The grocery chains depend on it. So do Big Ag producers. It also works as a vote-buying program by promoting dependency among the citizenry.

The program is completely unregulated in the way a church soup kitchen would be. Privately run food pantries do more than dish up food; they assist people toward fixing up their lives. When they see the program being abused, they cut people off. The Good Samaritan did not just give money but rather life assistance. So too for private charity today.

Government doesn’t do this. It subsidizes large industrial players while promoting dependency. Imagine tiny birds in a nest with their mouths open waiting for the mother bird to arrive with worms. Or think of dogs waiting beneath the table for scraps from plates. That’s how the architects of this program see the American people.

Think of the whole institution of Thanksgiving. It is our number one holiday even though it is not technically part of any religious calendar. You could say it is a high holy day of our civic religion.

And what does it celebrate? It honors the blessings of God in the form of food that nourishes our bodies. When we thank God for the food, what we mean is to thank God for our lives and hands and capacities to work to get that food. It celebrates the capacity of a free and godly people to manage themselves in independence. It celebrates how a society learned to feed itself.

Food stamps from government turn the whole message of Thanksgiving on its head. Instead of work and merit, it institutionalizes dependency on the Crown to feed, which is exactly the practice against which the Founders rebelled. They rejected the Crown’s tea and emoluments in favor of national independence and productivity.

How pathetic that we’ve spent weeks in wailing and gnashing of teeth over possible cuts in free food via electronic transfer! Industry and welfare recipients are screaming: “Oh no no, please don’t take away our free stuff!”

Friends, this is inconsistent with the habits and values of a free and dignified people! I get that these are very hard times. And people are in need.

On the other hand, this is the most obese and sick country in the world, poisoned by an overabundance of genetically modified calorie-rich junk food and burdened with corporate cartels that are equally dependent on government handouts.

"Freedom From Want," between 1941–1945, by Norman Rockwell. U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Public Domain

It’s a national disgrace that an entire nation would be yelling and demanding more free food. It’s utter humiliation. This program runs contrary to everything we ever aspired to be as a nation. I hope this pause in benefits serves as a wakeup call to find our way back to our core values before it is too late.

It is not part of our national DNA to have people and industries that are dependent on government handouts in any form. Get some dignity, folks, and man up. Look at the Norman Rockwell painting of Thanksgiving and the pride on the breadwinner’s face as he serves his huge family. That’s who we are. That’s who we can be again.

Tyler Durden Wed, 11/05/2025 - 16:20

Abrupt Sentiment Shift Rocks Gen Z: Restaurants Warn Of Spending Drop As Student Loan "Default Cliff" Arrives

The Trump administration faces a worsening macroeconomic backdrop for younger, lower- and middle-income consumers, burdened by student debt, costly auto loans, high apartment rents, and depleted savings amid a persistently high interest rate environment. 

Early signs of financial strain emerged at the tail end of the summer, outlined in our note:

• First Tricolor Subprime Meltdown, Now UBS Warns: Consumer Weakness Spreading From Low-Income To Middle-Class

We've been tracking this alarming trend, which was reinforced by the latest warning from Goldman Delta One, Rich Privorotsky, who has gone "Defcon 1" on the rapidly deteriorating consumer.

Early signs of strain have emerged across the restaurant and casual dining segment, where management teams are flagging a noticeable pullback in discretionary spending among younger consumers. This cohort is increasingly shifting from dining out to at-home consumption, opting for groceries over restaurants as they can no longer justify $8 Starbucks coffee and $15 Chipotle burritos.

Last week, Goldman's Consumer specialist Scott Feiler published a red alert on "The Shifting Health of the US Consumer," warning of acute deterioration among the US middle class. 

Feiler followed up the warning with a weekend note that said, "Something has clearly changed with the consumer. Commentary from restaurants and grocers last week made that clear." 

He noted that consumer stocks are massive underperformers year-to-date (Restaurant group -21% YTD, Housing -7% YTD, Retail -3% YTD). 

However, he said, "It is worth noting that November is the best month for Consumer Discretionary of the year.  The last 5 years, the group is +8.4% during November, on average, with an 80% hit rate.  It is the largest outperformance month vs the market, on average, as well." 

Consumer Discretionary (GSXUCOND Index) Average Price Action By Month. November is The Strongest Month of the Year on an Absolute & Relative Basis.

