Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via Of Two Minds,
We've come to an interesting juncture in history, interesting because while we're being assured that AI will solve all problems, including any it creates, back in the real world, AI is incapable of fixing what's broken because too many people are getting rich off the status quo, and since the status quo is the problem, those who own / control AI will use it to maintain the status quo, guaranteeing that what's broken spirals into irreversible breakdown.
Richard Bonugli and I discuss what's fatally broken in a new podcast on what it will take to become Bullish (32 min).
Let's start with what's "obvious": letting what's broken fester until it implodes the status quo is not bullish, and neither is substituting delusion and denial for a realistic appraisal of what's actually broken--the essential observe and orient steps in the OODA loop (observe, orient, decide, act).
I've often described the two dynamics that are broken that AI can't fix because those who own / control AI are using it to increase the asymmetrical distribution of wealth and income that are the source of breakdown. Consider healthcare. Everyone except the managers / owners / shareholders of healthcare / pharma cartels agrees healthcare is fundamentally broken and is bankrupting households, employers and the government / nation.
Those profiteering off the status quo healthcare system claim AI is going to reduce costs. They fail to mention this won't reduce the price, it will only serve to increase their profits. Cut costs by replacing human labor with AI tools, yea, we reap even higher profits. Nobody is claiming healthcare will magically become affordable because a truly affordable healthcare system wouldn't be as profitable because it wouldn't be as open to exploitation, fraud, profiteering, extraction and parasitic pricing.
In the same way, AI can't solve the other fatal dynamic--widening wealth and income asymmetry--because it's widening the asymmetry to new extremes. The owners of AI are reaping vast fortunes while stripmining resources to run their AI data centers and laying off wage earners. Rather than fixing what's broken in America, AI is accelerating the endgame of what's broken.
Let's run through why increasing numbers of online comments suggest burning the whole rotten healthcare system down and starting over. Healthcare insurance--which often turn out to be a profitable facsimile of actual insurance--has more than doubled beyond the official rate of inflation. If healthcare insurance had tracked inflation, it would cost $10,000 a year for family coverage in 2026. Instead, it costs $25,000+ annually.
Diagnosis: broken.
Regardless of how you toy with statistics, the reality is administrative costs / bloat / profiteering have soared. Diagnosis: broken.
Meanwhile, back in reality, rapidly aging populations are far from their peak demand for healthcare services. Check out the white line on this chart (courtesy of @econimica) of those aged 65+. While births collapse and the workforce is pressured by AI and the soaring cost of living, millions of elderly retirees are being added to the Medicare beneficiary pool. Diagnosis: broken.
Here is the chart of Medicare costs: parabolic. It's nice we can borrow a few trillion every year, but can we borrow $5 trillion or more every year with no consequence? Diagnosis: broken.
Here is the chart of Medicaid costs: parabolic. Diagnosis: broken.
As for the health of the general populace: it's been declining for two generations as our diet has shifted from real food made at home to ultra-processed goo and fitness has bifurcated into a thin layer of extreme fitness and a majority of the populace burdened with the complex ill health of poor diets, poor fitness and metabolic disorders.
Weight of the populace in 1985:
Weight of the populace in 2023:
Yes, now we have GLP-1 drugs that reduce weight and the diseases related to weight, but these drugs have side effects in many patients and they must be taken for life. Once the patient stops taking them, the weight returns.
Drugs that must be taken for life are not a substitute for being healthy. Healthy = not needing any medications.
Diagnosis of the healthcare system: broken. Prognosis: bifurcation: the rich will get "the finest care in the world," and everyone else will be in a queue or denied care--basically the same result--or offered extraordinarily profitable meds and a spectrum of side effects.
What's broken is the entire financial-economic system that distributes the pain and the gain: the pain of sharply higher costs of living and increasing financial precarity is distributed to the bottom 80% while the gains are distributed to the top 10%, with a dribble going to the cohort between 81% and 90% who own enough capital to support their claim to being "middle class."
