Zero Hedge

Let's Shut Down The IRS

Let's Shut Down The IRS

Authored by J.B.Shurck via AmericanThinker.com,

What if the federal government shut down and nobody cared?  

I know what you’re thinking: How can we possibly survive without millions of government bureaucrats micromanaging our lives?  Is life even worth living if some self-important cubicle king isn’t putting me on hold before demanding that I resubmit the revised Form K-12.6.2 of the updated rules and regulations regarding how I may and may not use my private property on odd-numbered days within calendar months that include Hindu holidays?  

As a descendant of those who crossed the American wilderness and settled the frontier, I like to think that my ancestors weren’t risking their lives for the sake of bureaucracy.  If anything, they were most likely running from bureaucracy.  They left Europe to escape monarchs who restricted how they could pray and what they could own.  They explored the American frontier to build lives beholden to none.  I’ve never found a diary entry in the family records that moaned, “If only the federal government would establish an Internal Revenue Service to take half of everything we have so that it can pay the salaries of an army of Environmental Protection Agency know-nothings willing to instruct us on how we can legally use our land.”  

When you think about it, the people who built this country did so to get away from the very thing that Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries insist we must fund: Big Government.  You don’t venture out into no man’s land to build a whole new world from scratch unless the old world’s rules and regulations are so oppressive that risking death each day is preferable to living under the yoke of government.  

The Democrats shut down the federal government because they want American taxpayers to continue paying for “free” health care for illegal aliens.  They have bet that Americans will cry “uncle” and agree to subsidize Democrats’ destructive open border policies in exchange for bringing the rest of the bureaucracy back online.  This kind of extortion makes no sense to me.  It’s like a robber telling me that if I don’t give him what’s in my wallet today, he’s going to rob me tomorrow.  Oh, well, good luck.  See you tomorrow, I guess.

In my mind, we have been headed for ruin ever since the Sixteenth Amendment legalized a federal income tax in 1913.  An income tax is a cancer on society that discourages hard work and self-sufficiency and gives authorities a free hand to steal from some Americans and buy the votes of others.  It was birthed as all Big Government monstrosities are birthed: with false promises that its powers would never be abused.  In 1913, less than 1% of the population paid income taxes, and the rate was 1%.  A century later, the most productive members of society hand over a third or more of their earnings to federal bureaucrats who routinely get caught using government-issued credit cards to go boozing in strip clubs.  

Once state income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, regulatory burdens, and dozens of other government fees are added to the tab, hardworking Americans are lucky to keep half of what they earn.  That might seem like a bargain if you live in socialist France, but to the descendants of Americans who chucked the British redcoats back across the pond over a relatively low tax imposed without their permission, the effective tax rate for working Americans today is obscene.  If General George Washington were still around, he would already be marching on the city that cloaks its ignominy under the public’s respect for his name.

Have you ever read the Internal Revenue Code?  It’s roughly ten thousand pages long!  

When you include regulations and official tax guidance, it’s over seventy-five thousand pages long!  

An average reader would require four months to page through all the different ways the federal government legalizes its theft of what you thought you owned.  

Within a labyrinth of chapters, subchapters, parts, sections, revisions, and the steady growth of additional regulations and guidances that sprout like weeds, the federal government makes it almost impossible for a layperson to understand his legal obligations to the Internal Revenue Service.  

That leaves most people three choices:

(1) pay whatever the government demands,

(2) pay a professional to figure out what is owed, or

(3) say a quiet prayer to avoid an audit.  

It’s a system designed to keep the public confused.  Backed by threats of fines and imprisonment, it empowers the federal bureaucracy to snoop into every American’s private affairs.  “No taxation without representation” used to mean that a person has no obligation to pay a tax if he’s denied a representative voice in government.  Now it means that most people have no idea how much they “owe” the government without at least a lawyer and an accountant representing their interests.

As long as the federal government is shut down, let’s disband the IRS.  It is nothing more than a bureaucratic weapon that allows government agents to spy on Americans’ private transactions while keeping them in a permanent state of legal jeopardy.  Democrats want to use this shutdown to coerce taxpayers to fund an even bigger government.  It makes much more sense to take advantage of the government’s “time out” by slashing the bureaucracy and returning a little freedom to the people.

Tyler Durden Fri, 10/24/2025 - 17:00

"Suitcases Filled With Dollars": Venezuela Reportedly Propped Up America's Radical Left To Sow Chaos

"Suitcases Filled With Dollars": Venezuela Reportedly Propped Up America's Radical Left To Sow Chaos

U.S. military developments in the Caribbean Sea, off the coast of Venezuela, are ramping up this week. Two additional narco-terror drug boats were destroyed with guided missiles, and there was news overnight that two Rockwell B-1 Lancer supersonic bombers entered Venezuela's ADIZ before switching off their transponders in what appears to have been a simulated strike mission - a posturing maneuver that President Trump denies. 

Venezuela's socialist regime is coming under intense pressure from the Trump administration for using cartel networks it controls to smuggle drugs into the U.S., contributing to the worst drug death crisis in American history, with more than 100,000 deaths per year. Some have described the drug death crisis as a "reverse Opium War." Last week, President Trump authorized covert CIA operations inside the country, an escalation that only suggests command and control structures of drug cartels will be targeted. He noted, "No to CIA-orchestrated coups d'état."

While the mainstream narrative is that these military efforts are aimed at dismantling cartel-linked drug trafficking networks, there may be another objective for the Trump administration, one that would certainly interest Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

As Washington Examiner reporter Mike Gonzalez reveals, Venezuela has been exporting left-wing political influence operations, some of which may be linked to dark-money-funded NGO networks. If accurate, the report suggests that stopping the radical left from destabilizing the U.S. and attempting to collapse capitalism to install a socialist or Marxist system may require scrutinizing foreign-linked networks. And perhaps that's why Venezuela is front and center with the Trump administration. 

But Caracas's transgressions extend to other areas. It has also long backed efforts to sow political division on U.S. streets. First, it supported Black Lives Matter and its founders. Now, it's antifa.

. . . 

