Key Ocean Current Faltering, Raising Risk Of "Ice Age"-Like Cooling

And just like that we're free from climate hysteria and worried about a new "ice age"...Funny how that works, isn't it? 

A new study in Communications Earth & Environment warns that a key Atlantic current could near collapse within decades, potentially triggering an “ice age” scenario and major sea-level rise, according to the NY Post.

The research, from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Oceanology and UC San Diego, focuses on the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), the “conveyor belt of the ocean” that includes the Gulf Stream and helps keep Europe, the U.K., and the U.S. East Coast relatively mild.

The Post writes that the study argues that warming temperatures are melting the Greenland ice sheet, sending freshwater into the North Atlantic and slowing the AMOC. Researchers say they’ve detected a related “distinctive temperature fingerprint” several thousand feet below the surface.

“Here we identify a distinctive temperature fingerprint in the equatorial Atlantic that signals the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation change,” they wrote, adding that its “robust physical mechanism and reliable detection make [this fingerprint] a valuable metric for AMOC monitoring in a warming climate.”

Using the MITgcm climate model and ocean data back to 1960, the team concludes the AMOC has been weakening since the late 20th century and could collapse before 2100. If that happened, Europe could face drastic cooling — possibly nearly 60 degrees — and drier conditions. As Jonathan Bamber told the Daily Mail, “Winters would be more typical of Arctic Canada and precipitation would decrease, also.”

Reuters notes the AMOC last collapsed before the Ice Age ended roughly 12,000 years ago.

Tyler Durden Fri, 11/14/2025 - 05:45

UAE-Based DP World Takes Control Of Syria's Tartus Port In $800M Deal

Via Middle East Eye

Syria has formally handed over operations of Tartus port, the second largest port in the country, to the UAE-based logistics company DP World. 

DP World officially commenced operations on Wednesday, months after signing a 30-year concession agreement worth $800m with Syria’s General Authority for Land and Sea Ports. The deal has been described as one of the largest global investments in Syria’s logistics sector in years, and aims to turn the port into an efficient trading hub. 

Tartus port, via Maxar Technologies/AFP

"We are committed to applying DP World’s global expertise to build a modern and digitally enabled port that will grow trade, create opportunities and firmly position Tartus as a key trade hub in the Eastern Mediterranean," said Fahad al-Banna, the newly appointed chief executive of DP World Tartus. 

DP World said in a statement that it would upgrade the port’s infrastructure, expand its handling and storage capacity and invest in bulk handling systems. 

In June, Syria’s government annulled a 2019 agreement between Bashar al-Assad’s administration and the Russian company Stroytransgaz to manage Tartus. 

Damascus said the deal was terminated due to the Russian company breaching its contract, including by failing to invest a promised $500m in modernizing that port’s infrastructure. 

The government, led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa, also said in a statement at the time that the previous deal was "unfair to Syrian sovereignty", with Syria receiving 35 percent of port revenues while Stroytransgaz got 65 percent. 

Since the fall of the Assad dynasty’s decades-long rule in December, the new administration has been aiming to re-establish economic ties with western and regional powers. 

Along with Tartus, a 30-year deal was also signed with French shipping company CMA CGM to operate Latakia port, the largest port city in the country.  

In June, US President Donald Trump issued an executive order lifting sanctions on Syria, to support the country’s reconstruction following over a decade of war. The European Union and the UK also eased sanctions. Earlier this week, Sharaa became the first Syrian president to visit the White House since the country’s independence in 1946. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 11/14/2025 - 05:00

EU Development Bank Boosts Funding For Ukraine Gas Supply

Submitted by Michael Kern of OilPrice.com,

The European Union’s development bank has decided to provide additional funds to Ukraine’s state energy firm Naftogaz to secure natural gas supply amid continued Russian attacks on the Ukrainian energy infrastructure. 

The European Investment Bank (EIB), the bank of the European Union, will extend a $147-million (127 million euros) grant to Naftogaz, according to an EIB statement carried by Reuters. 

Last month, the EIB extended a loan of $348 million (300 million euros) to Naftogaz in an urgent measure to strengthen energy resilience and replenish Ukraine’s long-term gas reserves ahead of winter. 

The loan “will secure energy supply for households and businesses, following damage to Ukrainian infrastructure caused by Russia’s ongoing attacks,” the EIB said in October. 

Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure intensified as temperatures began to drop in the autumn. Ukraine has discussed with G7 countries additional natural gas imports as it seeks to boost imports by 30% to offset the damage from Russian strikes on its gas infrastructure. 

Naftogaz said in early October that Russia launched another massive attack on Ukraine’s gas infrastructure. The targets were civilian facilities that supply Ukrainians with gas during the heating season.  

“As a result of this attack, a significant portion of our facilities has been damaged. Some of the destruction is critical,” Naftogaz CEO Sergii Koretskyi said.

In the past week, Naftogaz signed an agreement with Polish energy firm Orlen for the supply of U.S. LNG, and agreed with Greek company ATLANTIC-SEE to jointly work to ensure U.S. LNG supply to Europe and Ukraine through Greek LNG terminals and the Vertical Corridor. 

Separately, Ukraine’s imports of electricity from the European Union surged to a 2025 high in October as Russia intensified attacks on the power grid to wreak additional havoc as temperatures drop. 

The Russia-Ukraine war on strategic energy assets has escalated in recent weeks, with Russia targeting gas facilities and power infrastructure in Ukraine, and Ukraine increasing drone strikes on Russian refineries and key export hubs.  

Tyler Durden Fri, 11/14/2025 - 03:30

German Chancellor Tells Zelensky Young Men Should Return & Defend Their Homeland

At a moment the Zelensky government is suffering embarrassment and under a global spotlight for a wide-ranging corruption case related to the country's struggling state energy sector, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has issued some unusually strong words directed at Ukrainian leadership.

In televised remarks Thursday he revealed that he personally urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to get serious about curbing the flow of young Ukrainian men to Germany as they need to serve in the defense of their own homeland. Merz disclosed some of the contents of his latest call.

"In a lengthy telephone conversation today, I asked the Ukrainian president to ensure that young men in particular from Ukraine do not come to Germany in large numbers - in increasing numbers - but that they serve their country," Merz said "They are needed there."

German Chancellor Merz:

In a call today, I asked the Ukrainian President to ensure that young Ukrainian men do not return to Germany in growing numbers, but serve in their own country where they are needed. pic.twitter.com/4fz8bLic8J

— Clash Report (@clashreport) November 13, 2025

Within Merz's conservative ranks there's been growing alarm over the large numbers of fighting-age men fleeing Ukraine and into Western Europe.

Zelensky policies have enabled this, as his administration relaxed exit rules related to martial law, just months ago for the first time of the war letting Ukrainian men aged 18 to 22 leave the country. Ukrainian citizens can't even be drafted until they are 25, under current law.

American officials have also criticized Ukraine's policy, given in most militaries in the world, eighteen makes one eligible to be recruited.

Further, according to Politico, "Members of Merz’s ruling coalition fear that the growing presence of young Ukrainian men in Germany will be turned into a political flash point by members of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, who criticize the government’s ongoing support for Kyiv."

Last month The Telegraph reported "Almost 100,000 fighting-age Ukrainian men have left the country in the past two months after Volodymyr Zelensky eased departure rules, new figures show." 

Those figures were primarily based on the Polish border guard, as the neighboring EU country shares a long border with Ukraine, and has been from the start of the war absorbing refugees and trying to maintain strict counts and records. And surely many of these young men made it to Germany and other Western European countries.

While men aged 25 to 60 can be conscripted into the military and sent to the front lines, men 24 and under still cannot. Again, this has been hugely controversial as even US members of Congress have complained that Washington is sinking billions into the war effort against Russia, and Kiev won't even tap into its most eligible fighting-age demographic. And so the expected drain of young men from the country is happening after border restrictions were loosened by Kiev last summer.

