Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures:

• Surveillance Tech Company Is Pitching An Unholy ALPR/Stingray Hybrid To Law Enforcement: Here’s something no one but cops and the tech firms that love cops wanted: an Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR) that can scoop up pretty much any information being broadcasted by cars and the devices carried by the people inside them. As if ALPRs weren’t already controversial enough, here comes a tech company offering that makes most ALPRs (including those sold by Flock!) look absolutely innocuous. License-plate readers meet fake cell towers in one tidy package. The surveillance-creep beat keeps finding new lows. (TechDirt)

• How Some Private-Equity Managers Collect Big Fees on Paper Gains: Fee structures are among the pitfalls of investing in semiliquid funds (Wall Street Journal) see also Private Credit Is Making Bets on Consumer Debt at a Precarious Time: Billions are flowing from firms like Blue Owl and KKR into Buy Now, Pay Later companies. It’s an untested model and skeptics are worried about what happens in a downturn. The private-credit boom wades into buy-now-pay-later just as households strain. A flashing-yellow-light story worth your attention. (Bloomberg)

• How a Master of Deception Conned Investors Out of $50 Million—in His Own Words: Paul Regan recorded himself ripping off clients to teach others how to do it, too. A fraudster narrates his own scheme. First-person grift is uncomfortably compelling — and instructive. Those tapes reveal the inner workings of a fraud. (Wall Street Journal)

• What Big Food Did to Ice Cream: The slow degradation of the supermarket pint, explained with real food science. Enshittification comes for dessert. The “encrapification” of the American pint — a chemist’s plain-language dissection. (Medium)

• Forget Baseball: Gambling Is America’s Real National Pastime. “It is one of the defects of our national character… that no sooner do we get hold of a good thing of this sort, than we proceed to make it hurtful by excess.” A book-bite argument that betting, not baseball, is the true American sport now. Fits the week’s wildfire-and-insider-betting theme uncomfortably well. (Next Big Idea Club)

• A Terrible Thing Happened to My Family: Buttigieg writes personally about a family ordeal: Many times over the years, I have been denounced, yelled at, protested, threatened, and heckled. I’ve been through political attacks in office, death threats in public life, and rocket attacks in war. But this is the ugliest thing that has happened to me since my career in service began. Even in today’s climate, there should be one fundamental principle everyone respects: whatever you think about someone in politics, you leave their kids alone.  (Pete Buttigieg)

• How BP Execs Influenced a Climate Study That Shaped a Generation of Global Policy: ProPublica traces how an oil major’s hand quietly steered the influential ‘wedges’ framework. A story about who gets to write the science. (ProPublica)

• Trump Cut a Billion-Dollar Mining Deal. His Sons Stand to Profit.: A Kazakhstan minerals deal with a familiar conflict-of-interest aroma. The family-business presidency, chapter umpteen. An agreement between the U.S. and Kazakhstan has given a group of American investors with ties to the president and the commerce secretary access to one of the world’s largest untapped reserves of tungsten. (New York Times) see also A Trumpworld Events Company Is Raking In Millions in Federal Contracts: The Trump administration has awarded Event Strategies several contracts—including one that could be worth up to $100 million—with little competition, according to federal filings. The team behind the January 6 rally now cashes government checks. Wired follows the money from the Ellipse to the federal ledger. (Wired)

• Alarming New Trend Dominating Youth Sports: Repeating 8th Grade. Families Pay Thousands for It.: Parents paying to hold kids back for an athletic edge. A depressing arms race dressed up as opportunity. A surge of for-profit ‘reclass’ academies are raising equity and oversight concerns across N.J. scholastic sports. (NJ.com)

• EU Politicians Investigated Pegasus Spyware. Then It Ended Up on One of Their Phones: “It is a direct attack on the rule of law,” says one European Parliament member of the new findings from Citizen Lab. The watchdogs become the targets. A chilling reminder that commercial spyware doesn’t respect who’s supposed to be holding it accountable. (Wired)

Video of the day: Are Humans Badly Designed For Modern Life?

Be sure to check out our Master’s in Business next week with Mamoon Hamid, partner at Kleiner Perkins. He is a leading investor in enterprise-software and AI. He was an early investor in Slack, Figma, Rippling, Glean, Netskope, and Box. Hamid co-founded Social Capital with Chamath Palihapitiyal. In 2017, joined Kleiner Perkins

Do Competitive Seats Matter?

Source: Bruce Mehlman’s Age of Disruption

 

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To learn how these reads are assembled each day, please see this.

 

The post 10 Sunday Reads appeared first on The Big Picture.

DRAMageddon Deepens As Samsung Prepares 20% Memory Price Hike

There is no immediate price relief coming for cutting-edge memory chips, even as South Korea moves to double memory capacity. New fabs and expanded lines take time to build and then ramp production, meaning the supply response will lag demand. For now, DRAM inventories remain tight through year-end as data center buildouts accelerate, keeping producers like Samsung in control of the market, with more price hikes likely ahead.

The memory-chip squeeze is not easing anytime soon. That is the clear takeaway from a new report by the Shanghai-based Chinese financial media group Yicai, which says Samsung plans to raise average third-quarter DRAM prices by about 20% from the prior quarter.

More color from Yicai:

On July 3, it was reported that Samsung Electronics plans to raise the average selling price of its DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) by 20% in the third quarter of this year compared to the previous quarter.

"It's true," an executive from a consumer electronics manufacturer told CBN reporters. "Samsung had already spoken with us in June and we have now received verbal notification from Samsung about raising DRAM prices."

"The significant price increase of upstream components will be passed on to the final price of the finished product, which will curb market demand to some extent. However, since the overall price of consumer electronics products is not high now, even if prices rise, it is not expected to significantly affect users' purchasing decisions," said the person in charge of the aforementioned consumer electronics terminal manufacturer.

Another industry veteran also told reporters that the news that Samsung plans to raise DRAM prices by 20% in the third quarter is true, and Samsung has already notified some customers of the verbal price quote.

DDR4 DRAM spot prices tracked by inSpectrum Tech suggest the memory squeeze still has room to run, with the latest rebound pointing to another potential leg higher.

The industry response, and in South Korea's case, a national-level response, has been a massive push by giants Samsung and SK Hynix to double memory-chip production. But that chip capacity buildout will take years, meaning the current supply crunch is unlikely to ease quickly in the near term.

The situation is worsening, with a recent report detailing Apple's plan to buy cheaper DRAM from China. Meanwhile, there have been price hikes on popular gaming consoles, from Xbox to PlayStation, as tech giants can no longer shield consumers from memory-chip inflation and are now being forced to pass those costs along to customers.

At what point does Trump start raging at soaring memory prices

PPI Electronic Components is pulling entire core index higher pic.twitter.com/v9ufHmx0gG

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 11, 2026

JPMorgan analyst Jay Kwon recently broke down South Korea's push to double memory production. Read the note here.

Tyler Durden Sat, 07/04/2026 - 12:15

New York City Appropriates $7 Million For 'Trans Equity', Drag Queen Story Hours

Authored by Bryan Hyde via American Greatness,

A massive $126 billion spending plan approved by the New York City Council earlier this week includes nearly $7 million for so-called ‘trans equity’ programs and drag queen story hours.

The New York Post reports that the budget was approved by Mayor Zohran Mamdani and directs the taxpayer money to programs and services “to help empower the transgender and gender non-conforming (TGNC) community.”

NYC budget funnels $7M to transgender programs, drag story hours

For the record, Drag Queen Story Hour now receives more city funding than the Department of Veterans Services.

Understand where we are.pic.twitter.com/UtvWOfZPod

— The Unredacted (@theunredacted) July 2, 2026

The city council said, “Funding may support education programs, employment services, workforce development, healthcare navigation, legal guidance, community workshops, or academic research, among others.”

According to The National Review, the new budget doesn’t include any spending for the additional 580 police officers Mayor Mamdani promised to hire.

State Conservative Party Chairman Gerard Kassar questioned, “Why isn’t there more money for police?”

Kassar added, “There are countless dollars going toward extreme, far-out programs,” Kassar said.

“This goes way beyond recognizing transgender individuals into spending millions of taxpayer dollars to promote transgenderism.”

Key funding initiatives of the nearly $7 million earmark include $1 million for directed to Destiny Tomorrow for the first transitional housing program for transgender individuals in the Bronx as well as $705,000 for community health for the Gay Men’s Health Crisis and $600,000 for the Caribbean Equality Project.

The allocation also includes funding for education and tolerance with funds for the Advocates for Trans Equality Education Fund and the Trans Formative Schools program, alongside localized funding from city council members for drag story hours in schools and libraries.

Allen Roskoff, head of the Jim Owles Liberal LGBT Democratic Club, told the New York Post, “Transgender youth need our support. These individuals are the most vulnerable people out there. We will do everything in our power to protect these children from hate orchestrated by far right Republicans. We are going to see to it they get the health care and protection they deserve.”

The approval of the nearly $7 million earmark comes on the heels of Mamdani encouraging New Yorkers to set their thermostats to 78 degrees to conserve energy, with Republicans calling the mayor’s budgeting priorities into question.

