Flush With Value: $10 Million 18-Karat Gold Toilet To Be Auctioned By Sothebys

Here's a line we're certain we haven't written before: a second solid gold toilet — yes, actual sound money shaped like plumbing — is heading to auction after the first one was famously stolen.

In a financial era defined by fiat excess and central-bank hubris, nothing illustrates the absurd contrast between hard assets and paper wealth quite like this 18-karat masterpiece.

Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan created three fully functional golden toilets in 2016, according to the BBC. More than 100,000 people sat on the first one when it was installed at the Guggenheim. It later moved to Blenheim Palace, where thieves ripped out what the state valued at £4.8 million — a theft that showed the timeless rule: criminals prefer gold to currency. Several men were ultimately convicted for the 2019 heist.

BBC writes that the existence of a second version has been confirmed, and it will soon go under the hammer at Sotheby’s in New York. The auction house is presenting the work not merely as sculpture but as market commentary. They call it a “cultural phenomenon” and “an incisive commentary on the collision of artistic production and commodity value.”

David Galperin, Sotheby’s head of contemporary art, said: “America is Maurizio Cattelan’s tour de force. Holding both a proverbial and literal mirror to the art world, the work confronts the most uncomfortable questions about art, and the belief systems held sacred to the institutions of the market and the museum.”

But here’s the irony: the most powerful statement comes from the metal itself.

In a world first, the starting bid will be set not by curators or appraisers, but — for once — by real market pricing. Sotheby’s says the opening price will track the exact value of its gold content the moment bidding begins. If sold today, that would be about $10 million.

So while modern finance manufactures trillions out of keystrokes, this toilet — weighing over 100 kg of 18-karat bullion — remains what it has always been: an immutable store of value. Whether displayed in a gallery or locked in a vault, gold does not need an artist’s statement to justify its worth.

Even when you can sit on it, and sh*t in it.

Tyler Durden Tue, 11/04/2025 - 21:20

The New Conspiracy Theorists

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

For the first time in my career, I’ve been fielding many questions from mainstream reporters. This is because I’ve been tagged as a “person of interest”—as law enforcement would say—in the staffing of federal public health agencies and committees. Sometimes I pick up the phone and sometimes not. The high dudgeon over my supposed role strikes me as wildly overwrought.

The issue is the upheaval going on in public-health bureaucracies. The FDA is changing. The CDC staff and mandate has been winnowed back dramatically. The food pyramid is being overhauled. Priorities are changing as regards NIH science funding. And the vaccine schedule for children is being pared back and changed.

As a result, industries and their media backers are agitated and angry. They simply cannot understand why this is happening. As a result, several major stories have appeared in the press that seem to blame me personally and the institution I head (Brownstone). Reading their stories, I’m truly in a state of disbelief that this is a prevailing outlook, as if I’m some kind of behind-the-scenes puppet master.

In other words, these reporters assume there is some kind of conspiracy. Seriously. They are asking detailed questions about my phone contacts, conversations I might be having with this or that person, my personal relationships with administration employees, funding sources, payment systems, with whom I am socializing, and so on.

At some point, I flat-out said it’s no one’s business. No, I won’t hand over my cellphone and bank records.

It’s all quite absurd. As I’m talking with these reporters, and trying to help them understand the broader context and the organic nature of these reforms—they had to happen in light of the last five years—it’s like talking to a brick wall. They begin their reporting with the presumption that there is some plot afoot. Their job is to find the malefactor. I’m just a convenient target.

It’s as if these people haven’t considered that what is happening is a reflection not of a scheme but of a population-wide blowback against terrible policies that were shockingly imposed upon the whole population that turned out to be enormously destructive. It would be more surprising if the status quo remained in place.

If anything, the reforms are going too slowly to satisfy public demands. The loss of trust in the CDC is an example. About one-third of the staff has been fired. Is that really so shocking? This agency is the one that imposed six feet of distance, one-way grocery aisles, sanitizer baths, the rental moratorium reversed by the Supreme Court, small-business closures, school closures, and even mail-in ballots.

Did they really think that once this was over, it would be business as usual? That seems to be what many ideologues on the left want. But it is not to be. What happened instead is exactly what one would expect in a democracy: the systems of government are responding to the grassroots. The bureaucracies are being rolled back. The mandates are being restricted. Protocols are being changed.

What’s at issue here comes down to a kind of worldview. I was explaining this strange problem to a friend who said plainly that these reporters on the left are simply assuming that we are operating as they have always operated. They plot, scheme, and trade quid pro quos, so they naturally assume we do too. Their operations are driven by the cash nexus so they assume that ours are too.

That could be the whole explanation. And yet I sense there is more going on.

Think about the term Progressive. Its root is progress. Real progress can take many forms but in the minds of the Progressives, there was only one way forward. That way involved the march of the state in league with corporate elites and academics. The most intelligent and credentialed people in society would take possession of society’s resources and organize them more intelligently than they otherwise would be.

That was and is the essence of the Progressive agenda.

And what were the Progressives against? They were opposed to a society that turned over the forces of social evolution to the people themselves in their communities and lives as individuals. To them, this was the essence of the old world they wanted to leave. It meant free markets, organically emerging community structures, decentralized government, families of any size including very large ones, and businesses that came and went based on the wiles of the market.

Every Progressive was against this sort of system on grounds that it all seemed too chaotic, unpredictable, and random. It seemed unintelligent. Thus was born the binary of Progressive vs. Reactionary. To them, history would, should, and could only move one direction: toward social and economic planning. Everything and anything else was considered reactionary or revanchist.

And from where did this strange view of history arrive? It traces back to the usual suspect: G.F.W. Hegel writing in the early decades of the 19th century. He was a German nationalist who was trying to bring a form of philosophical therapy to the German people following the loss of territory at the end of the Napoleonic Wars.

Hegel’s solution was a new model of history that removed personal forces and replaced them with a meta-narrative. Impersonal forces were in charge that were ultimately driving the narrative of history toward a single end, that of the triumph of the German state against all its enemies.

Hegel’s views became hugely influential in German academia, particularly among those people who favored empire and a unity of nation, corporation, church, and state. In the second half of the century, communists like Karl Marx picked up the Hegelian view of history and wedded it to socialist utopianism. Marx called his views scientific precisely because they were rooted in this strange Hegelian view of history. The triumph of communism was inevitable, he said, and therefore everyone who resists it is a reactionary holding back the “tides of history.”

These Marxian views became so influential that the Fabians in the UK and the left-socialists in the United States picked them up. That’s how movements for higher taxation, public school, the banning of youth labor, and so many other causes—not all of them bad—came to be called Progressive. Progress toward state control by administrative elites was inevitable.

This entire paradigm of progress/regress has dominated the public mind for a century.

Even low-end reporters for mainstream media outlets have picked it up. This is why Trump’s efforts to drain the swamp and gut the deep state have been greeted with such hostility. It is why RFK Jr.’s efforts on health are considered reactionary even though his views have not changed from decades ago when they were aligned with crunchy liberalism.

As a result of this worldview—people learn their Hegel not from books but from the streets of academia—people who accept it simply cannot imagine that any rollback of their plans is due to anything other than a scheme or plot or conspiracy designed to thwart the forward march of “progress” toward ever more control by the administrative state. This mindset rules out the existence of organic shifts in public life that do not go their way.

I can assure these reporters all day that I’m a mild-mannered guy with a newspaper column and a research institute but it doesn’t matter. They still believe that I’m some kind of string-puller with hidden billions and a mysterious control over the levers of power. They would rather believe this than come to terms with how horrible the COVID response was and how fed up people are with the bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.

They say the same about Donald Trump. He surely did not win fairly either in 2016 or 2024. He must have cheated or had Russian help. He is not legitimate precisely because he wants to take the country in a different direction than the one of which they approve. He is seen as “reactionary” whereas they are “progressive” and therefore he is wrong and they are correct.

In other words, the real conspiracy theorists are on the mainstream left these days, simply because they refuse to believe what is in front of their eyes. They cannot see their own failure for what it is and therefore cannot see the efforts to unravel the messes they made as a just and necessary correction.

Tyler Durden Tue, 11/04/2025 - 20:55

BRICS Vs G7: Comparing 2026 GDP Growth Forecasts

Today, BRICS countries represent half of the global population, a coalition with growing economic heft.

Unlike many Western powers, many BRICS countries are seeing rapid GDP growth driven by significant investment, trade, and demographic change. In an increasingly multipolar world, this group is exerting more influence as it expands.

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist's Dorothy Neufeld, compares real GDP growth projections of BRICS vs G7 countries, based on data from the IMF’s World Economic Outlook October Update.

BRICS vs G7 Real GDP Growth

Below, we show GDP growth forecasts for BRICS nations in 2025 and 2026:

As we can see, India is projected to see one of the fastest growth rates across the bloc, at 6.6% in 2025 and 6.2% in 2026.

In China, 4.8% growth is forecast for 2025 as the country strengthens trade across Asia, Europe, and Africa. Like India, growth is forecast to decline in 2026.

On average, BRICS growth will exceed G7 rates by more than threefold in both 2025 and 2026—a stark contrast visible in the table below.