Tyler Durden Fri, 11/14/2025 - 02:45

The Next Phase Of Germany's Nord Stream Investigation Might Further Worsen Ties With Poland

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

Italy’s potential extradition of a Ukrainian suspect to Germany could lead to a highly publicized (and predictably politicized) trial that implicates Poland in this unprecedented attack on a fellow NATO ally.

The Wall Street Journal recently published a detailed piece about “The Nord Stream Investigation That’s Splintering Europe Over Ukraine”.

The gist is that Germany’s investigation into the Ukrainian trace, which is likely a preplanned red herring as argued here in early 2023, has already worsened ties with Poland after one of its judges refused to extradite a Ukrainian suspect.

It could soon worsen ties with Ukraine too if Italy soon extradites another one and a highly publicized (and predictably politicized) trial follows.

Germany’s Nord Stream investigation has placed it in a dilemma since it needs to pin the blame on someone for one of the largest sabotage/terrorist attacks in decades, yet it doesn’t dare look into the American trace that Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh drew attention to in early 2023. Accusing it of orchestrating this attack would risk punitive tariffs from Trump and could convince him to authorize the gradual transfer of some EUCOM infrastructure from Germany to neighboring rival Poland.

On that topic, the Ukrainian trace also conveniently implicates Poland, thus inflicting damage to its reputation.

The idea that this NATO ally played even just a passive role facilitating a third country’s attack against a “fellow” member, let alone might be trying to cover the aforesaid up after declining to extradite one of the suspects, could have real-world consequences.

Germany might rally other allies against supporting Poland in a hypothetical crisis with Russia, for example, and could even blame Poland for it.

Not only that, but Poland’s proposal for Germany to subsidize its arms industry as a form of World War II reparations could be opposed on the pretext that the long-term damage that Poland helped Ukraine inflict to Germany equals whatever Germany might have subsidized, therefore negating the request. Worsened bilateral relations could then give a boost to the conservative opposition, which dislikes Germany almost as much as it dislikes Russia, ahead of fall 2027’s next parliamentary elections.

Replacing the ruling liberal-globalist coalition, which could be achieved by allying with the populist-nationalist opposition upon complying with their demand that senior party leaders resign, would strengthen the challenge that Poland poses to German influence in the region. That’s because the Right would control the presidency and parliament, thus breaking the deadlock that’s been in place since the current coalition obtained power in December 2023 and enabling more effective policy implementation.

This outcome could still occur even without a highly publicized German trial implicating Poland in the Nord Stream attack, but it’ll make it much more likely if that happens. In such a scenario, already fractious EU and NATO unity might further weaken, with this possibly hamstringing cooperation against Russia through the “military Schengen” and other emerging multilateral frameworks. A security dilemma could also develop between them amidst their mutual adversarial perceptions and arms buildups.

Observers should remember that this is possible solely due to Germany refusing to investigate the American trace in the Nord Stream attack, instead opting to look into the Ukrainian one that also involves Poland. The public demands that someone be blamed for the spike in costs brought about by Germany being cut off from cheap and reliable Russian gas. The elite therefore decided to pin the blame on them, but it’s unclear whether they thought through the consequences touched upon in this analysis.

Tyler Durden Fri, 11/14/2025 - 02:00

Escobar: China's Relentless Innovation Drive Is Reaching Fever Pitch

Authored by Pepe Escobar,

China’s innovation drive is reaching fever pitch in 2025.

Let’s cut to the chase and focus on four crucial domains.

1.The Huawei Factor

Huawei is already testing its first, self-developed EUV lithography machine capable of producing 3nm chips. Trial tests are going full blast at the research center in Dongguan, and mass production should start in 2026.

It’s impossible to overstate how much of a game-changing paradigm this Chinese breatkthrough – specifically in laser-induced discharge plasma (LDP) - is all about. It’s set to turn the seminconductor technology environment totally upside down.

The physics involved in Huawei’s LDP is fundamentally different from the method employed by the Dutch ASML’s de facto monopoly. This being China, it’s simpler, smaller and cheaper.

Huawei’s technology is bound to smash that monopoly while solidifying China’s chip independence. Talk about cost efficiency: Huawei aims to produce EUV machines at a fraction of the cost of ASML’s (around $350 million for each unit), and no less than flood China with homegrown 3 nm chips.

All that is happening after the proverbial Western "experts", following the 2019 sanctions imposed by Trump 1.0, dictated that China would take up to 15 years to just catch up. After all, EUV technology is too deeply embedded in the Western-controlled supply chain. It was assumed that China would never be able to smash the monopoly.

Well, of course any monopoly is smashable when public-private partnerships – in academia and tech – release untold billions of dollars into R&D, rally the best minds, and focus on building an EUV eco-system from scratch.

This is not only about tech; it’s a geoeconomic and geopolitical earthquake. There was a serious debate going on across China that it would be a matter between 2 and 3 years to cut off any dependence on US/Western tech. Well, Huawei and SMIC will be moving closer to mass production of these 3 nm chips already by next year. Not hard to do the math on where the future of global chipmaking lies.

Invest In R&D And Reach Patent Heaven

Now cut to Fan Zhiyong, Huawei’s Vice-President and Minister of Intellectual Property, talking at the company’s 6th Innovation and Intellectual Property Forum this past Tuesday.

He explained how "from the brand-new HarmonyOS 6 operating system to the powerful Atlas 950 supernode, our R&D team has achieved remarkable successes. Although many leading software and hardware products are massive systems engineering projects, we are making every effort to make them open to everyone."

Huawei conducts an innovation and intellectual property forum nearly every year, discussing the importance of open/protected intellectual property as well as promoting its Top Ten Inventions: this year they featured, among others, supernodes; the Harmony OS; foldable screens; short-range optical interconnects; and next-generation solid state drives.

There’s no secret: a lot of investment in R&D is behind all these breakthroughs. Over the past five years, Huawei has invested more than 20% of its annual sales revenue in R&D. According to the EU Industrial R&D Scoreboard 2024, Huawei is Number 6 globally in R&D expenditure.

Huawei does not see these accomplishments as leading to a "closed garden". On the contrary: the strategy is to foment an "open industry", including the launch of a series of new open source software and hardware.

This opennes is reflected by the fact that Huawei is one of the world's largest patent holders. By the end of 2024, Huawei held over 150,000 valid authorized patents globally, ranging from over 50,000 Chinese patents to over 29,000 patents in the U.S. and 19,000 in Europe.

And that brings us to…

2. Total Tech Sufficiency

And of course that is centered on AI. Cut to three recent key tech moves:

A. Beijing has banned foreign AI chips in every state-funded data center across the nation. Exempted will be only a few private companies which build their own data centers.

B. Local and regional governments were encouraged and are already subsidizing the electricity bills of AI data centers. China has a key infrastructure advantage over the US: cheap and extremely abundant power – as I saw it in my recent travels in Xinjiang. That is essential to offset the cost of switching to domestic chips, a more energy-intensive operation. For example, Huawei’s AI server system – CloudMatrix 384 – consumes more energy than Nvidia’s NVL72 system.

C. Beijing is also rolling out a new, ambitious "AI Plus Manufacturing" plan, included in the broader AI Plus initiative.

Point A is ultra-pertinent because Trump 2.0 is debating whether to allow Nvidia to sell a downgraded version of its Blackwell chips to China. Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang is lobbying for it like there’s no tomorrow, desperate of losing the Chinese market to Huawei for good. He bombastically announced that China is only "nanosenconds" behind the US on semiconductors.

Point C is also ultra-pertinent because as we saw with the Hauwei factor, Beijing is going for no holds barred AI chip self-sufficiency.

Beijing is deploying a very clever strategy. No foreign chips in data centers means a de facto protected market to domestic chip innovators which match foreign chip performances. Talk about a massive incentive.

Li Lecheng, Minister of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), has announced that MIIT will soon issue an "AI Plus Manufacturing" plan, focusing on rolling out AI upgrades in key industries; expanding intelligent assisted design, virtual simulation, and early defect detection; promoting brand new AI-enabled mobile phones and computers; and accelerating R&D for next-generation intel devices such as humanoid robots and brain-computer interfaces.