Mamdani should use the $7 million to improve the electric grid. https://t.co/MExzjDFawi

— Mercedes Schlapp (@mercedesschlapp) July 1, 2026

Tyler Durden Sat, 07/04/2026 - 11:40

Ships Abruptly U-Turn Near Hormuz As Some Shift To Iran-Approved Routes

The reopening of the Hormuz chokepoint has proceeded relatively smoothly for weeks, but an overnight development shows that the process remains fragile. At least eight ships attempting to exit the Persian Gulf abruptly reversed course near the critical waterway.

Bloomberg cites ship-tracking data showing that the vessels, including oil tankers, product carriers, bulk carriers, and vehicle carriers, were moving toward the strait along the Omani coast before abruptly turning back. Several ships later resumed their transits through the strait by shifting northward onto a route closer to the Iranian coast, in line with Tehran's request that ships use authorized Iranian-designated lanes.

via Bloomberg: 

It is unclear why the ships abruptly altered course, though Tehran has repeatedly warned vessels by VHF radio to follow designated routes.

Earlier on Saturday, Iran warned Western powers that the Hormuz waterway is not a "theater for the military display of extra-regional powers."

Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said Iran views itself as the responsible power and security guarantor of the strait, adding that Tehran would closely monitor any foreign military movements in the waterway.

Gharibabadi's warning came shortly after the UK and France announced that their navies were ready to support freedom-of-navigation operations in the waterway.

"Iran, as the responsible power and guarantor of the Strait's security, warns with sensitivity to any military movement in this waterway," Gharibabadi said on X.

He added, "The security of Hormuz lies with the coastal states; the crisis-makers will be held accountable for the consequences of their adventurism; this is a serious warning."

While daily commodity vessel crossings have averaged around 34 since Monday, Hormuz vessel traffic remains well below pre-war levels.

Natasha Kaneva, JPMorgan's top commodities strategist, provided clients with more color on Hormuz ship flows and what it means for energy markets:

There is now a rush to move stranded cargoes out of the Strait of Hormuz. Average crude exports from the Persian Gulf plus re-routed volumes over the last ten days have already recovered to about 19 mbd, just 3 mbd below pre-war levels. The backlog is also disappearing quickly: floating storage has fallen to just 20 million barrels, while another 10 million barrels remain in onshore tanks awaiting exports.

Meanwhile, inbound tankers are lining up to enter the Strait, preparing to load barrels that have been sitting in storage tanks for months. More entering vessels will be needed as production across the Gulf gradually returns to normal operating levels. We are already seeing a growing queue of ballast VLCCs moving towards the Gulf.

The line is long and deep—an important signal that the logistical chain is reconnecting and that loadings can continue uninterrupted as the system works its way back toward normal.

Professional subscribers can read more about Hormuz and Gulf energy markets on our new Marketdesk.ai portal.

Tyler Durden Sat, 07/04/2026 - 11:05

 

 

This week, I speak with Kleiner Perkins partner Mamoon Hamid. We discuss Mamoon’s thoughts on the AI revolution and his approach to early AI investing.  Mamoon also breaks down how he became an early investor in giants like Slack and Figma, and how the firm assesses the investments they missed.

He explains how Kleiner Perkins pivoted towards earlier-stage seed investments.

A transcript of our conversation is available here Tuesday.

You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube (video), YouTube (audio), and Bloomberg. All of our earlier podcasts on your favorite pod hosts can be found here.

Be sure to check out our bonus Masters in Business this coming next week with McKeel Hagerty, CEO/Chairman of Hagerty Specialty Insurance. He transformed a family specialty-insurance agency into an enthusiast-driven platform focused on collectible cars, events, valuation data, and auctions. HGTY is now a public company that insures everything from classic cars to boats, trucks, tractors, and military vehicles for over 2.8M collectors.

 

 

 

 

 

The post MiB: Mamoon Hamid, Kleiner Perkins on AI Investing appeared first on The Big Picture.

Russia Planning Provocation Against Poland To Test NATO Resolve, US Reportedly Warned

The Telegraph along with various Eastern European media outlets, including Polish national sources, are reporting that United States passed Warsaw a warning based on intelligence that Moscow is considering an armed provocation against Poland to "test NATO's resolve".

Provocation scenarios are said to potentially include drone attacks on critical infrastructure such as power plants, or else testing airspace by simulating a large-scale air attack to try and force Poland to prematurely activate its air defenses.

An official within President Karol Nawrocki's administration said the US "systematically informs Poland about ever-new Russian plans for a conventional attack on NATO's eastern flank, from which Poland is by no means excluded." These reports are rife with wild speculation, however, and thus could be standard wartime propaganda. 

Polish armed forces/Anadolu

A "hybrid attack" on the border region, possibly involving Belarusian armed forces, is considered to be the most serious possibly scenario, according to the reports.

It would be portrayed as an 'accidental' incursion:

Moscow could portray such an incursion as accidental, claiming troops crossed the border because of a GPS failure or entered Poland to retrieve a malfunctioning helicopter, according to the report.

Russia could then seek negotiations rather than a military response, betting that the United States would pressure Poland not to open fire on Russian or Belarusian personnel.

The Telegraph lays out a potential motive in the following:

Russia would count on the fact that, instead of opening fire on Russian or Belarusian soldiers in such a situation, Poland would be forced by the US to negotiate with Russia or Belarus rather than respond forcefully, Polish sources told Onet.

A scenario in which the Russians would withdraw from Poland as a result of those negotiations, rather than because they were forced to do so by military means, would be seen as a win from Moscow’s perspective.

An end to Western support for Ukraine could even be a central Russian demand of such talks in return for withdrawal from Poland.

Given the reporting on all of this ultimately originated in Polish media, and cited sources close to the presidency, there's also the likelihood that it is pure propaganda - aimed at dialing up Western pressure and 'readiness' with an eye on Moscow.

Poland is meanwhile busy with ongoing plans to complete a new set of anti-drone fortifications along its eastern borders, part of a broader EU and NATO push for a protective 'drone wall' in defense of European airspace.

There's been much speculation that 'Union State' Belarus could play a key role in future Russian maneuvers targeting Poland.

This planning began in earnest in 2025 after repeat aerial spillover incidents related to the Ukraine war - at various times errant drones, missiles, interceptors - and also even warplanes - have breached Baltic and Eastern European nations' airspace. Often, however, these incidents arise from off-course Ukrainian drones.

Tyler Durden Sat, 07/04/2026 - 08:45

ISIS Terrorist Reaches Britain Via Small Boat After TikTok Assured Him UK 'Accepts Everyone'

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

A convicted ISIS terrorist who attended beheadings and public floggings in Iraq has been jailed for two years after arriving in Britain on a small boat. He told officials he came because he heard on TikTok that the UK "accepts everyone" and respects human rights.

Mohammed Yaseen, 35, had lived a desolate existence in Iraq before aligning with ISIS. He watched ceremonies including stonings and was found with a Kalashnikov rifle. He later travelled to Germany in 2014, made multiple asylum claims, and was convicted in Dusseldorf for participating in a terrorist organisation and membership of ISIS. He received a four-year-and-three-month sentence and a 20-year expulsion order.

Instead of being returned to Iraq, Yaseen made his way to France and then crossed the Channel. On 13 December 2025 a Border Force vessel intercepted the small boat carrying around 80 people. Yaseen gave a false name, claimed to be from Kuwait, and lied about his age and background. He was placed in a hotel in Basingstoke with clean clothes and asylum support.

Convicted ISIS terrorist who attended beheadings and public floggings in Iraq came to Britain on small boat after hearing on Tiktok that UK 'accepts everyone' court hears https://t.co/iLuMUHA6iu

— Daily Mail (@DailyMail) July 2, 2026

Of course he was.

Biometrics exposed the deception. He was arrested on Christmas Eve and later admitted attempting to enter the UK without valid clearance. Winchester Crown Court heard the full extent of his past.

Prosecutor Steven Molloy told the court: "He said he travelled from Kuwait to France from Belgium and was seeking asylum. He said he did not like it in France but heard on TikTok that the UK accepts everyone and respects human rights."

Molloy added: "There is a deeper and lengthy involvement in terrorism and Islamic extremist ideology. Our assessment is that he is high risk in all categories. There is a danger that this individual poses to the whole of the UK."

Defence barrister Katie Porter-Windley acknowledged the German convictions but insisted they had no bearing on his UK intentions and that he had committed no further offences here.

Yes, they really argued that the convicted ISIS terrorist should be allowed to claim asylum.

Judge Christopher Parker KC noted evidence that Yaseen could speak English despite claiming otherwise and stated: "You made absolutely no mention of what had happened in Germany in 2020 when you were convicted of a serious offence. My judgment is that your culpability is exceedingly high. There is a strong likelihood that you will be deported from this country either at the start of or before your sentence is concluded."

Yaseen is now serving his sentence and faces removal.

The question is, how many more cases like this have slipped through the net?

The case occurs against the backdrop of sustained small boat arrivals across the English Channel. Official figures show around 36,000 people reached the UK by small boat in the year ending 31 May 2026, down 13% on the previous period.