With just 1% average growth for G7 countries, many countries are facing headwinds of aging populations and trade uncertainty.

Notably, Germany is forecast to see one of the world’s slowest GDP growth rates in 2025, rising just 0.2%. However, it is set to pick up to 0.9% in 2026—a trend mirrored in several other G7 nations.

To learn more about this topic, check out this graphic on BRICS share of GDP compared with G7 countries.

Tyler Durden Tue, 11/04/2025 - 20:30

Mississippi Mom Murks Escaped Monkey After Feds Fail To Find

Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

One of three virus-infected monkeys that escaped on a highway in Mississippi this past week was shot and killed by a homeowner who said she feared for her children’s safety.

People wearing protective clothing search along a highway in Heidelberg, Miss., near the site of an overturned truck that was carrying research monkeys, on Oct. 29, 2025. Sophie Bates/AP Photo

Jessica Bond Ferguson told authorities that her 16-year-old son walked into their home and told her he thought he spotted one of the primates.

“I did what any other mother would do to protect her children,” Bond Ferguson said.

The mom, who lives near Heidelberg, Mississippi, with five children aged 4 to 16, first called the police, who told her to keep an eye on the monkey. But she said she worried that if it got away, it would threaten children at another house.

“If it attacked somebody’s kid, and I could have stopped it, that would be a lot on me,” Bond Ferguson said.

She said she grabbed her gun and cellphone and went outside, and found the monkey about 60 feet away in the yard.

“I shot at it and it just stood there, and I shot again, and he backed up and that’s when he fell,” she said.

The Jasper County Sheriff’s Department confirmed that a homeowner near Heidelberg found one of the monkeys on her property Sunday morning. The state’s Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks responded and took the animal away, the sheriff’s department said on Facebook.

Bond Ferguson, a 35-year-old professional chef, was being hailed locally as a hero.

“Ya don’t mess with a Mississippi momma’s young’uns,” Doug Jernigan, of Meridian, Mississippi, commented on Facebook on Nov. 3.

The local community had been on alert since last Tuesday, when a semi-truck carrying 21 monkeys overturned while transporting them from Tulane University to an out-of-state testing facility.

Initial reports said that only one of the monkeys, which were infected with COVID, herpes, and hepatitis C, escaped capture, but that number was increased to three.

Sheriff's deputies were able to round up all but three monkeys that escaped when a truck overturned near Heidelberg, Miss., on Oct. 28, 2025. Jasper County Sheriff's Department

The accident happened at about 2 p.m. local time on Interstate 59, about 86 miles east of Jackson, Mississippi, near Heidelberg.

The truck had picked up the Rhesus monkeys from the university’s biomedical research center in New Orleans, Louisiana, which provides primates to scientific research organizations, according to the university’s statement this past week.

Authorities said the truck driver warned them about the “dangerous and aggressive” primates. The monkeys were not infectious, however, according to the university.

Eight of the monkeys were ejected from their cases, of which five were killed and three escaped. Thirteen monkeys from the shipment were taken from the accident scene and arrived at their original destination in Florida this past week.

Two escaped monkeys remain unaccounted for, according to the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fish, and Parks. Department officers in the area are continuing to search for the monkeys and are asking for the public’s help to find them, a department official told The Epoch Times on Monday.

The monkeys are known to be aggressive, and the public was advised to avoid contact, according to the department.

The Mississippi Highway Patrol said it was investigating the cause of the crash.

Tyler Durden Tue, 11/04/2025 - 20:05

The Algorithm Is Dividing Us... And We're Helping It

Authored by Mollie Engelhart via The Epoch Times,

As a content creator, I’ve noticed something hard to ignore: the posts that get the most engagement are rarely the ones that bring people together. They’re usually the ones that stir people up. The ones that make us mad or pick at our differences. The ones that feed the algorithm.

And yet, part of my job is to keep engagement going. It’s only natural that when a post performs well, I look at it and think, okay, people responded to that. It shapes what I post next—how I talk, what I highlight, even what I believe my “lane” is.

But what happens when the content that performs best doesn’t actually represent who I am?

For example, I write for The Epoch Times, and I know certain topics draw a lot of readers. But does that mean I should only write what gets clicks? Or do I have a responsibility to keep writing what I believe is meaningful, even if it doesn’t blow up online?

Last week, I posted a short video from my ranch. I was standing next to my cows, talking about the decision to import Argentinian beef—and how I didn’t think that was good for American farmers. Normally, my videos reach around 7,000 to 10,000 views. This one hit nearly 80,000, simply because I mentioned President Donald Trump.

And with that came more than 2,000 comments, many of them hateful.

People told me I was stupid, that I “got what I voted for.” They said I was aging poorly or that I looked unhealthy. Some even wished harm on my family.

But here’s what’s interesting: no one has ever said those things to my face.

In real life, people are kind.

We can disagree, but we still treat each other like human beings.

Online, though, the rules change. The algorithm rewards division, and division drives engagement. Engagement drives creators to lean further into whatever keeps people talking. It’s a loop—anger fuels clicks, clicks fuel income, and income rewards outrage.

The problem is, the more we live inside that feedback loop, the more we start to mistake it for real life. We begin to think the world is as cruel and divided as our comment sections. But it’s not. Social media is a curated, artificial experience that has very little to do with reality.

I’ve even run my own little tests to better understand it. When I post about God—about faith, gratitude, or anything that invites peace—the engagement drops dramatically. But when I talk about politics, the numbers skyrocket.

So I can’t help but ask: Are people more devoted to politics than to God? Or is it that the algorithm boosts whatever makes us angry, frustrated, or divided?

Because it really seems like the system is built to reward irritation over inspiration. The algorithm knows that anger spreads faster than peace. If you start to notice, you’ll see the pattern everywhere: content that makes people mad always travels farther. That’s not an accident. The machine is learning exactly what keeps us scrolling—and conflict is its favorite fuel.

But when division becomes profitable, unity starts to disappear. When angry voices get boosted, peaceful ones get buried. And before long, we start believing that the world is angrier than it actually is.

That belief shapes everything—our conversations, our politics, even our sense of safety. It makes us afraid to be honest because nuance doesn’t trend. Kindness doesn’t go viral.

So maybe the real choice we face isn’t just what we consume, but what we create.

As a creator, I can chase engagement or stay true to what I believe matters. I can talk about what gets clicks, or I can speak of truth, even when it doesn’t get rewarded.

Because the truth is, God doesn’t measure engagement.

He measures courage, integrity, and the willingness to keep speaking truth, even when it’s unpopular.

So the next time I post, I’ll ask myself: Am I feeding the algorithm, or am I feeding the soul?

And maybe—just maybe—if enough of us choose the latter, the machine will change. Perhaps it will finally begin to give us what our souls actually long for: unity, love, and God.

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

Tyler Durden Tue, 11/04/2025 - 18:25

Trump Regulator Making Sure The "Debanking" Era Officially Over

A top bank watchdog said he was making sure big banks have finally ditched those “oops, we just destroyed your business because we don't like your political beliefs" - er, debanking rather, policies. You remember those, right? We sure do. It happened around the same time Google, Paypal and Amazon all banned us due to our (correct) take on the origins of Covid-19 and because they didn't like our (correct) take on the BLM movement.

For those that missed it, a slew of banks under the Biden administration outright cancelled people's accounts and didn't allow them access to a bank account based on the industry they worked in, or many times their political views (surprise, none of them were Democrats).

Jonathan Gould, head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, or OCC, told a conference that supervisors are double-checking banks really did stop blacklisting sectors like firearms from banks, according to Reuters.

This oversight follows a June executive order from President Donald Trump directing banks to avoid denying services based on industry type or political considerations. Reuters writes that supervisors are now ensuring that the largest banks are in compliance with the updated approach.

As The Epoch Times wrote back in August, President Donald Trump’s executive order banning politicized debanking is intended to reverse what some analysts say is a trend of banks and payment services refusing service to people and companies for political, religious, or ideological reasons. 

Advocates against political debanking cite cases of Christians and conservatives who they say have been victims of this process. This includes allegations by Christian organizations including Tennessee-based nonprofit Indigenous Advance Ministries, as well as Sam Brownback, the chairman of the National Committee for Religious Freedom (NCRF), and the president himself.

Speaking to bank executives at the World Economic Forum in January, Trump said, “I hope you start opening your bank to conservatives, because many conservatives complain that the banks are not allowing them to do business within the bank, and that included a place called Bank of America.”

Debanking is one of the most nefarious secrets of the financial system: It is never in public forums, only specialists write about it, yet it is a threat to everyone in the most intensely effective way. The practice denies people access to the basics of life and there is no appeal, no process, no methods of challenge, and no remediation.

In her biography, Melania Trump revealed that she and her son Barron were victims of debanking. This happened in 2021, after her husband had left the office of the presidency. There were concerted efforts at the time to wipe out the memory of his time in office. Here's more from Eric Trump on what his family endured.

Lets hope the era is over, permanently, no matter who is in the White House.

