Individual Economists

NGO Says "Climate Change" To Blame For Increase In Child Marriages

Zero Hedge -

NGO Says "Climate Change" To Blame For Increase In Child Marriages

The climate change industry (and yes, it is an industry) generates approximately $18 billion globally for NGOs, and a big part of that cash flow is the relatively new agenda of "Climate Justice".  This is the melding of the global warming fraud and the social justice fraud into one very big and very lucrative mega-fraud.  

Climate Justice is simply another strategy for attacking western economies and free market enterprise, using the accusation that the west is "creating environmental crisis" which developing nations then suffer for.  In other words, it is repeating the false claim that the wealth of the west is built on the suffering of the third world.  If it weren't for the US, Europe and other developed nations, the third world would be rich and prosperous and peaceful and a multicultural Utopia would flourish.   

The end game of this narrative, of course, would be the eventual dismantling of western economies in the name redistributing the wealth, stopping global warming and "saving the world."  It's all a fantasy, but we'll get to that in a moment...

One NGO with extensive ties to the climate agenda is called Plan International, an organization focused on children's rights, specifically the equality of girls and gender-based violence.  Sure sounds like a righteous cause, but the veneer is deceiving.  

According to a recent story by French news outlet Le Parisien, Plan International has released their shocking annual State of the World’s Girls 2026 report, and they assert that climate change is contributing to a sharp increase in child marriages in third world countries. 

The report combines analysis of health and climate data across more than 50 countries over three decades with a survey of 5,000 girls and young women aged 15–24 in Bangladesh, Kenya, Peru, Senegal, and Zimbabwe, plus interviews and focus groups.  At least 36% of respondents observed more child marriages or early unions in their communities after climate-related shocks; about 11% said they had personally experienced one. 

Girls as young as 10 years old can be married off in these culture, even when national laws forbid the practice. Poverty supposedly compels these marriages, because families need to reduce the number of mouths to feed.  Also, the younger the bride, the more in "Bride Price" (payment) the family might receive in some cultures.

The survey attempts to link "climate change to destructive weather events, the weather events to a rise in poverty, and poverty to rising child marriages.  It's quite a stretch, but it gets worse.  The NGO also attempts to link climate change to sexual assault and increased violence against women.  

And of course, the "Climate Justice" position implies that the women in these countries are facing such violence and exploitation because of the actions of first world economies.

In their COP policy briefs (COP26, COP27, COP28 and others), Plan International states that “early industrialization, colonization, and wealth inequality means that developed countries contribute to global emissions significantly more than others.  They call on countries with “the greatest historical and current responsibility” to raise emissions-reduction ambition and increase climate finance (more money for the NGOs).  

Plan International presents itself as a humanitarian org focused on protecting girls and women, but they have deep ties to the climate change industry through the UN and other NGOs.  For example, they receive funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, one of the original globalist institutions behind the creation of the climate change narrative in the 1970s. 

As we have shown many times int eh past, there is zero concrete evidence supporting global warming theory.  In fact, the data shows no relationship between human industry and changes in temperatures and weather.  For starters, groups like Plan International use climate data from the past few decades.  The vast majority of climate science uses temp records from the 1880s onward.  None of them acknowledge climate data from longer timelines.

The Earth's weather history is vast, and temperatures have been much hotter than they are today.  Modern temps are some of the coolest in the past 400 million years.  There was no human related carbon emissions back then; the temps fluctuated dramatically anyway.

Furthermore, when matching the carbon content record to the temperature record over this time period, there is no match whatsoever.  In other words, carbon emissions have nothing to do with rising or falling temperatures.  

By extension, there is no indication that current weather patterns are affected by human industry either.  In Bangladesh, for example, flooding is the primary weather related disaster, and there is no evidence of a significant change in the frequency of flooding in the region from 50 to 100 years ago.  The weather changes according to the long cycles of the Earth.  The economic successes of the west have no bearing at all on the suffering of the third world. 

Maybe don't build your village in a desert or a flood plain. 

 

As for the child marriage problem, these cultures have been engaging in this behavior for thousands of years.  If anything, the west has contributed to a steep decline in these kinds of barbaric practices.  What was the scapegoat for third world nations prior to the fabrication of the climate change crisis?  

The lesson here is to beware of NGOs and the causes they claim to champion.  They have a tendency to hide their true intentions behind otherwise noble pursuits.  

Tyler Durden Thu, 10/15/2026 - 04:15

"Russian Bots", Burning Data-Centers, & Partitioning The Internet

Zero Hedge -

"Russian Bots", Burning Data-Centers, & Partitioning The Internet

Authored by Kit Knightly via OffGuardian,

The Ukrainian military used their surfeit of drones to destroy Yandex data centres in Russia, and as a result, "hostile" Russian bot activity dropped to almost zero.

That's the story.

There's no evidence it's true, of course, but since when did that make any difference?

What were these alleged bots supposedly talking about?

Well, that depends who you are.

If you're a Covid-era pro-vaccine nut job, they were talking about Fauci and ivermectin and vaccines harms.

If you're a Zionist, they were supporting about "free Palestine".

If you're a Democrat, they were spouting MAGA talking points.

If you're a leftist in general, they were promoting the AfD in Germany, Reform in the UK or just the "far right".

It turns out the bots are everyone who disagrees with you and nobody who agrees with you.

Isn't that nice?

No matter who you are, there's a source-less graph out there with a line going down which shows you were right about everything.

It's not like you can just make up a graph.

Zelensky summed the situation up thus:

"It suddenly became a little easier to breathe on many social platforms. There was less hate, less division and fewer provocations,"

We've been given taste of a Russia-less and/or bot-less and/or disinformation-less internet, isn't it lovely?

To be clear, again, there is no evidence at all this is true. They just say things.

This comes hot on the heels of Andy Burnham just saying - sorry, "confirming" - that Russia tried to influence the Brexit referendum back in 2016 (a sure indication he plans to reverse that decision, but that's another story for another time).

The point is we're all being influenced by big bad Vlad and his big bad bots.

Maybe we should do something about it, right?

You know what would help filter out hostile state-driven AI bot activity?

Digital ID. Just sayin'.

Or, perhaps we should partition or the internet...

Nobody is saying that - yet - but this is kind of story is laying the groundwork. Just wait.

As I wrote about AI and data centre fear last month:

None of this will really be about avoiding any apocalypse.

It will be about compartmentalisation. Cutting lines of communication.

Running small business or personal websites in general will become more expensive as the "data centre tax" is added to hosting providers.

Much like the "sugar tax" on fizzy drinks and snacks in the UK, this tax will notionally be paid by the hosting providers, but will be passed onto the customers via increased prices.

Major corporations will be able to easily afford these increases, but smaller independent sites will feel the pinch.

It will be cheaper to pay corporate resellers to cohost, but then you'll have to sign up to agreements about not publishing "misinformation" and, again, provide your proof of humanity.

If you run a website your data centre usage tax will be 0.04 per local visitor, but 0.10 per international visitor - since serving data further is more compute heavy.

You'll be able to get reductions in hosting costs if you use a "local only" server, accessible only to those resident in your home country/region/bloc etc.

Automatic translation, we'll be told, is very heavy on AI usage. So it will be increasingly cheaper to only publish in your native language too.

It won't matter if any of this is true or not, they'll just say it, as they do.

On social media, the more followers you have the more data you're using, so after a certain point you will have to either pay to maintain your followers, or pay per post to make sure your followers can see it.

Of course these limitations won't apply to legacy outlets like the BBC, CNN or their ilk of course. They will be exempt, because they are part of the "essential information distribution network".

And all the time, the fear of "rogue AI" will be there, to be picked up as convenient. A digital pandemic that, like Covid, can be started and stopped on a dime by the digital version of "testing protocols".

Kill switches and "digital firebreaks", allegedly installed to quarantine "rogue" AI agents, will enable swift isolation of any anti-establishment opinions or information that breaks through to an audience of any size.

An independent news YouTube channel getting a lot of views? Oh no, it's been reported to be AI and has been suspended pending investigation!

An alternate media website is getting a lot of views? Oh no, the server it's stored on has been compromised by AI and needs to be temporarily isolated!

Again, obviously not one word of this needs to be true. They will just say it. Like they just say everything now.

And the real kicker is it won't matter if global internet traffic does decrease or data centre use really declines. They probably won't even check. The real numbers don't matter.

- Rogue AI "Regulation" - A Potential Worst Case Scenario

"Russian bots" is perfect for this, mixing "AI bad" with "Russia bad" with "disinformation bad" in a neat little agenda cocktail.

Like Mary Poppins' medicine, everyone gets the flavour they want.

It's exactly the kind of ridiculous story that could be used to justify this process down the line.

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

Tyler Durden Thu, 10/15/2026 - 03:30

Iran Hormuz Attack Spree Starts Choking Oil Flows (Again), UBS Warns

Zero Hedge -

Iran Hormuz Attack Spree Starts Choking Oil Flows (Again), UBS Warns

A surge in Iranian drone attacks on commercial ships appears to be weighing on Middle Eastern energy exports through the Strait of Hormuz, with 24 attacks reported so far this month. The latest reports indicate that two Emirati container ships were struck and sank in the narrow waterway within the past 24 hours.