In 2025 the total stood at approximately 41,500. The first five months of 2026 saw roughly 9,000 arrivals, 38% lower than the same stretch of 2025, though numbers typically rise through summer. Recent daily counts have fluctuated, with over hundreds arriving some days.

A Home Office spokesperson claimed the government is "bearing down on small boat crossings, with removals of small boat migrants at record levels and asylum claims down by 12%," adding that joint work with France has stopped over 44,000 attempted crossings since the election and that nearly 70,000 people here illegally have been removed or deported, up 41%.

Yet the presence of a convicted ISIS operative who simply watched a TikTok video and decided Britain would take him demonstrates that vetting and deterrence remain dangerously inadequate.

Footage captured by GB News shows the mindset of some arrivals. Illegal migrants on a small boat in the Channel can be seen discarding passports and shouting "this is the end of England" moments before landing on British shores.

EXCLUSIVE: Illegal migrants shout 'this is the end of England' just moments before landing on British shoreshttps://t.co/4vugM38Q9l

— GB News (@GBNEWS) June 30, 2026

Meanwhile, the government plans to house more than 1,000 adult single male boat migrants at a former MOD site near the villages of Upper Arncot and Piddington (combined population around 1,600).

The men, who crossed from France, will not be detained and will be free to wander local areas. Even voters in areas that backed pro-migration parties are now confronting the direct consequences.

The same pattern appears in housing decisions that have sparked fury in rural communities. There is outrage over plans to move more than 80 asylum seekers into £250,000 new-build homes on what locals call "Migrant Street" in Stoke Heath, Shropshire.

The properties had been promised as social housing for local families. Residents described feeling lied to and expressed fears for safety, particularly around children.

More than 80 asylum seekers set to be moved into £250,000 'Migrant Street' newbuild village homes – sparking fury among residents https://t.co/IKN77OFbFI

— Daily Mail (@DailyMail) June 30, 2026

GB News correspondent Alex Armstrong spoke to locals in Stoke Heath. One resident stated: "These houses were built for locals, for families who've never had a chance... It's putting our lives in danger."

'These houses were built for locals, for families who've never had a chance... It's putting our lives in danger.'@AlexArmstrong speaks with residents in Stoke Heath in Shropshire at so-called 'migrant street' where 20 new homes have been set aside to house asylum seekers. pic.twitter.com/gRRAAbCEUn

— GB News (@GBNEWS) July 1, 2026

The new-build estates purported to be for social housing are instead now being allocated to hundreds of random foreign men, placed next to a children's playground and primary school.

Proposals for large numbers at sites such as Linton-on-Ouse and former military bases, stand in stark contrast with 1.5 million British households on council waiting lists and the lack of local consultation or amenities in many receiving areas.

Residents have voiced concerns about safety, cultural change, and the sudden tripling of small village populations.

Beyond immediate arrivals and housing, policy shifts are accelerating the erosion of British identity. The Centre for Migration Control has today highlighted how citizenship is being systematically devalued.

After the earlier emphasis on vague "British values," the Home Office is now allowing illegal migrants to obtain British citizenship simply by remaining in the country for six years, regardless of integration or values.

British citizenship is being systematically devalued.

First it was the vapid notion of "British values". Now the Home Office is abandoning even that loose concept – allowing illegal migrants to become British simply because they have been in the country for 6 years. https://t.co/DwhIAD6unF

— Centre for Migration Control (@migrationCtrl) July 2, 2026

Further examples underscore the enforcement gap. GB News reported that Labour has been urged to pursue rapid deportation after the so-called "Godfather of smugglers," who boasted "this city is ours," claimed asylum in the UK.

Labour told to make rapid deportation as 'Godfather of smugglers' claims asylum in UK after boasting 'this city is ours'https://t.co/DIDi8Mqx2r

— GB News (@GBNEWS) July 2, 2026

The cumulative picture is stark. A terrorist who attended beheadings enters because social media told him Britain would accept him - and the court record confirms the claim aligned with his experience. Migrants on incoming boats declare the end of England. Rural communities watch new homes handed to unvetted arrivals while local families remain on waiting lists. Citizenship rules loosen further, and even notorious smugglers are benefitting from the system.

Britain's borders are not merely porous; they function as an open invitation that high-risk actors and economic migrants alike have learned to exploit.

Every fresh arrival and every housing dispute adds to the pressure on communities already stretched by years of uncontrolled inflows.

Secure borders, rigorous vetting, swift removals of those without valid claims, and an end to policies that place newcomers ahead of citizens are baseline requirements for any nation that intends to remain sovereign and safe.

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 Sat, 07/04/2026 - 08:10

German Clampdown On Sick Leave: No More Phoning It In, Doc Note Needed On Day 1

In a stark departure from its reputation for employee-coddling, the German government is attacking the mass abuse of sick leave with strict new policies that would require a doctor's note obtained on the very first day an employee is sick, with no ability to simply take a sick day with a mere phone call. The reform package also targets retirement ages, tax rates,  regulations, welfare benefits and the ease of hiring and firing. It's expected to pass parliament by year's end. 

“The number of sick days is too high,” German chancellor Friedrich Merz told reporters. “We are creating a set of tools that will enable those involved, both employees and companies, to correct this. We know this is a tough decision. But we can no longer afford the competitive disadvantage caused by prolonged absences from work.” Merz said the changes are needed to invigorate Germany's economy, which has faltered after the COVID pandemic and suffered from the West's interventions in the Ukraine war and Iran. 

After months of disagreements, Germany’s governing coalition has agreed on sweeping reforms to revive its economy.

Chancellor Merz hopes changes to the tax code, less bureaucracy, and a more flexible job market will help. But will they be enough to fix Germany? pic.twitter.com/jHqmUJBG4D

— DW Politics (@dw_politics) July 2, 2026

Previously, employees in Germany didn't need a doctor's note until their third day of absence, and they could obtain the note via a phone call to a doctor. The rules also granted up to six weeks of leave per illness. A new bout of sickness started a new six-week clock. 

On top of enjoying six weeks of vacation time, the average German has been taking nearly three weeks of sick leave per year. The German sick-time pace is about double the US pace, and is also higher than the call-out frequency in Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark, Poland and Italy. However, sick-leave abuse is even worse in France and most of the Nordic states. 

Predictably, German trade unions are up in arms. Frank Werneke, who leads the services-sector union Verdi, said Merz was "creating a culture of distrust of employees." (Seems like maybe the employees collectively cultivated that distrust by casually calling out sick.)  

“Now remove their sick leave, tell them they need to suffer through a heatwave without AC, and make their trains break down”

“Yes, my queen, it will be done. Glory to Germany” https://t.co/WZkyNbJ1JD pic.twitter.com/a8lD3G2Nps

— Nikolaus M (@foxofreason) July 2, 2026

Medical professionals are squawking too, warning the policy will be a hammer-blow to efficiency and doctor availability. The German Association of Family Physicians called the new rules "an absolute catastrophe," adding that "our practices would be flooded with patients who don’t need in-person care and would be better off in bed." 

The German reform package resulted from negotiations between Merz's center-right Christian Democratic Union Party and the Left-wing Social Democrat Party that is part of the ruling coalition. The package also includes:

• A gradual increase of the retirement age from 65 to 67
• The introduction of a capital-markets fund for the investment of contributions to the state pension system
• Greater ease in hiring short-term workers and firing top-earners
• Welfare reform that incentivizes laid-off workers to get a new job as soon as possible 
• €10 billion in income tax relief for working-class and middle-income households, fueled by a tax hike on those earning more than €250,000 a year, along with reductions of assorted tax breaks
• Deregulation, including sweeping relief that drops most requirements for employers to feed statistics to government bureaucracies, and the easing of data privacy regulations for small firms
• Bakeries and pastry shops will have the freedom to stay open later on Sundays

Tyler Durden Sat, 07/04/2026 - 07:35

The American System Rejects Europe's Economic Suicide

Authored by J.B. Shurk via American Thinker,

National self-sufficiency beats globalism’s mass dependency.

What makes a nation wealthy?  It’s not just arable lands surrounded by other lands filled with water, timber, coal, gas, oil, metals, and minerals.  It’s the farmer who knows best how to cultivate those lands in order to maximize food production.  It’s the woodsman, miner, fisherman, and oilman who can extract nature’s bounty and provide the raw materials for every kind of manufacturer.

Producing things requires knowledge and skill.  Competition between producers creates an incentive to innovate.  This motor of discovery — in which human ingenuity uses established knowledge and long-harnessed skills as inputs for creating new forms of knowledge and skill — generates increasing efficiencies in production.  Costs go down; prices go down; producers produce more; consumers consume more.  Economic freedom, therefore, is a wealth-generating feedback loop that benefits all of society.

A nation that can do all of these things on its own is a self-sufficient nation.  A nation that is capable of producing more than it consumes is an exporting nation.  A nation that exports more than it imports is a nation whose people become increasingly wealthy.  The rest of the world pays that nation for its way of life.  The world pays that nation simply for existing.

