Epstein-itis

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

"If you tolerate the intolerable, you’re communicating that it’s okay to mistreat you."

- Aimee Terese on X

Did you think the American zeitgeist - our collective spirit plus our thinking - could not get crazier?

Gird your loins. It’s getting worse by the hour.

The Jeffrey Epstein files suggest that people will do anything and that people will believe anything.

Pizza, hot dogs, white sharks. . . boys, girls, babies, teens, Russian whores. . . celebrities by the score. . . billionaires. . . cannibal orgies. . . vivisection parlors. . . adrenochrome. . . blood. . . dead bodies. . . demon worship. . . a depraved and insane global leadership. . . lemme outa here!

I don’t know what’s real in Epstein and what’s not — but neither do you. What you ought to know is that the colossal inventory of Epstein files is perhaps the greatest instrument of mass mind-fuckery ever seen in the history of Western Civ. How interesting, too, that the deluge of material coincides exactly with the critical capability emergence of Artificial Intelligence as a tool for the manipulation of documentary evidence. And also consider all the years since 2019 that interested parties have had to mess with, destroy, possibly fabricate, and catalog all this stuff.

Apparently, the Woke-Jacobin-Marxist eruption was not enough to destabilize the consensus about reality.

The absurdities you were asked to swallow about all-women-are-women-including-men. . . the police killed George Floyd. . . mostly peaceful riots. . . the vaccine is safe and effective. . . the free-est, fairest elections ever. . . “Joe Biden” is president. . . the border is secure. . . speaking English is white supremacy - did not push America deeply enough into Crazyland.

More was required to completely demolish your sense of an ordered world.

Donald Trump was correct, at least, that releasing the Epstein files would bring on more chaos than clarity and impede the effort to get our country back on the rails with an economic engine based on the production of goods instead of financialized hyper-casino voodoo. Well, now we’re in a maelstrom of innuendo, code-talk, gossip, and redaction, and you can hardly begin to sort it out. The Attorney General of the USA, bless her heart, has already botched the management of this monster.

Epstein’s relations with Israel and its Mossad intel blob, along with his connections to global banking interests, have aroused the zestiest breakout of antipathy to Jews since the SS busied itself loading the crematoriums of Europe. Hatred of Jews is a recurring symptom of civilization distress. But it is also possible that Israel has behaved badly — and it is certain that many political intellectuals are reevaluating the way that nation was established after World War Two. To some degree, Israel has become a paranoid state (though even paranoiacs have real enemies).

Where does that go from here? Thoughtful people are pessimistic. For sure, they resent the money and influence seeded by Israel in the US Congress. They might be concerned as well about all the other interests pounding money into American politics. Grift is everywhere, and everyone can see it now. The looming end of the grift orgy is probably behind the Democratic Party’s current psychotic disposition. Having lost its 20th century base of factory workers, the party has had to work the extreme margins of American life to build a coalition of the feckless, the reckless, the brainless, and the shameless. They have become the party’s wards in a reimagined patronage system even more pernicious than the old one under characters like Boss Tweed and Mayor Richard Daley-the-First of Chicago.

The Democratic Party can’t win elections without rigging them and it’s astonishing that they’ve gotten away with building such sturdy armature of ballot fraud in plain sight with next to zero objection from the supposed guardians in officialdom. The features of it are so arrant that a political class with any sense or dignity would have laughed it straight into the criminal courts — and its perps straight into the penitentiary. The fraud became especially acute with the 2020 and 2022 elections. It is about to be revealed in the troves of evidence extracted lately from Fulton County, GA, and presently from Maricopa County, AZ. These birds are cooked. Not a few people will eventually go to jail over these shenanigans. And meanwhile, the SAVE Act pulsates in the Senate like a lump of kryptonite.

Now, you may realize that a political party based entirely on socially marginal persons — many of them mentally ill — will adopt a roster of ideas and policies that are patently marginal, which is to say, crazy. The party elders are now straining to eliminate some of that. Last week, Barack Obama unloaded on California Governor Gavin Newsom’s botched handling of the state’s epic homeless crisis.

“We should recognize that the average person doesn’t want to have to navigate around a tent city in the middle of downtown,” the ex-president said in an interview with progressive YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen.

Hillary Clinton, dropping in on the Munich Security Conference, said, amazingly, “There is a legitimate reason to have a debate about things like migration. It went too far, it’s been disruptive and destabilizing. . .” before tossing in some Woke word-salad:

“. . . and it needs to be fixed in a humane way with secure borders that don’t torture and kill people and how we’re going to have a strong family structure because it is at the base of civilization.”

Say, what. . . ?

But then, poor Hillary, who can’t help being a Cluster-B psycho, turned up moderating a panel at the same Munich meet-up to take up the issue: “Girls Just Want to Have Fundamental Rights: Fighting the Global Pushback.“

To nail down her point, Hillary brought onstage as the featured speaker, Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE), known previously as Tim McBride, a man.

Hillary and Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE) at Munich

The insanity is, of course, self-evident.

The take-away from all this. They’re not trying hard enough to get their minds right.

And in the meantime, America and the other nations of Western Civ, must contend with the gigantic trip laid on them that is the Epstein files.

We know the newspapers and cable news channels are hopeless.

Is there anyone or any sense-making institution that can usher us through this nightmare back into the daylight?

 

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/16/2026 - 15:30

Coffee Tied To Lower Dementia Risk, Harvard-MIT Study Finds

New research published in JAMA reveals a strong reason to feel even better about being three to four espressos deep before the cash market opens in New York. 

Here's the short version of the findings:

• Caffeinated coffee was linked to lower dementia risk. Comparing the highest vs lowest consumption groups, the study reported a hazard ratio of 0.82 (95% CI, 0.76 to 0.89), which means higher caffeinated coffee intake was associated with lower risk.

• People also reported less subjective cognitive decline. The higher-intake group had 7.8% prevalence vs 9.5% in the lower-intake group (prevalence ratio 0.85).

• The "sweet spot" looked moderate. The most pronounced differences showed up around 2 to 3 cups per day of caffeinated coffee.

• Decaf did not show a significant association with dementia risk.

The long-running study, led by researchers from Mass General Brigham, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and the Broad Institute of MIT, tracked 131,821 U.S. adults for four decades and documented 11,033 dementia cases. One major finding was a very clear pattern: adults who drank about three cups of coffee per day, or one to two cups of tea, had a much lower risk of dementia and more favorable cognitive outcomes over their lifetimes. Decaf, however, did not show the same relationship.

Both male and female participants who drank more than three cups of caffeinated coffee per day had an 18% lower risk of dementia compared with those who reported little or no daily caffeinated coffee consumption.

"When searching for possible dementia prevention tools, we thought something as prevalent as coffee may be a promising dietary intervention - and our unique access to high-quality data through studies that have been going on for more than 40 years allowed us to follow through on that idea," said senior author Daniel Wang, associate scientist with the Channing Division of Network Medicine in the Mass General Brigham Department of Medicine and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School.

Wang noted, "While our results are encouraging, it's important to remember that the effect size is small and there are lots of important ways to protect cognitive function as we age. Our study suggests that caffeinated coffee or tea consumption can be one piece of that puzzle."

The cognitive upside of caffeinated coffee is clear.

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4. L-Theanine: An amino acid naturally found in tea. Often paired with caffeine because it may help you feel calm and focused, and reduce "coffee jitters."

Thank you for your support.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/16/2026 - 15:30

NASA Awards Next 2 Private Astronaut Missions To International Space Station

Authored by T.J. Muscaro via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

NASA has awarded its next two private astronaut missions to the International Space Station (ISS) in as many weeks, marking a further expansion of the private sector in low Earth orbit and continuing Administrator Jared Isaacman’s intention to make the most use of the orbiting outpost.

In this image from video, the 11 International Space Station crew members representing Expedition 70 (red shirts) and Axiom Space 3 (dark blue suits) crews gather for a farewell ceremony calling down to mission controllers on Earth on Feb. 2, 2024. NASA via AP

The latest mission was awarded to private space station company Vast.

Launching no earlier than the summer of 2027 on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, it will be NASA’s sixth private astronaut mission to the space station overall and is expected to last 14 days.

“Vast is honored to have been selected by NASA for the sixth private astronaut mission to the International Space Station,” Vast CEO Max Haot said in a press release. “Leveraging the remaining life of the International Space Station with science and research-led commercial crewed missions is a critical part of the transition to commercial space stations and fully unlocking the orbital economy.”

The company said it would plan “a robust science and research portfolio” for the mission, focusing on biology, biotechnology, physical sciences, human research, and technology demonstrations. It also said the mission would “generate invaluable insights into the infrastructure and processes required for Vast to safely accomplish human spaceflight missions,” and deepen its collaborative relationship with NASA and international space agency partners as it continues its campaign to have its proposed Haven-2 station chosen as the successor to the ISS.

Vast’s single-module station, Haven-1, is slated to be launched into orbit in early 2027.

Now, this private astronaut mission to the space station will follow one awarded to Axiom Space, targeting a launch no earlier than January 2027.

Announced on Jan. 30, it marks the fifth private mission Axiom will undertake. Its previous four missions featured 14 private and government astronauts, including two European Space Agency astronauts. Those missions were led by retired NASA astronauts who left the agency to join the private sector: Michael Lopez-Alegria, Axiom Space’s chief astronaut, and Peggy Whitson, Axiom Space’s vice president of human spaceflight.

Axiom missions delivered the first female Saudi astronaut and first Turkish astronaut into space, as well as carried the first Saudi, Indian, Polish, and Hungarian astronauts to the ISS.

Axiom Space has also been developing its own commercial space station and new spacesuits that NASA intends to use for moon walks.

Meanwhile, this will be Vast’s first private astronaut mission with NASA.

“Private astronaut missions represent more than access to the International Space Station—they create opportunities for new ideas, companies, and capabilities that further enhance American leadership in low Earth orbit and open doors for what’s next,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in a press release. “We’re proud to welcome Vast to this growing community of commercial partners. Each new entrant brings unique strengths that fuel a dynamic, innovative marketplace as we advance research and technology and prepare for missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.”

Neither mission has announced a crew yet. NASA made it clear that each company would propose four crew members for it and its international partners to review and approve.

