Zero Rss

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

War Schmwar

By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

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

Moonshot

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Markets Ignoring Stubborn Oil Prices Out the Curve

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bottom Line

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ford Denies Talks With Geely About Bringing Chinese Car Tech To U.S.

On Friday, a report crossed the wire that Ford and Geely had been in discussions about collaborating more closely, including whether their developing European partnership could expand into the U.S. market, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

Ford denied the claims, which stated that one idea involved Ford using Geely’s vehicle technology domestically. The talks had reportedly cooled, with both sides shifting attention back to Europe, where they are considering sharing production capacity and technical resources.

Geely is motivated to enter the U.S., a lucrative but tightly restricted market for Chinese automakers. High tariffs, bans on Chinese-connected vehicle software, and political resistance from U.S. industry and lawmakers all make entry difficult.

Ford itself has signaled caution, with leadership stressing the importance of protecting American jobs and competitiveness. A company spokesman reinforced that stance, saying, “Our commitment to a level playing field and safeguarding our home market remains absolute.”

The WSJ wrote on Friday that Geely, for its part, has kept its response general, noting, “We always keep an open mind when it comes to exploring cooperative opportunities,” while avoiding specifics about any potential deal.

Earlier discussions went further than simple cooperation, including the possibility of Ford building future models on a Geely-developed platform and leveraging its engineering to speed up EV development. Geely also explored using Ford’s existing manufacturing footprint—particularly in Europe—to bypass trade barriers and scale production more efficiently. While those ideas remain on the table in some form, they highlight how both companies see strategic value in collaboration, even as geopolitical tensions limit how far that cooperation can extend.

Later in the day on Friday after the report, Ford "denied a news report that it has held talks with Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd. about bringing Chinese car technology to the US market", claiming "no such talks" happened. 

The broader context is intensifying global competition: Chinese automakers are gaining ground internationally with cheaper, tech-focused vehicles, putting pressure on Western companies. Even so, any attempt to formalize a U.S. partnership would face significant political scrutiny, making overseas collaboration a more practical path for now.

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/26/2026 - 18:23

Will the Left Make The WHCA Dinner Shooter A Hero?

There was a lot of confusion in the initial hours after the shooting at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner at the Washington Hilton on Saturday night. But it soon became clear that the suspect, Cole Allen, a 31-year-old teacher from Torrance, California, had rabid anti-Trump views and was there to target Trump administration officials. 

While the usual suspects on the left are issuing standard statements condemning violence, there’s a real concern that the left will lionize Allen. And even former Obama official and current CNN pundit Van Jones is concerned about it.

 "I'm starting to worry about something,” Jones said. “Which is that the shooter survived, which means on Monday he's going to court, which means there is a danger that people try to make him some sort of hero."

He wasn't being paranoid. He was being prescient. And he didn't stop there.

"You watch what happened with Luigi, who shot a CEO to death, and somehow became a hero," Jones continued. " So, they said tonight you saw the worst of America. You saw the best of America. Tonight, you definitely saw the best of America. I hope on Monday we don’t see the worst again. I just want to say very clearly — this kind of despicable behavior has no place in America. It has no place on the right. It has no place on the left.”

He added, “This kind of behavior has no place in America. And it is wrong. Violence is not the way to resolve any grievances. And this cheerleader culture for violence, for people who think that the answer to our problems is to go shooting billionaires or going to synagogues or all these different things, has to be called out immediately. The minute it starts, every single person with the platform must denounce it, or we’re going to see this again.”

CNN Van Jones actually gets things right regarding the WHCD shooter. pic.twitter.com/wySCKHz5hv

— Scott Adams (@scottadamsshow) April 26, 2026

When Luigi Mangione was arrested in December 2024 for the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, the radical left treated him like a celebrity. Within days of the shooting, social media flooded with memes casting Mangione as a modern-day vigilante, a working-class avenger striking back against the healthcare system. 

Online stores moved T-shirts. A fundraiser for his legal defense pulled in thousands. Even the Saturday Night Live audience cheered when Mangione’s name was mentioned during a Weekend Update segment.

Mainstream journalists didn't exactly pump the brakes either. CNN's Kaitlan Collins, a White House correspondent no less, casually directed her audience to Mangione's legal defense website.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said Sunday that "preliminary" findings suggest Trump and members of his administration were the likely targets. Allen had been staying at the hotel as a registered guest. Investigators secured his room and began reviewing what CBS News and others described as his manifesto.

According to the New York Post, Allen’s manifesto ran over a thousand words, laying out a delusional justification for the shooting. In it, he described himself as a “Friendly Federal Assassin,” outlined “rules of engagement,” and claimed it was his moral duty to target officials tied to the Trump administration. 