Anyone who says that a nation’s culture is irrelevant to a nation’s standard of living is a liar.  Productive cultures generate national wealth.  Lazy, reckless, or destructive cultures ensure lasting poverty.  There’s an adage so old and universally embraced that numerous cultures claim authorship: Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day.  Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.  People generally acknowledge these truths.  Whether you are a ninth-century Viking raider or a twenty-first-century welfare queen, if you cannot produce for yourself, you cannot feed yourself without taking from others.  Whether a Somali pirate or a Somali “l-e-a-r-i-n-g” center fraudster, you are dependent on theft from others because self-sufficiency is out of reach.

What might a nation do to encourage wealth creation?  Just as a good farmer cultivates the land to maximize a harvest, good national leaders cultivate social values that maximize personal production.  A culture that values knowledge, skill, and hard work encourages members of society to learn and labor in pursuit of productive innovation.  A legal system that prioritizes protections for private property and personal liberty encourages increased production and wealth creation.  A society that takes pride in building and manufacturing new things fosters a spirit of entrepreneurship.  An entrepreneurial society encourages a self-sufficient society.  A self-sufficient society produces a self-sufficient nation.  Therefore, the cultivation of virtue within society simultaneously cultivates a wealthy nation.

These aren’t difficult concepts to understand.

Why, then, do most Western nations reject the proven path toward national wealth?  Why do Western politicians celebrate “multiculturalism” over the historically productive virtues of Western culture?  Why do Western pundits disparage knowledge, skill, and hard work as attributes of “white supremacy”?  Why do Western lawmakers make it more difficult for Western citizens to own land and personal property?  Why do Western bureaucrats churn out rules and regulations that limit what can be built and manufactured?  Why do Western governments make it difficult for small businesses to thrive?  Why do Western news media claim that only foreign migrants are willing to perform blue-collar jobs?  Why do Western bankers claim that only foreign slave laborers are capable of manufacturing critical goods?  Why do Western professors spend more time lecturing about racism and oppression than how to critically think, invent, and build new things?  Why do Western NGOs support open borders, “climate change” regulations, and economy-killing taxes?  Why do religious leaders praise the criminal and not the faithful Christian?  Why do cultural leaders encourage citizens and foreigners alike to become dependent on social welfare?  Why do pop culture leaders extol frivolous excess over hard work and discipline?  Why do Westerners celebrate gay “pride” for at least a month each year instead of encouraging all citizens to take pride in what they build, learn, and accomplish?  Why do Wall Street and the City of London work so hard to deprive the United States and the United Kingdom of economies that benefit Main Street businesses as much as multinational conglomerates?

Reading through the above questions should lead a rational person toward a reasonable conclusion: The people who currently maintain economic and political power in the West have no interest in making the nations that they ostensibly call “home” wealthy.  The United Kingdom and the European Union cannot produce wealth if their manufacturers are forced to use windmill-generated energy that has been exponentially outpowered by coal and steam for four centuries.  Germany cannot produce wealth if it subsidizes Chinese automakers while bankrupting its own with “green energy” regulations.  Canada cannot produce wealth if it refuses to use its abundant natural resources while importing most manufactured goods from Asia.

Western nations that refuse to use hydrocarbon and nuclear energies are nations dependent on foreign powers for manufacturing.  Western nations that refuse to allow their farmers to grow crops and produce meat and dairy supplies for their home populations are nations dependent on foreign powers for food.  Western nations whose people lack the knowledge and skills to repair everything from small appliances to entire electric grids are nations dependent on foreign powers during crises.  Western nations that lack the cultural will to be self-sufficient are nations stuck in a permanent state of dependency.  If you hand out food stamps liberally and look down on people who insist on providing for their families without government assistance, then you will produce a nation of pirates and fraudsters who make, grow, and build nothing.

How does the United Kingdom survive when it produces next to nothing?  Right now it generates most of its revenue by acting as the economic middleman for most of the globe.  Even though its empire has collapsed and its navy has disappeared, the City of London’s army of bankers, consultants, and lawyers still take a nice cut of every economic transaction around the planet.  They collect insurance fees, regulatory fees, and investment fees like an absentee landlord still bilking old colonies with “rules-based” trade agreements that put money in the pockets of English lords who create nothing.  The Bank of England and the Secret Intelligence Service work together to game the international economy by stirring up regional conflicts and using insider knowledge to bet on the eventual market winners.  Britain’s central bank has ensured that the wealthiest members of society profit from market manipulation while the rest of society suffers from currency depreciation.  This is an economic model engineered to benefit a small cabal of “noble elites” while impoverishing the larger nation.

Ever since some of Britain’s nobles succeeded in convincing some of America’s nobles to erect a Federal Reserve central bank in the Bank of England’s image back in 1913, this funny money con game has drained America’s wealth, too.  Although Americans’ can-do spirit has buoyed economic liberty and growth, the parasitic structure of central banking has steadily deprived the United States of its once unparalleled self-sufficiency.  The gradual debasement of the U.S. dollar has led to the decoupling from the gold standard, the creation of a petrodollar dependent on forever-wars and foreign entanglements, the offshoring of industry and manufacturing, and international trade “deals” that make America more dependent on foreign powers while kicking back “service” fees to Wall Street and City of London bankers.

This is what globalization really produces: dependency.

For the United States to be wealthy and strong, we must return to an American system that mines, grows, and builds everything.  Our people must embrace both personal and national self-sufficiency.  We must reject Europe’s economic suicide.

Tyler Durden Sat, 07/04/2026 - 07:00

The weekend is here! Pour yourself a mug of Danish Blend coffee, grab a seat outside, and get ready for our longer-form weekend reads:

• Why You Grieve the End of Summer Before It’s Even Over: If you’re already stressed about the end of the season, you’re not alone. On anticipatory nostalgia and the human knack for mourning things mid-enjoyment. A lovely small essay for late June. (Vox)

• US at 250 – Why Has the US Been So Successful, and Can It Continue? First, we consider how the US went from being a comparatively small country to the world’s pre-eminent global power. These reasons range from the US’ natural advantages, like favourable geography, to factors like its institutional stability and risk-tolerant capital markets. We then consider the challenges that threaten US outperformance. A big-picture bank note on American exceptionalism and its durability, timed to the semiquincentennial. Sweeping, and a useful counterweight to the doomers. (Deutsche Bank Research Institute) see also How a Nation of Immigrants Traces Its Roots: A data-rich map of where Americans say they come from. The census as a mirror of a changing self-image. Melting pot, tapestry, mosaic, kaleidoscope, salad bowl. Every cliché is true. (New York Times)

• Abraham Lincoln’s War on King Cotton: How economic warfare over cotton shaped the Union strategy. A sharp piece of history for the long-read pile. Secessionists in America’s South were convinced that Britain’s mills could not survive without their cotton. They had not reckoned with how adaptable an economy under strain can be. (Engelsberg Ideas)

• Combat Experience as a Strategic Resource: Lessons of the Red Army Purges: How Stalin’s purges gutted military expertise, and what that teaches about institutional knowledge — History with uncomfortably current echoes:  “Instead, at its core, a central question is their impact on the combat effectiveness, indeed the lethality, of our armed forces. I take up this question through the lens of a case study drawn from one of the most consequential instances of rapid military leadership depletion in modern history, the Red Army purges of 1937-1938 and their effects on its performance during the conflicts that followed. My central proposition is straightforward: Operational experience, especially in combat, is a strategic resource, a form of military capital that takes decades to develop and that can be squandered in months.” (Just Security)

• David Foster Wallace and Democracy. Despite the relative obscurity of even successful writers, especially those most regarded for literary fiction, Wallace continues to generate conversation sixteen years after his death. In the immediate aftermath of his suicide, the literary press, his most enthusiastic and loyal readers, and many journalists beatified him. His college commencement speech, a brilliant call for empathy later published as a booklet, This is Water, served as evidence of blessed intercession. Thus, those mourning from afar nominated the late author of the contemporary masterpiece, Infinite Jest, for sainthood. Hollywood cooperated, releasing an interesting, even moving, but also cartoonish film. (Liberties)

• Hamptons Billionaires Call These Doctors for ‘Boat-tox’: For everything from aesthetic touch-ups to 9-1-1 emergencies, the wealthy are calling on providers who charge membership fees ranging from a few thousand dollars to six figures a year (Wall Street Journal)

• A Terrible Thing Happened to My Family: Buttigieg writes personally about a family ordeal. Whatever you make of the politics, it’s a reminder these figures are people first. Even in today’s climate, there should be one fundamental principle everyone respects: whatever you think about someone in politics, you leave their kids alone. (Pete Buttigieg’s Substack)

• This Cell Feeds, Grows and Reproduces. And It’s Manmade. Scientists build a synthetic cell that does the things living cells do. A genuine landmark — and a fresh set of questions about where the line sits. We have long dreamed of discovering the alchemy by which chemicals can be turned into life. On Wednesday, a team at the University of Minnesota announced that it had taken a major step toward that vision.  (New York Times)

• On the origin of continents: Continental drift is as fundamental to geology as natural selection is to biology. Why did it take us hundreds of years to discover it? Why Earth has continents at all, and what that has to do with life. Deep-time science writing at its most satisfying. (Works in Progress)

• Where the Light Falls: Who was Johannes Vermeer? Clare Bucknell on Vermeer and the mystery of his light. Art criticism that makes you want to stand in front of the paintings again. (Harper’s Magazine)

Video of the day: How this helicopter survived 1004 days on Mars, then disappeared

Be sure to check out our Master’s in Business this weekend with McKeel Hagerty, CEO/Chairman of Hagerty Specialty Insurance. He transformed a family specialty-insurance agency into an enthusiast-driven platform focused on collectible cars, events, valuation data, and auctions. HGTY is now a public company that insures everything from classic cars to boats, trucks, tractors, and military vehicles for over 2.8M collectors.