In a nutshell: that is how Beijing wants to implement AI in every nook and cranny of the Chinese economy. It’s a no holds barred total innovation strategy. Sanctions? What sanctions?

3. Clean Energy

This revolution is already on – with China leaping ahead of the whole collective West, installing, for instance, nearly 900 gigawatt of solar capacity, more than the US-EU combo.

Last year, China generated 1826 terawatt/hour of electricity out of solar and wind power – five times the energy equivalent of all its nuclear warheads.

Yes: that’s a certified energy superpower.

4. An Early-Warning Detection Big Data Platform

The Nanjing Research Institute of Electronics Technology - China’s number one defense-electronics center and a hub of key innovation even under US sanctions – is developing a ground-breaking "distributed early-warning detection big data platform" capable of tracking up to 1,000 missile launches worldwide in real time.

The platform fuses data from an enormous array of space-, air-, sea-, and ground-based sensors, using advanced algorithms to distinguish warheads from decoys and proceed to action across secure networks.

The system integrates literally anything: fragmented, heterogeneous data streams from multiple sources – radars, satellites, optical, electronic reconnaissance systems – no matter where they come from, and when.

Cue to the system’s integration with interceptor missiles. During the Victory Day military parade last September in Beijing, China presented a new generation of air defense and anti-ballistic missiles, including the HQ-29, capable of intercepting hostile missiles beyond the atmosphere. Call it the Chinese Dragon Dome.

These are only 4 vectors amid the concerted Chinese tech drive, one of the key themes of the next Five-Year Plan to be approved next March in the "Two Sessions" in Beijing.

Now cut to Ronnie Chan, the Chair Emeritus of the Asia Society and the chairman of its Hong Kong Centre. He’s one of those affable old-school Hong Kong elite members who’s seen it all – and capable of synthesizing what’s ahead in a sharp and sweet manner. What he said recently at a seminar organized by the Shanghai Development Research Foundation could not be more relevant.

Let’s take just three key takeaways:

1. "The Chinese people are resilient and patient. As long as domestic stability is maintained, external pressure only strengthens their endurance (…) in this China–U.S. rivalry, there will be no true winner, but the side that stands longer in the end will be China."

2. "China’s economy has not been over-financialised, and it continues to be grounded in the real economy. Only when manufacturing is strong can a nation remain stable and resilient."

3. "China must stay calm — neither blindly optimistic nor blindly pessimistic. China possess a vast market, a complete industrial chain, and a diligent population. As long as internal stability holds, external pressures cannot defeat it. The real opportunities ahead do not lie in real estate or finance, but in the service sector and innovation-driven real economies."

There is no Chinese "miracle": it’s all about planning and hard work. And now to the next stage: no holds barred innovation.

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/13/2025 - 23:25

These Are The Car Brands And US Cities With The Most Drunk Drivers, New Study Shows

Drunk driving remains one of the leading causes of traffic deaths in the United States, claiming an average of 34 lives every day — a total of 13,429 in 2023, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Nearly one-third of all road fatalities are alcohol-related. But as new data from The Suzuki Law Firm shows, the problem is far from evenly distributed. Certain states, cities, and even car brands are far more likely to be associated with drunk driving incidents than others, revealing stark regional and behavioral trends.

Among the 50 largest U.S. cities, Omaha, Nebraska, has the highest rate of drunk driving citations, with 4.48 per 1,000 drivers — more than double the 50-city average of 1.9. San Jose and Sacramento, California, follow closely at 3.68 and 3.55 per 1,000 drivers, respectively, according to Suzuki Law Offices.

Several other California cities, including Fresno, Long Beach, Bakersfield, and Oakland, also rank near the top, reflecting the state’s combination of car dependence, warm weather, and limited public transit options. Meanwhile, Chicago, Tulsa, and Philadelphia have among the lowest DUI citation rates, each with fewer than one per 1,000 drivers.

When fatal crashes are considered, Texas emerges as the country’s deadliest drunk driving hotspot. El Paso leads the nation, with 60.8 percent of fatal accidents involving an impaired driver, followed by Fort Worth, Houston, Dallas, and Arlington — giving Texas five of the top ten cities for drunk-driving-related deaths. The study attributes this to the state’s extensive road networks, strong drinking culture, and comparatively uneven enforcement of alcohol-related laws. Conversely, cities like Milwaukee, Miami, and Tampa report the lowest percentages of fatal crashes involving drunk drivers.

The Suzuki Law Office article notes that car brand data paints an equally striking picture. Luxury automakers dominate the list of vehicles most frequently cited for DUIs, with BMW drivers leading at 3.09 drunk driving citations per 1,000 drivers, followed by RAM (3.00), Acura (2.69), Audi (2.42), and Volvo (2.42).

At the opposite end, Mercury (0.86), Land Rover (1.16), and Lincoln (1.16) drivers have the lowest DUI rates. The Suzuki Law Firm’s analysis references a University of California, Berkeley study that supports this trend, noting that “fancy cars were less likely to stop, and BMW drivers were the worst,” linking luxury ownership to more aggressive or careless driving behaviors.

Tesla drivers stand out in another way — not for DUIs specifically, but for the highest overall number of driving incidents nationwide. In 2024, Teslas were involved in 36.9 incidents per 1,000 drivers, up from 31.1 in 2023. RAM and Subaru followed closely behind. When examined state by state, RAM drivers were the worst in 16 states, especially New Jersey, where they recorded 74.2 incidents per 1,000 drivers.

Regionally, Nebraska, California, and Texas remain the most prominent DUI hotspots, each for different reasons. Nebraska’s high rate likely reflects both heavy drinking and stricter enforcement. California’s mix of sociable, outdoor culture and limited transit access contributes to its problem, while Texas’s vast highways, strong car culture, and lenient policies exacerbate risk.

The full study is here.

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/13/2025 - 23:00

Food Stamps & The Federal War On Self-Reliance

Authored by James Bovard via The Mises Institute,

During the recent government shutdown, the temporary interruption of benefits to 42 million food stamp recipients was hyped as practically the greatest human rights violation of our time. A Nation magazine headline howled: “The United States Is Letting Its People Starve.” But the delayed payments had scant impact in part because many states offered supplemental benefits, many recipients had leftover benefits on their Electronic Benefit Cards (EBTs), and because vast numbers of food pantries and other private charities provided relief.

Democrats accused Trump of “weaponizing hunger.” But the real problem is that politicians going back more than half a century have weaponized dependency to destroy limits on government power.

Most Americans support giving government assistance to people who are unable to feed themselves. But politicians profited by multiplying the number of people who relied on Washington for their next meal.

In 1969, President Richard Nixon was sharply expanding US bombing of southeast Asia. Nixon sought to bolster his humanitarian image by vastly increasing federal food handouts. He held a White House Summit and received glowing press coverage for proclaiming, “The moment is at hand to put an end to hunger in America itself for all time.” That year, 3 million Americans received food stamps, a burgeoning federal program that cost $228 million. Last year, the program cost $100 billion.

Why did food stamps become so expensive?

Government surveys in the 1960s showed that most of the poor did not need federal aid to have an adequate diet. But it was politically profitable to pretend that low-income Americans were helpless by definition. To further that goal, Washington launched a war on self-reliance.

Even though food stamp enrollment quadrupled between 1968 and 1971, Congress mandated an outreach program for states to recruit more recipients. A USDA magazine reported in 1972 that food stamp workers could often overcome people’s pride by saying, “‘This is for your children’. . .the problem is not with welfare recipients but with low-income workers: It is this group which recoils when anything even remotely resembling welfare is suggested.” The magazine triumphally announced: “With careful explanations. . .coupled with intensive outreach efforts, resistance from the ‘too prouds’ is bending. More and more are coming to the conclusion that taking needed assistance does not mean sacrificing dignity.”

