The Democratic Chicken... Or The Socialist Egg?

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

The primaries are over, and the November general election looms...

Suddenly, the Islamo-socialist podcaster Hasan Piker - who is now infamous for blaming America for 9/11 and warning Jews that "someone's going to come around and take action, not against the state of Israel, mind you, but against American Jews" - is persona non grata on the Democratic stump.

Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee in the Michigan Senate race, once enlisted Piker to jump-start his lethargic candidacy. Now that he is locked in a close general-election race against a strong Republican, El-Sayed dismisses the antisemite, who has suddenly outlived his usefulness, as a mere "social media person in California."

Clinton-era Democratic politicos like Rahm Emanuel and James Carville insist that Democrats have divorced themselves from the hard-left Democratic Socialists.

Really?

If that divorce were real, why would so many Democrats be cheering a potential Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez presidential run in 2028? She is, after all, a proud member of the Democratic Socialists of America's New York chapter.

Did lifelong socialist Bernie Sanders not run twice for president - not as a third-party candidate, but in the Democratic primaries? And did he not nearly capture the nomination in 2016 and 2020 until terrified donors and insiders intervened to abort his candidacies?

Did House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries not endorse Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, also a member of the DSA's New York chapter? And did Jeffries not thereby choose Mamdani over former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo?

Did California Governor Gavin Newsom - the opportunist par excellence, multimillionaire, and presidential hopeful - not recently declare that "capitalism as we know it doesn't work"? (Who, pray tell, are "we"?)

Has not nearly every major Democratic stalwart, including Senate leader Chuck Schumer, called for a "big tent" party that includes unapologetic socialists?

Many Democrats, of course, reject the socialists' calls to eliminate the Pentagon, close prisons, and dismantle the Senate. But perhaps only because such wild fantasies cannot succeed, at least for now, and repel most American voters.

Where, then, did these largely young, inexperienced, and naïve Democratic Socialists find their agenda?

Self-declared socialists now demand an open border and mass amnesty for illegal aliens; the abolition of police and prisons; war on fossil fuels; radical DEI mandates; free health care for all; wealth taxes on billionaires and even millionaires; deep defense cuts; and an end to military aid to Israel.

Yet these are hardly the socialists' positions alone. They closely resemble earlier Democratic Party programs and demands. The socialists now talk a grand leftist game; during the Biden years, Democrats tried to enact much of the agenda the socialists later claimed as their own.

So did newly radicalized Democrats spawn this socialist offspring, or did the socialists radicalize the old party of John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton?

Who created whom?

The answer is demonstrably clear: Democrats radicalized themselves. Only later did an underfunded, motley socialist crew jump aboard their increasingly extremist bandwagon. By the time the Democratic Socialists of America became nationally known, the new Democrats had already supplied their model of governance.

When Democratic Socialists claim that "billionaires" owe their success to government, they merely echo President Barack Obama's taunt to successful business owners: "You didn't build that."

Obama lifted that moronic socialist meme - like his "spread the wealth" line - wholesale from Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren. In 2011, Warren boasted that no wealthy American had succeeded on his own, reiterating the classic socialist rationale for confiscation: "the people" make success possible and must therefore be repaid.

In his first term, Barack Obama sought to take over the nation's health care system while concealing his socialist agenda. He partly succeeded through his now-failing Obamacare plans. His effort rested in part on the claim PolitiFact later named its "Lie of the Year": "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it."

Obama also cut more than $100 billion from defense. His "apology tour" and dismissal of American exceptionalism likewise anticipated these more recent socialist one-world talking points.

Who cooked up DEI?

Who but the Obama and Biden administrations vastly expanded government hiring and promotion by race, gender, and sexual orientation? Who unleashed the Justice Department to pressure the private sector to follow suit - until the Supreme Court declared much of this DEI tribalism unconstitutional?

Sanctuary cities and neo-Confederate state and local nullification of federal immigration law were mainstream Democratic policies long before 2020. Biden's Democrats - not the socialists - destroyed the southern border and admitted more than 10 million illegal aliens. Until the 2024 election cycle, Biden had also effectively imposed a moratorium on deportations.

Long before forming the 2020 Democratic ticket, Kamala Harris advocated banning fracking, while Joe Biden called for banning new fracking on federal lands and waters.

Long before the DSA and DSA-adjacent cohort of Mamdani, Piker, El-Sayed, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib began mouthing antisemitic talking points, prominent Democrats like Jesse Jackson ("Hymietown"), Al Sharpton ("diamond merchants"), and Reverend Wright ("them Jews") had shown the party's tolerance for licensed Jew-hatred. More recently, more than 100 House Democrats voted to cut off all aid to Israel.

The same pattern applies to political methods. Democratic officials gave wink-and-nod support to the violent Antifa and Black Lives Matter movements long before the Democratic Socialists became a major force.

As early as August 2015, the Democratic National Committee officially endorsed BLM, while many Democrats defended Antifa.

In 2018, then-deputy DNC chief Keith Ellison posed proudly with an Antifa handbook and preened about "the book that strike [sic] fear in the heart of @realDonaldTrump." By 2020, even FBI Director Christopher Wray was claiming that Antifa was more an "ideology" than a real organization of frequently unhinged and violent protesters.

During the post-George Floyd mania of 2020, then-Senator Kamala Harris, soon to become vice president, praised calls to defund the police. She even boasted on national television that the weeks-old, increasingly violent demonstrations would not - and should not - cease before the election.

Some establishment Democrats went further, personally threatening violence. Who screamed outside the Supreme Court, warning the justices, "You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won't know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions"? Not a fringe socialist, but the Senate's top-ranking Democrat.

And in 2018, Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters urged her followers to threaten and "harass" Trump cabinet officials.

More importantly, when the Democratic Socialists urge the next Democratic administration to pack the Supreme Court, abolish the Electoral College and the filibuster, and admit Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia as two new left-wing states, where did those ideas originate?

Mainstream Democratic leaders had already embraced the entire agenda during the first Trump administration, if not earlier.

And who is more lawless: the loudmouth, self-proclaimed radical socialists who talk of weaponizing state and federal power, or the still more radical Democrats who actually wielded it?

Who tried to remove a major Republican presidential candidate from ballots in more than 20 states?

Who sent FBI SWAT teams into Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate?

Who brought four farcical lawfare cases aimed at imprisoning Trump?

Who concocted the Steele dossier and spread the lie that Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian disinformation?

The answer: mainstream establishment Democrats, acting without any help from a coterie of fringy, downwardly mobile white urban socialists who were then largely irrelevant.

The once-fringe Democratic Socialists became mainstream largely by imitating an increasingly socialist Democratic Party. They did not infiltrate the Republican Party, form a viable third party, or - even after Sanders's first campaign in 2016 - abandon boutique Democratic causes, from open borders to gun control, to concentrate on economic radicalism.

Instead, they adopted the modern Democratic Party's media, messaging, and methods and joined it, first informally and then formally. Fittingly, they are not called the Republican Socialists, Independent Socialists, or simply Socialists of America.

In sum, the socialists did not swallow the old Clinton Democrats; those Democrats were already gone. A party radicalized over decades instead welcomed younger copycat socialists who proved even more zealous and embittered than their elders - and gave them their first national home.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/08/2026 - 17:40

Where's The 1929-Style Collapse MSM Predicted? UBS Finds Global Exports Surging To "Historically High Levels"

Last year, lefty corporate media outlets pushed the narrative that President Trump's trade war with the world could trigger a 1929-style economic collapse. However, a new UBS report presents a markedly different picture: global trade growth is running at historically high levels, supported by AI-related demand and rising export prices. 

Let's take a trip in the "wayback machine" and look at Bloomberg's headlines when Trump was ratcheting up the trade war with China in early 2025. The outlet pumped out an ungodly number of headlines about "recession" and impending economic doom. 

MSM's 'Doom-Maxxing' Headlines:

Roughly 1.5 years later, UBS's latest data show continued growth in global trade, despite the recession risks economists highlighted when the tariff war broke out in the first half of 2025.

UBS chief economist Arend Kapteyn wrote Tuesday morning that global export values are rising about 19% from a year earlier, placing growth in the 84th percentile of the past 25 years. Higher volumes account for roughly 8.8 percentage points of that increase, while rising prices contribute another 10.3 percentage points.

Asia accounts for 71% of global export growth. The region, with China particularly prominent, generates about 95% of the technology-related contribution, highlighting its major role in the AI supply chain. 

Separately, Emmanuel Sharef, who oversees Pacific Investment Management Co.'s flagship Balanced Income and Growth Fund, told Bloomberg last week that he was seeking opportunities among Asian suppliers benefiting from the AI boom.

The report suggests that global trade remains resilient, but its core strength is concentrated in technology and Asia. That leaves the expansion heavily sensitive to the AI and power grid investment boom. It seems that all the doom-maxxing forecasts lefty corporate media outlets made last summer have fallen flat on their faces.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/08/2026 - 17:20

25 State AGs Urge Defunding Of National Academies Of Sciences, Allege Bias On Climate Lawsuits

Authored by Kevin Stocklin via The Epoch Times,

A coalition of 25 state attorneys general called on federal agencies and Congress to defund the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), charging that the organization had used taxpayer dollars to produce reports that supported plaintiffs in climate lawsuits against energy companies.

In an Aug. 27 letter, the state attorneys general urged the federal government to "end grants to an organization [NASEM] that uses taxpayer money to prop up litigation theories that have been rejected by courts from Maryland to Mississippi to California."

Much of the conflict stems from a chapter on climate science in the Federal Judicial Center's Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence for federal judges that was written by NASEM, together with the Federal Judicial Center (FJC).

This manual provides essential background and technical information for judges who are presiding over thousands of lawsuits in which states and cities across the United States are seeking billions of dollars in damages from energy companies as compensation for alleged harm from global warming.

Allegations of Bias

Critics allege that information NASEM produced for the manual supports the plaintiffs' claims while ignoring contrary views that favor the defense.

President Donald Trump stated in a July 19 Truth Social post that NASEM had "published fraudulent, biased, and misleading Manuals on Climate Change" and that "taxpayers should not be funding Climate Fraud, and Judges should never have relied upon it."

In January, Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet, told the FJC in a letter that the manual appeared to include "biased programming" with the "underlying goal of predisposing federal judges in favor of plaintiffs who allege injuries from the manufacturing, marketing, use, or sale of fossil-fuel products."