Indeed, you can tell a lot about which domestic anti-U.S. groups are rising by the support they get from our enemies overseas, especially Venezuela, but also Iran, Cuba, and China. That Venezuela is diversifying into "anti-fascism" is yet another sign of how diminished BLM has become.

. . .

Venezuela played more than a supportive role in this attempt. Last week, I spoke with a former senior Venezuelan official who was very close to the dead dictator Hugo Chavez and who has now defected. He told me he was in the room in late 2012 when Chavez gave Opal Tometi — who the following year helped to found BLM — suitcases stuffed with dollars.

"Chavez ordered his people to hand the suitcases to them, suitcases filled with dollars, at least $20 million," the defector told me, adding that Tometi was accompanied by three other African American women and the actor Danny Glover, a huge supporter of the Marxist regimes in Venezuela and Cuba. "Chavez told them that the money was to project the Bolivarian revolutionary project on U.S. streets," he said, using Chavez's term for Venezuelan Marxism.

. . . 

All this networking, at Chavez's behest, happened years before BLM was founded in 2013 and helped create momentum for it. Garza pretty much revealed that the USSF was created at the request of America's enemies overseas at a speech she gave in Oakland in 2010.

So the mayhem we had on our streets, and all the stress it brought, was carried out by people who networked and carried out street organizing to help Marxist dictators in Caracas, at the very least, and may have received outright financial backing from them. Revolutionary Venezuela continued its relationship after BLM's founding by, for example, inviting representatives to gatherings of the Foro de Sao Paulo, the Hemispheric Marxist network Venezuela promoted.

. . .

Then, on January 9 to 11 this year, to coincide with Maduro's inauguration after actually losing elections last year, Caracas hosted an International Anti-Fascist Festival, which organizers said had over 2,000 attendees from 125 countries.

At the most recent one, last January, the Party for Socialism and Liberation was an attendee from the U.S. The U.K. Revolutionary Communist Group, another antifa group, also sent Sam McGill to four of the Venezuelan anti-fascist events.

And Code Pink, another antifa adjacent group, which has to boot connections to the Chinese Communist Party, has also sent members to visit Caracas and Havana.

What this all suggests, if the Washington Examiner report is correct, is that some of the nonprofits that helped sow chaos on America's streets in what can only be described as a color-revolution-style operation to undermine President Trump and conspired against the U.S. may have been influenced by foreign adversaries. These left-wing groups may also have direct links to broader NGO networks in the U.S. connected to the Democratic Party and their donor class of radical leftist billionaires.

The question, if this reporting is accurate, is whether the proper way, as the White House stated last month, to "dismantle" the radical left is through enforcement actions across the nonprofit world. This all aligns with Trump's recent claim that the Soros network "should be charged under RICO for supporting violent protests."

Civil terrorism expert Jason Curtis Anderson of One City Rising adds more color... 

If the Trump Administration wants to target South American influence operations, they should look no further than the People's Forum in NYC. While the People's Forum catches a lot of flak for its Shanghai-based benefactor, Neville Roy Singham, one could easily argue that they also help Venezuela and Cuba's agendas as well. 

In July of 2024, Manolo De Los Santos and fellow Singham operatives traveled to Caracas to do "election observing" and PR for Maduro. The Singham network also hosted Bruno Rodríguez, Foreign Minister of Cuba, and Yván Gil Pinto, Foreign Minister of Venezuela, at an event last year in Harlem. 

Match these with the constant pro-Venezuela protests held by the People's Forum in NYC, displaying clear signs of political pressure on behalf of a foreign government, and this should meet the qualifications for FARA, which does not require financial payments to meet the threshold of violation. 

. . . 

Tyler Durden Fri, 10/24/2025 - 16:40

Reality Vs Garbage: Has AI Already Lost The 'I' Part

Reality Vs Garbage: Has AI Already Lost The 'I' Part

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

"The business incentives driving consumer AI development remain fundamentally misaligned with reducing hallucinations."

- The Singularity Hub on "X"

Which is to say, there is Reality, and then there is every other cockamamie aggregate of simulation pretending to represent Reality, i.e. garbage.

How many millions among us already subscribe to the latter?

Apparently, lots, and they are not evenly distributed these days.

You surely know where to look for the un-Reality. The party of men can get pregnant, and all the rest...

Enter A-I to make things worse. Probably a lot worse. We have failed to learn the chief lesson of the computer age, which is that the virtual is not an acceptable substitute for the authentic. So, we plunge deeper into realms of the un-real and the inauthentic. This turns into a quest to get something-for-nothing, and the unfortunate result of that old dodge is that you will end up with nothing, and that is exactly why we are at such a hazardous pass in the human project.

I apologize if the above seems too metaphysical. But that’s the scenery en route when a civilization flies up its own wazoo. Novelist Cory Doctorow has nicely labeled this the enshitification of daily life.

First of all, get this: A-I has already quit operating as-advertised.

It has lost the “I” part. A-I does its thing by rapidly combing through the Internet to evaluate and seize information that you request. Increasingly, A-I colonizes the Internet with second-hand, third-hand, and so forth A-I-generated information. The more territory A-I seizes on the Web, and the more it trains itself on recursive feedbacks of its own garbage, the more distorted the output gets. As that occurs, A-I becomes increasingly abstracted from Reality, which is exactly what happens when a person goes insane. So, expect an exponential rise in incorrect content that would, in theory, become a pretty serious problem when you ask A-I to run things like systems we depend on, the electric grid, harvesting crops, warfare. . . .

Secondly, as that process runs, and probably before it gets very far, A-I looks like it will wreck the financial system, which, in turn, would crater the economy of everyday life — the ability of people to earn a living, buy stuff, support children, get food, and stay out of the rain.

Zillions of dollars are being invested in A-I now and lately it is mainly what drives the capital markets. So far, alas, return on that investment is scant — actually, negative. The situation might never improve, and as the recognition hits, look out below. The only question is whether that happens before the central banks destroy the world’s currencies with money-printing.