Tyler Durden Tue, 11/04/2025 - 18:00

Cartels Control Tribal Lands In California, Grow Drugs And Impose Narco-Slavery

Authored by Brad Jones via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

COVELO, Calif.—Driving up the steep and windy road from his station in Ukiah, Mendocino County Sheriff Matt Kendall stops his pickup at a pullout overlooking California’s Round Valley.

John Fredricks/The Epoch Times, Courtesy of the Mendocino County Sheriff's Department

“It’s where the trouble begins and never ends,” he told The Epoch Times.

Native American sovereignty and California’s policies that shield illegal immigrants have allowed Mexican drug cartels to swoop in on tribal lands of the Round Valley Indian Tribes, a confederation of several tribes, the sheriff said.

The valley, known for illegal marijuana grows on tribal lands, is remote and surrounded by forested mountainous terrain. It’s a patchwork of tribal lands and those sold off to private owners years ago.

Kendall, 56, grew up here in the 1970s. During the drive to Covelo, an isolated town in the valley, he talks about how the times have changed over the decades.

“Back in the ’60s and ’70s, it was a beautiful place—a lot of freedom here,” he said. “When we were kids, we'd be riding our horses and having fun. Every kid in this valley had a horse. We’d go out to the river. All of us had summertime jobs, hauling hay and cutting firewood.”

His nostalgic journey ends abruptly as he passes a burned-out building with murals of missing women on its walls—a stark reminder of the violence that plagues the valley. Other banners along the road display their names and faces, including that of Khadijah Rose Britton, a native American woman who, according to the FBI, was last seen in Covelo being kidnapped at gunpoint in 2018.

Today, Kendall says, “there’s a little bit of farming, and then just tons and tons of marijuana, and pretty much all of it is illegal.”

“We see a lot of Hispanics here when there is no work, no sawmill jobs, no grapes, no vineyards and not much logging. They’re all here taking orders to grow marijuana, and a lot of it’s happening on tribal lands.”

He estimates up to 80 percent of the illegal marijuana in Mendocino County is grown on tribal lands, based on aerial surveillance and satellite imagery revealing a vast network of illegal grow ops.

Signs are displayed for a missing woman outside of Covelo, Calif., on Oct. 9, 2025. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times Mexican Cartels

Kendall first encountered Mexican cartels in his county in the mid-1990s.

“I got shot at right over there in a Mexican grow” 25 years ago, he said, pointing to a footpath through the brush. “A guy pops out of a tent with a 12-gauge and I’m screaming at him in English and Spanish, ‘Drop it or I’m going to drop you!’ and he takes off running and gets a round off at me over his shoulder.”

Years ago, a group of Hispanics growing marijuana in the hills “were digging up artifacts and just tearing things up,”’ Kendall said. “We hit this place with search warrants years ago. We got thousands of plants.”

Today, even though the cartels and the laborers who work for them cultivating and harvesting the illicit marijuana are mostly illegal immigrants, Kendall is not legally allowed to call in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) due to state Senate Bill 54, signed in 2018 by former Gov. Jerry Brown.

The law prohibits state and local law enforcement from using their resources to assist federal immigration enforcement agencies, including ICE, and forbids them from asking about a person’s immigration status or sharing confidential information with federal agents.

Today, two competing Mexican cartels, Jalisco New Generation Cartel and La Familia Michoacana, are exploiting California’s sanctuary state policies and the sovereignty of native tribes to illegally grow marijuana in the county, the sheriff said.

The cartels have tagged their territory with spray paint in different areas of the valley, he said.

Mendocino County Sheriff Matthew Kendall drives outside Covelo, Calif., on Oct. 9, 2025. Mexican cartels and the related crime have become a major problem in the county. Kendall cites illegal marijuana grows on tribal lands as one of the most serious issues. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times Shootouts Are Common

“We know that we’ve got some hard hitters from a cartel in the Mexican state of Michoacán,” said Kendall, who suspects a shootout in the hills in May was infighting among La Familia Michoacana members, known for gun battles in the streets of Mexico.

A roadside shrine with a crucifix marks the site where Jorge M. Zavala Estrella, 30, was shot and killed in the shootout.

“These guys had some bad blood over money and grow operations, and they met nose-to-nose right up here,” he said, pointing out the spot on Hulls Valley Road.

Another man was shot about a dozen times and was bleeding out near the edge of the road when deputies found him. He was airlifted to an out-of-county hospital and survived, the sheriff said.

A third and fourth suspect were also involved in the gun battle, and the homicide investigation is ongoing, Kendall said.

Kendall estimates about 300 shots were fired.

“There was brass collected everywhere,” he said.

Shootouts are common, he said, “about three or four every year,” and firearms used include AK-47s, AR-15s and M-16s.

Kendall suspects the money for infrastructure to grow illegal marijuana is coming from south of the border because the toxic chemical containers are labeled in Spanish and most local residents can’t afford to pay for hoop houses and haul in soil and water.

“Somebody’s putting up the money for this,” he said. “There are millions of dollars being poured into the marijuana industry up here.”

(Top) A marijuana grow operation outside of Covelo, Calif., on Oct. 9, 2025. Mendocino County Sheriff Matthew Kendall said some illegal immigrants who cannot afford to pay Mexican cartels’ smuggling fees end up working in marijuana cultivation to settle their debts. (Bottom) A marijuana farm outside of Covelo, Calif., on Oct. 9, 2025. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times Narco-slavery

The Biden administration’s “wide open” border policies made things worse in Mendocino, he said.

“I’m not playing partisan politics here,” Kendall said. “It’s a fact. Borders were open.”

Illegal immigrants who couldn’t pay the full fare to Mexican cartels to cross into the United States fell into debt with the Mexican cartels, and much of that debt is being worked off in the marijuana grows, Kendall said.

Over the last few years, Kendall’s deputies have seen an increase in human trafficking cases as the cartels bring in more illegal immigrants to cultivate, trim, and harvest the illegal marijuana crops.

“It’s sex trafficking, it’s labor trafficking, it’s narco-slavery,” he said.

One victim told Kendall after he crossed the border from Mexico into the United States, he was picked up in California and informed by the driver working for a cartel he would be taken to Washington state to work in the “logging industry.”

“I’ve spoken with a lot of people in marijuana grows—once they’re caught—who have been trafficked, and didn’t realize it,” he said.

Kendall found the man months later in Mendocino, one of three Northern California counties—including Trinity and Humboldt—that comprise the Emerald Triangle, an area long known for cannabis cultivation.

“He’s in the middle of the forest, in the middle of nowhere, in a weed grow. He has no idea where he is. He thinks he’s in the state of Washington. He doesn’t know anyone, except for a couple of other clowns that are also working there. He doesn’t know how to get out of there,” the sheriff said.

“So, where do you start to find your way home? He’s in a foreign country. He doesn’t speak the language, and these guys show up and bring food now and then. And, whether he knows it or not, he has been trafficked.”

The man told him the cartels promised to pay him for his labor at the end of the growing season but didn’t, Kendall said.

“A lot of these folks I’ve spoken to aren’t getting paid at all,” he said. “We had two people wander out of the brush—husband and wife. They weren’t getting paid. They wanted to leave, and the gate was locked, and the boss goes and lights their car on fire.”

Many of the laborers at illegal grow sites in several California counties live in squalor at makeshift camps where their basic human needs are not being met, and they aren’t there of their own free will, he said.

“They’re scared to death of the cartels,” Kendall said. “They wind up here, but they’re still under that control.”

A marijuana grow operation near Covelo, Calif., on Oct. 9, 2025. Sheriff Kendall said many laborers at these grow sites live in poor conditions and may be working against their will. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times ‘We’re Not Mayberry’

The sheriff’s department is underfunded, understaffed, and under-equipped to deal with all the crime related to illegal marijuana grow operations, he said.

“This is cartel violence that not even the United States government seems to be able to handle, and we’re expected to take it on when we’ve got six deputies for 3,500 square miles,” Kendall said.

“We’re not Mayberry,” he said, referring to the quaint, fictional town in the 1960’s TV series about a rural police department. “I wish we were because we’d have enough personnel to handle Mayberry.”

Kendall isn’t looking forward to the coming weeks of harvest season, which usually means more robberies, murders, and mayhem.

“There’s cash, there’s marijuana, there’s greed,” he said.

Tribes Sue Sheriff

Tribal sovereignty also poses a challenge for law enforcement. In April, the Round Valley Indian Tribes and three residents of the reservation filed a lawsuit against Kendall and other law enforcement agencies over raids that occurred on tribal land in July 2024. The lawsuit alleges sheriff’s deputies failed to produce valid search warrants and illegally destroyed medicinal cannabis gardens and cultivation.

Kendall wouldn’t comment on specifics related to the case but said the tribes are trying to assert their sovereignty over marijuana grown on tribal lands.

While the tribes “should have sovereignty,” the sheriff said he has received complaints from tribal members saying the reservation has been overrun by cartels.

“We’ve had some really good, forward thinking tribal leaders over the years—really good people—but there’s a little ebb and flow where we'll get some people in who are making money off the marijuana, and the rules change,” Kendall said.