Once a crew is approved and confirmed, the astronauts will train for their mission with NASA, its international partners, and SpaceX for their flight.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/16/2026 - 14:30

Ship Orders From South Korea Are Surging Thanks To U.S. Fees On Chinese-Made Ships

South Korea is tightening the race with China in global shipbuilding after U.S. plans to curb Chinese-built vessels disrupted order flows and redirected demand , according to Nikkei. 

Worldwide new orders fell 27% in 2025 to 56.42 million compensated gross tonnage (CGT) — the first annual drop in two years — according to U.K.-based Clarksons Research.

China remained No. 1 but saw orders tumble 35% to 35.36 million CGT, shrinking its share to 62.7%. South Korea, ranked second, moved the other way: orders climbed 8% to 11.59 million CGT, lifting its share to 20.6%. Japan, in third, recorded a 53% plunge to 2.77 million CGT, with its slice slipping to 4.9%.

The shift followed a U.S. announcement last April outlining fees on Chinese-built ships entering American ports starting in October 2025. Although the policy was delayed for a year after a U.S.-China summit in late October, uncertainty had already prompted global shipping companies to hesitate on new Chinese orders.

A unit of China State Shipbuilding Corp. said it was disadvantaged in contract talks last summer, opening the door for South Korean yards to win more large container ship deals. HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering cited weaker demand for Chinese shipyards as a key reason for its recent surge in orders.

Nikkei writes that the company posted record results for the year ended December: revenue rose 17% to roughly 29 trillion won ($20.1 billion), while net profit doubled to about 3 trillion won.

Government-backed workforce initiatives have also supported the industry. Seoul opened a training center in Indonesia in 2024 to prepare skilled workers, including Korean language instruction, before dispatching them to local yards. Shipbuilders have raised wages and introduced AI tools to ease labor strain.

Foreign employment in South Korea’s shipbuilding sector hit a record 22,824 at the end of 2024 — about four times the level five years earlier — with foreigners making up more than 20% of the workforce.

Japan, meanwhile, has struggled to capture orders shifting away from China. Data from the Japan Ship Exporters' Association show export contracts in 2025 fell 20% to 8.93 million gross tons, marking a fourth straight year of decline. Limited yard capacity, slipways booked through around 2029, and labor shortages have constrained growth and pushed up costs.

Looking ahead, global demand is expected to rebound in 2026 as stricter environmental rules accelerate orders for vessels powered by next-generation fuels such as hydrogen and ammonia. HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering has set a 2026 order target of $23.3 billion, up 26% from this year, citing steady demand for new builds and fleet replacements.

China is working to regain momentum. In December, Cosco Group placed 50 billion yuan ($7.23 billion) in orders with China State Shipbuilding Corp., underscoring coordinated support among state-owned enterprises.

Japan is also attempting a reset. Imabari Shipbuilding recently completed its acquisition of Japan Marine United to streamline operations. The government aims to double domestic shipbuilding capacity to 18 million gross tons by 2035, seeking to narrow the wide gap with South Korea and China.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/16/2026 - 14:00

Strait Showdown: Iran Launches "Smart Control" Exercise At Oil Transit Point

Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) kicked off naval drills Monday in the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, according to state media.

The exercise, dubbed "Smart Control of Hormuz Strait," is being carried out by IRGC naval forces under the direct supervision of the Guards' top command, state television reported, with semi-official Tasnim news agency describing the drills as testing combat readiness against "possible security and military threats." Energy markets are watching closely.

IRNA: IRGC Navy conducts a hybrid, live exercise dubbed "Smart Control of the Strait of Hormuz."

Under the supervision of IRGC Commander-in-Chief Major General Mohammad Pakpour, a state media press release described the exercise further as "A rapid, decisive, and comprehensive response to maritime security threats form the core focus of the intelligence and operational components of the units deployed during the exercise."

Indirect nuclear talks between the US and Iran have lately resumed after collapsing when Israel launched strikes on Iran in June 2025, igniting a 12-day conflict that included US attacks on three Iranian nuclear facilities - with another round of negotiations scheduled for Tuesday in Geneva, with Oman serving as mediator.

The timing is no coincidence, given that late last week President Trump announced he was dispatching a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East, while continuing to warn that military action against Iran remains on the table.

The IRGC has been conducing sporadic and in some cases unannounced drills in regional waters in order to demonstrate to Washington the Islamic Republic's military readiness.

Two weeks ago, when some of the first drills kicked off, US Central Command (CENTCOM) warned the IRGC it better be careful in the vicinity of US naval assets.

"We will not tolerate unsafe IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) actions including overflight of U.S. military vessels engaged in flight operations, low-altitude or armed overflight of U.S. military assets when intentions are unclear, highspeed boat approaches on a collision course with U.S. military vessels, or weapons trained at U.S. forces," CENTCOM said at the time.

"US forces acknowledge Iran's right to operate professionally in international airspace and waters," it added, and noted that "any unsafe and unprofessional behavior near U.S. forces, regional partners or commercial vessels increases risks of collision, escalation, and destabilization," the statement had warned.

Source: Getty Images/iStockphoto

None of Iran's drills or threat of counterstrike have deterred the ongoing Pentagon build-up in the Middle East with an eye on Iran, however. One thing the White House should be able to perceive, however, is that any military action against Tehran is going to clearly be much more complex, and harder, than some one-off mission in Venezuela.

The potential for massive blow-back and for things to go seriously awry is much greater in the case of a potential US conflict with Iran.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/16/2026 - 13:00

Why Firing 9% Of The Federal Workforce Didn't Move The Needle

Authored by James Hickman via SchiffSovereign.com,

In January 2025, the federal government employed about 3 million people. By November, that number had fallen by roughly 270,000 workers — a reduction of about 9%.

According to the Cato Institute, that was the largest peacetime federal workforce reduction EVER.

More than 150,000 employees took the “Fork in the Road” buyout offer to resign or retire. Tens of thousands more were laid off outright. Entire offices were emptied. Agencies that had been growing for decades shrank to staffing levels not seen since 2014.

And yet, despite historic federal layoffs, government spending went UP last year.

The federal government spent $7 trillion in Fiscal Year 2025— roughly $300 billion more than the year before. Bear in mind, 2025 was the year that DOGE was supposed to take a chainsaw to the budget and cut spending.

This is not a failure of DOGE. It’s a revelation about the actual problem.

The total federal payroll— every salary, every benefit, for every civilian federal employee (excluding the military)— comes to about $336 billion a year— less than 5% of total federal spending.

In other words, you could fire every federal employee tomorrow— every bureaucrat, every regulator, every paper-pusher in Washington— and 95% of the spending would continue as if nothing happened.

That’s because around 60% of the budget is mandatory spending— Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid— programs that pay out automatically based on laws that were passed decades ago. Congress doesn’t vote on these expenditures each year. The checks just go out.

Then there’s interest on the national debt, which in total runs about $1.2 trillion per year. It’s the second-largest line item in the entire federal budget, bigger than Medicare, bigger than national defense.

(The government uses a lower number called “net” interest; they exclude hundreds of billions in interest owed to Social Security and military retirees. But unless they plan on screwing those people over, that interest still has to be paid. So, we use the “gross” interest number and not “net” interest).

All of these obligations grow automatically, every year, regardless of who’s in charge or how many people show up to work.

Social Security alone grew by over $100 billion last year. Interest payments grew by another nearly $100 billion. Those two-line items, by themselves, swallowed more than the entire savings DOGE could theoretically achieve by cutting the workforce.

In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, more than 80% of projected spending growth over the next decade comes from Social Security, federal healthcare programs, and interest on the debt.

This is the structural problem nobody in Washington wants to talk about honestly: America’s deficit problem isn’t exclusively because of bad decisions today. It’s a failure to address bad decisions made years ago… decades ago– commitments that are baked into law, growing on autopilot, funded by borrowing roughly $2 trillion every year.

In an ideal world, Congress would address these entitlement programs directly. They are, after all, the biggest driver of the problem. But reforming Social Security or Medicare is the political third rail— nobody wants to touch it.

But there are other ways to move the needle as well.

The $38+ trillion national debt is manageable as long as the economy grows faster than the debt— which right now is not happening. But America still has absurdly strong economic potential to make that happen.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has publicly stated that roughly 10% of the entire federal budget— about $600 billion per year— is outright fraud. Not waste. Not inefficiency. Fraud. And much of that fraud is within entitlement programs— the welfare fraud that came to light in Minnesota, the hundreds of billions in Medicare and Medicaid fraud that have been documented for years.

So, reducing fraud would be extremely helpful. Stop paying criminals!! It shouldn’t be that hard.

Then they can take a hatchet to the regulatory maze that strangles productivity; this would substantially reduce the deficit and boost real economic growth— putting America in striking distance of growing the economy faster than the debt.

To its credit, DOGE proved that the federal government could function with far fewer employees.

After the historic reduction in federal employees, services didn’t collapse.

The IRS still processed returns. Air traffic controllers still showed up. The essential machinery of government kept running with 9% fewer people.

That confirms what many have long suspected: a significant portion of federal workers exist to justify their own existence.

But DOGE also proved something far more uncomfortable. Whenever the executive branch tries to go beyond workforce cuts and tackle the spending itself— even fraudulent spending— someone files a lawsuit, and a judge issues an injunction.

Federal judges blocked DOGE from accessing Treasury payment systems. A coalition of 20 state attorneys general sued to halt layoffs at over a dozen agencies. Even relatively modest cuts were tied up in litigation for months.

The legal system functions as a ratchet: spending can go up easily, but it almost never comes down.

Ultimately, the spending trajectory won’t change until Congress decides to root out fraud, cut spending across the board, and stop obstructing economic growth.

But Congress won’t act until voters force them to do so— which, based on the current state of American politics, isn’t happening anytime soon.

The window to fix this relatively painlessly is still open. But it’s narrowing. Within seven years, Social Security’s trust funds will be exhausted, and the national debt will exceed $50 trillion. At that point, the math won’t just be uncomfortable. It will be unavoidable.

We can hope they figure it out. But hope isn’t a strategy. And that’s what a good Plan B is all about— ensuring your family’s financial future doesn’t depend on Congress suddenly discovering fiscal discipline after decades of proving they have none.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/16/2026 - 12:30

Waste Of The Day: Secret Settlements Get Taxpayer Money

Authored by Jeremy Portnoy via RealClearInvestigations,

Topline: Eight Massachusetts state agencies and 13 colleges spent $6.8 million to settle grievances, partly in secret, brought by their own employees from 2019 to 2024, according to a Jan. 16 report from State Auditor Diana DiZoglio. 

