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This Was A Major Red Flag In 2008, And Now It Is Happening Again! Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog, The alarms are getting even louder each week. It has become exceedingly clear that the U.S. economy has entered a crisis that is similar to what we experienced in 2008 and 2009, and a lot of people are really starting to freak out. For those that cannot see the stunning parallels between the Great Recession and what we are going through now, I don’t know what to say to them. There are a lot of people out there that simply choose to believe whatever they want to believe no matter what the evidence indicates. In this case, all of the evidence is pointing in a single direction. When foreclosure filings started to spike prior to the global financial crisis in 2008, that was a major red flag. Now it is happening again. In fact, during the month of October 2025 foreclosure filings were 19 percent higher than they were in October 2024… In October alone, there were 36,766 foreclosure filings — the first step in the process, when a lender warns a borrower they’re in default. That’s up three percent from September and 19 percent from a year ago. ‘Foreclosure activity continued its steady upward trend in October — the eighth straight month of year-over-year increases,’ said ATTOM CEO Rob Barber. The rise is stirring uncomfortable memories of 2008, when a wave of foreclosures triggered the worst housing crash in modern US history. Read the second paragraph in that quote again. Foreclosure activity has increased for eight consecutive months. That is what we call a trend. Some of the markets that were once the hottest are now seeing the highest rates of foreclosure filings… States with the worst foreclosure rates were Florida (one in every 1,829 housing units with a foreclosure filing), South Carolina (one in every 1,982), Illinois (one in every 2,570), Delaware (on in every 2,710), and Nevada (one in ever 2,747). Among metro areas with populations of a million or more, Tampa posted the highest foreclosure rate at one in every 1,373 housing units. Following Tampa were Jacksonville (one in every 1,576 housing units), Orlando (one in every 1,703), Riverside (one in every 1,983), and Cleveland (one in every 2,114). What a mess. The good news is that it looks like there will soon be a lot of homes on the market in Florida. We live at a time when our nation is facing a very serious housing affordability crisis, and this has hit our young adults particularly hard. The following chart which was once posted by Charlie Kirk demonstrates how home ownership among young adults has plunged in recent years… These days, a lot of young adults are convinced that they will never be able to become homeowners. Others that have really stretched themselves financially to purchase homes are now being hit with foreclosure notices. I really detest what Wall Street has done to the housing market, and now we are reaping the consequences. Renting is the primary alternative to home ownership, but renters are having a really hard time right now too. As Daisy Luther has aptly pointed out, vast numbers of renters are being ruthlessly evicted from their homes in this very harsh economic environment… Rents in America are ridiculously high in many areas, and nearly impossible to find in other areas. This is harder to track than foreclosures for two reasons. Nobody official is keeping track of evictions, so we have to rely on extrapolated data from regions that do have somebody watching. One example of this is a company called “Eviction Lab” that tracks data from ten states, but only in specific cities and counties in those states. Even with this sparse reporting, their home page shows more than a million evictions over the last year, and more than 78,000 just last month. The other reason we don’t have official numbers is something called “informal evictions.” Some states have laws against dramatic increases in rent, but not all states do. Both my daughter and I, living in a metro area, have faced a vast increase in rent when our leases were up. For my daughter, the increase was $900 a month and for me it was $600 a month. Most of the country is just barely scraping by from month to month. So it is really easy to push most Americans into a state of financial disaster. Just look at what is happening with subprime auto loans. The share of those loans that are at least 60 days delinquent has reached the highest level ever recorded… The share of subprime borrowers at least 60 days behind on their auto loans rose to 6.65% in October, the highest level on record, according to Fitch Ratings data going back to the early 1990s. As auto loan delinquencies spike, we are seeing a shocking surge in vehicle repossessions as well… A near-record number of cars are being repossessed as Americans continue to fall behind on their auto loans amid mounting financial strain. According to data from the Recovery Database Network (RDN), analyzed by CURepossession, 2025 has seen over 7.5 million repossession assignments—authorizations given to an agency to recover a vehicle on behalf of a lender. Based on historic trends, this figure is expected to reach a record 10.5 million by the end of the year. Although recovery ratios have fallen in recent years—potentially lowering the number of actual repossessions—it is projected that over three million cars could be repossessed in 2025, a level only reached in 2009 during the Great Recession. Do you remember the “subprime mortgage meltdown” that we witnessed in 2008 and 2009? Well, this time around we have a “subprime auto loan meltdown”, and a couple of very large lenders have already gone belly up… PrimaLend, which serves the “buy-here-pay-here” auto financing market — where dealers sell and directly finance vehicles for customers with poor or limited credit — filed for bankruptcy protection last month. Tricolor, which sold cars and provided auto loans mostly to low-income Hispanic communities in the Southwestern United States, also filed for bankruptcy in September. Unfortunately, a lot more Americans will be getting behind on their mortgages and their auto loans during the months ahead because a lot more Americans will be losing their jobs. With each passing day, we learn of more mass layoffs. Today, it is being reported that Verizon “is planning to cut 15,000 jobs”… The optics look awful for Verizon Communications if the Wall Street Journal’s report is accurate: the carrier is preparing for its largest job cuts ever just days before millions of Americans hit the road for Thanksgiving. WSJ says Verizon is planning to cut 15,000 jobs. If that figure is correct, Bloomberg’s latest data suggests this would be about 15% of its roughly 100,000-person workforce. WSJ notes this would be the largest workforce reduction on record for the carrier. Does this mean that Verizon’s customer service is about to get even worse? Of course it would be exceedingly difficult for it to get any worse than it is right now. By the way, you may have noticed that stock prices are absolutely plummeting. I think that we will see a lot more market volatility in the days ahead, because global events are going to get quite chaotic. We are truly living in one of the most pivotal times in all of human history. Sadly, the vast majority of the population still doesn’t understand what is happening to us, and that is very unfortunate. Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com. Tyler Durden Wed, 11/19/2025 - 08:20
First Home Depot, Now Target Reports Soft Demand At the start of the week, Goldman's top consumer specialist Scott Feiler pointed out this would be a "very important week" for earnings across the consumer sector. Home Depot set the tone on Tuesday by cutting its full-year outlook as big-ticket spending and home-renovation demand continue to fade. Now, the next major earnings report just hit the tape, and it's delivering another clear signal of softening trends. Target slashed the top end of its 2025 profit outlook amid softening demand, heavy markdowns, and uneven traffic, which continue to plague its turnaround strategy. Adjusted EPS is now forecasted at $7 to $8 for the year, trimming the prior $7 to $9 range. The Bloomberg Consensus estimate stood at $7.29. Full-Year Outlook Adjusted EPS: $7–$8 (prior: $7–$9; BBG Consensus: $7.29) Q3 Takeaway: Results reflected consumer softness, weaker comps, declining traffic, margin pressure, and elevated costs. While EPS printed slightly ahead of consensus, the key retail metric of comparable sales fell more sharply than expected. Q3 Highlights Comparable sales: -2.7% (consensus: -2.06%; prior year: +0.3%) Digital comps: +2.4% (consensus: +3.43%; prior year: +10.8%) Net sales: $25.27B (vs. est. $25.33B) Gross margin: 28.2% EBIT: $974M, -19% y/y EBITDA: $1.75B, -10% y/y (est. $1.89B) Operating income: $948M, -19% y/y (est. $1.12B) Operating margin: 3.8% (prior: 4.6%; est. 4.34%) Q3 Customer Metrics Transactions: -2.2% y/y (prior: +2.4%) Avg. ticket: -0.5% (est. -0.79%; prior: -2%) Digital share of sales: 19.3% (prior: 18.5%) Stores originated sales: 80.7% (prior: 81.5%) Q3 Footprint & Costs Total stores 1,995 (+0.9%; est. 1,988) SG&A: $5.54B, +1.4% (est. $5.48B) Store comps: -3.8% (est. -3.33%; prior: -1.9%) Q3 Bottom Line Total stores: 1,995 (+0.9%; est. 1,988) SG&A: $5.54B, +1.4% (est. $5.48B) Store comps: -3.8% (est. -3.33%; prior: -1.9%) "We are relentless in our pursuit of returning to growth and not satisfied with our current results," Chief Operating Officer Michael Fiddelke said on a call with analysts. Fiddelke is set to become CEO in February. In New York, the stock fell about 2% in premarket trading, deepening its mutli-year bear market. As of Tuesday's close, shares were already down roughly 34.5% year-to-date. Shares are trading at mid-2019 lows. Target's uninspiring earnings report and the continuation of a low- to mid-income squeeze build on a similar story from Home Depot's earnings report on Tuesday. Goldman's Feiler laid out the key earnings across the consumer sector this week (read here). Once earnings are finished this week, investors should have better visibility into spending behavior, particularly the mounting pressure on low- and middle-income consumers (read here). That backdrop helps explain the Trump administration's renewed "operation affordability" push ahead of the midterm election cycle. Tyler Durden Wed, 11/19/2025 - 08:05