Democrats moved quickly to condemn the shooting on Saturday. The statements were prompt and broadly worded. But the uncomfortable overlap between the suspect's stated grievances and the party’s rhetoric about Trump is hard to ignore, making Van Jones’s concerns extremely valid. 

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Tyler Durden Sun, 04/26/2026 - 16:55

'Gender Identity' Requirements Will Be Discarded In Housing Programs: HUD

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Scott Turner announced a new proposed rule on Thursday that seeks to end the use of “gender identity” across all departmental programs, which is intended to “restore biological reality and protect women.”

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner walks towards the West Wing following a TV interview at the White House on Feb. 19, 2025. Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo

“Under the proposed guidance, HUD would remove radical definitions of gender identity, sexual orientation, and gender, replacing them with sex across nearly 50 regulations,” HUD said in an April 23 statement.

The department’s Equal Access Rule will be modified to replace the ban on discrimination on the basis of “gender identity” across all Community Planning and Development programs.

HUD intends to define common terms such as mother, father, woman, man, girl, and boy, in a way that is consistent with a person’s sex across the department’s regulations.

“God created two sexes: male and female. The Left’s war on biological reality through radical gender ideology will no longer take precedence over the safety and security of America’s most vulnerable women,” Turner said.

The 2012 Equal Access Rule, titled Equal Access to Housing in HUD Programs Regardless of Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity, sought to ensure that HUD’s housing programs would be made available to all individuals and families regardless of their gender identity, sexual orientation, or marital status.

At the time, the rule did not address how transgender identifying and “gender non-conforming” individuals should be accommodated in certain temporary and emergency shelters, and other facilities used for this purpose. In 2016, another final rule was issued on this regulation addressing the matter.

The recent proposal builds on an order issued by the HUD Secretary in February last year that required a stoppage of any pending or future enforcement of the Equal Access Rule.

In a Feb. 13, 2025, statement, Turner said that the department’s actions were in line with an executive order signed by President Donald Trump on his first day in office.

The Jan. 20, 2025, executive order, Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government, criticized what it described as denying the biological reality of sex and the increasing use of legal and socially coercive measures to allow men to self-identify as women.

This enabled such men to “gain access to intimate single-sex spaces and activities designed for women, from women’s domestic abuse shelters to women’s workplace showers,” Trump wrote in the order.

“This is wrong. Efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being,” the president wrote.

The order defined the sex of a person as the individual’s biological classification as either male or female, dismissing the interchanging of the word “sex” with “gender identity.” It asked agencies to remove all regulations and policies that “promote or otherwise inculcate gender ideology.”

The National Alliance to End Homelessness has criticized HUD’s move to modify enforcement of the Equal Access Rule.

In a February 2025 post, the alliance said that communities cannot afford to create more barriers to shelter and housing programs at a time when “unsheltered homelessness is soaring and when gender-expansive people are experiencing shocking disparities in unsheltered homelessness.”

“The Alliance strongly opposes the directive from Secretary Turner to halt any pending or future enforcement actions of the Equal Access Rule and any future steps to weaken or repeal this lifesaving rule,” the post said.

In its February 2025 statement, HUD said that the 2016 rule allowed men to take advantage of department programs directed at women.

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Tyler Durden Sun, 04/26/2026 - 16:20

Is Anthropic Coming For eBay?

Late Friday afternoon, as most people were checking out for the weekend after nearly two months of U.S.-Iran war fatigue, Anthropic quietly released a note titled "Project Deal." The company built a closed marketplace where AI agents negotiated prices, struck deals, and completed real transactions with money changing hands.

"We created a marketplace for employees in our San Francisco office, with one big twist. We tasked Claude with buying, selling and negotiating on our colleagues' behalf," Anthropic wrote on X.

New Anthropic research: Project Deal.

We created a marketplace for employees in our San Francisco office, with one big twist. We tasked Claude with buying, selling and negotiating on our colleagues’ behalf. pic.twitter.com/H2f6cLDlAW

— Anthropic (@AnthropicAI) April 24, 2026

The results: Claude agents made 186 deals across more than 500 listed items on a Slack-based marketplace, totaling just over $4,000 in transaction value.

But the quality of the model mattered a lot. In the simulated runs where Opus and Haiku models negotiated with one-another, the Opus models got substantially better deals.

Interestingly, though, participants in our survey didn’t pick up on this disparity. pic.twitter.com/X26hhIieJN

— Anthropic (@AnthropicAI) April 24, 2026

Anthropic's point is that AI-to-AI commerce offers an early look at the coming agentic economy, where AI bots negotiate with other bots in a marketplace to strike the best deal.

Claude interviewed 69 of our colleagues about what they wanted to buy and sell. Each Claude asked for any custom instructions, then went off to haggle.