At least 80 of the 263 settlements contain confidentiality language such as a nondisclosure agreement — to keep certain details confidential between the two parties — which the audit claims is banned by state guidelines. 

Key facts: The Massachusetts Port Authority transit agency was responsible for 11 of the settlements, costing taxpayers $1.7 million. Most of the money came from a $1.4 million settlement in 2022 with an employee who alleged they were denied a promotion because of their gender. The details are sealed by an NDA.

Six of the confidential settlements involved alleged sexual harassment, and two involved alleged racial discrimination. Most of the others were about violations of collective bargaining agreements and employees who were fired without cause.

NDAs were seemingly used on an arbitrary basis. None of the colleges and state agencies included in the audit had a written policy explaining when confidentiality language should be used, except the inspector general’s office.

“By not having a documented policy on the use of confidentiality language in state employee settlement agreements, there is a risk that confidentiality language may be abused to cover up harassment; discrimination; or other inappropriate, unlawful, or unethical behaviors, potentially allowing perpetrators to continue to remain in their positions and engage in further inappropriate, unlawful, or unethical behavior,” auditor DiZoglio wrote.

All of the colleges and state agencies receive legal assistance from the state attorney general’s office. The office’s guidelines prohibit nondisclosure agreements, and the attorneys told auditors that all state agencies were made aware of the guidelines. 

DiZoglio argued that the NDAs may not even be enforceable. In June 2013, Suffolk County Superior Court sided with the Boston Globe newspaper in ruling that settlements between state agencies and their employees are public records.

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

Background: The audit is a follow-up to a 2025 report that found 75 state agencies had spent $41 million on more than 2,000 employee settlements from 2010 to 2022.

Summary: Massachusetts’ NDAs hurt the public twice. They essentially use taxpayer funds to cover up potentially unethical behavior perpetrated using taxpayer funds.

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

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/16/2026 - 11:40

Pentagon Threatens To Blacklist Anthropic As 'Supply Chain Risk' Over Guardrails On Military Use

• The Pentagon is reportedly about to cut ties with Anthropic, makers of Claude, which is already embedded in classified systems

• The company insists on implementing guardrails over how the US military can use Claude - specifically when it comes to mass surveillance and autonomous weapons - after it was used in the Maduro raid without their knowledge.  

• The Pentagon is now calling Claude a threat to national security

• Some are accusing the overwhelmingly left-leaning company of trying to undermine the Trump administration, while Elon Musk says Claude 'hates whites, Asians, heterosexuals, and men.'

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is reportedly "close" to cutting business ties with Anthropic and designating the firm a supply chain risk - a penalty typically reserved for foreign adversaries, a senior Pentagon official told Axios.

Anthropic's flagship model, Claude, is already embedded in the military's classified systems - however the company's CEO has been pushing for abstract guardrails over ethical concerns for what the government sees as urgent national security needs. 

If classified as a national security risk, the designation would force any company that wants to do business with the U.S. military to certify it does not use Anthropic’s AI - effectively blacklisting the firm from large swaths of the defense ecosystem.

“It will be an enormous pain in the ass to disentangle,” the senior official told Axios. “And we are going to make sure they pay a price for forcing our hand.”

Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell confirmed the review, framing it as a matter of national security.

“Our nation requires that our partners be willing to help our warfighters win in any fight,” Parnell said. “Ultimately, this is about our troops and the safety of the American people.”

Claude was notably used during the January operation targeting Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, highlighting how deeply embedded the software already is within U.S. defense operations. As Axios noted on Saturday: 

 The tensions came to a head recently over the military's use of Claude in the operation to capture Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro, through Anthropic's partnership with AI software firm Palantir.

• According to the senior official, an executive at Anthropic reached out to an executive at Palantir to ask whether Claude had been used in the raid.
• "It was raised in such a way to imply that they might disapprove of their software being used, because obviously there was kinetic fire during that raid, people were shot," the official said.

Since then, Pentagon officials and Anthropic executives have been locked in contentious negotiations over how the military may use the AI, particularly in surveillance, intelligence collection, and weapons development.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2026. Photo: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has pushed for guardrails to prevent mass surveillance of Americans or the use of AI in fully autonomous weapons systems without human involvement, however the Pentagon says those restrictions are unworkable. Anthropic's own Acceptable Use Policy (UAP) explicitly prohibits the use of Claude for: 

• The design or use of weapons
• Domestic surveillance
• Facilitating violence or malicious cyber operations

These restrictions are not waived for military/government users unless the contract includes specific safeguards that Anthropic judges adequate, however defense officials insist that military AI tools must be available for "all lawful purposes," arguing that real-world operations are riddled with gray areas that rigid rules cannot anticipate. The same standard is being demanded of other major AI labs, including OpenAI, Google, and xAI.

One source familiar with the talks said senior defense officials had grown increasingly frustrated with Anthropic - and seized the opportunity to escalate the dispute publicly.

Musk piles on - 'evil' and 'misanthropic'

As the Pentagon showdown escalated, Anthropic also found itself under fire from another powerful adversary - Elon Musk.

Earlier this month, Musk launched a blistering public attack after the company announced a massive $30 billion funding round valuing it at roughly $380 billion. Musk labeled the company’s AI “evil” and “misanthropic,” accusing Claude of ideological bias and hostility toward certain demographic groups, accusing it of "hating Whites, Asians, heterosexuals, and men" in its outputs. 

Musk - whose own company xAI competes directly with Anthropic - mocked the firm’s name, suggesting that a company branded as Anthropic had paradoxically become anti-human.

Your AI hates Whites & Asians, especially Chinese, heterosexuals and men.

This is misanthropic and evil. Fix it.

Frankly, I don’t think there is anything you can do to escape the inevitable irony of Anthropic ending up being Misanthropic. You were doomed to this fate when you…

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 12, 2026

That said, in January Anthropic cut off xAI's access to Claude models, which xAI engineers had been using via the Cursor coding tool to speed up internal work. Anthropic enforces a strict policy against using its models to build/train competitors (they had done the same to OpenAI earlier). Musk’s co-founder Tony Wu (who just left) sent an internal note acknowledging the productivity hit but saying it would motivate xAI to build better tools, while Musk later called the cutoff "not good for their karma."

Musk's beef isn't baseless; tests and user reports show Claude often declines queries that could be seen as offensive or non-inclusive (e.g., jokes about certain demographics, historical hypotheticals).

To check for the inner woke programming of Claude and Gemini.

In earlier tests where a hospital triage was used as an example. Claude valued the life of a white man as 1/23 important as a black woman. (I.e. one black woman is more valuable than 23 white men)

— Edward Northman (@EdwardNorthman) December 10, 2025

Musk has positioned xAI’s Grok as a less restricted, “truth-seeking” alternative to what he and allies describe as overly constrained or ideologically filtered models. Anthropic, by contrast, has built its reputation around "constitutional AI" - a framework designed to impose ethical limits on how its systems behave.

High stakes, limited alternatives

Designating Anthropic a supply chain risk would force defense contractors to rip Claude out of their internal workflows - a massive compliance headache given the company’s reach. Anthropic recently said eight of the ten largest U.S. companies already use its technology.

The Pentagon contract at risk is valued at up to $200 million - small compared to Anthropic’s reported $14 billion in annual revenue, but symbolically enormous.

Complicating matters, a senior administration official acknowledged that competing AI models are still “just behind” Claude when it comes to specialized government and classified applications, making an abrupt transition risky.

Still, Pentagon officials appear confident that other AI providers will ultimately agree to the “all lawful use” standard, even as sources close to the negotiations say much remains unsettled.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/16/2026 - 11:15

LGBTQ+ Identity Dips In 2025 (But Doubled Over Last Decade)

Authored by Jeffrey Jones via Gallup,

Gallup estimates that 9% of U.S. adults personally identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or something other than heterosexual. This percentage is essentially unchanged from last year but remains more than double the 3.5% from 2012, the first year Gallup measured LGBTQ+ incidence. The current figure is also higher than readings of roughly 7% between 2021 and 2023.

The latest results are based on combined data from 2025 Gallup telephone interviews with over 13,000 U.S. adults.

In each poll it conducts, Gallup asks respondents whether they personally identify as heterosexual, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or something else. The vast majority, 86%, say they are heterosexual, while 9% identify with one of the various LGBTQ+ identities and 5% do not give a response.

The largest share of LGBTQ+ adults say they are bisexual, representing more than half of the subgroup and about 5% of the entire U.S. adult population. Meanwhile, 17% of LGBTQ+ adults identify as gay, 16% as lesbian and 12% as transgender, each representing between 1% and 2% of all U.S. adults. Another 6% of LGBTQ+ adults provide another identity, such as queer or pansexual, beyond those included in the survey.

Bisexual identity has consistently been the most common LGBTQ+ identity and has grown sharply since Gallup began measuring lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender identities as separate categories in 2020. That year, 3.1% of U.S. adults said they were bisexual, compared with the current 5.3%. Other LGBTQ+ identities have also increased over the past six years.

LGBTQ+ Identity Higher Among Younger Adults

As Gallup has previously demonstrated, the recent increase in LGBTQ+ identification in the U.S. is primarily driven by higher rates among those in the younger generations. In the latest data, 23% of adults under age 30 identify as LGBTQ+, compared with 10% of those aged 30 to 49 and 3% or less among those aged 50 and older.

LGBTQ+ identification is also higher among women than men, primarily because women are much more likely to say they are bisexual. The small proportion of U.S. adults who identify as nonbinary gender overwhelmingly identify as LGBTQ+, particularly as bisexual or transgender.

Democrats are much more inclined than Republicans to have an LGBTQ+ identity. This pattern likely results from LGBTQ+ individuals aligning with the Democratic Party, given the two parties’ stances toward same-sex marriage and other gay rights issues.

City residents are more likely than those living in suburban or rural areas to identify as LGBTQ+, while rates are similar among the major U.S. racial and ethnic groups.

All of these demographic subgroups report higher rates of LGBTQ+ identification than in 2012, the earliest Gallup data. Young adults today versus those in 2012 show the largest increases, and the rate has increased much more among women than men. The smallest increases are among Republicans (1.5% in 2012 vs. 1.9% today) and adults aged 65 and older (1.9% in 2012 vs. 2.3% today).