Dutch Retreat: Beijing Wins Control Fight Over Nexperia After Chip Shipments Squeezed The Dutch government has fully withdrawn its emergency powers over chipmaker Nexperia, returning control to Chinese parent Wingtech and ending the tense standoff that had led Beijing to halt key automotive-chip shipments, Bloomberg reported. If tensions persisted, this would've sparked snarled automotive supply chains worldwide. The reversal marks a clear de-escalation and comes just weeks after the Trump-Xi meeting in South Korea helped cool broader trade tensions. The powers were initially invoked in September under a Cold War-era law, prompting Beijing to retaliate with export restrictions on chips from Nexperia's Guangdong plant, sparking shipment delays that hit automakers including Honda and Volkswagen. Some of the first evidence of cooling tensions between the Netherlands and China emerged last Friday when Dutch Economy Minister Vincent Karremans stated that he expects chip supplies to Nexperia's customers in Europe and elsewhere to be resolved "in the coming days." Earlier on X, Economic Affairs Minister Vincent Karremans said the Netherlands is suspending its emergency order over Nexperia after constructive talks with Chinese officials and coordination with European and international partners. He noted that China has already taken steps to ensure chip supplies to Europe and beyond. In light of recent developments, I consider it the right moment to take a constructive step by suspending my order under the Goods Availability Act regarding Nexperia, in close consultation with our European and international partners. Full statement ⤵️https://t.co/i0zzqsYahA pic.twitter.com/aR2lajS1CY — Vincent Karremans (@MinisterEZ) November 19, 2025 Nexperia timeline (via BBG): Our reporting: Nexperia-Linked Chip Shortages Ripple Through Global Auto Supply Chain, From Germany To Japan Chipmaker Nexperia's China Arm Tells Staff To Ignore Dutch HQ, Deepening Semiconductor Split White House Unveils Details Of U.S.-China Deal, Including Resolution To Nexperia Auto Chip Crisis Nexperia Chip Crisis Defused? Dutch Minister "Trusts" China To Resume Chip Exports Next Week Karremans' statement suggests that the Dutch miscalculated their trade spat with Beijing. This underscored how little leverage Europe actually has - and how quickly China can squeeze the fragile continent's already-failing automotive sector. Tyler Durden Wed, 11/19/2025 - 07:45
'Europe Is Persecuting Christians' Via Spiked Free speech is under serious attack all across Europe. To criticise the sacred cows of the progressive worldview – from transgenderism to immigration and even Islam – is to invite a knock on the door from the thought police. The recent, harrowing trial of a Finnish parliamentarian reveals how it is often Christians who find themselves in the firing line. Päivi Räsänen has spent the past six years fighting a ‘hate speech’ prosecution, simply for quoting passages from the Bible and defending traditional marriage. Paul Coleman – executive director of Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International – joined Brendan O’Neill on his podcast, The Brendan O’Neill Show, to discuss Räsänen’s case as well as the broader assault on free expression in Europe. What follows is an edited version of that conversation. You can watch the whole thing here. Brendan O’Neill: Tell us about the case of Finnish MP Päivi Räsänen. Why is it so important to the cause of free speech? Paul Coleman: It’s always hard for me to convince people that this case really happened as it did. They say ‘come on, Paul, there must be something more to it’, because it really does sound so far-fetched. Päivi Räsänen is Finland’s former minister of interior, the equivalent of the British home secretary. She’s the longest serving female member of parliament. Things took a turn for her in 2019, when the Lutheran Church in Finland became an official sponsor of the Helsinki Pride parade. As a member of the church (and wife of a pastor), Päivi was highly critical of the decision, and considered it to be out of line with her understanding of the Bible. For saying as much, she was investigated by the police. The police dug up almost three decades worth of material. They found a booklet that she wrote in 2004 – a little church pamphlet on the Christian view of marriage and sexuality – as well as one minute of an hour-long radio debate she once took part in. They used these to file three criminal charges against her for hate speech. The bishop who published her pamphlet in 2004 was also charged. One of the most significant things to note here is that the law Päivi was being charged under didn’t even exist until 2011 – she was essentially prosecuted back in time. What they put her through was, essentially, a modern-day heresy trial. I sat there in court while a prosecutor asked an MP and a bishop about their interpretations of the Bible. We won a unanimous victory for Päivi in a district court back in 2022. But in Finland, a prosecutor can appeal not-guilty verdicts, and that’s what happened in this case. So it went to the Court of Appeal in 2023, where we won another unanimous victory. The prosecutor then filed an appeal to the Supreme Court of Finland, which is, at the time we’re speaking, where the case currently sits. In total, it has been a six-and-a-half year process, involving 13 hours of police interrogation, 12 judges, four criminal charges and three courts. In hate-speech cases, the process is the punishment – and that’s exactly what Päivi’s case exemplifies. O’Neill: After two unanimous victories, why won’t the prosecution simply drop the case? Coleman: Across Europe, hate-speech laws are upheld by going after very high profile people as a deliberate strategy. It is a way to warn everyone else that this could happen to them, too. The amount of speech that is produced each day, especially in the digital age, is clearly ungovernable – no matter how big our state becomes, or how zealously it pursues censorship. The answer to that, therefore, is to make an example out of public figures every once in a while. It encourages self-censorship. The average person doesn’t want the police knocking at their door for things they’ve tweeted, so they think, ‘I’d better just shut up’. O’Neill: How risky is it to be a traditional Christian in 21st-century Europe? Coleman: We have seen similar cases cropping up all over Europe, from Germany and Spain to the Balkans. Many don’t necessarily go all the way to the Supreme Court of their respective countries, but the facts of the cases are often interchangeable. They often come about when Christians hold to some of the moral teachings of the Bible that are out of step with 21st-century Europe, or what those in power consider to be acceptable. It usually comes down to three issues: human sexuality, unborn life and Islam. If you’re a Christian and you want to speak about these three things, then you run the risk of the state coming crashing down on you. O’Neill: Do you think there’s a two-tier approach to religious people in Europe when it comes to hate speech? Coleman: You are in complete denial if you don’t accept there is at least some form of two-tier policing taking place in the UK. There are just too many examples at this point to try and pretend otherwise. It’s really down to the vagueness of the laws, which allow for arbitrary enforcement. When you have so much discretionary power given to the state and the police, they begin choosing to clamp down on some things and while letting others go. Ostensibly, the police are trying to maintain public order. It is not that Christians are going out of their way to provoke inter-religious disputes. It’s just that both Christianity and Islam – all monotheistic religions, in fact – have a claim to exclusivity in regard to their beliefs. Neither religion accepts that they can both be correct. What it really comes down to for Christians is that the fundamental claim of Christianity, as spoken by Jesus, is ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’ That’s an exclusive claim. And it’s an offensive claim to non-Christians. The way the law reacts to that is to avoid public disorder by preventing Christians, particularly street preachers, from saying things that others might be provoked by. In legal terms, it’s like a heckler’s veto – the idea that because other people might react strongly to what you say, you ought to be censored. O’Neill: You defend both the rights of religious people to express their views, as well as the right of secular people to mock them. How do you feel about increasing talk of ‘Islamophobia’? Coleman: There’s been a movement at the United Nations for over 15 years for a ban on ‘defamation of religion’. It was essentially a repackaging of blasphemy laws, and was blocked by countries like the US, and – at the time – other Western nations. But from the ashes, new attempts were made to institutionalise censorship on religion. One such attempt is this idea of ‘Islamophobia’. We have a case in the Nigerian Supreme Court right now, involving a Sufi Muslim musician called Yahaya Sheriff-Aminu who is on death row for blasphemy for a private WhatsApp message containing some song lyrics about Muhammad. If the prosecutor is successful, Sheriff-Aminu will be hanged. This is Nigeria in 2025. And so we have very clear modern day examples of how these blasphemy laws play out. Of course, everyone will say that this is never going to happen here in Europe. Well, it’s not going to happen here tomorrow. But that’s the direction of travel. The idea that insulting religion is so inherently offensive that it is punishable by law is exceptionally dangerous. Brendan O’Neill was talking to Paul Coleman. Watch the full conversation here: (consider supporting Spiked here // h/t Capital.news) Tyler Durden Wed, 11/19/2025 - 07:20