In response, the FJC removed the chapter from its manual. Initially, NASEM kept the chapter on its website but removed it on Aug. 7, pending an internal review.

"That chapter has received considerable scrutiny," NASEM stated. "[NASEM] has determined that questions about the processes used to develop the chapter warrant an independent review, and the chapter will not appear on our website while that review is underway."

However, attorneys general from the group of 25 states, led by Montana, Nebraska, Tennessee, and West Virginia, say they have concerns regarding that review process.

"Now, over five months later, after presidential criticism and increasing public scrutiny, NASEM has temporarily removed the chapter from its website for an 'independent review' of the 'processes used to develop the chapter,'" the attorneys general wrote in their letter. "This review appears to be a sham, as demonstrated by NASEM's secrecy around all aspects of the review process."

The attorneys general charged that the chapter in the reference manual that NASEM helped write "materially misquotes the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change], directly contradicts the manual's statistics chapter, was apparently substantially ghost-written by climate plaintiffs' attorney Michael Burger, and had funders, authors, and reviewers that included climate funders, activists, and litigation participants."

One of the co-authors of the Reference Manual's climate chapter, Columbia Law School professor Jessica Wentz, defended the work in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, stating that it had undergone a rigorous review process, that Michael Burger had not contributed to it, and that it was "objective and rooted in settled science."

In addition to the chapter in the reference manual for judges, NASEM produced a report in July titled "Attribution of Extreme Weather and Climate Events and Their Impacts 2026," which critics say bolstered plaintiffs' arguments that harm from extreme weather events could be attributed to energy companies' production of fossil fuels.

That NASEM report supported "extreme event attribution" (EEA), the legal theory underpinning climate lawsuits, which claims that damage from extreme weather can be attributed to fossil fuel emissions, as plaintiffs assert. NASEM stated in a summary of the report that "the scientific tools, observational datasets, and methods developed and used for EEA have advanced considerably over the past decade and increased the confidence in EEA results for some types of weather events."

"[NASEM says] that these attribution studies have more prominence in the press and in legal proceeding and they say attribution methodology is getting better, but saying something is getting better is nowhere near the same as saying it's any good," Steven Koonin, physicist at Stanford University and former undersecretary for science under President Barack Obama, told The Epoch Times. "You would expect to see graphs throughout the report comparing the results of attribution with what the actual data is, and there is virtually none of that in the report."

The NASEM report also provides a methodology and causal link between greenhouse gas emissions, changes in climate, extreme weather, physical impacts on communities, and societal and economic harm.

Among the climate lawsuit cases currently moving through the courts is a pending Supreme Court case, Suncor Energy v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, which could set a precedent for many other similar cases.

Calls to Defund NASEM

Besides the attorneys general, other critics have also called for the government to defund NASEM.

"Federal agencies shouldn't need another minute to cut off funding to an organization laundering climate activism through the National Academies' name," Jason Isaac, CEO of the American Energy Institute, said in a statement.

"The National Academies took taxpayer money and used it to manufacture a scientific-sounding basis for climate lawsuits courts have already rejected, then timed a follow-up report to help plaintiffs in the Suncor case while locking out any rebuttal. Calling their own secret internal review 'independent' is a punchline."

The letter from the state attorneys general said "a truly independent review" would feature an external panel, exclude NASEM employees, activists, and litigation participants, and be made available to the public.

NASEM received hundreds of millions of dollars from federal agencies in 2024, including more than $84 million from the Transportation Department, $32 million from the Defense Department, and $23 million from the Department of Health and Human Services, the Aug. 27 letter stated. Signatories of the Aug. 27 letter also included attorneys general from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas, South Carolina, Wyoming, and Utah.

The Epoch Times contacted NASEM for comment but did not receive a response as of press time. However, a spokesperson from the organization said in a statement to media outlets that its mission was "to provide independent, objective scientific advice."

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/08/2026 - 17:00

Consumer Credit Smashes Estimates As Credit Card Debt Hits New All-Time High

The relevering of the US consumer continues: one month after the June consumer credit number came higher than estimates (and followed the unexpected May contreaction in US credit), in July consumer credit came in even higher than expected, with the Fed reporting in its latest G.19 report that in July, US consumer credit rose by a whopping $18.1BN - more than the $14.6 billion in June - and far above the $11.7 billion estimate. 

The rebound was driven by a modestly increase in revolving credit (i.e., credit card debt), as consumers added $2.8 billion to their credit card total...

... pushing it to new record high of $1.357 trillion.

The bulk of July's spike in consumer credit was in "non-revolving": student and auto loans rose by a whopping $15.3 billion, the biggest one month increase in over three years, and pushing total nonrevolving credit to $5.186 trillion, also a new all time high.

What is interesting, is that while auto loans have barely budged since late 2023, staying around 1.6 trillion for nearly three years, and hitting a record $1.571 trillion at the end of June, student loans have resumed their ascent, and after a modest decline in late 2023, student loans are once again at all time highs although in June we saw a tiny decline of $4.5 billion.

Finally for those keeping tabs, after a modest decline in the previous two quarter, the average interest rate on credit card accounts assessed interest rose again to 22.15%...

... a level last seen three years ago, when the Fed rates was almost 2% higher, which confirms our long-running observation that credit card rates go up but they never go down.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/08/2026 - 16:40

Good Faith Vs Bad Faith

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Clusterfuck Nation,

"In conditions of mass democracy, the soft and the infantilising will be preferred over the hard and the necessary again and again."

- Eugyppius on X

Clusterfuck Nation never sleeps, even while everybody else lays aside their labors. Later today we'll light up the ceremonial grill, but for now it's onto the tribulations of this dolorous moment in history.

It was just such a sparkling September morning twenty-five years ago when those hijacked airliners knifed into the World Trade Center towers (plus the Pentagon + a field outside Shanksville, PA). Despite all the forensic debate since then, I go with the original explanation that four teams of jihadi maniacs did the 9/11 deed. And also, yet, despite all the official defenses mounted since then - the Patriot Act, etc. - here we are allowing a massive Islamic infiltration and even takeover of many places in America, proving, at least, that history is trickster.

After the trauma of 9/11, you can't deny our country went off the rails psychologically, along with the rest of Western Civ, as if its immune system broke down and the body politic admitted all kinds of malevolent parasites into itself. They have induced disease in most of society's organs - our institutions - the main political parties, the news media, the government agencies, the foundations, the schools, the arts & letters. The West's collective brain got badly damaged in the process.

The disease is identifiable, though some of its mechanisms remain mysterious. The disease is called bad faith: acting or speaking falsely, and knowingly so. Pretending one thing as a cover for meaning something else, such as hollering about "justice" when you really mean vengeance; "inclusion" when you mean to cancel others out of careers and livelihoods; "diversity" when you won't tolerate disagreement; "democracy" when you just want to push everybody else around.

The forces behind all this give off an odor of the occult. You can perhaps name and locate some of the engines driving it - the "Globalists," the Marxists, the London banks, the EU, the WEF, the São Paulo Forum, the CCP - but their motives remain obscure. Angela Merkel has stated plainly why she allowed the mass immigration of the Third World into Germany (and thereby into all Europe due to the Schengen agreement that erased the EU nations' borders): "to counter right-wing extremism," she said. That sounds pretty clear, but it also seems quite crazy. And why on earth does Ursula von der Leyen do everything possible to keep that going? Have the migrants not sufficiently demonstrated their antipathy to Western society? How many rapes, knifings, beheadings, café massacres, and Christmas Village drive-throughs does it take?

It's also hard to fathom how the London bankers (whoever they are?) have any sympathy with the Marxist revolutionaries who want to end the concept of private property and the instrumentalities of money that go with it. Or how the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations became so enamored of socialism. Or why the CIA seems bent on betraying the American common good. Or how come the League of Women Voters stridently opposes common sense election reform.

The race hustle is more comprehensible. It operates within a permission-structure built on the agonizing differential between success and failure.

It's just plain extortion: our failure is your fault, so pay up. And meanwhile, thanks for no-bail-and-no-jail, and for permission to shoplift, rape, murder, loot, and riot when we feel like it. (And cry harder about it.) It's an obvious sado-masochistic setup.

The gender game gets more complicated, but it also comes out of a permission-structure based on success / failure, aggravated by a mutual shortage of marriageable males and females forced to compensate for any combination of bad luck and bad choices that lead to failure in life.

But that dynamic has been neatly hijacked by groups seeking to create as much social chaos as possible. Why else would the Democratic Party get so avid for drag queen story hours in the early school grades? Is it not obvious that this isn't really comedy, as claimed? Rather, it's the presentation of women as monsters. Have you ever stopped to wonder how many of the kids watching these exhibitions are actually terrified by the disturbed adult males acting-out in their faces?

And now, the gender lunacy has climaxed - in Massachusetts, arguably the craziest US state - where mobs of deranged women chant and blubber in sympathy outside the courthouse where a mother who strangled her three kids just got off the hook.

The kids were unfairly cluttering up Lindsey's life, you understand. . . .If anything is an apt tipping point for a society to go one way or another, there it is.

Twenty-five years of being insane is enough.

It's not making life easier for anybody. This is the meaning of Trump. He is aiming to fix as much of this as possible. That it's his fate to play this role is further evidence that history is a trickster. It's easy to make fun of him and his mannerisms; harder to weigh who and what he is fighting against - and what the stakes are. You might just boil it down to a battle between good faith and bad faith, of meaning business and playing games. The time for meaning business is at hand, and the time for playing dishonest games is over. Happy Labor Day and get ready for the action that's about to come at you as we turn this corner into fall, for real.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/08/2026 - 16:20

When Will There Be An 'Alternative For Canada'?

Authored by Mark E. Jeftovic via Bombthrower,

On Sunday, Germany's Alternative für Deutschland won Saxony-Anhalt, which shouldn't really surprise anyone, but is being treated by the media like some kind of Black Swan event, blindsiding us all.

The AfD won 43.8% of the vote, more than doubling its result from five years ago and crushing Chancellor Friedrich Merz's CDU, which came in at 17.2%. Apparently, if it wasn't for mail-in voting they would have had a majority.

As it stands, they're within three seats of an outright majority (maybe they can follow the Liberal Party of Canada playbook and induce a few other MPs to defect).