UBS energy expert Henri Patricot told clients on Wednseday morning that crude and petroleum-product flows exiting the Gulf of Oman dropped to 9.1 million barrels a day over the past couple of days. The weekly average slipped to 13.5 million, compared with an early-October peak of 17 million. 

Patricot provided more color on deteriorating shipping conditions in the Strait of Hormuz:

More attacks around Hormuz and in Saudi Arabia

Attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz and in the Gulf of Oman continue to be reported at the highest intensity since the start of the conflict (Figure 24).

Iran is reportedly using a new strategy to target ships, including using spotters in small boats. The attacks appear to be having a clearer negative impact on traffic via Hormuz in recent days. Separately, attacks have also continued in Saudi Arabia, with reports that Aramco's HQ which was targeted overnight.

Oil flows falling further; LNG holding up at much lower level

The latest data point to a more material drop in exports from the Middle East. UBS Evidence Lab data (> Access Dataset) indicate that crude and product flows out of the Gulf of Oman dropped to 9.1Mb/d in the past couple of days and have averaged 13.5Mb/d in the past week vs. a peak of 17Mb/d in early October (Figure 3). 

Our estimate of combined crude and product exports through Hormuz and bypass routes is down to 9.5Mb/d over the past week, well below the recent high of 16Mb/d and September average of 14Mb/d (Figure 2).

Flows are still likely to be revised higher but there now appears to be a clear trend of declining flows since early October now. We are adding a new chart showing LNG flows out of the Gulf of Oman (Figure 4). 

There has been an improvement in flows since mid-September and they are holding up for now, but only at ~25% of pre-conflict levels, vs. oil close close to 50% in the past week and 75% at recent peak.

Crude loadings rebound

On the positive side, Gulf crude loadings excluding Iran bounced back to >12Mb/d over the past couple of days. As loadings in previous days were revised higher too, October loadings are back up to 8.7Mb/d on average, in line the September average (Figure 12). 

There is still no Iranian crude loading (Figure 13). 

Outside Hormuz, preliminary data show no loadings from Yanbu in the past couple of days, taking the average to 1.6Mb/d so far in October, below the September average of 2.7Mb/d (Figure 16). Including Fujairah, bypass crude loadings averaged 2.1Mb/d over the past couple of days and 3.3Mb/d in October, vs. 5.4Mb/d in September. Gulf product loadings have ticked up just above 1Mb/d, still well below normal levels of >3Mb/d (Figure 17).

Commenting on market impacts, Dimitrios Laloudakis, a macro quantitative strategist at UBS, wrote earlier:

Brent Crude December 2028 Makes New Highs While front-end crude has been offered, longer-dated futures continue to reprice higher. The 21-day rolling correlation between front-month and 12th contract falls markedly (level last seen during peak uncertainty when front-month ripped higher). Markets now face the other side of the coin with front-contract remaining tepid, but oil expectations grinding higher for longer-dated futures.

Despite the Trump-Russia diesel deal, US industrial fuel prices continue to inch toward highs.

Earlier today, the International Energy Agency warned that the global diesel squeeze will likely persist well into the first half of 2027.

Tyler Durden Thu, 10/15/2026 - 02:45

NATO's De Facto Expansion To The Caspian Sea Is Inevitable

Zero Hedge -

NATO's De Facto Expansion To The Caspian Sea Is Inevitable

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

Russia still has time to propose Ukrainian-like security guarantees for averting another special operation...

Politico recently published a piece about how "France and Turkey block NATO's drive to deepen ties with Caucasus countries", not because they're opposed to it in principle, but due to Turkiye blocking the renewal of Armenia's partnership plan after France declined to approve Azerbaijan's. France and Azerbaijan have long been at odds over Paris' support of Armenia, particularly in the context of the Karabakh Conflict, and recently over Azerbaijan's detention of French citizens (who were later released).

Per Politico, "The delay has forced NATO to temporarily extend Armenia and Azerbaijan's outdated partnerships despite negotiations on the new plans being near-finalized, three of the diplomats said. The new plans would allow their participation in joint military exercises, boost military-to-military training and intensify cultural cooperation all the way down to setting up local English-language lessons, they added." Joint NATO drills might be held on the Caspian coast with Azerbaijan upon its plan's approval.

None of this is surprising to astute observers. August 2025's "Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity" (TRIPP) has the unstated dual purpose of a NATO military logistics corridor to the Caspian Sea and thenceforth to Central Asia. TRIPP is therefore the means through which NATO aims to contain Russia along the southern flank of the new "cordon sanitaire" that Trump 2.0 assembled around it. Azerbaijan poses a Ukrainian-like challenge to Russia by functioning as TRIPP's irreplaceable transit state.

If Azerbaijan cooperated with Russia to ensure that TRIPP wouldn't be exploited for military purposes, then there wouldn't be any problem, but Baku has no such interests and has instead thrown its weight behind the West. In point of fact, President Ilham Aliyev announced last November that his country's armed forces have completed the conformation to NATO standards, and their naval drones could threaten Russia's Caspian Fleet in crisis scenarios just like Ukraine's currently threaten its Black Sea one.

Azerbaijan is also on pace to further integrate its economy with the EU's. Not only is it helping the bloc replace Russian energy, but it's also going to facilitate their trade with Central Asia, to which end European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced last month that "we will aim to crowd in up to €12 billion in public and private investment" in regional logistics along what's known as the "Middle Corridor". All of this tightens the containment noose around Russia's southern flank.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov suggested last month that his people are sometimes optimistic to the point of implied naivete and also tend not to proactively address latent crises. With the deepest of respect for those of them who are responsible for formulating its policies, that arguably appears to be the case regarding the threat that TRIPP poses to Russia. That's not to imply that Russia should wage a preventive war against Azerbaijan, just that it should urgently wise up to the threats coming from it.

Looking forward, just like NATO's de facto expansion to the Caspian Sea is inevitable, so too is it inevitable that Russia's threat perception towards Azerbaijan will intensify. The sooner, the better, since Russia still has time to propose Ukrainian-like security guarantees for averting another special operation. In this context, they could concern Azerbaijan agreeing to Russian inspections of TRIPP's cargo and not allowing any joint NATO drills on its territory, but Aliyev might not assent unless Putin presses him a bit.

Tyler Durden Thu, 10/15/2026 - 02:00

Germany Puts Ukrainian Ex-Officer On Trial For Nord Stream "War Crime" As Defense Says Pipelines Were Fair Game

Zero Hedge -

Germany Puts Ukrainian Ex-Officer On Trial For Nord Stream "War Crime" As Defense Says Pipelines Were Fair Game

Four years after the largest act of infrastructure sabotage in postwar Europe, Germany finally has a defendant. Just one.

Serhii Kuznietsov, a 50-year-old former Ukrainian army officer, went on trial Wednesday at the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court in Hamburg, accused of leading the seven-person team that blew up three of the four Nord Stream lines on September 26, 2022. Prosecutors charge him as a co-perpetrator of a war crime, namely an attack on civilian objects, along with causing an explosion, destroying structures and disrupting public utilities. Around 30 hearing days are scheduled, running into February.

Serhii Kuznietsov (centre) denies the charges. Pic: Reuters

The prosecution's version is about as cinematic as it gets: a crew of four professional divers, an explosives expert and a skipper set out from Rostock on the chartered yacht Andromeda, rented through intermediaries with forged identity papers, and planted devices packed with HMX and RDX at roughly 80 meters near the Danish island of Bornholm. Kuznietsov, a former SBU officer, allegedly ran the show from the deck. German investigators also say he incriminated himself by chatting about the operation with friends and relatives while in Italian custody, which in hindsight may not have been the best use of his phone privileges.

Most notable, however, is who Berlin says was behind it. The federal prosecutor's indictment states plainly that Kuznietsov and fellow servicemen were acting on behalf of Ukrainian state authorities, with the aim of permanently halting gas flows and cutting off Russia's revenue to fund the war. In other words, Germany is prosecuting an ally's officer for an operation it says the ally's state ordered, against German energy infrastructure, while continuing to bankroll that same ally. Kyiv, for its part, maintains it had nothing to do with it; Ukraine's prosecutor general said in July it had found "no evidence" of state involvement. Awkwardly, Ukraine's own human rights ombudsman had already confirmed to an Italian court that Kuznietsov was serving in the armed forces at the time.

On day one, the defense declined to let Kuznietsov speak and moved to dismiss all charges. His lawyers argued that war crimes prosecutions would be better aimed at Russian forces (citing Bucha and the deportation of Ukrainian children), that his fingerprints were never found on the yacht, and that no witness placed him aboard. His Ukrainian counsel go further, arguing the pipelines were a legitimate military target regardless of who hit them. The court has already rejected his claim to combatant immunity, ruling that it does not cover covert operations in which soldiers cannot be distinguished from civilians. The BBC reports the defense plans to submit written testimony from two of his former commanders, one of them reportedly the alleged mastermind of the entire operation, which should make for an interesting exhibit.