Feiler previously noted that more companies are warning of signs of a slowdown across the consumer space, with weakness mainly across middle-income consumers, particularly those aged 25 to 35. The brunt of this has been observed across the restaurant space: 

$CMG Chipotle CEO: "A particularly challenged cohort is the 25- to 35-year-old age group. We believe that this trend is not unique to Chipotle and is occurring across all restaurants as well as many discretionary categories. This group is facing several headwinds, including…

— The Transcript (@TheTranscript_) November 2, 2025

$CAVA CEO also flags decline in visit frequency among guests aged 25–35.

"When we look at the data, it's more that the younger cohort that 25 to 35.... they don't have the steam that they had last year in the way that they were visiting or their frequency of visiting." https://t.co/o01FmE7PlC

— The Transcript (@TheTranscript_) November 5, 2025

$MCD McDonald's CEO: Low-income traffic is still down double digits

"We continue to see a bifurcated consumer base with QSR traffic from lower income consumers declining, nearly double digits in the third quarter, a trend that's persisted for nearly two years..and we believe the… https://t.co/lluh7PneDN

— The Transcript (@TheTranscript_) November 5, 2025

There's been increasing chatter about the notable negative shift in sentiment among younger consumers, which happened quite abruptly. We spoke with a senior analyst at one of the world's largest U.S.-based beverage companies who attributed the slowdown to tariffs. However, we disagree and believe the actual shock was the student loan "default cliff" that hit in late summer.

There are about 5.3 million student loan borrowers in default, and another 4.3 million borrowers are in "late-stage delinquency," or between 181 and 270 days late on their payments, according to a recent Congressional Research Service report based on Education Department data. Payments 270 days past due are considered in default.

We don't disagree that a slowing jobs market and tariffs are compounding pressures on consumers, but the unfolding mess tied to the student loan default cliff hitting younger borrowers is clearly a major driver behind the sharp shift in sentiment.

Given that Democrats have shifted so far to the left by fully embracing socialism and a sprinkle of Marxism, promising those who vote for them free bus rides, government-run supermarkets, and other free stuff, the question becomes how the Trump administration will win some of these youngsters struggling to survive. We do note the Trump administration recently offered to bail out farmers with tariff revenues... The admin should start looking at the kids ahead of the 2026 midterms.

Tyler Durden Wed, 11/05/2025 - 15:40

How Long Does US Depositors' Nerve Hold?

Authored by Tuomas Malinen via GnS Economics Newsletter,

I am returning to work slowly and will start with an update to the Bank Run Warning we issued on Friday.

Not a single financial institution sought funding through the SRF today (Wednesday), but this does not lead me to conclude that the risk of a banking crisis in the U.S. has passed. It just did not start right now.

While the borrowing from the Standing Repo Facility of the Fed has eased, for now, it does not indicate that the cash-drought some financial institutions are experiencing will be over.

The banks could have sought funding from other counterparties of the repo, or the beginning of the month could have brought more cash in.

The problem the banks currently face, relating to the government shutdown, is two-fold:

1. Money is accumulating in the U.S. Treasury General Account, and

2. Loan delinquencies are likely to be mounting.

The former implies that money is not moving from the government to the accounts of some 1.4 million government employees. The latter implies that, as government employees are not getting paid, some of them are not paying back their loans (principal and/or interest) either. Both of these diminish cash flow to banks. Like we noted in the warning on Friday:

What makes the situation precarious is the fragility of banks, which we documented in the Black Swan Outlook.

There has been a massive increase in bank lending during the past few quarters.

It is possible (likely) that some banks have been overly optimistic in the credit boom and are suddenly cash-starved because interest payments and loan repayments have ceased (from their excessive lending).

This may start rumors about the survivability of a bank or a group of banks, which could trigger a bank run in the current uncertain environment.

If there’s no shock, we can assume that the banking system keeps on functioning normally, ensured, for example, by the SRF, from which banks can obtain short-term liquidity to cover for deposit withdrawals.

However, banks are always at risk of failing due to the business model we want them to have. That is, we want to deposit our money in the bank and have it provide loans at the lowest possible interest rate for us. We also want instant access to our funds (demand deposits) or, alternatively, a higher yield (interest rate) to compensate for the lack of immediate access, like in savings accounts.