Reservations are often the “canary in the coal mine,” he said. “If something goes south there, because it’s a very close, tight-knit community, it’s going to go south across the entire county,” he said.

Kendall says partisan politics are getting in the way of law enforcement and public safety, but he does his best to stay out of the fray.

“I’m careful what I say because I don’t want to alienate people, but I still have to tell the truth,” he said, adding that one of the more important things he can do is to call out corruption and deception. “There’s a very small portion of people who are making money on it, and they are being bullies and creeps, intimidators, knee-cappers, to the good people.”

Kendall says he’s repeatedly called California Gov. Gavin Newsom but the governor won’t return his calls.

Read the rest here...

Tyler Durden Tue, 11/04/2025 - 17:40

The United States Of Unemployment

The national unemployment rate for the U.S. rose to 4.3% in August 2025. But that figure masks vast differences in local labor market health across states.

In this Markets in a Minute graphic, created in partnership with Terzo, Visual Capitalist's Julia Wendling maps all 50 states and the District of Columbia by their August 2025 unemployment rates.

Data is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The National Picture

The U.S. unemployment rate rose to 4.3% in August, up slightly from 4.2% in July.

This was the second consecutive monthly increase and the highest level since October 2021. Long-term unemployment, which tracks the share of those unemployed for 27 weeks or more, rose for the third month in a row in August. 

According to Reuters, the uptick reflects a softening economy, as higher tariffs and widespread public-sector layoffs strain the labor market amid ongoing geopolitical uncertainty.

Unemployment Rates by State

At the top of the list with the lowest unemployment rates are South Dakota (1.9%), North Dakota (2.5%), and Vermont (2.5%).

Conversely, California (5.5%), Nevada (5.3%), and Michigan (5.2%) are facing slower job growth. Tech layoffs and a weakening consumer spending profile are weighing on employment.

What’s Ahead

Economists and policymakers are closely watching for the delayed September employment report, postponed by the ongoing government shutdown. The report is a key indicator for investors, offering a clear read on the nation’s economic pulse and signaling areas of strength or weakness.

Tyler Durden Tue, 11/04/2025 - 17:20

A Quarter Of Americans Now Believe Political Violence Is Justified

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

We have seen a rise in both rage rhetoric and political violence. New polling shows a shocking level of support for political violence, even after the assassination of Charlie Kirk. A new poll shows roughly a quarter of voters believe political violence is justified with the highest percentage among younger voters.

The poll shows that 55 percent of Americans expect political violence to increase with the highest percentage among Harris voters at 61 percent.

Younger Americans are the most supportive of political violence. The poll shows that one in three Americans under 45 years old believes that political violence is justified.

This tracks with other polling that shows that roughly thirty percent of both Democrats and Republicans felt that political violence might be necessary.

The rise in support for political violence comes at a time when politicians are increasingly engaging in violent or rage rhetoric.

DNC Chair Ken Martin just told MSNBC’s “The Beat” that “we may be nearing” the moment when “elections don’t matter and then the resistance looks completely different.” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called on people to “forcefully rise up.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., who pictures himself brandishing a baseball bat has previously called upon people to “fight in the streets.”

California Governor Gavin Newsom previously declared, “I’m going to punch these sons of bitches in the mouth.”

Virginia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger  called upon her supporters to “Let your rage fuel you.”

She then refused to withdraw her support for the Democratic candidate for Attorney General, Jay Jones, who once expressed his desire to kill his political opponents and his children.

In his podcast with co-host Al Hunt, James Carville was again spewing unhinged hate. He returned to treating Trump and others as Nazis and their supporters as “collaborators.” I previously criticized Carville for that analogy. He later attacked me.

Doubling down, Carville declared

“You know what we do with collaborators? I think these corporations, my fantasy dream is that this nightmare ends in 2029 and I think we ought to have radical things. I think they all ought to have their heads shaven, they should be put in orange pajamas and they should be marched down Pennsylvania Avenue and the public should be invited to spit on them.”

To be sure that his menacing words were not lost, he then added “The universities, the corporations, the law firms, all of these collaborators should be shaved, pajamaed and spit on.”

There was no later pushback by his co-host, Hunt, or anyone else associated with the podcast.

Notably, going into today’s election, Jay Jones was still leading in the polls despite saying that he wanted to kill political opponents and their children. Democratic voters were clearly not deterred by such rage rhetoric.

Tyler Durden Tue, 11/04/2025 - 17:00

"Charles Schwab Will Now Vote For Musk's CEO Performance Award," Says Tesla Investor

Update (1633ET):

Tesla investors unleashed what appears to be a successful pressure campaign against Charles Schwab on Tuesday. The day began with furious shareholders threatening a mass exodus from the brokerage, as social media posts about withdrawing funds raked in millions of views. The uproar centered around Schwab's plan to vote "No" on Elon Musk's multibillion-dollar Tesla pay package, and by late afternoon trading, according to at least one investor, the firm quietly reversed course. 

Tesla investor Sawyer Merritt wrote on X: 

I have just confirmed that @CharlesSchwab will be voting FOR Elon Musk's 2025 CEO Performance Award plan. Schwab voted NO in both the 2018 and 2024 pay package votes. Schwab: "Schwab asset management intends to vote in favor of the 2025 CEO Performance award proposal. We firmly believe that supporting this proposal aligns with management and shareholder interest."

BREAKING: I have just confirmed that @CharlesSchwab will be voting FOR Elon Musk's 2025 CEO Performance Award plan.

Schwab voted NO in both the 2018 and 2024 pay package votes.

Schwab: "Schwab asset management intends to vote in favor of the 2025 CEO Performance award proposal.… pic.twitter.com/j9mcliDIyA

— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) November 4, 2025

Meritt noted:

Yes. I just got off the phone with multiple people at Schwab. They read me the full internal memo that corporate just put together. Any Schwab client can now call their advisor or representative and confirm my news above.

Yes. I just got off the phone with multiple people at Schwab. They read me the full internal memo that corporate just put together. Any Schwab client can now call their advisor or representative and confirm my news above.

— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) November 4, 2025

Another Tesla investor, Jason DeBolt, who was instrumental in the pressure campaign against Schwab, also confirmed that the brokerage has changed its mind.

Yes, my rep confirmed.

— Jason DeBolt ⚡️ (@jasondebolt) November 4, 2025

Where is corporate media's reporting? 

Musk chimed in earlier.

They are acting contrary to the wishes of their customers

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 4, 2025

And will Tesla investors now focus their efforts on State Street? 

*   *   * 

Tesla shareholders will vote Thursday on whether to approve Elon Musk's $1 trillion pay package, a 10-year performance plan tied to several milestones. Norway's $2.1 trillion sovereign wealth fund will vote "No" on the proposal. The package would only unlock if Musk lifts Tesla's market value from $1.4 trillion to $8.5 trillion, which hinges on the deployment of humanoid robots, autonomous vehicles, AI, and other advanced technologies expected to dominate the 2030s.

Our focus shifts to X, where Tesla investors who are Charles Schwab customers are staging a revolt against the brokerage house that is reportedly planning to vote "No."  

A viral post, viewed more than 3 million times, by Tesla investor "Jason DeBolt" warned Schwab:

Here's why this is urgent: At least 6 of your ETF funds (around 7 million $TSLA shares) voted against Tesla's board, and my 240,000+ Tesla investor followers are asking why Schwab would oppose one of the most successful corporate boards in history. Many of my followers are Schwab clients holding more shares than me (45,000 or more).

As a custodian of ETF shares, your fiduciary duty is to vote in shareholders' best interests. For a board that has delivered extraordinary returns, voting against their recommendations doesn't align with retail investors, Tesla employees, or the leadership we invested to support.

If Schwab's proxy voting policies don't reflect shareholder interests, my followers and I will move our collective tens of millions in $TSLA shares (or possibly hundreds of millions) to a broker that does, via account transfer as soon as this week. I'm not making empty threats - I am ready to move my shares now. The Tesla investor community is engaged and ready to act as well. 

Hey @CharlesSchwab - I need to speak with someone from Schwab Private Wealth Services this week. Please reach out via email, the mobile app message center, phone, or X DM.

Here’s why this is urgent: At least 6 of your ETF funds (around 7 million $TSLA shares) voted against… https://t.co/uSgPWnfTFc

— Jason DeBolt ⚡️ (@jasondebolt) November 3, 2025

"I can't in good conscience stay with a brokerage that votes against this CEO Performance Award plan that is in my view clearly in shareholders' best interests. I join @jasondebolt in saying that voting against the recommendations of a board that has delivered extraordinary returns is out of step with retail investors, Tesla employees, and the leadership we invested in to support," Tesla investor Sawyer Merritt wrote on X. The post was hearted by Musk.

❤️

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 4, 2025

Retail investors rage at Schwab: 

Schwab is now finding out.

Won’t be long after this. https://t.co/6vLVLBUE3A pic.twitter.com/3COUedsyjL

— Kevin Chau (@kchau) November 4, 2025

If you hold ETF's in State Street & Schwab that hold $TSLA & care about Tesla, please do this ASAP.@TeslaBoomerMama breaks it down perfectly here. pic.twitter.com/fcv9xm1dSQ

— Pejjy (@CuriousPejjy) June 13, 2025

Just got off the phone with one of their agents. They are aware we’re pissed and are feeling the pressure. They don’t have any answers as of yet.