Naturally, practically every headline describing the result contains some variation of the words "far right".

We've been through this before.

A few years ago I wrote "What Does 'Far Right' Even Mean Anymore?" and came up with a working definition:

"Far right" is basically anything that contests the Establishment narrative.

That definition has held up remarkably well.

Because if you listen to the political establishment and its media organs, there are basically only two possible views around the problems facing Western countries.

The first is to double-down on what we've been already doing, irrespective of hard data showing that the policies of the last decade have made Canada the poorest performing country in the entirety of OECD nations, not to mention that the track we're on will keep us there out until 2060...

On CNBC, Joe Kernen reminds Dom LeBlanc of some stark economic realities in Canada

"Minister LeBlanc, this is the last thing Canada needs. And I'm not sure whether you have a good feel for, for changes that need to be made in the economic approach of Canada."

"The OECD projects... pic.twitter.com/YEyKacDVrY

— cbcwatcher (@cbcwatcher) August 25, 2026

Here in Canada that means some variation on the policies we've pursued since 2015, many of them mirroring the European model: historically unprecedented immigration volumes, an ever-expanding temporary resident population, increasingly cumbersome restraints on energy and resource development, and a kind of managed degrowth dressed up as environmental stewardship.

Door #2 is that anyone who has an issue with this is a "far-right extremist", or more recently "a maple-MAGA".

There is apparently no middle ground.

Stipulate that immigration is a overall a good thing but that the volume and calibre of the migrants matters? Far right.

Suggest that a country has both the right and obligation to decide who gets to live there and optimize for higher quality immigrants? Far right.

Expect that people who immigrate to this country should integrate into it, obey its laws and be a net contributor economically, instead of a perpetual drain?

Careful now. You don't want to sound like you're "noticing things".

Which raises an interesting question after yesterday's result in Germany:

When will there be an Alternative for Canada?

How Canada's immigration system used to work

Canada was the first country in the world to adopt a merit-based immigration system, in 1967.

The underlying concept was remarkably simple: select for people who were likely to succeed here.

Education. Language. Skilled work experience. Age. Adaptability. Ability to support yourself.

There were family reunification and humanitarian streams alongside it, of course, but the economic immigration system was unapologetically selective and we unabashedly skimmed the cream across all ethnicities, countries, races and religions.

For awhile there, we had it: The Golden Age of Multi-Culturalism - and Canada was, in fact, a classically liberal paradise. For a while.

This is the system under which my parents, my wife, her mother-in-law, our daughter and my entire extended family came to Canada.

All immigrants. Most of them non-white.

It works fine.

For decades we brought in skilled, educated and motivated people from everywhere. While they retained homages to their cultures and religions, they also worked hard, obeyed the law, they opened businesses, raised families, integrated into Canadian society and, over a generation or two, became part of our "Canadian Mosaic".

What Changed

That basic architecture continued for decades and eventually evolved into Express Entry, which was launched under the Harper government in January 2015. Express Entry actually made the selection process more competitive, ranking eligible candidates against one another instead of simply processing qualified applicants in chronological order.

What changed after 2015 wasn't that Canada suddenly abolished the points system, but the Trudeau Liberals made changes to the volume and the pathways.

Permanent immigration targets climbed from roughly 250,000 to 280,000 annually during the Harper years to nearly half-a-million annually by 2024. At the same time, international students, temporary workers and other temporary residents expanded far faster (places like Conestoga College became veritable "diploma factories").

And somewhere along the way, "temporary foreign worker" stopped conjuring up an image of an agricultural worker filling a seasonal shortage and started meaning practically everybody behind the counter at Tim Hortons.

The Temporary Foreign Worker Program was never designed as a mass pipeline for cashiers and fry cooks, but successive rule changes, plus a much larger companion program that does not require a labour-market test, made low-wage service jobs a normal use of temporary labour.

What makes it worse?

As many of those living in the GTA area are aware: home invasions are up, car thefts are up, assaults are up, so is firebombing Christian churches and anti-Semitic violence. The streets of Canada's major cities are routinely taken over by Islamic and far-left extremists who openly hate this country and pine for it's downfall...

Islamist in Canada: "I don't consider myself Canadian, Canada is a racist colonialist project like Israel; they will be destroyed within 25 years."

Canada is falling. pic.twitter.com/JakiJUTx3h

— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) September 5, 2026

(One wonders, why is she here then?)

And when non-citizens commit crimes, get caught, get released again, commit more crimes, and eventually, finally are convicted...

The final catalyst: The immigration discount on criminal sentencing

This may ultimately be the issue that causes the pot to boil over.

Canadian citizens watched citizens getting tackled by cops grocery stores for not wearing masks, people got tazed at outdoor hockey rinks. The federal government imposed martial law and seized your bank accounts for donating to the Freedom Convoy.

And now, they open the news and encounter an endless procession of home invasions, carjackings, sexual assaults, human trafficking cases and violent crimes where some variation of the same phrase seems to invariably appear:

"The accused was already out on release for previous unrelated charges."

...and they end up being released again, and people can't help but notice, that many such cases turn out to be, "Brampton men" (IYKYK).

17 Accused in Peel Police Extortion Network Investigation Were Not Canadian Citizens

Peel Regional Police say 17 men who are not Canadian citizens have been arrested in connection with an alleged international criminal network known as "For Brothers," accused of targeting... pic.twitter.com/h6IPYBe4BH

— Toronto Crime Watch (@CrimewatchTO) May 25, 2026

This has become common enough that Ottawa has finally had to respond. This year the federal government enacted more than 80 changes to Canada's bail and sentencing laws, specifically targeting repeat violent offenders, home invasions, human trafficking, auto theft and accused persons carrying numerous or serious outstanding charges.

So the problem wasn't some imaginary, shared hallucination that came out of a far-right echo chamber.

More corrosive still is the perception that non-citizens who commit crimes have been receiving so-called "immigration discounts" precisely because they are non-citizens and the Supreme Court, in R. v. Pham held that judges may consider the immigration consequences of a sentence.

This has lead to examples such as:

• A Kitchener man who battered his girlfriend was given a conditional discharge to avoid deportation to India
• An Ontario court of appeal reduced the sentence of a man convicted of assault and multiple probation violations by one day in order to prevent a "potentially devastating immigration consequence". The Crown did not object.
• A foreign resident on a work permit who was working as a Bell Technician who exposed himself to a woman in who's apartment he was servicing was granted no jail time because doing so would result in deportation. The man feels "stigmatized" and laments that he had to leave the area.
• Finally, this guy, who was caught in a Peel Regional Police sting operation, because he thought he was soliciting sex from a 15 year-old minor. He was convicted, then argued that his immigration status should not be impacted by his sentencing because he still wants to bring his wife to Canada (who presumably still wants to be with him, for some reason). Justice Paul O'Marra concurred,

  "A conviction could lead to severe collateral consequences, such as jeopardizing his immigration status, delaying his citizenship, and preventing him from sponsoring his wife, which would likely result in their separation"

Uh, yeah, no shit. That a conviction could lead to severe collateral consequences is the entire point of having a legal system.

The far-right extremist in me can't help but notice, can't restrain myself from wondering out loud...

Do we really want anybody here who can't govern themselves accordingly before they even become a citizen?

Shouldn't this be the most obvious filter available?

By all means, come to Canada, build a better life, work hard and follow the fucking rules.

Otherwise, don't come, or get deported.

Too simple.

But try explaining the optics of that to a Canadian citizen who has just watched the state demonstrate zero reluctance to use its full powers against him and tell him that noticing the discrepancy makes him "literally Hitler".

At what point does "far right" simply mean "normal"?

One of the more revealing moments in CNN's coverage ahead of yesterday's German election came when correspondent Fred Pleitgen described the AfD's supposedly radical immigration platform.

'The AfD openly calls for mass deportation of undocumented foreigners and foreigners who have committed crimes"

The CNN dude says "mass deportation of foreigners who have committed crimes" like it's a bad thing. https://t.co/zvFjiKEMpV

— Mark E. Jeftovic (@jeftovic) September 6, 2026

Narrator's note: "undocumented foreigner" is someone who is there illegally.

When a person enters your country as a guest, commits a serious crime against somebody who lives there, they should, as a consequence, lose the privilege of remaining.

Holding this opinion will get you branded "far-right" extremist.

I suspect a fairly large percentage of Canadians would consider it common sense.

Living in Canada should be considered a privilege for non-citizens, and citizenship should mean something. It should be earned through some combination of productivity, commitment, integration and time.

None of this has anything to do with race, religion, ethnicity, gender or sexual preference.

In fact, Canada's old system demonstrated precisely how unnecessary those criteria are.

This is where the "far-right" branding becomes dangerous

The problem with reflexively branding every objection to the current system as "far right" isn't simply that the label eventually becomes meaningless.

There is a much worse consequence.

For starters, you eliminate the legitimate middle.

People who simply say "immigration levels are too high" get called racists.

People who say temporary workers shouldn't displace Canadian teenagers from entry-level jobs are deemed xenophobes.

People who think convicted non-citizen criminals should be deported are branded as extremists.

Eventually some of those people stop caring what you call them.

That's when some truly unhinged egregores can arise.

I've been warning about this phenomenon for years, including in my book, Unassailable: when legitimate grievances are declared impermissible, they don't just go away.

They go underground, they tend to mutate, and they resurface as increased polarization, siege mentality and, eventually, real extremism.

We're already seeing the emergence Canadian groups openly espousing ideas that really are extreme, including ethnic cleansing, as though removing entire populations based on their skin-colour is the only remaining solution to problems the political system refuses to confront honestly.

Somewhere there has to be a rational distinction between "we need to go back to merit-based immigration, at numbers we can assimilate" and whatever the fuck this is. pic.twitter.com/EdJ3J6yFSW

— Mark E. Jeftovic (@jeftovic) September 1, 2026

As I lamented in my earlier "Canada Was A Liberal Paradise" piece, racism in Canada was for the most part, a thing of the past.

It was over.

Aside from the fringes and the individual Archie Bunker types, Canada was, for a brief, bygone age, a largely colour-blind meritocracy.