Implications

LGBTQ+ identification has risen sharply over the past decade, mainly because more young adults today, especially young women, are identifying as LGBTQ+. As more members of Generation Z (those born between 1997 and 2012) reach adulthood, the LGBTQ+ percentage should rise further, given that nearly one in four adults in that generation currently identify as something other than heterosexual. This is in contrast to older Americans, among whom LGBTQ+ identification remains relatively uncommon.

The increase to date also reflects larger shares of Americans, especially those in Gen Z and the millennial generation, considering themselves bisexual. Bisexual identification far outpaces gay and lesbian identification among younger adults, but it is on par with gay and lesbian identification among older generations.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/16/2026 - 09:50

Futures, Global Markets Rise With US Markets Closed For President's Day

Stocks gained, bitcoin tumbled and bonds steadied after Friday's cool CPI data reinforced expectations that the Fed will cut interest rates on multiple occasions this year. With US markets closed for the Presidents’ Day holiday and mainland China’s markets closed for Lunar New Year holidays, trading was muted on Monday. As of 9:00am ET, futures on the S&P 500 added 0.4% and Europe’s Stoxx 600 index rose 0.4% as banking shares rebounded from a sharp decline last week. German bunds and Treasury futures were steady after US yields touched the lowest since December on Friday.

The path of US interest rates remains in focus following Friday’s slower-than-expected US inflation print as traders fully price a Fed cut in July and the strong chance of a move in June.  

“The backdrop for equities is positive post CPI,” said Andrea Gabellone, head of global equities at KBC Securities. At the same time, there could be “more dispersion ahead as sentiment around key AI-exposed sectors is still very critical,” he added. 

That sentiment was echoed by other strategists seeking to distinguish between AI losers and winners.

A JPMorgan Chase & Co. team led by Mislav Matejka urged caution on stocks at risk of AI-driven “cannibalization,” including software, business services and media companies. Meanwhile, banks are developing baskets to capitalize on the divergence: as we first reported last Thursday, Goldman launched a new basket of software stocks that goes long firms that will benefit from AI adoption, while shorting the companies whose workflows could be replaced.

With AI disruption rippling through markets, a lot will come down to earnings resilience, in particular in the US. 

“When you look at the current earnings season, the companies are showing 13% of growth,” Nataliia Lipikhina, head of EMEA equity strategy at JPMorgan, told Bloomberg TV. “Overall, this is the reason why we continue to be positive on the S&P.”

Later this week, traders will be watching for ADP private payrolls numbers on Tuesday and the minutes from the Fed’s January meeting on Wednesday for a fresh read on the economy.

European stocks gained with bank shares rebounding, after posting their biggest weekly decline since April on worries about disruption from artificial intelligence. The basic resources sector lags, with Norsk Hydro among Europe’s worst performers as both Goldman Sachs and RBC downgrade the stock. Stoxx 600 rises 0.4% to 620.26 with 253 members down, 336 up, and 11 unchanged. Here are some of the biggest movers on Monday: 

• NatWest shares rise as much as 4%, the most since October, as Citi analyst Andrew Coombs raises his price target on the UK bank to a Street-high.
• Seraphim Space shares rise as much as 9.2%, briefly hitting a new all-time high, after the space tech investment firm said the valuations of its four largest holdings increased over the final months of 2025.
• AECI shares rally as much as 6.1%, the most since July, after the South African commercial-explosives maker shared improved 2025 headline earnings per share guidance.
• Orsted shares rise as much as 3.8% after analysts at Kepler raise the recommendation to buy from hold over the Danish renewable energy firm’s outlook, despite ongoing uncertainty for the industry in the US.
• Norsk Hydro shares fall as much as 4.4%, extending Friday’s 5.9% earnings-triggered drop, after being downgraded at Goldman Sachs and RBC over disappointments and pricing pressures in the Norwegian aluminum company’s downstream business.
• Galderma shares slip as much as 2.2% after naming Luigi La Corte as its new chief financial officer following the news back in July that Thomas Dittrich was departing.
• Pinewood Technologies shares tumble as much as 32%, the most since April 2024, after Apax Partners said on Friday it will not proceed with a possible cash offer for the car dealership software provider.
• FlatexDEGIRO shares drop as much as 7.2% after BNP Paribas downgraded the online brokerage firm to neutral from outperform, saying the price reflects too much optimism about its market position in Germany.
• Maurel & Prom shares slump as much as 12%, pulling back after ending last week at a 2015-high, after announcing it is not currently authorized to resume oil and gas operations in Venezuela.
• Barratt Redrow shares fall as much as 3.7%, leading a drop in British homebuilders after Rightmove said house prices are stalling.

Asian stocks slipped for a second day, led by declines in Japan as traders booked profits after last week’s post-election rally. Several markets were closed or held shortened trading sessions for the Lunar New Year holiday. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index was down 0.1%. Japan’s Topix Index fell 0.8%, with Mizuho Financial Group Inc. and Toyota Motor Corp. among the companies contributing to the index’s losses.In Hong Kong, AI model developer Minimax Group Inc. surged as much as 30% to more than four times its original listing price, while competitor Knowledge Atlas JSC Ltd. ended 4.7% higher. The market will be closed until Thursday. As investors across the region begin to reevaluate their bets on its artificial-intelligence-driven rally, traders in Japan cashed in gains driven by expectations of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s proactive spending policies last week.Trading in Singapore ended early Monday and will be shut until Wednesday. Equity markets in mainland China, South Korea, Indonesia and Vietnam were closed. 

In FX, the yen is the notable mover in currencies, weakening 0.5% against the dollar and pushing USD/JPY back above 153. The offshore yuan is one of the better performers against the greenback. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rises 0.1%.

There is no cash trading in Treasuries due to the Presidents’ Day holiday. European government bonds are little changed

In commdities, gold dipped below $5,000 an ounce, as traders booked profits from a gain in the previous session. Bitcoin tried anf ailed to stage a modest rebound; it last traded around $68,275 after posting its fourth consecutive weekly loss, with the cryptocurrency struggling to find clear direction as a weekend rally fizzled once the momentum ignition algos emerged.  WTI crude futures tread water near $62.90 a barrel. 

Top Headlines

• President Trump said there will be voter ID rules in the mid-term elections this year, whether Congress approves it or not, and they will present a legal argument in an Executive Order. Furthermore, Trump said he has searched the depths of legal arguments not yet articulated nor vetted on this subject, and they will be presenting an irrefutable one in the very near future.
• Iran says potential energy, mining and aircraft deals on table in talks with US: RTRS
• Pentagon threatened to cut its ties with Anthropic over the company’s insistence that some limitations are kept on how the military uses its AI models: RTRS
• UK eyes rapid ban on social media for under 16s, curbs to AI chatbots: RTRS
• Rampant AI Demand for Memory Is Fueling a Growing Chip Crisis: BBG
• Warner Bros. Weighs Reopening Sale Negotiations With Paramount: BBG
• Companies Are Replacing CEOs in Record Numbers—and They’re Getting Younger: WSJ
• Europe aims to rely less on US defence after Trump's Greenland push: RTRS
• DOJ Tells Lawmakers Epstein File Redactions Complied With LawL BBG
• For College Applicants, Pressure to Make Summers Count Has Gotten Even Worse: WSJ
• Fed's Goolsbee (2027 voter) said on Friday that they are still seeing pretty high services inflation, and he hopes they have seen the peak impact of tariffs, while he added that the job market has been steady, with only modest cooling. 
• The Break Is Over. Companies Are Jacking Up Prices Again: WSJ

Trade/Tariffs

• USTR Greer said the US and Ecuador expect to sign a trade agreement in the coming weeks.
• China will waive import value-added taxes on selected seeds, genetic resources, and police dogs through to 2030 to increase agricultural competitiveness and breeding capacity. It was also reported that China will grant zero-tariff access to 53 African nations from May 1st, according to Bloomberg.
• Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his French and German counterparts that China and the EU are partners, not rivals, while he added that China and the EU should manage differences, deepen practical cooperation and work together on global challenges.

A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk

APAC stocks began the week in the green but with gains limited following a lack of major fresh catalysts from over the weekend and amid thinned conditions owing to holiday closures in the region and North America. ASX 200 traded marginally higher with upside led by tech, although gains are capped by underperformance in the utilities, mining, materials and resources sectors, while participants also digested a slew of earnings releases. Nikkei 225 traded indecisively with the index constrained by disappointing Japanese preliminary Q4 GDP data, which showed the economy returned to growth but failed to meet expectations with GDP Q/Q at 0.1% (exp. 0.4%), and annualised GDP at 0.2% (exp. 1.6%). Hang Seng finished higher in a shortened trading session on Chinese New Year's Eve but with upside limited by tech weakness amid some confusion after the Pentagon added several companies including Baidu, Cosco, BYD, Huawei, Nio, SMIC, Tencent, and more to a list of Chinese firms aiding the military on Friday, but then withdrew the updated list shortly after it was posted. Furthermore, price action was also restricted by the closure of mainland markets and the absence of stock connect flows, which will remain shut for more than a week. US equity futures kept afloat in quiet trade amid the absence of drivers and participants. European equity futures indicate a mildly positive cash market open with Euro Stoxx 50 futures up 0.1% after the cash market closed with losses of 0.4% on Friday.

Asian Headlines

• Chinese President Xi called for the anchoring of economic growth around domestic demand as its main driver, in a speech during a key policy meeting late last year that was released on Sunday.
• China is to establish a permanent financial support framework to promote rural revitalisation and prevent a slide back into poverty, which represents a shift from transitional aid to long-term support.
• China’s market regulator summoned major online platform companies on Friday, including Alibaba, Douyin and Meituan, while it directed them to comply with laws and regulations, and rein in promotional practices, according to Bloomberg.
• US Secretary of State Rubio and Japanese Foreign Minister Motegi reaffirmed their commitment to deepen bilateral ties.
• Disney (DIS) sent a ‘cease and desist’ letter to ByteDance over Seedance 2.0 and alleged that ByteDance has been infringing on its IP to train and develop an AI video generation model without compensation, according to Axios. It was later reported that ByteDance said it would curb its AI video app following Disney's legal threats, according to the BBC.
• RBI tightened rules for loans provided to brokers and proprietary firms in an effort to reduce market speculation

FX

• DXY eked slight gains in rangebound trade after a lack of major catalysts and with US participants away on Monday.
• EUR/USD was little changed amid the absence of any major macro catalysts and with light newsflow from the bloc, while comments from ECB President Lagarde and news that the ECB is to make its repo backstop available to other central banks across the world, did little to spur price action.
• GBP/USD held on to most of Friday's spoils but with price action contained by resistance around 1.3650 and following comments from BoE's Mann that the UK economy is sluggish and tepid, with consumers spending less due to being scarred by high inflation.
• USD/JPY edged higher and returned to above the 153.00 level in the aftermath of the weaker-than-expected preliminary Q4 GDP data for Japan.
• Antipodeans were mixed with little fresh macro drivers and a lack of tier-1 data from either side of the Tasman.

