Zero Rss

Braggawatts, Cheap Chinese Compute, & Simple ROI

Authored by Peter Tchir via Academy Securities,

With weakness in chips and AI the prior week, that was a major topic of conversation, as was the escalation in Iran (please see Academy’s Geopolitical Analysis for the latest on Iran and geopolitics more broadly).

Two key themes from last weekend’s From Trinkets to Compute seem to be playing out:

Cheap Chinese Compute

Most importantly, the story of Cheap Chinese Compute is garnering staying power. While DeepSeek may have been a one-off, the story is increasingly about China delivering Cheap Compute. We have seen China flood/control markets in the past. I didn’t see it coming in compute (at least not yet), but it might be here?

• China doesn’t have to deal with NIMBY, but they do make a lot of chips (generally lower quality, but a lot), and have been ramping up all forms of electricity production and storage for years. The U.S. is finally getting on board with this ProSec™ theme, while the rest of the world is only starting to wake up to the need and potential opportunity that adopting a ProSec™ mindset delivers.

• On the less “savory” side are “allegations” (and I’m being polite here) that a lot of the Chinese compute trains by “distilling” from existing models (inundating existing models with requests, to somewhat “copy” their answers) rather than training their models from scratch. It is a big cost advantage and time saving mechanism.

Earnings

Less important was my flipping from “earnings will matter” to “earnings might not matter.”

We don’t really spend a lot of time on single stock earnings. It isn’t our “thing” in general. But we do follow the earnings. What we can say so far on this front is that when the earnings and announcements hit the tape, they seem very strong. The instant reaction in the media (and social media) tends to support the strength of the results. Then the stocks seem to drift lower (in some cases worse than drift). 

The earnings bar seems to be set incredibly high, so far.

This is concerning when trying to determine the direction of the next leg.

Braggawatts

I’m not sure how I missed the term Braggawatts, but it caught my attention when my friends at ZeroHedge sent out a tweet that used the term.

The Next Phase Of Shrinkflation: Rolling Blackouts https://t.co/dYmR3d7Kn9

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) July 20, 2026

• Basically, braggawatts is a term used to express skepticism over how much in the data center and AI space can be physically constructed (i.e., in the real world) versus all the existing announcements and expectations of future announcements.

  • From access to chips, to water, to electricity, to getting all of the various state and local regulatory approvals, the argument is that a lot more compute has been announced than can be completed within the timeframe of the announcements.

  • This is consistent with some anecdotal evidence of cost and time overruns on projects (that is something we were hearing about more frequently than in the past).

If braggawatts are real (we need to explore this more):

• This should be good for credit spreads in the sector. The logical conclusion would be to announce fewer new projects and prioritize existing projects.

• Would be bad for the “picks and shovels” in the AI / Data Center industry.

Simple ROI.

To a large degree, return on investment analysis surrounding AI and the AI spend has been minimal in my view.

• On the one side you have a “build it and they will come” mentality (often the “only” risk has been described as not building enough, fast enough – which hardly encourages traditional scrutiny of costs versus revenue).

• On the other side, no CEO in their right mind would say anything other than that they were launching AI initiatives within their firm to capture efficiencies. The cost of compute has gone up. Actually, let me rephrase that, companies are being charged a cost of compute more in line with the cost of producing the compute than they were before. While the cost of providing compute seems to be increasing (shortages, etc.) part of what users are seeing is that the price that was subsidized to encourage use and to create moats (to the extent moats can be created and held) is being subsidized less. Increasing, and we’ve been writing about this for months, we are moving from “we have to try AI, or be left behind” to “we’ve been using AI, now let’s analyze the cost benefit of that.” Is that why some of the token utilization charts are showing declines from the peak?

If I’m right and some of these forces connect, it could bring pressure to bear on the space. That is “fine and normal.” What concerns me is how much money has flown into passive vehicles in the space, and how many leveraged products there are in the space. Not just the very large SOXL (which is index based) but also a lot of individual stocks in this have leveraged ETFs. 

I fear that this is a risk that can and will accentuate moves to the downside (just like it does on the upside).

Bottom Line

The escalation in Iran is not good for my view on potential rate cuts. While my outlook on inflation wasn’t entirely dependent on the free flow of oil (including more oil that had previously been sanctioned), it helped a lot.

On the AI front, I’m positive on credit spreads, but remain vigilant on valuations. The recent reaction in markets to what seemed like strong earnings releases only accentuates that concern.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/24/2026 - 09:00

NANO Nuclear And Fortil Advance Critical KRONOS Fuel System

NANO Nuclear Energy has pushed another critical piece of its KRONOS MMR program toward preliminary design, this time with French engineering group Fortil.

If there's a corner of the French industrial sector that America should be comfortable leaning into, their nuclear segment is arguably the safest bet. Their 57-reactor fleet, accounting for 70% of the country's electricity generation, is only surpassed by the US and Chinese commercial fleets.

The companies said conceptual design work is nearly complete on the reactor’s Fuel Handling & Storage System, which will manage the safe handling, storage and movement of nuclear fuel throughout operations. The work includes defining subsystem interfaces, evaluating engineering solutions and producing documentation needed for the next design stage.

It’s not the most glamorous part of a reactor, but it’s the sort of picks-and-shovels engineering that separates a reactor rendering from an operating nuclear plant.

Fortil’s dedicated nuclear team is handling multidisciplinary work across mechanical and systems engineering, nuclear safety, instrumentation and control, and radiation protection. The consultancy has more than 2,500 employees across 30 offices in 14 countries, giving NANO access to an international engineering bench as KRONOS moves toward potential fleet deployment.

The milestone follows the NRC’s formal acceptance of the KRONOS Construction Permit Application for a full-scale reactor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The agency began formal review activities in June, with environmental and safety evaluations expected to progress through 2027. Initial construction could begin in the second half of next year.

NANO’s story has increasingly become about more than a single reactor. The company recently acquired Secured Transportation Services for $13 million, turning itself into a revenue-generating nuclear logistics operator. That business helped execute a record 1.7-metric-ton HALEU shipment from Japan and supported the removal of highly enriched uranium from Venezuela.

The U.S. has secured its largest-ever HALEU fuel shipment, working in partnership with Japan. This significant transfer advances President Trump’s strategy to restore America's energy dominance and power next-generation nuclear reactors. https://t.co/h5Oc6f5kRq pic.twitter.com/EG7kA9Eopg

— NNSA (@NNSANews) May 7, 2026

The company is in the midst of an aggressive and wide-ranging expansion plan with business segments across the nuclear value chain. In just the past year, they’ve advanced a proprietary HALEU transportation package, won a U.S. Air Force innovation contract, and signed an agreement with Supermicro targeting nuclear-powered AI data centers. Additional partnerships are targeting South Korea, the Gulf region and a potential 1-gigawatt Texas data center campus.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/24/2026 - 08:25

Futures Rebound As Brent Dips Below $100

US equity futures are seeing a modest rebound after posting their biggest drop this month, as Brent crude dropped back under $100 a barrel, and bond yields and rate hike odds - which track the price of oil one to one - halted their ascent. As of 6:00am ET,  S&P 500 futures rose 0.3%, with the index still on track for its first back-to-back weekly loss since the early stages of the Iran war. Tech stocks remained under pressure as South Korea’s memory and Japanese chip giants were pummeled. Treasury yields hovered just below their highest levels this year, while Brent fell more than 3% toward $97 a barrel.

In premarket trading, Tesla leads gains among Mag 7 stocks after the electric vehicle maker plunged about 15% on Thursday (Tesla +1.3%, Microsoft +1.1%, Alphabet +0.7%, Meta +0.7%, Amazon +0.5%, Apple +0.2%, Nvidia -0.4%)

• Amkor Technology (AMKR) rallies 11% after the company announced a $1.5 billion multi-year binding agreement with Nvidia to develop advanced semiconductor packaging and test technologies for next-generation AI and accelerated computing platforms.
• Intel (INTC) gains 4% (well below the kneejerk surge 12% higher) after the chipmaker’s third-quarter forecast was much stronger than analysts’ expectations. The results highlighted both the durability of AI-related demand, as well as the success of Intel’s turnaround.
• MaxLinear (MXL) slides 11% after the semiconductor device company reported second-quarter results that were only modestly ahead of expectations. While its third-quarter revenue forecast was stronger than expected, its view for adjusted gross margin was largely in line at the midpoint of the range.
• Oracle (ORCL) is up 2.6% after the software company said it had been awarded a 10-year IDIQ contract by the US Department of Defense under its Enterprise Software Initiative. The contract is valued at $3.31 billion for the first five years and up to $6.99 billion if options are exercised.

In other corporate news, SpaceX is said to have started to turn away satellite operators seeking dedicated rides to orbit aboard its staple Falcon 9 rocket beyond 2028, underscoring the massive bet Elon Musk is making on its unproven Starship. The pause on Paramount Skydance’s takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery has been extended two weeks to Aug. 17 by the federal judge in California
PayPal shares fell in extended trading following a Wall Street Journal report that Stripe is in talks to acquire startup OpenRouter
JPMorgan is said to have moved more than 30 quant researchers from mainland China to Singapore and Hong Kong.

Traders are moving cautiously after a week in which stocks and bonds were rattled by the intensifying war in Iran, soaring oil prices and fresh concerns over whether massive investments in AI will pay off. Investors are now bracing for a weekend that could bring further escalation in the Middle East, ahead of a stack of earnings from AI hyperscalers next week.

Michael Hewson, analyst at iForex, said he was surprised by how well markets are holding up despite the sharp increase in oil prices. As for earnings, “next week is a really big week and it could be make-or-break in terms of where markets go next,” he said. “There’s an awful lot more nervousness now about capex, particularly when you’re talking about AI and where’s the return on investment coming.”

To be sure, investors are contending with a growing wall of worry over AI spending, rising competition from Chinese frontier models, and increasingly crowded positioning. Amid soaring Chinese competition with open models which some accuse of being offered at dumping prices, the cost of tokens has tumbled and erased the entire recent "agentic" surge;  not surprisingly, stock prices of hyperscalers have followed suit.

Die-hard tech bulls got some good news on Thursday when Intel delivered a revenue forecast that shattered Wall Street estimates as booming data center spending fuels a long-awaited turnaround. The company forecast sales of $15.8 billion to $16.8 billion in the third quarter, with even the low end of that range easily clearing the $15.1 billion average analyst estimate.

On Thursday, Brent surged above $100, Oil headed for a weekly surge with Brent trading above $100. President Trump said damage to ships and cargo would be paid for by Iranian funds frozen by the US after new strikes by Houthi rebels. Trump also threatened to step up strikes on Iran.

“Were it not for the resurgence of the conflict in the Middle East, the picture would have looked encouraging,” wrote ING economist Bert Colijn. “As uncertainty returns, renewed (though mild) stagflationary pressures are likely to weigh on the euro-zone economy over summer.”

In tariff-related news, the US will collect duties of between 10% and 12.5% on imports from most major trading partners, its biggest move yet to reconstruct Trump’s tariff wall - this time under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 - that was pierced by the Supreme Court, which nullified Section 122 duties that expire today.

Elsewhere, volatility dispersion has performed well since the end of March given a crush in implied correlation. The S&P 500’s top 50 basket has been one expression of the trade which tactical and systematic players entered prior to earnings reports for the first quarter. However, extremely low implied-correlation levels have some investors concerned about a reversal. Hence, there has been some unwinding of positions and, indeed, contrarians entering tactical "reverse dispersion" trades — buying index volatility, and selling single-stock volatility.

Sebastian Raedler, head of European strategy at Bank of America, cautions the global equity picture is “not bullish,” and investors aren’t being compensated for risk. “Margin expectations at an all-time high, you’ve expected five-year forward earnings growth at an all-time high, you’ve got market cap-to-GDP globally at an all-time high and you’ve got risk premia at a 20-year low — what the market is pricing is a scenario where everything goes right and there are no risks,” Raedler said in a Bloomberg TV interview.

A quick note on earnings: EPS growth in the US and Europe is looking better than expected at this early stage of the reporting season, according to JPMorgan strategists. With about a quarter of companies having reported, JPM's Mislav Matejka says earnings growth is at +23% y/y in the US, and +22% y/y in Europe. That implies a positive surprise factor of 13% and 2%, respectively. Looking at actual beats and misses, of the 129 S&P 500 companies to have reported thus far, 85% have beaten analysts’ forecasts, while 11% have missed. 71% of companies have positively surprised on sales, while 14% have missed. Around 170 index constituents are due to release earnings next week which will be the busiest of earnings season.  

In Europe, the Stoxx 600 climbed 0.5%, led by gains in software stocks after SAP SE reported better-than-expected sales for cloud products; SAP was the region’s most significant outperformer on its latest results, while Finland’s Valmet surged after announcing it is mulling a demerger. Here are the biggest movers Friday:

• SAP shares rise as much as 6.8%, bouncing back from a more than 30% drop since the start of the year, after the software company reported 2Q cloud backlog growth that beat estimates
• Valmet surges as much as 29%, the most on record, after the Finnish process technology firm announced it is evaluating a potential separation of its two core businesses into two standalone publicly listed companies
• Acerinox shares rise as much as 10%, hitting their highest level since 2008, after the stainless steel firm reported second-quarter earnings that comfortably beat expectations and outlined guidance for the third quarter
• Metso shares rise as much as 6.7% after the industrial machinery maker reported better order intake from its Minerals arm than expected, with Jefferies flagging the figure was much stronger than what has been reported by its peers
• Atoss Software shares rise as much as 7.5%, with Jefferies analysts saying the workforce management software company delivered earnings ahead of expectations in the first half and raised its Ebit margin goal for 2027
• Arcadis shares rose as much as 12% to €44.08 on Friday after the Dutch engineering firm said it is reviewing a second unsolicited proposal from WSP Global for all outstanding shares at a price of €51.50 per share in cash and WSP stock
• Volkswagen shares fall as much as 3.2% after the German carmaker cut its revenue forecast for the full year and after posting what Morgan Stanley described as a tough quarter
• Carrefour shares fall as much as 7.8%, the most since June 2025, after the French supermarket operator reported recurring operating income for the first half-year that missed the average analyst estimate
• Mapfre shares declined as much as 6.1%, most since March, after the Spanish insurer reported net income for the first half-year that missed the average analyst estimate. The insurer has also announced an acquisition in the US
• Neste falls as much as 11% after the Finnish energy company reported disappointing second-quarter earnings. Analysts say adjusted Ebitda was 2% below consensus, but the performance for its Renewable Products division was a bright spot
• Ipsen shares fall as much as 4.3% after the French biopharma company said its experimental treatment for a rare infant liver disease failed to meet the primary endpoint in a late-stage trial
• Sanofi shares drop as much as 3% after the French pharmaceutical company ended clinical development of amlitelimab, an experimental drug for atopic dermatitis

Sentiment got a boost after UK consumer confidence climbed six points to minus 17, the largest increase since November 2023, according to GfK’s indicator. Sentiment is now back to levels last seen in January. Meanwhile, bond traders, economists and even BOE staff are warning of QT’s impact, as pressure mounts on gilts from the return of hostilities in the Middle East and the arrival of a new prime minister with big spending promises.  Still, escalating tensions in the Middle East threaten to scupper the optimism once again. 