Then there is the matter of who wants a seat at the table. Gazprom-owned Nord Stream 2 AG has applied to join the case as a co-plaintiff, and Kuznietsov's Ukrainian lawyers warn that a conviction could hand Moscow a legal basis to claim compensation, potentially from the roughly $300 billion in frozen Russian assets that Europe has been trying to earmark for Kyiv. A guilty verdict, then, could put Brussels in the unusual position of having established a Russian damages claim against money it already promised to Ukraine.

The diver who keeps getting away

Kuznietsov is the only person currently on trial because Germany's second suspect keeps slipping through European courts. Volodymyr Zhuravliov, the alleged diver, was arrested in Poland in September 2025, only for a Warsaw court to refuse extradition a month later, ruling the act had been committed in the context of Russia's war. Prime Minister Donald Tusk was blunter, saying handing him over would go against Poland's interests and that those who built Nord Stream 2 "should be ashamed and remain silent."

Germany, whose energy costs have exploded - no pun intended - after the pipeline sabotage, and refuses to be ashamed or silent now that its entire manufacturing sector is imploding as a result, tried again in August when Croatian police picked up Zhuravliov in Pula, where he was reportedly working on, of all things, a Hollywood dramatization of the Nord Stream attack. Berlin upgraded its warrant to include the war crime charge, and on September 18 a Pula court approved extradition. His lawyers are appealing to Croatia's high criminal court and say they will go to international bodies if needed, so his arrival in Hamburg is anything but assured. According to ARD, investigators have identified seven suspects in total, one of whom has since been killed fighting Russia.

The question nobody in Hamburg will ask

The trial also formally enshrines the "six guys on a sailboat" thesis that first surfaced in March 2023 and was fleshed out by the WSJ in August 2024, when the Journal reported that Zelensky initially approved the plan before calling it off at the CIA's request, only for then-commander Valery Zaluzhny to proceed anyway. Zaluzhny, now ambassador in London, called it a provocation. The court is unlikely to spend much time on Seymour Hersh's February 2023 account, which pinned the operation on the US Navy, or on Joe Biden's February 2022 promise that if Russia invaded, "we will bring an end to it."

Meanwhile, the pipelines remain at the bottom of the Baltic, Nord Stream 1 having moved nearly 60 billion cubic meters in 2021, and Germany continues to pay up for LNG. The AfD has campaigned on restarting Russian gas flows, which means the verdict, due sometime next year, will land squarely in German domestic politics. Expect a long, carefully narrow trial in which a court determines whether one man captained a yacht, while the question of who sent the yacht remains politely unexamined.

Tyler Durden Thu, 10/15/2026 - 00:06

Does China Have Enough Water For Its Thirsty AI Data Centers?

Zero Hedge -

Does China Have Enough Water For Its Thirsty AI Data Centers?

Authored by James Gorrie via The Epoch Times,

According to China's Ministry of Water Resources, China has nearly one-fifth of the world's population but only about 6 percent of global freshwater resources.

That presents planners in Beijing with a challenging problem: How to support 20 percent of humanity, more than 18 percent of global economic output, and an expanding digital economy, with a disproportionately small water resource?

Things become even more complicated because China's most economically developed regions are not necessarily where water is most abundant.

Now, Beijing wants to build substantially more artificial intelligence (AI) computing capacity. That raises another fundamental question: Can China expand its AI infrastructure without worsening its existing water crisis?

China Is Betting Big on AI Infrastructure

Over the next five years, China is preparing to expand its nationwide AI data center infrastructure by roughly 2 trillion yuan, or $295 billion. The plan would create interconnected computing hubs and rely heavily on domestic technology suppliers.

Rystad Energy estimates China's installed data-center capacity reached about 32 gigawatts at the end of 2025 and could rise above 60 gigawatts by 2030. Data-center electricity consumption could reach 289 terawatt-hours by 2030, more than twice 2025 levels. AI and high-performance computing are expected to drive much of that growth.

But electricity is only half the infrastructure equation. Since AI servers generate enormous amounts of heat, data centers must rely on cooling technologies that require substantial amounts of water.

What's more, China's existing data centers are already using a lot of it.

China's Data Centers Already Have a Water Problem

A 2025 study published in Applied Energy provides perhaps the clearest warning.

Researchers estimated that China's data centers consumed approximately 15.7 billion cubic meters of water in 2022, equivalent to about 2.7 percent of China's total water consumption. Even more significant, the researchers found that 72 percent of China's computing capacity was located in regions experiencing severe water scarcity.

The Chinese regime has been trying to move computing capacity away from the crowded eastern regions toward western provinces where electricity, particularly renewable electricity, is more readily available.

The strategy makes sense from an energy perspective, but not so much from a water supply perspective. The same study found that China's "Eastern Data and Western Computing" strategy could increase water-footprint pressures in water-scarce western regions such as Gansu and Ningxia.

The imbalance between China's water supply and rising cooling needs is obvious. Beijing is solving one bottleneck while creating another.

Moving Data West Doesn't Move the Water

This is the central problem with China's strategy. Western provinces have vast solar and wind resources and enormous areas available for data-center construction. But parts of the west are also among China's driest regions.

That creates a fundamental trade-off because China cannot simply allocate more water to AI without hurting other key areas. Water used to cool an AI data center competes, directly or indirectly, with agricultural, industrial, municipal, and ecological needs.

Agriculture accounted for about 62 percent of China's total water use in 2025, compared with 16 percent for industry and 15.8 percent for domestic consumption. Total national water use reached approximately 594.45 billion cubic meters. Agriculture's dominance matters because food security is a strategic priority for Beijing.

On the flip side, China is improving efficiency. Water consumption per 10,000 yuan of GDP fell 4.5 percent in 2025, while water consumption per 10,000 yuan of industrial value-added declined 7.2 percent.

Those gains are significant, but efficiency cannot eliminate scarcity.

If AI computing grows rapidly enough, a data center can become more water-efficient even as the overall sector consumes more water.

That's the danger.

China Is Trying to Make AI Greener

Beijing has set a goal to source 80 percent of its data-center electricity from green energy by 2030, up from 11 percent in 2023. But analysts say AI's highly variable computing loads make it difficult to integrate data centers smoothly with renewable power systems.

The regime is also encouraging higher efficiency in data centers by improving power and water usage effectiveness. That technology can make a major difference.

The Applied Energy study found that simultaneous improvements in power efficiency, water efficiency, and electricity-grid decarbonization could reduce China's national data-center water footprint by 51.5 percent to 58.3 percent by 2050, compared with a business-as-usual scenario.

The bad news is that these are scenarios, not guarantees.

The AI Boom Could Outrun the Efficiency Gains

China's data-center industry is expanding as AI demand grows. The same technological advances that make AI more useful also increase demand for computing power.

Rystad Energy expects Chinese data-center electricity consumption to grow at roughly 19 percent annually between 2025 and 2030. But those efficiency improvements may not offset the water consequences of rapidly increasing computational capacity.

The result could be a familiar economic pattern of more efficient machines on the one hand, but more of those machines on the other.

This is where China's water dilemma becomes more serious. It can reduce the amount of water required per unit of computing while still increasing total water consumption.

What Happens If Water Becomes the Bottleneck?

If water becomes scarce around major AI hubs, China could face pressure to restrict where new data centers are built. That could increase infrastructure costs and force companies to move computing capacity toward regions with better water availability.

It could also increase competition among agriculture, cities, and manufacturing and technology companies. That matters because China's economy is already heavily dependent on water-intensive industries and food production.

China can build reservoirs, pipelines, water-transfer systems, recycling facilities, and increasingly efficient industrial infrastructure. It can force industries to meet state-directed efficiency targets. But it can't manufacture freshwater at the scale necessary to meet the underlying demands of AI, industry, agriculture, and public use.

Water is ultimately constrained by geography and climate and could become one of the least visible but most important constraints on China's AI expansion through the 2030s.

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

Tyler Durden Wed, 10/14/2026 - 23:25

"It's A Pity...": Zelensky Feels 'Betrayed' By Trump & Elon Musk

Zero Hedge -

"It's A Pity...": Zelensky Feels 'Betrayed' By Trump & Elon Musk

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says he feels betrayed by President Trump in the wake of the US deal to buy Russian fuel from Moscow, which was announced last week.

Zelensky went on a newly aired episode of Piers Morgan's show, and he was asked point blank by the British show host if he had been "betrayed" by the Trump administration, to which Zelensky answered, "Really, Yes." Russian media was quick to seize on the increasingly open schism between Trump and Zelensky...

"It’s a pity that we are losing a strong partner," the Ukrainian leader told Morgan on Wednesday.

"This is our country, our body, our home, our children… That's why it’s painful when Trump chooses one side," Zelensky at one point also stated.

"If you’re in the middle, you have to stay in the middle. Not on the wrong side," said Zelensky. "This is not the right side of history." Here, Zelensky seemed to suggest Trump is actually more on the Kremlin side of things at this point.

The interview also came amid reports that the US is throttling intelligence-sharing with Kiev. The White House has thus far neither confirmed nor denied the allegations.