 

Summer gets more expensive

Source: Bloomberg

 

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To learn how these reads are assembled each day, please see this.

 

The post 10 July 4 Reads appeared first on The Big Picture.

Would The Founders Still Recognize Their Republic?

Authored by Andrew P. Napolitano

Which is better — to be ruled by one tyrant 3,000 miles away or by 3,000 tyrants one mile away?
— Rev. Mather Byles (1706-1788)

Does it really matter if the instrument curtailing liberty is a monarch or a popularly elected legislature? This conundrum, along with the witty version of it put to a Boston crowd in 1775 by the little-known colonial-era preacher with the famous uncle — Cotton Mather — addresses the age-old question of whether liberty can long survive in a democracy.

Byles was a loyalist who, along with about one-third of the American adult white male population in 1776, opposed the American Revolution and favored continued governance by Great Britain.

He didn’t fight for the king or agitate against George Washington’s troops; he merely warned of the dangers of too much democracy.

Many of us who monitor federal excess are fearful of out-of-control democracy, which is what we have in America today, yet there remain in our federal structure a few safeguards against runaway federal tyranny, such as the equal state representation in the Senate, the Electoral College, the state control of federal elections, the remnants of state sovereignty, and life-tenured federal judges and justices.

via Fund for American Studies

Of course, the Senate as originally crafted did not consist of popularly elected senators. Rather, they were appointed by state legislatures to represent the sovereign states as states, not the people in them.

Part of James Madison’s genius was the construction of the federal government as a three-sided table. The first side represented the people — the House of Representatives. The second side represented the sovereign states that created the federal government by surrendering limited powers to it — the Senate. And the third side manifests the nation-state — the presidency, which is both head of state and head of the executive branch of the federal government. The judiciary, whose prominent role today was unthinkable in 1789, was not part of this mix.

In his famous Bank Speech, Madison argued eloquently against legislation chartering a national bank because the authority to create a bank was not in the Constitution and thus was retained by the states and reserved to them.

In that speech, he warned that expansion of the federal government would trample the powers of the states and also the unenumerated natural rights of the people that he would soon protect in the Ninth Amendment.

Madison gave the Bank Speech in February 1791, 11 months before the addition of the Bill of Rights — the first 10 amendments — to the Constitution. Given the popular fears of a new central government, Madison assumed that the Bill of Rights would be quickly ratified. He was right.

Had Madison been alive during the presidency of the anti-Madisonian Woodrow Wilson — who gave us World War I, the Federal Reserve, the administrative state of government by experts, the popular election of senators, the judicially sanctioned suppression of political speech, and the federal income tax — he would have recoiled at a president destroying the three-sided table. Wilson did that by leading the campaign to amend the Constitution so as to provide for the direct popular election of senators.

Part of Madison’s genius was to craft anti-democratic elements into the Constitution, as well. And some of them — like state sovereignty — created laboratories of liberty, since some states protect more personal liberties than the Bill of Rights does. President Ronald Reagan reminded the American public in his first inaugural address that the states formed the federal government, not the other way around. Had I been the scrivener of that speech, I’d have encouraged him to add: “And the powers that the states gave to the feds, they can take back!” Of course they can.

Reagan also famously said that we could vote with our feet. If you don’t like the over-the-top regulations in Massachusetts, you can move to New Hampshire. If you’re fed up with the highest state taxes in the union in New Jersey, you can move to Pennsylvania.

But the more state sovereignty the feds absorb — the more state governance is federalized — the fewer differences there are among the regulatory and taxing structures of the states. This has happened because Congress has become a general legislature without regard for the constitutional limits imposed on it.

If Congress wants to regulate an area of governance that is clearly beyond its constitutional competence, it bribes the states to do so with borrowed or Federal Reserve-created cash. Thus, it offered hundreds of millions of dollars to the states to lower their speed limits on highways and to lower the acceptable blood alcohol level in peoples’ veins — this would truly have set Madison off — before a presumption of DWI may be argued; all in return for cash to pave state-maintained highways.

The states are partly to blame for this. They take whatever cash Congress offers, and they accept the strings that come with it. And they, too, are tyrants. The states mandated the unconstitutional and crippling COVID lockdowns of 2020-2021, not the feds. The states should be paying the political and financial consequences for their misdeeds, not the feds. They took property and liberty without paying for it as the Constitution requires them to do. And, of course, some of the states maintained legal protections for slavery.

Byles feared a government of 3,000. Today, the feds employ close to 3 million. Thomas Jefferson warned that when the federal treasury becomes a federal trough, and the people recognize it as such, they will only send to Washington politicians — faithless to the Constitution — who promise to bring home the most cash.

In a democracy, a faithless majority will take whatever it wants from the minority — including its liberty and property. That’s where we are today on the 250th anniversary of the start of this Jeffersonian and Madisonian experiment — a country the Founders wouldn’t recognize as their creation.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/03/2026 - 23:20

First $1 Billion, Now $50 Million: Khanna Says Wealth Tax "Must Not Stop At Billionaires"

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) - fresh off endorsing California's November ballot measure to seize 5% of billionaire wealth - published a Substack essay Wednesday titled, no really, "Why I Support a Billionaire Wealth Tax."

He makes it roughly a dozen paragraphs before explaining that it isn't one.

"The tax should not stop at billionaires, it must reach centimillionaires," Khanna writes, before spelling out exactly what that means: every fortune of $50 million and up, hit with a 2% federal levy on wealth above that line - every year, forever, on top of everything else you already pay. The vehicle is Elizabeth Warren's Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act, which Khanna notes he has cosponsored every single year it's been introduced.

And before anyone reaches for the estate planner: Khanna wants the levy to pierce irrevocable trusts, with the tax billed to the grantor who set them up - because parking a fortune in a trust, in his telling, shouldn't take it off the government's books.

Former Microsoft executive Steven Sinofsky summed up the reveal in eight words: "Just like that, no longer a billionaires tax."

Just like that, no longer a billionaires tax. https://t.co/05wt4D9WX6 pic.twitter.com/xgA0vpnK6w

— Steven Sinofsky (@stevesi) July 3, 2026

Pirate Wires' Mike Solana was less diplomatic, characterizing the scheme as an annual asset seizure in which the government tallies everything you own and demands a cut on top of your existing tax bill - now openly targeting anyone worth $50 million. His prediction for where the ratchet stops: "this ends with your 401k."

khanna's 'billionaire wealth tax,' which is not a tax but an asset seizure in which he tallies everything you own, then demands a percentage *on top* of what you're taxed — every single year — is already targeting anyone worth $50 million or more. this ends with your 401k. https://t.co/jt7VtK1j4w pic.twitter.com/IH9vxcBxKG

— Mike Solana (@micsolana) July 3, 2026

For those keeping score at home, the threshold discourse has traveled a long way in a short time:

The measure headed to California voters in November is a one-time 5% tax on the state's roughly 250 billionaires. Newsom, opposing it, countered on June 26 with a national "billionaires' tax" - which, in its original form, applied to anyone worth $100 million or more, language that was quietly scrubbed after multiple outlets quoted it as we reported. Six days later, Khanna planted the flag at $50 million.

None of this is exactly new, of course. The Warren bill has carried the $50 million line since she rolled it out in 2019, and Biden's 2022 "Billionaire Minimum Income Tax" kicked in at $100 million households. The branding always says billionaire, but the fine print ios a slippery slope.

Then there's inflation... The bill's $50 million threshold is a flat statutory number that hasn't moved since 2019 - meaning inflation has already quietly cut the real threshold by more than a fifth. The creep shows up in the sponsors' own math: when the bill debuted, backers said it touched the top 0.05% of American households; the 2026 reintroduction, per the same Saez-Zucman analysis the sponsors tout, now reaches 260,000 households - the top 0.15%. Same words, triple the coverage, five years. Asset inflation does the broadening automatically. Congress just has to sit still.

The escalator, meanwhile, is pre-drafted: buried in the bill is a provision doubling the top rate to 6% automatically in any year that qualifying trigger legislation is on the books. 

And anyone curious where a "normalized" wealth tax eventually settles can consult the countries that already normalized one. Norway's kicks in around $160,000 of net worth. The Netherlands taxes deemed returns on assets above roughly €57,000. Swiss cantons start in the low six figures. The European wealth taxes that stayed rich-only - France, Sweden, Germany, Austria, Denmark - were repealed as revenue duds. The ones that survived did so by reaching the middle class. The slippery slope is quite literally the only way these things 'work.' 