One A-I application, robotaxi services such as Waymo, have never turned a profit. Will they ever? Doesn’t look good. Notice, too, that the elimination of cab-drivers means X-number fewer humans making a living to buy stuff (presumably made by other people in other jobs soon to be replaced by robots). Of course, that’s the self-replicating problem with all applied A-I in every field of employment. The more jobs eliminated, the fewer customers for anything. Please don’t tell me that guaranteed basic income fixes that problem.

In desperation — and due to certain weaknesses of human nature — another early attempt to monetize applied A-I turns out to be pornography: create your own personalized sex fantasy to-order. Companies are already producing the first rudimentary A-I sex robots, which, let’s face it, amounts to a masturbation industry. Why bother cultivating a real-live girlfriend when you can fall into the pre-heated silicone embrace of a Jennifer Lawrence simulation that will never talk back or ask for anything? You can easily see how that would result in a whole lot less human reproduction — of which there is already a signal shortage in Western Civ — meaning even fewer people to work at anything or buy anything or do anything, or simply be here in the pageant of Planet Earth.

The A-I pioneers managed to make the situation worse from the get-go.

The Open A-I company’s Chat GPT, Google’s Gemini and Bard A-Is, and Facebook’s Meta A-I are all trained-up to be politically Woke-to-the-max, meaning on any given issue in the public arena their output is one patent absurdity or another.

Note: last April, conservative activist Robby Starbuck sued Facebook when its chatbot reported out falsely that he had been on-the-scene for the Jan 6, 2021 US Capitol protest (he was in Tennessee that day).

Facebook’s parent company, Meta, settled the case with Starbuck in August, 2025, for undisclosed terms and the company apologized publicly.

Two days ago, Mr. Starbuck sued Google for defamation (with malice and negligence) when it’s Bard A-I output alleged that he was a “child rapist,” a “serial sexual abuser,” that he abused and stalked his ex-wife (Starbuck states in his lawsuit that he has no ex-wife). It accused him further of fraud, embezzlement, drug charges, stalking business partners, and being a “shooter” or “person of interest” in a 1991 murder case (Starbuck was two years old at the time), of appearing in Jeffrey Epstein’s flight logs (untrue), working as a porn actor, and voicing support for the Ku Klux Klan.

The A-I cited non-existent news articles from outlets such as Newsweek, The New York Post, Rolling Stone, Mediaite, The Daily Beast, and Salon, along with fake URLs and headlines (e.g., “Robby Starbuck Responds to Murder Accusations”). 

Starbuck demonstrated this in a podcast episode on October 22–23, 2025, where he queried the A-I live.

Google spokesman José Castañeda attributed the issues to its A-I “hallucinating” — which tells you that the recursive feedback of garbage content in A-I is already well-advanced.

Prepare for ever more interesting mischief, while you watch your portfolio of index stocks go up in a vapor.

Tyler Durden Fri, 10/24/2025 - 16:20

Shocking Moment U-Haul Truck Attempts To Ram California Coast Guard Checkpoint Hours After Anti-ICE Protests

Shocking Moment U-Haul Truck Attempts To Ram California Coast Guard Checkpoint Hours After Anti-ICE Protests

A dramatic video surfaced on X overnight showing what appears to be an attempted ramming attack by a deranged driver in a U-Haul truck at a military checkpoint at Coast Guard Base Alameda in California.

KPIX photojournalist Rick Villaroman captured the moment when a man dressed in all black, wearing safety glasses and a respirator mask...

... backed the box truck up to the military checkpoint, then floored it, only to be met with a hail of gunfire by base police, causing him to retreat in the opposite direction.

A Coast Guard spokesperson said the U-Haul truck "was driving erratically and attempting to back into Coast Guard Base Alameda" at around 10 p.m. Thursday.

Officers at the entrance "discharged several rounds of live fire" after the masked driver ignored "multiple verbal commands" to stop and then proceeded to back in toward the base's entrance, according to the spokesperson. 

"When the vehicle's actions posed a direct threat to the safety of Coast Guard and security personnel, law enforcement officers discharged several rounds of live fire," the spokesperson concluded. 

Earlier, anti-ICE agitators blocked the entrance to the base. This appears to be the next staging area of protests by the Democratic Party's activist network, targeting what seems to be the next major federal deportation operation of criminal illegal aliens.

Getting tense. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 10/24/2025 - 15:25

Latest Harvard Enrollment Data Show Drop In Black Students, Uptick In Asians

Latest Harvard Enrollment Data Show Drop In Black Students, Uptick In Asians

Aaron Gifford via The Epoch Times,

Two years after the U.S. Supreme Court decision prohibiting racial preference in higher education admissions, the nation’s oldest university is reporting a decline in undergraduate black student enrollment.

Harvard University, in a profile of the Class of 2029 released today, noted that black American students make up 11.5 percent of the freshman class. That’s a decrease of 2.5 percent from last year, 2.6 percent from 2023, and 5.1 percent from 2020, according to undergraduate data released by the school each year.

In 2023, the Supreme Court sided with plaintiffs, Students for Fair Admissions, which sued Harvard on the grounds that the university denied applicants of Asian descent because that group overrepresented the undergraduate student body, violating Civil Rights laws.

Asian students, meanwhile, make up 41 percent of Harvard’s undergraduate Class of 2029, up from 37 percent in last year’s freshman class and 29.8 percent in 2023.

“The class of 2029 was drawn from big cities and small towns, suburbs, and farms; and from nations around the world,” William Fitzsimmons, Harvard’s dean of admissions and financial aid, said in the Oct. 23 announcement on the university website.

“No matter where they’re from and what their personal circumstance might be, they were admitted to Harvard because they share the extraordinary potential to change the world.”

According to The Harvard Gazette, the class of 2029 also includes 11 percent self-identified Hispanic or Latino and nearly 2 percent Native American, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander.

Students for Fair Admissions also recently took action against the U.S. service academies, reaching a settlement with the Department of Defense to end race-based admissions at West Point and the Air Force Academy, and filing a lawsuit against the Coast Guard Academy over racial preferences in its commissioning program, according to the organization’s website.