Then we made race central to practically everything again: post-nationalism, colonialism. Settlers on stolen land - this isn't coffee house Marxism by purple haired they/them's from affluent families anymore - it's literally baked into the curriculum, it's being taught in our schools and our universities by an academia overrun with Fabians and Malthusians.

Meanwhile, any criticism of immigration policy is synonymous with racial animus.

Is it any wonder that there are populist backlashes occurring in Germany, Ceuta, France, the UK?

The Alternative for Canada is not what you think.

I'm not here to tell you that some manner of nationalist, populist party is going to save Canada - I don't even think the AfD or any of these reaction movements will "save" their own respective countries.

The reason is that I think this is part of a much wider issue: the collapse of the global debt-based monetary system and a Fourth Turning-style destruction of our Industrial Age institutions. The dysfunction we see here in Canada and abroad isn't the result of the wrong political party or bad policy tracks. Those are symptoms of something much larger.

Populations vote in the wrong political parties, who embark on horrifically bad policy tracks, because there is no workable or tenable solutions to the current problems. Only emergent, alternative systems that are better suited to operating in world's network-shaped topology and hyper-accelerating pace will persevere, and a big part of that is just staying out of the blast radius of the failing machinery (much more on this in my new book, The Blueprint: Survive and Thrive in an Overclocked Timeline - my premium membership already has access to it)

However intractable the problems of building a global financial system atop debt-based money, the situation is even more acute here in Canada, where the older generations still believe everything the CBC tells them, and the younger ones are indoctrinated to hate this country from pre-school onward.

In other words, Canada is cooked, and the "Alternative for Canada" is not having a different party in power, it isn't having some establishment outsider like Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke entering politics (although that would be refreshing), or a firebrand like Kevin O'Leary taking over the CPC (which also would be awesome).

Nor is it becoming "the 51st State" or merging with the US (although anybody who's ever read Dianne Francis' book on the topic would find themselves agreeing with a lot of it. It was written before the rise of Trump and TDS infected the majority of the Canadian "Elbows Up" contingent).

For our cousins out in Alberta, it's not even separation.

All of these things might forestall the inevitable, add a decade or two onto the long descent of The Industrial Age - but the real solution in an era where politics is just institutionalized grift and the masses are intentionally dumbing themselves down, the way forward is through radical personal sovereignty, critical thinking skills, financial independence, and optionality. Lots and lots of optionality.

The Alternative for Canada is you.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/08/2026 - 15:40

New York Officials Lied About Air Quality After 9/11, New Documents Show

Authored by Ken Silva via Headline USA,

New York City has agreed to release new documents showing that officials lied about the air quality in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center.

The more than 170,000 pages of documents are being released by NYC in response to the transparency organization 9/11 Health Watch, which had sued to force their disclosure.

According to the New York Times, the documents reveal that higher-than-acceptable levels of asbestos and other contaminants were in the dust and air in other parts of Lower Manhattan after Sept. 11.

"An audit from November 2001, prepared by a private firm and submitted to the federal E.P.A. based on data collected by New York City and state agencies, showed other troubling findings," the Times reported Monday.

"That audit demonstrated that air concentration of the carcinogen benzene was still spiking near the towers' footprint, and that the concentration of asbestos in the air at the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island had increased after the attacks."

Despite having information about the poor air quality, government officials, including then-EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman, said the air around ground zero was safe to breathe.

Whitman has since apologized for her misrepresentations.

The Times warned that the disclosures could reopen NYC to new litigation at a time when New Yorkers who were in the city at the time are dying of lung and blood cancers, as well as heart and respiratory diseases.

Denise Verzi, whose husband, Michael, was a firefighter who suffered from lymphoma after responding to the attack, criticized the city for its lack of transparency.

"I don't understand hiding it to begin with," Verzi told the Times. "That was horrific. But 25 years in, there's people that are still getting sick."

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/08/2026 - 15:20

Mamdani Turns City Hall Into A Socialist Union-Organizing-Machine

New York City has established a government office to assist worker in unionizing, following an executive order announced by Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Labor Day. The Mayor’s Office of Worker Power aims to help workers “get informed, connected and organized” to facilitate union formation. City Hall has not yet released information on the office’s budget or staffing levels, both of which are important considerations when creating a new government entity.

 "Every day, working New Yorkers show up, do their jobs, and keep this city running. Too often, they have no say in the conditions they work under," Mamdani said in a statement.

"The Mayor's Office of Worker Power will make sure workers have a seat at the table before exploitation becomes a crisis and violations become routine. We're connecting workers to their rights, to each other and to the organizations ready to stand with them. Because when workers have power, this city works better for everyone."

The office's stated functions include holding hearings on workplace issues, drafting policy proposals based on employee testimony, distributing information about workers’ rights, and connecting employees with outside groups equipped to help them organize.

Tony Perlstein, a former dockworker, union organizer, and deputy director of communications for the Center for Popular Democracy, will run the office. He will report to Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice Julie Su.

“This office allows us to get ahead of exploitation instead of simply responding to it," Su said in a statement.

"By building relationships with workers, unions and worker centers, we can understand what is happening on the ground and act before problems become crises."

The City Reporter, which broke the story, said the office follows the blueprint of the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee, a joint project of the Democratic Socialists of America and United Electrical Workers. 

Critics have zeroed in on a provision in the executive order that goes well beyond hearings and pamphlets. It directs city agencies, including the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, the Taxi and Limousine Commission, and the Commission on Human Rights, to develop "directed investigation procedures" for workplace violations. These agencies used to wait for a complaint before opening a case. Under the new order, they can target businesses that employ large numbers of low-wage workers, carry a documented history of labor violations, or show other signs the city considers evidence of poor compliance, whether or not anyone has filed a complaint against them.

And that has plenty of people concerned.

 "It's remarkable that the Mamdani administration conflates being forced to pay a union with being protected from exploitation," Manhattan Institute fellow Ken Girardin said. "The city shouldn't be putting its thumb on the scale to squeeze more dues out of workers."

Ashley Ranslow, New York State director for the National Federation of Independent Businesses, called the office "deeply concerning.” 

"Federal laws already protect workers rights to organize," Ranslow said.

Her larger worry concerns what proactive enforcement looks like in practice: small businesses facing scrutiny, she said, "even if there are no complaints filed against them."

Ranslow argued City Hall has inserted itself into a relationship that was never its business. "City government should not be interfering with a process that is between employees and the employer," she said. "Small businesses should be supported, especially in a place like New York City where it's unaffordable to keep the doors open and lights on, instead of having the deck stacked against them."

A recent CUNY report has discovered that the level of unionization in the city is more than twice the national average, revealing the office to be nothing more than a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist, a structure designed to create grievances even though the labor market has already clearly shifted in favor of organized labor.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/08/2026 - 14:40

Israel Shutters UK Consulate For Leading New European Sanctions Against West Bank Settlers

The UK is a lead nation among a dozen countries that jointly announced Tuesday they are imposing sanctions on trade with Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

The additional nations are Ireland, Denmark, Finland, France, Canada, Iceland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden. UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband informed parliament about the new measure, saying "Today I announce that the official view of the British government is that the occupation [of the West Bank] is unlawful."

AFP via Getty Images

"The government believes the unlawfulness of the occupation should be reflected in the economic relationships we choose to have with the occupied territories," he added.

Miliband declared that Israeli "terrorists" are conducting ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, which follows a series of deadly incidents involving fanatical settlers widely reported over the last weeks and months. He sought to demonstrate that the sanctions action would underscore that "Britain is not silent in the face of deep injustice and nor is it powerless."

Israel's response was almost immediate, with Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar quickly announcing the closure of the UK consulate in Jerusalem. Saar blasted Miliband for what he's calling "outrageous lies" and charged that London was "systematically working against the state of Israel."

While the United States is not expected to sign on to this European initiative, or voice political support for it, Washington does have sanctions on some individual Jewish settler leaders and groups. However, various international bodies and rights groups have long seen such prior US designations as a positive, but largely symbolic step.

According to an outline of Miliband's words before parliament, he listed the following new legal actions impacting Israeli West Bank settlements and associated entities:

• An import ban on goods from illegal settlements in the occupied territories.
• A comprehensive sanctions regime against providing services such as construction or financing for Israeli settlements.
• A ban on the advertising in the UK of illegal settlement properties.
• Personal sanctions against key individuals accused of promoting settler violence.
• A new ban for arms licenses and other exports that “materially contribute to the occupation”.

Another key part of Israel's retaliation has been to list a dozen British election officials who will now be barred from entering the country. 

Video shows Israeli "settlers" entering Palestinian property in Turmus Ayya during U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee’s visit to meet an American citizen.

Huckabee filmed the incident.pic.twitter.com/r3K8WTae18

— Clash Report (@clashreport) September 6, 2026

According to Israeli media:

The list includes 11 members of parliament... and a lawyer, Fahad Ansari, who has represented Hamas’s political wing in court in the UK as it attempts to remove itself from the list of proscribed terrorist organizations.

Responding to the Foreign Ministry’s announcement, Ansari says on X that he is “neither British nor an MP but do take this as a badge of honour.”

The banned MPs are listed as follows:

1. Jeremy Corbyn, Your Party co-founder
2. Zarah Sultana, Your Party co-founder
3. Naz Shah, Labour Party
4. Diane Abbot, Labour Party
5. John McDonnell, Labour Party
6. Richard Burgon, Labour Party
7. Hannah Spencer, Green Party
8. Carla Denyer, Green Party
9. Sian Berry, Green Party
10. Ellie Chowns, Green Party
11. Adrian Ramsay, Green Party

All of this is likely going to ratchet the pressure on the US Embassy and the State Department. Last week, even US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee last week called out Israeli settler violence in the West Bank an "act of terror."

The U.S. has condemned the siege of Palestinian homes in the West Bank by Israeli settlers, who have cut off water, electricity and essential supplies to residents.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee on Thursday called the settlers’ actions an “act of terror,” adding to… pic.twitter.com/pOrwgURCHZ

— PBS News (@NewsHour) August 14, 2026

It's unprecedented and unexpected that a self-identified outspoken Zionist and Evangelical pastor like Huckabee would make such an announcement.

He's lately been touring some West Bank areas, describing this as on behalf of US citizens "who live in Turmus Ayya and other communities across this region" who are "disturbed by people who have created extraordinary challenges that are unfair and illegal."