Senate Unanimously Approves Bill To Release Epstein Files Update (1730ET): Well that didn't take long... The Senate has just agreed by unanimous consent to approve the House-passed bill to require the Justice Department to release all unclassified records and documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein - upon receipt of the legislation from the House, only hours after the lower chamber voted 427-1 to approve it - sending the bill to President Trump’s desk for a signature. The Hill reports that, the Democratic leader received approval from all 99 of his colleagues to “deem” the bill “passed” as soon as the Senate receives the legislation from the House. Senate aides said they expected that to happen later Tuesday evening. Schumer secured approval to quickly send the legislation to President Trump’s desk after the Senate Republican cloakroom ran a hotline to see if there were any objections on the Republican side of the aisle. Now we brace the avalanche of documents and the finger-pointing and stream of 'I told you so' media soundbites that are bound to occur. * * * The House has passed legislation to compel the Trump DOJ to release records related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, after the bill gained enough bipartisan support to require a House floor vote - and of course, after President Trump reversed course and decided to support it. My legislation with @RepRoKhanna to release the Epstein files just passed 427 to 1 ! pic.twitter.com/iI9VZ6WFLe — Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) November 18, 2025 We also just learned, thanks to 'Epstein Files' releases by House Republicans, that Epstein was close with Larry Summers and Del. Stacey Plaskett. Before debate concluded on the bill, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) read the names of some of Epstein's victims on the House Floor; Haley Robson, Jena‑Lisa Jones, Michelle Licata, Ashley Rubright, Annie Farmer, Marina Lacerda and Rachel Benavidez. Oddly, the recently deceased Virginia Giuffre. The bill now moves to the Senate after clearing the House 427-1, after which - assuming it passes, will go to President Trump's desk to sign into law, and after which the files should then be released. House Speaker Mike Johnson has repeatedly said that the legislation should be amended to protect the identities of innocent individuals - which we assume will take lots of time, perhaps forever. Senate Majority Whip John Thune, meanwhile, has signaled caution on the legislation, while Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has pledged to bring the bill to a vote immediately. Also interesting is that Rep. James Comer torched Hakeem Jeffries for soliciting a meeting and donations from Epstein after he was a convicted sex offender. 🚨 HOLY CRAP! House Oversight Chair @JamesComer just EXPOSED Hakeem Jeffries on the House floor for soliciting a MEETING and donations from Jeffrey Epstein — even AFTER Epstein was a convicted s*x predator This Epstein thing going to backfire MASSIVELY on the Democrats.… pic.twitter.com/QPDFuSPOww — Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) November 18, 2025 Developing... Tyler Durden Wed, 11/19/2025 - 06:55
Newly-Leaked Emails Expose A Legitimate LGBTQ Mafia Presence At The BBC Authored by Olivia Murray via AmericanThinker.com, If we’re lucky, the BBC may soon cease to exist. As you may have already heard, President Trump’s threat to sue the outlet for an edited speech that was grotesquely distorted and then aired in a documentary has increased from $1 billion to $5 billion—in the wake of Trump’s threat, BBC released a statement that admitted to a “regretful” editing job, but denied any wrongdoing. However…The Telegraph kind of blew that claim up, reminding us that in 2022, the BBC also aired a similarly-edited version of the same speech on its Newsnight program: Spliced footage of the speech, which aired in an episode in 2022, made it appear that Mr Trump was encouraging his supporters to riot. The edit was similar to a version aired in a Panorama documentary broadcast last year. What a doozy, because as James Zumwalt wrote today, I don’t think the BBC is going to win this one. Seems like this should be understood for a global media company, but if you create a new video product by cutting and splicing, which yields a conflation of separate remarks to push a narrative that doesn’t exist, and then you air that manufactured footage to millions(?) of people, I’d argue that’s basically the definition of libelous and defamatory action. While the BBC swears there’s no “pattern” of wrongdoing, a new report from the New York Post suggests otherwise. According to newly-leaked emails, Female staff at the BBC complained to editors for years that the publicly-funded British broadcaster had been hijacked by the ‘trans’ agenda, newly-leaked emails dating back to 2020 show. In the emails, female staff complained that biologically male transgender sex offenders were being referred to in stories as women, and that articles were avoiding the use of the words ‘girls’ and ‘women’ when discussing topics such as menstruation and birth control…. Of course, this is expected for a leftwing outlet with an obvious agenda, but it gets a little worse: the company appears to have invited in a legitimate LGBTQ mafia presence: An internal memo revealed that all trans stories were subject to ‘effective censorship’ by specialist LGBTQ reporters hired as gatekeepers at the BBC, who refused to cover gender-critical stories. And, per the women who worked at the BBC, the LGBTQ “specialists” would bully wayward journalists, punishing dissent, and creating a “culture of fear” in the office: The women also described a culture of fear at the BBC, where even veteran reporters didn’t dare to stray from the position on trans issues, lest they be branded ‘transphobic,’ the Times reported. [snip] ‘Any questioning or insufficiently enthusiastic championing risked being labeled as bigoted … It felt like activism, not news,’ one BBC staffer told the Sunday Times. The BBC was reportedly not interested in any story that was “critical” of the LGBTQ movement, no matter how newsworthy. A new exposé about “hormone blockers” being used on small children? Not to be reported on. A story about a cross-dressing man assaulting women in his prison unit? Obviously he must be called a woman. Now, the BBC, being publicly-funded, has an in with Britain’s education system: 🚨LEFTIST PROPOGANDA FLOODS BRITISH SCHOOLS "Use trusted sites like BBC and the Guardian instead of The Sun, random blogs or youtube channels" This is some of the stuff being taught to our children The Guardian left X because it kept getting community noted for lying pic.twitter.com/sp1oKvBLEl — Basil the Great (@BasilTheGreat) November 3, 2025 Trump’s lawsuit could bring down the whole house of cards. Godspeed. Tyler Durden Wed, 11/19/2025 - 06:30
Witkoff, Zelensky, Erdogan To Meet In Turkey In Effort To Revive Peace Talks Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has announced he is going to Turkey Wednesday in order to try and revive negotiations with Russia toward reaching a settlement to end the war. US special envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to be there for the talks, which would see Turkey play mediator, as it did during short-lived talks in the opening months of the war. However, the Kremlin has made clear that it won't participate at this point, in the wake of the earlier planned Putin-Trump summit in Hungary having been called off. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters: "No, there will be no Russian representatives in Turkey tomorrow. For now, these contacts are taking place without Russian participation." Getty Images But Peskov did say that President Vladimir Putin remains open to conversations with the US and Turkey on whatever results from the talks, but also emphasized that Moscow is still engaging Washington directly on any potential path forward. Putin's special envoy Kirill Dmitriev is not expected in Ankara either, where Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will be directly hosting. "Dmitriev held very productive discussion with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff on October 24-26 in the United States," a Russian source told Reuters. It remains that Russia has the leverage and upper-hand on the battlefield along the front lines, and yet Ukraine and its Western backers still refuse to contemplate territorial negotiations, or also a permanent renunciation of ever joining NATO. According to the latest from the battlefield via TASS: Russian troops liberated two communities in the Kharkov and Dnepropetrovsk Regions over the past 24 hours in the special military operation in Ukraine, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported. "Battlegroup North units liberated the settlement of Tsegelnoye in the Kharkov Region… Battlegroup East units advanced deep into the enemy’s defenses and liberated the settlement of Nechayevka in the Dnepropetrovsk Region," the ministry said in a statement. At this moment, Zelensky's trip to Turkey appears all about the following: a source told AFP the Ukrainian leader's "main goal is for the Americans to re-engage" in peace efforts. "We are also working to restore POW exchanges and bring our prisoners of war home," Zelensky has also stated. The US side has also affirmed that it is speaking to Moscow on the issue of arranging prisoner swaps. Tyler Durden Wed, 11/19/2025 - 05:45
Like "Helping An Alcoholic By Sending Another Crate Of Vodka": Orbán Blasts Brussels Over EU Funding Ukraine Via The Libertarian Institute Ukraine will need over $150 billion from its Western backers in 2026 and 2027. The President of the European Commission admitted there were no easy options. In a letter to the leaders of the European Union, Ursula von der Leyen argued it was essential for the bloc to plug Ukraine’s $157 billion budget gap over the next two years. "It will now be key to rapidly reach a clear commitment on how to ensure that the necessary funding for Ukraine will be agreed at the next European Council meeting in December," she wrote. EU bureaucrats on Kyiv's behalf: send more money fast. "Clearly, there are no easy options." Von der Leyen continued, "Europe cannot afford paralysis, either by hesitation or by the search for perfect or simple solutions which do not exist." The letter, sent by von der Leyen to 27 European leaders on Monday, was first reported by EuroNews on Tuesday. Von der Leyen’s proposal to fill the budget gap calls for EU states to enter into bilateral agreements with Kiev to provide over $100 billion to Ukraine over the next two years. Additionally, she wants the bloc to take on debt to finance Kiev and to use seized Russian assets held in member states. Most of the frozen Russian funds are held in Belgium. Brussels has resisted using the assets, believing Moscow will sue to recover the funds. Hungarian President Viktor Orban rejected von der Leyen’s call for sending more support to Ukraine: "I received a letter today from President von der Leyen. She writes that Ukraine’s financing gap is significant and asks member states to send more money," he wrote on X. "It’s astonishing." "At a time when it has become clear that a war mafia is siphoning off European taxpayers’ money, instead of demanding real oversight or suspending payments, the Commission President suggests we send even more." 📈 While Brussels pushes a war economy, Hungary keeps its focus where it belongs: on national interests, not on funding a conflict that isn’t ours. Today, we announced an 11-point action plan to strengthen Hungarian entrepreneurs. Our commitment is to peace, stability, and an… pic.twitter.com/sMsu1Euz0h — Orbán Viktor (@PM_ViktorOrban) November 17, 2025 The Hungarian leader added, "This whole matter is a bit like trying to help an alcoholic by sending them another crate of vodka. Hungary has not lost its common sense." Tyler Durden Wed, 11/19/2025 - 05:00