We ran 4 markets in parallel, to find out what would happen if we varied the models doing the negotiating. pic.twitter.com/FJdD6S2TSd

— Anthropic (@AnthropicAI) April 24, 2026

AI disruption has already hammered software stocks. Now, as Polymarket Money pointed out, "eBay's leadership team is seeing this," referring to Project Deal.

eBay's leadership team seeing this: pic.twitter.com/Hg0KMdhC5z

— Polymarket Money (@PolymarketMoney) April 24, 2026

Shortly after Project Deal's release, eBay shares fell about 4.5% by Friday's close in New York.

Does this mean Anthropic is now coming for eBay?

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/26/2026 - 15:45

ICE Nabs Illegal Alien Pedophile In Virginia; Sanctuary Officials Ignored Detainer

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

ICE has arrested an illegal alien child sex predator in Abigail Spanberger’s Virginia. Authorities there tried to protect him by declining an ICE detainer last year and releasing him back into the community.

Of course they did.

The suspect, Roni Mendez-Escobar, a Guatemalan national, faced charges including multiple felony counts of possession of obscene material and child pornography with intent to distribute.

🚨 HOLY CRAP! ICE has just arrested an illegal alien CHILD S*X PREDATOR in Abigail Spanberger's Virginia

She tried to PROTECT him.

She ran as a "moderate." In practice, she's letting kids get abused by illegals!

FOX: "Virginia authorities declined an ICE detainer for him last… pic.twitter.com/54Zvfc9PJq

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) April 24, 2026

Fairfax County’s refusal to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement allowed him to remain free despite the detainer – exactly the outcome sanctuary policies are designed to produce.

This isn’t an isolated failure. It’s the predictable result of Virginia Democrats turning the state into a magnet for criminal illegal aliens while American families bear the cost. Spanberger ran as a “moderate,” yet her administration’s moves to limit cooperation with ICE have repeatedly put Virginia children and residents at risk.

Just weeks ago, ICE urged Spanberger not to release another criminal illegal alien from Guatemala, Misael Lopez Gomez, who allegedly bludgeoned his own three-month-old daughter to death with blunt force trauma in Fairfax.

⚖️🚨NIGHTMARE IN VIRGINIA

A 3 month-old girl is dead.

GOP lawmakers and the Department of Homeland Security is blaming "lax" Democrat ‘Sanctuary’ policies after two illegal immigrants were charged in two separate, gruesome slayings.

Gustamalan national Misael Lopez Gomez, is… https://t.co/iEUbISHkyt pic.twitter.com/quFI5bTlip

— Tosca Austen (@ToscaAusten) April 8, 2026

As DHS stated: “This cold-blooded killer murdered his own three-month-old daughter. We are calling on Governor Spanberger to commit to not releasing this barbaric animal from jail into Virginia communities.”

The media is RUNNING COVER for an illegal alien MURDERER.

Misael Lopez Gomez is NOT a “Virginia dad.” He is an illegal alien from Guatemala and a cold-blooded killer accused of murdering his own three-month-old daughter. pic.twitter.com/Ex5HuolKtl

— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) April 2, 2026

That horror came one day after another Guatemalan illegal alien, Anibal Armando Chavarria Muy, was arrested for fatally stabbing a man to death with a machete in Fairfax County.

In March, an 18-year-old illegal migrant from El Salvador, Israel Flores Ortiz – released into the U.S. under Biden policies – posed as an 11th grader at Fairfax High School and groped at least 12 girls in the hallways over several months.

A victim’s mother described it: “He just sneakily walked up behind them and put his hand in between their legs… It was a groping of a private area. It had been occurring for several months.” Fairfax officials tried to downplay it and even fought ICE’s detainer.

And before that, Virginia mother Stephanie Minter was murdered in cold blood at a bus stop by an illegal alien from Sierra Leone with more than 30 prior arrests.

Each case traces back to the same refusal to honor ICE detainers, the same sanctuary rules pushed under Spanberger that prioritize criminal non-citizens over public safety. Local officials in Fairfax and Arlington have repeatedly ignored federal requests, releasing predators and killers back onto the streets.

This isn’t compassion – it’s complicity. Democrats continue to handcuff law enforcement and invite chaos across the border.

Virginia families didn’t vote for this. They deserve borders that work, laws that put citizens first, and leaders who actually protect them instead of shielding the very people preying on their children.

Sanctuary policies must end. Cooperation with ICE must resume. Deportations of criminal illegal aliens cannot be optional. American lives – especially the most vulnerable – depend on it.

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Tyler Durden Sun, 04/26/2026 - 15:10

You Can Buy A Tennessee Cave And Turn It Into A Doomsday Bunker

About 57 miles southeast of downtown Nashville, as the crow flies, an underground cavern system listed on Zillow is being framed as a potential candidate for the ultimate nuclear doomsday bunker.

Think of the cavern as the shell for a future bunker.

To get it anywhere close to true bunker status, millions of dollars in engineering, ventilation, power, water, wastewater, security, and interior buildout would likely be required.