Asian tech shares fall sharply following Thursday’s Mag7 selloff amid growing doubts on popular AI trade’s durability. Kospi plunged about 5%, led by another crash in SK Hynix, and Nikkei falls almost 3%. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell as much as 2.5%, paring its gain for the week to 0.9%.

Elsewhere, Hang Seng, Shanghai Composite and Taiex indexes all tumbled. Samsung and SK Hynix dropped almost 8% each, among the biggest drags on the gauge along with TSMC and Kioxia. A look at the past 10 days of SK Hynix trading in Korea shows just how broken "price discovery" has become:

• 7/12: -2.31%
• 7/13: -16.95%
• 7/14: +6.18%
• 7/15:  +4.17%
• 7/16: -9.50%
• 7/20: +0.60%
• 7/21: +1.68%
• 7/22: -2.24%
• 7/23: +6.39%
• 7/24: -8.12%

The losses tracked declines in the Magnificent Seven overnight on worries over the durability of the AI trade.  “A second wave of geopolitical tension and tariffs landing back on the table just when markets had convinced themselves the worst was over is reviving inflation and growth concerns simultaneously, while the AI, chip and technology trade has lost much of the momentum that previously helped hold the region together,” said Hebe Chen, a senior market analyst for Vantage Global Prime.

In FX, the dollar is tightly rangebound against most majors. The yen hovered around 163.80/USD.

In rates, treasury 10-year yield adds a basis point to 4.71% as sovereign bonds remain under pressure. Australian 3-year yield jumps more than 10 bps. JGB futures decline following Japan inflation uptick.  European bonds across the region staged a rebound after days of losses. The average yield on the Bloomberg Global Treasury Index — which tracks investment-grade government bonds — surged to 3.68%, surpassing a peak from three years ago to reach the highest since the global financial crisis in 2008. Treasury 10-year yields rose a basis point to 4.70%, while bonds fell in Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

Asian stocks fell, with the Kospi index sliding more than 4%, and benchmarks in Japan and Taiwan also dropping more than 2%. The Magnificent Seven technology behemoths suffered their biggest one-day drop since the tariff tantrum in April 2025 on Thursday. Intel shares rose in US post-market trading after its revenue forecast shattered estimates, indicating that booming data center spending is helping fuel a long-awaited turnaround.

In commodities, WTI crude futures hover around $91.50 while Brent contracts remain above $100 a barrel. Gold eases to near $4,030 an ounce. 

Market Snapshot

Top Overnight News

• Trump imposes forced labor tariffs, drawing protests from trading partners. EU's Kallas questions US rationale for tariffs on bloc, seeks clarification. Brazil says US tariffs related to forced labor are 'arbitrary' and 'unjustified': RTRS
• Stocks Get Some Relief as Brent Slips Below $100: BBG
• Trump Is Losing Patience Over an Iran War With No Clear End in Sight: WSJ
• Trump vows to punish Iran and Houthis for attacks in Red Sea: AP
• Iran flew IRGC commanders, missile gear to Yemen's Houthis: RTRS
• The Houthis Have Opened a New Front in the U.S.‑Iran War: WSJ
• UK says armed forces ready to defend country after Iran warns over US bombers: RTRS
• Iran strikes on CIA facilities prompt questions about possible Russian role: RTRS
• US to Use Iran’s Frozen Funds to Pay for Ship Damage, Trump Says: BBG
• SpaceX Is Turning Away Falcon Customers in Major Bet on Starship: BBG
• Inside China’s All-Out Push to Catch Up With American AI Chips: WSJ
• Canada to mark Gordie Howe bridge opening without US after trade war deepens: RTRS
• Overseas Buyers In Hot Pursuit of US Crude as Wars Escalate: BBG
• Samsung, SK Hynix to Ink Large Chip Supply Deals With US Firms: BBG
• ECB Officials Avoid Clear Hints on Possible Hike for Now: BBG
• VW Sees Another Sales Drop as China Decline Complicates Turnaround: BBG

A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk

APAC stocks followed suit to the losses on Wall Street where the Nasdaq was heavily pressured following Alphabet and Tesla earnings, while sentiment was also weighed on by rising oil prices and yields as geopolitical escalation continues. ASX 200 retreated with underperformance in tech and miners leading the downside, while the improvement in Australian flash PMIs did little to spur a rebound. Nikkei 225 fell beneath the 65,000 level with tech stocks heavily pressured and over-represented in the list of worst performers, while inflation data did little to shift the dial and printed in line with expectations. KOSPI suffered the brunt of the tech selling with sidecars activated on the KOSPI and KOSDAQ. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp conformed to the broad downbeat mood with notable pressure in miners and tech stocks.

Top Asian News

• Japanese Inflation Rate YoY (Jun) Y/Y 1.7% vs. Exp. 1.7% (Prev. 1.5%).
• Japanese Core Inflation Rate YoY (Jun) Y/Y 1.6% vs. Exp. 1.6% (Prev. 1.4%).
• Japanese Inflation Rate Ex-Food and Energy YoY (Jun) Y/Y 1.7% vs. Exp. 2% (Prev. 1.8%).
• Japanese Inflation Rate MoM (Jun) M/M 0.3% vs. Exp. 0.2% (Prev. 0.4%).
• Japanese S&P Global Composite PMI Flash (Jul) 53.10 vs. Exp. 52.8 (Prev. 52.8).
• Japanese S&P Global Manufacturing PMI Flash (Jul) 54.7 vs. Exp. 54.5 (Prev. 54.8).
• Japanese S&P Global Services PMI Flash (Jul) 51.9 vs. Exp. 53 (Prev. 52.2).
• Australian S&P Global Composite PMI Flash (Jul) 52.6 vs. Exp. 50.1 (Prev. 50.4).
• Australian S&P Global Manufacturing PMI Flash (Jul) 51.7 vs. Exp. 51.1 (Prev. 51.5).
• Australian S&P Global Services PMI Flash (Jul) 53.0 vs. Exp. 50.2 (Prev. 50.5).

European bourses start the final trading day entirely in the green, with outperformance in the IBEX 35 and DAX 40, given positive earnings from SAP and the rebound in European banks. Supporting the equity space is the lower energy prices, possibly as investors take profits heading into the weekend. On the data front, flash PMIs surprised to the upside across the EZ and the UK. The commentary broadly highlighted the cooling of cost pressures, however, while noting that inflationary pressures remain elevated. Another caveat is that the survey period was between the 9th-22nd July, which doesn't include the recent return of Brent above USD 100/bbl. Sectors point to a mixed, but slightly positive, picture. Tech tops the sector pile, with Financial Services and Banks rounding out the top 3 sectors. Telecoms is the sector laggard, followed by Energy and Autos. Two of Germany's biggest companies reported earnings before the market open. Starting with SAP, its Q2 revenue and cloud revenue beat estimates, with its cloud business increasing 24% Y/Y. This is driving the majority of gains, printing gains in excess of 6%. In terms of guidance, its FY adj. operating profit shifted EUR 100mln lower to 11.8-12.2bln (prev. guided 11.9-12.3bln). On the other hand, Volkswagen reported its Q2 metrics. Revenue beat estimates; however, the Co. cut its FY revenue guidance to between -3% and 0% (prev. guided 0-3%). Co. execs highlighted the increased competitiveness in China, with vehicle sales falling 31.6% in the region. The CFO also stated that current planned initiatives are not sufficient to compete in China. As such, shares have fallen by over 1.5%.

Top European News

• German Chancellor Merz said Nina Warken will be appointed chief of staff and Linnemann will be appointed health minister. Merz added that further cabinet changes in the future, but will take more time.

FX

• G10s are entirely firmer (excl. NOK) against the Buck, which has been offered throughout the morning, likely due to some profit-taking after gains in energy on Thursday. Generally a risk-on environment with high-beta Antipodeans outperforming.
• DXY weakened throughout the morning as crude succumbed to profit-taking after Brent Sept'26 gained c. 7%, and DXY saw gains of 0.3% on Thursday. Another factor potentially is the fresh US tariffs being lower than feared, also exempting oil, gas, fertiliser and foodstuffs. DXY fell from its 101.46 session high to a trough of 101.25. The 21DMA is below at 101.05 before support at 101. The US calendar is light, with the first read for July's PMI scheduled, where EZ figures released this morning were stronger than expected.
• EZ PMIs saw modest EUR strength following the French figure, which was extended by a couple of pips after Germany; Bunds were unreactive. EUR was lacklustre overnight in the wake of the ECB, though attempted a bounce towards 1.14 following the strong PMI read, foiled just above that level.
• Much stronger than expected UK Retail Sales had little follow-through to Sterling amid World Cup/weather related demand, with the purchase of Fans and Football shirts influencing the figure. Pantheon Macro still looks for consumer spending to ease to 0.1% quarter-to-quarter across H2, with a reversal in the aforementioned components likely to weigh. Elsewhere, UK composite PMI surprisingly rose to expansionary by a decent margin, though the strong caveats of the data not encompassing the recent geopolitical escalation saw the handful of pips strength in EUR/GBP pared. GBP/USD lifted from the 1.33 mark to a session high of around 1.3350.
• Barclays' month-end rebalancing model indicates a weak USD buying signal against most majors by month-end. The model suggests moderate bearish signals for CAD and GBP.
• US Treasury said no major US trading partner manipulated its currency to gain an unfair trade advantage in 2025, while 10 leading trading partners remain on a list for enhanced monitoring of their foreign exchange practice. The Treasury added that yen weakness has persisted despite narrowing of US-Japan interest rate differentials and excess volatility in the yen is unwanted.

Fixed Income

• A contained start for most benchmarks as Brent held at just over USD 100/bbl throughout APAC trade and into the European morning. Thereafter, as energy pulled back from highs taking Brent down to a USD 98/bbl handle, yields followed suit and by extension fixed lifted.
• At most, USTs to a 108-09 peak, notably shy of Thursday’s 108-15 best and while firmer by c. five ticks today, it remains near enough a full point lower WTD. Ahead, we have Flash PMIs which will help to inform the debate around the Fed tightening this year or not, though as we have seemingly seen with the EZ figures it is perhaps too early for the energy resurgence to be fully visible in the flash data.
• Bunds lifted to a 124.46 peak around the cash equity open, spurred by the mentioned energy move and as the German Cabinet reshuffle was relatively limited and as expected. Since, a kneejerk lower occurred on the French flash figures before more pronounced pressure after the German and EZ metrics. Albeit, energy continues to trim and and the c. 10 tick pullback has unwound, with Bunds back at highs and firmer by over 20 ticks.
• Moving to Gilts, the morning’s stronger than expected Retail Sales were overshadowed by the mentioned pullback in energy and as such Gilts opened on the front foot by 17 ticks and have since extended another 30 to a 86.36 peak, where it remains.
• On the morning’s data, the EZ PMIs were firmer across the board aside from France’s Manufacturing. Commentary was encouraging and pointed to a rebound after a “largely stagnant” Q2 (reminder, Flash Prelim. EZ GDP next week) and cost pressures “cooling sharply”. However, the survey period only runs until the 22nd of July, and as such misses out on around USD 6/bbl of additional Brent upside if we assume that day’s USD 95.63/bbl close was captured, but equally the open that session was USD 91.50/bbl which may more closely align with the responses being provided, and would equate to around USD 10/bbl of upside being missed out on since.
• A similar point can be made for the UK Flash PMIs and also the DMP. As such, the Final reads will draw more scrutiny than usual to see how respondents' views changed once the energy extension to over USD 100/bbl was accounted for.
• Australia sells AUD 900mln 3.25% April 2029 bonds b/c 3.56, avg yield 4.6752%.

Commodities

• Geopolitics have shown no signs of abating, although a fresh escalation outside of the daily strikes is yet to occur. To briefly recap the main geopolitical points, the US and Iran continued to exchange strikes, with CENTCOM conducting a 13th night of attacks on Iranian military targets and Iran targeting neighbours. US President Trump said Iran wants to reach an agreement but is not yet ready. Further, Iran reportedly rejected a US ceasefire proposal presented by Iraq’s PM, while Tehran also refused to amend a separate 10-day ceasefire plan linked to discussions over the Strait of Hormuz. Crude has been pulling back from yesterday’s extremes despite a lack of a clear driver during the European morning. Against the backdrop of a lack of fresh escalation today, traders could be booking profits in oil heading into another uncertain weekend. Further adding to the downside could be trade war woes after the Trump administration imposed new tariffs of 10-12.5% on imports from 60 countries over claims that they had failed to prevent forced labour, with China condemning unilateral tariffs this morning.
• WTI and Brent futures are softer by over 3% after surging some 6-7% intraday yesterday, with the former toward the lower end of a USD 88.75-90.66/bbl range and the latter back under USD 100/bbl in a USD 96.51-101.19/bbl range. Dutch TTF is choppy but ultimately flat at the time of writing around the EUR 62/MWh mark after finding support at EUR 61/MWh.
• Precious metals see some reprieve from the pullback in the energy space. Spot gold rebounded from a USD 4,022/oz intraday low and currently resides towards session highs of USD 4,053/oz. Spot silver sees more momentum after hitting a low near USD 57/oz yesterday before rebounding to a current USD 58.42/oz peak today.
• Base metals are flat/mixed and fail to benefit from the pullback in energy amid pressure from tariff woes. 3M LME copper resides in a narrow USD 13,574.88- 13,683.63/t range.
• South Korea extended fuel tax cuts through to September 30th, with the government maintaining 15% gasoline and 25% diesel tax reductions.