EU Launches Cloud Antitrust Probes Into Amazon, Microsoft What would Europe be without a mountain of regulations aimed at curbing free speech and privacy? Attendees at Amazon.com Inc. annual cloud computing conference walk past the Amazon Web Services logo in Las Vegas, Nev., on Nov. 30, 2017. Salvador Rodriguez/Reuters File Photo The European Commission (EC) on Monday launched three separate investigations into Amazon and Microsoft to determine whether their cloud computing businesses should be subject to stricter regulation under the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA). Two of the probes will examine whether Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure should be designated as gatekeepers under DMA - even though the companies do not currently meet the law's quantitative thresholds for size, user numbers, or market dominance. To meet that bar under DMA, companies providing a core platform service must have over 45 million monthly active users and a market cap of more than 75 billion euros (US$87.87 billion). Compaines which breach the rules may face fines of up to 10% of global revenue. And of course, in Europe - even if a company doesn't meet the threshold to be classified as a gatekeeper - EU regulators can just say you are. While the DMA is not nakedly about regulating free speech, critics argue that several of its structural mandates could indirectly chill expression online. Requirements for interoperability, alternative ranking systems, and tighter control over “gatekeeper” platforms may unintentionally pressure large services to adopt more uniform, risk-averse moderation policies to avoid regulatory conflict - especially when combined with the EU’s broader Digital Services Act framework. By forcing platforms to open their systems to third-party services and to redesign core ranking or recommendation functions, the DMA could incentivize over-enforcement, reduced visibility for controversial viewpoints, or a homogenized approach to content governance. In this view, the DMA expands regulatory leverage in ways that, while not explicitly targeting speech, could reshape the online information environment in ways that subtly disfavor dissenting or politically sensitive expression. Meanwhile, a third probe will look into whether DMA's existing framework is sufficient to address what the European Commission described as anticompetitive practices in Europe's cloud sector. As the Epoch Times notes further, the legislation has come under fire from the Trump administration, which said in February that the DMA unfairly targeted U.S. tech companies. In announcing the probes, the EC said cloud computing “must be provided in a fair, open and competitive environment” to ensure innovation and Europe’s “strategic autonomy.” EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera said the investigations will examine “whether the DMA’s existing rules need to be updated so Europe can keep pace with fast-evolving practices in the cloud sector.” She added that cloud computing is critical to AI development and digital competitiveness in Europe. Monitoring the Gatekeepers AWS stated that it believed the EC would ultimately conclude that stricter rules were unnecessary. “We’re confident that when the European Commission considers the facts, it will recognise what we all see—the cloud computing sector is extremely dynamic, with companies enjoying lots of choice, unprecedented innovation opportunity, and low costs, and that designating cloud providers as gatekeepers isn’t worth the risks of stifling invention or raising costs for European companies,” an AWS spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement. A Microsoft spokesperson, responding to the announcement, said the company was “ready to contribute to the enquiry.” If the EC ultimately finds that AWS and Azure constitute an “important gateway” between businesses and customers, the services could be added to the list of core platform services for which both companies are already designated as gatekeepers. Other services by Microsoft and Amazon already on the gatekeepers’ list are LinkedIn, Windows PC OS, Amazon Marketplace, and Amazon Advertising. The Microsoft Azure and AWS designations would trigger new duties, including interoperability requirements and limits on favoring their own products. The EC said it aims to conclude its investigations within 12 months. If Amazon or Microsoft is designated as a gatekeeper for cloud computing, it will have six months to comply with DMA rules. The third and broader investigation into whether the DMA adequately governs the cloud market is expected to conclude within 18 months and may result in formal updates to the law. Reuters contributed to this report. Tyler Durden Wed, 11/19/2025 - 04:15
Syria Has Put A Big Western Flag In Its Gas Patch, Less Than Year After Assad Overthrow Authored by Julianne Geiger via OilPrice.com, Syria has just put a big Western flag in its gas patch. The state-owned Syrian Petroleum Company has signed a memorandum of understanding with ConocoPhillips to develop existing gas fields and hunt for new ones, in a bid to drag the country’s power sector out of wartime ruin. Damascus says the deal could lift gas output by 4–5 million cubic meters per day within a year from today’s battered base. That target is not trivial. Syria’s domestic gas production has collapsed from 8.7 bcm in 2011 to about 3 bcm in 2023. On a rough cut, that’s around 8 mcm/d today; hitting the ministry’s ambition would mean boosting volumes by roughly 50–60% if everything shows up on time and on spec. The pitch is straightforward: more gas into the grid, fewer blackouts, and less reliance on emergency molecules from Azerbaijan and Qatar flowing via regional deals and the Arab Gas Pipeline. But the MoU is as much about geopolitics as kilowatt-hours. Washington has already lifted core oil and transport sanctions on Syria and backed a U.S. consortium led by Baker Hughes, Hunt Energy, and Argent LNG to design a national energy masterplan. The broader Western strategy, laid out in detail by policy analysts earlier this year, is to pull Syria back into the U.S.–U.K. orbit, lock in long-term energy rights, and dilute Russia’s once-dominant position built around Tartus, Khmeimim, and a web of pre-war upstream deals. All of this is happening while President Ahmed al-Sharaa is busy proclaiming tightened internal security. Damascus recently trumpeted the foiling of Islamic State plots against the president and used the scare to justify new counterterrorism powers that extend security control over civilian areas. Western services broadly accept that the IS threat is real but geographically limited, yet the narrative of "stability first, investment second" is proving useful for the new regime. For ConocoPhillips, the prize is early-mover exposure to a gas market being rebuilt with IMF attention, UN sanctions relief, and heavy U.S. political sponsorship. The risk is that today’s headline MoU never matures into bankable contracts if security, financing, or politics wobble. In Syria, that’s not a tail risk. It’s the base case you underwrite around. Tyler Durden Wed, 11/19/2025 - 03:30
Xi And Trump To Both Be Absent From G-20 Gathering In South Africa Chinese President Xi Jinping will skip next week’s G-20 summit in Johannesburg, a setback for host South Africa, which is already dealing with a boycott by US President Donald Trump, according to Bloomberg. China’s Foreign Ministry said Premier Li Qiang will attend instead, without giving a reason for Xi’s absence, even though he joined the summit last year. With Xi out, the gathering will lack leaders from the world’s two largest economies, along with Russia’s president, whose travel is limited by an ICC warrant. Trump recently announced that no US officials would attend after claiming—falsely—that South Africa is committing genocide against White Afrikaners. Bloomberg writes that Xi has sharply reduced overseas travel since the pandemic, favoring what Beijing calls “home-court diplomacy,” hosting figures such as Vladimir Putin, Narendra Modi, and Kim Jong Un. He previously visited South Africa for the 2023 BRICS summit and hosted African leaders in Beijing. Several other G-20 leaders, including Argentina’s Javier Milei and Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum, also aren’t going, though European leaders, Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan are expected. Analysts say Xi’s absence doesn’t signal a shift in China’s priorities; Scott Kennedy noted, “I don’t see any drop off in their view that those global governance institutions are important avenues for China to communicate its message.” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said the summit “carries significant historical importance” as the first G-20 gathering on the African continent. Li has often represented Xi at major events, including the 2023 G-20 in India and this year’s BRICS meeting in Brazil. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa downplayed the impact of Trump’s absence, saying, “My experience in politics is that boycotts never really work — they have a very contradictory effect,” and adding, “The G-20 will go on … Their absence is their loss.” Privately, South African officials say the lack of US participation may actually make it easier to reach a joint declaration before handing the G-20 presidency to Washington in December. Tyler Durden Wed, 11/19/2025 - 02:45