Also, while most Americans might tend to assume that the entirety of the West Bank is Muslim, it has also long had an ancient and significant minority of Christians, chiefly Palestinian Orthodox Christians.

The Christian town of Taybeh has been under repeat attack all summer...

Israeli settlers have attacked the historic Christian village of Taybeh in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, setting fields on fire and targeting Palestinian homes.

Local sources reported that the settlers opened fire on houses and threw Molotov cocktails pic.twitter.com/h3Jouvumga

— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) June 10, 2026

The last all-Christian West Bank town of Taybeh has also this summer come under repeat attack by Jewish settlers. The Israeli government itself has had to send IDF troops to protect the enclave from settler attacks. Perhaps such instances have started to get the attention of US officials, but it's also likely that they will stop at just paying lip service to the issue.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/08/2026 - 14:20

More Investing Myths Dismantled

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

“Investing Myths Dismantled” is chapter 4 of a 5-part series examining the narratives around “investing for the long run.”

Chapter 1: Think Like An Investor

Chapter 2: Investor Psychology

Chapter 3: Why Crashes, Timing & Valuations Matter

Chapter 3 of this series, linked above, ended with a simple question. If the math so plainly says avoid big losses, respect valuations, and mind your timing, why does so much of the industry preach the opposite? Why are you told to stay fully invested no matter what, that you cannot beat the index, so do not try, that the great investors are magic and cannot be copied, and that the only thing worth worrying about is fees?

The reason is that those messages are comfortable, and comfort sells. Each one is an investing myth that sounds like wisdom and quietly talks you out of managing your own money. In this article, we take three of the biggest ones and run them through the same unforgiving logic we used on the math. These articles are not meant to scare you out of stocks, but rather to hand you back the judgment the myths are designed to take away.

Investing Myth One: You Have To Beat The Market

From your first day as an investor, you are handed a scoreboard. The S&P 500 index. If you beat it, you win; but if you trail it, for any one of a million different reasons, you lose. Wall Street loves this scoreboard because a scoreboard keeps you comparing, and comparing keeps you moving your money, chasing whichever fund topped the index last year.

Perhaps it is inevitable that, as social animals, we have an urge to compare ourselves with one another. Such is particularly the case since the rise of social media, where we are constantly bombarded by images of how well “everyone” else seems to be doing. Here is an example.

Assume your boss gave you a new Mercedes as a yearly bonus. You would be thrilled until you learned everyone in the office got two. Now you are upset because on a “relative” basis, you got less than everyone else. However, are you deprived on an absolute basis by getting a Mercedes?

Comparison-created unhappiness and insecurity are pervasive. Social media is full of images of people showing off their lavish lifestyles, giving you something to compare to. It is unsurprising that repeated studies show that social media users are terminally unhappy.

The flaw of human nature is that whatever we have is enough, until we see someone else who has more.

Therefore, it should be unsurprising that comparison in financial markets can lead to awful decisions, so investors have trouble being patient and letting whatever process they have work for them. Chasing that scoreboard does not just set you up for disappointment. It makes you behave badly. You lag the index for a year, so you fire your fund and chase last year’s winner, usually right before it reverts to the mean. You buy high and sell low on a permanent loop, all in the name of keeping up with a number.

But here is the part you may not know – the scoreboard you are comparing yourself to is rigged, and not in your favor.

“There are many reasons why you shouldn’t chase an index over time and why you see statistics such as ‘80% of all funds underperform the S&P 500’ in any given year. The impact of share buybacks, substitutions, lack of taxes, no trading costs, and replacement all contribute to the index’s outperformance over those investing real dollars who do not receive the same advantages. More importantly, any portfolio allocated differently than the benchmark to provide for lower volatility, income, or long-term financial planning and capital preservation will also underperform the index. Therefore, comparing your portfolio to the S&P 500 is inherently ‘apples to oranges’ and will always lead to disappointing outcomes.“ – Absolute vs Relative Returns

One of the most important points to consider is what “substitution” really means. The index you admire is survivorship bias sold as a product, and it quietly buries its dead. Every company that went bankrupt, got acquired, or simply fell out of favor is deleted from the record, so the smooth line climbing across the page is the winners’ bracket with all the losers erased. Your real portfolio never gets that “magic eraser.” You must live with your mistakes, and you pay to fix them, while the index just pretends its mistakes never happened.

So what should you measure against instead? The only benchmark that actually matters is your own goals. The rate of return your financial plan requires, at the lowest risk that gets you there. Your portfolio is specific to your life, so a thirty-year-old and a sixty-year-old should not own the same things, and neither should be graded against an index that has no age, no goals, and no end date.

Reaching for the index’s return means reaching for the index’s risk, and as we saw in the last article, higher returns demand an exponential increase in risk. That is a fine bargain at thirty and a potentially ruinous one at sixty. I dug into this in “Relative Returns or Absolute“ and again in “The 5 Reasons Benchmarking Works Against You“. 

The investing myth of comparing to a benchmark index is dangerous. The reality is that you cannot eat relative returns. Say the market falls 20% in a bad year and your portfolio falls 19%. You beat the index, so you should be happy about that. But you still lost nearly 20% of your portfolio. In real life, nobody has ever felt richer for losing slightly less than an index. The relative game feels like winning right up until the moment you actually have to spend the money.

It comes down to one honest question. What matters more, matching the index in a bull market, or protecting your capital in a bear market?

You cannot have both.

Critically, since you can replace lost money but never lost time, protecting capital is almost always the trade worth making.

Investing Myth Two: Just Invest Like Warren Buffett

The second investing myth wears a friendlier face. If investing is hard, just do what the greatest investor alive does. Buy good companies and hold them forever. You will even hear that Buffett himself says to just buy an index fund and never look at it again. It sounds like permission to stop thinking. It is also a caricature of the man, and following the caricature will hurt you.

Here is what Buffett actually does, and why you can’t replicate it. He is a value investor to the bone. He estimates what a business is truly worth and then refuses to buy until the price offers a wide margin of safety, a discount deep enough that he can be wrong and still not lose. Furthermore, he buys quality businesses with durable advantages, and he is famously willing to do nothing for years; when he cannot find value, he does not force it. He can sit on an enormous pile of cash and wait, sometimes for years, for the fat pitch. Most importantly, he sells. The buy-and-hold-anything-forever story is the opposite of a man who is ruthlessly disciplined about price.

Watch what he does with that cash, and you see the entire philosophy. His cash pile is not random, and it swells when the market is expensive and shrinks when it is cheap. He even has a favorite yardstick for measuring that, the total value of the stock market compared to the size of the economy, a ratio now known as the Buffett Indicator.

When the Buffett indicator runs hot, as I covered in a piece on that very gauge, he stops buying and waits. The greatest investor alive is the living opposite of “stay fully invested no matter what.” He calls cash oxygen, cheap and unexciting, and absolutely necessary, held precisely so he can act when everyone else is forced to sell. Sitting on your hands with dry powder is not a failure of nerve for Buffett. It is the strategy.

It is also important to notice what he is not doing. He is not buying the benchmark index. When Buffett does invest, specifically in the public securities side of the portfolio, Berkshire holds around 40 names, but the vast majority of its value is concentrated in just a handful of high-conviction bets. That is the opposite of spreading your money across five hundred companies by size and hoping it all works out. Buffett’s edge was never breadth; it was judgment, patience, and the discipline to concentrate only when the odds were overwhelmingly in his favor.

Then there is the part that the investing myth never mentions. Buffett is not even playing your game. He invests permanent capital that no client can yank at the wrong moment.

• He has spent decades using cheap insurance float as leverage.
• He buys whole companies and shapes how they are run.
• His horizon is measured in decades, and he has no retirement date and no tuition bill coming due.

However, you have a finite life, a real deadline, and money that might be needed at any time. The gap between you and Buffett is not mostly talent. It is structural.

So no, you cannot be Warren Buffett; however, there is a part worth keeping, and it is the whole reason his name is worth invoking. You can copy his discipline, even if you can never copy his position.

• Refuse to overpay.
• Demand a margin of safety.
• Hold cash when nothing is cheap and,
• Treat that patience as a strategy, not a personal failing.
• Sell when the reason you bought is gone.

Buffett himself says the most important quality in an investor is not intellect but temperament, which means the real Buffett lesson is not a stock list at all. It is everything we covered in the first two articles. The self-control to think like an owner and to do nothing when there is nothing worth doing.

Investing Myth Three: Passive Investing Always Wins

The reason this third investing myth is the most seductive is that, for a very long stretch, it has looked to be absolutely true. Just buy the index, keep costs low, and you beat almost everyone. Let’s be fair, low costs and staying out of your own way are genuinely powerful, exactly as we covered in the first two articles. But “passive always wins” hides a mechanism that quietly builds risk into the market, and understanding it changes how you think about that index fund.

The problem is that an index fund does not buy good companies; it typically just buys big ones. Because the S&P is weighted by size, every dollar that flows in gets pushed hardest into whatever is already the largest, regardless of price or quality. That creates a loop.

Follow the loop, and you see the problem. The biggest companies get bigger not because they earned it that year, but because they were already big and the flows had nowhere else to go. They come to dominate the index by default, not by merit. You can watch the machine at work in the numbers. The ten largest stocks have swollen to more than a third of the entire index, nearly double their share a decade ago. A tiny handful of names now sets the direction for nearly every retirement account in the country, whether the people who own them ever chose them or not.

And that hollows out the one thing you thought you were buying. Diversification. If you own an S&P index fund, a Nasdaq fund, and a technology ETF, you do not own three different things. You own the same handful of giant companies three times over. I laid this out in “Why Diversification Is Failing In The Age Of Passive Investing.” Your portfolio may look diversified, but in reality, it is a concentrated bet with much higher risks than you realize. Therefore, in a real crisis, the little diversification you have left tends to vanish, because correlations rush toward one and everything falls together at once.

There is a deeper problem hiding beneath this investing myth: “Passive money never asks what anything is worth.”

Passive investors simply buy in proportion to size. As an increasing share of the market moves this way, fewer participants remain to price companies on fundamentals. The market drifts away from being a weighing machine and toward being a pure momentum machine, where prices rise because money is flowing in, not because the underlying businesses have gotten any better.