But Zelensky has himself for the past two night of Russian airstrikes made a point to publicize that Western partners have not provided the typical early warning notices of inbound missiles that were available in prior such attacks.

There's been another apparently 'betrayal' (in Zelensky's assessment) by the White House of late: reports say that SpaceX has imposed a movement-speed restriction on certain Starlink terminals used in Ukraine.

This has deeply impacted Ukraine's military, which is greatly reliant on Starlink for rapid battlefield communications and functions. Zelensky used the Piers Morgan appears to plead that it be 'switched on'.

"People will die, of course, if attacks will continue and if Starlink will not work… it’s not helpful," he continued.

The Ukrainian leader expressed home the limitation was merely a "mistake," suggesting it could "maybe a huge technical problem" at SpaceX. 

Overall, Zelensky's message was that Ukraine is 'losing' American support and that he feels betrayed not only be Trump, but by Elon Musk too.

Musk has directly chimed in on the controversy, clarifying "Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government" - and so ultimately it's the US government, not SpaceX, behind whatever cut happened that impacted Ukraine.

*  *  *

Full episode: President Zelensky 'BETRAYED' By Trump & Elon Musk

Tyler Durden Wed, 10/14/2026 - 23:00

People Who Bought MAGA Hats!? Jack Smith's Arctic Frost Hoovered Up Data On At Least 639,000 Republican Voters, Donors

Zero Hedge -

People Who Bought MAGA Hats!? Jack Smith's Arctic Frost Hoovered Up Data On At Least 639,000 Republican Voters, Donors

Former special counsel Jack Smith's office and the Biden Justice Department obtained spreadsheets on "over 639,000 individuals, at minimum" - Republican donors, supporters and voters - according to a new memo from Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, first reported by Fox News Digital on Wednesday. Grassley's account rests on whistleblower disclosures to his committee.

Of those, more than 148,000 rows are identified in the spreadsheets as donors, who generally gave small amounts. The data includes names, dates of birth, home addresses, emails, whether the person is a registered Republican, occupation and employer, credit card information, donor analysis data and donation amounts. Grassley said samples on the list included retirees, pool technicians, drivers and loggers.

The Daily Caller reports that the trove also covers the shipping addresses of people who bought MAGA hats, and that it reaches back to 2005. The Fox account of the memo does not mention hat buyers, so that detail rests on the Daily Caller's reading.

"This update shows that Jack Smith and the Biden Justice Department collected incredibly invasive donor data - and voter data - beyond what could conceivably be necessary" for the special counsel's mandate, Grassley said. He added that it "corroborates that Smith and his partisan team aimed to map out the entire Republican Party apparatus," and again called on Senate Judiciary Democrats to join his oversight work.

Smith told the committee on Sept. 29 that his team "acquired financial information." Pressed by Grassley for a yes or no on whether his office obtained donor data, Smith answered "Yes," according to Fox's account, and said he could not "recite to you every subpoena we issued." He said the subpoenas served a criminal investigation and that he had "a duty to collect facts." Smith's newly launched law firm did not immediately respond to Fox's request for comment, and no response from Smith or the Justice Department to the new memo had appeared in the coverage reviewed.

The memo follows an earlier Grassley release, also drawn from whistleblower records. On the day of the hearing, the committee's Republicans said Smith's team acquired at least 4,782 checks from donors to President Trump and Trump-aligned Republican entities, written between September 2019 and August 2023 in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. The checks show home addresses, bank account and routing numbers and signatures, and were routed to former FBI Special Agent Walter Giardina, the release says. Grassley said some gave as little as $1, that 42 of the checks came from Iowans, and that "the Justice Department and FBI will forever possess thousands of people's addresses."

At the hearing, Smith defended secretly obtaining Republican lawmakers' phone records. He could not say whether his subpoenas sought the lawmakers' physical locations, and could not recall key details about his demands for conservative fundraising information, the Washington Examiner reported.

The donor material fits a pattern Grassley has been releasing for a year. In October 2025 he made public 197 subpoenas sent to 34 individuals and 163 businesses, seeking records tied to at least 430 named Republican individuals and entities, including statistical data and analysis on donors and fundraising. "This was clearly a fishing expedition," he said then. In July, Grassley said records showed Smith's team obtained and reviewed texts involving 44 current and former lawmakers, and House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan said Congress was weighing a criminal referral over Smith's testimony about those records.

Smith is now fighting on several fronts. As we reported earlier this month, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., sued him over the seizure of lawmakers' phone records, seeking $1 in damages, and Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., filed a bar complaint recommending disbarment. 

Tyler Durden Wed, 10/14/2026 - 22:35

Asia Scrambles For Coal As Energy Crisis Sends Prices To Two-Year High Ahead Of Winter

Zero Hedge -

Asia Scrambles For Coal As Energy Crisis Sends Prices To Two-Year High Ahead Of Winter

As the Northern Hemisphere winter quickly approaches, Asian thermal coal prices have climbed to two-year highs and could be on the cusp of a major breakout as utilities stockpile the dirty fuel amid disruptions to natural gas and crude product markets caused by the war in Ukraine and the Strait of Hormuz disruption.

Newcastle coal futures, an Asian benchmark, are up more than 40% on the year and could surge even higher if the $150-a-ton level is sustained.

Prices on Tuesday closed at their highest levels since August 2024.

The combination of Ukraine decimating Russian refineries with drone attacks and the Strait of Hormuz disruptions to energy flows has sparked a global refining crisis that has encouraged utilities to switch from higher-priced natural gas and heating oil to cheaper alternative fuels such as coal.

Morgan Stanley analysts led by Amy Gower wrote in a note last week that the global refining crisis has made "the long-term outlook for thermal coal demand more resilient." They raised their long-term outlook for Newcastle export prices by 4% to $125 a ton.

According to Bloomberg, China's coal output has fallen more than 3% in the first eight months of the year after a deadly mining accident earlier this year triggered safety inspections and prolonged shutdowns. 

Wood Mackenzie analyst Hangyu Li expects more Chinese mines to get the green light to restart, but any new production would come as a lag.

"We expect more mines to gradually win approval to restart after about four months of suspension, but a quick rebound on production in the near-term is unlikely," Li wrote in the note.

Possible relief from a harsh winter could come from above-normal temperatures forecast across Asia because of a record-breaking El Niño, which would ease heating demand. 

Tyler Durden Wed, 10/14/2026 - 22:10

Congresswoman Warns Incoming Socialists Are "National Security Threat," Wants Their Access To Intel Limited

Zero Hedge -

Congresswoman Warns Incoming Socialists Are "National Security Threat," Wants Their Access To Intel Limited

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, (R-N.Y.), said two members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) who appear headed to Congress could pose a national security risk, and she wants House leadership to keep them away from sensitive intelligence.

"These people are extreme, they're radical, they are dangerous, and they really have no business being in the United States House of Representatives," Malliotakis, the only Republican representing New York City in the House, told Fox News Digital. "And it scares me that they're going to have access to intelligence."

The two candidates, Darializa Avila Chevalier and Assemblywoman Claire Valdez, won upset primaries this year over establishment-backed opponents in deep-blue districts. Their races made New York City one of the main battlegrounds in this midterm cycle's fight inside the Democratic Party, and both nominees are all but certain to win in November.

Chevalier defeated Rep. Adriano Espaillat, (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, in his district covering Upper Manhattan and parts of the Bronx. Valdez won the open seat spanning parts of Brooklyn and Queens that retiring Rep. Nydia Velazquez, (D-N.Y.), currently holds.

Both candidates have called for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and have described Israel's war in Gaza as a "genocide."

Malliotakis said the pair's support for the DSA platform makes them "un-American."

"I think they want to undermine the country. I mean, anybody whose campaign is based on no jails, no cops, no borders, is a real detriment to the country," she said.

The congresswoman directed her concerns at House Speaker Mike Johnson, (R-La.), and urged him to examine whether the incoming members present a security risk.

"These are the people that are going to have access to intelligence? I think [Speaker Mike Johnson] really needs to look at that and see if they're a national security threat," Malliotakis said.

If Republicans hold the House majority in November, Malliotakis wants Johnson to restrict which committees Chevalier and Valdez can join.

"I do have a lot of concern about these members having access to sensitive information and intelligence that if put in the wrong hands, could be a detriment to our national security," she said.

Malliotakis's warning follows reporting earlier this year on the DSA's contacts with Beijing. Newsweek reported that DSA members "have been cultivating connections with Chinese Communist Party officials and agreeing to take pro-China positions."

The magazine based its reporting on records from inside the organization and described what those records contained.

The minutes of the DSA meetings show participants discussing contacts with officials from China's ruling party in the name of "anti-imperialism," with some members saying the organization should avoid topics that are sensitive for Beijing, such as China's threats to invade Taiwan, its security crackdown in Hong Kong and abuses of the Uyghur Muslim minority. They also discuss visits to China. Chinese officials did not take part in the meetings themselves, but met with members in China and encouraged the DSA to set up exchanges, according to the minutes.

One New York-based political activist addressed an October 2025 meeting of the China Working Group of the DSA's International Committee.