"We have what it takes to keep your family safe and to build a sustainable hobby farm!" the listing reads, adding that the 32-acre property, known as "Cavern Bunker," includes a 60,000-square-foot underground cavern system.

The Cavern Bunker property was originally listed last July for $1.75 million and has since seen a series of price cuts amounting to nearly 50% off.

The price cuts and lack of buyers likely stem from the potential bunker-style conversion, which could cost tens of millions of dollars if properly constructed.

Here's the cost breakdown for the bunker conversion:

This is a cavern shell that would require tens of millions of dollars to convert into a bunker-style property.

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/26/2026 - 14:35

Mamdani Is Destroying The Tax Base His Stupid Ideas Desperately Need

Submitted by QTR's Fringe Finance 

When the Fischer-Price My First Mayor™ of New York Zohran Mamdani chose to film a “tax the rich” video in front of a Manhattan penthouse owned by Citadel CEO Ken Griffin, he wasn’t just celebrating “tax day”, he was making a policy argument.

Mamdani was making a choice about his tone (dickish), about targets (“people with more money than me are bad”), and about how the city signals to the very people it depends on to fund its ambitions (“go f*ck yourself and live somewhere else”).

In a city where a relatively small number of taxpayers account for an outsized share of revenue, that kind of signaling is not trivial theater. It’s reckless, petulant, counterintuitive, childish and has consequences. But what else would you expect from a thirtysomething who has zero private sector or real world experience?

Sure, Ken Griffin is an easy symbol. He has extraordinary wealth, a record-setting $238 million apartment at 220 Central Park South, and a business empire that spans global finance. But symbols have a way of flattening reality. The firms he built, Citadel and Citadel Securities, are not abstractions; they are employers, taxpayers, and investors.

Citadel’s principals and employees “have paid nearly $2.3 billion in city and state taxes over the past five years,” according to COO Gerald Beeson, Reuters wrote days ago. And Griffin himself has directed hundreds of millions of dollars in charitable giving tied to New York institutions, according to various reports citing about $650 million in donations highlighted by Citadel executives.

And then there is the forward-looking piece…the part that tends to disappear in political messaging. A proposed $6 billion redevelopment at 350 Park Avenue, tied to Griffin’s firm, carries the promise of thousands of construction jobs and many more permanent positions. Those are the kinds of projects cities compete fiercely to attract. But now that project appears at risk now after Mamdani’s choice to act like the spoiled Upper East Side brats he claims to loathe, according to the Wall Street Journal.

So that’s pushing $10 billion in tax revenue and investment from Citadel and Griffin. That is a metric f*ck ton of money (NYC brings in about $80 billion a year total in tax revenue) that Mamdani desperately needs to fund his $30 million state owned grocery stores, among other communist sleight of hand tricks in his bottle of political snake oil.

Mamdani’s policy argument is not without precedent. The idea of taxing underused luxury property, often described as a pied-à-terre tax, is rooted in a broader push to capture revenue from assets that sit largely idle in a city with acute housing pressures. Supporters see it as a corrective, a way to align tax policy with inequality that is both visible and politically salient. But there is a difference between arguing for a policy and personalizing it. Once a debate becomes about individuals rather than structures, it slides easily from persuasion into provocation.

That distinction matters because New York’s fiscal reality is not ideological; it is mathematical. The city requires enormous revenue to sustain its services, infrastructure, and social programs. Much of that revenue ultimately traces back to high earners, large firms, and the ecosystem that supports them. At the same time, those taxpayers are unusually mobile. Griffin has already moved his primary residence to Miami, part of a broader pattern of high-income migration that policymakers across the country are grappling with.

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There is also a subtler risk in turning success into a kind of public spectacle. Cities thrive on ambition. They depend on people who are willing to build companies, take risks, and, yes, accumulate outsized rewards along the way. When political rhetoric begins to frame that success primarily as a problem to be highlighted, rather than a resource to be harnessed, it can send an unintended message. Not just to billionaires with penthouses, but to the broader class of entrepreneurs, investors, and professionals who decide where to build their careers.

The debate over fairness in taxation is both legitimate and necessary. But there is a difference between designing policy that asks more of those who have more, and staging moments that seem to cast them as villains by default. The former is governance. The latter is…well exactly how you’d expect a sociopath to govern.

New York does not have the luxury of shortcuts. It is a city that depends on scale of talent, of capital and of confidence. Undermining any one of those pillars, even rhetorically, carries risks that may not be immediately visible but are rarely insignificant. The challenge for leaders is not simply to raise revenue, but to do so in a way that keeps the engine of that revenue running. That requires precision, not performance, and an understanding that in a city built on success, how you talk about success matters almost as much as how you tax it.