President Donald Trump issued executive orders affirming Civil Rights laws that prohibit racial preferences in university hiring and student admissions and, following investigations, sanctioned Harvard and several other elite institutions.

In August, he issued a directive requiring colleges and universities to publicize acceptance rates, enrollment figures, and average applicant grade point averages and SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) scores by race and gender.

In recent years, many competitive higher education institutions have eliminated SAT requirements and instead mandated personal statements or essays from student applicants, raising concerns that they are being used to ideologically screen applicants for entry.

Matthew Beienburg, education policy director at the Goldwater Institute, said those changes are an attempt to preserve racial preferences in admissions.

“The left believes standardized testing promotes racial inequality,” he previously told The Epoch Times. “They pushed [for substituting tests with personal essays] very hard.”

Harvard’s Class of 2029 also noted that 2,003 undergraduate applicants out of 47,893 applicants were accepted, and that nearly half of the 1,675 first-year students won’t be required to pay tuition.

International students make up 15 percent of the freshman class, which also represents 92 nations and all 50 states, the profile report stated.

Tyler Durden Fri, 10/24/2025 - 15:05

Hegseth Announces Another 'Narco-Boat' Attack After Trump Insists No Declaration Of War Needed

Hegseth Announces Another 'Narco-Boat' Attack After Trump Insists No Declaration Of War Needed

The US military's strikes on alleged drug boats near Venezuela are growing, and War Secretary Pete Hegseth has just announced another one Friday morning, which marks the third such attack this week, after two boats were destroyed on the Pacific side of Latin America earlier this week.

"Overnight, at the direction of President Trump, the Department of War carried out a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Tren de Aragua (TdA), a Designated Terrorist Organization (DTO), trafficking narcotics in the Caribbean Sea," Hegseth announced on social media. He said that "all six terrorists" were killed and no American forces were harmed in the new operation. This appears to be at least the ninth such attack - and at least third in less than a week.

Via Associated Press

Big questions have persisted over just how the US knows it is attacking drug smuggling boats, and not mere fishing vessels. Journalists have been turning up the pressure on the White House to provide evidence.

Hegseth tried to preempt such inquiries in his Friday statement, which continued, "The vessel was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was transiting along a known narco-trafficking route, and carrying narcotics."

Interestingly, the Pentagon chief noted it was the first strike conducted at night since the anti-Venezuela and anti-drug operations started.

He then reiterated the following message: "If you are a narco-terrorist smuggling drugs in our hemisphere, we will treat you like we treat Al-Qaeda. Day or NIGHT, we will map your networks, track your people, hunt you down, and kill you."

President Trump in fielding questions from reporters the day before talked about just 'killing' drug smugglers and that no declaration of war or any kind of legal process for that matter is needed...

“I’m not going to necessarily ask for a declaration of war,” he said. “I think we’re just doing to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country. Okay? We’re going to kill them, you know, they’re going to be like, dead.”

Geopolitical commentator Arnaud Bertrand has pointed out that Trump just honestly and openly reveals the face of US Empire:

People are in shock over this but Trump, as per his habit, is only putting in blunt terms what all US presidents have been doing for decades. "Nobel Peace Prize Obama" is the one who industrialized extrajudicial killings, officially ordering 540 drone strikes during his presidency (https://cfr.org/blog/obamas-final-drone-strike-data), so 1 to 2 a week on average, killing thousands of people with no due process whatsoever.

Indeed, Obama even one time killed a 16-year old American citizen and resident of Colorado by drone strike in Yemen, and he and his press secretary merely shrugged it off.

Still, Trump has some serious questions to answer, and a handful of Congressmen including Sen. Rand Paul try to reel in these latest foreign adventures off Latin America.

Tyler Durden Fri, 10/24/2025 - 14:45

Pavlovian Bidding Up Of Equities

Pavlovian Bidding Up Of Equities

By Michael Every of Rabobank

High Hopes

US and European equities closed higher yesterday, oil prices rose more than 5%, the Dollar gained, 10-year Treasury yields lifted by 5bps and Bitcoin rose slightly following news that President Trump will pardon Binance founder Changpeng Zhao. Equity markets were buoyed by an announcement from the White House that Presidents Trump and Xi will meet next Thursday on the sidelines of the APEC conference in South Korea.

The Pavlovian bidding up of equities comes as a response to hopes that the trade détente agreed between the US and China in May, and extended in August, will again be kicked down the road past the November 10th expiry date. Both sides accuse the other of cheating on previous trade agreements. The USA points to China’s restrictions on rare earths and refusal to buy US soybeans, while China points to ongoing restrictions on the sale of high-end AI chips, fresh tariff threats and revocation of Chinese student visas as evidence of US violations.

President Trump has been striking an optimistic tone in recent days about the potential for trade agreement with China, but his optimism may reflect his own assessment of the US’s relative bargaining position rather than an expectation of mutual cooperation between the two parties. Moves overnight to open investigations into China’s compliance with the Phase One deal struck in Trump’s first term don’t fill one with confidence that the US is approaching the meeting in a spirit of collaboration, but is instead bolstering his bargaining position by building a case against legal challenges to his use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose tariffs.

Recent agreements between the US and Australia to collaborate on breaking China’s stranglehold on rare earths mining and processing went down like a lead balloon in Beijing, where officials chided the Western countries for politicizing trade. That admonishment of the West stands awkwardly alongside an outline of China’s latest five-year-plan released overnight, emphasising an even more autarchic approach to trade and technology, as well as incorporating military capabilities into the country’s development blueprint for the first time. Clearly, neither of the major belligerents in the trade war expect anything other than more self-reliance and less mutual exchange in the future.

Higher oil prices are a likely culprit for lifts in inflation breakevens that saw nominal yields rise across major sovereign curves yesterday. Fresh US sanctions on Russia’s Rosneft and Lukoil has seen a sharp price response over the last two days, which may have been helped along by a vote in the Israeli parliament orchestrated by far right parties calling for the annexation of the West Bank. J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio condemned the latter as an unhelpful stunt that threatens to undermine the fragile peace in the region. That has broader implications for US foreign policy objectives, which are concerned with normalizing relations between Israel and Gulf states to counter Chinese, Russian and Iranian ambitions in the region.