A standard commercial bank is a business that receives deposits and covers them with assets to balance its balance sheet (most U.S. regional banks operate like this). These assets can be in the form of loans to households and businesses, corporate or government bonds, or central bank reserves. Therefore, if all or a very high share of deposits are withdrawn, there simply is no bank anymore. Its business model fails. This directly implies that if we lose trust in a bank, no amount of reserves can save it from failing.

For example, a slew of bad news broke the trust of depositors in the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) in mid-March 2023, resulting in a cataclysmic run on 87% of its deposit base in just a few days. No amount of reserves (which the bank had plenty of) could have saved SVB from the devastating outflow of deposits impairing its balance sheet. Thus, the bank failed and was taken over by authorities.

When I understood the role the gargantuan increase of easily-withdrawable demand deposits played behind the runs on SVB and Signature Bank, I thought that a nationwide bank run would almost surely follow the failures of SVB and Signature Bank. However, authorities managed to return the trust to the regional banking system better than I thought (by throwing a proverbial kitchen sink at it). It reminded me of how difficult it is to anticipate the timing and length of bank runs, even though I had warned about the fragility of the U.S. banking system just three weeks before the runs started. But, while the runs were halted, the problems remained.

The fact is that the U.S. banking system has been “run-prone” since 2022 (after the gargantuan increase in demand deposits), and the cash-drought created by the government shutdown is making it worse every passing day.

Hence, the likelihood of a negative shock breaking the trust of U.S. depositors in one or more banks currently grows by the day.

I worry.

Tyler Durden Wed, 11/05/2025 - 15:20

Apple Taps Rival Google's 1.2-Trillion-Parameter AI Model To Power Siri

Remember when the iPhone 16 launched in September 2024 and Apple promised "Apple Intelligence" features, such as an AI-powered Siri upgrade capable of handling autonomous tasks, that never fully materialized. 

For now, Apple will integrate Google's 1.2 trillion-parameter Gemini model to overhaul Siri, the most alarming sign yet that Tim Cook has to rely on outside AI technology.

This AI agreement will cost Cook $1 billion annually until Siri's upcoming "Linwood" upgrade, targeted for iOS 26.4 next spring, will feature an in-house 1-trillion-parameter model, according to Bloomberg, citing people with knowledge of the matter.

Here are some key details on why Apple is turning to Google for AI support:

• Gemini will handle Siri's summarizer and planner functions, allowing for more complex reasoning and contextual understanding, while Apple's own smaller models continue managing simpler requests. 

• The Gemini model will operate on Apple's Private Cloud Compute servers, keeping user data isolated from Google.

• Apple tested OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude but ultimately went with Google's model. 

Shares of Apple and Google initially jumped on the news, but the gains quickly faded.

In short, one of the world's largest tech giants missed the AI hype cycle - unable to deliver a viable product for consumers and forced to rely on a rival's technology instead. Whether this marks the peak of the AI hype cycle or the beginning of Apple's fading appeal, one thing is clear: Tim Cook now depends on Google, a sobering reality for the company worth nearly $4 trillion. 

Tyler Durden Wed, 11/05/2025 - 15:00

Biden-Appointed D.C. Judge Orders White House To Provide Sign Language Interpreters For Press Briefings

Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times,

A federal judge ruled on Nov. 5 that the White House must provide American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation during press briefings held by President Donald Trump and press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

The decision followed a lawsuit filed in May by the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) and Derrick Ford, a deaf individual, which alleged that the Trump administration “inexplicably stopped” using ASL interpreters since taking office, denying deaf Americans access to real-time White House communications.

In a 26-page order, President-Biden-appointed U.S. District Judge Amir Ali in Washington said the plaintiffs are likely to prevail on their claim that the administration’s actions violated the Rehabilitation Act, a federal law that aims to ensure people with disabilities have access to federal activities.

“White House press briefings engage the American people on important issues affecting their daily lives—in recent months, war, the economy, and healthcare, and, in recent years, a global pandemic,” Ali said in the order. “The exclusion of deaf Americans from that programming, in addition to likely violating the Rehabilitation Act, is clear and present harm that the court cannot meaningfully remedy after the fact.”

The judge said that English captions and transcripts alone are not enough to make briefings accessible to people who use ASL, as many deaf individuals do not communicate in English, according to the ruling.

The White House had argued that requiring the president to share his platform with ASL interpreters at all press briefings would cause a “major incursion on his central prerogatives.”