The stocks most owned by passive funds become the most sensitive to those flows. As long as the market rises, passive flows come in. Those flows are consumed by the companies with the heaviest index weightings at the top. However, when it eventually falls, and it will, those same companies are dragged down the hardest and fastest. This is because the selling is mechanical and indiscriminate, hitting the crowded names in unison. I made this case in a piece on the fragility that passive flows create. Simply, a market that goes up together tends to come down together.

None of this means that index funds are evil or that you should never own one. There are real truths to the indexing story. For example, low cost is real, and for many investors, a broad fund is a perfectly reasonable core. However, that also means an index fund is not the safety blanket of diversification that the marketing brochure says it is. Yes, own an index fund if you choose, but own it with your eyes open.

Knowing what you actually hold and how concentrated it has quietly become is crucial. Critically, that is a very different thing from buying an index as a substitute for thinking.

Passive is not a free lunch. It is a bet that the flows never stop, but they always eventually do..

What All Three Myths Have In Common

Step back and look at the three together.

• Beat the market.
• Be like Buffett.
• Just buy the index.

On the surface, they say different things. Underneath, they deliver the exact same instruction.

• Stop thinking.
• Hand your judgment to a scoreboard, a guru, or a formula, and
• Just hold on, no matter what.

That message is comfortable, and it is enormously profitable for an industry that would rather you never question it.

But notice the thread running through every rebuttal. In each case, the answer was not a better guru or a cleverer index. It was always you, doing the work.

• Measuring against your own goals instead of a scoreboard.
• Copying Buffett’s discipline instead of his ticker symbols.
• Owning an index fund with your eyes open instead of as a substitute for judgment.

Remember, it is your money. These are your goals, your risk, and your finite, unrecoverable time.

Outsourcing your judgment to a comfortable story, but it will not serve you well.

• You do not have to beat anyone.
• No one is asking you to be a legend.
• And it is okay, in fact, you have an obligation to manage your own risk rather than pretend it does not exist.

The myths want you to be passive. The math wants you awake.

The Bottom Line

We have spent four articles clearing the ground. We learned to think like an investor rather than a speculator, to beat our own psychology and conditioning, to respect the hard math of losses, valuations, and timing, and now to see through the comforting myths that tell us to stop managing our money. That is a great deal of what NOT to do. It raises the obvious question. So what do you actually do instead?

In the final chapter on investing myths, we will provide you with the rules and guidelines to win the “long game” in investing. How to actually manage risk in a portfolio, the three practical ways to run one depending on who you are, and the timeless rules the greatest investors leave behind. We have torn down the myths. In the last piece, we built the thing that replaces them.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/08/2026 - 14:00

Nuclear's Labor Day News Dump: Nine Reactors And An IPO

Across the holiday and into Tuesday, the nuclear sector delivered news of a potential eight-reactor construction MOU, pricing details for Holtec's IPO, and a closed federal loan to resurrect another shuttered American nuclear plant.

The biggest headline is out of South Korea.

Korean outlets reported that Seoul and Washington are discussing a framework to jointly pursue up to eight large reactors in the US, with a memorandum of understanding potentially getting signed as early as September 18. The discussions sit within Korea's previously announced $350 billion US investment package.

Which reactors are actually going to be built under the 8-reactor project is apparently still in discussion. Some outlets are reporting that Washington wants all eight to use Westinghouse's AP1000 design, while Seoul wants at least two Korean APR1400s included. MoneyToday says a possible six-AP1000, two-APR1400 configuration.

Korea is likely looking for more opportunities to show off its mature, and larger, grid-scale reactor design that it hopes to export to additional countries.

Korea JoongAng Daily put the proposal at $120 billion, while MoneyToday reported $130 billion.

Second, Holtec finally put a price range on its long-discussed IPO.

The company kicked off its IPO road show Tuesday morning proposing 50 million shares at $15 to $18 each for a target raise of up to $900 million in proceeds. As has been widely reported, the company is targeting a valuation just over $10 billion.

The company looks to launch under the ticker HNUC and could be a breath of fresh air for a nuclear IPO space that's been mostly plagued by pre-revenue disappointments. Multiple reactor developers have gone public over the past couple years through SPACs and IPOs, with some of them performing as miserably as -80% within weeks of commencing trading.

As we noted when Holtec first filed confidentially, the company brings decades of operating history in spent-fuel storage, decommissioning and equipment manufacturing. Its Palisades restart and SMR-300 program manage to add significant growth ambitions to that established industrial base.

Big news for nuclear energy in Iowa! https://t.co/D5QhskZv0B

EDF is financing the restart of the 615 MW Duane Arnold Energy Center, which will deliver reliable baseload power to the grid, boost grid resilience, and create thousands of construction & hundreds of operations jobs. pic.twitter.com/62QJvd4F1g

— Energy Dominance Financing (@DOE_EDF) September 8, 2026

Lastly, NextEra came out of the holiday with another major piece of its Duane Arnold restart in place.

On Tuesday, the company and the DOE's Office of Energy Dominance Financing (EDF) announced the closing of a loan of up to $1.9 billion. The financing supports the return of Iowa's 615 MW Duane Arnold Energy Center, which stopped operating in 2020 due to uneconomic conditions. The DOE celebrated it as the third financed nuclear power plant restart.

NextEra is targeting a restart no later than the first quarter of 2029, which could shift around significantly based on regulatory headaches or if any mechanical issues are discovered, similar to some of the headaches with the Palisades restart. Google's 25-year power purchase agreement helped underpin the project.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/08/2026 - 13:45

Solid 3Y Auction Stops Through Ahead Of Friday's CPI Report

With 10Y yields knocking on 4.80%, and threatening to blow out to 5% - if not beyond - there was plenty of interest in the outcome of today's 3Y auction, especially since tomorrow the Treasury starts the new and improved bond buybacks. And now that the auction has priced, we can say that there was plenty of demand. 

The sale of $58BN in 3Y paper priced at a high yield of 4.474%, which was up from 4.291% in August and the highest since July 2024. It also stopped through the When Issued 4.475% by one basis point; it was the third stop through in a row indicating there is hardly any shortage of demand for the short end. 

The bid to cover was 2.722, virtually unchanged from last month's 2.712 and better than the 2.621 recent average.

Internals were less solid: foreign buyers took down 62.15%, modestly below last month's 64.24% and below the recent average of 65.51%. And with Directs awarded a red hot 26.9%, the most since February, Dealers were left holding 10.91%, down from 11.74% in July and the second lowest of 2026.

Overall, this was a solid auction, and one which suggests that the bond market is hardly worried about Friday's CPI report or that the Fed will go full hawk next week when there is roughly a 50% chance Warsh hikes rates. 

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/08/2026 - 13:30

In Putin Call, Trump Seeks Swift End To Ukraine War & Restoration Of US-Russia Ties

On Tuesday morning President Trump and his Russian counterpart President Putin held a "positive" phone call regarding finding an end to the Ukraine war, the Kremlin side has stated.

Russian president aide Yury Ushakov has been the first to provide a readout, with little revealed from the US side in the immediate aftermath. The phone call was "constructive and frank" and lasted exactly one hour, but remains "strictly confidential."

Likely the White House will also be equally scant in what information it chooses to release, given the sensitivity of the timing, coming just off the weekend shuttle diplomacy by Trump's envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.

Their rare, direct meeting with Putin on Saturday lasted than three hours, after which they traveled to Ukraine to meet with Zelensky, in what was a much more chummy atmosphere, naturally.

Ushakov in his fresh comments described of that prior meeting, "Overall, the visit of the aforementioned American representatives was assessed positively." He further said "European narratives about a Russian threat" were discussed in the call - an issue now "being used to justify support for Ukraine and increased European military spending."

The readout indicates, "Putin supported Trump’s commitment to building a constructive Russia–US partnership and emphasized that Russia has no hostile plans toward Europe."

Perhaps the most important part of the Russian readout is seen in the following:

Trump said he wants a breakthrough on Ukraine during his presidency and stressed that ending the conflict could open the way to a major restoration of Russia–US relations.

The only additional information that the Kremlin aide provided was that Trump and Putin agreed that work through direct contact as well as diplomatic channels would "continue".

The Witkoff-Kushner trip had come a little under two weeks after CIA Director John Ratcliffe unexpectedly traveled to Moscow and reportedly floated a trilateral summit involving Trump, Putin, and Zelensky.

U.S. President Donald Trump told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday in a phone call ​that he wanted a swift end to the war ‌in Ukraine, something that would allow U.S.-Russia ties to be fully restored, the Kremlin said. —Reuters

The diplomatic push comes as intensifying attacks by both sides around the Black Sea raise the risk of a global food crisis next year. Meanwhile, Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy infrastructure, combined with disrupted Persian Gulf flows, are pushing the global refined-products market toward crisis, creating twin food and energy risks.

Reporter: On Ukraine, people are being kidnapped on the streets. Have you seen those videos? If you haven’t seen them, can I send them to your staff?

Trump: Show them, and I will put them out. I know about the videos. I heard about it very strongly. pic.twitter.com/YPfJF8e7Up

— Clash Report (@clashreport) September 2, 2026

Despite the public-facing Washington rhetoric, the Iran quagmire... war... "excursion" has not been going so well as the US seems desperate for a final exit and end to the war. So Trump likely wants a "win" ahead of the November midterm elections, hence the sudden revival of pushing Ukraine talks.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/08/2026 - 12:35

Strategy Skips Bitcoin Buy To Repurchase $176M Of STRC Preferreds

Authored by Zoltan Vardai via CoinTelegraph.com,

Strategy repurchased $176 million worth of its STRC preferred stock and doubled the size of its digital securities repurchase program to $2 billion, while pausing on new Bitcoin buys.

Michael Saylor’s Strategy, the largest corporate Bitcoin treasury, skipped its weekly Bitcoin acquisition to repurchase $176 million of its preferred STRC stock.

Strategy repurchased 1.8 million STRC shares for an aggregate $176.3 million between Aug. 31 and Sept. 7, according to a Tuesday filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company also doubled the size of its Digital Credit Securities Repurchase Program to $2 billion. With no new purchases, Strategy’s holdings sit at 845,050 Bitcoin (BTC), acquired for a total of $63.6 billion, at an average purchase price of $75,412 apiece.

Last week, Strategy made its first BTC buy since mid June, with a $370 million purchase. 