"China wants to interface with the DSA," the activist told the meeting. "If we develop a killer two-week itinerary, hire locals and develop further connections with the CPC [Communist Party of China], then we're golden."

The DSA has called for replacing the U.S. Constitution with a new system and for abolishing prisons, the Supreme Court and the police.

Tyler Durden Wed, 10/14/2026 - 18:50

"F**k You!" Hollywood Civil War Erupts As Ari Emanuel Goes Nuclear On Legendary Kingmaker

Zero Hedge -

"F**k You!" Hollywood Civil War Erupts As Ari Emanuel Goes Nuclear On Legendary Kingmaker

Hollywood power broker Ari Emanuel unleashed a profanity-laced tirade against fellow entertainment mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg, accusing the Democrat megadonor of double-crossing him in business and putting his own interests ahead of the Democratic Party.

Appearing on Bill Maher's "Club Random" podcast, Emanuel (who Ari from Entourage was modeled after, plus he's the brother of politician Rahm Emanuel) detailed the decades-old grievances behind his bitter feud with the former Disney executive, including a dispute over basketball tickets and an alleged $1 million proposition involving former President Joe Biden.

Emanuel said the animosity began during Endeavor's early days, when the fledgling talent agency secured coveted Los Angeles Lakers basketball tickets that helped establish its standing in Hollywood.

"You know those basketball tickets that we couldn't afford?" Emanuel recalled, comparing their value to a billboard on Sunset Boulevard.

"He went behind my back. We had a contract and he tried to take the tickets and I wasn't going to permit that," Emanuel alleged.

However, the feud eventually spilled into politics.

Emanuel claimed Katzenberg once offered to secure him a meeting with Biden in exchange for $1 million.

"Do you think I need to give you a million dollars so you can tell Joe Biden that I gave you a million dollars to meet with Joe Biden?" a stunned Emanuel recalled responding, pointing to his family ties to the former president through his brother, Rahm Emanuel, who served as chief of staff to President Barack Obama when Biden was vice president.

Emanuel also criticized Katzenberg's role in Biden's failed 2024 reelection effort, claiming he urged the influential Democrat fundraiser to help push the aging president out of the race.

"You say you got his ear, right? You're the man. You're talking to him all the time," Emanuel recalled telling Katzenberg.

"You got to get him out," Emanuel said he demanded, only to be met with silence.

"He gave us Karen Bass. He gave us this. And now he's just moved on," the superagent continued. "Most of the things he does are not about the situation. It's about Jeffrey and the situation."

"That shit I don't like. I do not like it. And he did try to fuck us over twice. Fuck you," he added.

Tyler Durden Wed, 10/14/2026 - 18:00

Judge "Highly Likely" To Grant Apple Injunction As OpenAI Fires Back With Its Own Theft Allegations

Zero Hedge -

Judge "Highly Likely" To Grant Apple Injunction As OpenAI Fires Back With Its Own Theft Allegations

The judge overseeing Apple's trade-secret case against OpenAI said Wednesday he is "highly likely" to grant an injunction barring use of the iPhone maker's proprietary information, a potential setback for the ChatGPT maker's push into consumer hardware, Bloomberg reports.

Ahead of the hearing, however, OpenAI delivered its own accusation: a former employee allegedly took confidential files about an unreleased OpenAI device before returning to Apple, then presented OpenAI's product plans to senior Apple executives. Apple says it found no evidence to substantiate the claims.

The companies that partnered two years ago to bring ChatGPT into Apple's software are now accusing each other of benefiting from the transfer of confidential hardware information. Apparently, the partnership did not include sharing the blueprints.

A Few Bad Apples

Speaking at Wednesday's hearing in San Jose, US District Judge Edward Davila signaled that Apple would likely receive an order preventing use of its proprietary information. But he was less enthusiastic about the company's request for a forensic inspection of all devices and repositories containing Apple trade secrets, describing it as a "huge ask," according to Bloomberg.

Apple attorney John M. Desmarais responded that the company would narrow its inspections to a limited group of former employees now at OpenAI.

"They don't have 400 bad apples, your honor, they have a few bad apples and know who they are," Desmarais said.

The distinction matters: Davila signaled likely preliminary relief, not a final judgment that OpenAI stole Apple's technology. His reported comments also did not amount to an order shutting down OpenAI's hardware program. The practical impact would depend on the terms of an actual injunction.

Apple sued OpenAI, hardware chief Tang Yew Tan and former iPhone engineer Chang Liu in July, alleging a scheme to obtain confidential information covering product design, manufacturing, component technologies, testing methods and its supply chain. Apple says that information is being used to help OpenAI enter the consumer hardware market.

OpenAI denies the allegations and argues that Apple is trying to restrain employees from joining a competitor, portraying "ordinary job interviews" as acts of trade secret misappropriation.

"OpenAI is developing a new family of devices designed for the AI era," the company said in an October court filing quoted by Bloomberg. "OpenAI has no need or desire for Apple's trade secrets."

Its defense also challenges Apple's account of how former employees accessed information. In an earlier public response, OpenAI said current Apple employees had asked Liu to help locate material for their own work. It blamed Apple's account-management practices for leaving former employees with residual access and said Tan had explicitly instructed his team not to use other companies' confidential information.

Those competing explanations are now headed for closer scrutiny. According to Reuters, Davila on Tuesday allowed Apple early access to certain OpenAI digital files and approved expedited depositions of three former Apple employees, including Liu and Tan.

OpenAI Says The Files Were Moving In Both Directions

In its new court filing, OpenAI alleged that an unnamed employee joined from Apple, worked at OpenAI for six months, then returned to Apple after sending more than 100 highly confidential files to personal accounts.

The materials allegedly included images of unreleased hardware, engineering and manufacturing data, supplier information and specifications for cosmetic finishes. Some transfers occurred just after midnight in Singapore on June 2, the employee's final day at OpenAI, the filing said.

OpenAI further alleges that the employee presented its product plans to Apple's senior leadership, including its vice president of operations in Asia. The company says it is concerned that its confidential work could influence Apple's upcoming products.

The filing asks for a case schedule that would allow OpenAI to investigate and, if necessary, pursue counterclaims. It does not itself establish that Apple used the information, nor does it constitute a completed countersuit.

Apple rejected the accusations. The company said it has policies preventing employees from using confidential information belonging to former employers and found no evidence supporting OpenAI's claims, Reuters reported. Apple also accused OpenAI of trying to distract from the evidence underpinning its own lawsuit.

A Hardware Fight With Trillion-Dollar Ambitions

The dispute lands at an awkward time for OpenAI, which is targeting a $1.4 trillion valuation and preparing to go public, according to Bloomberg. Hundreds of Apple employees have moved to OpenAI, turning a software partnership into an increasingly direct contest for hardware talent and expertise.

Bloomberg has reported that OpenAI's first consumer hardware product will be a doughnut-shaped smart speaker priced above $300. People inside the company view it as a distinct, AI-centered device rather than a copy of something Apple plans to release.

But a different-looking product would not, by itself, resolve allegations about the engineering, manufacturing or supplier information used to develop it. Conversely, hiring engineers who know how to build hardware is not the same thing as stealing their former employer's files.

That is the line this case will have to establish. For OpenAI, the immediate risk is an injunction whose scope could complicate its hardware development. For Apple, the new allegations threaten to turn a case about protecting its own secrets into a dispute over how both companies handle everyone else's.

The next generation of AI devices may be revolutionary. The fight over who took what on the way out the door is decidedly old-fashioned.

    OCTOBER ONLY.$10 OFFYOUR NEXT ORDER.$30 min. Ends Oct 31. One per customer.GET MY $10 OFF →Signs you up for ZeroHedge Store emails. Can't be combined. Every order helps support ZeroHedge. Tyler Durden Wed, 10/14/2026 - 17:40

Russia Arrests Japanese Journalist On Espionage Charges, Tokyo Summons Ambassador

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Russia Arrests Japanese Journalist On Espionage Charges, Tokyo Summons Ambassador

Relations between Russian and Japan have been on a downward spiral of late, as Tokyo continues cozying up to the US military as well as NATO, and amid a long-simmering dispute over the Kuril Islands, which Japan identifies as its own Northern Territories.

Russia on Tuesday arrested a Japanese journalist, which the Kremlin says is actually a spy operating on behalf of the Japanese government.

AFP via Getty

The detained Japanese national has been identified as Yuki Imai, who works for Hokkaido Shimbun newspaper - a regional outlet for Japan's northern island. Hokkaido is one of the country's four main islands and the daily paper he writes for has large dissemination.

The FSB security agency has accused the man of utilizing media sources to gather intelligence, specifically on Russia's defense and intelligence capabilities.

Russian officials say they caught him retaining and storing sensitive data, in a saga that sounds parallel to the saga of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in 2023-2024.

Imai was reportedly preparing to exit the country upon his detention in the far eastern Sakhalin region.

Tokyo did not immediately issue a full-throated condemnation, only saying that the government is gathering more information on the identity of the detained and the circumstances of the case.