Leftist Berlin Mayoral Candidate Calls For Voting-Rights For All Migrants Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News, The Left Party’s (Die Linke) newly-chosen lead candidate for next year’s state election has called to extend voting rights to all migrants living in the capital, including those who do not hold German citizenship. Elif Eralp’s remarks were delivered during a party strategy meeting on Saturday, where 163 delegates met ahead of the September 2026 Berlin House of Representatives election. The 44-year-old told delegates, “Let’s make history,” after being elected as the party’s top candidate. Every Berliner aged 16 and older is eligible to vote in the 2026 election under the current legal framework, but German constitutional law restricts voting in federal and state elections to citizens. Her proposal would therefore require fundamental legal change. The Left Party had already promoted Eralp as its preferred figurehead in October, describing her as “courageous, determined, and an advocate for all those who keep things running here.” One of her main policies has been expanding rights for migrants. She said that people with a migration background constitute almost half of Berlin’s population and are “not just part of the cityscape.” Referring to both economic migrants and asylum seekers, she said these groups “contribute to shaping this city and this country every day.” Eralp argued that this contribution should entitle non-citizens to a right to vote. She stated: “Of course, they should also have the right to vote, regardless of whether they hold a German passport,” calling this a “democratic given.” She also criticised the CDU, accusing the party of pandering to the AfD and creating divisions in the capital. An Insa poll published at the end of October placed the Left Party at 17 percent in Berlin, behind the CDU, and ahead of the SPD and the Greens, which currently occupy third and fifth place respectively. On those numbers, the Left Party could form a coalition with the SPD and the Greens after the 2026 election. As the largest party of the three, Eralp could feasibly become the next Berlin mayor. Eralp has served as deputy chair of the Berlin Left Party since May 2025. She has been a member of the Berlin House of Representatives since 2021, where she acts as deputy parliamentary group chair and spokesperson for migration and anti-discrimination. She also linked her campaign to developments abroad, referring to the recent election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York. “Millions of people cast their votes for a good life for all and for a city that everyone can afford,” she said. “If a leftist can win in New York, then they can just as easily win in Berlin.” She said Mamdani represents a policy that rejects the idea that a city should work only for wealthy residents, adding: “Whether in New York or Berlin, in Marzahn or Manhattan – we all want a good life.” Berliners are scheduled to vote on Sept. 20, 2026. Read more here... Tyler Durden Wed, 11/19/2025 - 02:00
Was COVID Always A CIA Plot? Via The Brownstone Institute, According to newly released emails, the United States Intelligence Community, led by the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, held regular meetings with Dr. Ralph Baric, one of America’s leading coronavirus experts, since at least 2015. Senator Rand Paul’s office has worked for years to obtain the documents. Baric has been accused of engineering the Covid-19 virus in his lab at the University of North Carolina, but he has never had to testify about his role in the pandemic despite his well-documented collaboration with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The newly released emails reveal that the CIA hoped to discuss “Coronavirus evolution and possible natural human adaptation with Baric” and that Baric held quarterly meetings with members of the Intelligence Community. These emails are just the latest additions to the suspicious amalgamation of facts implicating the US Intelligence Community’s role in the origins of the pandemic, as discussed in The Covid Response at Five Years. A very brief overview of the timeline suggests that the CIA and the Intelligence Community are implicated in the creation of the virus, a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and censorship to evade any public scrutiny for their role in the pandemic. 2015: The Intelligence Community held quarterly meetings with Dr. Ralph Baric and discussed “possible human adaptation” to coronavirus evolution. 2019-2020: The CIA had a spy working at the Wuhan Institute of Virology doing “both offensive and defensive work” with pathogens, according to Seymour Hersh. That asset reports in early 2020 that there was a laboratory accident that resulted in the infection of a researcher. March 18, 2020: The Department of Homeland Security replaced Health and Human Services as the lead Federal Agency responding to Covid, as explained in depth in Debbie Lerman’s The Deep State Goes Viral. Spring 2020: The CIA offered bribes to scientists to bury their findings refuting the “proximal origin” theory advanced by Dr. Anthony Fauci, according to a whistleblower. The House Oversight Committee explains: “According to the whistleblower, at the end of its review, six of the seven members of the Team believed the intelligence and science were sufficient to make a low confidence assessment that COVID-19 originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China.” Then, however, the “six members were given a significant monetary incentive to change their position.” 2020: Dr. Fauci began holding secret meetings at CIA headquarters “without a record of entry” in order to “influence its Covid-19 origins investigation,” according to a whistleblower. “He knew what was going on…He was covering his ass and he was trying to do it with the Intel community,” the whistleblower told Congress.” 2021: Scientists in the Department of Defense compiled significant evidence suggesting Covid emerged from a lab leak, but President Biden’s Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, banned them from presenting their evidence or participating in a discussion on the origins of the virus. 2021: CISA, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security, implemented a program known as “switchboarding,” where officials dictated to Big Tech platforms what content is permissible or prohibited speech. 2022: The Department of Homeland Security announced it will establish a “Disinformation Governance Board.” The Ministry of Truth is only discontinued when the absurdity of its chief censor, Nina Jankowicz, receives sufficient blowback from the public. What exactly was the play here? A populist impulse has been alive in the American electorate since the end of the Cold War. A growing popular demand on the left and right has been for a government that serves the people and not some globalist, bureaucratized, and militarized scheme that only benefits the ruling class. In 2015, Donald Trump, a consummate outsider to the ruling elites, was ascending in political stature in ways that no one expected. He was saying outrageous things on stage – such as that the Iraq war was a disaster – and people loved it. The establishment’s choice, Jeb Bush, was wiped out early in the primaries. This was not about Trump personally, however; it was about the traditional demand in these circles to control the controllers. Since the assassination of JFK, this has always been the way, always justified in the public interest. Trump was not their choice. The real interest has been the consolidation and expansion of power of a rogue Intelligence Community, headed by the CIA. Tapping Baric’s expertise was part of a deliberate strategy to increase that dominance through bioweapons. It seems perhaps crazy to imagine that there was a playbook for maintaining control by the old guard and that the pandemic option was among them. But perhaps it was. After all, Anthony Fauci frequently warned of a coming pandemic, and intelligence worked with universities and corporations for years and on multiple occasions to game out pandemic exercises (Event 201 and Crimson Contagion). What we have here are new breadcrumbs pointing to a genuine coup attempt, one that grew as each stage in the deployment failed, culminating in relentless media campaigns, lawfare, and even assassination attempts. The newest evidence further reinforces the existence of a ruling class willing to engage in sadistic policies that compared with the worst of the last years of the Roman Empire. Of course, this was not just about politics in the US. Populist movements had come alive the world over, from Europe to the UK to Brazil. Fully 194 countries were locked down over several weeks, with the claim that the problem would be fixed with universal human separation followed by injection of a compliant population. The scenario being built here through these releases is nothing short of terrifying. Where are the investigations, hearings, commissions, and courts? At the very least, and in any case, Baric and members of the Intelligence Community must testify under oath about their role in gain-of-function research, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and the cover-up that began in 2020. Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge. Tyler Durden Tue, 11/18/2025 - 23:25
Chinese Firm Bought Insurer For CIA Agents As Part Of Trillion Dollar Spending Spree For years, Washington assumed that China’s outbound investment flowed mainly into developing economies hungry for infrastructure money. But as scrutiny tightens across the West, it’s becoming clear that Beijing’s financial reach extended far deeper into wealthy nations - and far earlier - than most policymakers realized. One early warning came in 2016, when Jeff Stein, a veteran journalist covering U.S. intelligence agencies, received an unusual tip: Wright USA, a small insurer that specialized in providing liability coverage for FBI and CIA personnel, had quietly been acquired the year before by Fosun Group, a Chinese conglomerate with reported ties to Beijing’s leadership. “Someone with direct knowledge called me up and said, ‘Do you know that the insurance company that insures intelligence personnel is owned by the Chinese?’” Stein recalls. “I was astonished.” The concern was immediate and obvious. Wright USA held personal information on some of the most sensitive employees in the federal government. The question in Washington became not what the Chinese buyer intended, but who might ultimately gain access to the data. Newly released records reviewed by the BBC indicate that Chinese state banks helped finance the acquisition, routing a $1.2 billion loan through the Cayman Islands to enable Fosun’s purchase. Though the deal violated no U.S. laws, it triggered alarm. Stein’s story in Newsweek soon prompted a rare inquiry by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the Treasury-led interagency panel responsible for policing foreign ownership risks. Within months, Wright USA was sold back to American owners. Neither Fosun nor Starr Wright USA, its new parent, responded to requests for comment. High-level intelligence officials say the episode was among the cases that pushed the first Trump administration in 2018 to significantly tighten U.S. investment screening - part of a broader shift as the U.S. began rethinking a two-decade-old presumption that Chinese capital posed few national-security risks. New research now suggests the Wright USA case was not an anomaly, but one instance in a vast global pattern. AidData, a research lab at William & Mary, has completed what