Khanna spends a portion of the essay taking intramural shots at Newsom, dismissing the governor's version as an income tax billionaires will never feel - since they take no salary, borrow against their stock, and pass fortunes to their kids without selling a share - while boasting that he and Bernie Sanders tax the wealth itself, to the tune of a claimed $4.4 trillion.

The replies were not kind. Christopher Rufo suggested Washington recover the estimated half-trillion dollars a year lost to fraud before inventing new revenue streams. The most-liked response, from James Hafner, noted that the essay's "philosophical case" never actually argues its one load-bearing premise - that one man's need constitutes a claim on another man's property. "There is arithmetic, and there is need," Hafner wrote of the piece's actual contents.

Khanna's comeback - asking Hafner what he thinks of property taxes - was promptly ratioed, sitting at 135 replies to 11 likes at press time.

Except - property taxes are local, visible, and appealable; they pay for the pothole crew, the 2 a.m. patrol car, and the school down the street - and when assessments outran paychecks, voters famously revolted and capped them. Khanna's essay actually frames the California fight as Proposition 13 in reverse, which is a remarkable self-own: he's marketing the sequel to a movie that ended in a taxpayer revolt, triggered by precisely the dynamic critics warn about - paper valuations rising faster than the cash available to pay the levy.

The federal version offers none of the offsetting virtues. The Ultra-Millionaire Tax deposits into the general fund; the child-care-and-community-college wish list lives in the press release, not the bill text. What the bill text does contain is enforcement - just not of the spending. It orders the IRS to audit at least 30% of everyone subject to the tax, every single year. It hands the agency expanded authority to assign values to private businesses, farmland, art, and anything else that's hard to price. It wires in FATCA-style third-party reporting. And should you decide you've had enough of the annual appraisal and leave, it imposes a 40% exit tax on net worth above $50 million on your way out the door. In other words: relentless annual oversight of the taxpayers, and none whatsoever of where the money goes. Even Khanna seems to grasp the trust problem - he launched a state-fraud probe in December, conceding taxpayers "need to have a receipt" for what their money funds - which rather makes Rufo's point: by his own estimate Washington loses half a trillion a year to fraud, and the remedy on offer is an audit of your art collection.

All of which lands a little awkwardly next to this week's Free Beacon report detailing how Khanna's own family fortune - courtesy of centimillionaire father-in-law and auto-parts magnate Monte Ahuja - is sheltered through the very sort of irrevocable trusts the congressman now wants taxed to the grantor. Per the Beacon, Khanna's minor children hold trust stakes in three private golf clubs and multiple hedge funds, the family occupies a $6 million, marble-clad Washington home with a private elevator, and the congressman's financial disclosures run to 333 pages of conveniently non-searchable tables.

What it does say, in writing, is what the fine print has said all along: the number was never $1 billion. This week it's $50 million. Ask again next cycle.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/03/2026 - 22:40

Alibaba Bans Employees From Using Anthropic's Coding Tool Over Distillation Scandal

While in the US, the government's periodic bans of the latest model from Anthropic (which has made AI doomerism - in hopes of getting the government to regulate everyone else expect Anthropic, yet repeatedly achieving just the opposite - into an art form) has been all the rage in recent months, in China it is the other way around, with China's tech giant Alibaba banning employees from using Anthropic's Claude ‌Code at work after the tool drew scrutiny for features that can help identify China-linked users, Reuters reported.

The ban is part of a deepening spat between the two companies after Anthropic accused Alibaba of illicitly extracting ​its Claude AI model capabilities - a dispute that highlights the frantic race between the U.S. and ​China to take the lead in artificial intelligence.

Claude Code is Anthropic's AI coding assistant for software developers, and has become popular among programmers in China despite Anthropic's restrictions on access by users and entities in China.

To avoid further escalation of the distillation scandal, Reuters says that Alibaba employees were being told to use the company's own coding platform Qoder.

As we reported at the time, in late June Anthropic said that it had suffered a strike by Alibaba, which it described as a "distillation" effort that involves training a less capable model on the outputs of a stronger one.

The distillation helps accelerate China's ability to reach Anthropic's advanced Mythos Preview capabilities, the company alleged in a letter sent to two U.S. senators.

Alibaba's ban comes just days after developers said Claude Code contained mechanisms that inspected user environments, including timezone and proxy-related information, and inserted subtle markers into prompts sent to Anthropic's servers.

An Anthropic employee wrote on Tuesday on X that the feature was "an experiment we launched in March" intended to prevent account abuse by unauthorized resellers and protect against model distillation.

The person who spoke to Reuters about Alibaba's ban said that Anthropic's restrictions targeting China were difficult to enforce on individual users who can deploy servers in the United States and make traffic appear as if it originated there. But companies were now more aware of legal and compliance risks.

As US AI model developers seek to prevent unauthorized access, resale and distillation of their systems, Chinese cloud and AI firms have shifted toward domestic and open-source models such as DeepSeek, Alibaba's ?Qwen, Moonshot and Zhipu.

At the same time, Chinese AI models are making inroads in the U.S. market — a development that sparked concern among some U.S. industry experts, since China's models are about 90% cheaper yet perform just fractionally worse than the latest US frontier models. 

Souce: UBS

We discussed this extensively in one of our flagship reports, "Answering The "Trillion Dollar Question": Are China's AI Models A Better Value Than US Models."

The answer, judging by the rapid token transition to China, is a resounding yes.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/03/2026 - 22:00

Mamdani Delivers Anti-America Speech For The Nation's 250th Birthday

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani sat at a desk to commemorate America's semiquincentennial, and the socialist wasted little time turning the occasion into an anti-America lecture. He told his audience they each hold "the power to determine what America means," then spent the rest of the speech explaining what it means to him, and it was mostly bad.

"The powerful have always known their answer," Mamdani said. "America, in their view, is an arena of supremacy, where only a select few are allowed freedom, where not all are created equal."

He claimed these unnamed villains believe America "belongs only to those with the right accent or the right shade of skin," and dismissed them with a sneer. "How small they are, how weak, how unoriginal," he said.

He even dragged Thomas Paine into it, quoting the Common Sense author's description of America as an asylum for the persecuted before taking a thinly veiled shot at President Donald Trump's immigration enforcement policies, accusing the Trump administration of running a nation "that persecutes those seeking asylum."

The grievance parade kept on coming.

"We see the wealthiest country in the history of the world, one where children go to sleep hungry while the world's first trillionaire hungers for more," Mamdani said. "We see monopolies that dominate every industry and oligarchs who buy elections. We see masked agents terrorizing our streets, eating food cooked by our undocumented neighbors before spiriting them away in unmarked vans."

Mamdani kept going, aiming for just about every industry in sight. "Yes, we see America in a health insurance industry that exploits the sick," he said, before moving on to blast "corporate landlords for whom negligence is a business model" and complain about a country that spends "our tax dollars on bombs and bailouts."

Communist NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who just came to this country, chose to become an American, is deciding he is the foremost authority to tell Americans what it means to be American. He has the AUDACITY, on America's 250th birthday, to call our great nation "an arena of… pic.twitter.com/sayf6IDu90

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) July 3, 2026

Ironically, Mamdani begged and received a $4 billion bailout from New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to help fund his agenda.

He praised Americans who resist immigration enforcement as the true patriots of the moment. "We see America each time neighbors link arms with neighbors without asking how long they have lived here or what papers they have as ICE invades our neighborhoods," he said.

According to Mamdani, federal law enforcement "invades" American neighborhoods while the people obstructing it embody the national spirit.

I love that he got this perfectly multicultural group together to limply hold flags and look sad while he sits at a desk incorrectly and explains why America sucks.

Happy Fourth!!! pic.twitter.com/1byd25Ekdo

— Daniel (@growing_daniel) July 3, 2026

He wrapped up by addressing the critics who might suggest that a man with such contempt for the country could find somewhere else to live.

"Love it or leave it, they say," Mamdani said. "But patriotism has never been about pretending our nation is without flaws. Patriotism is every act of righteous dissent. It is every march led under the heavy sun. It is every protest held a decade before its time."

Then came the big finish, which sounded like a warning. "It is precisely because we love this nation that we will not leave it," he said.

Zohran Mamdani is the Democratic Party's brightest rising star and its new kingmaker, busy remaking the party from the ground up with far-left candidates aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America. And this is how he chose to honor America on its 250th birthday: by tearing it down. His speech rebranded resistance to federal law as the truest form of patriotism, and that framing tells you exactly where his wing of the party plans to take its message.

Are we as offended by Mamdani using George Washington's desk to make a speech once we realize he doesn't even know how a desk works? pic.twitter.com/7PGw4tsLvU

— Kate Hyde (@KateHydeNY) July 3, 2026

Ugandan-born @NYCMayor, (aka “Little Castro”) a US citizen for only 8 years, going for full on dictator vibes as he lectures us on America’s shortcomings on our 250th bday. https://t.co/ihDOlzUucG

— Daniel S. Loeb (@DanielSLoeb1) July 3, 2026

 

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/03/2026 - 21:20

Tucker Carlson Unveils Major Political Plan

Authored by Luis Cornelio via Headline USA,

Popular podcast host Tucker Carlson has long dismissed questions about whether he would ever seek public office. But this week, he hinted at a major political move, though don’t expect to see his name on the ballot.