In 1974, the Food Research and Action Center—a federally-funded activist group—successfully sued USDA to require the agency to further increase its food stamp outreach efforts. The USDA suggested sending food stamp workers to unemployment offices to distribute leaflets, and in Pennsylvania food stamp aides went to supermarkets to hustle shoppers. By 1976, twelve states had conducted door-to-door recruiting campaigns, and seventeen had conducted telephone campaigns. Door-to-door food stamp advertising became a favorite project for Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) workers.

In Wisconsin, 2,000 copies of the Food Stamp Nursery Rhyme Coloring Book were distributed. In Kentucky, a traveling puppet show told folks how and why to sign up for benefits. A typical 1975 USDA brochure announced, “You are in good company. Millions of Americans use food stamps.” A leaflet distributed in Maryland and paid for by the federal government showed a gaunt face on the cover with the question, “Did you know some people would rather STARVE than seek HELP. . .” On the inside, the brochure said,

PRIDE NEVER FILLS EMPTY STOMACHS . . . Are you one of thousands of Maryland residents who. . .have too much pride to consider applying for help? Then you need to know more about the Food Stamp program.
Food Stamps should NOT be confused with CHARITY! In fact, food stamps are designed to help you help yourself.

The Community Services Administration funded scores of local and national food stamp advocacy organizations to increase enrollment in food programs. The federal Office of Economic Opportunity called in 1971 for community action agencies to “prick the public conscience” over the need for more food handouts, declaring, “food stamps are not used as often as they ought to be, particularly by the intermediate income families among the poor.”

During the Clinton administration, AmeriCorps played a leading role in food stamp recruiting. The Mississippi Action for Community Education (MACE) was one of the most prominent food stamp recruiters—at least on paper. Its 1999 grant application promised that its AmeriCorps members would “conduct door-to-door canvassing to identify potential food stamp recipients” and would also provide “assistance in completing necessary applications for food stamps.” The goal of the program was to enroll “75% of surveyed rural Mississippi residents who are eligible for food stamps, but are not receiving them.”

I dropped in on MACE headquarters in Greenville, Mississippi to ask a few questions for a Readers Digest article I was writing. MACE’s Fanny Woods was evasive about their AmeriCorps program and her answers contradicted MACE’s statements in its reports to AmeriCorps headquarters. I mentioned those evasions to the AmeriCorps Inspector General. They launched an investigation that was joined by the FBI and resulted in MACE’s executive director being sent to federal prison. Rather than doing food stamp recruiting, MACE simply had ghost employees on its AmeriCorps payroll.

Ironically, that was a better result for taxpayers than if the food stamp recruiting actually occurred.

At the end of the Clinton era, 17 million Americans received food stamps—a sharp decline from the 28 million recipients in 1994. A 1996 welfare reform act was decisive in curbing dependency. However, President George W. Bush took office in 2001 and sought to vigorously expand food stamp enrollment as part of his “compassionate conservatism” sideshow to his war on terrorism atrocities.

In 2008, food stamps were renamed the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program1SNAP—to sound more wholesome and attractive. But the program remained a junk food entitlement and food stamp recipients were twice as likely to be obese as eligible low-income people not receiving food stamps.

Food stamp recruiting went into overdrive with the Obama administration. USDA bankrolled state government propaganda campaigns. A North Carolina social services agency won a USDA “Hunger Champions Award” for its ad campaign attacking “mountain pride” as a reason for not accepting government handouts. In Alabama, people received fliers proclaiming: “Be a patriot. Bring your food stamp money home.” A USDA brochure advised its field offices to, “Throw a Great Party.... Putting SNAP information in a game format like BINGO, crossword puzzles. . .is fun and helps get your message across in a memorable way.” USDA promoted a 10-part Spanish-language radio “novella” to encourage immigrants to go on the dole. The Obama administration also made food stamps more inviting by banishing the requirement for able-bodied recipients to seek to get a job.

The Biden administration ramped up both welfare recruiting and benefits, helping maximize the number of dependents. In 2022, President Biden proclaimed a goal “to end hunger in this country by the year 2030.” Biden did not explain why a hundred-fold increase in federal food aid spending since Nixon’s 1969 proclamation had failed to end hunger.

Political demagogues have long invoked the number of food stamp recipients as proof of the failure of the market economy and the injustice of capitalism or neoliberalism or whatever they are calling the system that week. As long as more than 40 million people depend on food stamps, politicians can exploit push-button hysteria to claim that any interruption in their spending or power will result in vast suffering and (hint, hint) starvation, especially of children and minorities and women.

The Trump administration is taking some steps to curb food stamp abuses, reviving the work requirement, cracking down on fraud, and approving state-level reforms that end junk food purchases. Simply returning to the program standards of the late 1990s would radically decrease enrollment. As Mises Institute’s Ryan McMaken recently noted, “Nearly half of households headed by illegal-immigrants receive food stamps”—a benefit that was banned in the 1996 welfare reform bill.

Unfortunately, since the Reagan era, any high-profile proposal to curb food stamp spending is accepted as sufficient proof of mass hunger and imminent catastrophe. Reducing the number of dependents is a vital first step to curbing Leviathan. But how many politicians will have the savvy or the courage to resist the Hunger Hysteria Industrial Complex?

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/13/2025 - 21:45

Confronting Anti-Ellis Island Immigration

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

Between 1892 and 1954, approximately 12 million immigrants arrived at the now-iconic Ellis Island to enter the U.S.—or nearly 200,000 legal entries per year.

All were registered, documented, and given rudimentary health exams.

They arrived as rich and poor, white and non-white, and, without exception, legally.

With the gradual decline of such great influxes, Ellis Island finally ceased operating roughly 71 years ago.

Yet Ellis Island’s successful tenure offers a sharp contrast to the failures of our recent open-border catastrophes.

Americans will never know how many immigrants swarmed the southern border between 2021 and 2025, when Joe Biden and his impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas destroyed federal immigration law as we once knew it.

By design, they allowed between 10 and 12 million foreign nationals to make a mockery of federal immigration laws by swarming the southern border.

Many crossers grew violent at any sign of even meek efforts by ICE officers to enforce the law. Border Patrol officers were often mocked, threatened, and assaulted by arriving illegal aliens.

Officers were unsure as to what was worse: the occasional violence from illegal immigrants or retaliation from the Biden administration if they sought to enforce federal law and block illegal entrants.

So the Biden administration pulled off the near impossible. In a mere four years, it had invited in almost as many illegal immigrants as had entered through Ellis Island legally over seven decades.

But unlike past immigrants, we now witness organized violence against ICE officials. We see Orwellian scenes of mobs burning the American flag—the flag of the country they demand to stay in—while waving the flags of the countries they have no desire or intention of returning to.

In sum, three generations ago, a smaller, poorer, but wiser America properly solved its immigration problem at Ellis Island—welcoming in immigrants orderly and legally with health and background screenings.

In contrast, during the Biden years, we, in our arrogance and affluence, engaged in a great experiment—or rather misadventure. Never in our history has the U.S. been home to roughly 53 million foreign-born residents.

Never have immigrants comprised nearly 16 percent of the population.

Never has California had 27 percent of its residents not born in the U.S.

Never have we allowed in up to 10,000 aliens a day, with little concern for whether they carried fentanyl, had criminal records, were sick, were unvaccinated, were traffickers, or belonged to violent gangs.

Worse still, the Biden administration made zero effort to acculturate, integrate, and assimilate this massive influx. In fact, they did the very opposite of Ellis Island’s protocols, which fostered pro-American values, melting-pot integration, and respect for American history and culture. Once upon a time, new arrivals were all expected to become Americans—or why else had they come?

Now, the moment an illegal alien has entered the U.S., he likely senses that his ethnicity or race will be essential to his identity. In the minds of the ruling DEI commissariat, claiming a tribal identity offers an easy pathway to generous housing, food, healthcare, legal, and educational entitlements.