it calls the first comprehensive tally of China’s state-backed investments abroad. Its findings, shared in advance with the BBC, show that Beijing has spent $2.1 trillion overseas since 2000 - roughly half in developing countries and half in advanced economies such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Australia. “For many years, we assumed China’s money flows were going to developing countries,” said Brad Parks, AidData’s executive director. “It came as a great surprise when we realized hundreds of billions were flowing into wealthy markets, happening right underneath our noses.” China’s ability to project financial power abroad is tied to the enormous scale of its domestic banking system - now larger than those of the U.S., Europe, and Japan combined. Beijing exercises direct control over interest rates and credit allocation, giving it tools few governments possess. “This is only possible with very strict capital controls, which no other country could sustain,” said Victor Shih, director of the 21st Century China Center at the University of California, San Diego. Many of the investments mapped by AidData appear commercial in nature. But others align with China’s long-running industrial strategy, including the now-muted - but still operative - “Made in China 2025” program, which aims to dominate sectors such as robotics, electric vehicles, and semiconductors. Western governments have since moved aggressively to strengthen screening mechanisms over inbound capital. In the U.K., the U.S., and the Netherlands, regulators have derailed or unwound deals over fears that Chinese buyers could access strategically sensitive technologies. The Dutch government recently intervened in the operations of Nexperia, a Chinese-owned semiconductor firm, citing concerns that chip technologies could be transferred to its parent company. The move effectively split Nexperia’s Dutch operations from its China-based manufacturing arm - an extraordinary step in a country long known for economic openness. But policymakers also warn against overcorrection. “There’s a danger of making it seem as if China is this monolith,” said Xiaoxue Martin, a research fellow at the Clingendael Institute in The Hague. “Most companies, especially private ones, just want to make money. They don’t want the negative reception they’re getting in Europe.” Beijing rejects claims that its overseas investments are tools of statecraft. “Chinese companies… contribute actively to local economic growth, social development and job creation,” the Chinese embassy in London told the BBC, adding that they strictly follow local laws. Still, the scale of the financing behind many transactions raises questions about where commercial intent ends and strategic interest begins. What Western officials now see, Parks argues, is a coordinated push. “At first, they thought these were individual initiatives from Chinese companies,” he said. “What they’ve learned is that Beijing’s party-state is behind the scenes writing the checks.” (h/t Capital.news) Tyler Durden Tue, 11/18/2025 - 23:00
The Road To De-Civilization: Inflation & The Moral Erosion Of Society Authored by Michael Matulef via The Mises Institute, Every major economic illusion begins with the corruption of a word. Inflation once meant popularly what it still means in truth—the artificial expansion of money and credit. But, over time, it has been redefined to describe its consequence rather than its cause. This deliberate inversion of language serves a political purpose: it shifts blame from those who create money to those who merely spend it, transforming an act of monetary fraud into a mere statistical “phenomenon.” The result is profound. By redefining inflation, governments have obscured its nature, economists have lost its meaning, and citizens have come to accept their gradual impoverishment as an unavoidable fact of life. The Austrian tradition—more than any other—seeks to restore that lost clarity: to call things by their proper names, and to remind us that inflation is not a symptom of capitalism’s failure, but of government’s assault on money itself. The Nature of Inflation Inflation, as understood by the Austrian School, is not a general rise in prices but an artificial expansion of the money supply. Everything else flows from that root cause. Prices do not rise uniformly, nor do they rise spontaneously. There are supply and demand reasons why prices can rise. However, prices largely rise at present because additional monetary units are injected into the economy, altering the structure of production and distorting economic calculation from the ground up. As Ludwig von Mises insisted in Economic Freedom and Interventionism, There is nowadays a very reprehensible, even dangerous, semantic confusion that makes it extremely difficult for the non-expert to grasp the true state of affairs. Inflation, as this term was always used everywhere and especially in this country [the United States], means increasing the quantity of money and bank notes in circulation and the quantity of bank deposits subject to check. But people today use the term “inflation” to refer to the phenomenon that is an inevitable consequence of inflation, that is the tendency of all prices and wage rates to rise. The result of this deplorable confusion is that there is no term left to signify the cause of this rise in prices and wages. There is no longer any word available to signify the phenomenon that has been, up to now, called inflation. It follows that nobody cares about inflation in the traditional sense of the term. As you cannot talk about something that has no name, you cannot fight it. Those who pretend to fight inflation are in fact only fighting what is the inevitable consequence of inflation, rising prices. Their ventures are doomed to failure because they do not attack the root of the evil. Only later, as political expediency demanded it, was the definition corrupted to mean “a general rise in prices.” That semantic sleight of hand allowed governments to claim innocence while committing the very act they had redefined away. Murray Rothbard brought Mises’s insight to its logical conclusion in The Case Against the Fed: The culprit solely responsible for inflation, the Federal Reserve, is continually engaged in raising a hue-and-cry about “inflation,” for which virtually everyone else in society seems to be responsible. What we are seeing is the old ploy by the robber who starts shouting “Stop, thief!” and runs down the street pointing ahead at others. We begin to see why it has always been important for the Fed, and for other Central Banks, to invest themselves with an aura of solemnity and mystery. For, if the public knew what was going on, if it was able to rip open the curtain covering the inscrutable Wizard of Oz, it would soon discover that the Fed, far from being the indispensable solution to the problem of inflation, is itself the heart and cause of the problem. Every expansion, Rothbard argued, constitutes a form of legalized counterfeiting that “robs all holders of money,” redistributing wealth from savers and producers to those nearest the new money’s points of entry. Prices adjust unevenly because new money does not enter all pockets at once. It flows—first to borrowers, banks, and state contractors—before dispersing through the broader economy. This “Cantillon effect” is central to the Austrian understanding: new money changes prices, which beget other chances, from injection points; inflation benefits those who receive new money first and penalizes those who receive it last. As Jörg Guido Hülsmann demonstrates in How Inflation Destroys Civilization, inflation springs “from a violation of the fundamental rules of society,” transforming what should be honest economic exchange into systematic deception. Inflation is not merely a monetary distortion but a moral hazard that corrupts the language of economic communication itself. When fiat inflation “turns moral hazard and irresponsibility into an institution,” it destroys the pricing system’s ability to convey truth. In such an environment, where “everything is what it is called, then it is difficult to explain the difference between truth and lie,” prices cease to function as reliable signals coordinating economic decisions. Inflation “tempts people to lie about their products, and perennial inflation encourages the habit of routine lies,” spreading this corruption “like a cancer over the rest of the economy.” The result is a society where the very medium of economic coordination has been falsified at its source, leaving entrepreneurs to navigate by systematically-distorted signals that make sustainable economic calculation impossible. But the damage extends far beyond falsified price signals into the moral fabric of civilization itself. Inflation “constantly reduces the purchasing power of money,” and “the consequence is despair and the eradication of moral and social standards.” Through debt-based policies, “Western governments have pushed their citizens into a state of financial dependency unknown to any previous generation.” This dependency corrodes character: Towering debts are incompatible with financial self-reliance and thus they tend to weaken self-reliance also in all other spheres. The debt-ridden individual eventually adopts the habit of turning to others for help, rather than maturing into an economic and moral anchor of his family, and of his wider community. Wishful thinking and submissiveness replace soberness and independent judgment. Worse still, “Inflation makes society materialistic. More and more people strive for money income at the expense of personal happiness.” What emerges is a culture where “fiat inflation leaves a characteristic cultural and spiritual stain on human society”—a stain that transforms independent citizens into dependent subjects, erodes the standards that sustain civilization, and ultimately reveals inflation as “a powerhouse of social, economic, cultural, and spiritual destruction.” Inflation as Lived Experience Inflation’s true theater is not the spreadsheet but the home. The harm is intimate—felt not in economic aggregates but in the quiet recalibrations of daily life. Inflation acts as the cruelest and most imprudent tax, for it strikes invisibly, eroding the purchasing power of the very people least equipped to hedge against it. It destroys the link between effort and reward, between prudence and security. Inflation punishes thrift and rewards debt. Those who save in money lose; those who borrow in money gain, at least temporarily. The saver’s virtue becomes folly, and the speculator’s recklessness becomes advantageous. Over time, entire societies shift