They just lost ~$1.5M to @RobinhoodApp.

Side note: The rep was very understanding and empathetic. He told me that he’s already…

— Alexander (@Alexander_Ilios) November 4, 2025

I have well over $1 million under management at Schwab.

I’m calling the number and will let them know how I feel.

You should too.

— Keith Dorschner (@keith_dorschner) November 4, 2025

On the phone with them rn. Im a few answers away from switching to @RobinhoodApp. pic.twitter.com/8IOC2rukUm

— Alexander (@Alexander_Ilios) November 4, 2025

Charles Schwab has rated Tesla “Strongly Underperformed” for years while rating Toyota motors a buy. This is why you always do your own due diligence and make your own decisions. pic.twitter.com/djCy6YA6uU

— 30sectoMars (@VtsnowMars) November 4, 2025

FAFO Charles Schwab. 

Tyler Durden Tue, 11/04/2025 - 16:33

One Little 'K'... And The End Of America

Authored by Adam Sharp via DailyReckoning.com,

A disturbing chart is making waves in the financial world.

It’s a long-term view of job openings (blue) vs the S&P 500 (black). The dotted line shows when ChatGPT launched in November of 2022.

Take a look:

Digesting this chart gives me heartburn.

As you can see, historically job openings and the stock market have moved in parallel.

When the economy was good, both metrics moved up. When it was bad, they fell.

But in November of 2022, this relationship snapped like a twig. That’s when OpenAI released its groundbreaking ChatGPT app.

Ever since, job openings have plummeted while the S&P 500 soared to new highs.

AI has simultaneously caused a stock bubble and cratered job openings.

AI stocks have levitated the market with their gains, while the same technology is ripping apart the job market.

Entry-level positions are especially vulnerable to AI, but it’s disrupting the entire white collar job market.

This is our new K-shaped economy.

The Godfather of AI’s Latest Warning

The top 4 American AI spenders alone (Google, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft) plan to spend $420 billion on infrastructure in the next year. That’s mostly GPUs, data centers, and power generation.

Nearly half a trillion dollars, from just the top 4 U.S. companies… That’s up from $360 billion this year. Globally, AI spending over the next year will surely surpass $1.5 trillion.

The “Godfather of AI”, Geoffrey Hinton, says this level of spending can only be justified by replacing humans:

“I think the big companies are betting on it causing massive job replacement by AI, because that’s where the big money is going to be.

… I believe that to make money you’re going to have to replace human labor.”

It does seem like the only logical explanation.

Of course, there’s a chance that Big Tech is overspending, and AI will fail to replace a large number of workers. Let’s all hope for that outcome.

But we must prepare for the outcome where AI wins. This technology is only a few years old and already more competent than the average person at many tasks.

The tech has steadily improved, and with so much at stake, further breakthroughs are inevitable.

Just an Adjustment Period?

Some will argue that this is simply an adjustment period. That eventually the market will work its magic and adapt to the new reality, finding new opportunities for those displaced by AI.

A common rebuttal to the AI disruption theory is that tractors displaced farmers, and it all turned out fine because those farmers went to work in factories and other jobs created by the economic shift.

But when tractors revolutionized farming, it was anything but a smooth transition. In 1910 there were perhaps 1,000 tractors in the world. By 1930 there were 900,000.

The farm work that previously took dozens of men suddenly took 2. Most farm workers had to find new lines of work. If they were lucky, they got a job at a factory. But this involved moving to a new area, and all the expenses and difficulties associated with it.

So while from our modern view, the transition from manual farm labor to automated seems simple, in reality it was a long difficult transformation of the world’s workforce.

3 Years In

We are only 3 years into the AI disruption. And compared to previous technological breakthroughs, like the tractor, this one is happening much quicker.

The chart below shows results of a Wharton study on AI adoption among corporate executives. Today 46% of execs report using AI daily. That’s up from 11% in 2023 and 29% in 2024.

Source: Olivia Moore

As you can see, fully 68% of IT workers are using AI on a daily basis, up from 21% in 2023. And 39% of legal workers are now using AI every day, up from just 9% last year.

The next big step in AI is “agents” – autonomous AI workers capable of taking a task from start to finish with little oversight.

AI agents are not quite at the stage where they can outright replace human workers. But they can already augment productivity, and allow one person to do the work of two or three.

Make no mistake. Widespread disruption is coming. Those who utilize AI well will become super productive. Those who don’t risk falling behind, or even being laid off.

Eventually, I’m sure the economy will adjust to this new reality and find productive ways for all workers to contribute. But we don’t know how long that’s going to take.

Every great technological leap begins with a breakthrough.

The loom, steam engine, tractor, and computer. Each improved the world in time, but came with a difficult adjustment period.

AI could end up being the most disruptive of all. An unprecedented reallocation of the world’s workforce, compressed into a single decade.

So for a while, the white collar world is going to see serious disruption. For many young people today, a blue collar path may be a better choice. The era of “everyone should go to college and get a desk job” is ending.

My 16-year old wants to enter the trades, maybe even start his own operation, which I fully support. It’s going to be a while before robots can handle most blue collar work.

And in the long run, this shift will probably be a good thing for the world. We need to get back to building and producing things. More welders, and less email jobs.

Yes, it’s going to be painful. But eventually we’ll end up at a place where algorithms are handling the bulk of busywork, and humans are doing creative and productive real-world tasks.

In time, it will work itself out. But for a while, it’s going to seem like the end of the world as we know it.

Tyler Durden Tue, 11/04/2025 - 16:20

"I Hope You Die": Montana Race Rattled By Latest Example Of Rage Rhetoric

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

This week, I ran a column on how many on the left have discovered the joy and release of unmitigated hate speech. Democratic Helena City Commissioner candidate Haley McKnight is under fire for messages left on the phone of freshman Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Mont., in which she hopes for him to get cancer and die. It comes on the day that voters are going to the polls in Virginia, where the Democratic candidate for Attorney General, Jay Jones, admitted that he previously expressed a desire to kill a political opponent and his children.

As a measure of the appeal of rage rhetoric, Jones remains the leading candidate in the race, with most Democrats planning to vote for him.

In her voicemail, McKnight states:

“Hi, this is Haley McKnight. I’m a constituent in Helena, Montana. I just wanted to let you know that you are the most insufferable kind of coward and thief. You just stripped away healthcare for 17 million Americans, and I hope you’re really proud of that. I hope that one day you get pancreatic cancer, and it spreads throughout your body so fast that they can’t even treat you for it.”

She then left a litany of insults about Sheehy’s fertility and his children, before warning the senator not to “meet me on the streets.” She then added:

“I hope you die in the street like a dog. One day, you’re going to live to regret this. I hope that your children never forgive you. I hope that you are infertile. I hope that you manage to never get a boner ever again. You are the worst piece of s— I have ever, ever, ever had the misfortune of looking at … God forbid that you ever meet me on the streets because I will make you regret it. F— you. I hope you die…All that you have done since you have gotten into power is do s— for yourself.”

McKnight moved to Montana from North Carolina and owned Sage & Oats Trading Post, which she describes as “a successful Native American-owned gift store” on her campaign website.

What was striking about this story was McKnight’s response. She explained how her rage was righteous and blamed conservatives for making public a voicemail with threats left at the office of a U.S. senator.

In an interview about the controversy, she insisted, “I was responding to some horrible policy with some justified rage.”

McKnight blamed Sheehy for not calling her back after her hateful messages to chat:

“I would hope that if Sheehy was so rattled by my voicemail, he would have contacted me instead of leaking my information to conservative news media the night before an election. It feels like a cheap shot. I’m one of his constituents, and you know, this message is nothing that I’d say to my grandmother or in front of any children, it was meant for Senator Sheehy alone.”

There is, of course, another lesson that many of us strive to leave for our children: you should speak with respect and civility in others in both private and public settings. Indeed, you should not talk to others in ways that you would be embarrassed to do in front of children. It is not the consequences that dictate how we act or speak.

Instead, McKnight insists that such threats and insults are justified when you disagree with others. She is clearly not alone. As shown in Virginia, many voters will still vote for such candidates. Indeed, many may be drawn to such candidates by such rhetoric.

Ironically, her campaign site quotes her saying, “I have worked hard to combat the loneliness epidemic in our community.”

Raving at others about wishing them cancer and celebrating their death may not be the best approach for building relationships for the chronically lonely.

Tyler Durden Tue, 11/04/2025 - 15:40

DOE And NRC Sign Addendum To Fast Track Commercial Reactor Licensing

The Department of Energy (DOE) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) recently signed Addendum No. 9 to their 2019 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), paving the way for faster follow-on licensing of advanced nuclear reactors and nuclear fuel technologies.