So, under Biden’s immigration non-policy, almost all illegal immigrants were immediately categorized as victims in the Marxist binary ledger that now divides America into the oppressed vs. the oppressors.

If one devised a plan to damage America, he could not have done better than further dividing us by tribal chauvinism, overwhelming our fragile social services so essential to struggling Americans, and fueling the already dangerous neo-Confederate state and local nullifications of federal law and the growth of “sanctuary cities.”

Daily, we witness performance-art mayors and governors boasting of how they “resist” federal law enforcement. These modern rebels pose as if they are our own era’s versions of mini-Confederate states. They now brag of states’ rights as they dare the federal government to protect its own property and enforce federal laws within their parochial jurisdictions.

Why did Biden—or whoever was making policy in his place—destroy the border?

What was his utterly mad intent?

To alter the nation’s demography by importing future Democrat constituents dependent on state largesse?

To bow to the demands of his DEI base?

To mindlessly do the opposite of the prior Trump administration, which had closed the border and returned to legal-only immigration?

Virtue signaling while waving illegal aliens across an open border is easy.

But trying to close the border and return millions who entered unlawfully to their homelands is nearly impossible.

It is surreal that those who claimed moral superiority while systemically destroying federal law now condemn as immoral those striving to restore it.

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/13/2025 - 20:05

Confronting Anti-Ellis Island Immigration

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

Between 1892 and 1954, approximately 12 million immigrants arrived at the now-iconic Ellis Island to enter the U.S.—or nearly 200,000 legal entries per year.

All were registered, documented, and given rudimentary health exams.

They arrived as rich and poor, white and non-white, and, without exception, legally.

With the gradual decline of such great influxes, Ellis Island finally ceased operating roughly 71 years ago.

Yet Ellis Island’s successful tenure offers a sharp contrast to the failures of our recent open-border catastrophes.

Americans will never know how many immigrants swarmed the southern border between 2021 and 2025, when Joe Biden and his impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas destroyed federal immigration law as we once knew it.

By design, they allowed between 10 and 12 million foreign nationals to make a mockery of federal immigration laws by swarming the southern border.

Many crossers grew violent at any sign of even meek efforts by ICE officers to enforce the law. Border Patrol officers were often mocked, threatened, and assaulted by arriving illegal aliens.

Officers were unsure as to what was worse: the occasional violence from illegal immigrants or retaliation from the Biden administration if they sought to enforce federal law and block illegal entrants.

So the Biden administration pulled off the near impossible. In a mere four years, it had invited in almost as many illegal immigrants as had entered through Ellis Island legally over seven decades.

But unlike past immigrants, we now witness organized violence against ICE officials. We see Orwellian scenes of mobs burning the American flag—the flag of the country they demand to stay in—while waving the flags of the countries they have no desire or intention of returning to.

In sum, three generations ago, a smaller, poorer, but wiser America properly solved its immigration problem at Ellis Island—welcoming in immigrants orderly and legally with health and background screenings.

In contrast, during the Biden years, we, in our arrogance and affluence, engaged in a great experiment—or rather misadventure. Never in our history has the U.S. been home to roughly 53 million foreign-born residents.

Never have immigrants comprised nearly 16 percent of the population.

Never has California had 27 percent of its residents not born in the U.S.

Never have we allowed in up to 10,000 aliens a day, with little concern for whether they carried fentanyl, had criminal records, were sick, were unvaccinated, were traffickers, or belonged to violent gangs.

Worse still, the Biden administration made zero effort to acculturate, integrate, and assimilate this massive influx. In fact, they did the very opposite of Ellis Island’s protocols, which fostered pro-American values, melting-pot integration, and respect for American history and culture. Once upon a time, new arrivals were all expected to become Americans—or why else had they come?

Now, the moment an illegal alien has entered the U.S., he likely senses that his ethnicity or race will be essential to his identity. In the minds of the ruling DEI commissariat, claiming a tribal identity offers an easy pathway to generous housing, food, healthcare, legal, and educational entitlements.

So, under Biden’s immigration non-policy, almost all illegal immigrants were immediately categorized as victims in the Marxist binary ledger that now divides America into the oppressed vs. the oppressors.

If one devised a plan to damage America, he could not have done better than further dividing us by tribal chauvinism, overwhelming our fragile social services so essential to struggling Americans, and fueling the already dangerous neo-Confederate state and local nullifications of federal law and the growth of “sanctuary cities.”

Daily, we witness performance-art mayors and governors boasting of how they “resist” federal law enforcement. These modern rebels pose as if they are our own era’s versions of mini-Confederate states. They now brag of states’ rights as they dare the federal government to protect its own property and enforce federal laws within their parochial jurisdictions.

Why did Biden—or whoever was making policy in his place—destroy the border?

What was his utterly mad intent?

To alter the nation’s demography by importing future Democrat constituents dependent on state largesse?

To bow to the demands of his DEI base?

To mindlessly do the opposite of the prior Trump administration, which had closed the border and returned to legal-only immigration?

Virtue signaling while waving illegal aliens across an open border is easy.

But trying to close the border and return millions who entered unlawfully to their homelands is nearly impossible.

It is surreal that those who claimed moral superiority while systemically destroying federal law now condemn as immoral those striving to restore it.

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/13/2025 - 20:05

Underwater Mortgages Rise To 3-Year High Amid Cooling US Housing Market

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A new report from the Intercontinental Exchange shows that nearly 875,000 homeowners now owe more on their mortgages than their properties are worth—the highest level in three years—as softening home prices and elevated borrowing costs squeeze household finances.

Townhouse for sale in Elkridge, Md., on Sept. 27, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

The surge in negative equity represents 1.6 percent of all mortgage holders and highlights a worsening affordability landscape that officials in the Trump administration say is weighing on the broader economy.

While the jump is notable, the Intercontinental Exchange said in the Nov. 10 report, the overall share of underwater loans remains comparable to long-term averages prior to the pandemic housing boom, with the exception of the Great Recession. Still, the company warned that certain markets are seeing concentrated pockets of borrower vulnerability as prices continue to retreat from their post-COVID peaks.

“While overall negative equity rates remain low, certain markets are showing signs of concern, particularly in the Gulf Coast of Florida and Austin, Texas,” the report noted.

In Cape Coral, Florida, for example, where home prices are down 15 percent from their peak, 11 percent of mortgages are underwater, including more than one-third of those that originated between 2023 and 2024, when rates were highest.

The rise in negative equity is concentrated among recent, lower-down-payment borrowers, particularly those with Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and Veterans Affairs (VA) loans issued in 2023 and 2024.

In some VA cohorts, more than 20 percent of borrowers are now underwater, the Intercontinental Exchange said—a reflection of both local price declines and the fact that these newer borrowers never benefited from the pandemic-era equity cushions that protected earlier buyers.

Another 6.9 percent of mortgage holders have less than 10 percent equity remaining, the highest share since mid-2020. While the Intercontinental Exchange noted that the figure remains below long-term averages, low-equity borrowers are typically more vulnerable to credit stress if home prices continue to fall.

At the same time, the report struck a more positive tone on the outlook for refinancing and equity access as borrowing costs begin to ease.

The Intercontinental Exchange said falling mortgage rates have “significantly expanded” the number of homeowners who could lower their monthly payments, while also reducing the cost of tapping home equity.

“The recent easing in mortgage rates has begun to open the refinance window for many borrowers, particularly those who originated loans in the past two years,” Andy Walden, head of Mortgage and Housing Market Research at the Intercontinental Exchange, said in a statement.

The Intercontinental Exchange’s data show the number of highly qualified refinance candidates—those with strong credit, at least 20 percent equity, and potential savings of 75 basis points or more—rose to 1.7 million in late October, the largest since early 2022.

Including broader borrower profiles, approximately 4.1 million mortgage holders are currently “in the money” to refinance, a figure that could approach 5 million if rates drift slightly lower.