Speaking with the Columbia Journalism Review in an interview published Wednesday, Carlson said he plans to “help build a third party,” just months after publicly breaking with President Donald Trump over the U.S.’s involvement in the Israel-Iran war.

“I’m going to help build a third party. There should be a good-faith effort to figure out what benefits the country,” Carlson said.

During the same interview, Carlson insisted that he still has no interest in seeking public office.

“I don’t want to be a candidate,” he said.

“Before I did the Times interview, someone said to me, ‘They’re going to ask you if you’re running for president.’ I was very tempted to say ‘I am running—on the pro-patriarchy ticket.’ Just to make sure I gain no new fans.”

Carlson’s support for a third party stems from what he rebuked as bipartisan support from both Democratic and Republican parties for foreign intervention.

He accused Republicans and Democrats of being “in lockstep solidarity with each other” when it comes to foreign wars.

“That’s not a democracy,” Carlson stated. “That’s a one-party state posing as a democracy, and it needs to be broken, and there’s going to be a third party, and I’m going to do everything I can to bring that about.”

He pointed to Trump’s support for Israel’s military campaign against Iran as a “lesson.”

“If you vote for Trump and you still wind up in a regime-change war,” Carlson added, “if Chuck Schumer is strongly behind Trump’s foreign policy, which he is—then we need options, or else let’s just give up and be ruled by the most unscrupulous people. And I’m just too young to accept that. We need a third party.”

Carlson joins a growing list of political figures and pundits who have publicly argued that the country needs a viable third political party to challenge the two-party system.

Billionaire Elon Musk announced the creation of the America Party after his falling out with Trump over federal spending. While the announcement generated widespread headlines, the party has shown little visible activity since its launch.

By a factor of 2 to 1, you want a new political party and you shall have it!

When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste & graft, we live in a one-party system, not a democracy.

Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom. https://t.co/9K8AD04QQN

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 5, 2025

Others who have voiced support for a third-party alternative include former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.; former Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.; and former Democratic presidential contender Andrew Yang.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/03/2026 - 20:40

Two Thirds Of Americans Still Think It's A Bad Time To Buy A House

Americans looking to buy a house are currently facing conditions that make it hard for anyone but the very wealthy to afford buying a home.

Elevated home prices combined with mortgage rates that have rebounded from historic mid-pandemic lows to levels last seen in the early 2000s are causing major headaches for would-be home buyers.

To make things worse, many Americans had to dip into their savings during the past few years of high inflation, making it very hard to save for a sizeable down payment.

Add geopolitical tensions and uncertainty about the impact of AI on the labor market to the mix and renting suddenly seems like a very attractive, or possibly the only feasible option.

As Statista's Felix Richter reports, the latest results from Gallup’s annual Economy and Personal Finance poll show that current conditions have really spoiled Americans’ appetite to buy houses.

You will find more infographics at Statista

This year’s survey, conducted April 1-15, shows that two thirds of U.S. adults think that now is a bad time to buy a house.

While that marks a slight improvement from the last four years thanks in part to a slight moderation in home prices, it's still a complete reversal from pre-pandemic years, when the majority of respondents would say it was a good time to buy a house.

According to Gallup, we're currently seeing the lowest levels of confidence since the question was first asked in 1978.

Before 2022, the share of people thinking it was a good time to buy a house had never dropped below 50 percent – not even during or in the aftermath of the 2008 housing crisis.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/03/2026 - 20:00

America Turns 250. At 125, It Looked Like The End...

Authored by James Hickman via SchiffSovereign.com,

On the afternoon of September 6, 1901, President William McKinley stood in a receiving line at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, shaking hands with a crowd of well-wishers.

One of the people in the crowd was a young man named Leon Czolgosz… who was patiently waiting with a revolver wrapped in a handkerchief. When he reached the front, he fired twice into the president’s abdomen.

McKinley died eight days later, and, Czolgosz, an unemployed factory worker, went to the electric chair without a trace of remorse. He insisted it was his duty to strike down a symbol of oppression.

Czolgosz wasn’t a crazed madman, but rather a product of his time.

The America of 1901 was 125 years into its history - the exact midpoint between the Declaration of Independence and today.

And despite the US economy already being the largest in the world at that point, the year 1901 did not feel like a nation striding confidently into the American Century.

The US financial system lurched from panic to panic, and to a great many observers, the young republic looked less like a rising power and more like a country unraveling.

The rich versus poor divide was growing, and violent socialist movements spread. Political assassinations, terrorism, and bombings became a recurring feature of public life.

The political violence did not end with McKinley’s assassination, either. Followers of the Italian anarchist Luigi Galleani waged a years-long bombing campaign against judges, politicians, and businessmen.

It peaked at noon on September 16, 1920, when a horse-drawn wagon packed with explosives detonated in front of the headquarters of J.P. Morgan on Wall Street, killing thirty people and wounding hundreds more. The case was never solved.

Many of these anarcho-socialists were immigrants, which poured gasoline on the raging blaze of backlash against widespread immigration.

In 1907 alone, more than a million people passed through Ellis Island. Immigrants were arriving faster than anyone knew how to absorb them, and people were getting tired of it.

Congress passed legislation that imposed a literacy test on immigrants, then banned entire countries. At first, people from Asia and the Middle East were shut out. Subsequent legislation set strict quotas, slamming the door on the southern and eastern Europeans who were considered undesirable.

Yet the instability continued… as did the government’s push to consolidate power.

After the Panic of 1907 nearly brought down the financial system, Congress used the scare to establish the Federal Reserve in 1913. This was the first step toward money that could be printed at will.

Also in 1913, the Constitution was amended, giving Congress the power to tax income.

The income tax (16th Amendment) was sold to the American people as a tax on the very rich that would only affect the top 2% of US households. Idiotic socialists at the time believed the lie and supported the amendment; after all, the rich should pay their fair share.

Within decades, three quarters of Americans were paying income tax.

With a new central bank and tax power in place, Washington then raced to join World War I (despite being an ocean away), and borrowed on an unimaginable scale to do it.

Frankly it all looked pretty bleak.

And yet, while all the bad news and turmoil was ongoing, America was simultaneously producing miracles.

Henry Ford put the country on wheels with the Model T and the moving assembly line. Motion pictures went from novelty to industry. Radio turned from a tinkerer’s hobby into a machine that could broadcast to every home in the nation.

These were American breakthroughs that rewired the entire global economy and powered better times ahead.

Seventy-five years later, America’s 200th birthday looked little better. In 1976, the economy was mired in stagflation that “experts” had previously sworn was impossible.

Oil shocks had humiliated the country at the gas pump. American dominance looked spent in the wreckage of Vietnam, and the nation had watched President Richard Nixon resign in disgrace.

Terrorism was back. Plane hijackings were somewhat commonplace. Crime rampaged across the cities.

And yet what followed was the personal computer, the Internet, the longest peacetime expansion in the country’s history, and a comeback almost nobody standing in a gas line in 1976 would have believed.

Which brings us to the 250th birthday, today.

Political violence is back in American life. Immigration is once again a major issue. Fraud and corruption are rampant (and hardly anyone pays the price). And Washington’s finances are in worse shape than at any point in the country’s history, with the national debt larger than the entire economy.

Yet at the same time, American companies are building artificial intelligence, next-generation nuclear power, robotics, and biotech breakthroughs that could rewire the global economy even more than the assembly line and the Internet did. Chaos and invention have always lived side by side in the US, and they still do.

America was born out of revolution, and it has endured a civil war, two world wars, a depression, a decade of stagflation, and repeated financial panics.

Every one of those episodes brought years of real pain, but every time, the country that looked terminally ill came back stronger than ever.

There is an old saying in politics (usually credited to Winston Churchill, though apparently first quipped by an Israeli diplomat): Americans will always do the right thing… after exhausting all the alternatives.

Apocryphal or not, that is the pattern: the right thing comes eventually, but the pain comes first.

America is not just a country; it is an idea, and it may be the most extraordinary idea human beings have ever assembled. It stands on the shoulders of giants— Greek thought, Roman law, Judeo-Christian values, and free-market capitalism, fused with a conviction about individual liberty balanced by personal responsibility.

Betting against that idea has been the worst trade of the past 250 years.

To be clear, having a Plan B is not a bet against America either. The concept is not to hide in a bunker with canned food and guns because the end is near.

The point of a Plan B is to be honest about the road between here and the recovery: more inflation, higher taxes, and a stretch of instability, and to make sure you have the options available to come at it from a position of strength.

At 250 years, I truly believe the best days are still ahead. But there will be some rough ones in between.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/03/2026 - 19:20

China-Linked Socialist NGO Derailed $23.6 Billion In Data Center Buildouts: Report

Our note on Thursday titled "World's Largest Data Center Project On Verge Of Collapse After Blackstone Unexpectedly Pulls Out" detailed Blackstone dialing back its presence from Northern Virginia's data-center alley, raising questions about whether the AI infrastructure buildout, colliding with local resistance movements, has begun to hit hard limits.