Chinese and Indian energy firms have reportedly curtailed seaborne purchases of Russian oil in attempt to avoid being hit with secondary sanctions, while trade negotiations between the USA and India have seen headlines around India cutting purchases of Russian crude in return for more favourable tariff treatment by the USA. Mysterious explosions in recent days at refineries in Hungary and Romania that have links to the Russian energy complex perhaps played a part in seeing active European gasoil futures rally for four straight days after being reported on Monday.

Vladimir Putin criticized the latest round of sanctions as an “unfriendly act” that he said will set back Russia-US relations that had just begun to improve, while conceding that the measures will have a substantial impact on Russia’s oil revenue dependent war economy. President Trump is seeking to use the harsher sanctions in conjunction with greater materiel support for Ukraine to force Putin to the negotiating table to end the war.

In other market news, Ford Motor Company surprised market analysts yesterday by recording a more than doubling in quarterly profit and topline revenue of $50bn - $7bn above analyst expectations. The company said that strong consumer demand for SUVs propelled the result, but downgraded future guidance due to revenue impacts from an aluminium supply squeeze caused by a fire at a plant in New York. Ford also said that it now expects the tariff impact on the bottom line to be $1bn this year, down from a previous estimate of $2bn following the introduction of relief measures by the Trump administration.

Ford’s result holds some similarities to what we saw from Tesla earlier in the week. Tesla recorded strong topline growth on record vehicle sales figures (helped along by the expiry of tax credits at the end of September), but unlike Ford saw profits squeezed by rising operating costs related to AI R&D. With an official data drought still underway in the US due to the government shutdown the strong topline performance of both automakers is an interesting suggestion that consumption of durable goods in the USA remains resilient and that tariff impacts are perhaps less severe than initially thought – at least for the time being.

Markets will get a further read on the state of the US economy today when official CPI figures for September are (belatedly) released. The consensus estimate on the Bloomberg survey is for a 0.4% MoM lift in headline inflation and a 0.3% lift in the core rate. That should be sufficient to see headline CPI accelerate to 3.1% YoY, but OIS futures nevertheless still have ~2 more Fed cuts priced in before the end of the year. High hopes indeed.

Tyler Durden Fri, 10/24/2025 - 14:25

Mamdani Scores 11th Hour Endorsement From Hakeem Jeffries

Mamdani Scores 11th Hour Endorsement From Hakeem Jeffries

Despite Democrats repeatedly blaming progressives for hijacking the 2024 election and swinging the party too far to the left, it seems they're unwilling to learn from their mistakes, since they never make any (according to Democrats with knowledge of their infallibility).

On Friday, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) gave a last minute endorsement to Zohran Mamdani for New York City Mayor - a significant reversal of his prior criticism of the Democratic Socialists of America, of which Mamdani is a member. 

Jeffries told the NY Times that while the two men have "areas of principled disagreement," Mamdani had won "a free and fair election" in the Democratic primary - and that the party needs to do whatever it can against the "existential" threat [to their grifts] posed by President Trump. 

"Zohran Mamdani has relentlessly focused on addressing the affordability crisis and explicitly committed to being a mayor for all New Yorkers, including those who do not support his candidacy," said Jeffries, adding "In that spirit, I support him and the entire citywide Democratic ticket in the general election."

Jeffries' statement came just one day before early voting was set to begin, joining a list of other notable Democrats who've endorsed the socialist which include Gov. Kathy Hochul and state assembly speaker Carl Heastie. 

The 11th hour endorsement from Jeffries comes amid intense competing pressures; House Democrats and local leaders who are fully behind a socialist agenda, and others (mostly swing district candidates and donors), who think Mamdani's economy-killing mandates will give Republicans ammunition in next year's midterm elections. 

Of note, neither of New York's senators, Schumer or Gillibrand, have made an endorsement in the NYC mayor's race, while state party chairman Jay Jacobs has outright said he would not endorse Mamdani due to the candidate's democratic socialist beliefs and criticism of Israel. 

According to the report, two aides to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who's running against Mamdani as a third-party candidate, attempted to convince Jeffries not to endorse Mamdani. 

Don't Gloat Just Yet, Republicans

As the Wall Street Journal editorial board notes... 

Some Republicans welcome a Mamdani victory because they think it will help them in the 2026 midterms. They may be right, especially in New York state. President Trump and the GOP will try to elevate “Commie Mamdani,” as Mr. Trump calls him, as the Democratic spokesman. Elise Stefanik, the likely GOP candidate for New York Governor, is already hammering Gov. Hochul for endorsing the socialist.

But GOP glee is short-sighted. The demise of New York as a financial center wouldn’t be good for the country, no matter how much Texas and Florida benefit. If the city heads toward bankruptcy, the pressure for a bailout from Washington will build.

The biggest risk is a socialist takeover of the Democratic Party. Sooner or later the party will retake the White House, as inevitably there will be a recession or voters will simply tire of the incumbents. Remember how Jonathan Chait and other left-wingers hoped the GOP would nominate Mr. Trump in 2016 because he’d be easy to beat? The country needs a sane and centrist Democratic Party as an alternative to the GOP in the post-Trump era.

Mr. Cuomo argues that if the November electorate expands with more traditional Democrats, he can still win. The stakes are larger than who will run the city that never sleeps.

Tyler Durden Fri, 10/24/2025 - 14:05

Anonymous Donor Gives $130 Million To Cover Shortfall In Troop Pay During Shutdown

Anonymous Donor Gives $130 Million To Cover Shortfall In Troop Pay During Shutdown

Authored by Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump said on Oct. 23 that an anonymous donor has sent the federal government a $130 million check to cover the shortfall in military troop pay during the ongoing government shutdown.

“He called us the other day and he said, ‘I'd like to contribute any shortfall you have because of the Democrat shutdown. I’d like to contribute, personally, contribute any shortfall you have with the military, because I love the military and I love the country, and any shortfall, if there’s a shortfall, I’ll contribute it,’’’ Trump said during a roundtable meeting with his Cabinet.