While STRC’s share price was largely flat in premarket activity on Tuesday, trading at $97.70, or a 2.3% discount from its intended $100 par value, the company’s Nasdaq-traded MSTR common stock was down more than 3% at last look, according to Yahoo Finance.

STRC is one of Strategy’s main vehicles to fund its Bitcoin accumulation. Trading below par limits Strategy’s ability to raise funds through STRC sales and may force the company to further increase its dividend rate.

Strategy unveiled a capital framework on June 29 to allow Bitcoin sales to fund dividends and increased the annual dividend rate on its STRC preferred stock to 12%. 

BTC treasury challenger Strive steps purchases

While Strategy opted to pause its Bitcoin buying last week, other companies stepped up purchases of the biggest crypto by market cap.

Strive, the fifth-largest corporate Bitcoin treasury, acquired 1,375 Bitcoin for $109 million, at an average cost of $79,281 per BTC, bringing its total holdings to 24,531 Bitcoin, CEO Matt Cole revealed on Monday. Ahead of Tuesday’s market open, the company’s Nasdaq-traded ASST shares were down more than 2.5%, after more than doubling in the past month.

France-listed Bitcoin treasury Capital B also revealed a $25 million Bitcoin acquisition on Monday, its largest in nearly a year, pushing the French company ahead of H100 Group among publicly traded BTC holders.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/08/2026 - 12:20

Americans Feel Better About Jobs, Worse About Finances In Latest NY Fed Survey Amid Subdued Inflation Expectations

Unlike some recent extremely volatile months, especially in the first half of 2026, consumers expectations for inflation in August barely budged from July, as disclosed today by the latest NY Fed Survey, which showed that inflation expectations in one year were unchanged at 3.6%, estimates for inflation in five years were also flat at 3.0% for the 12th month in a row, while estimates for inflation in three years dipped to 3.2%, from 3.3%. 

According to the report, median inflation uncertainty—or the uncertainty expressed regarding future inflation outcomes—increased at the one- and five-year horizons and decreased at three-year horizon.

Taking a closer look at the component, median home price growth expectations decreased by 0.2% point to 3.0%, just below its 12-month trailing average of 3.1%. The decrease was driven by those living in the Northeast.

Among commodities, median year-ahead expected price changes increased by 1.7% points to 4.6% for gas, by 0.3% to 5.3% for food, and by 0.2% point to 9.1% for medical care. Median year-ahead expected price changes increased by 0.3% to 6.1% for the cost of college education and by 0.7 % point to 6.6% for rent.

While inflation expectations were tame, the view on financial wellbeing was split. On one hand, with less than three months ahead of mid-term congressional elections, the proportion of Americans reporting their financial situation was much worse or somewhat worse than a year ago rose to 38.6% last month, up from 37.6% in July. Those who expected their finances to get much worse or somewhat worse in the year ahead also climbed to 32.6% from 30.3%.

On the other hand, perspectives on the labor market improved: workers’ perceived probability of losing their job in the next year fell to 13.8%, the lowest reading since February. The likelihood of leaving a post voluntarily - a positive indicator - rose for the second straight month to 19.5%, above its 12-month average of 18.4 percent.

Both trends were driven by respondents with a high school degree at most and a household income under $100,000 per year. 

On the other hand, average unemployment expectations - the probability that the unemployment rate will be higher one year from now - increased by 1.6% to 44.4%, its highest reading since April 2020.

At the same time, the mean perceived probability of finding a job if one’s current job was lost decreased by 0.8% to 45.4% .

There was some deterioration in household leverage too, as a  larger percentage of consumers, 13.16% vs 12.00% in the prior month, expect to not be able to make minimum debt payments over the next three months

Despite this seeming deterioration in household finances, the mean perceived probability that US stock prices will be higher 12 months from now was 40.9%, fractionally below the multi-year high in July, but far above the recent average.

Some more results from the latest report:

Labor Market

• Median one-year-ahead earnings growth expectations ticked up by 0.1 percentage point to 2.9% in August. The series remains above its 12-month trailing average of 2.6%.
• Mean unemployment expectations—or the mean probability that the U.S. unemployment rate will be higher one year from now—increased by 1.6 percentage points to 44.4%, its highest reading since April 2020. The increase was broad-based across age, education, and income groups.
• The mean perceived probability of losing one’s job in the next 12 months decreased by 0.4 percentage point to 13.8%, its lowest reading since February 2026. The mean probability of leaving one’s job voluntarily, or the expected quit rate, in the next 12 months increased by 0.9 percentage point to 19.5%, above the series’ 12-month trailing average of 18.4%. The decrease in job loss and increase in quit expectations were both driven by those with at most a high school degree and those with annual household incomes under $100,000.
• The mean perceived probability of finding a job if one’s current job was lost decreased by 0.8 percentage point to 45.4%, just below the series 12-month trailing average of 45.5%.

Household Finance

• The median expected growth in household income remained unchanged at 3.0% in August. The series has been moving in a narrow range between 2.8% and 3.0% since June 2025.
• Median one-year-ahead household spending growth expectations increased by 0.3 percentage point to 5.2%, above its 12-month trailing average of 5.0%.
• Perceptions of credit access compared to a year ago declined, with the net share of households reporting it is harder to get credit increasing. Expectations for future credit availability also deteriorated, with a larger share of respondents expecting it will be harder to obtain credit in the year ahead and a smaller share expecting it will be easier.
• The average perceived probability of missing a minimum debt payment over the next three months increased by 1.2 percentage points to 13.2%, just above its 12-month trailing average of 12.7%.
• The median expectation regarding a year-ahead change in taxes at current income level increased by 0.5 percentage point to 3.5%, its highest reading since December 2025.
• Median year-ahead expected growth in government debt increased by 0.6 percentage point to 9.7%, remaining above its 12-month trailing average of 8.8%.
• The mean perceived probability that the average interest rate on savings accounts will be higher in 12 months increased by 0.6 percentage point to 28.8%.
• Perceptions and expectations about households’ financial situations both deteriorated with larger shares of households reporting a worse financial situation compared to a year ago and expecting a worse financial situation a year from now, and smaller shares of households reporting or expecting a better financial situation.

The New York Fed data comes days after a surprise increase in job gains in August signaled the labor market remained resilient despite uncertainties caused by the war on Iran and persistent inflation. Payrolls rose 162,000, above all estimates in a Bloomberg survey, while the unemployment rate held steady at 4.1%. The data reinforced Fed views of a stable job market. The next key readings are Thursday's PPI report followed by the CPI on Friday. 

the Fed is set to meet in Washington Sept. 15-16, after leaving interest rates steady over five straight meetings. At their last gathering, three officials favored a quarter-point hike. A growing chorus of officials has questioned whether the current level of interest rates will be high enough to tame inflation.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/08/2026 - 12:00

Russia Vows To Keep Selling Oil to India Despite US Tariff Threat

Submitted by Charles Kennedy of OilPrice.com

Russia will remain a key crude oil supplier to India, Russia’s Ambassador to India, Denis Alipov, said in an interview with Asian News International, in which he also criticized the planned U.S. legislation to slap tariffs on countries importing Russian oil.

#WATCH | Delhi: On being asked how confident Moscow is about the India-Russia energy cooperation, Russian Ambassador to India, Denis Alipov, says, "The question is - how confident is India? India has shown that it's able to stand its ground and defend its national interests. And… pic.twitter.com/gOZ3HFA4TR

— ANI (@ANI) September 4, 2026

Russia has become India’s single-biggest oil supplier in recent years, after the U.S., the UK, and the EU banned Russian oil imports and moved to increase sanction pressure on Russia following the invasion of Ukraine.

U.S. Congress is trying to pass a “bill from hell” against Russia, sponsored by late Senator Lindsey Graham. The bill that proposes to give President Donald Trump authority to impose 100% tariffs on the biggest buyers of Russian oil and gas passed the Senate 86-11, but appears deadlocked in the House, amid disagreements among Republicans and concerns among Democrats that President Trump would have new authority to slap tariffs.

It’s unlikely that the bill passes in the House before the mid-term elections in November, analysts say.

Amid this background, Russia remains and will remain a key oil supplier to India, Moscow’s envoy to the world’s third-largest crude importer said.

“We would be ready to supply as much oil as India needs. Unfortunately, those who impose sanctions and tariffs have taken the path of pressure tactics instead of honest cooperation, which prevents those countries from offering a better deal to India in oil than us,” Alipov told ANI.

“The world will not cope if Russian oil is excluded. The energy markets cannot afford that. Russian oil will stay in the market for India and other countries. We are interested in supplying oil to India. India is interested in buying that oil,” the Ambassador said.

Meanwhile, India’s crude oil imports from Russia are estimated to have eased in August from July’s record high, as Ukrainian attacks on Russian export infrastructure and competition from China for Russia’s barrels have dented Indian intake of Moscow’s oil.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/08/2026 - 11:45

US Embassy Issues Health Alert For Cuba After 'Significant Increase In Diarrheal Illness'

Authored by Jacki Thrapp via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. Embassy in Cuba has issued a health alert, warning Americans about a rise in gastrointestinal illnesses caused by the island nation's water and energy grid collapses.

"The U.S. Embassy has noted a significant increase in diarrheal illness across Cuba, associated with the continuing degradation of the water and energy infrastructure," the Sept. 4 alert reads.

The embassy stated that the degradation affected the country's water supply, food storage, and temperature control, sparking infections such as E. coli, norovirus, Shigella, and other gastrointestinal pathogens.

Americans are urged to "be cautious" around meat, poultry, seafood, eggs, dairy, and other perishable foods that have not been stored properly.

People are also encouraged to stay away from foods that have been at room temperature for a long time, avoid eating raw or improperly washed vegetables, and be careful before they eat any cooked food that has cooled and then is reheated.

Frequent hand washing was also encouraged.

Embassy officials encouraged people to stay hydrated and "seek medical attention for persistent or severe diarrhea, bloody stools, high fever, significant abdominal pain, repeated vomiting, signs of dehydration, or symptoms not improving."

On Aug. 28, U.S. embassy officials warned that Cuba's water delivery infrastructure was growing increasingly unstable as some neighborhoods reported going long periods without receiving water from the regime.

Officials suggested that the water issues and power outages were caused by the communist regime's "mismanagement of public infrastructure" across the entire island.

"Water often only flows to residences when city power is on for a sufficient amount of time," the August alert reads.