Note to America's elites: when only the top 15% just below the top 5% qualifies as "middle class," that's not a middle class. I know, you don't concern yourselves with such trivia: there are trillions of dollars to be reaped "solving problems" with AI.
The "problem" you can't solve with AI is AI only "solves" the "problem" you see, which is how to increase your wealth and income before the bottom 80% awaken from the 24/7-hyped delusion that credit-asset bubbles (AI!) raise all boats and will continue to do so forever and ever.
Real life has diverged from that delusion, and the radioactive power of AI to extend that delusion has a short half-life. Refusing to recognize, much less actually fix, what's broken hurries our collective rendezvous with consequences.
What would be bullish is actually fixing what's broken. Promoting self-serving illusory "solutions" that only widen the asymmetries stretching the socio-economic fabric to the breaking point is not bullish.
New podcast: what it will take to become Bullish (32 min).
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)
Tyler Durden Sun, 05/10/2026 - 09:20Housing affordability in the EU has an uneven spread across the continent according to data from Eurostat.
As Statista's Jack Lillis details below, the share of people whose housing costs exceed 40% of disposable income ranges from as low as 2.4% in Cyprus to as high as 28.9% in Greece.
The EU 27 average stands at 8.2%, but this figure masks significant disparities between countries.
You will find more infographics at Statista
After Greece, Turkey appears among the most heavily burdened, while countries like Finland, Sweden, and France sit at the lighter end of the scale, suggesting considerably lower housing cost pressure on their populations.
The disparities carry real implications for labor mobility and quality of life.
In countries where housing consumes a disproportionate share of income workers in lower-wage sectors, such as the hospitality industry, could face particularly acute pressure.
Tyler Durden Sun, 05/10/2026 - 08:45Authored by Steve Watson via modernity.news,
A new Channel 5 drama series has delivered what many are calling peak social conditioning: a classroom scene where a teacher is berated by students for failing to instantly adopt preferred pronouns and for daring to stage Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
A clip, shared widely on social media, shows an old-school drama teacher clashing with pupils over basic biology, literature, and “respecting identities.”
In the footage, a student corrects the teacher when she uses the wrong name for a student who has decided to swap genders and adopt new pronouns: “Their name is Dee now actually,” one student explains, adding “you just deadnamed them Miss.”
Channel 5 has always been wank and only MASSIVE wankers watch it!
But I think I've found the most Wanktarded woke TV show ever!
This wank even out wanks the BBC!
Not only is it woke wank!
It tries to shit on Shakespeare’s legacy!
This is what commie wankers do! pic.twitter.com/AUR07lfSVb
The teacher responds: “I’m sorry. I’ve known you as Daphne for two years and can’t click a switch. I am trying.”
Another insufferable student fires back: “You shouldn’t have to try. You either see them or you don’t. I think you should apologise.”
The teacher then puts her foot in it again and states: “I just did, and am sure she can fight her own battles!”
“It’s they not she… It’s about respecting other people’s identity,” the student lectures.
Later, students challenge the Shakespeare choice, with one suggesting “There’s a consent issue. Titania is drugged before sleeping with Bottom… It’s also anti-feminist portraying women as submissive and dependent on men… to a modern audience it could be quite triggering.”
The scene perfectly captures the absurdity: instant language policing, classic literature deemed harmful for not meeting 2020s standards, and virtue-signalling students demanding deference.
This isn’t subtle. It’s overt social engineering dressed as entertainment.
This fits a well-established pattern and has been ongoing for years, as documented in the videos below:
Freedom of Information releases have confirmed the extent. UK ministers met with BBC and ITV bosses to insert pro-vaccine storylines into EastEnders, Coronation Street, and more during the pandemic, using “entertainment” to nudge compliance and shape opinion.
The BBC also used its Doctors soap to normalize the “furry” subculture, complete with lines like “You accepted their gender so why not this?”
Channel 5’s The Teacher takes it further by framing resistance to this ideology as outdated and problematic, while portraying demanding students as enlightened.
The drama reduces complex cultural heritage and language to potential “harm,” training audiences — especially younger ones — to view traditional education and biological reality as suspect. It’s not storytelling; it’s a masterclass in cultural reprogramming.