If Mamdani wants to raise more revenue, he will eventually have to decide whether he is in the business of governing a fragile economic ecosystem or narrating one. This isn’t SimCity, or the lunch table with the drama club. Playtime in the sandbox is over. New York City is a global icon and the uncomfortable truth is this: the people Mamdani is turning into political props are the same ones writing the checks. And they have options. So, Mamdani, I mean this nicely but if you’re angry at the world, maybe start by looking inward…and at the very least just try to grow the f*ck up.

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QTR’s Disclaimer: Please read my full legal disclaimer on my About page here. This post represents my opinions only. In addition, please understand I am an idiot and often get things wrong and lose money. I may own or transact in any names mentioned in this piece at any time without warning. Contributor posts and aggregated posts have been hand selected by me, have not been fact checked and are the opinions of their authors. They are either submitted to QTR by their author, reprinted under a Creative Commons license with my best effort to uphold what the license asks, or with the permission of the author.

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Tyler Durden Sun, 04/26/2026 - 14:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RFK Jr. Blasts "Abhorrent" Assisted Suicide: "We Can't Be A Moral Society If America Follows"

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. delivered a blunt warning to lawmakers this week: Canada’s rush to expand assisted suicide is turning a once-free nation into a cautionary tale the United States must reject outright.

Testifying before the Senate Finance Committee and Senate HELP Committee, Kennedy forcefully condemned the program known as Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID). “I think those laws are abhorrent,” he said. Pointing directly to the results north of the border, he added, “And we just see in Canada today, I think the number one cause of death is assisted suicide.”

Kennedy made clear the policy doesn’t stop at personal choice. “And as you say, it targets people with disabilities and people who are struggling in their lives,” he stated. He tied the issue to America’s broader standing in the world: “I don’t think we can be a moral society; we can’t be a moral authority around the globe if that becomes institutionalized throughout our society.”

🇺🇸🇨🇦 RFK Jr: Assisted suicide has become the leading cause of death in Canada...wait...what?!

Slamming it, he says it targets vulnerable people, including those with disabilities.pic.twitter.com/uRGUg0k3T9 https://t.co/hAw3m6pf9D

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) April 22, 2026

The comments come as Canada’s experiment spirals. The country is on track to surpass 100,000 assisted deaths before MAID’s 10th anniversary this summer, as noted in a recent New York Post report.

As of 2024, the total already stood at 76,475 — more Canadians killed through the program than died in World War II.

Government-assisted suicide is also spreading like wildfire across the West, often sold as compassion but delivering cost-cutting convenience for cash-strapped socialist healthcare systems.

In the Netherlands, euthanasia now accounts for 6 percent of all deaths and the share is rising every year.

In 2025 alone, 10,341 people died by euthanasia. While most were over 70 with physical illnesses like cancer or heart disease, the cases included 499 dementia patients and 278 listed under vague “other reasons.” One case involved a patient aged between 12-18. Dutch experts are now urging caution for anyone under 25, warning that young brains are still developing and highly susceptible to external pressure and online influence.

Canada’s program began in 2016 limited to terminal cases. Within a year, officials were openly discussing how it could save over $130 million annually in medical costs. Expansions followed: mental illness is scheduled to qualify starting in 2027, and discussions continue about “mature minors” as young as 12.

Belgium and the Netherlands already allow child euthanasia. England, Wales, and Scotland are now pushing similar legislation modeled on Canada’s original law.

The results speak for themselves. In Canada, one in every 20 deaths is now government-assisted suicide. Proponents promised rare, tightly controlled cases. Reality delivered a bureaucratic death machine that quietly expanded to the disabled, the depressed, and the financially burdensome.

Kennedy offered lawmakers a clear path forward. “I am happy to work with you in whatever way we can,” he said, signaling openness to bipartisan efforts to protect vulnerable Americans from the same slope.

Another recent case captured the human cost in Spain, where a 25-year-old woman paralyzed after a horrific gang rape was euthanized despite her parents’ desperate legal fight:

🇪🇸Within 24 hours, Noelia Castillo Ramos will be euthanized in Spain.

In 2022, Noelia suffered a gang rape in a supervised care center.

This completely shattered her life. She attempted suicide, jumping from a 5-story building, which left her a paraplegic.

Her father has… pic.twitter.com/hOIW1j8o2u

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) March 25, 2026

Spanish bishops called it what it is: “Euthanasia and assisted suicide are not medical acts, but deliberate interruptions of the bond of care, and represent a social defeat when presented as a response to human suffering.”

They stressed that “the dignity of the human person does not depend on their state of health… but rather is an intrinsic value that must be recognized, protected and helped in all circumstances.”

The message is simple: when life hurts, the answer is not state-sponsored death but real care, real treatment, and real hope.

Canada and Europe are showing the West what happens when governments treat citizens as budget line items rather than sacred individuals.

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/26/2026 - 12:50

Was The Atlantic's Kash Patel Smear A Setup To Discredit The SPLC Indictment?