Trade/Tariffs

• US Trade Representative Greer announced 10 to 12.5% new tariffs related to forced labour, while exempting oil, gas, fertiliser and food stuffs from the labour tariffs. Countries that implemented forced labour prohibition get 10% tariff rate, those that have not get 12.5%.
• China's Foreign Ministry said it opposes all unilateral tariffs, saying its position on China-US economic and trade issues are clear.
• EU's Kallas said the new US tariffs on EU goods are not really grounded, and questioned the forced labour rationale, while she stated the US tariff move is a negative surprise after the EU kept its side of the trade deal. Furthermore, she said the EU was not expecting to be included in new US tariffs and that officials will seek clarifications from Washington on the new tariffs.
• Mexico's President Sheinbaum said Mexico and the US are making progress regarding the USMCA review, while Mexico's Economy Minister Ebrard said that they see no change in the effective tariff that Mexico pays, following the US announcing new tariffs.
• Brazil's government rejected the US 12.5% tariffs on Brazilian goods related to forced labour, calling the tariffs completely arbitrary and unjustified, while it will start procedures to use its reciprocity law and will take the matter before the WTO's dispute settlement mechanism.
• Japan's Trade Minister Akazawa said the US's latest move on tariffs is regrettable, and confirmed that the US will not go beyond the 2025 tariff deal.
• Canadian PM Carney said everything is on the table if Canada and US fail to reach a deal on the latest US tariff threats, adds Canada has not signed a partial USMCA deal as talks remain focused on critical sectors

Central Banks

• BoJ is expected to keep rates unchanged at its meeting next week, while it is likely to maintain its inflation overshoot warning and is seen signalling easing inflation risks at the July meeting, according to sources. Additionally, the Nikkei reported something similar, stating that the majority of members currently favour a steady approach, citing a desire to monitor the impact of June's hike amid geopolitical tensions and inflation risks and that many suggest that there is no rush to raise rates.
• ECB's Nagel said the ECB is in a good position to closely monitor further developments.
• ECB's Simkus said uncertainty has been evident over the past six weeks and oil over USD 100/bbl will have repercussions. The inflationary environment has increased with risks to the upside. Simkus added that there is no value in rushing but sees a higher probability of a hike than a hold.
• ECB's Kocher said the recent developments in oil markets are concerning and said a 50bps hike was not discussed and hopefully something ECB will not have to consider.
• ECB's Sleijpen told Econostream that the ECB could hike in September even without second-round effects as long as the broader inflation outlook warrants it. He said second-round effects are important, but will assess the entire inflation outlook. There is no evidence of second-round effects yet. Markets understand the reaction function and decision triggers. From a cyclical perspective, the economy has held up reasonably well. Neutral rate estimates are not a decisive factor in setting policy. Conditions are again more consistent with the June baseline.
• ECB Consumer Expectations Survey (Jul): Median consumer perceptions of inflation over the past 12 months decreased significantly, as did the next 12 months.
• BoE Monthly Decision Maker Panel data: Expectations for 1yr-ahead CPI inflation fell to 3.4% in the three months to July (prev. 3.7% in the three months to June); 3yr-ahead CPI inflation expectations was 2.8% in the three months to July (prev. 2.9%).

Geopolitics: Middle East

• US President Trump posted "Please let this statement serve to represent, until further notice, that from this point forth, any and all damages done to Ships, Cargo, or anything related thereto, will be paid for by Iranian Money". However, N12's Ravid commented that it is unclear if Trump has the legal ability to do such a thing, adding the president can freeze Iranian funds in the US, but using them to pay private shipping companies would likely require a court decision or new legislation.
• US President Trump is said to be losing patience over an Iran war with no clear end in sight, while he has grown skeptical of diplomacy and is in ‘revenge mode’ against Tehran, according to a senior administration official cited by WSJ.
• US CENTCOM said forces started another night of strikes against Iranian military targets, adding this is the 13th consecutive night of strikes aimed to hold Iran accountable and diminish threats from the IRGC to commercial shipping.
• Explosions were reported in Iran's Taft, Shirkuh, Isfahan, Jask and Konarek. There were also reports of explosions in Khorramabad, Bandaa Abbas, Qeshm, Larak Island and Hengam.
• Iran's army said it has launched another wave of drone attacks against US military facilities in Kuwait. Earlier, there were reports of explosions at US bases in Jordan and the Sheikh Isa airbase in Bahrain.
• Iran reportedly rejected the US ceasefire deal presented by Iraqi leader, according to the NYT.
• Iranian diplomat said Iran has not closed the door to diplomacy, and messages are still being exchanged through intermediaries, ISNA reported.
• Iran's Foreign Minister Aragchi said seizing another nation's assets to pay for unrelated future claims is an incendiary precedent. He also said that "perhaps before the war a compromise could have been made. But now, for reasons that I do not want to open up too much, compromise has become difficult."
• US President Trump reportedly told Lebanese President Aoun he would seek to curb Israeli escalation in Lebanon and support expanded US assistance to the Lebanese army, Saudi newspaper reported. In other reports in IRIB, US President Trump reportedly gave Lebanese President Aoun an ultimatum during the latter's visit to Washington, stating either coordinate and destroy Hezbollah or return to Netanyahu's nightmare.

Geopolitics: Russia-Ukraine

• Ukrainian President Zelensky told Trump ally Laura Loomer that he may visit Washington next week and plans to meet President Trump again.
• US Senate eyes a vote on Russia sanctions package next week, according to Axios.

Geopolitics: Other

• China's Coast Guard said it imposed control measures on several Philippine vessels operating "illegally" in the waters around Scarborough Shoal.

US Event Calendar

• 9:45 am: Jul P S&P Global US Manufacturing PMI, est. 54.4, prior 53.9
• 9:45 am: Jul P S&P Global US Services PMI, est. 51.5, prior 51.2
• 9:45 am: Jul P S&P Global US Composite PMI, est. 52.15, prior 51.9
• 10:00 am: Jun New Home Sales, est. 607k, prior 580k

DB's Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap

I'm coming to terms with the fact that my wife and kids are this morning leaving me for 5 days to go camping on a mums and kids only trip. How will I cope with the pain and sadness of being alone for such a long time? The answer: Golf tonight, tomorrow morning, tomorrow afternoon, Sunday morning, Sunday afternoon, and maybe Monday and Tuesday evening after work. If I can walk on Wednesday, I'll be impressed. My wife genuinely thinks I won't be able to cope on my own and has left a meal plan and dossier of instructions. I'm not quite sure how she thought I coped in the 36 years I lived on the planet before we met.  

As we approach my lost weekend, the two big themes in financial markets all year, namely Iran and AI, have combined in a negative direction to leave a challenging 24 hours for markets and potentially threatening time spent on the beach for many in the days ahead, and remaining weeks of Summer. The sell-off certainly wasn't helped by Brent crude surging back above $100/bbl as peace in Iran looks distant for now.

The latest is that Trump said to Axios that he was “considering a massive attack” and was “close to making a decision”. And earlier on, he posted that if the Houthis continued to make strikes, then “major military punishment will be inflicted upon Iran” as well. In turn, Tehran warned that it would retaliate, including against energy facilities in the region, if Trump followed through on his threat to target Iranian bridges and power plants. The escalatory rhetoric raised fears of a more prolonged stagflationary shock and drove some big losses across global markets, with yields hitting multi-year highs on both sides of the Atlantic. Indeed, the 10yr bund yield (+3.1bps) hit a post-2011 high yesterday of 3.20%, whilst the 30yr real yield in the US (+2.8bps) hit a post-2008 high of 2.96%. 

The most obvious impact of the escalation could be seen in energy prices, with Brent crude (+7.04%) posting another big daily increase to close at $100.69/bbl, its highest level since May. This morning we're just a couple of tenths of a percent lower and still above $100. That stands in stark contrast to where we began the month, with Brent at around $72/bbl after the interim deal was signed and there were initial indications that the Strait of Hormuz was beginning to reopen. The jump in the 6-month Brent future (+1.80% to $83.21/bbl) was more modest, but this is now up by more than $10/bbl since early July as investors price in a more lasting shock. In the one piece of slightly better energy news, European natural gas futures (-1.02%) dipped slightly from Wednesday’s high, closing at €61.90/MWh. 

That jump for oil prices and fears of stagflation put serious pressure on global equities, with the S&P 500 (-1.21%) and Nasdaq (-2.15%) both sliding yesterday. Matters weren’t helped by Tesla (-14.52%) and Alphabet (-7.13%), which both saw large declines after their earnings release the previous day. So that drove a big loss for the Mag 7 (-4.78%) index, which posted its biggest daily decline since the week of the Liberation Day turmoil in 2025. The two big problems for the big tech companies are that capex is no longer being funded out of free cash flow alone (see page 15 of the WOW! pack here for more) and that cheaper open-source AI is seriously threatening the business model of the US AI-stack. See Adrian Cox's piece here at the DBRI on the open-source versus proprietary model battle and my CoTD here from yesterday comparing it to the Betamax versus VHS battle 40-plus years ago.

The sell-off wasn't just in the US, as Europe was hit hard by the oil shock, with the STOXX 600 down -1.18% as the CAC 40 (-1.64%), DAX (-1.56%), and FTSE MIB (-2.80%) all posted large declines.

The risk-off mood was also visible in other asset classes, with US HY credit spreads (+9bps) seeing their biggest widening since March, while the dollar index (+0.32%) had its best day in a month.  

The ongoing surge in oil prices also meant that inflation expectations crept up yesterday. In fact, the 1yr Euro inflation swap rose a further +10.9bps to 2.75%, whilst the 1yr US inflation swap (+1.9bps) was up to 2.07%. So that led to ongoing speculation that the Fed might still be about to hike as soon as next week, with the futures-implied probability of that up to 34% by the close. And it was a similar story in Europe, where 47bps of further hikes are now priced from the ECB by the December meeting up +1.1bps on the day.

Staying with the ECB, in their latest policy decision yesterday they kept their deposit rate at 2.25% as widely expected, while implying that further hikes were still likely. Both the short decision statement and Lagarde’s press conference noted that the latest outlook was broadly unchanged relative to the ECB’s June baseline scenario which had been predicated on market pricing of three hikes this cycle (so two more after the June hike). Lagarde also said yesterday that the ECB’s reaction function was "very well understood" by markets, showing no desire to push back on market pricing. Our European economists now see a September hike to 2.50% as a near done deal. Risks are clearly skewed towards a further hike thereafter, but this would require persistently elevated energy prices and/or evidence of second-round effects. See their full reaction here. 
With inflation fears mounting, sovereign bond yields hit fresh multi-year highs yesterday on both sides of the Atlantic. In the US, the 10yr Treasury yield (+3.8bps) rose to 4.69%, its highest since January 2025, whilst the 2yr yield (+4.9bps) rose to 4.34%. The gains were even clearer for real yields, where the 10yr real yield (+5.7bps) closed at 2.42%, its highest since October 2023, whilst the 30yr real yield (+2.8bps) was up to 2.96%, which is its highest level since autumn 2008 at the height of the GFC. Meanwhile in Europe, there were also several records, with the 10yr bund yield (+3.1bps) at a post-2011 high of 3.20%, whilst the 10yr OAT yield (+4.7bps) hit a post-2009 high of 4.01%. 

In trade news, overnight the Trump administration finalized the details of the new Section 301 tariffs covering some 60 of the US’ trading partners. Largely in line with what was signaled when the investigations into alleged forced labour practices in supply chains concluded last month, most of the largest trading partners including the EU, UK, Canada and Mexico will face a tariff of 10%, while others including Japan, South Korea and Australia will face a 12.5% levy. As a reminder, these duties arrive as today sees the expiry of the temporary 10% Section 122 tariffs, which themselves were announced after the Supreme Court in February struck down tariffs introduced under the International Economic Emergency Powers Act.
In Asia the negative mood continues but US equity futures are more stable. The KOSPI (-5.62%) is again leading declines and is poised to wipe out gains made earlier this week as major chipmakers follow weakness seen among their US counterparts. Japan’s Nikkei (-2.87%) is also sharply lower, extending its losing streak into a third consecutive week. In China, the CSI 300 (-1.17%) remains on course to break a four-week run of weekly losses despite today’s decline. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng (-1.27%) is also trading lower but is still positioned to record a fourth straight week of gains. The S&P/ASX 200 (-0.93%) is also lower. S&P 500 futures are down -0.08% with the Nasdaq equivalent -0.34% lower. The tech cycle mood improved a bit after a stellar earnings report from Intel which forecast that revenue in Q3 will be $15.8-16.8bn, well above the $15.1bn average estimate. Intel’s shares rose by +4.5% in after-hours trading. 

Data released earlier this morning showed that Japan’s inflation remained broadly in line with expectations in June. Core CPI rose 1.6% year-on-year, matching forecasts, while the closely watched “core-core” CPI measure eased to 1.7% from 1.8% in May, remaining below the Bank of Japan’s inflation objective and a touch below expectations. Headline CPI accelerated as expected to 1.7% year-on-year from 1.5% previously, marking its highest reading so far this year.

In Australia, private-sector activity expanded at a stronger pace in July, with the S&P Global Flash Composite PMI increasing to 52.6 from 50.4 in June, recording a second consecutive month of growth and its strongest level since the start of the year. The services PMI improved to 53.0 from 50.5, while the manufacturing PMI edged up to 51.7 from 51.5, indicating continued expansion across both sectors.

Finally, there wasn’t much data yesterday, but the US weekly initial jobless claims fell to just 187k (vs. 210k expected) in the week ending July 18, which is their lowest level since 1969. So that reassured investors about the state of the labour market moving into the summer, and kept up the hawkish pressure on Fed pricing. 

To the day ahead now we’ll get the July flash PMIs from around the world, US June new home sales, July Kansas City Fed services activity, UK June retail sales, Germany August GfK consumer confidence, Canada June industrial product price index, raw materials price index. Central bank events include the ECB’s June consumer expectations survey and the BoE’s DMP survey, whilst the ECB’s Lane will also speak. Earnings include American Express, NextEra energy, Verizon Communications, HCA Healthcare, and SLB.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/24/2026 - 07:37

Inside Global Aerospace & Defense Boom: 12 Takeaways From World's Most Important Airshow

The Farnborough International Airshow is coming to a close in the UK, marking the end of one of the aerospace and defense industry's top gatherings. Institutional research desks have had boots on the ground, tracking commercial-aircraft orders, defense procurement and other industry trends.