Trump said the donor—a friend of his—sent the federal government a $130 million check on Thursday, but that the man doesn’t want to be named.

“He doesn’t really want the recognition, if you want to know the truth, but he gave us a check for $130 million, which was sort of a shortfall, and that’s going to go to the military,” the president said.

The previous day, lawmakers had prepared to vote on a bill to pay troops and some other federal employees who are continuing to work through the shutdown.

Introduced by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), the bill, the “Shutdown Fairness Act,” offers “a permanent fix that will ensure excepted workers and our troops are paid during a shutdown,” the senator said.

Deemed as essential, excepted federal workers are directed to continue working during any lapses in government funding. They work without pay during the shutdown and receive back pay only after the government is funded again.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) moved the bill forward on Oct. 21, setting up the vote on Oct. 23.

The legislation failed in the Senate on Thursday, coming short of the 60 votes needed to advance in a 54–45 vote.

Sens. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), and John Fetterman (D-Pa.) joined the majority of Republicans in supporting Johnson’s bill.

Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Gary Peters (D-Mich.) announced ahead of the vote on Thursday that they were preparing alternative measures to pay all federal workers during the government shutdown.

“Our proposal doesn’t discriminate among federal employees,” Van Hollen said in a Senate floor speech.

Titled the “True Shutdown Fairness Act,” Van Hollen’s bill also includes a provision that would block Trump from firing federal workers during the shutdown. Johnson objected when Van Hollen sought unanimous consent for his competing proposal.

So far, there have been 12 votes to temporarily fund and reopen the government since the shutdown began on Oct. 1, all of which failed to reach the 60-vote threshold.

The shutdown has now stretched into the second-longest in U.S. history, with the longest lasting 35 days between December 2018 and January 2019.

Tyler Durden Fri, 10/24/2025 - 13:45

Canada's Economy Will Not Survive A Prolonged Trade War With The US

Canada's Economy Will Not Survive A Prolonged Trade War With The US

The ongoing trade war between the US and Canada barely registers on the radar for most of the American public, largely because it doesn't affect their wallets in any significant way.  However, on the Canadian side of the border, the economic conflict dominates headlines and discussion.  Average Canadians face significant uncertainty and Canada's export markets are teetering on the brink of crisis. 

The lesson here?  Perhaps it's a bad idea to engage in brinkmanship with the US when the US buys 76% of your exports?  Canada's exports represent 33% of their total annual GDP, while US exports are only 10% of GDP.  That is to say, Canada needs the US far more than the US needs Canada.  The numbers are clear as day.

The Trump Administration's recent announcement that all trade negotiations with Canada have been shut down requires some analysis of future consequences.  The trigger for the cancellation was a Canadian ad aimed at US conservatives featuring excerpts of a Ronald Reagan speech with criticisms on tariffs. 

According to the Ronald Reagan Foundation, the ad uses selective editing to present a false picture of Reagan's position on trade protections.  It is true that Reagan was generally a proponent of globalization, but he also instituted a number of protectionist policies during his two terms as US President.  Reagan pressured Japanese car makers to adopt import restraints on automobiles, which remained in effect until 1985.  Japan was told that if they did not accept the restraints, Congress would pass harsher measures.

Additionally, Reagan imposed protectionist measures on textiles, specialty steel, Canadian wood products, Italian pasta, motorcycles, and even mushrooms during his two terms. In 1986, Reagan threatened to impose a 200 percent tariff on Spain for its restrictions on U.S. grain imports.

That said, Reagan's affinity for globalism also helped to accelerate the eventual collapse of US manufacturing jobs, which were ultimately outsourced to third world countries with cheap labor sources.  The American middle class has been in steep decline ever since globalist policies were instituted. 

Canada's political advertisement is an attempt to exploit conservative nostalgia for the Reagan era while deliberately ignoring the nuances of his trade views.  Not to mention, it shows that the Canadian government has no intention of addressing the parasitic relationship imposed on Americans through NAFTA and the USMCA.  Numerous American industries have been crushed in the wake of these trade agreements. 

Trump's fury over Canada's propaganda efforts is understandable, because it shows they would rather try to manipulate the American electorate rather than engage in sincere negotiations.  This is a mistake on their part; manufacturing is now fleeing Canada.

Approximately 185,000 jobs have vanished in Canada since the beginning of the trade war.  The majority of these jobs have come from the manufacturing sector.  Companies shifting jobs away from Canada and to the US include:  Stellantis, General Motors, and multiple steel producers.  If tariffs continue, the country is projected to lose another 140,000 jobs by the end of 2025. 

Canada's GDP for 2025 is estimated to decline 2.6% to rest at 0.4%, equating to $78 billion in lost economic output.  Prices also continue to skyrocket on basic necessities including food and housing. 

Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced a plan to shift reliance on US markets and expand exports to other trading partners, but this plan is naive.  The US represents 30% of all global consumer markets, and Canada has enjoyed the good fortune of sharing a border with the biggest single buyer of exports in the world.  Meaning, the cost of moving goods is minimal, which maximizes profits for companies based in Canada.  Trying to recreate these conditions with alternative buyers overseas is impossible.

Long term option for Canada include moving away from manufacturing and focusing on natural resources, which they have in abundance.  Again, this still requires access to the US for any substantial exports, not to mention investments for exploration.  As of 2023, the U.S. had a total FDI position of $452 billion in Canada across all sectors. This represents a significant portion of all foreign investment in the country. 

Carney's apparent arrogance on trade is perhaps driven by his progressive and globalist ideology, and as we have seen time and time again with the far-left, they don't know how to admit they're in over their heads.  They only double down.  Therefore, it's likely that Carney will continue to blunder through negotiations with the US and lead Canada into economic disaster.  