Fixed Income

• 10yr UST futures traded little changed and held on to last week's spoils after returning above the 113.00 level in the aftermath of the softer US inflation data, while price action was contained to start the week by the closure of US cash markets for Washington's Birthday.
• Bund futures lacked demand in the absence of any major catalysts and with light newsflow from the bloc.
• 10yr JGB futures were marginally higher following disappointing preliminary GDP data for Q4, but with gains limited after failing to sustain a brief reclaim of the 132.00 level.

Commodities

• Crude futures were rangebound amid light energy-specific newsflow from over the weekend and after last Friday's indecisive performance, where attention was on a source report that noted OPEC+ is leaning towards resuming oil output hikes from April, but with no decision made.
• Slovak PM Fico said he has information that the Druzhba pipeline has been fixed after damage in Ukraine, although he believes that supplies to Hungary and Slovakia have become a part of political blackmail.
• Spot gold took a breather after edging higher in the aftermath of the recent softer-than-expected US inflation data, with price action also contained by the holiday closures across Asia and North America.
• Copper futures were subdued, with their largest buyer away for more than a week due to the Chinese New Year/Spring Festival holiday.
• Texas venture-backed startup Hertha Metal vowed mass production of steel with 25% cost savings, which could reduce US reliance on imports.

Geopolitics: Middle East

• US military is preparing for potential operations against Iran that could last for weeks if US President Trump orders an attack and the US fully expects Iran to retaliate, according to sources cited by Reuters.
• US President Trump told Israeli PM Netanyahu during a meeting in December that he would support Israel striking Iran’s ballistic missile program if the US and Iran are not able to reach a deal, according to CBS.
• Iran confirmed that indirect talks between the US and Iran will resume in Geneva on Tuesday under the mediation of Oman, while Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi left for Geneva on Sunday.
• Iranian diplomat said Iran is open to nuclear deal compromises if the US discusses lifting sanctions, while it was also reported that Iran said potential energy, mining and aircraft deals are on the table in talks with the US.
• Israel’s cabinet approved the proposal to register West Bank lands as ‘state property’, while Palestinians condemned the ‘de facto annexation’ which Peace Now said likely amounts to a ‘mega land grab’.

Geopolitics: Ukraine

• US President Trump said on Friday that Ukrainian President Zelensky is going to have to get moving and that Russia wants to get a deal.
• US Secretary of State Rubio said they don’t know if Russia is serious about finding an end to the war in Ukraine and will continue to test it, while it was reported that he met with Ukrainian President Zelensky on security and deepening defence and economic partnerships.
• Ukrainian drones targeted Russia’s Taman seaport and fuel tanks in the Black Sea region.
• UK and European allies were reported on Friday to be weighing seizing Russian shadow fleet ships and tightening curbs on Russia's economy.
• French Foreign Minister Barrot said some G7 nations have expressed a willingness to proceed with a maritime services ban on Russian oil, which they hope to include in the 20th sanctions package that they are actively preparing.

Geopolitics: Other

• European Commission President von der Leyen said that they face the very distinct threat of outside forces trying to weaken their union, while she added that mutual defence is not an optional task for the European Union; it is an obligation within their own treaty, and it is their collective commitment to stand by each other in case of aggression.
• Pentagon said the US military struck an alleged drug cartel boat in the Caribbean, which killed three people.

DB's Jim Reid concludes the overnigt wrap

I hope you all had a good weekend. To stay in Winter Olympics mood the family watched "Cool Runnings" last night. I haven't seen it for 32 years. Please don't tell anyone but I had a few tears in my eyes at the end. I blamed it on the hay fever that has now started.

There will be a lot of tears out there in markets for other reasons at the moment. Just two weeks ago, the idea of AI-driven disruption still felt like an abstract, almost academic thought experiment—something we could safely revisit once we had clearer evidence of how AI would be deployed and integrated across the economy. Fast forward 14 days, and markets have wiped out well over a trillion dollars of global equity value on the fear that AI could fundamentally reshape business models and compress profitability across a wide range of industries, including software, legal services, IT consulting, wealth management, logistics, insurance, real estate brokerage and commercial real estate.
For months, my published view has been that nobody truly knows who the long term winners and losers of this extraordinary technology will be. Yet as recently as October, markets were implicitly pricing in a world where almost every tech company would come out a winner. Over recent weeks we’ve seen a more realistic differentiation emerge within tech—but that repricing is now rippling into the broader economy with surprising speed.

Some of the sell off in “old economy” sectors feels overdone to me. But as I argued in our 2026 World Outlook back in November, the real challenge is that even by the end of this year we still won’t have enough evidence to identify the structural winners and losers with confidence. That leaves plenty of room for investors’ imaginations—both optimistic and pessimistic—to run wild. As such big sentiment swings will continue to be the order of the day.

My instinct is that the reaction in things like commercial real estate, for example, has been particularly exaggerated. Markets seem to be extrapolating a scenario in which vast numbers of white collar workers are made redundant almost overnight, leading to a dramatic collapse in office demand. If that view turns out to be correct, we’ll be facing societal challenges far larger than anything currently being priced into equities. While trying to catch a falling knife may be too risky for many, beginning to cushion the descent could be sensible in many old economy sectors. Markets can’t sustain a disruption narrative across multiple sectors for months or quarters without concrete evidence — and that evidence is likely to take much longer to emerge. Fascinating times.

As for this week, today is a US holiday but inflation will remain in the spotlight at a global level after Friday's slightly softer US CPI which helped contribute to a decent rates rally to end the week. Prints are due in the US (PCE - Friday), the UK (Wednesday), Canada (Tuesday) and Japan (Friday). Other economic highlights will include the FOMC minutes (Wednesday), Q4 GDP in the US (Friday), as well as the global flash PMIs (Friday). Earnings reports will feature Walmart (Thursday), Nestlé (Thursday) and BHP (today). It's the earnings calm before next week's Nvidia storm.

In the US, this holiday shortened week (President's Day today) features a data calendar dominated by releases that were pushed back by last year’s government shutdown. The most consequential updates will land on Friday, when the advance estimate of Q4 GDP arrives alongside December’s personal income and consumption figures—key inputs for shaping expectations for the early part of this year.
Our economists expect real GDP growth to slow to 2.5% for Q4, a meaningful step down from the prior quarter’s 4.4% pace. A sizable portion of that deceleration—roughly 70bps—reflects the drag from the record long shutdown. Net trade is once again projected to make a strong positive contribution, driven mainly by subdued imports. December’s international trade report, due Thursday, will help refine the team's call, as will the advanced goods trade data, which will also guide expectations for inventories—currently seen subtracting about 60bps from growth in Q4.

For markets assessing the underlying pulse of demand heading into 2026, private final sales to domestic purchasers (PFDP) will carry more weight than the headline GDP print. This indicator—closely monitored by Fed Chair Powell—is expected by our economists to slow to 2.0% from 2.9% in Q3, though risks appear tilted upward. One swing factor: Wednesday’s durable goods report, where modest gains outside of transportation could soften the deceleration. On the consumer front, real PCE growth is expected to cool to 2.5% after two quarters of outsized strength but should still signal ample momentum heading into the new year.

Friday’s income and spending report will also offer the latest reading on core PCE, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge. Our economists expect another 0.4% monthly increase for December, lifting the year over year rate to 2.9%. Updated seasonal factors from last week’s CPI release suggest some mild downward pressure on inflation trends in the second half of 2025. Still, January’s CPI data, although softer than we anticipated, do not translate into equivalent relief for core PCE—in fact, our team currently sees another 0.4% gain for January's release (delayed until March 13th). Depending on the strength of medical services, airfare, and portfolio management components in the upcoming PPI report, a 0.5% monthly rise cannot be ruled out, which would push the year over year rate toward 3.1%. So don't get too excited about the softer CPI last week and the huge rates rally.

Additional releases this week will help clarify whether recent severe winter weather has disrupted factory sector activity. January industrial production, due Wednesday, should benefit from a jump in utility output, while weather effects may weigh on the Empire State Survey tomorrow and the Philadelphia Fed survey on Thursday.

Labor market data will also be in focus, particularly Thursday’s jobless claims, which line up with the survey week for the February employment report. As our economists have pointed out, private nonfarm job gains have averaged 103k over the past three months, slightly above the pace at this point in 2025 and matching the start of 2024. See their latest US employment chartbook here.

This week will also feature a dense lineup of Federal Reserve speakers which you can see alongside all the key global data in the day-by-day week ahead calendar at the end as usual.

Moving away from the US, inflation will also be in focus in Japan (Friday) and Canada (tomorrow). For the former, our Chief Japan Economist sees the January nationwide CPI showing a slowdown in both core CPI inflation ex. fresh food to 2.1% YoY (+2.4% in December) and core-core CPI inflation ex. fresh food and energy to 2.7% (+2.9%). Also important will be the global flash PMIs due on Friday as a health check on global growth. In Europe, the spotlight will be on UK inflation (Wednesday), with labour market data due tomorrow and retail sales on Friday. Our UK economist expects headline CPI inflation to drop to 3.0% YoY (3.4% in December) and core CPI also landing at 3.0% YoY (3.2% YoY). See more in his full preview here. In terms of key rate decisions, the RBNZ are expected to remain on hold on Wednesday.
In Asia this morning, things are relatively quiet with mainland Chinese and Korean markets closed for the Lunar New Year. The Hang Seng is up +0.52% while the Nikkei (+0.11%) is edging up after a lower start to its session. That came despite a decent downside miss on Japan’s Q4 GDP data overnight, which rose at an annualised pace of +0.2% versus expectations of +1.6%. S&P (+0.15%) and Nasdaq (+0.06%) futures are also a little higher on this US holiday session.