Housing in ‘Recession,’ Treasury Secretary Warns

The equity deterioration comes amid growing concern inside the Trump administration that high mortgage rates are dragging the housing sector into a downturn.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a recent interview on CNN that parts of the economy “are in recession,” in particular housing, and that high borrowing costs are hitting low-income Americans the hardest.

“We have seen the biggest hindrance for housing here that are mortgage rates,” Bessent said. “So, if the Fed brings down mortgage rates, then they can end this housing recession.”

Bessent echoed warnings from Federal Reserve board member Stephen Miran, who told The New York Times in an earlier interview that keeping monetary policy “this tight for a long period of time” risks inducing a recession. Miran said he sees no reason for the central bank to delay further rate cuts with inflation cooling.

Borrowers Under Strain as Credit Stress Mounts

Beyond housing, other consumer-credit segments are flashing warning signs. Subprime auto-loan delinquencies hit 6.65 percent in October—the highest level on record since the early 1990s—according to Fitch Ratings. Two major auto-finance firms serving low-income borrowers filed for bankruptcy this fall.

Foreclosure activity is also creeping higher. More than 101,000 properties received filings in the third quarter, up 17 percent from a year earlier, according to ATTOM.

Mortgage delinquencies—while still low by historical standards—have also begun to rise from last year’s trough, according to data from VantageScore and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Reuters and Naveen Athrapully contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/13/2025 - 19:15

Pentagon Briefs Trump On 'Military Options' Against Venezuela For 'Coming Days'

Probably this wasn't the first time, but there is widespread reporting on Thursday that military options have been formally presented to President Trump by top Pentagon officials for operations against Venezuela, including including strikes on land. Reports say these options are for the "coming days".

Meetings at the White House are being held now that the USS Gerald Ford carrier strike group arrived in Caribbean waters days ago. The largest-ever 'peacetime' American military build-up off Venezuela is currently underway, with some 15,000 US troops total in the region.

Getty Images

"Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine and other senior officials briefed the president on military options for the coming days, the sources said," CBS reports. But it also stresses, "No final decision has been made, however, two of the sources told CBS News."

The development comes amid fresh reports of yet another alleged drug boat strike in the Caribbean Sea, bringing the total number of vessels destroyed to at least 22, which has killed some 80 or more suspected drug smugglers.

According to more via CBS:

The U.S. intelligence community assisted in providing information for potential operations, the sources said. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard did not attend White House discussions because she was returning from an overseas trip. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in Canada at a G7 summit of foreign ministers.

Previously, the Washington-based Center for Strategic & International Studies laid out why an entire carrier group in Caribbean waters represents a "use it or lose it" scenario which is ultra-costly, also in terms of removing it from other parts of the world:

Moving such a major element of U.S. combat power is highly significant because of the strategic trade-off it represents. The Navy has only 11 aircraft carriers. In general, only three are at sea at any one time because of the need for maintenance and training. All the regional commanders want them. U.S. Indo-Pacific Command always wants one—as a supplement to the carrier permanently stationed in Japan to counter the Chinese navy and conduct exercises with regional allies and partners.

Central Command wants one for the Indian Ocean for use against Iran and the Houthis or in the Eastern Mediterranean to provide air defense for Israel. European Command wants one for operations around Europe to deter Russia. By contrast, the Caribbean has been a low-visibility region for decades, with carriers rarely visiting.

Of course, all of this represents something likely much more than just a renewed 'war on drugs' - after Trump already said that potential land strikes against cartels in Venezuela are on the table.

María Corina Machado, the far-right US-backed Venezuelan coup leader who won the Nobel Peace Prize, promised a “massive privatization” if Trump can put her in power.

She vowed to sell off $1.7 TRILLION of Venezuela's oil, gas, gold, infrastructure, etc. to US corporations. pic.twitter.com/jH4AkFbzzk

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) November 13, 2025

At various times over the last months, Trump officials have strongly hinted at pursuing regime change against socialist strongman Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela - which is also consistent with the stance of Trump's first term.

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/13/2025 - 18:25

Pentagon Briefs Trump On 'Military Options' Against Venezuela For 'Coming Days'

Probably this wasn't the first time, but there is widespread reporting on Thursday that military options have been formally presented to President Trump by top Pentagon officials for operations against Venezuela, including including strikes on land. Reports say these options are for the "coming days".

Meetings at the White House are being held now that the USS Gerald Ford carrier strike group arrived in Caribbean waters days ago. The largest-ever 'peacetime' American military build-up off Venezuela is currently underway, with some 15,000 US troops total in the region.

Getty Images

"Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine and other senior officials briefed the president on military options for the coming days, the sources said," CBS reports. But it also stresses, "No final decision has been made, however, two of the sources told CBS News."

The development comes amid fresh reports of yet another alleged drug boat strike in the Caribbean Sea, bringing the total number of vessels destroyed to at least 22, which has killed some 80 or more suspected drug smugglers.

According to more via CBS:

The U.S. intelligence community assisted in providing information for potential operations, the sources said. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard did not attend White House discussions because she was returning from an overseas trip. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in Canada at a G7 summit of foreign ministers.

Previously, the Washington-based Center for Strategic & International Studies laid out why an entire carrier group in Caribbean waters represents a "use it or lose it" scenario which is ultra-costly, also in terms of removing it from other parts of the world:

Moving such a major element of U.S. combat power is highly significant because of the strategic trade-off it represents. The Navy has only 11 aircraft carriers. In general, only three are at sea at any one time because of the need for maintenance and training. All the regional commanders want them. U.S. Indo-Pacific Command always wants one—as a supplement to the carrier permanently stationed in Japan to counter the Chinese navy and conduct exercises with regional allies and partners.

Central Command wants one for the Indian Ocean for use against Iran and the Houthis or in the Eastern Mediterranean to provide air defense for Israel. European Command wants one for operations around Europe to deter Russia. By contrast, the Caribbean has been a low-visibility region for decades, with carriers rarely visiting.

Of course, all of this represents something likely much more than just a renewed 'war on drugs' - after Trump already said that potential land strikes against cartels in Venezuela are on the table.

María Corina Machado, the far-right US-backed Venezuelan coup leader who won the Nobel Peace Prize, promised a “massive privatization” if Trump can put her in power.

She vowed to sell off $1.7 TRILLION of Venezuela's oil, gas, gold, infrastructure, etc. to US corporations. pic.twitter.com/jH4AkFbzzk

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) November 13, 2025

At various times over the last months, Trump officials have strongly hinted at pursuing regime change against socialist strongman Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela - which is also consistent with the stance of Trump's first term.

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/13/2025 - 18:25

How China Grabbed Nvidia Racks Through Secret Jakarta Loophole

While President Trump reiterated earlier this month that he doesn't want China getting its hands on Nvidia's most advanced AI chips, a Chinese AI company has found a convenient loophole: Indonesia. 

An investigation by the Wall Street Journal reveals that around 2,300 of said chips have been procured by said Chinese AI company - and has traced how "a chain of deals across several countries got the chips inside the data center, which is wedged between a private school and an upscale apartment complex. A company that arranged the transaction is a subsidiary of a Chinese business on an American trade blacklist."

And the kicker: none of it appears to have violated US law.

China has notably been barred from buying advanced US semiconductors since 2022 over national-security concerns. And while Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang insists that Nvidia's market share in China has 'fallen to zero' from 95% due to the US export restrictions - which is clearly not the case. 

Some bring the chips physically into China using middlemen. Another increasingly popular workaround, which has been employed in Australia and Malaysia, is renting computing power abroad and bringing data out of China and back—sometimes by packing suitcases with hard drives, the Journal has previously reported.

In the Indonesia case, the Journal was able to trace the chips from start to finish, including the specific entities involved. American technology is being made available to a Chinese company through these four steps. -WSJ

Here's how it works: 

1. Nvidia sells chips to a U.S. partner partly owned by a Chinese firm

   Nvidia supplies advanced AI chips to Aivres, a Silicon Valley server builder whose parent company is one-third owned by Inspur—a Chinese tech firm placed on a U.S. national-security blacklist in 2023. While Nvidia is barred from dealing with Inspur or its blacklisted subsidiaries, the restrictions don’t extend to U.S.-based entities like Aivres, allowing the business relationship to continue.