Tyler Durden Fri, 10/24/2025 - 13:25

US Opens Trade Probe Into China's Phase One Commitments Before Trump-Xi Talks

US Opens Trade Probe Into China's Phase One Commitments Before Trump-Xi Talks

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer announced moments ago that the U.S. has initiated a Section 301 investigation into China's implementation of the Phase One trade deal, a deal that has been out of public focus since President Trump's first term. This development comes less than one week before Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are scheduled to meet on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit to ease trade tensions. The flurry of recent trade-related headlines, from rare earths to soybeans to jet engines, suggests that both economic superpowers are attempting to build leverage ahead of trade talks.

"President Trump made history in his first term when he stood up for the American worker and brokered the Phase One Agreement, establishing a more fair and reciprocal trade relationship with China," Ambassador Greer stated.

Greer wrote in a statement, adding, "The initiation of this investigation underscores the Trump Administration's resolve to hold China to its Phase One Agreement commitments, protect American farmers, ranchers, workers, and innovators, and establish a more reciprocal trade relationship with China for the benefit of the American people."

USTR provided additional context on the Phase One trade deal reached in December 2019, which required China to implement structural reforms in areas such as intellectual property, technology transfer, agriculture, and financial services, and to significantly increase purchases of U.S. goods and services. Beijing's shift toward sourcing agricultural products from the U.S. to Brazil has inflicted pain across America's Midwest farm belt, and is likely one key reason this probe was opened. 

Five years after the agreement was signed, China has not fulfilled its commitments, particularly regarding non-tariff barriers, market access, and purchase targets. Ahead of next week's Trump-Xi meeting at APEC, Greer will investigate whether China's failure to comply with the Phase One deal violates U.S. trade rights under Section 301.

Despite the probe, President Trump said on Thursday, "I think we're going to come out very well and everyone's going to be very happy."

The Trump-Xi meeting also comes just before a trade truce between Washington and Beijing is set to expire on November 10. Trump has threatened to impose an additional 100% tariff on Chinese products on November 1 if Beijing does not ease shipments of rare earth minerals to the U.S. Trump said this week that upcoming talks with Xi will produce a "good deal" on "everything" related to trade.

Market attention now turns to any weekend statements from both sides. So far, the market reaction has been muted across equities, bonds, and FX, as a cooler CPI print in the U.S. has pushed main equity indexes to around noontime.  

Tyler Durden Fri, 10/24/2025 - 12:45

'Cooler' Than Expected CPI Data Leaves Fed On Track For Rate-Cuts

'Cooler' Than Expected CPI Data Leaves Fed On Track For Rate-Cuts

With vol markets fully clenched, this morning's much-anticipated CPI print (no matter how full of guesstimated data) is sure to prompt an initial flurry of trading activity but as we detailed in our preview, absent some major outlier, is likely to be mostly irrelevant with rate-cut expectations now fully pricing in 2 x 25bps cuts for the rest of the year.

As a reminder, this data was supposed to originally be revealed on Oct 15 and would have been indefinitely delayed had the White House not intervened with a demand that the BLS recall staff and figure out what the number is and report it today at 8:30amET.

Just as we suggested, the headline data was a miss (cooler than expected)...

...rising 0.3% Mom (vs +0.4% exp), with the YoY print at 3.0% (below expectations of +3.1% but higher than the 2.9% YoY print in August).

Source: Bloomberg

That is the hottest YoY headline CPI since January.

Energy costs rose but Services slowed...

Source: Bloomberg

Headline CPI highlights:

  • The index for gasoline rose 4.1% in September and was the largest factor in the all items monthly increase, as the index for energy rose 1.5% over the month.

    • The gasoline index increased 4.1 percent over the month.

    • The index for electricity decreased 0.5 percent over the month and the index for natural gas decreased 1.2 percent over the same period.

  • The food index increased 0.2% over the month as the food at home index rose 0.3% and the food away from home index increased 0.1%

    • Four of the six major grocery store food group indexes increased in September.

    • The index for other food at home rose 0.5 percent over the month after rising 0.1 percent in August.

    • The cereals and bakery products index and the nonalcoholic beverages index both increased 0.7 percent in September

    • The dairy and related products index declined 0.5 percent in September as the cheese and related products index decreased 0.7 percent. The index for fruits and vegetables was unchanged over the month

    • The index for limited service meals rose 0.2 percent over the month while the index for full service meals was unchanged

  • Other indexes with notable increases over the last year include medical care (+3.3%), household furnishings and operations (+4.1%), recreation (+3.0%), and used cars and trucks (+5.1%).

Energy Services costs and Used Car prices fell MoM (along with electricity costs - which is odd given the massive increase in demand via AI Data Center build outs) but Gasoline costs rose notably...

...something that will be erased next month as oil prices tumbled...

    On an annual basis, the shelter index increased 3.6% over the last year (but continues to slow dramatically).

    • Rent inflation rose 3.40% YoY in Sept, down from 3.49% in Aug and the lowest YoY increase since Dec. 2021; it was also up 0.17% MoM, the smallest monthly increase since August 2021

    • Shelter inflation rose 3.58% in Sept, down from 3.63% in Aug and the lowest annual increase since Oct 2021; it was also up 0.28% MoM, down from 0.34% in Aug.

    A similar pattern was seen in Core CPI data with the print rising 0.2% MoM (below expectations of +0.3%), but pulled the YoY print down to 3.0% (down from 3.1% in August), the lowest since June...

    Source: Bloomberg

    Core CPI highlights:

    • Indexes that increased over the month include shelter, airline fares, recreation, household furnishings and operations, and apparel

    • The indexes for motor vehicle insurance, used cars and trucks, and communication were among the few major indexes that decreased in September.

    Core CPI details:

    • The shelter index increased 0.2 percent over the month.

      • The index for owners’ equivalent rent rose 0.1 percent in September, the smallest 1-month increase in that index since January 2021.

      • The rent index increased 0.2 percent over the month.

      • The index for lodging away from home rose 1.3 percent in September.

    • The index for airline fares increased 2.7 percent over the month, after rising 5.9 percent in August.

    • The recreation index rose 0.4 percent in September as did the household furnishings and operations index.

    • The index for apparel rose 0.7 percent over the month and the index for personal care increased 0.4 percent.