This agreement, signed Oct 24th and effective immediately, comes as major concerns have been raised by reactor development companies and industry observers regarding the double work that may be required of developers when they bring their tested products over to the NRC. Demand for clean, reliable energy by data centers and major industrial companies has created a stronger need for change in the path to reactor design commercialization, with companies like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon signing long-term offtake agreements with reactor operators Constellation, NextEra, and Talen.

The addition to the MOU comes from the directives out of Trump's executive orders signed back in May of this year. From section 5.d of the executive order “Ordering the Reform of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission”:

“Establish an expedited pathway to approve reactor designs that the DOD or the DOE have tested and that have demonstrated the ability to function safely. NRC review of such designs shall focus solely on risks that may arise from new applications permitted by NRC licensure, rather than revisiting risks that have already been addressed in the DOE or DOD processes.”

Surprisingly, the DOE and NRC took the executive order one step further and included a streamlined licensing process for nuclear fuel facilities as well. It becomes less surprising when we remember the current administration has highlighted multiple times the desire to reduce the reliance on foreign nuclear fuel supplies. Even with the Russian uranium import ban, the US is still importing over a fifth of the required enriched uranium from Russia through last year. The US government is looking to expand the domestic capacity of every step in the fuel chain as quickly as possible.

The new addendum will directly impact the companies already announced by the DOE as participants in their pilot reactor and fuel programs:

• Reactor developers: Aalo Atomics, Antares Nuclear, Atomic Alchemy, Deep Fission, Last Energy, Oklo (two projects), Natura Resources, Radiant Industries, Terrestrial Energy, Valar Atomics
• Fuel facilities: Standard Nuclear, Oklo, Terrestrial Energy, TRISO-X, Valar Atomics

Additional companies are expected to be announced for both of the programs in the near future, as the DOE still looks to expand the number of participants as an effort to increase the chance of success.

There are multiple companies currently involved that are worth highlighting. Oklo is the most involved company, with three reactor projects — Aurora, Pluto, and Atomic Alchemy — currently receiving high-speed treatment, and three nuclear fuel facilities on the fast track as well. Terrestrial Energy enjoys double involvement with their integrated molten salt reactor design and unique fuel. Valar Atomics has also earned a spot in both programs, alongside industry leadership on the reactor side from Aalo and Radiant, and on the fuel side with Standard Nuclear.

Part IV.C of the addendum discusses the new agreement between the NRC and DOE, with two separate statements for advanced reactor designs and nuclear fuel line facilities:

“NRC establishes an expedited pathway to approve advanced reactor designs [nuclear fuel line facilities] that have been authorized and tested by DOE and have demonstrated the ability to function safely that focuses on risks or safety issues identified during the NRC licensing review that may arise from, among other things, design changes in new applications to be licensed by the NRC, rather than revisiting risks that have already been addressed in the DOE review.”

This removes the previous risk of a company designing a reactor, getting the DOE to approve it, building an operating it for months or years to develop proficiency and improvements, only to have the NRC tear it apart to meet a different set of requirements that results in a loss of the work put in to the reactor up to that point. The NRC will now skip reviews regarding design features that are no different in the commercial product than they are with the design built under the DOE.

There are likely more MOUs to be released in the near future, specifically relating to coordination between the DOW and the NRC for all the same reasons. This will stem from the Army's recently announced Janus Program, which looks to hyper-speed the development of microreactors, such as that recently launched by Nano Nuclear, and drive consolidation and standardization of the nuclear equipment/manufacturing supply chain.

Tyler Durden Tue, 11/04/2025 - 14:40

US Homeownership Tenure Hits Highest Level In 25 Years

U.S. homeowners who sold their properties in the third quarter of 2025 had owned them for an average of 8.39 years, the longest tenure in at least 25 years, real estate analytics company ATTOM said in a statement released on Oct. 21.

The longer homeownership tenure reflects “a mix of factors shaping the 2025 housing market,” the company stated.

“Higher mortgage rates may have made homeowners less likely to move, as many remain locked into historically low rates from prior years,” the statement reads.

“Limited inventory and elevated home prices may have also made finding an affordable next home difficult, keeping potential sellers in place longer.”

The state with the longest average homeownership tenure in the third quarter was Massachusetts at 12.91 years.

This was closely followed by Connecticut at 12.66 years, California at 11.2 years, Rhode Island at 11 years, and Washington state at 10.74 years.

Maine had the shortest average homeownership tenure at 4.8 years, followed by Mississippi at 5.71 years, South Dakota at 5.79 years, West Virginia at 6.04 years, and Georgia at 6.11 years.

As Naveen Athrappully reports for The Epoch Times, according to ATTOM, all-cash sales continued to rise in the third quarter, with 38.9 percent of all homes sold nationwide during this period being all-cash deals, up from 37.6 percent in the third quarter of 2024.

“The increase in all‑cash sales suggests a larger share of buyers may be avoiding financing altogether, potentially investors or downsizing homeowners using accumulated equity, which continues to influence both mobility and overall market dynamics,” ATTOM stated.

Homeowners who sold off their properties in the third quarter made a 49.9 percent profit on a typical single-family home or condo, ATTOM said in an Oct. 16 statement.

While this is slightly lower than the 55.4 percent profit seen during the third quarter of 2024, it is still way higher than the roughly 30 percent profit margin home sellers saw before 2020, according to the company.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, home prices have surged, contributing to massive profits for owners willing to sell.

According to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the average sale price of homes sold in the United States in the second quarter was $512,800, up from $371,100 five years ago in the second quarter of 2020.

“Profit margins remained steady and high throughout the traditionally busier summer selling season,” ATTOM CEO Rob Barber said.

“While continuously rising prices could have chased away buyers and slackened demand, the recent dip in mortgage rates may be helping to keep more people in the market.”

Even though high home prices are giving large profits to sellers who have held on to their properties since the COVID-19 pandemic, selling has become more difficult.

New listings of homes for sale rose by 4.1 percent year over year for the four weeks ending Oct. 12, the largest increase in four months. This came amid buyers backing off from the market, real estate brokerage Redfin said in an Oct. 16 statement.

High sale prices and financial unease stemming from concerns about the ongoing federal government shutdown and tariffs have made many buyers wary of committing to property purchases, the brokerage stated.

Jo Chavez, a Redfin Premier agent in Kansas City, Missouri, cited elevated mortgage rates as another factor deterring buyers from the market.

“Even though rates have come down from their peak, a lot of people are waiting for sub-6 percent rates before they buy,” Chavez said.

Mortgage Rate Issues

The average weekly rate of a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 6.27 percent for the week ending Oct. 16, according to data from Freddie Mac. Since June, the rates have been mostly in a downward trend.

While the current 6.27 percent rate is lower than the 7.04 percent yearly peak in January, rates are still well above the levels seen during the initial COVID-19 pandemic period. For instance, five years ago, the rate was 2.81 percent.

In an Oct. 16 commentary, Lisa Sturtevant, chief economist at real estate data company Bright MLS, suggested that the recent dip in mortgage rates may trigger more competition among buyers, pushing up home prices.

“Looking ahead to the rest of the year, it is difficult to forecast where rates will go, but the likely bet is that they are not going to fall much further,“ she wrote. ”Buyers who think they want to wait for lower rates could find themselves facing higher prices but without an improvement in mortgage rates.

“It is actually possible that mortgage rates could increase in the coming weeks. The Federal Reserve has been rolling mortgage-backed securities off of the central bank’s balance sheet, which could lead to upward pressure on mortgage rates.”

Tyler Durden Tue, 11/04/2025 - 14:05

China Warns Trump To Avoid Crossing Four "Red Lines" Or Risk Trade Truce Collapse

Ever since the recent "truce" in the trade war between the US and China was signed in Korea one week ago - the latest of many such ceasefires meant to be broken - skeptics have been patiently counting down until this latest ceasefire is torn up, and tensions between the two superpowers flare up once more. 

Overnight China made it likely that they won't have long to count: as Bloomberg reports, Beijing warned the US to avoid four sensitive issues, so-called red lines, so a trade truce sealed between Trump and Xi can hold, highlighting the broad array of disagreements that will test ties. Of course, the one thing that is certain to prompt Trump to cross any and all red lines is knowing he should not do it... which is precisely why China is doing what it is doing. 

Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in Busan on Oct. 30

Ambassador to the US Xie Feng named i) Taiwan, ii) democracy and human rights, iii) China’s political system, and iv) development rights as Beijing’s four red lines, adding that “the most important thing is to respect each other’s core interests and major concerns.” 

Xie made the remarks in a virtual speech to a US-China Business Council event, according to a statement from the Chinese embassy on Tuesday. He added that “the pressing priority is to follow up on the consensus reached between” Xi, Trump and their officials, “to reassure both our countries and the world economy with concrete actions and outcomes.”

Whether it comes to conflicts over tariffs, industry or technology, Xie warned that “all will lead to nothing but a dead end” not like any of that stopped Trump before, which is also why the countdown until the next "100%+ tariff has officially begun."

The comments, Bloomberg explains to the front of the bus, offer a reminder of the many ways that the one-year truce reached on Thursday in South Korea can come undone. It also shows that while Taiwan’s status didn’t come up in talks between Xi and Trump, it’s still very important to Beijing.