On April 17, The Atlantic published an anonymously sourced hit piece against FBI Director Kash Patel - painting him as a blackout-drunk, paranoid, and erratic executive barely capable of running the nation's premier law enforcement agency. Three days later, a federal grand jury indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center for wire fraud, false statements, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. 

The question conservative circles are now asking is whether the hit piece was deliberately conceived and timed to discredit Patel and the SPLC investigation.

Democrats pounced on The Atlantic hit piece, launching an investigation into his behavior the same day that the SPLC indictment was announced.

And that was the point of the Atlantic story. See how that works. https://t.co/WRjlc4twIQ

— Insurrection Barbie (@DefiyantlyFree) April 22, 2026

According to the Department of Justice, between 2014 and 2023, the organization secretly funneled more than $3 million in donated funds to individuals associated with violent extremist groups - including the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, American Nazi Party, and the National Socialist Party of America. 

"They use their donor network to raise money to purportedly dismantle violent extremist groups. However, the SPLC — the Southern Poverty Law Center — used the money they raised from their donor network to actually pay the leadership of these very groups,” Patel said at the announcement. “They used the fraudulently raised money by lying to their donor network, thousands of Americans, to go ahead and actually pay the leadership of these supposed violent extremist groups.”

Patel added, “They attempted to hide their criminal activity from our financial banking network. They set up shell companies and entities around America so that the financial institutions that we rely on as everyday Americans were deceived in believing that money was not coming from the Southern Poverty Law Center in the perpetration of this scheme and fraud, but rather fictitious entities they stood up to perpetuate this ongoing fraud.”

🚨BREAKING: DOJ charges the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) with wire fraud, false statements, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

The SPLC secretly funneled $3M+ in donor funds to violent racist extremist groups:

-Ku Klux Klan
-American Nazi Party
-Aryan Nation… pic.twitter.com/0hcf2sH9LZ

— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) April 21, 2026

The Atlantic is owned by Laurene Powell Jobs through her Emerson Collective, which holds a majority stake in the magazine. And her connection to the SPLC goes back a long time. In a 2018 Washington Post profile, the paper described her very personal connection to the SPLC:

Laurene Powell made her first foray into philanthropy near the beginning of high school in West Milford. She learned of the work of the Southern Poverty Law Center and dipped into her savings to send a cashier’s check of about $20. She got a form thank-you letter back from civil rights crusader Morris Dees. “They would reliably write to me a couple of times a year,” she says. “I would read them over and over, and they told really beautiful stories. I was always animated by the notion of who gets the opportunity and who doesn’t.”

In 2019, Powell Jobs reportedly revealed that she’d been anonymously funding the SPLC for years. 

Lauren Powell Jobs, May 27, 2019:

"We do all of our philanthropic giving anonymously. But we had been funding SPLC and we decided that we wanted to do some teaching tolerance curriculum in partnership with them. And so one of our team members was actually talking to Morris Dees,… https://t.co/9vVsXCjO8V

— Erica Knight (@_EricaKnight) April 22, 2026

The SPLC wasn't just a charity she supported. It was, by her own account, the organization that introduced her to philanthropy.

Former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino revealed earlier this week that he believes something larger is operating underneath the surface. "The hit on Kash Patel, the bullshit hit by The Atlantic, which I addressed yesterday, is gonna make a lot more sense in the coming weeks and months," he said. "I can't give you a definitive timeline. I'm on the outside now. However, I can tell you what I know is going on because I started a lot of it."

He added, “I promise this thing is gonna make a whole lot of sense. You're gonna find out, as they say in the South, right quick about why they need him out, like, now. It's got nothing to do with that story being even remotely true. Remember this. Bookmark it."

🚨🚨🚨 @dbongino: "I promise you this. Look at me. Everybody zoom in. Focker, look at me... The hit on Kash Patel is going to make a lot of sense very soon. There's a reason the media and Democrats want him out NOW. Flag it." 🚩 pic.twitter.com/oizQlLtq0I

— Bongino Report (@BonginoReport) April 21, 2026

Whether he was referring to the connection between The Atlantic and SPLC is not clear, but the hit piece dropped days before that indictment became public, and the SPLC would have had reason to anticipate charges were coming. The Atlantic hit piece bought time, diverted attention, and handed critics a ready-made narrative to undermine Patel's credibility at exactly the moment it mattered most.

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/26/2026 - 12:15

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

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

Truth has an intrinsic, irreplaceable value. 

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

Truth has value, and so it has a cost. 

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

When the cost of truth is high, we lie.

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

AI lies to get the reward for answering the query. 

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

Humans are no different. 

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

Reward = what's being incentivized. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sycophantic Chatbots Cause Delusional Spiraling, Even in Ideal Bayesians. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

I call this delusion The Mythology of Progress.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*  *  *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Via Remix News,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read more here...