2. Aivres finds an overseas buyer for high-end Nvidia servers

   In mid-2024, Aivres negotiated a $100 million deal to sell 32 Nvidia GB200 server racks - containing roughly 2,300 Blackwell-generation chips - to Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison’s cloud-computing division in Indonesia. Indosat is jointly owned by Qatar’s Ooredoo and Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison.

3. The Indonesian buyer lines up a Chinese AI startup as the end user

   Indosat agreed to purchase the servers only after securing a major client facilitated by Aivres: Shanghai-based AI startup INF Tech. Negotiations also included representatives from Fudan University, where INF’s founder, Qi Yuan, directs an AI institute.

4. The Chinese startup intends to use the chips for finance and medical AI

   By October, the servers had arrived in Indonesia and were being set up. INF plans to use the computing power to train AI models for financial analytics and scientific research, including drug-discovery applications.

According to attorneys familiar with export-control rules, as long as the Chinese company isn't directly using the chips to help China with military intelligence or weapons of mass destruction, the arrangement doesn't violate any laws set by the Trump administration. 

Interestingly, the Journal reports that in the waning days of the Biden Autopen administration, a rule was created that would have tightened controls over the sale of advanced US chips to countries such as Indonesia that aren't in a small group of US allies - yet, the Trump administration later said it wouldn't enforce the rule, which would have given the US a chance to scrutinize the customer's intentions, along with the exporter - particularly if they were on a national-security trade blacklist known as the "entity list." 

One way or another, China gets their racks. (h/t Capital.news)

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/13/2025 - 18:00

How China Grabbed Nvidia Racks Through Secret Jakarta Loophole

While President Trump reiterated earlier this month that he doesn't want China getting its hands on Nvidia's most advanced AI chips, a Chinese AI company has found a convenient loophole: Indonesia. 

An investigation by the Wall Street Journal reveals that around 2,300 of said chips have been procured by said Chinese AI company - and has traced how "a chain of deals across several countries got the chips inside the data center, which is wedged between a private school and an upscale apartment complex. A company that arranged the transaction is a subsidiary of a Chinese business on an American trade blacklist."

And the kicker: none of it appears to have violated US law.

China has notably been barred from buying advanced US semiconductors since 2022 over national-security concerns. And while Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang insists that Nvidia's market share in China has 'fallen to zero' from 95% due to the US export restrictions - which is clearly not the case. 

Some bring the chips physically into China using middlemen. Another increasingly popular workaround, which has been employed in Australia and Malaysia, is renting computing power abroad and bringing data out of China and back—sometimes by packing suitcases with hard drives, the Journal has previously reported.

In the Indonesia case, the Journal was able to trace the chips from start to finish, including the specific entities involved. American technology is being made available to a Chinese company through these four steps. -WSJ

Here's how it works: 

1. Nvidia sells chips to a U.S. partner partly owned by a Chinese firm

   Nvidia supplies advanced AI chips to Aivres, a Silicon Valley server builder whose parent company is one-third owned by Inspur—a Chinese tech firm placed on a U.S. national-security blacklist in 2023. While Nvidia is barred from dealing with Inspur or its blacklisted subsidiaries, the restrictions don’t extend to U.S.-based entities like Aivres, allowing the business relationship to continue.

2. Aivres finds an overseas buyer for high-end Nvidia servers

   In mid-2024, Aivres negotiated a $100 million deal to sell 32 Nvidia GB200 server racks - containing roughly 2,300 Blackwell-generation chips - to Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison’s cloud-computing division in Indonesia. Indosat is jointly owned by Qatar’s Ooredoo and Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison.

3. The Indonesian buyer lines up a Chinese AI startup as the end user

   Indosat agreed to purchase the servers only after securing a major client facilitated by Aivres: Shanghai-based AI startup INF Tech. Negotiations also included representatives from Fudan University, where INF’s founder, Qi Yuan, directs an AI institute.

4. The Chinese startup intends to use the chips for finance and medical AI

   By October, the servers had arrived in Indonesia and were being set up. INF plans to use the computing power to train AI models for financial analytics and scientific research, including drug-discovery applications.

According to attorneys familiar with export-control rules, as long as the Chinese company isn't directly using the chips to help China with military intelligence or weapons of mass destruction, the arrangement doesn't violate any laws set by the Trump administration. 

Interestingly, the Journal reports that in the waning days of the Biden Autopen administration, a rule was created that would have tightened controls over the sale of advanced US chips to countries such as Indonesia that aren't in a small group of US allies - yet, the Trump administration later said it wouldn't enforce the rule, which would have given the US a chance to scrutinize the customer's intentions, along with the exporter - particularly if they were on a national-security trade blacklist known as the "entity list." 

One way or another, China gets their racks. (h/t Capital.news)

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/13/2025 - 18:00

Last US Penny Minted Shows Why Savers Need Bitcoin

Authored by Vince Quill via CoinTelegraph.com,

The last penny, nominally valued at $0.01, was minted by the United States Mint in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, marking the end of 232 years of new pennies being coined and circulated.

US President Donald Trump directed the US Treasury to stop producing pennies in February, and the Treasury initially set a 2026 target for the last mint. However, the Treasury exhausted the templates used to manufacture the coins between June and September, according to Axios.

A penny costs about 3.7 times its face value to manufacture, meaning that each $0.01 coin actually costs over $0.03.

While it is no longer economically feasible to mint more US pennies, the coin will remain as legal tender, with the more than 250 billion physical pennies continuing to circulate.

“Inflation made the penny useless. Meanwhile, it's making the sat more relevant every year,” Alexander Leishman, CEO of Bitcoin financial services company River, said, referring to the subunit of one Bitcoin.

Bitcoin as a solution to the erosion of fiat money’s value

Bitcoin was created as an alternative monetary system that has a supply cap of 21 million coins, meaning that as demand for BTC increases, so should the price per coin.

Technological development is a deflationary force that makes the production process more efficient and reduces the price of goods and services over time, according to author, economist and BTC advocate Saifedean Ammous.

Fiat currencies, in contrast, fail to capture this price deflation because their supply is constantly increasing, resulting in reduced purchasing power over time, which is reflected in the higher prices of goods, assets and services.

In other words, the price of goods and services is not increasing; the value of fiat currencies is declining relative to goods, services and hard assets, according to Ammous.

If those same goods, services, and assets were denominated in BTC or some other hard money standard, prices would go down over time, the economist argues.

Median home prices measured in BTC showcase how a supply-capped hard money benefits the holder through depreciating prices of goods, services and assets. Source: Priced In Bitcoin

The US dollar has lost over 92% of its value since the creation of the Federal Reserve Banking System in 1913, according to precious metals dealer The Gold Bureau.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin hit all-time highs above $126,000 in October, as the US dollar was on track for its worst year since 1973, according to market analysts at The Kobeissi Letter.

“The USD has lost about 40% of its purchasing power since 2000,” The Kobeissi Letter said in October, adding that it lost over 10% of its value year-to-date as of October.

Source: Anthony Pompliano

However, economist Paul Krugman, who has long been critical of cryptocurrencies and BTC, said the dollar’s power rests in how easy it is to use, compared to BTC, which is difficult for the average person to hold and transact with.

“The whole point about the dollar is it’s really easy to use, and Bitcoin is not easy to use,” Krugman told podcast host Hasan Minhaj.

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/13/2025 - 17:40

Last US Penny Minted Shows Why Savers Need Bitcoin

Authored by Vince Quill via CoinTelegraph.com,

The last penny, nominally valued at $0.01, was minted by the United States Mint in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, marking the end of 232 years of new pennies being coined and circulated.

US President Donald Trump directed the US Treasury to stop producing pennies in February, and the Treasury initially set a 2026 target for the last mint. However, the Treasury exhausted the templates used to manufacture the coins between June and September, according to Axios.