A team of Citi analysts led by John Godyn attended Farnborough earlier this week and reported back to clients Thursday morning.

Their findings pointed to accelerating missile demand and a wave of new aircraft orders that could fuel a stronger and more robust growth cycle for aerospace and defense companies.

Godyn highlighted the event's key takeaways, giving clients a clearer picture of the aerospace and defense industries heading into fall and 2027:

1) Aftermarket channel checks across multiple companies extend recent strength.

We spoke with a wide range of aftermarket exposed companies including engine manufacturers, parts/component manufacturers, MROs, and aircraft lessors. Consistently, across all meetings, companies expressed the view that the key themes driving aftermarket continue including: (1) low retirement rates, (2) high lease renewals and tight secondary market trends for AC/engines, (3) strong demand for lift from global airline customers, (4) capacity constrained MROs, and (5) no impact from the conflict in the Middle-East. Given how strong recent trends have been, companies did caution that mean reversion to long term growth rates, which GE described as LDD revenue growth and many non-engine aftermarket players described as HSD revenue growth, was inevitable. We view the read-through as clearly positive across multiple stocks in our aftermarket coverage (GE/RTX/VSEC/LOAR/HEI) and EU analyst Conor Dwyer echoed that sentiment for Safran's 2026. To be fair, we note that investor expectations are already set for continued beats in this category of stock so the bar isn't obviously low.

2) M&A heating up?

Multiple companies we spoke to described an M&A backdrop that is much more active with many deals coming to market. Management teams described multiple drivers with notable emphasis on self-help activities at corporates focused on ramping production leading to non-core assets or underperforming suppliers being put up for sale, as well as PE-owned assets coming to market. We get the sense from most of our companies that the Aero M&A pipeline remains robust and multiple companies expect M&A to be a larger driver of growth. Valuations were regularly cited as reasonably full, but there remain opportunities to find deals at reasonable prices.

3) Airbus Next-Gen has been a dominant theme throughout the week.

The next generation Narrowbody Jet on the part of Airbus has been a ubiquitous theme throughout the week. GE indicated CFM collaboration with Airbus was very active on the RISE program (meeting 2x per month). Other component manufacturers expressed similarly heightened activity and discussion around the next generation Narrowbody Jet. Suppliers described conversations with BA on similar topics to be far earlier stage and having less consistent cadence.

4) GE emphasized more upside on CFM56 aftermarket $ profit and a quicker ramp on LEAP aftermarket $ profit than investors may appreciate.

GE noted that LEAP:CFM56 $ profits should be roughly equal by 2030. GE expects CFM $ profits to continue to grow until 2028 before flattening out, while LEAP $ profits continue to catch up until 2030. LEAP % margin will lag CFM56 even in 2030 and will continue to move higher as the LEAP installed base ages. We see a similar shape in our above-consensus expectations and see the possibility of additional upside as the belief that the aftermarket cycle lasts ultimately proves to be more robust than even GE management expects.

5) GE engine read-through positive.

The aforementioned CFM56:LEAP view is similar to Conor Dwyer's assumed split for Safran within the next 5 years (he is 45:55 in 2030, reaching 49:51 in 2031). Conor notes that GE was quite relaxed about the threat of rising retirements in the coming years to the CFM56 program, but did note it is managing the risk of rising USM (used serviceable materials) already with slightly slower price increases on the CFM56 vs the LEAP and acknowledged the possibility of risk in 2029-31 (this is a risk Conor highlighted here in 2028).

6) Bullishness on emerging engine technologies was palpable.

Although we did not speak to RTX, we felt that GE upped the volume on its RISE engine and is increasingly and more loudly making the case for the innovative technology. Separately, multiple EVTOL players we met with showed evidence of progress on hybrid-electric engines punctuated by a GE/BETA hybrid-electric engine which was demonstrated live and recently was the first such engine to be tested above 30,000 feet.

7) Demand for accelerating missile production was a frequent topic of conversation.

At face value, this is no surprise, but channel checks emphasized 3 interesting points: (1) targets of 3-10x growth in production by program are likely to prove low because these forecasts do not incorporate international demand, so as 'framework agreements' are definitized, the supply chain is already being asked to ramp even higher to satisfy allies' needs, (2) solutions for scalable hypersonic missile production are being requested, and (3) supplying into emerging affordable mass designs may be a bigger opportunity than initially thought. We continue to believe that Missile Defense/Munitions Replenishment are themes that will exceed expectations for years to come.

8) Positive secondary market trends supportive of aircraft lessors.

In particular: (1) a continued, favorable supply/demand mismatch in the secondary market driving lease rates higher across a wide range of aircraft types, (2) among narrowbodies, notable strength in the A321neo and 737MAX, (3) among widebodies, even greater strength in the A330neo and 787 families of aircraft, (4) a belief among lessors that existing production outlooks across the OEMs are unlikely to be a meaningful headwind to secondary market trends until the end of the decade, and (5) the view that a lack of customer support will dissuade airframe OEMs from pursuing new clean sheet designs this decade. In totality, these channel checks were not only positive for AER, but also much of our aerospace coverage.

9) Are 737 -7 and -10 certifications imminent?

Suppliers to whom we spoke expressed a tremendous amount of confidence in rate increases at BA in the short/medium-term. Suppliers also felt that events supportive of BA's case for raising rates, namely the -7/10 certifications, were likely to happen sooner rather than later.

10) ETN mentioned that Aero could be in a historic "feast" cycle.

ETN Aero Management mentioned that it expects 16 new Aero-focused platforms launching over the next ten years vs. the last big Aero cycle in the 2000s where only five were launched. The majority of the new expected platforms will be military, and ETN Management seems confident that the company can enjoy considerable content on these platforms. We sense Management is particularly excited about the Bell MV-75 Helicopter program and the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program (CCA), although these programs are still in the early stages in terms of ramp up for ETN.

11) Aero supply chain slowly healing but will be tested with further rate increases.

In general, nearly every company we spoke to described the current aerospace supply chain as healthy and struggled to identify any major problem areas. In fact, being part of the solution was cited as an opportunity by many, such as VSEC, DCO, and HEI. Separately, both PH and ETN mentioned an increased focus on dual/multi-sourcing, which is leading to greater supply chain resiliency. Anecdotes of supply chain issues don't seem widespread, and we also think Aero suppliers are increasingly leaning on improved software, electronics, and even additive manufacturing to further support the Aero manufacturing food chain. That said, the topic of defense orders using DPAS at some point in the future did come up as a risk factor that was cited as a realistic scenario that could disrupt the aero supply chain.

12) Aerospace suppliers' ability to price still strong.

Suppliers throughout the A&D supply chain described negotiations as much more focused on availability, performance, quality, and on-time delivery rather than price and margins. We get the sense that A&D suppliers will continue to outpace inflation with solid pricing and likely expanding margins without much pushback. Pricing muscle seemed to improve substantially during the COVID supply chain "crunch"" and that has allowed suppliers to continue to rea

Another potential tailwind for the defense industry emerged Wednesday, when House Republicans narrowly passed the fiscal 2027 National Defense Authorization Act, authorizing a record $1.15 trillion in military spending.

The measure passed 216-212, largely along party lines. While it is below President Trump's $1.5 trillion budget request, it still is a jump from the roughly $900 billion last year.

🚨 JUST IN: The US House has just PASSED the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) — with the SAVE AMERICA ACT ATTACHED — sending it to the Senate before it heads to President Trump's desk

Final vote: 216-212

7 Republican NAYs, while 6 Democrats voted YEA pic.twitter.com/LrNfKVGBZL

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) July 22, 2026

The NDAA faces an uncertain future in the Senate, where Democrats are expected to oppose its cost and several controversial policy provisions.

Related coverage:

• "Demand Signal Is Real": US Bipartisan Senate Delegation Touts Defense Boom At Farnborough Airshow

If passed in the Senate and signed by Trump, the spending surge would provide tailwinds for defense stocks.

The iShares U.S. Aerospace & Defense ETF (ITA) has moved up and to the right, reflecting the boom in military spending as multiple wars rage across Eurasia. The global boom in defense spending has a lot more room to run.

ITA's next leg up will require a sustained upside break above the $250 level. 

Professional subscribers can read military trends notes at our new Marketdesk.ai portal.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/24/2026 - 06:55

India's Fuel Exports Set To Soar In July As Refining Margins Jump

By Charles Kennedy of OilPrice.com,

India is on track to export the highest volume of refined petroleum products in months as refining margins have jumped with the re-escalation of the Middle East conflict.

India is estimated to ship as many as 1.55 million barrels per day (bpd) of light and middle distillates in July, per data by commodity analysts Kpler cited by Reuters columnist Clyde Russell.

The July volumes would be nearly double the fuel export volumes of just 866,000 bpd in May, when the Strait of Hormuz crisis hit crude supplies to India and the rest of Asia. In May, India saw its lowest fuel exports in four years.

The tightening fuel markets in Asia and the rest of the world added to a renewed rally in refining margins after the U.S.-Iran ceasefire collapsed two weeks ago. This has encouraged Indian refiners to ramp up refined petroleum exports.

The expected volumes in July would be the second-highest level in Kpler’s data series dating back to 2017.

Earlier this month, Kpler estimated that India’s refined petroleum exports would hit in July the highest level since September 2025 as refiners race to capture soaring margins amid tight Asian fuel markets.

India’s high export levels in July could ease some of the pressure on the Asian fuel market, but not all of it, as crude supplies from the Middle East are once again at high risk of delay.

Asian refiners that had bet on a flood of crude supply from the Middle East in August are now faced with potential delays in deliveries amid the re-escalation of hostilities, which could thwart their plans to ramp up crude processing rates in the coming weeks.

Refiners in the U.S. and Europe are operating at near capacity, but those in Asia may not see the expected increase in throughput now that the July and August loadings and delivery schedules have been upended by the re-escalation of the Middle East conflict.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/24/2026 - 06:30

Deaths Now Outnumber Births In 17 US States

Natural population growth is slowing across much of America.

According to the latest U.S. Census Bureau estimates, 17 states recorded more deaths than births between July 2024 and July 2025, up from only four states during much of the 2010s.

Using U.S. Census Bureau data, Visual Capitalist's Dorothy Neufeld created this map showing natural population change in every state.

Because the measure excludes domestic and international migration, it highlights where population growth increasingly depends on people moving in.

Natural Population Change by State

The table below ranks every state by natural population change between July 2024 and July 2025, highlighting where births continued to outpace deaths—and where they no longer did.

State Natural Population Change
Jul 2024–Jul 2025 Pennsylvania -10,708 West Virginia -7,887 Maine -5,019 Michigan -4,998 Oregon -3,764 Mississippi -2,607 Alabama -2,188 New Hampshire -2,167 New Mexico -1,885 Vermont -1,769 Florida -1,333 Arkansas -1,224 Ohio -729 Delaware -554 Rhode Island -304 Montana -90 Kentucky -83 Missouri 177 Wyoming 295 South Carolina 564 Wisconsin 1,161 Hawaii 2,024 Connecticut 2,283 District of Columbia 2,516 Oklahoma 2,559 South Dakota 2,605 North Dakota 2,630 Louisiana 2,774 Iowa 2,949 Nevada 3,051 Alaska 3,308 Tennessee 3,597 Kansas 4,951 Nebraska 6,136 Idaho 6,900 Massachusetts 8,419 Indiana 8,561 Illinois 10,903 Maryland 11,444 Minnesota 12,071 Virginia 13,817 North Carolina 15,129 Washington 17,230 Colorado 20,608 Utah 24,961 New Jersey 26,023 Georgia 28,631 Arizona 20,914 New York 42,815 California 109,715 Texas 157,711

Pennsylvania recorded the nation’s largest natural decline (-10.7K), followed by West Virginia, Maine, and Michigan. Most states with natural decreases were concentrated in the Northeast and Appalachia, regions that include several states with some of the country’s oldest populations.

Florida also recorded more deaths than births, yet remained one of America’s fastest-growing states because of migration.

The South remained the engine of natural population growth. Texas (+158K), Georgia (+29K), and North Carolina (+15K) posted strong gains. California (+110K) and New York (+43K) also recorded far more births than deaths despite slower overall population growth.

America’s Population Is Increasingly Shaped by Migration

Natural population change tells only part of the story.

Several states with more deaths than births, including Florida, Maine, and Pennsylvania, can still grow overall when migration offsets their natural decline. Others continue losing population even after attracting newcomers.

Meanwhile, states such as Texas, North Carolina, and Arizona benefit from both natural population growth and migration, helping drive some of the country’s fastest population gains.

As America’s population ages and birth rates remain historically low, natural population growth is becoming less common. For a growing number of states, migration—not births—is now the primary driver of population growth, making migration trends increasingly important to their long-term demographic outlook.

To learn more about this topic, check out this graphic on immigration’s role in U.S. population growth by state.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/24/2026 - 05:45

EU Is Launching A Mission To Board Russian Shadow Fleet Tankers In The Indian Ocean

The European Union has authorized its naval mission in the Indian Ocean (apparently there is one) to stop and board Russian shadow fleet tankers suspected of operating under false flags, the bloc announced on Wednesday.

The Spanish Navy frigate Santa María F81, deployed as part of the European Union Naval Force Operation ATALANTA, seen off the coast of Mogadishu, Somalia, on April 24, 2025.

EU member states have authorized Operation Atalanta, the union’s counter-piracy naval mission off the Horn of Africa, to begin conducting flag-verification boardings of vessels suspected of belonging to Russia’s shadow fleet in the western Indian Ocean, DefenseNews reported. The decision, announced this week by EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, extends to Atalanta a power already exercised by the EU’s Mediterranean mission, Operation Irini.

Kallas made the announcement alongside news that Irini forces had boarded the sanctioned oil tanker MV South Star on July 20, acting on suspicion that the vessel was sailing under a false flag. “Every illicit voyage helps sustain Russia’s war machine. We are matching our sanctions with action at sea,” Kallas said, adding that the Atalanta authorization “further tightens the net.”

The move considerably widens the EU’s geographic reach against the shadow fleet, a loosely defined network of tankers with opaque ownership structures that Moscow uses to sell oil above the Western-imposed price cap. While Irini patrols the Mediterranean, Atalanta operates across the Somali Basin, the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea, the Gulf of Suez, the Gulf of Aqaba and waters around Oman, and was launched as the EU’s first-ever naval mission in 2008 to combat piracy.