Finally, the Munich Security Conference wrapped up over the weekend, where key topics included Ukraine, Russia, and the fate of Greenland. And while US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s speech was nothing like Vice President JD Vance’s at last year’s conference, which triggered a “wake-up” call for European leaders, Rubio reiterated the administration’s view that Europe needed to leave behind its focus on energy policies, trade and mass migration.

Recapping last week now, the tech volatility that has dogged markets since the start of the month broadened into a far more indiscriminate sell-off. The trough came on Thursday, marked by a sharp drop in software stocks, but the weakness extended well beyond tech. Companies across wealth management, real estate and financials suffered double digit declines, underscoring how widespread the pullback has become. Market breadth confirmed this shift as the equal weighted S&P 500 fell -1.37% on Thursday, though it managed to finish the week up +0.29% (+1.04% on Friday). Ultimately, the sell-off left the major US indices on the back foot: the S&P 500 slipped -1.39% (+0.05% on Friday), the Nasdaq lost -2.10% (-0.22% on Friday), and the Magnificent 7 slid -3.24% (-1.11% on Friday).

Although the AI scare dominated sentiment, a heavy slate of US data also shaped the market narrative. Early in the week, softer prints—including flat December retail sales, a dovish Q4 Employment Cost Index, and slower Q4 growth expectations from the Atlanta Fed—pushed Treasury yields lower across the curve. That picture shifted midweek after a stronger than expected January jobs report, which delivered the largest gain in nonfarm payrolls (+130k vs. +65k expected) since December 2024 and reinforced confidence that the US economy carried solid momentum into 2026. Then on Friday, January CPI came in below expectations, adding another dovish note. Although the data offered mixed signals at times, the overall takeaway was sufficiently dovish for traders to increase the number of expected rate cuts by December 2026 to 63.4bps (+7.7bps on the week). This helped drive the largest weekly drop in the 10 year Treasury yield since August 2025, down -15.8bps (-5.0bps on Friday) to 4.05%. The 2 year yield also moved sharply lower, falling -8.9bps to 3.41% (-4.8bps on Friday), its lowest level since 2022.

European markets, meanwhile, delivered a comparatively resilient performance. The STOXX 600 (+0.09%, -0.13% Friday), DAX (+0.78%, +0.25% Friday) and FTSE 100 (+0.74%, +0.42% Friday) all posted modest gains for the week. European sovereign bonds rallied as well, with the 10 year bund yield dropping -8.7bps—its steepest weekly decline since April 2025. That move was outpaced by gilts, which fell -9.8bps (-3.6bps on Friday) despite a sharp early week sell-off triggered by renewed questions surrounding Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s position.

Elsewhere, performance was mixed. Brent crude edged down -0.44% (+0.34% on Friday), while gold extended its upward run, rising +1.56% (+2.43% on Friday).

Will London’s half term week finally give us a quiet week in 2026? You’d probably have to guess at ‘unlikely’.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/16/2026 - 09:40

Downdetector Users Report Widespread Outages At X, AWS, Cloudflare

Around 8:00 a.m. ET, users on Downdetector reported outages and disruptions on X across the United States. At the same time, the outage tracker also showed a spike in reported issues involving Amazon Web Services and Cloudflare.

Downdetector users reported X outages and disruptions across major U.S. cities.

Simultaneously, Downdetector users reported outages affecting AWS and Cloudflare, raising the question of whether issues on Musk’s platform are a downstream effect.

*Developing...

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/16/2026 - 09:30

Ukraine's Former Energy Minister Charged With Money Laundering As 'Operation Midas' Expands

Months after Ukraine was shaken by a sweeping corruption probe into state nuclear giant Energoatom, and subject of international embarrassment given it even touched Zelensky's office, former Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko has now been formally charged - after authorities detained him while he was allegedly attempting to leave the country.

Halushchenko had been suspended by Zelensky in mid-November, when news of the scandal first hit global headlines. On Monday, Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) announced that Halushchenko faces formal charges of money laundering and participation in a criminal organization tied to what investigators call the Midas case or Operation Midas.

The former Minister of Energy, Herman Galushchenko, Creative Commons

"The former minister of energy (2021–2025) has been exposed for money laundering and participation in a criminal organization," the joint statement said, adding that investigators have "expanded the circle of suspects."

The investigation is focused on members of the alleged network which established an investment fund in Anguilla (the British Overseas Territory in the Eastern Caribbean) in February 2021. The vehicle was marketed as raising roughly €118 million in "investments" - with Halushchenko’s family listed among the contributors - after which millions flowed directly into accounts controlled by the family. 

For example, authorities claim part of the funds paid for the education of Halushchenko’s children at elite Swiss institutions, while other sums were deposited into his ex-wife's accounts, also with a big portion of the money allegedly invested further, "earning extra income for the family's personal use."

Halushchenko was energy minister from 2021 to 2025 before being appointed justice minister in July 2025. In November, NABU agents conducted raided offices and properties connected to him as the investigation intensified.

Western mainstream media had almost immediately launched into damage control in the wake of the massive energy scandal, with one op-ed in Bloomberg having tried its best to say it's not at all Ukraine's fault, but is actually somehow... the Kremlin behind it(!). Here's how it began:

There are at least two legitimate responses to allegations that a group of highly placed Ukrainian officials have skimmed $100 million from contracts to repair and protect their nation’s critical energy infrastructure, even as Russian attacks plunge the nation into darkness and cold. One is to despair, the other to celebrate. The second, strange as it may sound, is more logical.

This episode goes to the heart of why Ukrainians are fighting at all. The war began in 2014, after then President Viktor Yanukovych was toppled by mass protests against the epic scale of his corruption and the captivity to Moscow this created. Graft was the glue with which the Kremlin had held...

So even with high officials in Zelensky's government are caught red-handed by a Ukrainian internal investigation, the ultimate fault lies in Moscow, according to some MSM accounts.

It must be remembered that earlier last year, Zelensky himself found himself at the center of EU pushback and controversy when he attempted to eliminate NABU's independence, sparking outrage in Brussels some sectors of the Ukrainian populace.

Ukrainians, currently enduring a harsh winter in subzero temperatures and with rolling power outages due to the war, are outraged. But Americans might also need to wake up and take note of how billions in US funds are going into the coffers of a deeply corrupt Ukrainian system.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/16/2026 - 09:25

Detroit Police Chief Targets Officers Allegedly Coordinating With ICE

Authored by Luis Cornelio via Headline USA,

Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettison said Thursday that officers purportedly collaborating with federal immigration agents will be held “accountable,” as the city defends its so-called “welcoming” status.

Bettison made the comments during a hearing with the Detroit Board of Police Commissioners regarding two incidents, one on Dec. 16 and another on Feb. 9, according to the Detroit Free Press.

“Of our officers, 98-99 percent do it the right way each and every day,” Bettison claimed.

“But I do have one or two percent that decide to violate our rules, our policies and our procedures, and to those officers, I will hold them accountable.”

A “welcoming city” refers to jurisdictions that do not require officers to investigate a person’s immigration status during routine investigations.

By contrast, sanctuary cities refuse to honor ICE detainers and actively decline to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

In the first incident, a Detroit sergeant reportedly called Border Patrol after an officer requested a translation during a traffic stop of a non-English-speaking individual.

Bettison said that Border Patrol determined the person was not a U.S. citizen and detained the individual as a result.

In the second incident, a Detroit officer allegedly contacted Border Patrol while investigating an individual on a felony warrant.

“Border Patrol did respond, and Border Patrol ultimately took this individual,” Bettison said, citing body-worn camera footage reviewed by the DPD.

The commission is set to decide whether to suspend the officers involved ahead of a Feb. 19 hearing.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/16/2026 - 09:00

US NatGas Futs Sink To Four-Month Low As Mid-Atlantic Exits Brutal Winter

US natural gas futures tumbled to a four-month low early Monday as weather models indicate the Lower 48 is exiting the peak of the Northern Hemisphere winter and entering a much-needed warmup. For the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, which experienced some of the coldest weather in decades, the next few weeks are expected to feel more like spring.

March contracts fell 7.5% to about $3 per mmBtu, the lowest level since October 17 and a roughly four-month low.

Weather forecasts for the Lower 48 show above-normal temperatures through the end of the month, particularly in the central and southern regions.

NatGas prices have been extremely volatile this winter. Multiple cold blasts sparked freeze-offs and production disruptions across gas infrastructure that sent spot NatGas prices sharply higher. At the same time, tightening power markets, especially across the Mid-Atlantic area, sent power prices soaring.

Readers may recall we identified peak Northern Hemisphere winter in early February, as 30-year average temperature trends point to warmer conditions across the Lower 48.

Now the Trump administration can point to last month’s cold snap as a real-world stress test: fossil fuel generation helped keep much of the eastern U.S. grid from collapsing under peak demand. Read the note, titled "Sleep Tight, America. We Got This": NatGas And Coal Power Plants Prevented Grid Collapse During Historic Winter Blast.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/16/2026 - 08:30

Macron's AI Clown Show: Europe's Digital Dilemma

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

The European Union has lost its place in the global race for artificial intelligence. In a single tweet on platform X, France’s President Emmanuel Macron inadvertently outlined the convoluted situation while simultaneously revealing his personal emotional fragility.

The leading representatives of the European Union like to present themselves as emotionless technocrats. Maintaining the greatest possible distance from citizens, they execute their agenda of societal transformation toward what they understand as a net-zero transformation economy. 

This ostentatious distance from the citizenry acts as a simulacrum of power, which, in politicians like Emmanuel Macron, often veers into the caricatural.

Macron’s striking presence in foreign affairs—whether regarding the Ukraine war or recurring provocations toward the United States—correlates with his aggressive censorship policy toward his own population. A president without a people, steering his minority government through a budgetary crisis that brings France ever closer to the fiscal abyss.

In Macron’s persona, the European misstep is condensed: economically failed, deeply unpopular among his own people, geopolitically essentially irrelevant—and yet imbued with lofty, messianic plans. 

This performative play of power, coupled with hardly disguised impotence and incompetence, inevitably produces an effect that can be described as clownish. It is the expression of a political style that can no longer reconcile claim with reality—and thus delivers less leadership than a tragicomic performance.

A Touch of Emotion

Politicians like the French president are indeed aware of the growing public anger over their policies and, behind the technocratic façade, very much experience emotional states—Macron revealed this for a brief moment on February 7 on the platform “X,” which he otherwise fights.