And underscoring just how tenuous the current ceasefire truly is, is the fact that both sides are actively doing everything in their power to sabotage it. As Rabobank's Michael Every writes this morning, "all serious views of the recent ‘US-China deal are this is just a metaphorical ceasefire to (literally) rearm, not any ‘peace’, and it is when not if we get further escalation.

Supporting that view from one side, he writes that the White House just struck a $1.4bn deal with rare-earth magnet startups Vulcan Elements and ReElement Technologies. From the other, besides China introducing new export controls on silver, antimony, and tungsten, Nexperia’s China plant has told local firms that it can meet chip orders despite suspended supply from European fabs previously in the same group.

In short, it's now just a matter of time before we get another raging post on the president's Truth Social account, taking us back to square one. 

Tyler Durden Tue, 11/04/2025 - 12:00

Trump Admin Redirects Tariff Revenue To Fund WIC As Shutdown Drags On

Authored by Kimberley Hayek via The Epoch Times,

As the federal government shutdown reaches its 35th day, the Trump administration has transferred $450 million from tariff windfalls to a nutrition program for women, infants, and children.

The funds, taken from a fund for agricultural commodity and disaster aid, were sent to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) on Oct. 31, according to White House Office of Management and Budget records.

The money will be used for approximately three weeks of benefits for nearly 7 million pregnant or breastfeeding women, or other Americans with young children who use WIC for food, counseling, and support, according to the National WIC Association.

This latest monetary injection comes on the heels of a comparable move in mid-October, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) tapped the same tariff-derived fund, which has in it more than $23 billion from customs duties as of early October, for $300 million to keep WIC afloat for two more weeks. State agencies are set to receive the funds in the coming days, the association added.

Meanwhile, benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps, ran out Nov. 1, the first time in the program’s 60 years, leaving nearly 42 million recipients without transfer payments as neither Congress nor the administration earmarked funds for them ahead of the shutdown, which started on Oct. 1.

The administration revealed Monday that it would use emergency funds in part to pay for November SNAP benefits. Certain states, however, may require weeks or months to fully distribute them.

USDA officials worried that funding SNAP could shortchange WIC and other programs specifically targeting low-income children.

“Creating a shortfall in Child Nutrition Program funds to fund one month of SNAP benefits is an unacceptable risk, even considering the procedural difficulties with delivering a partial November SNAP payment, because shifting $4 billion to America’s SNAP population merely shifts the problem to millions of America’s low income children that receive their meals at school,” Patrick Penn, deputy undersecretary for food, nutrition, and consumer services at the USDA, said in the filing.

In early October, the administration invoked Section 232 authority to send $300 million to WIC for temporary nutritional support for at-risk families during the funding standoff. The administration also moved to support farmer aid by reopening USDA offices despite the shutdown.

Judges have sided with the federal government amid agency pushback against the administration’s invoking its authority to deploy the funds. Two federal judges on Oct. 31 ruled that the USDA is required to tap emergency funds to disburse food stamps, dismissing the agency’s claims that it does not have enough resources. The orders noted SNAP is an entitlement program, which means the government is legally required to make payments to eligible households, regardless of whether the government is shut down.

Judges highlighted $6 billion in congressionally appropriated contingency reserves, such as $3 billion earmarked through fiscal 2026, that could be used to cover benefits, negating USDA memos that suggested the funds could not be used amid a government shutdown.

In a complaint filed on Oct. 28, numerous states alleged that the USDA’s reasons for suspending SNAP were misleading, arguing that “they offer no evidence that contingency funds are not available.”

The suit underscored irreparable harm incurred, arguing that states were paying added administrative costs due to the lapse in funding, and food banks were seeing a spike in demand. California, for instance, sent $80 million in state funds for pantries. Colorado sought $10 million and Minnesota earmarked $4 million in emergency aid, according to the filing. The states also argue that the payment lapse violates the Food and Nutrition Act.

“We anticipate the disruptions in SNAP may lead additional families to certify [for] WIC or families to run through their WIC benefits faster, so we will be keeping a really close eye on these resources because we know that WIC can’t fill the gap that SNAP plays for families,” said Nell Menefee-Libey, senior public policy manager at the NWA.

The administration has defended prioritizing WIC and child nutrition over full SNAP funding from tariff revenues, pointing to past shutdown strategies where SNAP continued without interruption.

Tyler Durden Tue, 11/04/2025 - 11:20

Trump Admin Redirects Tariff Revenue To Fund WIC As Shutdown Drags On

Authored by Kimberley Hayek via The Epoch Times,

As the federal government shutdown reaches its 35th day, the Trump administration has transferred $450 million from tariff windfalls to a nutrition program for women, infants, and children.

The funds, taken from a fund for agricultural commodity and disaster aid, were sent to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) on Oct. 31, according to White House Office of Management and Budget records.

The money will be used for approximately three weeks of benefits for nearly 7 million pregnant or breastfeeding women, or other Americans with young children who use WIC for food, counseling, and support, according to the National WIC Association.

This latest monetary injection comes on the heels of a comparable move in mid-October, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) tapped the same tariff-derived fund, which has in it more than $23 billion from customs duties as of early October, for $300 million to keep WIC afloat for two more weeks. State agencies are set to receive the funds in the coming days, the association added.

Meanwhile, benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps, ran out Nov. 1, the first time in the program’s 60 years, leaving nearly 42 million recipients without transfer payments as neither Congress nor the administration earmarked funds for them ahead of the shutdown, which started on Oct. 1.

The administration revealed Monday that it would use emergency funds in part to pay for November SNAP benefits. Certain states, however, may require weeks or months to fully distribute them.

USDA officials worried that funding SNAP could shortchange WIC and other programs specifically targeting low-income children.

“Creating a shortfall in Child Nutrition Program funds to fund one month of SNAP benefits is an unacceptable risk, even considering the procedural difficulties with delivering a partial November SNAP payment, because shifting $4 billion to America’s SNAP population merely shifts the problem to millions of America’s low income children that receive their meals at school,” Patrick Penn, deputy undersecretary for food, nutrition, and consumer services at the USDA, said in the filing.

In early October, the administration invoked Section 232 authority to send $300 million to WIC for temporary nutritional support for at-risk families during the funding standoff. The administration also moved to support farmer aid by reopening USDA offices despite the shutdown.

Judges have sided with the federal government amid agency pushback against the administration’s invoking its authority to deploy the funds. Two federal judges on Oct. 31 ruled that the USDA is required to tap emergency funds to disburse food stamps, dismissing the agency’s claims that it does not have enough resources. The orders noted SNAP is an entitlement program, which means the government is legally required to make payments to eligible households, regardless of whether the government is shut down.

Judges highlighted $6 billion in congressionally appropriated contingency reserves, such as $3 billion earmarked through fiscal 2026, that could be used to cover benefits, negating USDA memos that suggested the funds could not be used amid a government shutdown.

In a complaint filed on Oct. 28, numerous states alleged that the USDA’s reasons for suspending SNAP were misleading, arguing that “they offer no evidence that contingency funds are not available.”

The suit underscored irreparable harm incurred, arguing that states were paying added administrative costs due to the lapse in funding, and food banks were seeing a spike in demand. California, for instance, sent $80 million in state funds for pantries. Colorado sought $10 million and Minnesota earmarked $4 million in emergency aid, according to the filing. The states also argue that the payment lapse violates the Food and Nutrition Act.

“We anticipate the disruptions in SNAP may lead additional families to certify [for] WIC or families to run through their WIC benefits faster, so we will be keeping a really close eye on these resources because we know that WIC can’t fill the gap that SNAP plays for families,” said Nell Menefee-Libey, senior public policy manager at the NWA.

The administration has defended prioritizing WIC and child nutrition over full SNAP funding from tariff revenues, pointing to past shutdown strategies where SNAP continued without interruption.

Tyler Durden Tue, 11/04/2025 - 11:20

Voters Head To The Polls In The First Major Elections Of Trump's Second Term

It's election day - the first general election of Trump's second term. All eyes will of course be on New York City's mayoral race between Zohran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo - with Mamdani vowing to squeeze blood out of rich New Yorkers to fund communist unicorn fart promises, and Cuomo earning the support of President Trump, Elon Musk, and others simply because he's the lesser evil. 

As the Epoch Times notes, New York voters will be voting on a variety of local offices, though one among them—the mayoral election—has attracted outsized international attention. Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, since his upset victory in the Democratic Primary on June 24, has been leading the polls.

The latest major network poll by Fox News shows Mamdani with a 16 percentage point lead over Cuomo, who is running as an independent candidate. In that poll, Mamdani garners 47 percent of the vote compared to Cuomo’s 31 percent, while Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa has 15 percent.

The RealClearPolitics polling average favors Mamdani by 14.3 percentage points. Unlike its primary contest, New York City uses the first past-the-post system for general elections, meaning that, should Mamdani perform as polls suggest, he would win the election.

Virginia

Meanwhile, voters in Virginia will decide a gubernatorial race between Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears and Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger in a race favoring the Democrat.