It is separate from the EU mission ASPIDES, which is designed to protect shipping in the Red Sea from attacks by the Iran-backed Yemeni Houthi rebels. One look at the exploding price of oil shows just how much the market thinks of Europe "defending" this particular waterway. 

The corridor where the mission operates is a critical transit route for tankers carrying Russian crude toward buyers in Asia. Brussels has already sanctioned more than 600 vessels suspected of belonging to the network.

Generally, ships on the high seas cannot simply be stopped and boarded by any third country. However, Article 110 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea permits warships to stop and inspect a vessel only where there is reasonable suspicion it is stateless or flying a flag to which it is not entitled. This falls short of a blanket authority to stop any sanctioned or Russia-linked ship, but flying false flags has been a frequent practice on Russian shadow fleet vessels.

The council decision, the operational plan and the rules of engagement that would spell out exactly how far Atalanta’s new powers extend have so far not been made public.

The approach has already produced results elsewhere. Irini’s flag checks contributed to pressure that culminated in a Cameroon purge of 39 vessels from its shipping registry after investigators uncovered fraudulent paperwork and fake registry websites used to disguise shadow fleet tankers.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has previously denounced such interceptions as “piracy,” underscoring how the expanded mandate is likely to further sharpen tensions between Brussels and Moscow over enforcement at sea.

One caveat to all this: unlike oil, Russian LNG (which Europe is absolutely desperate for) will remain exempt from EU sanctions. Which prompted Rabobank's Michael Every earlier today to ask rhetorically "realpolitik or real weakness?"

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/24/2026 - 04:15

Eco Loon Lobbies For Cameo In British Soap To Spread Climate Alarmism

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

BBC naturalist Chris Packham has openly requested a guest role on the fictional soap EastEnders so he can turn the nation's most-watched entertainment show into a vehicle for climate crisis messaging.

In comments reported by GB News and drawn from a Radio Times interview, the veteran naturalist described his fantasy appearance: an environmental disaster such as a flood hitting the fictional London borough, followed by him marching through as himself with a placard to lecture the locals.

Packham told Radio Times he wants the role because it "would give me the capacity to communicate to an audience which I don't talk to in my sphere of work."

Chris Packham makes request for BBC EastEnders role to spread awareness of climate crisishttps://t.co/EGpYTlGvjp

— GB News (@GBNEWS) July 22, 2026

He complained that while some people understand the "scale of the crisis," broader media fails at "truth telling" to "bring it home to everyone."

"The trouble is, I keep popping that bubble and looking outside, and I see that other people are not aware of the gravity of that crisis, or some of them are still in the position where actually they're denying ... and that's really scary," he said.

He called for the messaging to be "integrated into broader output, so properly into news obviously, properly into weather where we talk about climate as well as weather - but also into dramas."

? Chris Packham urges Barclays customers to set themselves on fire pic.twitter.com/0PtNRFqg7l

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) August 17, 2024

Chris Packham should consider fucking off pic.twitter.com/zt9LlndWvP

— MrFezziwig™ (@MrFezz15) April 18, 2026

Chris Packham, "Three things.. The message is to keep fossil fuels in the ground, we need a just transition towards renewables.. Stonehenge has been adequately cleaned.. For the first time we've seen people concerned about a rare species of lichen" @ChrisGPackham

"JSO have... pic.twitter.com/M8MQcO21hr

— Farrukh (@implausibleblog) June 21, 2024

I challenged Chris Packham on BBC bias around trans and gender ideology... pic.twitter.com/6qQcFaGfTI

— Andrew Gold (@AndrewGold_ok) April 29, 2026

This is not subtle. It is an explicit pitch to hijack prime-time entertainment and insert alarmist talking points into the daily lives of millions who never tune into nature documentaries.

British soaps have a documented history of being quietly weaponised for official narratives. FOI documents obtained last year revealed that during the Covid period the Department for Culture, Media and Sport held secret meetings with the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 to coordinate "national unity programming."

Officials explored inserting pro-vaccine storylines into EastEnders and Coronation Street. Characters were scripted to celebrate jabs as winning the lottery while sceptics were mocked as "anti-vaxxers." One MP later described the broadcasters as reduced to "mere arms of the state."

The same playbook has been applied to immigration. EastEnders has featured storylines about exploited African migrants and racially motivated murders of immigrants after hiring campaigner Ade Lamuye in 2022.

Lamuye sits on the advisory board of the Power of Pop Fund, which has directed nearly £5 million to organisations that use media to reframe migration debates.

Similar influence operations have shaped sympathetic asylum-seeker characters in the other popular long running British soap Coronation Street. Activists openly boast that entertainment "holds influence and power to make real change."

Far from being organic storytelling, this is coordinated social engineering, the same approach visible in other mainstream dramas that lecture audiences on pronouns, "deadnaming" and the supposed problems with classic literature. Channel 5's The Teacher delivered some of the most direct examples yet, training viewers to treat biological reality and cultural heritage as potential sources of harm.

Watch the pattern laid bare across programming:

Even children's programming is being enlisted. Netflix is developing a live-action reboot of the 1990s cartoon Captain Planet, the original of which pushed environmental panic, progressive multiculturalism, population control and the idea that humanity itself is the enemy requiring global governance.

Ted Turner's creation was steeped in Club of Rome thinking that treated pollution and climate as a common enemy to justify changed attitudes and supranational control.

The method is consistent: identify a captive, trusting audience, embed the message inside drama so it feels organic, and watch compliance rise. Packham is simply asking for the same treatment for net-zero ideology.

While Packham demands soaps lecture viewers about "climate breakdown," the actual evidence keeps undercutting the apocalyptic script. A bombshell Royal Society paper concluded that climate change is not causing mass extinctions, directly challenging one of the most repeated scare claims.

The IPCC itself has admitted that its most extreme apocalyptic scenarios are implausible, a quiet but significant climb-down from the catastrophe rhetoric used to justify rapid policy upheaval.

Research examining three million years of data has found no consistent link between CO2 levels and temperature, leaving net-zero activists without a straightforward causal story.

Temperature records underpinning the COP30 alarmist agenda have been shown to rest on heavily adjusted and questionable data, further eroding the foundation of official claims.

Even Bill Gates has publicly walked back the idea that climate change will end the world, prompting a triumphant response from those who have long argued the threat was overstated.

Meanwhile the Great Barrier Reef continues to defy the narrative, recording its fifth-highest coral cover on record even as media outlets insist a tipping point has been reached.

A major US government report has catalogued the systematic abuses of "settled" climate science and the role those abuses have played in driving net-zero policies that impose heavy economic costs for uncertain benefits.

The milder public messaging about weather reports and soap storylines sits alongside far more radical demands. Some German climate groups have openly called for total deindustrialisation of their country within 15 years, treating economic self-destruction as a moral necessity.

Others treat the entire agenda as a quasi-religious cult, complete with orthodoxy, heretics and demands for collective sacrifice that go well beyond practical environmental protection.

When the warming narrative softens under the weight of contradictory data, the same voices simply pivot. Scientists have revived ice-age doom scenarios, and Al Gore has shifted his public emphasis in ways that suggest the next scare is already being prepared.

Earlier claims of imminent climate armageddon have been quietly cancelled or scaled back, yet the institutional machinery that produced them remains intact and ready for the next iteration.

Packham's EastEnders pitch is the latest attempt to keep the emotional temperature high after the hard data has cooled.

Flood Albert Square on screen, march through with a placard, and hope the audience never notices that the real-world evidence keeps failing to match the script.

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 Fri, 07/24/2026 - 03:30

EU Approves Biggest Russia Sanctions Yet After Holdout Greece Secured LNG Exemption

What is there left to sanction and what is its effectiveness? Europe is boasting of no less that its 21st package of sanctions against Russia, approved by the EU on Thursday.

Apparently it has found plenty of entities still to sanction, as the compiled blacklisting is said to be the EU's largest in four years, targeting primarily financial and energy sectors. The bloc also agreed to freeze the Russian oil price cap at current levels for another year, alongside issuing 218 new designations.

Getty Images

"At a time when Ukraine has built military momentum, our sanctions continue to weaken the economic foundations of Russia’s war effort," EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.

And Kaja Kallas, High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and chair of the Foreign Affairs Council, announced that "With each round of sanctions, we squeeze Russia's economy and its capacity to prolong its illegal war. Our 21st package includes the highest number of listings in four years."

She described: "We’re hitting over a hundred banks and crypto operators, 40+ vessels in Russia’s shadow fleet, and several oil refineries in Russia and Belarus. More than 50 military-industrial entities are included, key actors involved in the production of Russia's long-range drones. Russia will only negotiate to end its illegal war and stop killing civilians if it is pressured to do so. Sanctions add to this pressure."

Notably the EU is targeting not just Russia's so-called shadow fleet, but any vessel that even assists ships under sanction. According to a rundown via an EU media readout:

Concerning energy, today’s package pauses the automatic adjustment of the oil price cap mechanism until 15 July 2027. This is to ensure that Russia's profits from oil sales remain contained, despite the exceptional market situation caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Today’s agreement foresees an interim review of the suspension to ensure that the mechanism remains necessary and proportionate. The EU is also continuing to target the shadow fleet by extending the scope of the existing rules also to cover vessels supporting the shadow fleet, by providing bunkering and other services, and listing 41 more vessels on top of the 632 already sanctioned. These measures target non-EU tankers that are part of the shadow fleet circumventing the oil price cap mechanism, that support Russia’s energy sector in other ways, or that transport military equipment for Russia or stolen Ukrainian grain. The EU is designating 8 entities and 1 individual active in the shadow fleet ecosystem, including companies operating on behalf of Russia’s oil majors and, for the first time, a crewing agency providing support to the shadow fleet.

Furthermore, the EU is targeting the oil sector, in particular refineries. It is designating 18 entities and 1 individual in the oil sector, including 3 refineries in Russia, a major Belarusian oil refinery, as well as a company created to sell Belarusian petroleum products within Russia. In addition, the package creates the possibility to prohibit transactions with listed refineries in Russia and in third countries which process or refine Russian crude oil and petroleum products. In that framework, the EU is imposing a transaction ban – entering into force in six months - on a Georgian refinery trading and processing Russian oil in Kulevi. Furthermore, the EU added five oil traders to the entities subject to transaction ban for frustrating the prohibition on purchasing Russian crude oil and petroleum products.

With the Iran war and Hormuz crisis seeing rising oil prices, Russia might not find itself so squeezed after all?

"Russia's state oil and gas revenue, which accounts for around a fifth ​of total budget income, is seen rising ‌by 60% in July from the same month a year ago thanks to the increase in ​global oil prices, Reuters calculations showed ​on Thursday.

A steep rise from profit-based… pic.twitter.com/tFLV902APw

— Rob Lee (@RALee85) July 23, 2026

Also notable is that Russian LNG is to remain partially exempt from EU sanctions - in what some analysts are calling a sign of weakness.

EU countries have reached a deal on a sweeping 21st sanctions package against Moscow.

It was only possible by allowing Greece to keep sending Russian gas to countries outside the bloc.

🔗 https://t.co/tqqhCCbmqW pic.twitter.com/TRpiygcDQL

— POLITICOEurope (@POLITICOEurope) July 23, 2026

After previously holding up the EU passage of the new anti-Moscow measures, Greece won an exemption permitting continued shipments of Russian LNG to non-EU buyers indefinitely.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/24/2026 - 02:45

The Multipolaristas' Are China-Maxxing

Authored by Iain Davis via Off-Guardian.org,

Let’s consider the arguments of those who advocate global governance, the people whom Hrvoje Morić identifies as the Multipolaristas. They are often engaged in China-maxxing and are, whether they know it or not, essentially serving as propagandists for the global oligarchy.

Research conducted by analysts working for the South China Morning Post (SCMP)—an English-speaking, Western-aligned Chinese news outlet—suggests that, between 2015 and 2025, a notable shift occurred in the way China and its government were portrayed by the leading Western media organisations.

Chief analyst Jianlu Bi, who is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Policy Studies and a research fellow at the Charhar Institute in Beijing, wrote:

[N]early 70 per cent of stories covering China’s economy, technology or environment in 2019 had a negative tone [but] by 2025, the share of negative stories dropped to around 40 per cent, along with an increase in neutral coverage across all categories and positive coverage of the [Chinese] economy.

This notable Western media narrative shift is part of a wider trend that can be described as “China-maxxing.” With outlets like The Economist, the Financial Times, and The New York Times—all previously known for their staunch anti-China propaganda—now quite regularly extolling the virtues of China and, most notably, its economy, “China-maxxing” is an identifiable phenomenon.

The Western mainstream media is gradually shifting to sell the Chinese government to us as the “good guys.”

Recently, Elon Musk has engaged in some China-maxxing of his own. Musk is part of the gaggle of oligarchs eager to roll out AI data centers wherever they can. Musk was keen to point out that the only national government that has, in his view, adopted the right approach is China’s:

The availability of energy is the issue. If you look at electrical output outside of China, it’s more or less flat. Very slight increase, but pretty much flat. [. . .] If you’re putting data centers anywhere except China, where are you going to get your electricity? Especially as you scale, how are you going to turn the chips on? Magical power sources? Magical electricity fairies?

The previous blanket Western media vilification of China was always absurd state propaganda. China has been framed as the comic-book villain to encourage Western populations to accept further suppressions of their rights by their own governments and to claim justification for increased public spending on the Western military-intelligence complex.

Meanwhile, the multinational corporations that benefit from the government contracts, supposedly awarded to protect Western populations from the fabricated Chinese threat, such as Musk’s SpaceX, are led by oligarchs who genuinely pose a threat to everyone.

Though he didn’t use the term himself, in trying to explain China-maxxing, Mr. Jianlu offered a list of potential reasons for it. These included the Western media’s recognition of China’s technological and economic progress, the Chinese government’s apparent commitment to tackling climate change, its drive for efficiency, and so on. Jianlu argued that all of this has combined to force Western media outlets to reevaluate how they cover China and China-related matters.

Nation-states and national governments are set to be replaced by a global Technocracy. At some point, therefore, the conversation about moving away from the extant governance system to which people are accustomed to the new one has to commence.