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

Downtown Baltimore CRE Crash Signals Deeper Fiscal Crisis Ahead

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

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

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

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

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

— FOX Baltimore (@FOXBaltimore) January 17, 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Related:

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

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

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

Already starting to emerge:

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

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

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

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

Ruthless Taxation And The Hyperstate: How Germany Profits From Crisis

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/26/2026 - 08:10

Alleged Chinese Spy Ship Lurking Near U.S. Base In Qatar Raises Questions

The War Zone's Ian Ellis posted on X about a suspicious Chinese vessel operating in the Gulf area, which he described as a "Chinese surveillance ship" with "close ties" to the People's Liberation Army.

According to Ellis, Hai Yang Shi You (285) was moored not long ago, just 10 miles from U.S. assets, raising concerns about Chinese intelligence-gathering activity in the region amid the US-Iran conflict.

Chinese surveillance ship Hai Yang Shi You (285) got underway in the Gulf again, just before the ceasefire was set to expire.

The dual-use survey ship, with close ties to the PLA, rode out the ceasefire at port in Qatar, ~10 miles from U.S. assets forward-deployed at Al Udeid AB.

Chinese surveillance ship Hai Yang Shi You (285) got underway in the Gulf again, just before the ceasefire was set to expire. The dual-use survey ship, with close ties to the PLA, rode out the ceasefire at port in Qatar, ~10 miles from U.S. assets forward-deployed at Al Udeid AB. pic.twitter.com/krirNNa0uL

— Ian Ellis (@ianellisjones) April 24, 2026

The latest ship-tracking data from Bloomberg shows that Hai Yang Shi You (285) has transited around the Gulf region, particularly around Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, over the last 60 days.

Ellis wrote in a separate X post that he closely monitors "20 Chinese research and surveillance ships."  

The question becomes: What was the Hai Yang Shi You 285 doing just ten miles from U.S. assets forward-deployed at Al Udeid Air Base?

The next question is whether the ship assisted Iran in attacks on the base. These are just basic questions.

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/26/2026 - 07:35

"We Have All The Cards": Trump Cancels Witkoff-Kushner Trip To Pakistan For Iran Talks Summary

• Araghchi has responded - saying that he has conveyed Iran's position, waiting to see if The US "is truly serious about diplomacy"

• In a sharp reversal, Trump has personally canceled the Witkoff-Kushner trip to Pakistan

• Iran denies that FM Abbas Araghchi's trip to Pakistan will include new talks with US, rejecting reports that Trump is sent his negotiating team to restart negotiations.

• 24/7 shuttle diplomacy (via Al Jazeera): There’' been shuttle diplomacy, and as one diplomat said, it's been relentless diplomacy that has been put forward by Pakistan from all sides.

• Iran's military says finger on the trigger: "greater power & readiness than before."

• Pakistani mediators are "cautiously optimistic" despite it being clear negotiations have been at a stalemate.

//--> //--> //--> US x Iran permanent peace deal by June 30, 2026?
Yes 53% · No 48%
View full market & trade on Polymarket Trump Cancels Witkoff-Kushner Trip to Pakistan for Iran Talks

In a sharp reversal first reported by Fox News, President Trump has personally canceled the planned trip of Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Pakistan.

Trump told the outlet that he halted the delegation just as they were preparing to leave:

“I’ve told my people a little while ago they were getting ready to leave, and I said, ‘Nope, you’re not making an 18 hour flight to go there. We have all the cards. They can call us anytime they want, but you’re not going to be making any more 18 hour flights to sit around talking about nothing.’”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has reportedly already left Islamabad, Pakistan, following Saturday talks with the country's prime minister.

Update: Araghchi has responded, saying on X that he had a "Very fruitful visit to Pakistan, whose good offices and brotherly efforts to bring back peace to our region we very much value," but adding "Shared Iran's position concerning workable framework to permanently end the war on Iran. Have yet to see if the U.S. is truly serious about diplomacy."

Very fruitful visit to Pakistan, whose good offices and brotherly efforts to bring back peace to our region we very much value.

Shared Iran's position concerning workable framework to permanently end the war on Iran. Have yet to see if the U.S. is truly serious about diplomacy.

— Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) April 25, 2026

So much for that “cautious optimism” that Pakistani officials were citing as a sign of progress. The Pakistan-mediated channel is now in clear stalemate, with the Trump administration signaling it sees no value in further shuttle diplomacy on Iran’s current terms.

*  *  *

Iran Foreign Ministry Insists 'No Meeting is Planned' Even With US Delegation En Route

Not too much that's new or bombshell happened overnight, with a second round of US-Iran negotiations still in limbo, but with the US delegation led by Witkoff-Kushner said to be departing Saturday or else en route. A small Iranian team has already been there since Friday, engaging the Pakistanis, also amid reports that they will submit a written presentation of their conditions for ceasefire and where things stand from Tehran's point of view.