their time preferences—impatience replaces diligence, consumption replaces production and saving. Once the money signal is corrupted, society loses its sense of future orientation. Inflation de-civilizes by teaching people to live for the present. This is civilizational decay. In daily life, this manifests gradually. The middle-class family that once dined out weekly now eats at home. The young worker saving for a house discovers the dream receding each year. The retiree, promised security through “stable” investments, realizes that the stability was priced in nominal, not real, terms. Everyone adjusts—economically, psychologically, morally. The harm is slow, individualized, and cumulative. The Austrian economist sees inflation not as a statistic but as a story of distortion—a story of moral inversion, misallocation, and progressive social demoralization. The calamity is not merely higher prices but confused values and distorted choices. Inflation is, in essence, a lie against time and value, and, like all lies, it eventually collapses under its own contradictions. Conclusion: Sound Money as Civilization’s Foundation The path forward is not mysterious; it is a choice. Societies that wish to recover from inflation’s moral and economic wreckage must begin where the corruption began: with money itself. The Austrian remedy demands the restoration of honest money—money that cannot be inflated at will, that holds its value across time, and that reconnects effort with reward. To call for sound money is to demand the reestablishment of truth as the foundation of economic life. Inflation is first and foremost a lie—a lie embedded in the very medium we use to communicate value. When that medium is corrupted, the moral architecture of society collapses with it. Restoring sound money means restoring the conditions under which civilization can flourish: where savings accumulate rather than decay, where long-term planning replaces short-term desperation, and where currency becomes an ally of virtue rather than an engine of vice. The inflation that impoverishes and demoralizes continues, not by economic necessity, but by political will and public acquiescence. History offers no comfort to those who ignore economic law indefinitely. To choose sound money is to choose civilization over decay. The Austrian School offers no utopian promises, only stark clarity: sound money is the precondition for a free and civilized society, and its absence is the precondition for barbarism. Tyler Durden Tue, 11/18/2025 - 22:35
How A Missed Train In 1876 Led To The Adoption Of Standard Time Authored by Gerry Bowler via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), In July 1876, Sandford Fleming, a Scottish Canadian engineer, was standing on an Irish railway platform fuming—he had misread his timetable, confusing a.m. and p.m., and as a result had missed his train. Spurred by this inconvenience, Fleming began thinking how a 24-hour clock would have made this sort of mistake impossible. But his highly inventive mind did not stop there: he had visions of worldwide time zones, 24 of them around the globe, each comprising 15 degrees of longitude and each an hour different. The Hon. Donald Smith drives home the last spike for the Canadian Pacific Railway in Eagle Pass, B.C., on Nov. 7, 1885. The tall man standing behind him with the top hat is Sir Sandford Fleming, the father of standard time. The Canadian Press/National Archives of Canada The notion of standardized time would be an extremely valuable one in an age of unprecedented railway expansion and increased travel. It was customary for each locality to keep to a different time, making timetables an unreliable nightmare and accidents much more likely to happen. In October 1841 near Westfield, Massachusetts, two trains operating on the same track, one east-bound, the other west-bound, collided because of inaccurate timekeeping. Only two people died in that crash, but 20 passengers and crew died near Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in 1853 because of a similar miscommunication, with a new train conductor using a milkman’s borrowed watch upon which to base his train’s schedule. Fleming, also an inventor and scientist, was a tireless advocate of scientific cooperation, founding the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Institute. He promoted his concept through publications, presentations to scientific societies, and extensive lobbying with railroad executives with whom he had excellent connections due to his extensive experience with the Intercontinental Railway and the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). He enlisted scientific allies across North America and Europe and spearheaded transatlantic cooperation to make his proposal a reality. In this work he was assisted by astronomer and meteorologist Cleveland Abbe, the head of the United States Weather Bureau, who had urged standardization of clocks in other to ensure consistency from his far-flung reporting stations. The climax of their campaign arrived on Nov. 18, 1883—known as “The Day of Two Noons.” At noon on this date, North American railroads officially adopted the system of standard time zones. Railroad clocks across the continent switched from local time to one of the four primary zones: Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific. This historic moment, coordinated by the General Time Convention (later renamed the American Railway Association) and railroad managers, represented a dramatic shift for millions. In cities such as New York, residents watched as their clocks marked noon twice: once by the sun, and once by the new standard. The transition was so significant that some regarded it as an affront to tradition and a dangerous break with nature. This new system specifically followed Fleming’s recommendations and gave structure to North American industry and commerce. The immediate effect was a drastic reduction in railway accidents and scheduling errors, paving the way for faster, safer travel and more efficient movement of goods and people. Fleming’s advocacy extended beyond North America. He participated in high-profile international conferences, culminating in the 1884 International Meridian Conference in Washington, D.C. Here, his proposals played a pivotal role in persuading delegates from over 20 countries to adopt the Greenwich Meridian as the prime meridian, the basis for a new global standard of timekeeping. Countries gradually established legal frameworks to adopt standardized time zone usage for civil and commercial purposes. Today, Canada has six times zones from Newfoundland (always a tricky 30 minutes different) to the Atlantic, Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific zones. The continental United States has five, plus four more for their island possessions in the Pacific and Caribbean. Russia has an amazing 11 time zones, while autocratic China has only a single one. A sign on the TransCanada Highway west of Thunder Bay, Ont., indicating a change in time zone. The plaque on the left commemorates Sir Sandford Fleming for his role in the adoption of a standard time. The Canadian Press/Colin Perkel Fleming’s vision permanently altered how societies measure, understand, and organize time. The widespread adaptation of his time zone model meant that, for the first time, vast regions could be coordinated with precision, whether for train schedules, telegraph messages, or cross-continental business. This system remains essentially unchanged in the 21st century, a testament to the enduring value of Fleming’s intellectual achievement and his ability to foster cooperation. Fleming was an astonishingly productive man, one that Canadians—who are presently suffering a dearth of heroes (particularly from the 19th century)—ought to know more about. He had keen ideas about electoral reform, favouring a system of proportional representation, and he advocated for transoceanic undersea cables connecting North America, Europe, and Australia. In 1851, he designed Canada’s first postage stamp. Fleming’s work on railways in the Maritime provinces and in the construction of the CPR was of paramount importance in securing Canadian unity. For those of you familiar with the photograph of the pounding of the CPR’s “last spike,” he is the tall bearded gentleman in a top hat standing behind CPR director Donald Smith, who is wielding the hammer. For his many services to his country, Fleming was knighted in 1897. Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge. Tyler Durden Tue, 11/18/2025 - 21:45
Beijing Jumps Back Into US Soybean Market, Snaps Up 20 Cargo Loads After Abrupt Pause After the Trump-Xi trade agreement cooled the tit-for-tat tariff war and opened the door for a more stable phase of negotiations, we've been tracking a series of agricultural twists and turns that can only be viewed as a rollercoaster ride: 'Signatures As Soon As Next Week': U.S.-China Deal Close, Bessent Unveils Major Victory For American Farmers China Boosts U.S. Soybean Purchases Following Trump-Xi Trade Talks Then this. China's Purchases Of U.S. Soybeans Abruptly Stops Now we've come full circle after Bloomberg reported Tuesday that China has returned to the U.S. soybean market, purchasing nearly a million tons, or about 20 cargo ships worth, for December and January delivery. Traders told BBG that state-owned giant Cofco made the purchases from both Pacific Northwest and Gulf Coast ports. As we've previously reported, these purchases end the one-week pause in buying and signal Beijing's continued commitment after last month's trade truce. That commitment: the Trump administration says Beijing pledged to buy 12 million tons of U.S. soybeans by year-end and 25 million tons annually for the following three years. Trump told reporters on Friday aboard Air Force One that China has already begun the buying process and expects "a lot of soybean purchases," potentially even before spring. On Monday, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told Fox Business, "We've already got about 330,000 TONS out... we're going to get that deal signed - then, we're off to the races." Chicago soybean futures were up more than 3% on Monday before easing in the overnight session. The renewed demand may lift bean prices much higher. Tyler Durden Tue, 11/18/2025 - 21:20