British broadcasters, taxpayer-supported or not, continue embedding these agendas. FOI documents prove coordination between government and media to “nudge” perceptions on everything from vaccines to identity. What starts as classroom lectures in fiction becomes pressure in real schools and workplaces.
This latest effort on Channel 5 strips away any pretense. It’s propaganda in plain sight — mocking Shakespeare, enforcing pronouns on demand, and shaming anyone who can’t “just flip a switch.”
Viewers are noticing. The pushback is growing as more see these shows not as harmless drama, but as tools to reshape society one scripted confrontation at a time.
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, 05/10/2026 - 08:10It is becoming increasingly clear that reopening the Strait of Hormuz has become a top U.S. priority (really a global priority) , as oil executives and industry insiders warn that the clock is ticking toward an energy and global trade shock if the maritime chokepoint remains closed for another month.
Frederic Lasserre, head of research at Gunvor, one of the world's largest oil traders, warned earlier this week: "The tipping point is clearly June. This is the point at which something has to give."
JPMorgan analysts warned that the world is spiraling toward a catastrophic cliff-edge shortage of crude oil if the maritime chokepoint is blocked for another four weeks.
Speaking to CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" earlier this morning, Maersk CEO Vincent Clerc warned that a "new wake-up call" has emerged beyond energy markets and that if the Hormuz chokepoint remains shuttered, it could severely impact global trade in the coming months.
Clerc was speaking to CNBC after Maersk reported a plunge in profitability and kept its guidance unchanged, but warned that the US-Iran war and the resulting Gulf energy shock are "dominant forces shaping the macroeconomic outlook, as well as the trade and logistics environment."
Maersk wrote in its earnings report that the Iran war had introduced an "additional layer of uncertainty."
"Currently, fragile ceasefires are in place in both Iran and Lebanon, negotiations proceed slowly, and traffic at the Strait of Hormuz remains at a near-standstill. The conflict has already weighed on sentiment. Consumer confidence deteriorated," the shipper said.
Maersk warned that crude oil prices in the $90 to $100 per barrel range and continued Hormuz chokepoint disruption would soon begin hitting global container demand, which is still expected to grow between 2% and 4%.
It noted that the balance of risks is "on the downside and more adverse outcomes cannot be ruled out."
"Energy and shipping disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz are rapidly reshaping global supply chains," Maersk said in the earnings report. "After the recent tariffs on U.S. imports, the conflict represents another wake-up call to deploy new tools to make supply chains more resilient and develop new strategies to mitigate future disruptions."
We pointed out earlier this week:
Latest as of Thursday morning:
It is increasingly evident that another month of Hormuz disruption represents a critical tipping point for energy markets and the global economy. If the conflict extends through June and the chokepoint remains shuttered, first-order impacts would likely worsen across Asia and Europe, where dependence on Gulf crude, refined products, LNG, and container flows is highest. From there, the shock could spread into fuel shortages, factory disruptions, higher shipping costs, and broader economic turmoil.
The clock is ticking.
Tyler Durden Sun, 05/10/2026 - 07:35Authored by Donald Kendal via The Epoch Times,
Lately, when watching high-profile sporting events like the NBA Playoffs, you may have noticed a rash of commercials for artificial intelligence (AI) companies. While average commercials strive to show off new products or services or recruit new customers, these AI commercials seem to have a different primary objective. They seem to target goodwill.
Heartwarming commercials show families bonding over AI-generated memories, where AI brings life to old family photos. Emotional voice-overs promise connection, creativity, and even nostalgia. These AI companies are trying to sell people a good reputation.
This strategy should tell us something. Companies don’t often spend millions trying to make you feel good about their brand unless they know, deep down, that you don’t trust it.
Despite hundreds of billions of dollars pouring into AI development, the industry is quietly losing the battle for hearts and minds. And sentimental advertising is not doing much to fix this problem.