Returning to Jianlu’s analysis, he is a leading Western policy think tank representative, and the media outlets he discussed primarily serve as propagandists for Western policy. Buried in the analysis, there is a brief statement that indicates what the real purpose of China-maxxing is:

Unlike the US, where policy shifts can abruptly occur due to political changes and short-term economic pressures, [. . .] China’s long-term strategic planning and consistent policy implementation have yielded results.

Dark Enlightenment-enthused oligarchs like Peter Thiel want to “escape from politics in all its forms,” and beyond dictatorship, there is no political mechanism of any kind in the Technocracy advocated by oligarchs like Elon Musk.

The oligarchy intends to make itself the feudal lords (founders) of private smart city-states similar to those currently being developed in China. The UN desires the same transformation. China-maxxing suits their shared agenda perfectly.

China-maxxing is yet more Western media propaganda, this time intended to convince Westerners that the model of government they are accustomed to no longer works. The Chinese development of Technocracy is better because it “yields[s] results.” Irrespective of the fact that no Westphalian-model Western government has ever operated as a democracy, China-maxxing has arrived to persuade Westerners that the so-called “representative democracies” that they have been misled to believe are democracies are now surplus to requirements.

Multipolaristas, specifically those working in the independent media, perhaps unwittingly argue that the dictatorial state control of human beings’ access to resources is acceptable because the accompanying surveillance state seemingly “yields[s] results.” Some say it reduces crime or that the gleaming towers of the new city-states are so beautifully clean and convenient. Others that China’s infrastructure investment strategy shows the world a clear alternative to austerity.

China is nation-building while Western nations decline and collapse. Chinese Technocracy “yields[s] results” that failing Western nations cannot match. Unless, logically, they too adopt Technocracy.

To an extent, the Multipolaristas make reasonable points. Who wouldn’t want to live in safe, clean cities? Who wants austerity when the state could invest in much-needed infrastructure instead? Who wouldn’t want the employment opportunities and the economic benefits that result? But all of the Multipolarista’s ostensibly reasonable observations and commentaries are based upon fatal omissions that result in them essentially spreading Western propaganda, intentionally or otherwise.

No state needs to impose a centralised technological population surveillance system in order to improve public safety, clean the environment or the streets, or invest in public infrastructure and its own economy. By effectively promoting global governance and Technocracy, the Multipolaristas’ foolhardy suggestion is that functional oligarchies are benevolent and that we should trust them.

Oligarchs are constructing their digital kill chains, and oligarchs like Musk are also promoters of China’s blossoming Technate. This is not a coincidence.

There are no historical examples of a state ever successfully imposing the full gamut of despotic behavioural control systems on a large population. But with its Greater Bay Area initiative, linking China’s numerous smart city projects together, China is reaching that point. Now Western mainstream and independent media outlets are showcasing China’s development to sell all the alleged benefits of Technocracy to Western populations.

Neither fascism nor communism even comes close to the behavioural dictatorship Technocracy is designed to inflict. Ignoring this aspect of China’s undoubtedly impressive modernisation is an epistemological error so profound it renders the rest of the Multipolaristas’ arguments practically irrelevant.

If the objective was not to enslave us, no state and no oligarch would construct Technates. The sole purpose of Technocracy is systematic human bondage.

From humanity’s perspective, there is nothing good about living in a Technocracy. No matter what incentives we are given, irrespective of the claimed benefits offered to entice us, giving our consent to those who wish to foist Technocracy upon us is an act of generational suicide.

There is, of course, no reason why we should agree to any of it.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/24/2026 - 02:00

The Odyssey And The Tiresome Woke War Against White Culture

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us

We’ve all heard the argument for most of our lives: “White culture doesn’t exist.” It’s perhaps the most common racial refrain because it’s the most socially acceptable to repeat. If someone said “Black culture doesn’t exist because black people all herald from different tribes…” that person would be browbeaten as a bigot by the woke mob. When it comes to white culture, such claims are applauded.

The question is, why is it okay to diminish or denigrate white culture while worshiping every other culture? Furthermore, if white culture doesn’t exist, why are woke minority groups constantly trying to hijack white history and accomplishments?

I want to explore this issue a little more deeply, mostly because of the endless targeting of western civilization through the leftist deconstruction of our most popular figures and mythologies. This time, the Hollywood elites have chosen Homer’s The Odyssey, an ancient Greek classic deeply rooted in western history (white history), as their victim.

Hollywood has pulled out ALL the stops for this movie and I suspect it’s because they are desperate. They are desperate for a woke win. They’ve had hundreds of failures both in film and television in the past few years and it’s starting to look like “Get Woke, Go Broke” is becoming the dominant force in popular discourse. The leftists can’t stand it.

In response, Hollywood has stacked the deck – They brought in Christopher Nolan, one of the only directors left in the industry who still has a built-in audience of simps who will go see his movies regardless of their quality. The distributors have focused on IMAX ticket sales for a wealthier clientele, artificially inflating the overall box office take.

The media has been running non-stop interference, promoting the movie heavily months in advance. Evidence also suggests that Rotten Tomatoes is once again rigging the audience score for this film by rejecting most negative reviews (they have done this with multiple woke tent pole movies over the years).

Hilariously, journalists are already declaring The Odyssey “proof” that “Get Woke, Go Broke” is a fallacy. As I write this, the movie hasn’t made a dime in profit yet. What I find most interesting, however, is that these activist journalists are actually using the phrase “Get Woke, Go Broke” in their vernacular. It’s an indirect admission of their agenda.

They are specifically citing our movement as their enemy and declaring us “defeated” because The Odyssey is projected to make money. By default, they are admitting that we are a threat to them, and that The Odyssey is a woke project designed to “silence us.” But why does this matter?

It’s important to understand that leftists think like children. They believe that having a “majority” is the same as being right; having a majority to them is the same as having power. If the Odyssey is a box office success, they think this proves that they are the dominant political movement.

They don’t care if their supposed majority is actually astroturf; if they can fool the public into thinking the political left has a social mandate, this will win them control over the culture. In other words, they’re trying to manufacture a consensus.

The Odyssey film is a clear salvo aimed directly at conservatives and western history. It is a multicultural travesty, a joke of a movie filled with historical inaccuracies and based on a deconstructionist translation written by a feminist academic from Oxford (Emily Wilson). The movie explicitly undermines the heroism of the story and makes Odysseus a broken man, suffering from “trauma” and PTSD over his regrets of the war and his “colonist” behavior.

But the spurious additions to the mythology are less interesting to me than the reasons they were included.

The deconstruction of Odysseus reminds me of what Kathleen Kennedy and friends at Disney did to Luke Skywalker in “The Last Jedi”. They took a brilliant, courageous and moral man and turned him into a shattered, crusty and nihilistic little bitch – completely the opposite of his original character. This was not a mistake, this was quite deliberate.

White people are not allowed to have bold, wise and confident heroes. We’re supposed to regret our history and our accomplishments. We’re not supposed to celebrate such things, because that might inspire us to be bold, wise and confident today.

The race swapped cast of The Odyssey featuring black actors, Hispanics, Asians, and other people (including a transgender Ellen Page playing a male Greek warrior) who would never have populated Homer’s era is the common angle of attack for woke Hollywood, but it’s not the only attack. If a main protagonist is white, as is the case in Nolan’s film, he must be torn down and made weak. He must be portrayed as shamed and desperate for redemption, which, of course, he will only receive by embracing progressive ideals.

The last thing Hollywood wants is to portray a white hero who is unapologetic for his actions and values.

This is the underlying woke messaging that really poisons the well when it comes to The Odyssey. The minority actors are primarily a shield from criticism. If anyone complains about African or Hispanic or Asian actors in a Greek epic, the media can pull the “racism” card and dismiss the issue outright. They assert that we merely hate seeing minorities in movies.

But it’s not minorities in movies that we have a problem with; it’s the injection of woke propaganda. This is the real crime. If Christopher Nolan made a film based on the African “Epic of Liyongo” from the 9th Century and he replaced the Swahili characters with white actors in a bid to hijack African history, the left wing would lose their collective minds and scream “cultural appropriation.”  The double standard is obvious.

Will Odyssey make a profit? Possibly. The movie had a big first weekend, but adjusted for inflation it didn’t even crack the top fifty on the list of opening weekend box office winners. The film has to make around $700 million in order to break even, not counting the 20% of the gross receipts that go to Christopher Nolan according to his contract.

I am doubtful that the studio will make much money on this flick, but Hollywood will declare it a victory all the same. Firstly, because no woke movie has had similar momentum in years. And secondly, because the political left is dying and they need a very public win in order to justify their habit of doubling down on failure.

Any sane and intelligent person would point out that one “successful” movie does not make up for the cemetery filled with woke box office disasters. This doesn’t matter to the activist mob. They think that one win will erase all their previous losses.

Furthermore, The Odyssey is intended to act as a continuation of the long Marxist march towards a multicultural west and the end of white history as we know it.

Homer’s epic poem was composed around 2800 years ago and is one of the oldest surviving works of literature in human history. It stands as a testament to the incredible accomplishments of the western world; part of the wellspring from which the modern west poured forth.

At the time The Odyssey was created, the Mediterranean was overwhelmingly Caucasian according to genetic records. This includes North Africa, which was majority Caucasian and largely “white” by modern standards. It should be noted that Sub-Saharan Africans did not exist in any notable quantity in North Africa or the Mediterranean until many centuries later because travel across the deserts of central Africa prevented their migration north for thousands of years.

Arabs were also limited and did not occupy the region in great numbers until the invasion of the Muslim hordes long after Homer lived.

Numerous images from the ancient Greeks and Macedonians, including pottery, murals and other surviving art, depict people of fair skin, often with blue eyes, and in some cases blonde hair, etc. In other words, they were white – Varying shades of white, but still white.

Simply pointing out this historical and scientific fact will immediately trigger the woke mob and their academic allies. You will be inundated with a flurry of exceptions and some tiresome mental gymnastics about why the people of these early civilizations were not really “white”. Remember, “white culture doesn’t exist”, only other cultures exist.

Far too many critics and historical conspiracy nuts actually think the demographics of North Africa and the Mediterranean in the time of Homer were the same as the demographics of North Africa and the Mediterranean today. They don’t know anything about the great migration shifts of the Middle Ages or the invasion of the Muslims. No meaningful discussion can be had with these people because their point of reference is built on pure ignorance.

Beyond that, there is another subset of dishonest people (woke leftists) who see it as their duty to undermine white history and rewrite as if it never existed. They often cater to the inferiority complexes of minority groups by asserting that white history is actually THEIR history. White people just “stole” accomplishments from other civilizations and replaced them over time.

This is part of the narrative that motivates the discourse over Christopher Nolan’s dismal film version of The Odyssey. It is a woke treatise, a magic talisman designed to brown-wash and feminize yet another piece of western heritage. It’s part of a greater agenda to make white people forget who we are, or at the very least, make us ashamed of who we are.

The end game? Like I said, it’s about the multicultural takeover of the western world. Everything stems from this scheme. Hollywood’s woke reboots are rooted in it. The mass immigration policies of leftist governments drive the agenda forward. The deconstruction of our history in public schools and colleges is designed to indoctrinate children so they never learn the truth.

Until one day, we look around, and everything that makes us who we are is gone, from meritocracy to republicanism, from Christianity to critical thinking, from innovation to entrepreneurship, from individual liberty to free markets, from property to responsibility, and yes, colonialism (the act of improving third world hellholes where people are incapable of improving their own surroundings so they don’t turn into pillagers trying to invade our countries).

All of it replaced with a socialist purgatory in which everyone is equally pathetic, hopeless and useless.

The whole conspiracy has become quite transparent and grimly boring. Luckily, one garbage movie isn’t going to change the overwhelming trend, which is the slow but steady decline of left-wing insanity. Nothing they are doing is hidden from us. We see it all, and in the long run, they’re going to lose. It’s inevitable.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/23/2026 - 23:25

China Plans Planetary Defense Test By Slamming Mach 26 Spacecraft Into Asteroid

A new paper under peer review by the Chinese-language Journal of Deep Space Exploration lays out an ambitious plan to crash a spacecraft at Mach 26, or 20,000 mph, into a near-Earth asteroid to test new planetary defenses.

The South China Morning Post reports that a team led by Li Mingtao, chief scientist for planetary defense at the China National Space Administration, is planning a mission even more ambitious than NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART).

That mission would slam a spacecraft into 2015 XF261, an asteroid estimated to be about 30 meters wide, in either 2029 or 2030.

"Dart was the first to demonstrate asteroid deflection by kinetic impact in space, but it did not directly change an asteroid's orbit around the sun relative to Earth, making it different from a real planetary-defense scenario," the researchers wrote in the report.

The planned impact would be nearly 50% faster than NASA’s 2022 DART, which hit the asteroid Dimorphos at 6.1 kilometers per second, or about Mach 18.

According to the paper, the mission calls for two spacecraft: one interceptor and one observation spacecraft, which would use a Venus gravity assist before rendezvousing with the target. It would deploy a small probe to monitor the collision and measure changes to the asteroid's orbit, shape, surface, and internal structure.

"Focusing on China's first asteroid-defense demonstration and verification mission, planned for implementation before 2030, this paper systematically reviews the frontier scientific questions in kinetic-impact asteroid defense to support mission design, implementation, and preliminary scientific research," the researchers said.

If successful, the test would become China's first end-to-end demonstration of an operational planetary-defense system. It will help scientists better understand how – and when – a kinetic impactor spacecraft could be used to deflect an Earth-bound asteroid.

Meanwhile, SpaceX will launch the NEO Surveyor asteroid-detection telescope no earlier than September 2027, which will discover and monitor most of the potentially hazardous asteroids and comets that come within 30 million miles of Earth's orbit.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/23/2026 - 23:00

Will The Supreme Court Legalize Home Distilling?

Authored by Andrew M. Grossman & Robert Alt via RealClearPolicy,

Ohioan John Ream is an accomplished aerospace engineer and brewery owner. He would like to try his hand at making Bourbon. However, federal law prohibits distilling spirited beverages at home. On Monday, he filed a petition in the Supreme Court of the United States asking it to hear his case, which raises important questions about the limits of federal power.