Toward this end, the Russian ambassador to Japan has been summoned, with a protest lodged over the detention, centered on the Kremlin issuing strong accusations yet without providing any explanation to Tokyo.

Japanese and European officials are now seeking access to the detained suspect, even as Russian state media has been airing footage of him in handcuffs.

The footage shows security raiding where he was staying and proceeding to search his electronic devices and belongings while he was held on the floor.

President Putin had back in August railed against Japan's stance on the Ukraine conflict, which aligns with NATO's perspective.

Putin had said: "Japan, our neighboring country, has used the events in Ukraine as a pretext, without examining the causes of the conflict, to pursue an unprovoked policy against Russia." He had during that time made a highly provocative trip to the disputed Kuril islands. Tokyo strongly protested the visit at the time.

Tyler Durden Wed, 10/14/2026 - 17:20

Not 'The Onion': Harper's Magazine To Honor NPR CEO Katherine Maher With First Amendment Award

Zero Hedge -

Not 'The Onion': Harper's Magazine To Honor NPR CEO Katherine Maher With First Amendment Award

Authored by Jonathan Turley via JonathanTurley.org,

Harper's Magazine appears to be competing with The Onion in satire this week. It is awarding its First Amendment prize to NPR CEO Katherine Maher. It is akin to awarding a Second Amendment prize to Gavin Newsom. Maher has long been the very symbol of advocacy journalism and bias. Ironically, she is being given an award after steering NPR into the rocks to keep her job and its ideological bias.

Many of us have written for years about NPR's biased reporting. Not all of this criticism was made out of hostility toward the outlet - many honestly wanted NPR to reverse course and adopt more balanced coverage. That is why, when NPR was searching for a new CEO, I encouraged the board to hire a moderate figure without a history of political advocacy or controversy.

Instead, the board selected Katherine Maher, a former Wikipedia CEO widely criticized for her highly partisan and controversial public statements. She was the personification of advocacy journalism, even declaring that the First Amendment is the "number one challenge" that makes it "tricky" to censor or "modify" content as she would like.

Maher has supported "deplatforming" anyone she deems to be "fascists" and even suggested that she might support "punching Nazis." She also declared that "our reverence for the truth might be a distraction [in] getting things done."

As expected, NPR's bias only got worse. The leadership even changed a longstanding rule barring journalists from joining political protests.

One editor had had enough. Uri Berliner had watched NPR become an echo chamber for the far left with a virtual purging of all conservatives and Republicans from the newsroom. Berliner noted that NPR's Washington headquarters has 87 registered Democrats among its editors and zero Republicans.

Maher and NPR remained dismissive of such complaints. Maher attacked the award-winning Berliner for causing an "affront to the individual journalists who work incredibly hard." She called his criticism "profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning."

Berliner resigned, after noting how Maher's "divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR" that he had been pointing out.

Rather than trying to reverse the long slide in its audience, Maher doubled down. She ultimately made the best possible case for defunding NPR. She refused to resign, effectively killing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Yet, Harper considers her model of media.

In a press release on the awarding of the James C. Goodale First Amendment Award, Harper's declared, "As president and CEO of NPR, Katherine Maher has guided one of America's most important public media institutions through a period of extraordinary political, legal, and financial scrutiny, reaffirming journalism's essential role in a democratic society."

Maher has overseen the continued slide in ratings and revenue. In fairness, NPR's audience has been declining for years. Indeed, that trend has been most pronounced since 2017 - the period when Berliner said the company began to openly pursue a political narrative and agenda to counter Donald Trump. The falling advertising revenue has led to deep staff cuts to deal with budget shortfalls. The shrinking NPR audience remains overwhelmingly white, older, and of course liberal.

Where others see the demise of a once popular and respected outlet, Harper's sees a success story in an audience that has shed itself of conservative, libertarian, and moderate listeners - much like the audience of Harper's.

The award is the latest example of how establishment media has become a ship of fools. Journalists now report for each other as the vast majority of Americans seek alternatives. They then give each other awards and continue to replicate their own views and mistakes. The one thing that they will not do is abandon their bias.

Maher is the greatest example of why these outlets refuse to change. Despite being blamed for killing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting by refusing to resign, Maher and her staff still benefit personally from advocacy journalism. They are lionized by the left even as their influence and audience plummet.

According to Harper's, that record is "reaffirming journalism's essential role in a democratic society." If Maher embodies the essence of American journalism, let alone a democratic society, why do so few people actually want to listen to her brand of journalism?

It is Uri Berliner who deserves this award, not the CEO who hounded him out for seeking greater balance at NPR.

Tyler Durden Wed, 10/14/2026 - 17:00

America Looks Richer Than Ever. What Happens When The Fed's Asset Bubble Bursts?

Zero Hedge -

America Looks Richer Than Ever. What Happens When The Fed's Asset Bubble Bursts?

Authored by David Stockman via InternationalMan.com,

It is now abundantly obvious that the FOMC and its clumsy rate-pegging and credit printing tools are not remotely fit for purpose.

The real impact is dramatically displayed in the graph below. It shows that after 1987 the growth rate of household assets relative to earned income (i.e. excluding transfer payments) took off like a bat out of hell.

Indeed, as shown in the graph during the heyday of the 1950s through 1987, the nominal value of household assets tracked the growth of earned income almost in lockstep, with the ratio relatively flat through the 37-year period, posting at 5.8X in Q2 1987, up slightly from an average 5.4X ratio during 1950 to 1954, when the US economy moved into its strong post-WWII growth era.

The virtually nonexistent slope of the trend line (solid green below) during that era of unprecedented middle-class prosperity means that had it continued for another 39 years through Q2 2026, the end point ratio today would be just 5.9X, not the actual ratio of 10.0X.

So, yes, the Fed's red-hot printing press did make a whopping difference. To wit, the household and nonprofit sectors today hold the staggering total of $90 trillion more in assets of all types - from owner-occupied residences to cash accounts, bonds and stock portfolios - than would have been the case based on pre-1987 asset-to-income trends.

What this means is that the American household sector did not earn and save its way to the huge gains in assets and net worth reported by the Fed's Flow of Funds data. That is to say, net worth is up from almost $11 trillion to $196 trillion since 1989, but that is not mainly due to savings from the growth of earned income.

As shown, below borrowings helped modestly, rising 5.3% per annum or modestly ahead of the 4.6% per annum growth of personal income ex-transfer payments. But the real catalyst, obviously, was the far faster growth of asset values, which rose at a compound annual rate of 6.1% during the period.

At the end of the day, however, the comparison which says it all is the gap between asset growth at 6.1% per annum and income growth of just 4.6%. In a word, assets grew 35% faster than income over that three and one-half decade period because, well, the Fed inflated them with its red-hot printing presses.

For want of doubt, we show the opposite trend in the household savings data, meaning that the American public has not saved its way to riches since Alan Greenspan discovered the printing presses in the basement of the Eccles Building soon after he took office in the midst of Black Monday's 23% collapse of the Stock Market on October 19, 1987.

The juxtaposition of the savings graph below and asset graph above, in fact, tells you all you need to know. Since 1975, the true household savings rate - measured as personal savings divided by household income less transfer payments (used as the denominator here because the government's 160 million Welfare State beneficiaries save virtually nothing on a net basis) has been plodding steadily lower (dotted red line), from an average of 13.3% of income in 1975 to 6.7% of income at present.

At the same time, the constant dollar level of savings pencils out anemically, indeed. The growth rate (blue lines) in real terms has been just 0.6% per annum since 1975.

So, no, America did not save its way to $196 trillion of net worth after the era of Keynesian monetary central planning commenced in October 1987. The Fed inflated asset prices to a fare-the-well.

Of course, all this inflated net worth is just the half of it. The more onerous dimension lies in who got it or in the distribution. In that regard, the graph below speaks for itself. Since Q1 1989, household net worth has risen by an aggregate of $154 trillion.

As it happened, however, the bottom 50% got 3% of the gain, while the top 1% harvested 32% of the loot. Some earnest commentators are now mystified as to why the hoary doctrine of socialism seems to be making a comeback in certain quarters of American politics.

The geniuses at the Fed, however, should not be confused at all. It's all their handiwork.

In the land of the central bank printing presses, the rich do get richer, indeed, and not because they earned it on an honest free market operating based on sound money.

In fact, the chart above reflects the true failure of Greenspanian central banking. And when the massive inflationary bubbles embodied in this graph above finally do blow sky-high, don't blame it on the free market.

In short, what amounts to free money has been the real culprit all along.

Tyler Durden Wed, 10/14/2026 - 16:20

Pizza Losing Value War As Cash-Strapped "Proteinmaxxing" Consumers Flock To Chicken

Zero Hedge -

Pizza Losing Value War As Cash-Strapped "Proteinmaxxing" Consumers Flock To Chicken

Domino's Pizza shares fell 3% in the early US cash session after the quick-service restaurant chain reported weaker-than-expected same-store sales growth in the US and internationally, despite earnings and revenue that beat Bloomberg Consensus estimates.

US same-store sales rose .3%, below the .72% Bloomberg Consensus estimate. International comparable sales rose only 0.2%, missing expectations of 1.19% growth.