The judge rejected this argument, noting that ASL interpretation could be implemented without requiring interpreters to be in the same room as the speaker. Ali added that the White House did not clarify what “major incursion” it was referring to.

The plaintiffs also asked the court to mandate ASL interpretation for press briefings and events held by First Lady Melania Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Second Lady Usha Vance, as well as for all videos posted on the White House’s websites and social media channels. Ali said they had not presented sufficient evidence to justify that request.

Ali ordered the Trump administration to file a status report by Nov. 7 that “apprises the court of their compliance with this order.”

Neither the NAD nor the White House responded to a request for comment by publication time.

The lawsuit marks the NAD’s second suit against the White House over access to ASL interpretation. In 2020, the NAD sued to require ASL interpretation for COVID-19-related press briefings.

That case was resolved when the White House implemented a policy to provide interpreters for all press briefings conducted by the president, vice president, first lady, second gentleman, and press secretary, according to the group.

The White House stopped providing ASL interpretation in January this year and has not included interpreters at any press briefings since, the NAD said in a May 28 statement.

Tyler Durden Wed, 11/05/2025 - 13:20

US Urges UN To Lift Sanctions On Syrian Leader Ahead Of Washington Visit

Authored by Kimberley Hayek via The Epoch Times,

The United States has put forth a draft resolution within the U.N. Security Council meant to end sanctions on Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, leader of the Islamist militant and political group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

The proposal comes ahead of al-Sharaa’s anticipated meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House, set for next Monday.

The Security Council has regularly approved travel exemptions for al-Sharaa this year, meaning the White House meeting does not hinge on the outcome of the U.S. proposal.

The draft resolution, seen by Reuters on Tuesday, also advocates for the repeal of sanctions against Syria’s Interior Minister Anas Khattab.

The U.N. sanctions include a travel ban, asset freeze, and arms embargo.

It is unclear when a vote on the draft could be held. At least nine of the 15 council constituents need to vote in favor of the proposal for it to be enacted. However, Russia, China, the United States, France, and the UK each hold a veto.

Washington has for many months urged the Security Council to cease the sanctions on the regime in Syria.

President Bashar al-Assad was deposed in December 2024 after HTS-led militants effectively won a 13-year civil war in the country.

The country has languished since May 2014 on the U.N. Security Council’s sanctions list aimed at al-Qaeda and ISIS affiliates.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced al-Sharaa’s visit to the White House at a press briefing on Tuesday.

“When the president was in the Middle East, he made the historic decision to lift sanctions on Syria to give them a real chance at peace, and I think the administration, we’ve seen good progress on that front under their new leadership,” Leavitt said.

In July this year, Trump rescinded unilateral U.S. sanctions on Syria via executive order, saying it was “a chance at greatness” for the Syrian people, but he kept sanctions on Assad and other leaders.

The Trump administration also revoked the foreign terrorist organization designation for HTS.

U.N. monitors said there are no active al-Qaeda-HTS ties in a July report.

Trump last met with al-Sharaa in mid-May in Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh, where the U.S. president urged the Syrian leader to join the Abraham Accords. According to the White House, Trump also asked al-Sharaa to “tell all foreign terrorists to leave Syria, deport Palestinian terrorists, help the U.S. prevent the resurgence of ISIS, and assume responsibility for ISIS detention centers in Northeast Syria.”

On Sept. 22, al-Sharaa addressed the U.N. General Assembly—the first time a Syrian president had done so since 1967—where he called for full sanctions relief and highlighted his country’s reconstruction needs.

[ZH: Of course, as we detailed here, this new 'friendship' has an ulterior motive...]

Tyler Durden Wed, 11/05/2025 - 12:40

"Contrary To Human Nature": VDH Reminds Us That Mamdani-Style Socialism Always Ends In Disaster

Victor Davis Hanson is warning that Democrats' move towards socialism and their embrace of figures such as Zohran Mamdani is not going to end well.

Mamdani, a socialist who's promised to redistribute wealth, and insists that "taxation isn't theft, capitalism is" - is pushing politics that VDH says are 'contrary to human nature.'

"Historically, socialists always come in after capitalists have made prosperity, and then they offer and improve prosperity," he told Fox News' Laura Ingraham. "And it’s contrary to human nature. People like initiative. They like pride in their property. Some people like to work a lot and get compensated."