This moment of exposure was triggered by a reaction to Israeli AI investor Dr. Eli David. The entrepreneur had ridiculed the French government’s plan to initiate an AI revolution with a mere initial investment of €30 million, publicly calling the president a “clown.” 

“This clown wants to make France an AI leader with €30M.”

€30 million → to attract and support around forty top-tier international researchers. They chose France for its values and its commitment to science.

Sometimes it’s too slow…… pic.twitter.com/UHlSpIIaI9

— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) February 7, 2026

Macron responded in classic social media fashion: fast, unconsidered, emotional. And this was precisely the real revelation. His message not only displayed personal fragility but simultaneously exposed Europe’s fatal economic strategy in the field of artificial intelligence.

Macron directly addressed David’s criticism and slid into a rhetorical trap, writing: Yes, exactly this “clown,” meaning himself, would trigger an investment boom with €30 million, eventually mobilizing over €100 billion in private funds. Macron plans a French Silicon Valley south of Paris and intends to catapult his country to the Olympus of artificial intelligence—with €30 million of state money, initially benefiting those who provide the technological framework for the upcoming rollout of digital IDs.

“This clown wants to make France an AI leader with €30M.”

€30 million → to attract and support around forty top-tier international researchers. They chose France for its values and its commitment to science.

Sometimes it’s too slow…… pic.twitter.com/UHlSpIIaI9

— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) February 7, 2026

In this sentence, Europe’s dilemma crystallized: self-assurance and denial, the familiar pathos of EU Europeans combined with an astonishing detachment from reality—and a political style that reveals more about Europe’s position in the global AI race than any sober analysis could.

Those familiar with the codes, memes, and recurring keywords of digital platforms understand the significance of this label. When “clown world” or “clown politics” is mentioned, it refers precisely to the comedy we witness daily: the routine evasion of European top politicians from the consequences of their centrally controlled policies—be it economic and industrial policy, migration, or the grotesquely perceived energy policy.

The clown meme condenses the cynically self-ironic perception of the viewer of this comedy—a viewer aware that they are not only the target of these policies but will ultimately bear their consequences.

Clown politics takes many forms. These include the countless crisis or innovation summits in which politicians stage themselves retroactively as initiators of the new, attempting to position themselves at the forefront of developments they have ignored or actively obstructed for decades. 

These summits are a particularly pernicious form of masking incompetence: political self-validation rituals simulating activity while merely covering up structural stagnation.

Another Lost Year

It has been almost exactly one year since Emmanuel Macron, at the AI conference Choose France, presented his megalomaniac-seeming investment initiative. Over €100 billion in private investment pledges were said to have been mobilized, with asset manager Brookfield promising more than €20 billion, and the UAE sovereign wealth fund with €50 billion, to participate in Macron’s Silicon Valley. To this day—nothing has happened.

As elsewhere in the EU, a Kafkaesque thicket of regulation seriously blocks private-sector engagement. At least France could score points thanks to nuclear power: stable, cheap, ideal for energy-hungry data centers. And Germany? Its locational advantage has been squandered in green delusions. Yet France remains trapped in paralyzing stagnation—announcements fade, visions fizzle, and the digital Silicon Valley appears like an illusion from the bureaucratic dream factory.

The contrast with the United States could hardly be starker. There, around $400 billion in private investments in artificial intelligence and data centers were mobilized last year alone. The infrastructure of the data economy of the future is being built in the United States, where President Donald Trump deregulates markets, cuts taxes, and promotes the comeback of nuclear energy.

Notably, major US data center operators—from Meta to Google—have already begun investing in their own energy sources. This not only stabilizes their business models but also the American energy grid. It is an impressive counterpoint from the private sector to Brussels’ statist economic model, where technological ignorance seems almost cultivated.

Europe’s idea of state seed funding and centrally planned market regulation is the real problem. 

European society has drifted too far from the principles of market economy, personal responsibility, and a general culture of initiative in business. Bureaucracy, green socialism, and the decades-long cultural struggle against bourgeois values and roots now bear their rotten fruits. The spirit of EU bureaucracy has warped the perception of economic reality for citizens, entrepreneurs, and the political class alike.

New technologies and innovations are no longer understood as opportunities but as reasons to defensively secure the status quo. This psychopolitical consequence of European bureaucratization weighs like lead on the prosperity and productivity of European economies—with consequences that even French presidents in combative cynic mode on “X” cannot hide.

* * * 

About the author: Thomas Kolbe, a German graduate economist, has worked for over 25 years as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/16/2026 - 08:10

Amid Saber-Rattling, Iran Touts Economic Benefits To West If Nuclear Deal Reached

Days ahead of another round of talks with US negotiators -- and on the heels of more saber-rattling by the Trump administration -- Iran is touting the potential mutual economic benefits of a deal that would terminate the West's long-running sanctions regime against the second-largest and second-most-populous country in the Middle East.  

"For the sake of an agreement's durability, it is essential that the U.S. also benefits in areas with high and quick economic returns," said Iranian Deputy Director for Economic Diplomacy Hamid Ghanbari on Sunday, according to Iran's FARS news agency. He said that, during negotiations, there had been discussion of what FARS called "shared interests in the fields of oil, gas, mining and even aircraft purchases." 

An IranAir Airbus A330 lands in Amsterdam (Nicolas Economou/ Nurphoto via Getty and Forbes) 

Sanctions have long thwarted Iran's need to update the country's passenger jet fleets. After the 2015 nuclear deal was reached and sanctions eased, Iran raced to put in orders for new aircraft from Western suppliers. When President Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal -- despite Iran's full compliance with it -- Boeing instantly lost $20 billion worth of business.  

Oil prices were flat in early-Monday global trading. "With both sides expected to hold firm on their core ​red ​lines, expectations are low that a deal can be ​reached and this is likely to be the ‌calm before the storm," IG analyst Tony Sycamore told Yahoo. 

Oman is set to mediate talks in Geneva this week. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is leading the Iranian delegation, while the US delegation will be headed by Steve Witkoff and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner. Ahead of the talks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made his sixth US meeting with Trump in just the last year. Netanyahu continues to push for terms that guarantee Iranian refusals and thus set the stage for more war.

Those poison-pill demands include Iran ceasing all uranium enrichment and -- preposterously -- dismantling the conventional, ballistic missile program that proved so effective in responding to Israel's initiation of war last June. Trump reportedly told Netanyahu in December that he'd back Israeli strikes on Iran's ballistic missiles program if a new deal isn't reached.  

President Trump holds Prime Minister Netanyahu's chair during a 2025 visit to the White House 

In May 2018, Trump withdrew the United States from the nuclear deal that had been negotiated between Iran and various Western governments and signed in 2015. Under that deal -- the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) -- Iran agreed to a wide array of nuclear safeguards. They included eliminating its medium-enriched uranium, reducing its low-enriched uranium inventory by 98%, capping future enrichment at 3.67%, slashing its number of centrifuges, submitting to enhanced external monitoring, and rendering its heavy-water reactor unusable by pouring concrete in it. 

At the time of Trump's withdrawal, Iran was in full compliance, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. In response to the re-imposition of US sanctions, Iran began straying from its own commitments under the deal, seemingly pushing the only lever it had to bring the deal back and get out from under sanctions that have sapped Iran's economy and inflicted a harsh toll on innocent Iranian citizens. 

On Friday, Reuters reported that the Pentagon is preparing for a "sustained, weeks-long military campaign" against Iran if President Trump gives the green light. That news came as a second American aircraft carrier was making its way to the region. The USS Gerald Ford -- the world's largest -- will join the USS Abraham Lincoln, which is already on station. Before receiving its new orders, the Ford had been operating in the Caribbean after being abruptly redeployed from the Mediterranean -- part of an earlier show of force tied to posturing against Venezuela.    

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/16/2026 - 07:45

Germany's Elites Demand "Location Patriotism" As Green Industrial Policy Unravels

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

As social glue and as a bond tying the individual to a higher purpose of existence, patriotism has acquired a dubious reputation in Germany after decades of culture war. The United Left has succeeded in amalgamating this binding and integrating cultural ferment with the historical catastrophes of National Socialism, imperialism, and chauvinism, ultimately banishing it from the nation’s self-understanding.

Today, the patriot is regarded as a social outsider, a contrarian, an intolerant antagonist of humanistic values.

The mills of that socialist cultural revolution set in motion in the late 1960s have ground with care. A cartel of radical ideologues, opportunistic politicians, a proliferating academic establishment, and the media sector has managed to inject a sufficient dose of poison into the root system of tradition, religion, family, and the bourgeois order. The modern patriot renders himself deeply suspect if he rejects the blessings of cultural relativism and the woke nihilism of our age.

And yet conservatives are the true heroes of stability and continuity, who—like human breakwaters in today’s social storms—attempt to fend off the worst flowing toward us from the murky sources of cultural Marxism. It was not least the work of German politicians to carry out this civilizational turn: away from the Social Market Economy and a bourgeois-centered society toward a green climate socialism.

Nowhere does the anti-bourgeois reflex flourish more luxuriantly than in Germany’s NGO complex and in the shrill academic flank warfare surrounding Cancel Culture, Wokeism, and the cleansing of language—precisely targeting those terms that would open the door to a culture-affirming, tradition-confirming education.

How beautiful words like “fatherland,” “patriotism,” and “love of homeland” now sound.

Naturally, a significant portion of the political class would vehemently disagree. It has built a business model from the ingredients of contempt for the nation, globalist moralism, and climate-apocalyptic transformation logic—and founded its political existence upon it. Contempt for everything conservative is the linguistic soil in which this form of political power thrives, stabilizing and reinforcing itself within its own moral echo chamber.

That, in this self-inflicted crisis, German politicians now invoke the once-poisoned term of “location patriotism” in their defensive struggle against economic reality appears grotesque—and to those who have lost their livelihoods in the breakers of green bureaucratism, presumptuous and offensive.

Germany’s environment minister, Carsten Schneider, concluded his recent interview marathon with a talk at the Frankfurter Rundschau. The man has nerve. After a series of very public attacks by his camp against entrepreneurs, it now seems time to change tone. Moral minor key is on Berlin’s agenda. Automakers, Schneider suggests, should increasingly source raw materials from Germany. Raw materials—from Germany?

He calls for a “lead market” for green steel—stretching reality to its limits, as green steel currently vanishes from product lines because it is neither profitable nor marketable, despite heavy subsidies.