Pennsylvania School District Using AI-Enabled Wi-Fi To Search Students For Firearms Authored by Michael Clements via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), A Pennsylvania school district is using artificial intelligence to keep guns off its campuses. But civil liberties advocates have warned that the technology could lead to mass surveillance and violation of constitutional rights. The entrance to Oliver Citywide Academy is empty after a shooting in Pittsburgh on May 24, 2023, in this file photo. Justin Vellucci/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review via AP The Chartiers Valley School District in Allegheny County has implemented AI that harnesses the district’s Wi-Fi signals to determine whether people are carrying weapons as they enter the schools. The technology, called Wi-AI, was developed by CurvePoint of Pittsburgh. CurvePoint grew out of AI research at Carnegie Mellon University. According to the company, Wi-AI uses “spatial intelligence” to find weapons such as guns before they enter a school. The AI system analyzes a space and detects where potential weapons are located by interpreting “how Wi-Fi signals reflect off people and objects.” Once a possible weapon is found, security personnel, school administrators, or others can go to the location to determine whether there is actually a threat. It is now in use at Chartiers Valley School District high school, middle school, and primary school campuses. CurvePoint CEO Skip Smith said that in a recent test, the system found a pistol hidden in a backpack. He said the technology has a 95 percent success rate, failing only 4 percent of its searches. Smith said the Wi-AI does not carry the same privacy concerns of other security systems because it does not rely on facial recognition or biometric data. “We don’t know it’s you,“ Smith told The Epoch Times. ”We have no biometric information about you. Our system just sees a big bag of salt water.” Darren Mariano, president of the Chartiers Valley Board of School Directors, said the district is excited to be the first in the country to adopt the technology. “The safety of our students and staff is always our top priority,” he said in a statement. “We’re thrilled to be the first district in the nation to implement this groundbreaking technology.” Law enforcement officers work at the scene of a shooting at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis on Aug. 27, 2025, in this file photo. Tom Baker/AFP via Getty Images But some say the technology should be approached with caution. Jeremy Rovinsky is a constitutional law professor at Crestpoint University in Phoenix. He said the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment protections against unlawful search and seizure apply to public school students, although the standard is slightly different in a school setting. Under the Fourth Amendment, a government official must have probable cause to believe that a crime is being committed before obtaining a search warrant. However, in New Jersey v. T.L.O., the Supreme Court ruled that a school administrator needed to have only a “reasonable suspicion” that the search would turn up evidence of a crime. In that case, a teacher reported that two students had been smoking in a girls restroom. One of the 14-year-olds denied the allegation. An administrator searched the girl’s purse and found cigarettes, what appeared to be marijuana, paraphernalia for smoking marijuana, and evidence that she was selling pot to her classmates. The student was found to be delinquent in juvenile court. She appealed the decision on the grounds that the search was illegal. Reasonable Suspicion The high court ruled that the administrator had a reasonable suspicion for the search based on the teacher’s report and that a search warrant was not required. In a message to The Epoch Times, Rovinsky said the law also recognizes “administrative searches.” These are non-intrusive, general searches that are targeted to preventing a specific danger such as keeping guns out of school. Still, Rovinsky wrote, new technology should be introduced carefully to ensure that it does not become a constitutional problem. “While school authorities have greater latitude to search students and their possessions than authorities outside of school, the scope of what counts as reasonable imposes limits on school searches,” Rovinsky wrote. Seattle-based lawyer Evan Oshan said the technology could devolve into allowing warrantless searches of every person to enter the campus based on no evidence or reasonable suspicion. If not checked, according to Oshan, the technology could be implemented in all public spaces, creating an even larger surveillance state. A police officer monitors a drone flight near the Chula Vista Police Department in Chula Vista, Calif., on Aug. 21, 2025. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times “We’re normalizing constant surveillance of our children under the guise of safety,” Oshan wrote in a message to The Epoch Times. “This dragnet approach sweeps up everyone, guilty and innocent alike, which is precisely what the Fourth Amendment was designed to prevent.” Smith agreed that the technology will grow. However, he said, growth will provide more benefits than risks. He said the technology can be used to monitor the elderly or those with dementia, or to provide security and marketing data by tracking for business. “Our view of the future is we’re offering inferences on how spaces are being used ... but without capturing, you know, private information on who the individual [user] is,” he said. He acknowledged that AI is a relatively new technology and that some glitches may arise. But he said that as the Wi-AI learns, the company will prioritize privacy and security. Oshan’s view is not quite as rosy. “This technology creates a slippery slope,“ he said. ”Today it’s Wi-Fi signals searching for weapons in schools. Tomorrow it’s on public transportation, in shopping malls, at government buildings. Where does it end? The Constitution provides the guardrails, and we ignore them at our peril.” Tyler Durden Tue, 11/18/2025 - 20:55
Ecuador Slams Door On Hosting US Military Base In National Referendum Ecuador just had a major vote which has gone some underreported in US mainstream media, given perhaps the current focus on the Venezuela crisis. The Latin American country held a referendum Sunday on allowing allowing the return of foreign military bases in the country. This was ultimately seen as a vote on allowing an American military presence, which the US has long sought to reestablish. Ecuadoreans voted down the proposal in a significant blow to President Daniel Noboa, who has sought a change in the constitution. Since 2008, the constitution has banned foreign bases on Ecuadorean soil. Image source, US Air National Guard: Ecuador's military receives a US C-130H Hercules aircraft in Latacunga. One of Noboa's key rationales for seeking a reversal of the prior legislation was to have outside assistance in fighting soaring crime and drug-trafficking in the country and region. The referendum was held 16 years after the United States was made to shut down a military site on Ecuador's Pacific coast. The New York Times suggests that Ecuadoreans currently see the Trump administration pushing its military might around in the Caribbean while threatening countries like Venezuela, Colombia, and even more recently Mexico: They soundly rejected a national referendum on Sunday that he had backed, aimed at authorizing a foreign miliary presence in Ecuador. With more than 98 percent of ballots counted, 61 percent opposed the measure. The vote comes as the region has been roiled by the intensifying U.S. military campaign against boats the Trump administration claims are smuggling drugs. The Ron Paul Institute also sees in this a grass roots movement among foreign peoples to reign in US foreign policy and militarism in their lands. Journalist and pundit Adam Dick writes the following: There is not a lot of reason for hope for the US to start adhering soon to a noninterventionist foreign policy. Indeed, President Donald Trump has been moving the US in the opposite direction. He continued US participation in the wars of his predecessor. This includes the Ukraine and Israel wars, in regard to which Trump had promised, in the lead-up to becoming president, to bring peace very quickly. Further, Trump has begun a new war against Venezuela and is threatening to pursue a new “Global War for Christians,” starting with threats of US military attacks in Nigeria. Meanwhile, Congress does nothing to stop or curtail the intervention. There seems to be little hope of the US government choosing to move toward nonintervention abroad soon. Maybe some of the best hope for change in that direction comes from people in other countries saying “no more” to aiding the US government’s interventionist pursuits. On Sunday, a majority of voters in Ecuador voted in a national ballot measures election against allowing the US government to have military bases in the South American country. The “no” vote win occurred despite Ecuador President Daniel Noboa strongly campaigning for the ballot measure’s approval. So long as Americans fail to put an end to their government’s interventions abroad, there is hope that people in Ecuador and elsewhere around the world can impose some restraint. Also in the background has been Trump admin officials really pushing and reviving concept of influence in the world based on the 18th century Monroe Doctrine. AFP/Getty Images The historic Monroe Doctrine declared the Western Hemisphere off-limits to other countries, while vowing at the same time the US would stay out of European affairs. Of course, Washington is currently only interested in the former part of this and not so much the latter. Tyler Durden Tue, 11/18/2025 - 20:30
Federal Court Blocks Texas's New House-Map Favoring Republicans Authored by Arjun Singh via The Epoch Times, A panel of federal judges in Texas has ruled that the state cannot use newly redrawn House maps aimed at securing additional seats for Republicans. “The public perception of this case is that it’s about politics. To be sure, politics played a role in drawing the 2025 Map. But it was much more than just politics. Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map,” wrote U.S. District Judge Jeffrey V. Brown in the 2-1 ruling. “The Plaintiff Groups are likely to prove at trial that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map. So, we preliminarily enjoin Texas’s 2025 Map.” The decision marks a loss for Republicans who have been looking to gain a seat advantage in the House of Representatives, where they currently hold a slim majority. Texas may appeal the decision directly to the Supreme Court of the United States, pursuant to the Voting Rights Act (VRA), which was cited in the ruling. The preliminary injunction was ordered by a three-judge panel mandated by the VRA for such cases, which voted 2–1 in favor of granting it. Tyler Durden Tue, 11/18/2025 - 20:05