The dismal earnings results lead us to Bloomberg reporter Ann Gehan's note on how budget-conscious consumers and the "proteinmaxxing" trend have shifted consumer tastes from pizza to chicken.

Gehan adds more color:

Pizza chains including Domino's, Papa John's International Inc. and Pizza Hut, now owned by private equity firm LongRange Capital, face an uphill battle as budget-conscious consumers eat out less and, when they do, increasingly favor chicken amid the "proteinmaxxing" trend.

Gehan provided a chart showing pizza QSR chains struggling while chicken-focused QSR chains and Cava report stronger same-store sales growth so far this year.

The divergence suggests chicken- and protein-focused meals are capturing a larger share of spending at select US QSR chains. For budget-conscious consumers, the combination of affordability and the "proteinmaxxing" trend may be shifting meal preferences toward chicken. Then again, take a GLP-1 to curb cravings.

Tyler Durden Wed, 10/14/2026 - 15:50

Useless Without Transmission: DOE Backs $581 Million TVA Grid Expansion

Zero Hedge -

Useless Without Transmission: DOE Backs $581 Million TVA Grid Expansion

On the same day we asked how much of the grid’s bill is really AI’s, the Department of Energy offered a partial answer.

On Tuesday, DOE said it plans to help the Tennessee Valley Authority fund 84 transmission and distribution projects across eight states to add about 2.5 gigawatts of grid capacity. The award totals roughly $581 million, with $250 million in federal money and $331 million from TVA.

“America’s electric grid cannot become a roadblock to economic growth,” said Katie Jereza, who heads DOE’s Office of Electricity.

Deputy Energy Secretary James Danly went further, blaming “years of misguided energy policies under the previous administration” for leaving the bulk power system “less robust than it should be.”

From $250 Million To $10.5 Billion

The announcement for TVA support from the DOE is alongside the ongoing SPARK program under the GRIP program… If the acronyms are starting to blur together, here is the simple version:

  • Tuesday’s award is for $250 million, written to TVA and its local power companies.
  • SPARK, DOE’s acronym for “Speed to Power through Accelerated Reconductoring and other Key Advanced Transmission Technology Upgrades,” is the bigger, nationwide program. It puts $1.9 billion of federal money, plus $3.35 billion in cost share, into 31 projects in 26 states that will reconductor or rebuild more than 1,500 miles of existing lines and free up over 23 GW of capacity. TVA’s slice is about $80 million to upgrade roughly 125 miles of lines in Tennessee, Alabama and North Carolina with advanced conductors, adding about 1,900 MW.
  • GRIP, the Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships program, is the even bigger $10.5 billion pot created by the 2021 infrastructure law, and it pays for both SPARK and the new award announced Tuesday afternoon.

Add TVA’s two awards together and it has nearly $741 million in planned grid investment for more than 4,300 MW of added grid capacity.

The Real Bottleneck

As we just covered, the hyperscalers are fighting over how much of the grid’s bill is theirs, with one telling Senate staff that shared upgrades provide a “system benefit which should be shared among all ratepayers.”

Tuesday’s award is that argument in practice, with taxpayers and utility customers splitting the cost of wires everyone uses, on a national grid where, by the senators’ own count, about a third of transmission and half of distribution infrastructure is “near or beyond its useful life.”

You can build all the combined-cycle gas plants, reactors and geothermal wells you want, and line up every data center and electrified factory in the country to buy their output. If the grid can’t carry the power from one to the other, none of it matters.

PJM has already blatantly exposed where the real problem is, as they cried desperately about a need for emergency power. When Constellation showed up with the Three Mile Island reactor restart, PJM told the once-connected nuclear plant to wait patiently for a few years while they set up the connection.

TVA is about to learn that lesson, at scale. Its new long-term plan suggests the region will need 11 to 32 GW of additional generation by 2040. TVA already has 4,120 MW of new capacity under construction, floated as much as 26 GW of new gas in its June draft, and was picked last December for a $400 million DOE award to deploy a newly-licensed GE Vernova Hitachi BWRX-300 small modular reactor at Clinch River.

Every one of those megawatts still needs a way to actually get transported from supply to demand. No amount of new generation fixes a lack of transmission.

Goldman: Power Is “The Primary Risk”

Goldman has been making the same point all year, and it has singled out Tennessee. In May, the commodities team flagged Tennessee as one of the markets “likely to see constrained data center additions since the market is already critically tight.”

In February, the same team told clients that local opposition to data centers was not the real threat: “Ultimately, we believe power tightness remains the primary risk that could slow the US in the AI race with China.” And Goldman now sees behind-the-meter generation powering a quarter of all data centers by 2030. 

In other words, a quarter of the industry may simply stop waiting for the grid.

Tyler Durden Wed, 10/14/2026 - 15:35

Dowd: "Investment Bubbles Are A Feature Of Capitalism, Not A Bug"

Zero Hedge -

Dowd: "Investment Bubbles Are A Feature Of Capitalism, Not A Bug"

Authored by Ed Dowd via Ed Dowd's Beyond The Narrative Substack,

On Friday October 9th Bloomberg published an article titled "Jeffries' Chris Wood Sees 'Massive Capital Destruction' in AI." His view is that the most likely long-term outcome of the AI boom is massive capital destruction in the US, with market share shifting to cheaper open-source Chinese models. Wood has mostly got it right in my opinion except for two differences. My first difference is that Chinese models are not the only open-source models available and that western open-source models are closing the gap. Secondly, while his view correctly flags the overbuild and the competitive pressure from lower-cost alternatives what it leaves out is the long history of innovative technology infrastructure bubbles and the reliable pattern that follows them which is:

excitement/mania → overinvestment → financial collapse → distressed assets → recapitalized cheap infrastructure fuels the next economic wave.

In regard to the AI bubble, I believe we are currently in the overinvestment phase with cracks emerging. Let us look at some historical examples to illustrate the pattern and see if we can glean what the future of this current bubble might look like.

The US Railroad Bubble

In the decades after the Civil War, railroads became the transformative technology of the era. Capital, much of it European, flooded in. Between the late 1860s and early 1870s, tens of thousands of miles of track were laid, often into sparsely settled or unprofitable territory. Speculative financing, land grants, and the expectation of endless growth created a classic mania. Early projects showed strong returns, which attracted more money into later, riskier lines built far ahead of demand. When financing dried up, highlighted by the failure of Jay Cooke's bank in marketing Northern Pacific bonds, the Panic of 1873 followed. More than 100 railroads went bankrupt in the ensuing years, banks failed, and investors were wiped out. The depression lasted years. Yet the physical tracks remained. The surviving and reorganized network became the backbone of American industrial expansion, enabling efficient movement of goods, people, and capital that powered decades of growth. The overbuilt infrastructure, once distressed and recapitalized, proved far more valuable to the broader economy than the paper losses suggested.

The 1920s Utility Bubble

The 1920s electrification boom followed a similar script. Central-station utilities expanded rapidly, and holding companies consolidated regional systems into large, leveraged empires. Electricity generation and revenues grew dramatically as the technology moved from novelty to infrastructure. Utility stocks soared and became a major part of the market. Holding companies facilitated access to capital and technical expertise, but the structures were opaque, and capacity was built aggressively. The 1929 crash and subsequent Depression exposed the leverage and accounting. Samuel Insull's empire collapsed in spectacular fashion, and the Dow Jones Utilities Average plunged. Reforms including the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 broke up the largest structures and shifted the industry toward regulated regional monopolies. What remained was a vastly expanded electrical grid and generation capacity. Widespread electrification transformed industry, homes, and productivity for the rest of the century. The bust was painful for equity and debt holders; the long-term economic payoff from cheap, abundant power was enormous.

The Dotcom Bubble

The most recent and directly analogous example is the late 1990s telecom fiber buildout during the Dotcom era. Carriers and infrastructure firms poured hundreds of billions into fiber-optic networks, switches, and related equipment, largely financed with debt and encouraged by forecasts of internet traffic doubling every few months. Capacity vastly exceeded near-term demand. After the bubble burst, market values collapsed, many telecoms went bankrupt, and bandwidth prices fell sharply. A large portion of the newly laid fiber sat "dark" or unlit. Through bankruptcies and recapitalizations, that physical infrastructure was acquired at deep discounts, often pennies on the dollar. The resulting cheap broadband made business models viable that would have been prohibitively expensive otherwise. Google, YouTube, Facebook, Apple's smartphone ecosystem, Netflix, software-as-a-service, and cloud services all scaled on that excess capacity. Without the overbuilding and subsequent distress, Web 2.0 as we know it does not happen at the same speed or cost. The capital destruction was real but the residual infrastructure seeded the next wave of growth.

AI Bubble (Yes it is a bubble!)