A little more location patriotism can surely be expected from German CEOs, Schneider argues—closely echoing the tone of his party leader and finance minister, Lars Klingbeil.

Klingbeil struck a similar chord at a union congress of IG BCE in Hanover last October. More location patriotism—more daring for Germany? After all, the state has provided tax relief and subsidies to strengthen the location and its companies. Is the state to play King Lear in this drama? The destroyer of capital, tax collector, and regulator par excellence?

It is a cynical media game the political class is playing with a population already in fragile spirits. When things deteriorate and policymakers hit a wall, strategies merge: patriotic appeals now oscillate with resentment and envy debates—emotional triggers designed to activate the image of the greedy, rootless entrepreneur, allowing politicians to step out of the line of fire. Outrage becomes a mobilization strategy; moral pressure, a media placebo.

The chancellor himself now regularly reaches for this blunt instrument, driven by poor poll numbers and looming political turbulence. “I am proud of our country,” declares Friedrich Merz, rebranding a culturally eroded and economically bleeding Germany into a communal experience infused with the rhetoric of renewal and freedom.

One can only speculate about the emotional stirrings of the chancellor as he strides through the opulent halls of the Federal Chancellery. Aware that Germany’s governing apparatus—its bureaucratized parliamentarianism and the self-representation of the executive—slowly but steadily approaches, at least in scale and architectural self-staging, dimensions reminiscent of Chinese conditions, the repeated echo of his own voice in endless corridors may well generate a certain well-tempered pride in career achievement.

In starkest contrast to the modest chancellery of the old Bonn Republic, today’s Federal Chancellery symbolizes statism, distance, and elevation.

Media maneuvers such as demanding corporate location patriotism are performative acts of ostentatious helplessness. They aim to channel public mood, deflect the question of responsibility away from policymakers, and stabilize the coalition ahead of crucial state elections.

Yet Berlin’s spin doctors may be mistaken. Friedrich Merz and his colleagues will learn that patriotism cannot be activated by chancellery decree. They may also discover that few Germans, without external pressure, will answer a call to defend a political system that—after years of mass migration, cultural erosion, and ideological restructuring—now asks its citizens to support further ideologically charged projects.

As for entrepreneurs, there seem to be few who still trust politics to resolve an ideologically distorted situation rationally. Patriotism, once the final convincing anchor tying companies to their homeland, has been driven out of Germans in a decades-long purgatory of progressive self-righteousness. Something better than a German insolvency death can now be found almost anywhere.

* * * 

About the author: Thomas Kolbe, a German graduate economist, has worked for over 25 years as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/16/2026 - 07:20

Hillary Clinton Breaks With Party Line, Admits Mass Migration Is "Disruptive & Destabilizing"

After U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke earlier on Saturday at the Munich Security Conference, where he said the U.S. and Europe "belong together" and argued for a stronger West, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who served under former President Barack Obama, appeared on a panel later that afternoon and made surprising remarks about mass migration.

Clinton participated in a panel titled, "The West-West Divide: What Remains of Common Values," and said that mass migration invasion involving millions of illegal aliens has been "destabilizing" to society.

Clinton continued:

So this debate that's going on is driven by an effort to control people, to control who we are, how we look, who we love. And I think we need to call it for what it is.

There is a legitimate reason to have a debate about things like migration. It went too far. It's been disruptive and destabilizing, and it needs to be fixed in a humane way, with secure borders that don't torture and kill people, and with a strong family structure, because it is at the base.

Hillary Clinton admits illegal immigration went too far:

“It went too far, it’s been disruptive and destabilizing.”

REMINDER: Biden let millions of unvetted illegal criminals pour into the country for four years. pic.twitter.com/JeqUxJsU7B

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 14, 2026

Clinton's comments about how mass migration has been an utter failure probably made White House border czar Tom Homan blush. In fact, unhinged Democrats, such as the Democratic Socialists of America, are probably furious with Clinton, given her very blunt public stance on immigration policy. 

In fact, if we circle back to Rubio's comments earlier in the day, he slammed "mass migration".

Let's not forget that Rubio's State Department last fall recognized that mass migration was an "existential threat" to the West and risks "undermining the stability of key American allies."

The World Awakens Part 1: Pawn Storms

The elites are using illegal immigrants as pawns worldwide to gain control. Even Cesar Chavez fought against it, pointing out that it was an attack on locals.

If you liked this content, pls consider following. It would be a big help in… pic.twitter.com/ubiEozxJwt

— Winter_Rewind (@WinterRewind) May 31, 2024

"America First" politicians are coming to their senses about the illegal alien invasion, as it was a move by globalists, NGOs, and their Democratic Party allies to install a new voting bloc and transform America into a one-party rule of left-wing kings and queens (think California). 

That's why "America First" politicians and Elon Musk are pushing hard for the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act to secure the integrity of elections. 

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/16/2026 - 06:55

These Are The Countries Buying (And Selling) The Most Gold Since 2020

As gold prices surged more than 230% since 2020, central banks around the world launched one of the largest gold-buying waves in modern history.

For many countries, bullion became more than just a hedge—it became a strategic reserve asset amid rising geopolitical tensions, currency volatility, and growing efforts to diversify away from the U.S. dollar.

Yet not every nation followed the same playbook: some were accumulating gold aggressively, while others were trimming reserves.

This chart, via Visual Capitalist's Niccolo Conte, ranks the countries that made the biggest net additions and the largest reductions in gold reserves over the past five years.

The data comes from the World Gold Council.

China and Eastern Europe Lead Gold Buying

Together, the top 15 buyers added nearly 2,000 net tonnes of gold to their reserves over the period, underscoring a broad shift in official sector strategy.

China recorded the largest increase in gold reserves over the period, adding more than 350 tonnes. This move aligns with Beijing’s long-running push to diversify reserves away from the U.S. dollar and reduce exposure to Western financial systems, reinforcing gold’s role as a politically neutral anchor within global reserves.

Poland followed China closely in the ranking, increasing its gold holdings by over 300 tonnes as part of a long-term push to bolster monetary security.

Türkiye and India also ranked among the top buyers. Both countries face persistent inflation pressures and currency volatility, making gold an attractive hedge within official reserves.

Emerging Markets Step Up Accumulation

Beyond the largest buyers, several emerging markets made notable additions. Brazil added more than 100 tonnes, while Azerbaijan’s increase came through its sovereign wealth fund, the State Oil Fund of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

Japan, Thailand, Hungary, and Singapore also expanded reserves, signaling broader global interest in gold as a stabilizing asset during periods of economic uncertainty.

Who Reduced Gold Holdings?

While many central banks were building gold stockpiles, a smaller group reduced exposure, highlighting sharply different reserve priorities.

The Philippines recorded the largest reduction, cutting reserves by more than 65 tonnes. Kazakhstan and Sri Lanka also posted significant declines, often reflecting domestic liquidity pressures or active reserve rebalancing during periods of economic stress.

Several European countries, including Germany and Finland, posted modest reductions. Switzerland’s change was minimal, underscoring its generally stable approach to gold management compared with more active buyers elsewhere.

Taken together, the data shows how gold has reasserted itself as a cornerstone of global reserves, even as countries take sharply different paths in preparing for an uncertain monetary future.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out The Rise of Major Currencies Against the USD in 2025 on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/16/2026 - 06:45

India Might Soon Replace Russian Oil With Venezuelan At Scale After All

Authored by Andrew Korybko,

A new US license is being interpreted as prohibiting Venezuelan energy companies from transactions with China among other countries, which if true, could lead to India purchasing the 642,000 barrels of oil per day that China imported on average last year and thus halving its import of Russian oil.

RT drew attention on social media to the Department of the Treasury’s newly issued “Venezuela General License 48” allowing US companies to provide “goods, technology, software, or services for the exploration, development, or production of oil or gas in Venezuela” with two strings attached.

The first one is that any contract that their partners enter into will be governed under the laws of the US, which segues into the second one prohibiting any transactions with Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and China.

It’s for this reason that RT interpreted the abovementioned license in their tweet as the “US Ban[ning] Venezuelan Oil Producers From Doing Business With Russia & China”.

That’s reasonable since it was explained here that the Trump Doctrine is shaped by Elbridge Colby’s “Strategy of Denial”, which in its simplest form, seeks to deny strategic resources to US rivals such as the previously described countries.

This is especially the case as regards China, the US’ systemic rival, but Trump earlier sent mixed signals.

He recently welcomed Chinese investment in Venezuela’s energy industry, but in retrospect, that might have just been for the sake of managing the Sino-US rivalry amidst their ongoing trade talks.

Trump wants a deal with Xi, which might become much more difficult for his counterpart to agree to if he openly declares his intent for the US to deny China continued access to Venezuela’s strategic resources. It therefore makes sense for the US to quietly implement this policy through its new license instead.

Even prior to its promulgation, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov complained that “our companies are being openly forced out of Venezuela”, so this policy was already being informally implemented by Delcy Rodriguez’s government under US pressure. Apart from Cuba, none of the countries that the US’ new license prohibits transactions with are dependent on Venezuelan energy, but cutting them out of this industry serves another purpose arguably even more strategic than denying them its resources.

Trump boasted earlier this month that India agreed to stop purchasing Russian oil as part of the terms of its trade deal with the US and replace its imports with American and possibly Venezuelan oil instead. It was hitherto assessed prior to the US’ new license that “India Is Expected To Only Slowly Reduce Its Import Of Russian Oil” in no small part due to the Venezuelan Ambassador to China confirming his country’s interest in continuing exports to it and Trump welcoming Chinese investment in this industry.

If RT’s interpretation of the license is correct, and Lavrov believes so after complaining about the US’ new prohibition on Venezuelan energy transactions with Russia during his latest appearance at the Duma, then India could purchase the 642,000 barrels per day of oil (bpd) that China imported on average last year.

That’s more than half of the 1 million bpd that India imported from Russia last month, which could lead to a sharp reduction in the budgetary revenue that Russia expected to receive from such sales.

The US is actively monitoring India’s direct and indirect import of Russian oil per the condition under which it recently lifted last summer’s punitive 25% tariff that was imposed because of these dealings.

Therefore, by cutting China out of the Venezuelan energy industry and consequently enabling India to replace its import of that country’s oil, the US is facilitating India’s rapid reduction of Russian oil imports and might even zero it out if this policy is soon replicated with respect to Iran’s oil exports to China.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/16/2026 - 06:10