Just days after agreeing to sell stakes in three Virginia data centers to Digital Realty Trust for $3.5 billion, Blackstone's QTS Realty Trust is reportedly abandoning plans for its portion of the massive Prince William Digital Gateway project. The 2,100-acre campus was expected to include as many as 37 data-center buildings and require city-scale power supplies.

"For community organizers and residents that spent the last five years opposing the Digital Gateway, QTS's pullout will now validate a playbook that involved pressure campaigns on local politicians and legal attacks. It will also unleash even more powerful blowback nationwide against these unwanted developments," we noted.

That brings us to the composition of the local resistance. Multiple reports suggest data center opposition is not entirely organic.

In fact, one familiar player appears to be involved, a name our readers know well, and the U.S. government certainly recognizes because a China-based billionaire funds the socialist NGO network.

Y Combinator founder Garry Tan, also founder of Garry's List, a civic engagement organization, cited the Bitcoin Policy Institute's recent report on how a "coordinated foreign influence campaign against American AI — running through CCP state media, a Shanghai-based Marxist's nonprofit network, and foreign billionaire dark money that has funneled $2B+ into US advocacy infrastructure."

Garry's List noted, "AI doomerism isn't as organic as it looks."

Two reports from @SamLyman33 and @bitcoinpolicy document a coordinated foreign influence campaign against American AI — running through CCP state media, a Shanghai-based Marxist's nonprofit network, and foreign billionaire dark money that has funneled $2B+ into US advocacy… pic.twitter.com/pWEUv1xwC9

— Garry's List (@garryslist) July 1, 2026

That China-based Marxist's nonprofit network spreading across the US is supported by Neville Roy Singham, who has reportedly funneled hundreds of millions of dollars into left-wing nonprofits, media operations, and activist networks that seek to sow chaos and spread communism inside the US.

Earlier this week, U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton for the Southern District of New York, authorized by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, was authorized to examine whether Singham, NGOs he funded, or their leaders committed wire fraud, bank fraud, money laundering, or other financial crimes.

Given that federal investigators are circling the socialists in the Singham NGO network, Garry's List noted that Singham's Party for Socialism and Liberation has "run 21 campaigns across 14 states that delayed, scaled back, or blocked $23.6 billion in AI infrastructure investment."

The Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), whose leadership is drawn directly from executives of Singham's nonprofits, ran 21 campaigns across 14 states that delayed, scaled back, or blocked $23.6 billion in AI infrastructure investment. pic.twitter.com/DWhT1gsLiu

— Garry's List (@garryslist) July 1, 2026

None of this should be surprising because nearly one year ago we cited a new book titled China's Total War Strategy: Next-Generation Weapons of Mass Destruction - published by the CCP BioThreats Initiative and authored by Dr. Ryan Clarke, LJ Eads, Dr. Robert McCreight, and Dr. Xiaoxu Sean Lin - that outlines how the CCP has been pursuing an aggressive, multifaceted "total war" against the U.S. that leverages next-generation weapons, including synthetic narcotics (e.g., fentanyl and cannabinoids), bioweapons (e.g., Covid-19), psychological manipulation and influence (e.g., TikTok), and a broad arsenal of irregular warfare tools.

One of the irregular warfare tools we've sounded the alarm on is the use of nonprofits to sow chaos from within. It now appears that PSL and its socialist allies have moved beyond protesting U.S. foreign policy in Latin America and the Caribbean and anti-ICE riots, and have set their sights on data centers, just as the U.S. is locked in a compute race with China.

Even The New York Times has linked Singham to CCP-aligned propaganda networks.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/03/2026 - 18:40

Backlash After Columbus, Ohio Announces It Will Raise Flag Of Somalia At City Hall

Via American Greatness,

The city of Columbus faced criticism from conservatives after a now-deleted social media post stated that City Hall would raise the Somali flag in recognition of Somali Independence Day.

The post, published Wednesday by the Columbus Recreation and Parks Department on X, read:

“Happy Somali Independence Day! As we celebrate the unification of the Trust Territory of Somaliland and the State of Somaliland into the Somali Republic in 1960, City Hall will be raising the flag of Somalia.”

The message quickly drew criticism from conservative commentators and elected officials, many of whom questioned why a government building would display the flag of another nation just days before the United States marks the 250th anniversary of its independence.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller wrote on X, “Columbus, Ohio raising the flag of Somalia for America 250.”

Journalist Mark Hemingway added, “No American government building should ever be raising another country’s flag. Ugh.”

Ohio attorney and political commentator Mehek Cooke also criticized the announcement.

“City Hall is not a foreign embassy,” Cooke wrote. “As an Ohioan, I am repulsed by the anti-Americanism here. Our leaders treat foreign nationalism as sacred while treating American patriotism as controversial. America’s public buildings should honor America.”

Ohio state Rep. Brian Stewart, a Republican, argued the celebration sent the wrong message.

“If Somalia is such a failed state that we need to take in tens of thousands of its citizens as ‘refugees,’ then we really don’t need to be celebrating its supposed ‘independence’ with patronizing posts on social media,” Stewart wrote.

“One more way in which we encourage the refusal to assimilate.”

If Somalia is such a failed state that we need to take in tens of thousands of its citizens as “refugees,” then we really don’t need to be celebrating its supposed “independence” with patronizing posts on social media. One more way in which we encourage the refusal to assimilate. https://t.co/V2l46urZ2G

— Brian Stewart (@BrianStewartOH) July 1, 2026

The Recreation and Parks Department deleted the post shortly after Fox News Digital sought comment.

After the story was published, a city spokesperson said the original post was inaccurate.

“A social media post created by a city department falsely stated that City Hall would raise the Somalian flag in recognition of Somali Independence Day,” the spokesperson told Fox News Digital. “While the City recognizes and respects the aspirations of people around the world to live in freedom, this post was inaccurate and has been deleted.”

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/03/2026 - 18:00

US Believed Israel Tried To Assassinate Iran's Top Negotiators As Ghalibaf's Plane Made Emergency Landing

The New York Times has issued a new report citing unnamed US officials who believe that Israel came close to assassinating Iran's top negotiators Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

According to the report, a concrete Israeli threat against Ghalibaf and the FM emerged while they were traveling back to Iran from Islamabad following talks with US Vice President JD Vance on April 12.

Source: Mehr news

Prior to that point, during active fighting, Israel had worked its way through killing much of Iran's senior leadership starting with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but questions lingered over whether the country's top negotiators - who have come to represent Tehran on the global stage - could be deemed legitimate targets.

Even as Washington and regional brokers stepped in to try and halt the prospect of runaway conflict, wherein the US would find itself in yet another 'forever war' and quagmire, Israel still floated the potential for more assassinations targeting top Islamic Republic leadership. 

The NYT, citing officials, sets up the mid-April near-miss incident as follows:

In April, Mr. Ghalibaf was set to travel to Islamabad to meet with Vice President JD Vance. But Iranian security officials were concerned that Israel would use the opportunity to assassinate Mr. Ghalibaf or Mr. Araghchi to derail the talks, the officials said.

Iranians sought guarantees from the United States, through Pakistani and Qatari intermediaries, that Israel would not carry out any covert operations targeting the Iranian delegation, the officials said.

Pakistani fighter jets escorted the Iranian airplanes carrying a delegation of more than 70 Iranians from the border of Iran to Islamabad and back again when the session was over.

But on the way back to Tehran, an Israeli security threat emerged.

From there, Iranian security forces reportedly notified Ghalibaf's plane of intelligence indicating that Israel planned to attack the aircraft - and the delegation took the warning seriously enough to divert from the original flight path and make an emergency landing in Mashhad, northeastern Iran.

Ghalibaf and his entourage then opted to return to Tehran by land, the report says. The following sounds straight out of a Hollywood script:

Iran’s security forces notified the plane carrying Mr. Ghalibaf back to Tehran that they had picked up intelligence that Israel planned to attack the plane and that two Israeli fighter jets had entered Iran’s airspace from its western border near Iraq, the two officials said.

"Mahdi Mohammadi, a senior adviser for Mr. Ghalibaf, who accompanied him to Islamabad, confirmed this account on his social media page," the NYT notes. "The plane made an emergency landing in the city of Mashhad, Iran’s closest airport to the Pakistani border, and the Iranian delegation traveled some eight hours by land back to Tehran, Mr. Mohammadi and the two officials said."

Some commenters have expressed deep skepticism at the Thursday NYT story...

Well this sounds fake AF

— Emily Schrader - אמילי שריידר امیلی شریدر (@emilykschrader) July 2, 2026

Behind the scenes the Trump administration had reportedly been asking the Israelis to "back off" in order to allow space for negotiations. Certainly, had Ghalibaf or Araghchi been attacked and killed, the situation would have spiraled into all-out war, which still remains a prospect. 

Lately the Iranians have urged Washington to continue to 'muzzle' and restrain its more hawkish Israeli ally. FM Araghchi said Wednesday in reference to Trump that "POTUS has committed the U.S. to muzzling its pets in Tel Aviv. If they ignore their master, Iran will school them. Any threat against our People and Leadership will receive Immediate Powerful Response."

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/03/2026 - 16:00