Virginians will also elect an attorney general in a race between Republican Jason Miyares and Democrat Jay Jones - with Jones having wished death on Republicans in text messages, which several prominent Democrats defended. 

New Jersey

In New Jersey, voters will decide between Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill and Republican Jack Ciattarelli.

Ciattarelli was also the party’s nominee in the 2021 election and lost to incumbent Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, in a close contest.

Sherrill is ahead of Ciattarelli in the polls, but in recent weeks, the polling gap has significantly narrowed to the point where her lead is either close to or within the margin of error. The average of all major polls aggregated by RealClearPolitics shows Sherrill with a polling lead of 3.3 percentage points.

Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania voters will cast ballots for their state Supreme Court, where three Democrats facing recalls hope to retain their seats for 10 more years.

California

In California, voters will decide on Proposition 50, a measure which would 'temporarily' (lol) redraw the state’s congressional maps in response to changes made by Texas to its maps.

The referendum is backed by Democrats and seeks to temporarily bypass California’s independent redistricting committee and revise the state’s congressional district boundaries for elections to the U.S. House of Representatives, so as to win the party more seats in the next general elections to the House in 2026.

Due to the state’s heavy Democratic lean, the proposition appears likely to pass, with the “Yes” side garnering 56 percent in favor, according to a poll by the Public Policy Institute of California. It has a 13 percentage point lead over the “No” side of the vote.

Stay tuned for updates... and maybe grab a rare knife.

Tyler Durden Tue, 11/04/2025 - 11:05

The Lack Of All Econ Data Is Completely Irrelevant As Nobody Has Any Idea Where We Ultimately End Up

By Michael Every of Rabobank

Remember when it used to be about PMIs?

According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump officials torpedoed Nvidia’s push to export Blackwell AI chips to China, Secretary of State Rubio, USTR Greer, and Commerce Secretary Lutnick all opposing. On the other hand, the US will allow Microsoft to send Nvidia AI chips to the UAE for the first time as part of a vast ramp-up in data-centre and AI development there. It will find out if the UAE keeps hold of them or sells them on in time, as both the Philippines and the UAE apply to join the CPTPP, which China also wants in to.

The scale and speed of AI --and related energy-- rollouts is staggering. OpenAI just agreed a $38bn deal with Amazon, for example. However, Europe remains almost entirely absent from this process: is that part of a ‘strategic autonomy’? Tellingly, ‘The EU can’t figure out what to do about ChatGPT’, says Politico – and they don’t mean creating one, just regulating the existing version.

This surge in capex is inflationary, as data centers eat up resources and gorge on electricity. Indeed, as US Secretary of the Interior Burgum, speaking in the UAE, stated, “Trillions of dollars are going to end up in the places that have low electricity prices," the US has signed an $80bn nuclear reactor deal, Glencore plans to shut Canada’s largest copper metal operation over (electricity) costs, Australia’s Liberal-National political coalition, in place since 1923, may fracture over the Nats’ rejection of net zero or the Libs could follow, while China may have reached a “fission-based innovation poised to reshape clean, sustainable nuclear power” by ‘breeding’ uranium from thorium.

Yet AI is simultaneously deflationary if it means demand for workers --particularly younger ones already moving to the radical ends of the political spectrum-- collapses. The Financial Times just carried an op-ed arguing for universal basic capital, where every citizen is given a financial stake in AI firms to ensure social stability. (Though if nobody needs to work, how this differs from universal basic income is unclear: and is this a Speenhamland bare minimum or a Judge Dredd higher income which still drives people insane from a lack of useful work?)

The same deflation is true if AI is a bubble. That’s as the WSJ argues ‘The Microchip Era Is About to End’ because “The future is in wafers. Data centres will be the size of a box, not vast energy-hogging structures,” and asks, ‘Is OpenAI Becoming Too Big to Fail?’ because “Sam Altman’s ability to intertwine the startup throughout major tech players puts it at the nexus of a vital part of the US economy.”

Whatever happens next, whether the PMI was 0.1 or 0.2 higher or lower than the consensus guess doesn’t matter much. The good old days when a career in macro strategy could boil down to iterations of that coincident-commentary game is over: AI is already capable of doing it better.

Indeed, the irrelevance of most data is not only underlined by the fact that we don’t have key US releases at the moment --and it doesn’t make any difference to our understanding of where we ultimately end up--  but by developments in geopolitics and geoeconomics.

Trump said he doubts the US will go to war with Venezuela, but he thinks Maduro’s “days are numbered”. Why would that be the case if the US isn’t going to do anything? Meanwhile, the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado was on social media underlining how juicy the resources in her country are, and how they will only be properly utilised under what sounds like US leadership. Try factoring that in to your forecasts.

At the same time, there are reports that the US is preparing troops for a ground invasion in Mexico to go after drug cartels: one would assume that this is in coordination with the Mexican government, where a local politician was just murdered by drug gangs.

In geoeconomics, all serious views of the recent ‘US-China deal are this is just a metaphorical ceasefire to (literally) rearm, not any ‘peace’, and it is when not if we get further escalation.

Supporting that view from one side, the White House just struck a $1.4bn deal with rare-earth magnet startups Vulcan Elements and ReElement Technologies. From the other, besides China introducing new export controls on silver, antimony, and tungsten, Nexperia’s China plant has told local firms that it can meet chip orders despite suspended supply from European fabs previously in the same group. Europe is only going to get its own chip supplies again as part of the deal that the US struck last week: the EU’s own statecraft failed to achieve anything. On which front, two pictures of the Trump-Xi meeting in progress have appeared on social media. In one, Trump is holding up a card to Xi, which we can only see the back of; in the second Xi is laughing. As somebody said yesterday, Trump may have written on it: “The EU will use their trade bazooka.”

The EU also thinks it may have been left out of China’s easing of export controls on rare earths. The US press release said last week’s one-year deal was global, but China hasn’t told Europe this is the case yet. If it isn’t then it will be easy to predict what the manufacturing PMI numbers will look like --like they did during Covid-- and no monthly higher/lower or econometrics, just geoeconomics, could have told you that was a possible outcome.

The humiliation gets worse for Europe in that the US is accused of “threatening EU diplomats” during its bid to kill new green shipping rules, in which it succeeded; relatedly, Qatar has reiterated if the EU does not water down its sustainability laws it will cease delivering LNG to the bloc; and left-wing parties in the EU parliament are going to challenge the EU-Mercosur free trade deal.

In EU politics, as Czech billionaire Babiš inches closer to PM, the FT op-eds that ‘The far right can win in Europe but it struggles to govern’ --then again, who doesn’t?-- and  that, “The continent’s political future could be defined by a never-ending struggle between the centre and the radical right.” But what does that mean for the PMI, please?

In US politics, there are new signs that after today’s elections, more on which tomorrow, the government shutdown may finally end, with Congress eyeing a spending bill through January. Of course, that could have an impact on the ISM, but it isn’t economics or econometrics at work.

Tyler Durden Tue, 11/04/2025 - 10:25

1 Million New Yorkers Say They Will Flee New York City If Mamdani Wins Today's Mayoral Race

A new JL Partners poll for the Daily Mail suggests New York City could face a historic population loss if democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani becomes mayor. Nine percent of residents would “definitely” leave—about 765,000 people—while another 25 percent would “consider” going, raising fears of an economic crisis.

Opponents of Mamdani describe a future city as a “disaster,” “hell,” “chaos,” “destroyed,” and “s***hole.” His supporters instead predict it would be “affordable,” “improved,” “hopeful,” and “changed.”

The poll found seven percent of those earning over $250,000 would move away. Since the wealthiest one percent fund roughly half of NYC’s income tax revenue, even a fraction leaving could “crater” the city’s finances.

Pollster James Johnson said the “prospect of Mamdani is so scary to some that they are considering throwing in the Big Apple for new digs.” He noted older New Yorkers, Staten Islanders, and white residents are the most likely to leave.

The Daily Mail writes that some real estate buyers are already backing out. Realtor Jay Batra said, “They don't want to hear about Mamdani and the rent freeze he is proposing.”

Cities like Boca Raton are preparing to attract fleeing residents and businesses. Mayor Scott Singer warned New York is “about to repeat some of the lessons from history that many voters have forgotten or never knew.”

The survey shows Mamdani leading the November 4 race with 45 percent among decided voters. By contrast, only 59 percent of New Yorkers say they would definitely stay if he wins.

Expectations for the city under Mamdani skew negative: forty-seven percent foresee more crime and violence, forty-three percent expect fewer businesses, thirty-nine percent think the terrorism risk will worsen, and forty-five percent predict antisemitism will increase. Housing affordability is his one strong point, with thirty-nine percent believing it will improve.

Mamdani proposes free childcare, rent freezes, public grocery stores, fare-free buses, and higher taxes on top earners and corporations. Critics argue this will prompt a business exodus similar to California’s losses. Former governor Andrew Cuomo says the agenda would “exacerbate the problem… flight from New York City by high-income earners.”

As Singer put it: “People are already preparing to leave before a Mamdani election. There’s less and less reason to stay there.”

Tyler Durden Tue, 11/04/2025 - 10:05