A penny costs about 3.7 times its face value to manufacture, meaning that each $0.01 coin actually costs over $0.03.

While it is no longer economically feasible to mint more US pennies, the coin will remain as legal tender, with the more than 250 billion physical pennies continuing to circulate.

“Inflation made the penny useless. Meanwhile, it's making the sat more relevant every year,” Alexander Leishman, CEO of Bitcoin financial services company River, said, referring to the subunit of one Bitcoin.

Bitcoin as a solution to the erosion of fiat money’s value

Bitcoin was created as an alternative monetary system that has a supply cap of 21 million coins, meaning that as demand for BTC increases, so should the price per coin.

Technological development is a deflationary force that makes the production process more efficient and reduces the price of goods and services over time, according to author, economist and BTC advocate Saifedean Ammous.

Fiat currencies, in contrast, fail to capture this price deflation because their supply is constantly increasing, resulting in reduced purchasing power over time, which is reflected in the higher prices of goods, assets and services.

In other words, the price of goods and services is not increasing; the value of fiat currencies is declining relative to goods, services and hard assets, according to Ammous.

If those same goods, services, and assets were denominated in BTC or some other hard money standard, prices would go down over time, the economist argues.

Median home prices measured in BTC showcase how a supply-capped hard money benefits the holder through depreciating prices of goods, services and assets. Source: Priced In Bitcoin

The US dollar has lost over 92% of its value since the creation of the Federal Reserve Banking System in 1913, according to precious metals dealer The Gold Bureau.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin hit all-time highs above $126,000 in October, as the US dollar was on track for its worst year since 1973, according to market analysts at The Kobeissi Letter.

“The USD has lost about 40% of its purchasing power since 2000,” The Kobeissi Letter said in October, adding that it lost over 10% of its value year-to-date as of October.

Source: Anthony Pompliano

However, economist Paul Krugman, who has long been critical of cryptocurrencies and BTC, said the dollar’s power rests in how easy it is to use, compared to BTC, which is difficult for the average person to hold and transact with.

“The whole point about the dollar is it’s really easy to use, and Bitcoin is not easy to use,” Krugman told podcast host Hasan Minhaj.

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/13/2025 - 17:40

Swalwell Bares Fangs After Pulte Refers To DOJ For Criminal Mortgage Fraud

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) is super pissed after Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director Bill Pulte referred him to the DOJ for criminal prosecution over alleged mortgage fraud.

Eric Swalwell and alleged Chinese spy, Christine Fang

On Thursday, Swalwell lashed out, saying in a statement "As the most vocal critic of Donald Trump over the last decade and as the only person who still has a surviving lawsuit against him, the only thing I am surprised about is that it took him this long to come after me," adding "Like James Comey and John Bolton, Adam Schiff and Lisa Cook, Letitia James and the dozens more to come — I refuse to live in fear in what was once the freest country in the world."

The accusations against Swalwell are connected to a DC property, according to CBS News. 

Hilariously, Democrats and their media lapdogs are SHOCKED that Trump, who they went after hammer and tong for a decade, would investigate their actual (alleged!) crimes and go after them. 

Pulte, has leveled similar accusations against several other officials, including Democrats New York Attorney General Letitia James and California Sen. Adam Schiff, and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. 

James was indicted on one count of bank fraud and one count of making false statements to a financial institution last month and pleaded not guilty. President Trump moved to fire Cook in August after Pulte accused her of making misrepresentations on mortgage documents. But Cook filed a lawsuit arguing her removal was unlawful, and the Supreme Court will hear arguments in January on whether Mr. Trump can fire her from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. -CBS News

In September, Swalwell said that he "fully" expects to be prosecuted by the Trump administration - while also confronting FBI Director Kash Patel during a congressional appearance that same month, noting that Patel had referred to him as a "government gangster." 

"You identified 60 individuals in that book. You put me on that list at the top of the list," Swalwell said, adding "Thank you. My children find it flattering... Twenty of those individuals have been investigated or have had adverse actions." As part of his statement, Swalwell told President Trump to "do better. Be better." 

And then he got tricked into banging another Chinese spy (kidding!).

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/13/2025 - 17:20

Swalwell Bares Fangs After Pulte Refers To DOJ For Criminal Mortgage Fraud

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) is super pissed after Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director Bill Pulte referred him to the DOJ for criminal prosecution over alleged mortgage fraud.

Eric Swalwell and alleged Chinese spy, Christine Fang

On Thursday, Swalwell lashed out, saying in a statement "As the most vocal critic of Donald Trump over the last decade and as the only person who still has a surviving lawsuit against him, the only thing I am surprised about is that it took him this long to come after me," adding "Like James Comey and John Bolton, Adam Schiff and Lisa Cook, Letitia James and the dozens more to come — I refuse to live in fear in what was once the freest country in the world."

The accusations against Swalwell are connected to a DC property, according to CBS News. 

Hilariously, Democrats and their media lapdogs are SHOCKED that Trump, who they went after hammer and tong for a decade, would investigate their actual (alleged!) crimes and go after them. 

Pulte, has leveled similar accusations against several other officials, including Democrats New York Attorney General Letitia James and California Sen. Adam Schiff, and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. 

James was indicted on one count of bank fraud and one count of making false statements to a financial institution last month and pleaded not guilty. President Trump moved to fire Cook in August after Pulte accused her of making misrepresentations on mortgage documents. But Cook filed a lawsuit arguing her removal was unlawful, and the Supreme Court will hear arguments in January on whether Mr. Trump can fire her from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. -CBS News

In September, Swalwell said that he "fully" expects to be prosecuted by the Trump administration - while also confronting FBI Director Kash Patel during a congressional appearance that same month, noting that Patel had referred to him as a "government gangster." 

"You identified 60 individuals in that book. You put me on that list at the top of the list," Swalwell said, adding "Thank you. My children find it flattering... Twenty of those individuals have been investigated or have had adverse actions." As part of his statement, Swalwell told President Trump to "do better. Be better." 

And then he got tricked into banging another Chinese spy (kidding!).

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/13/2025 - 17:20

Kim Kardashian's Brand Skims Now Valued At $5 Billion After Goldman-Led Funding Round

Kim Kardashian's brand Skims has closed a major new funding round, raising $225 million at a $5 billion valuation, per Lauren Hirsch. The Goldman Sachs Alternatives–led round, with BDT & MSD Partners participating, underscores how far the brand has grown beyond its shapewear origins, according to DealBook.

Founded in 2019 by Kim Kardashian and Jens Grede, Skims is profitable and expects to top $1 billion in net sales this year. Its last round in 2023 valued it at $4 billion.

The company plans to use the new capital to expand its retail footprint. Skims has 18 stores across U.S. cities like New York, Los Angeles, Austin, Atlanta and Boca Raton, and aims to grow internationally, especially in emerging markets. Kardashian said the raise “validates the hard work of our incredible team and partners … becoming a global omnichannel retail brand.”

Photograph for story context purposes only

DealBook writes that the brand is also pushing into new categories, including the high-profile NikeSkims collaboration announced in February, with apparel now and footwear and accessories planned. Skims remains the official underwear partner of the W.N.B.A., N.B.A. and USA Basketball.

Skims is building out beauty, having repurchased the 20 percent stake previously sold to Coty and hiring Ami Colé founder Diarrha N’Diaye to lead the effort. A recent hint came via the $48 Seamless Sculpt Face Wrap that uses its “signature sculpting fabric.”

New investors include Goldman Sachs Alternatives and BDT & MSD Partners, joining Wellington Management, Greenoaks, D1 Capital, Imaginary Ventures and Thrive Capital. Goldman’s Beat Cabiallavetta said Skims excels at “pioneering new categories and redefining everyday wear.”

As for an I.P.O., speculation continues, but Grede recently downplayed near-term plans, saying, “We might make that position in the future, but that’s not what I’m thinking about.”

This one too Tyler Durden Thu, 11/13/2025 - 16:40