Home distilling is, of course, as American as apple pie, and certainly a lot older. George Washington's Mount Vernon estate featured a distillery that, by 1799, was producing more than 10,000 gallons of whiskey per year. Nonetheless, Congress barred distilling inside any "dwelling house" or "shed, yard, or inclosure connected with a dwelling house" in what was, by all indications, a sop to the temperance movement. Later, Prohibition killed off what remained of craft spirits production.

The home-distilling ban ultimately survived both Prohibition and repeal, along with the distilled-spirits tax. Under the law, distilling, or even owning a set-up still, in a prohibited location like a home is punishable by fines, property forfeiture, and imprisonment. Given the draconian penalties, it's little surprise that hobby distilling has floundered while craft brewing and small-batch winemaking, both of which the law allows, have flourished.

Mr. Ream filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging whether that disparity has any lawful basis. The federal government, after all, possesses only the limited powers specified in the constitutional text. States, meanwhile, retain broad authority to legislate for the public good. This vertical separation of powers between the federal government and the states promotes accountability, responsiveness, and ultimately individual freedom.

Or it would, if the Court hadn't refashioned the Constitution's Commerce Clause, which authorizes Congress to "regulate Commerce...among the several States," and had long been understood to reach only interstate trade and the channels of such trade. But in the 1942 Wickard v. Filburn ruling, the Supreme Court eviscerated such limitations. At issue was a Soviet-inspired law capping wheat production to "rationalize" the agricultural sector and, by limiting its volume, drive up prices. Roscoe Filburn was an Ohio farmer who exceeded the imposed cap and grew enough wheat to feed both his family and the animals on his farm. The Court held that Congress may regulate any activity that, in aggregate, has a substantial effect on interstate commerce. Because widespread home-production of wheat would prevent Congress from regulating interstate prices, Congress could therefore restrict home production as part of its price-regulation scheme.

For the six decades following Wickard, the Court demurred in enforcing the Commerce Clause's limits. But by the mid-1990s, the Court appeared ready to chart a new course. First, it struck down the Gun-Free School Zones Act in a 1995 decision, United States v. Lopez, reasoning that merely carrying a gun near a school was too attenuated from interstate commerce to substantially affect it. Then the Court doubled down in United States v. Morrison (2000), which held unconstitutional a federal statute authorizing lawsuits by victims of gender-motivated violence. Morrison pared back Wickard's aggregation principle, suggesting that it applies only to inherently economic activities, and refused to defer to Congress's view on whether local activities substantially affect interstate commerce. Legal observers proclaimed a nascent "federalism revolution."

It didn't last. The promise of Lopez and Morrison was cut short by a 2005 decision, Gonzales v. Raich, upholding the Controlled Substances Act's prohibition on the home cultivation and consumption of marijuana subject to state regulation. Going well beyond Wickard, Raich applied its aggregation principle to noncommercial activity and adopted the maximally deferential "rational basis" standard for assessing Congress's need to regulate non-interstate activities. Taken on its own terms, Raich all but declares that anything goes with regard to regulation under the Commerce Clause.

One doubts that is the view of the current Court. Justice Thomas is the sole holdover from Raich, from which he dissented. His opinion explained how, if the Raich majority were right, then "the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers." Chief Justice Roberts wielded that same logic in his opinion holding that Obamacare's "individual mandate" to purchase health insurance was not authorized by the Commerce Clause, and the dissent joined by Justices Thomas and Samuel Alito reasoned similarly. Although the justices appointed by President Trump have not been afforded the occasion to opine on the Commerce Clause's limits, all three take seriously the Constitution's original meaning, its structural features, and the enumeration of powers as a constraint on federal power. Expect them to be more skeptical of assertions of federal authority than was the Raich majority.

John Ream's current challenge to the home-distilling ban takes aim at the excesses of Raich, and would be a meaningful first step toward rekindling the federalism revolution.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld the home-distilling prohibition, ruling that the ban, while not a tax, "is a necessary and proper means of collecting the federal excise tax on spirits," because stills could be hidden within homes in order to evade taxation.

The more defensible view on this same matter was expressed in a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit decision by Judge Edith Jones issued eleven days earlier. Far from furthering collection of the tax, the ban serves to "reduce revenue by preventing individuals from making distilled spirits" otherwise subject to taxation. It would be improper to allow Congress to "criminalize nearly any at-home conduct only because it has the possibility of concealing taxable activity."

The split between the Fifth and Sixth Circuits on the home-distilling ban's constitutionality is reason enough for the Supreme Court to take Ream's case, resolve this conflict, and provide national uniformity in the law. But there's also a need for further clarity on the Commerce Clause and Raich's continued viability. Given the massive growth of the federal government and its intrusion into every facet of modern life, there are few issues more important or pressing for the Court's consideration.

Andrew M. Grossman and Robert Alt represent John Ream in his litigation and also the plaintiffs who prevailed before the Fifth Circuit. Mr. Alt is President and CEO of The Buckeye Institute, where Mr. Grossman is a Senior Legal Fellow.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/23/2026 - 22:35

Mapping Americans' Per Capita Health Care Spending By State

Health care represents a major share of consumer spending in America, but the amount spent per resident varies considerably by location.

New data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis highlights the differences in per-capita health care spending across the country in 2024.

The map below, via Visual Capitalist's Srijaa Chatterjee, ranks every state using the latest Personal Consumption Expenditures by State data from the BEA. Figures are reported in current dollars and allocated according to residents’ state of residence.

Which States Spend the Most on Health Care?

Below is a ranking of states based on per-person health care spending:

Rank State Per-Capita Health Care Spending 1 Alaska $14,044 2 District of Columbia $13,865 3 South Dakota $12,451 4 New York $12,221 5 West Virginia $12,055 6 Delaware $11,987 7 Massachusetts $11,985 8 North Dakota $11,667 9 Vermont $11,493 10 Indiana $11,071 11 California $11,054 12 Maine $10,913 13 New Hampshire $10,682 14 Connecticut $10,639 15 Minnesota $10,567 16 New Jersey $10,468 17 Pennsylvania $10,262 18 Ohio $10,202 19 Nebraska $10,192 20 Louisiana $10,148 21 Wisconsin $10,079 22 Missouri $10,036 23 Kentucky $9,964 24 Oregon $9,931 25 Illinois $9,895 26 Rhode Island $9,864 27 Hawaii $9,808 28 Montana $9,747 29 Washington $9,693 30 Wyoming $9,640 31 Florida $9,545 32 Maryland $9,456 33 Virginia $9,123 34 Kansas $9,066 35 Oklahoma $9,052 36 Michigan $9,023 37 Colorado $8,871 38 Tennessee $8,761 39 North Carolina $8,744 40 Georgia $8,680 41 Iowa $8,660 42 Arkansas $8,562 43 Arizona $8,556 44 New Mexico $8,469 45 Mississippi $8,135 46 Idaho $8,078 47 Alabama $7,980 48 Texas $7,807 49 South Carolina $7,741 50 Nevada $7,536 51 Utah $7,233

Alaska spent nearly twice as much per resident on health care as Utah in 2024.

Several Northeastern states, along with South Dakota and Washington, D.C., also ranked near the top. Meanwhile, much of the Mountain West and South recorded below-average spending.

Why Do Some States Spend More Than Others?

Higher spending does not necessarily mean residents receive more medical care.

Numerous studies have found that differences in prices, especially for hospital and physician services, explain much more of the variation in U.S. health spending than differences in how often people use care. Administrative costs, provider wages, and regional labor markets also play major roles.

State-specific factors matter as well. Alaska’s remote geography and limited provider network make delivering care significantly more expensive, while states with older populations often spend more because seniors tend to use more medical services.

Broader insurance coverage can also increase the share of care captured in personal consumption expenditures.

Health Care Spending Continues to Climb

Nationally, health care expenditures continue to rise.

CMS projects U.S. health spending will approach $9 trillion annually by 2034, driven by increased enrollment in Medicare and Medicaid, along with continued growth in health care prices. Despite already spending more per person than any comparable high-income country, the U.S. is expected to devote an even larger share of its economy to health care over the next decade.

International comparisons show the U.S. spends substantially more on health care than other high-income countries, largely because medical services cost more rather than because Americans use dramatically more care.

As national spending continues to rise, the nearly twofold gap between states highlights how geography remains a major factor in what Americans ultimately spend on health care.

If you enjoyed this visualization, check out Americans Pay More for Healthcare, Yet Have Shorter Life Expectancy on the Voronoi app, where you can discover thousands of data-driven charts from trusted sources covering health, economics, markets, and more.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/23/2026 - 22:10

Waste Of The Day: Education Fraud Sweeps Nation

Authored by Jeremy Portnoy via RealClearInvestigations,

Topline: Since 2019, school districts across 24 states and Puerto Rico have lost $225 million to fraud confirmed by the U.S. Department of Education inspector general's semiannual report to Congress. No more than $67 million has been recovered.

Key facts: Open the Books and the State Financial Officers Foundation documented 74 instances of confirmed school fraud, averaging over $3 million each. There are far more that have gone unprosecuted or undetected.

Florida and Illinois schools each had the most instances of fraud with 11.

Indiana lost the most money - $44 million - due to inflated attendance numbers that increased state funding to two schools. The schools' founder then allegedly sent the money to companies he owned. The schools closed in 2019, and four alleged conspirators were charged in 2024.

At Broward County Public Schools in Florida, information officer Anthony Hunter allegedly used district funds to buy $17 million worth of school supplies from a friend's business, ignoring the competitive bidding process. In return, the friend hired Hunter and his son to work a security job and sold Hunter a house for $150,000 below market value, state prosecutors claim

Chicago Public Schools received $1 million of federal grants meant for Native American students, using an application that included more than 1,000 students of South Asian descent. The district was unable to verify how many students were actually in the program, and agreed to repay the money.

Fraud arguably hits small school districts the hardest because they have fewer budgetary resources to begin with. When Janis Bucknor, former head of Community Preparatory Academy in California, admitted to stealing $3 million from the school over five years, it amounted to one-third of all the school's state and federal funding.

Bucknor spent $220,600 of the money on Disney vacations and also funded her internet shopping and private school tuition for her kids. She was sentenced to three years of home detention and ordered to repay the money.

Summary: The government loses hundreds of billions of dollars to fraud annually, but redirecting money away from children's education is especially egregious.

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

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/23/2026 - 21:45

India Targets Five Small Modular Reactors By 2033

India expects to build domestically five small modular reactors (SMRs) by 2033, India’s Atomic Energy Minister, Jitendra Singh, said. The five SMRs would be part of India’s push to accelerate nuclear power capacity installations over the next two decades, the minister told lawmakers in a written reply to questions as carried by local media.

The Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), India’s premier nuclear research facility under the Department of Atomic Energy, is currently developing a 220-MW Bharat Small Modular Reactor, a 55-MW reactor, and a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor designed to produce hydrogen, Singh said quoted by OilPrice.com.

As per India’s nuclear energy roadmap, the country aims to boost its installed nuclear power capacity from 8.78 gigawatts (GW) now to about 22 GW by the 2031-32 fiscal year, the minister said.

India goal is to boost its installed nuclear power capacity to 100 GW by 2047, up from just 8.8 GW now. This would require as much as 19.28 trillion Indian rupees, or $200 billion at current exchange rates, of cumulative capital, a panel set up by India’s power ministry said in the ‘roadmap to 100 GW’ report last year.

At the end of 2025, India’s government approved the landmark Atomic Energy Bill, which allows private companies to invest in its nuclear energy industry for the first time, as the country looks to boost nuclear power capacity tenfold within two decades.

The so-called SHANTI (Sustainable Harnessing of Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India) Act could drive huge investments from private companies in India’s nuclear energy sector.

Yet, Indian state-owned NTPC Ltd, the biggest utility in the country, is expected to account for 30% of the new nuclear power capacity installations by 2047.

NTPC, currently the only nuclear power generator in India, is now looking to acquire stakes in uranium assets globally to secure fuel for the expected massive expansion of India’s nuclear power capacity.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/23/2026 - 21:20

Behind America's Growing 'Food Freedom' Movement

Authored by Jeff Louderback via The Epoch Times,

Joel Salatin wants to liberate Americans from over-regulation with neighbor-to-neighbor food commerce.

Salatin, who runs Polyface Farm in the hills of Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, is pitching the concept of a "Food Emancipation Proclamation."

Chickens, turkeys, and cows at Polyface Farms, in Swoope, Va., and The Family Cow, in Chambersburg, Pa., in these file photos. The regenerative farms are part of a growing push for “food emancipation”—neighbors feeding neighbors. Courtesy of Polyface Farms, Courtesy of The Family Cow

Through what he envisions as a federal declaration, consenting adults would be allowed to buy and sell homemade and farmstead food directly, without the costly commercial infrastructure and cumbersome government regulation currently in place.

Salatin's mission reflects a push among homesteaders and independent farmers to cultivate local food networks, where food is grown and raised without chemicals and consumers can gain a more transparent connection to how food is produced.

The Next 15 Years

At its core, food emancipation and local food networks are about neighbors feeding neighbors, sidestepping a system many no longer trust.

Salatin told The Epoch Times that the American food system is at a historic inflection point. He points to an aging farm class; the average American farmer is now around 60 years old.

Around half of U.S. agricultural equity is expected to change hands in the next 15 years, he said.

"That's the most unprecedented peaceful transfer in modern history," he said.

In 2025, Americans spent 56.3 percent of their food dollars on items prepared outside the home, at restaurants, at fast-food chains, and through takeout delivery services. Overall, out-of-home food spending reached a record $1.41 trillion out of a total $2.51 trillion in national food spending, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Meanwhile, the farmer's share of the retail food dollar after production expenses has plummeted to roughly 5.8 cents today, according to the USDA. That figure was 40 cents in the mid-20th century.

The idea of food emancipation is simple: Let small producers legally and freely sell directly to the people who want their food.

Salatin notes that the real barrier to young people entering farming is not access to land alone, but the inability to profit from small-scale, value-added food production under existing rules.

He illustrates the gap with a simple calculation.

On a couple of acres, a farmer might raise 1,200 pastured chickens, selling them as whole birds or cut-up parts at an average of about $30 per bird, yielding $36,000 in gross income, he said.

If that same farmer could legally turn those birds into homemade chicken pot pies - free of dyes, seed oils, and industrial additives - and market them as high-quality convenience food, the average value per bird could jump to around $200, he explained, turning the same flock into $240,000 in revenue on the same land.