According to Hanson, when the state is in control of human innovation and productivity, it it 'has to be repressive.'

"It gives you that freedom of opportunity. And then the society at large benefits, Laura, from all these millions of agendas and ideas that improve, that people are free to innovate and to take experiments and risk. But when the state monopolizes all of that, it’s contrary to human nature, and then it has to be repressive," Hanson said. "So all of these social experiments, even if they’re democratic, they end up repressive. At the worst form, it’s no accident that the greatest mass murderers in history were Mao [Zedong] and [Joseph] Stalin, 30 million, 60 million, and they were radical communists, and even people like Hitler, National Socialist Party."

And of course, whoever is running a communist regime is living a life of privilege.

"Talented people who can help the economy, who are successful or demonized, they flee. People who want things for nothing come in. There’s open borders," Hanson continued. "They destroy personal liberty, and they stamp out any dissent or criticism. And there’s always an elite, the billionaire Castro brothers, Chavez and Maduro. They always are never subject to their consequences, their ideology. Here in California, we are becoming socialist."

Tyler Durden Wed, 11/05/2025 - 12:20

Plugging One Goal With The Other

By Elwin de Groot, Head of Macro Strategy at Rabobank

Markets were in a risk-off mood yesterday, led by a sell-off in tech shares and growing investor concerns about valuations and policy risks. The US made the books with the longest government shutdown in its history. The S&P lost 1.2%, the Eurostoxx 50 index fell 0.4%. The risk-off tone resulted in lower yields across the board, albeit modestly (1-3 bp in US/Europe). Remarkably, Bitcoin plunged and gold prices dipped as well, an unusual move suggesting broader repositioning rather than just a classic safe-haven bid.

Talks between EU environment ministers yesterday confirmed that the bloc remains committed to its headline goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by the 2040, but with greater flexibility built in. This flexibility introduces a higher risk that targets may not be fully met, or not within the set timeframe. Ministers agreed to include so-called brake clauses, which would allow targets to be adjusted if natural carbon sinks underperform, and to permit offsetting, meaning that part of the reductions could come from foreign carbon credits. They also discussed enabling emissions to be traded between domestic sectors such as industry and agriculture.

This shift in tone is not surprising and reflects the recalibration of priorities between economic and environmental goals advocated in the 2024 Draghi report on competitiveness. That report did not call for abandoning climate objectives, but it urged integrating decarbonization with competitiveness through a “Clean Industrial Deal” and a major investment push. The EU intends to present a unified view next week at the COP30, but many details remain unresolved and attention may already be shifting toward another critical issue: raw material supply security.

On that front, tensions between China and the Netherlands –and by extension the EU– remain unresolved. The US announced on Saturday that China would allow Dutch chipmaker Nexperia BV to resume shipments from its Chinese facilities, easing fears of disruptions to auto production. However, China escalated pressure yesterday. Beijing criticized the Dutch government’s “unilateral” actions and urged it to stop interfering in Nexperia’s internal affairs and find a constructive solution.

The broader economic impact on European or even global industry is still hard to gauge at this stage. Nexperia chips are widely used, especially in automotive applications. Since Nexperia halted wafer exports to China, supply disruptions could also affect production of consumer goods there. Automotive experts note that substitutes exist, but switching would take weeks at minimum – raising the risk of temporary production halts given low inventories in Europe. Some companies, such as Robert Bosch GmbH in Germany and Honda in the US, have already announced production reductions, while others, including Volkswagen AG, have warned they may have to follow suit.

There is little precedent for assessing the impact. The post-COVID chip shortage, which partly caused a 40% decline in motor vehicle production between November 2020 and August 2021, offers some perspective. That shortage stemmed from a perfect storm of factors: surging demand for consumer electronics during lockdowns, automakers cancelling chip orders early and then scrambling as demand rebounded, factory shutdowns, and staffing shortages at semiconductor fabs, natural disasters such as droughts in Taiwan and fires in Japan, and later raw material shortages linked to the Russia–Ukraine war.

If so, it probably requires more financial resources from governments as well, which are in short supply, as the IMF warned yesterday. The institution argues for “a rethink of the role of government […] in some countries” and notes that “if reforms and medium-term consolidation are insufficient, then more radical fiscal measures could include reassessing the scope of public services and other government functions, potentially affecting the social contract.”

Tyler Durden Wed, 11/05/2025 - 12:00

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.