I believe we are now in the AI infrastructure equivalent of the overinvestment phase. Massive capital is flowing into data centers, chips, power, and related equipment. The sheer scale of spending is turning advanced AI models into a commodity faster than many equity and debt investors appear to appreciate. Chinese open-source models are already applying downward pricing pressure, consistent with the Jefferies view. Cracks are visible. In my Substack piece "Wall Street's AI Capex Party...It's 2 AM & The Bar Is About to Close!", the signals included stalled private credit funding for the buildout, cracking enterprise demand as promised productivity gains fail to materialize at scale, looming power constraints that are becoming the binding limit rather than chip supply, and open-source pricing pressure that compresses margins.

Additional recent indicators from public commentary reinforce this: circular deals in which AI companies run negative free cash flow and rely on debt investors to keep purchasing chips at elevated prices; recent analyses showing major players cannot cover contracted compute commitments under realistic revenue assumptions; and narrative shifts such as space based data centers that paper over terrestrial grid and power bottlenecks. Growth rates implied by current valuations look vulnerable once the second derivative of funding and utilization slows. It is not a question of not if the bubble bursts but when it bursts.

Credit Markets Always End Infrastructure Buildouts

Debt and credit have been central to every one of these infrastructure buildouts. In the railroad boom, bonds financed the majority of the expansion, often more than three-quarters of the capital. When those markets stopped absorbing new bond issues (e.g. Jay Cooke & Co. could no longer place Northern Pacific bonds) the credit system seized up. Then bank runs followed, the New York Stock Exchange closed for ten days, and within two years roughly a third of outstanding railroad bonds had stopped paying interest. The equity markets lagged in this period...credit markets ended the railroad party abruptly.

The 1920s utility expansion followed the same pattern on a different scale. Samuel Insull's holding company pyramid relied on layers of debt and bank loans secured by the securities of the operating companies themselves (financial engineering). Once revenues softened and the banks refused to roll the notes in 1932, the structure collapsed into receivership. In this period the equity markets led the credit markets first with the 1929 crash then credit followed later.

In the telecom fiber boom, carriers raised hundreds of billions in bonds and used vendor financing and circular deals to keep the buildout going. Credit markets ultimately marked the end of the buildout but equities peaked in March of 2000 before credit. Credit spreads later widened sharply in 2001 and 2002, defaults clustered in the sector for years, and bondholders recovered roughly twenty cents on the dollar in many cases. When lenders stopped funding incremental capacity, the overinvestment phase ended and the financial collapse began.

The same dynamic is now visible in the AI buildout, where private credit has stalled, circular debt structures are proliferating, off balance sheet financing is growing and early signs of stress are appearing in CCC junk credit markets. Whether equity markets lead or lag this cycle remains to be seen but the case could be made that given the tremendous amount of passive equity investing the discounting mechanism of equity could lag and credit leads this time.

Bottom Line

Innovative technology capex cycles repeat themselves because human nature has not changed. Mania and excitement give way to overinvestment, which produces financial collapse and distressed assets. Those assets then become the cheap foundation for the next economic wave. Those who believe in cycles and a constant human nature may want to protect themselves accordingly and reduce exposure in the AI complex where risk-reward no longer makes sense. Then when the bust does arrive watch for the opportunities that emerge from the ashes where durable longer-term value will be created.

Bubbles are a feature of capitalism, not a bug. They destroy capital in the short run and, through the process of overbuilding and recapitalization, often leave behind the physical and technical foundation for longer-term productivity gains. The pattern is consistent throughout history...though the timing and severity may vary. The long-term outcome for the economy is usually more favorable than the peak-to-trough equity charts imply and a net positive over time.

"What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun." Ecclesiastes 1:9

Tyler Durden Wed, 10/14/2026 - 15:20

ZeroHedge Debate: Sankey Predicts 2028 Oil Futures Will Feel The Pain Soon

Zero Hedge -

ZeroHedge Debate: Sankey Predicts 2028 Oil Futures Will Feel The Pain Soon

The damage inflicted on global energy infrastructure during the Iran war could have consequences lasting well beyond the conflict itself, according to veteran energy analysts Paul Sankey and Arjun Murti, who joined Erik Townsend for last night’s ZeroHedge Debate.

An oil tanker unloads crude oil at a crude oil terminal in Zhoushan, Zhejiang province, China July 4, 2018. Picture taken July 4, 2018. REUTERS/Stringer/ File Photo

Sankey predicted that 2028 crude futures will see large moves upward as markets adapt to the reality that refinery capacity will not recover anytime soon.

Townsend fears that not only will 2028 prices rise… but that the globe may face a decades-long shortage of refined oil products, a risk he thinks people are not taking seriously. Murti meanwhile, in light of these realities, thinks “cash is king” for those weary of volatility.

Below were some highlights from the discussion though we highly recommend the full conversation for those who missed it live:

Could Refinery Damage Take A Decade To Repair?

"If you kept blowing refineries up around the world, you'd get to the point where we just don't have enough refining capacity to run the planet, period."

So what if the conflict drags on for years? Townsend asked:

"How far does this have to go before we get to the point where we look back on $60 crack spreads and say those are the good old days before we got to $200 crack spreads?” Crack spread being the difference in the price of crude and the consumable refined products.

"If the Iran conflict goes to five years and it's punctuated by blowing up a lot of refineries, both in the Middle East and in Russia, how long do we go before the world has a problem that cannot be recovered for a full decade 'cause that's how long it takes to build new refineries?"

Sankey said that we might already be there… "The short answer is it's going to take an awful long time to recover from this, I'm afraid to say."

"Back in Q1 results, Valero said that I think the line was [...] for every day out, we need a week to recover.” 

Playing Oil's Volatility: 'Cash Is King'

Murti argued companies and investors should resist becoming too greedy.

"Our call has been geopolitical super volatility is here to stay. And that means generally high but volatile prices. You gotta be prepared for the pullbacks that will happen."

With oil around $100 per barrel and refining margins elevated, Murti expects companies to face pressure from investors demanding larger payouts.

"There's a real strategic value to companies having cash on their balance sheet. We have generally stressed fortress balance sheets as a mindset in a deeply cyclical, volatile business."

Murti pointed to the industry's recurring downturns: 2015, the COVID collapse in 2020, and oil's retreat from $120 in 2022 toward $50 in 2025.

"Every five years we're having some notion of a pullback. We can't predict the next one will be 2027 or 2030, but there's a real strategic value to these publicly traded companies, especially in the oil value chain, to actually hoard some cash… Cash is king."

Check out the full discussion below, on the ZeroHedge Youtube channel, or listen on Spotify.

* * *

Tyler Durden Wed, 10/14/2026 - 15:05

CVS To Pay $315 Million Over Claims It Filled Unlawful Opioid Prescriptions

Zero Hedge -

CVS To Pay $315 Million Over Claims It Filled Unlawful Opioid Prescriptions

Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times,

CVS Pharmacy Inc. and related entities agreed Tuesday to pay $315 million to resolve Justice Department allegations that the company illegally filled opioid and other controlled-substance prescriptions and billed many of them to Medicare and other federal health programs.

The sum settles claims that the company illegally filled such prescriptions from Oct. 17, 2013, through Dec. 2, 2025.

The government alleged CVS knowingly filled prescriptions that lacked a legitimate medical purpose, were not valid, or were not issued in the usual course of professional practice.

Those included dangerous and excessive quantities of opioids, early refills, and "trinity" combinations of an opioid, a benzodiazepine, and a muscle relaxant.

CVS also allegedly filled prescriptions from "pill mill" prescribers while ignoring red flags. Many of these claims were later reimbursed by federal programs.

"Not only does this settlement hold bad actors accountable for their fraudulent activities, but Americans are safer because of it," Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward Jr. said in a statement. "Today's settlement is a significant milestone in the Justice Department's efforts to combat the opioid epidemic by cracking down on pharmacies who unlawfully fulfill prescriptions for controlled substances."

According to the complaint, corporate policies kept pharmacists from warning one another about problem prescribers.

Beyond the payment, CVS entered a memorandum of agreement with the DEA.

It requires a hotline for employees and the public to report suspected illegal dispensing, proactive monitoring of pharmacy patterns, and a process to evaluate prescribers suspected of illegal practices.

The settlement agreement says: "The claims asserted against CVS ... are allegations only. There has been no determination of liability."

The settlement also resolves a False Claims Act whistleblower suit filed in 2019 by former CVS employee Hillary Estright of Tennessee. The amount awarded in that case hasn't yet been determined.

CVS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The DOJ unsealed the complaint against CVS in December 2024.

In April 2025, the DOJ announced that Walgreens agreed to pay up to $350 million to settle allegations that it knowingly filled millions of unlawful opioid and other controlled-substance prescriptions and submitted false claims to federal health programs.

The settlement resolved claims that Walgreens violated both the Controlled Substances Act and the False Claims Act from 2012 through 2023.

Individual states have also taken legal action against CVS.

In May 2023, Nevada reached a settlement with CVS Pharmacy worth nearly $152 million over the company's role in the opioid epidemic.

In March 2022, Florida reached more than $878 million in settlements with CVS Health Corp. and three drug companies to resolve claims and avert a trial over their roles in fueling an opioid epidemic in the state. CVS was responsible for $484 million of that total.

CVS Health Corp. is the parent company of CVS Pharmacy.

Tyler Durden Wed, 10/14/2026 - 14:50

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