Once a farmer moves from raw ingredients to prepared foods, the regulatory threshold explodes, going from a home kitchen with existing equipment to what he described as "a half-million-dollar requirement to sell one chicken pot pie."

Saving The Family Farm

Pennsylvania dairy farmer Edwin Shank told The Epoch Times that his family nearly lost a four-generation farm after expanding from 40 to 300 cows under university-driven advice that prioritized volume above all else.

Despite filling a tractor-trailer with milk every two days, the Shanks were going bankrupt.

Milk checks came once a month - whatever the processor felt like paying. His banker warned that if nothing changed in three to four months, the farm would be gone.

A family portrait from that period, he said, looks idyllic - flowers, six children, a tidy yard - but behind the smiles they "were losing the farm."

"Inside the fence, hope is outside the fence," he said, quoting a conventional dairyman who described it as "a hard time to be a farmer these days."

The Shanks' response was to step outside the fence.

They converted their operation to certified organic; then, with borrowed money and little capital, they began selling raw milk directly from the farm under Pennsylvania's permit system. They couldn't afford a modern facility, so they bought used refrigerated semi-trailers - or reefers - for a few thousand dollars each and bolted them together into a makeshift cold-storage complex.

Business started to flourish after a phone call from New Jersey. A mother in Trenton asked if Shank could deliver raw milk across the state line. Legally, he could not, but he took a cue from Salatin.

"I told her, 'I can't deliver to you alone, but if you have enough friends, I can meet you at the state line,'" Shank recalled. The customer organized five families. That was enough for Shank to load his minivan and make the three-hour trip.

He drove down I-95 and reached the exit ramp to New Hope.

"Right there, it went through me," he said. "God, are you telling me something?"

That first drop point grew into a network of 55 delivery locations. Shank's business, The Family Cow, ships raw dairy, grass-fed beef, pastured pork and poultry, and other regenerative products five days a week to thousands of households.

'Survival Of The Collaborators'

Around 90 percent of the business is now online, Shank said, with about 10 percent sold through a new on-farm retail store and cafe that offers sourdough-based sandwiches piled high with organic, grass-fed meats and slathered in real butter.

Shank abandoned the idea that his farm had to produce everything it sold. He opted to develop what he calls "survival of the collaborators."

Multiple family farms share production.

Two dairies supply raw milk, seven families produce pastured eggs, and 11 families raise grass-fed beef. Other families specialize in pastured pork, turkeys, and piglets.

The Family Cow brought aboard three young families to raise pastured poultry. The farm provided the market, butchering, and marketing know-how, while the families provided the labor and land. In their first year, the group produced 10,000 chickens.

Shank is open to suggestions from entrepreneurs. A mother and daughter approached him, offering water kefir priced at $5 per jar. Initially, Shank acknowledged that he doubted customers would pay.

Within six months, they sold 10,000 jars through The Family Cow network, Shank said.

Getting Healthy

Max Kane, a raw milk activist and farmer in Wisconsin, reversed a life-threatening illness by changing his diet and has emerged as a leading voice in the fight for food sovereignty, raw milk access, and local farm-based economies.

Diagnosed with degenerative Crohn's disease at 11, he spent more than a decade cycling through surgeries, supplements, and medications with little improvement. The Chicago native rejected the conventional medical path and switched to an all-unprocessed, farm-direct diet from local producers. That restored his health and allowed him to leave federal disability assistance and become what he calls "a functional, contributing member of society" in his mid-20s.

Today, Kane operates a 211-acre farm in southwest Wisconsin and a raw milk buying club that has served Chicago-area families for around two decades.

In 2009, he said, the USDA, Food and Drug Administration, and state authorities tried to put him in jail for 18 months over his raw milk deliveries to Chicago. The experience spurred his advocacy for legalizing raw milk and reinforced his view that Americans must have the freedom to opt out of the industrial food system and to form private food networks between farmers and consumers.

He created Farm Match, an online marketplace he described as "Etsy for local food." The platform connects consumers directly with vetted farms and buying clubs.

Homesteading at any level - whether it involves full rural homesteads, balcony gardens in urban high-rises, or suburban backyard gardens - is on the rise because of the failures of the current industrial food system, defined by ultra-processed foods and unpredictable supply chains, Kane told The Epoch Times.

Industrial supply chains lack true transparency and traceability, which allows ingredients to be legally hidden from labels and makes it difficult for consumers to understand what they are eating or to track the source of contamination when something goes wrong, Kane noted.

Economically, this "takes the money out of the local economy and sends it far away, undermining rural communities and small producers," he said.

"Simply put, the food people eat is the single biggest determinant of their ability to perform their life, no matter what they do for a living," Kane said. "If citizens cannot legally build private food systems that nourish their bodies and minds, they risk becoming permanently dependent on an infrastructure that leaves them sick, disempowered, and economically sidelined."

Sally Fallon Morell agrees. The founding president of the Weston A. Price Foundation - a nonprofit that promotes traditional diets, whole foods, and the consumption of animal fats - shared a simple grassroots strategy that bypasses corporate supply chains and empowers small, pasture-based producers during her discussion with The Epoch Times.

"If we asked people to spend half their food dollars on direct purchases from farms, it would change everything, and we'd get back to the kind of farming that we want to promote," Fallon Morell said.

Her vision includes buying raw milk, eggs, and meat directly from regenerative farmers, and supporting local artisans and small-scale producers of sourdough bread, sauerkraut, and other traditionally prepared foods.

This encourages interdependence and local networks, she added.

"The goal is a resilient local web of producers and eaters, not a homestead cut off from the broader world," she said.

Customers wait at Raising Canes Chicken Fingers in Washington on March 12, 2026. In 2025, Americans spent around 55 percent of their food dollars on items prepared outside the home at restaurants, fast-food chains, and through takeout delivery services. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times Tyler Durden Thu, 07/23/2026 - 20:55

These Are The States Where Speeding Is Most Likely To Kill You

Montana has the highest rate of speeding-related traffic deaths per capita in the United States, underscoring a reality that runs counter to how most people think about dangerous driving, according to a new study by Siegfried and Jensen. 

While speeding is often associated with crowded urban highways and aggressive commuters, the greatest danger appears to exist on long, open rural roads where higher speed limits, lighter traffic, and longer emergency response times can turn a single mistake into a deadly crash.

Speeding claimed 11,288 lives across the country in 2024, making it the second-leading cause of fatal crashes behind only alcohol-impaired driving. It was a contributing factor in roughly 29% of all traffic fatalities, meaning nearly one out of every three people killed on American roads died in a crash where speed played a role.

A new analysis by Siegfried & Jensen ranked states by speeding deaths after adjusting for population. Montana finished first, followed by South Carolina, Wyoming, New Mexico, and North Carolina. Many of these states have similar characteristics, including vast stretches of rural highway, relatively high posted speed limits, and significant distances between towns, hospitals, and emergency responders.

The findings challenge the conventional wisdom that speeding is primarily an urban problem driven by congestion or road rage. Instead, the data suggests rural highways may be even more dangerous. Drivers often feel comfortable traveling well above the speed limit on open roads, but when crashes occur at those speeds, the consequences are far more severe. With fewer barriers, longer response times, and higher impact forces, accidents that might be survivable elsewhere are much more likely to become fatal.

There is also a seasonal pattern to these crashes. Fatal speeding accidents climb sharply during the warmer months, with May, June, and September each recording close to 1,000 deadly crashes involving excessive speed. The trend remains elevated throughout late summer and into early fall, suggesting increased travel, vacations, and heavier highway traffic all contribute to the higher death toll.

Despite decades of public awareness campaigns, stricter enforcement, and tougher penalties, speeding remains one of the nation's deadliest driving behaviors. Unlike some other traffic risks that have gradually improved through advances in vehicle safety technology, excessive speed continues to claim more than 11,000 lives every year.

The report also notes that speeding's true role in fatal crashes is likely even larger than official statistics indicate. A crash is only classified as speeding-related when investigators determine a driver was speeding, racing, or traveling too fast for road or weather conditions. In many serious collisions, speed may contribute to the outcome without ever being officially recorded as the primary cause.

The broader findings suggest geography plays an enormous role in roadway safety. While the country's largest states record the highest raw number of traffic fatalities, smaller and more rural states consistently post the highest death rates after adjusting for population. Long travel distances, limited transportation alternatives, and high-speed rural roads appear to create a particularly dangerous combination.

The analysis serves as another reminder that speeding is far more than a traffic violation. It remains one of the leading causes of preventable deaths in the United States, and the places where drivers feel safest putting their foot down may ultimately be where the risks are greatest.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/23/2026 - 20:30

Authorities Arrest Fugitive Behind Alleged $547 Million Medicare Fraud

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

A man on the FBI’s Most Wanted Fraudsters list, accused of a scheme to defraud Medicare of $547 million, was arrested by authorities on Monday.

The foreign national, Khalid Satary, 54, owned and operated multiple diagnostic testing laboratories in the United States between 2016 and 2019 that billed Medicare for “expensive and medically unnecessary genetic tests,” the Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a July 21 statement.

Satary is accused of conspiring with several patient recruiters and telemarketing services to generate unnecessary cancer genetic test samples that were reimbursed by Medicare at the rate of $10,000 to $20,000 per sample.

To run the operation, Satary allegedly paid millions of dollars in bribes and illegal kickbacks to patient recruiters and doctors.

The defendant was initially indicted in 2019. However, Satary was later released on bond, with the condition that he doesn’t work in the healthcare sector. While on bond, Satary allegedly conspired with labs in Texas to continue submitting fraudulent genetic testing claims to Medicare.

A federal arrest warrant was issued against him in December 2022. However, Satary failed to appear for a court hearing and was believed to have escaped the United States. On July 20 this year, the defendant was arrested in the Middle East with a fake Mexican passport using a fake name. He was then transferred to U.S. authorities.

The Most Wanted Fraudsters list was announced by FBI Director Kash Patel last month. The White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud partnered with the FBI to compile the list, according to a June 19 X post from Vice President JD Vance, the task force’s chairman.

The task force was established through a March 16 executive order signed by President Donald Trump, which said criminals and other individuals were exploiting various benefit programs intended to provide American citizens with a safety net.

Trump ordered the task force to “coordinate and accelerate a comprehensive national strategy to stop fraud, waste, and abuse within Federal benefit programs.”

One of those on the list, Said Abdullahi Ereg, surrendered to law enforcement on June 10, according to the FBI and federal prosecutors. Ereg is accused of laundering millions of dollars from a program that aimed to feed needy children during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Another individual on the list, Herbert Leon Kimble, accused of $1.2 billion Medicare fraud, was arrested on June 11 in the Philippines.

In its latest statement, the DOJ said that Satary has been charged with various fraud-related crimes, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and paying bribes and illegal healthcare kickbacks. He faces a multi-decade prison term if convicted.

“The arrest of Khalid Ahmed Satary and return to the U.S. is the third Most Wanted Fraudster capture from this FBI and our partners in just five weeks—continuing the historic run of success for this new initiative,” Patel said in the statement.

“This is another subject who exploited a program dedicated to helping our most vulnerable and instead stole for himself. Satary has been on the run since 2022, but we got him thanks to great work and coordination from the interagency and our overseas partners.”

The Epoch Times was unable to reach Satary’s legal representative.

According to the FBI’s website, Satary is one among nine individuals currently mentioned on the Most Wanted Fraudsters list.

One of the individuals is a naturalized U.S. citizen of Somali origin wanted for allegedly being part of a fraud scheme that exploited the federal Child Nutrition Program during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Another individual, a female from Jamaica, is linked to a scheme that fraudulently obtained more than $32 million from COVID-19 relief funds.

A third person, a U.S. citizen, is wanted for alleged involvement in a mail fraud scheme in Georgia. The man allegedly defrauded at least $10 million from his victims.

Meanwhile, on June 23, the DOJ announced that a coordinated enforcement action involving a whole-of-government approach led to the arrests of 455 individuals for their alleged role in healthcare fraud and opioid abuse schemes.

The schemes, which involved more than $6.5 billion in false claims, posed “significant patient harm,” including death. Among the arrested were two Estonians connected to a $10.6 billion fraud scheme.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/23/2026 - 20:05

Seven Pipeline Projects That Could Break Iran's Grip On Hormuz Chokepoint

Brent crude futures topped $100 a barrel (Read RBC note) as disruption at the Strait of Hormuz spread to Bab el-Mandeb in the southern Red Sea. Combined with intensifying Black Sea fighting between Russia and Ukraine, the widening chokepoint crisis has put the energy complex and broader global commodities market on edge.

"The curve on Brent and WTI is getting again very steep backwardated compared to when the diplomatic route to solve the Middle East conflict was on the table and seemed to be making progress," UBS analyst Claudio Martucci wrote in a note.

The reemergence of chokepoint chaos in the Strait of Hormuz, now spreading to Bab el-Mandeb, has provided Gulf states with a critical reminder of the risks associated with maritime export routes. This disruption is accelerating efforts to bypass vulnerable chokepoints and spurring a major infrastructure boom.

At least seven major pipeline projects are under construction, being planned or under discussion, according to the Associated Press.

Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline already provides the region's most important alternative, carrying crude from Abqaiq to Yanbu on the Red Sea.

The UAE has also increased oil shipments to Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman, bypassing Hormuz. Together, the Fujairah route and Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline had between 3.5 million and 5.5 million barrels a day of spare capacity before the war, according to the EIA. Both pipelines are now operating near capacity.

Even Dubai's state-owned ports and logistics giant, DP World, is planning to bypass the critical waterway with a new container port on the UAE's east coast in Fujairah.

The UAE has plans to expand Fujairah's export capacity, and more recently, the US is backing talks to revive an oil pipeline from Iraq to Syria's Mediterranean coast. This would create yet another export route that would entirely bypass the Hormuz chokepoint and, in turn, erode Tehran's leverage over shipping traffic.

Our coverage on the Gulf energy rewiring:

• Gulf States Considering Network Of New Pipelines To Bypass Strait Of Hormuz
• Great Rewiring: US Supports Iraq-Syria Oil Pipeline To Erode Tehran's Hormuz Leverage
• Dubai's New East Coast Port Signals The Beginning Of End For Iran's Hormuz Leverage

What's key to understand here is that seven projects by U.S.-aligned Gulf states are set to rewire energy flows in the Gulf region, which will only erode Tehran's leverage over Hormuz.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/23/2026 - 19:40