Rare Bipartisan Agreement on AIA new national survey from Marquette University Law School should give the AI industry serious pause. According to the poll, roughly 70 percent of Americans believe artificial intelligence will do more harm than good for society. Even more striking, the skepticism cuts across party lines.
Poll Director Charles Franklin put it bluntly: “It really is striking … there’s pretty much bipartisan skepticism … That’s an awful lot of partisan agreement, where we normally see Republicans and Democrats on opposite ends.”
In today’s political climate, bipartisan agreement on anything is rare. On AI, however, Americans seem united, just not in the way Silicon Valley might hope.
Worse yet is the fact that this poll supports similar findings on AI skepticism from numerous other surveys. A particularly damning NBC News poll from last month showed that AI’s net favorability rating ranked lower than nearly every other topic.
Why the Left and Right Don’t Trust AIThe industry is up against stiff headwinds in its battle for public trust.
For every story about the potential for AI curing diseases or boosting productivity, there are headlines about job displacement, algorithmic bias, and systems behaving in ways even their creators don’t fully understand.
We’ve seen AI tools generate historically inaccurate content in the name of ideological goals. We’ve seen concerns about “woke AI,” where outputs appear shaped by political preferences rather than objective reality. We’ve seen warnings from industry leaders themselves that these systems could eventually escape human control.
At the same time, public trust in the institutions building AI is already fragile.
Progressives have long been skeptical of massive corporations wielding outsized economic power. They also raise concerns about the environmental footprint of massive data centers and the risk that AI-driven productivity gains will further concentrate wealth among a small group of industry elites.
Conservatives, meanwhile, have grown increasingly wary of Big Tech after years of content moderation controversies and corporate activism tied to ESG-style frameworks.
In other words, both sides of the political spectrum are looking at the same handful of companies building the most powerful technology in human history while wondering if they can be trusted.
The Political WindsAI companies should understand that this skepticism won’t stay confined to opinion polls. These poor poll results and negative stories in the media are giving bountiful ammunition to policymakers who are looking to target the burgeoning AI industry.
Lawmakers are beginning to float a wide range of proposals aimed at regulating artificial intelligence, some narrowly tailored, others sweeping in scope. Certain efforts are understandable, particularly those designed to prevent abuses similar to what we saw during the height of the Big Tech censorship debate.
Some proposals go further.
Some policymakers seek to impose heavy restrictions on AI, computational infrastructure, or model development. In New York, legislative proposals aim to restrict AI models from offering guidance on medical, legal, or professional issues.
A major threat to the industry is a proposal from the likes of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) to impose a moratorium on the construction of AI data centers. This would essentially slow AI development in the United States to a crawl, potentially giving adversarial countries like China a great advantage in the AI race. In this scenario, the future of AI could then be left in the hands of governments that care far less about individual liberty and personal autonomy.
Earning Public TrustIf the AI industry wants to win back public confidence, it will need to do more than produce emotionally manipulative advertisements. It will need to address the concerns driving that skepticism in the first place.
Americans don’t want AI systems that nudge them toward preferred political outcomes, filter information through ideological lenses, or act as invisible referees of acceptable thought. They want assurance that these tools of the future act on objective truth rather than political ideology.
That means committing to principles that protect individual liberty and personal autonomy. It means transparency in how systems are trained and deployed. It means resisting pressure from governments, activist groups, or corporate interests to embed subjective values into systems that increasingly shape public life.
This route is possible. Elon Musk, for example, has acknowledged the importance of free expression and open inquiry in AI development. But this course needs to be fleshed out, fully implemented, and become an industry standard.
Without clear, consistent standards, suspicion will remain that there is a political agenda behind the interface.
The Fate of AI Is Not SetThe trajectory of artificial intelligence development may be inevitable, but there are many questions that need to be answered.
The best way forward for the AI industry is not through carefully crafted marketing campaigns, but a deliberate effort to earn public trust. That trust must be built on transparency, commitment to truth, and clear respect for individual liberty and personal autonomy.
If these companies want to usher in a new era of prosperity powered by AI, they must show the public that this technology will serve people, not shape or control them.
Tyler Durden Sun, 05/10/2026 - 07:00