Iran has denied that Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi's trip to Pakistan will include new talks with Washington, rejecting reports that President Trump is sending envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to actually restart negotiations. So once the US side arrives, it would be interesting to see what happens next. Potentially they could start in separate rooms with messages delivered, and thus the interaction would be indirect.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said in a post on X early Saturday that "no meeting is planned to take place between Iran and the US" during the visit and that Tehran’s positions will instead be conveyed to Pakistan. Araghchi said earlier he is undertaking a "timely tour" of Islamabad, Muscat, and Moscow to "closely coordinate" with partners on bilateral issues and consult on regional developments. Iranian state media said the three-leg trip forms part of Tehran's ongoing diplomatic push to secure an end to US-Israeli aggression.

Iran FM's arrival earlier, via Pakistan PM office/AFP, Getty Images Reports of 'Optimism' amid 'Stalemate' in Talks

At the moment there's no direct contact between Tehran in Washington on the diplomatic front. The Pakistanis have been back at the center of shuttling messages back and forth between US and Iranian officials. Al Jazeera has presented commentary Saturday citing "optimism" but also an ongoing stalemated situation:

So we are still in that stalemate, but Pakistani officials are telling us that their presence here and the Americans coming is an indication that behind-the-scenes diplomacy is working.

There’s been shuttle diplomacy, and as one diplomat said, it’s been relentless diplomacy that has been put forward by Pakistan from all sides.

There’s been, in the last 24 hours, conversations that have been held not just between the Pakistanis and Iranians, but also between the Pakistanis and the Russians – Russia is going to be one more stop when the Iranian foreign minister leaves.

An important overnight headline: Sources close to Pakistan-Iran talks say negotiations are progressing through "Iranian concessions" in exchange for "American flexibility regarding the issue of frozen funds," according to Al Hadath.

And also this: Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Islamabad said Pakistani mediators are "cautiously optimistic" regarding Iran-US talks.

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian:

The enemy is attacking our infrastructure and putting us under siege so that people become dissatisfied.

We currently do not need the people's sacrifice, but we request that people reduce electricity and energy consumption.

For example, at… pic.twitter.com/Nq2A8WMqPC

— Ariel Oseran أريئل أوسيران (@ariel_oseran) April 25, 2026 Iran Military: Ready & Waiting To Fight

Iran's military warned the United States it will face the "reaction of Iran’s powerful armed forces" if the blockade of Iranian ports continues, according to Tasnim News Agency.

The Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters said the armed forces possess "greater power and readiness than before to defend sovereignty, territory, and national interests, which the country’s army experienced part of this power and offensive capability during the Third Imposed War." 

This is actually consistent with what even Trump predicted - that the ceasefire has been used by Iran to regroup, rearm, and reposition its forces.

Currently the only regional fighting remains in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah, despite there technically being a Trump-backed three week Lebanon ceasefire:

Israel is exporting its Gaza model to Lebanon.
Demolition by demolition, the Israeli military is changing the face of southern Lebanon, razing towns and villages to create a buffer zone. Israeli officials say it’s necessary to protect its residents from Hezbollah threats. pic.twitter.com/64qAebvKOl

— Jeremy Diamond (@JDiamond1) April 24, 2026

"We are ready and determined, while monitoring the behavior and movements of enemies in the region and continuing to manage and control the strategic Strait of Hormuz, to inflict even heavier damage on the American Zionist enemies in case of another aggression," the Iranian military statement added.

US Law Set 60-day Limit on Unauthorized Wars, So What Next?

CNN reports that "A post-Vietnam law puts a 60-day clock on the use of military force without congressional authorization." Congress has indeed been missing in action, with several efforts of a handful of members on the House and Senate sides having put forth War Powers resolutions, which keep getting defeated. But the 60-day mark comes up on May 1, but it's anyone's guess what happens next. 

According to the CNN report, the law lays out a timeline for undeclared wars:

First, 48 hours. The president must notify Congress within 48 hours of introducing the armed forces “into hostilities” and explain the scope, justification and likely duration of the effort.

In his notification to Congress about Iran, Trump, like other presidents, said he committed troops under a president’s inherent authority in the Constitution to “conduct United States foreign relations.”

Second, 60 days. Congress must authorize the use of force within 60 days of receiving that notification or, the law says, the military action must be terminated by the president.

Third, a possible extra 30 days. Trump can extend the 60-day clock for another 30 days if he argues that continued military action is needed to keep service members safe while withdrawing from the war. Trump has said he won’t be rushed into making a bad deal to end the war.

It goes without saying that the longer this drags on, and with an open-ended timeline, the more politically costly it will likely be for Republicans headed into next Fall's midterms.

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/26/2026 - 07:06