Eight months ago, the Trump administration started a fuel blockade on Cuba to force negotiations around returning democracy to the island, including allowing Cuban exiles to return to vote for the first time since the communist takeover in 1959.

The blockade cut off oil deliveries to Cuba from Venezuela's socialist regime. The island faces an energy crisis that has left about 10 million people in the dark multiple times this year.

Energy authorities reported two nationwide grid collapses in March and three in July, along with several partial outages.

U.N.-appointed human rights experts said in February that the fuel blockade was a serious violation of international law.

However, in March, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Cuba's grid has long been unreliable due to years of neglect by the regime.

"They were having blackouts last year," Rubio said. "They're having blackouts because they have equipment from the 1950s in their grid that they've never maintained and never upgraded, because they're incompetent."

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/08/2026 - 11:05

Lavrov Says 'Start Of Real War' Emerging As Russia Deepens Diplomatic Freeze With Germany

More tit-for-tat between Russia and Germany amid a deepening diplomatic freeze related to the Ukraine war: the Kremlin announced on Monday that it is closing Germany's consulate in St. Petersburg, with operations ordered to by suspended by September 18.

"It was the German authorities who, once again, provoked a new round of escalation in bilateral relations," the Foreign Ministry stated, charging that Berlin "bears full and complete responsibility" for the consequences.

A prominent German culture center which has long operated on Russian territory, the Goethe-Institut, is also getting the boot across all branches.

All of this is a mirror image of the German government's earlier move to shutter the Russian consulate in Bonn and Russia's cultural center in Berlin, also as the EU blamed Russia as a "state sponsor of terrorism".

The harsh words and spiraling diplomatic crisis stems from the drone attack incidents at Germany's Leipzign Airport last month. There were at least two reported incidents, possibly a third. On the night of August 4, an explosives-laden drone was found on the tarmac near a Ukrainian cargo plane.

This prompted an urgent airport shutdown, as authorities believes saboteurs were seeking to blow up the plane. On the following day there was another alleged incident, per German media and officials:

Authorities discovered a drone fitted with explosives and a detonation mechanism on the evening of August 4 in the security area of Leipzig/Halle Airport between Ukrainian cargo aircraft and believe a second drone may have collided with a DHL aircraft nearby.

Last week, German media reported a third drone, also loaded with explosives, had also been discovered at the airport. 

German federal prosecutors described the incident as a "serious attack on Germany's transport and logistics infrastructure."

Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul had said after initial investigations, "The means used — such as the drone configuration, components, explosives and detonation systems — are known to us from other hybrid operations by Russia and its war against Ukraine."

The strongest words out of Moscow have come from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov this weekend. While the US delegation of Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff were in Russia for a 3-hour meeting with President Putin, he said that a "real war" between Russia and the West is emerging.

He asserted to a Russian state TV reporter: "This is, by and large, the start of a real war. They expelled the consulate general from Bonn. They’re closing the Russian House in Berlin. I remember that before the start of the Second World War... They want war again."

Russia's Foreign Minister Lavrov on Germany:

But I remember that before the start of the Great Patriotic War, the Germans also closed their diplomatic missions.

They want war again. And all those statements made by Merz about how he will make Germany the leading military power… pic.twitter.com/xqfMEJ9bZO

— Clash Report (@clashreport) September 6, 2026

Added to this is that Western powers are assisting Ukraine with intelligence to help with its long-range drone strikes against Russia, often against oil refineries very far from the front lines, and even more frequently targeting Moscow of late. And in turn, Russia has been ratcheting its own major missile strikes on the Ukrainian capital and other cities, taking aim at 'decision-making centers' too. Zelensky has sought to 'bring to war to Russia' - but is really risking very severe escalation that might bring NATO powers into more direct war with Russian forces.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/08/2026 - 10:45

Canada's Counter-Tariffs Take Effect As Trump Targets Bombardier And Midterm Battlegrounds

Canada's retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods took effect at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday - raising duties of 15%, 25%, and 50% on hundreds of American products after last month's collapse of bilateral talks. Ottawa says the package matches the United States "dollar for dollar, rate for rate." Finance Canada values the covered U.S. imports at $27.6 billion; some U.S. accounts put the figure nearer $20 billion. Either way, it is a small share of total two-way trade - and a large share of the political risk.

GEOFF ROBINS/AFP/Getty Images

The list is drawn from goods already hit by U.S. Section 338 and Section 232 tariffs. Section 338, a long-dormant provision of the Tariff Act of 1930, had not previously been used by a president to impose duties; Trump invoked it in July to levy 50% on selected Canadian goods after talks failed, and those U.S. duties took effect August 22. Canada's matching rates now apply as follows: 50% on most steel and aluminum products (up from an earlier 25% Canadian counter-duty), plus furniture and clothing; 25% on appliances, dairy including cheese, and some metal derivatives; 15% on selected electronics, tools, and machinery. Goods already in transit when the rules took effect are exempt. The surtaxes apply to U.S.-origin goods under Canadian marking rules, not merely to shipments that happen to cross the border.

Seafood and fish were on Ottawa's original list at 25% but were pulled on August 27 after warnings from Canada's Atlantic processors and Maine's lobster industry. About half of Maine's fall catch is processed in New Brunswick; a tariff on those lobsters would have hit both sides. Finance Canada called the change "select adjustments... based on feedback" while adding other items, including copper wire and charcoal, to keep the dollar-for-dollar total. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) applauded the retreat - evidence that the targeting was political, and that it can be walked back when the politics cut the wrong way.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has framed the response as measured but non-negotiable. Canadian officials have described the country as under economic assault and have pledged not to match every rhetorical escalation. The practical strategy is twofold: impose a politically targeted list at home, and shop for other markets abroad.

Why Michigan and Ohio matter more than the headline total

Heading into November midterms, Canada's new tariffs are designed to land in states that do a high volume of business with Canada, and which have competitive races. Ohio shipped the largest dollar volume of newly covered goods. Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin follow close behind. Michigan sends roughly a third of its merchandise exports to Canada; auto parts often cross the Detroit-Windsor corridor more than once before a vehicle is finished. The new Gordie Howe International Bridge was meant to ease that flow. It now sits at the center of a fight over who pays the tariff.

Those same industrial states host competitive House and Senate races. Michigan's Senate contest between Republican Mike Rogers and Democrat Abdul El-Sayed is one of several Great Lakes races that will test whether tariff costs show up at the ballot box; it is not the only possible pivot for Senate control. Ohio's Republican-held Senate seat is also in play. Canadian ministers have said openly that the product list was chosen to concentrate pressure where U.S. politics would feel it. Industry Minister Mélanie Joly, at the August announcement, said Canada was "targeting products that will target states in the U.S." and added: "we're being wise and strategic to put political pressure. And that's why we think it's the right thing to do right now."

Trade groups on both sides warn that the first-round dollar amounts understate the damage. Integrated supply chains mean a duty on steel, parts, or appliances shows up as higher costs for factories and households on both sides of the border. Brad Wood, senior director for trade and innovation at the National Foreign Trade Council, called the cycle "bad for Canadian businesses and consumers, and bad for American businesses and consumers," and said each new layer is another barrier the two governments will eventually have to unwind.

Trump's next pressure points: autos, Bombardier, and Lake America

Washington has not treated Canada's move as the last word. President Trump has already threatened higher auto tariffs in 2027 and, last week, floated cutting off bilateral trade altogether. On Sunday he attacked what he called Canada's "dollar imbalance."

Hours before the Canadian tariffs took effect, Trump turned to Bombardier. In a Truth Social post he declared "NO MORE SELLING BOMBARDIER IN THE UNITED STATES," called the company's products "not good enough," and said that if it wants the U.S. market it "must build here." He closed with a list of commands: buy American, fly American airliners, drink American liquor, and "SAIL ON LAKE AMERICA."

Bombardier did not answer the president by name. It noted that aerospace is a major U.S. export industry, that it builds wings and other components in California and Texas, and that it supports tens of thousands of American jobs through plants and a supply chain spanning dozens of states. About 55% of its 2025 revenue came from U.S. customers. The White House has not said how a sales ban would be enforced on aircraft already certified by the FAA.

The Bombardier fight is not new. Trump threatened decertification and a 50% aircraft tariff earlier this year over Gulfstream certification in Canada. Ottawa later certified several Gulfstream models. In 2018 a first-term Commerce Department case against Bombardier airliners produced a huge preliminary duty that the U.S. International Trade Commission later rejected.

Trump has also rewritten the map. On August 27 he signed an executive order directing the Interior Department to update geographic systems immediately from Lake Ontario to Lake America; Great Lakes placards went up in the Oval Office. 

Carney hit back, saying "We know that America is changing. Their trading relationships, their foreign policies, their national monuments, their hydronyms. Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario - then, now and always."

Supreme Tariff Tiff

Canada aside - on February 20, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Trump could not use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose his sweeping "reciprocal" and emergency tariffs. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that IEEPA contains no reference to tariffs and that no prior president had read such a power into the statute. Section 232 metal tariffs were left standing. The administration has since rebuilt parts of the program under other authorities, including Section 338 for Canada and a forthcoming roster of duties against other countries accused of "excess capacity" and persistent surpluses with the United States. Trump has also threatened to block trade with countries that export more to the United States than they import. A consumer-price report due this week will test how much earlier tariff rounds have already fed inflation.

Ottawa's hedge: Europe, and a quiet channel to Beijing

Carney will attend Ursula von der Leyen's State of the Union address in Strasbourg on September 16 and speak to the European Parliament on September 17 - the first foreign head of government invited into that ritual. He has said Canada will open "intense discussions" this fall on a deeper economic and security partnership with the EU, already its second-largest trading partner under CETA.

In parallel, Canadian and Chinese defence officials held a coordination dialogue on September 4, the first such formal talks in more than eight years. Beijing announced the meeting; Ottawa later confirmed working-level military-to-military contact. The optics - reopening a channel closed after the 2018 detentions of two Canadians, while NATO and EU ties remain the stated priority - have already drawn criticism at home.

The immediate economic hit from Tuesday's list is limited by design. The larger question is whether a two-month window before U.S. midterms produces a deal or another round.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/08/2026 - 10:30

The post It’s Running Out of Workers Day at the Washington Post! appeared first on CEPR.