    • The new vehicles index rose 0.2 percent in September.

    • The index for used cars and trucks also decreased 0.4 percent over the month and the index for communication declined 0.2 percent.

    • The motor vehicle insurance index declined 0.4 percent in September, after being unchanged in August.

    • The medical care index increased 0.2 percent over the month, after declining 0.2 percent in August.

    • The index for hospital services increased 0.3 percent over the month, as did the index for prescription drugs.

    • The dental services index decreased 0.6 percent in September and the physicians’ services index declined 0.1 percent.

    Core Services costs declined significantly...

    Source: Bloomberg

    Finally, SuperCore CPI (Services Ex-Shelter) also saw its YoY print slow to +3.30% (the slowest since May)...

    Source: Bloomberg

    Transportation Costs slowed dramatically in September...

    Source: Bloomberg

    On a 3m and 6m annualized basis there is no sign of the hyped-up tariff-driven inflation that the left and their establishment puppets have been screaming about for months...

    Source: Bloomberg

    Summing up September's (delayed) data, Services inflation slowed to its weakest since Nov 2021 and Goods inflation was flat at +1.5% YoY...

    Source: Bloomberg

    There's certainly nothing here to stop The Fed cutting rates again next week.

    But we do note that given the surge in money supply, once could argue, re-inflation is coming...

    By which time Trump will have a new Fed head to bully.

    *  *  * SIGN UP FOR SUNDAY NIGHT KNIFE DROPS!

    Tyler Durden Fri, 10/24/2025 - 12:39

    Garland Personally Ordered Anti-Trump Arctic Frost Probe

    Garland Personally Ordered Anti-Trump Arctic Frost Probe

    Authored by Luis Cornelio via Headline USA,

    A newly declassified memorandum confirms that the FBI’s anti-Trump Arctic Frost probe was requested by FBI Director Chris Wray and personally approved in 2022 by Attorney General Merrick Garland, the two top officials in the Biden DOJ. 

    The memorandum—written by Wray and addressed to Garland on April 4, 2022—explicitly requested authorization to launch the probe. 

    “Your approval is requested as soon as possible,” Wray wrote in the memo for the “Approval to Open a Certain Sensitive Investigative Matter Investigation.”

    In its summary, Wray said the probe would center around President Donald Trump’s challenge to the certification of the 2020 election and the alleged submission of alternate electors to the federal government.

    “Open source reporting and public statements made by individuals closely associated with Donald J. Trump, Inc. (Trump Campaign) present an articulate factual basis indicating the existence of a federal crime, and thus the FBI seeks to open a full investigation,” Wray proclaimed. 

    Wray noted Garland’s personal approval was needed due to the sensitive nature of the probe. 

    The file also shows Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco left a hand-written note to Garland reading, “Merrick – I recommend you approve. LM 4/5/22.” 

    Signatures on the memo confirm Garland approved the probe that same day. 

    The controversial memo was released by the Trump administration after Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, requested its declassification. 

    In an X post, Grassley decried that the memorandum ultimately unleashed “unchecked” government power at the highest levels.

    Grassley’s criticisms are not unfounded.  

    Declassified documents confirm that the FBI probe expanded to include extensive surveillance of multiple conservative organizations, including Turning Point USA, the Conservative Partnership Institute and several pro-Trump super PACs.  

    The probe also targeted the phone records of at least eight lawmakers, seven Republicans and one congressman. 

    This probe also paved the way for Garland’s appointment of Special Counsel Jack Smith, who went on to criminally indict Trump twice, the first time in U.S. history a former president faced such charges.

    Tyler Durden Fri, 10/24/2025 - 12:25

    Hungary Has Good Reason To Be Enraged About Poland's Ruling On The Nord Stream Suspect

    Hungary Has Good Reason To Be Enraged About Poland's Ruling On The Nord Stream Suspect

    Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

    Polish Judge Dariusz Lubowski ruled against extraditing a suspect in the Nord Stream attack to Germany on the grounds that this act of sabotage occurred in the context of a “just, defensive war”, Germany doesn’t have jurisdiction over the international waters in which it occurred, and the Ukrainian state would be responsible if it really orchestrated this attack, not the conspirators who carried it out. That enraged Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto despite his country having no direct stake in this.

    He then wrote on X: “Scandalous: according to Poland, if you don’t like an infrastructure in Europe, you can blow it up. With this, they gave advance permission for terrorist attacks in Europe. Poland has not only released but is celebrating a terrorist—this is what European rule of law has come to.”

    These are compelling points and show that Hungary cares about the principles involved in this case. It also has indirect stakes in all of this that casual observers might not be aware of and which will now be explained.

    Many probably forgot given how much has gone on over the past 3.5 years, but Hungary receives a significant share of its oil from Russia’s Druzhba pipeline that transits through Ukraine. Szijjarto previously accused Kiev of attacking this critical infrastructure as implied punishment for Budapest’s pragmatic approach towards the conflict, and his government even sanctioned the commander involved, Robert “Magyar” Brovdi. Lubowski’s ruling, however, challenges the legitimacy of Hungary’s policy.

    The precedent of declaring Ukraine’s fight against Russia to be a “just, defensive war” could be exploited by judges across the EU to absolve Kiev of responsibility for undermining Hungary’s energy security. They could also argue that Hungary has no jurisdiction over Russia where the Druzhba pipeline was bombed just like Lubowski argued that Germany has no jurisdiction over the international waters in which Nord Stream was bombed. Any such move, even if only symbolic, would further isolate Hungary within the EU.

    In practice, some members might welcome “Magyar” despite Hungary banning him from entering the EU, while others might promise Ukraine that it can continue undermining its energy security without fear of punishment from the EU. Poland might lead the way after Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski tweeted to Szijjarto that “I hope your brave compatriot, Major Magyar, finally succeeds in knocking out the oil pipeline that feeds Putin’s war machine”. It thus wouldn’t be surprising of “Magyar” soon visits Warsaw.

    Just like the Nord Stream bombing was an attack against NATO and EU member Germany, so too have the Druzhba bombings been attacks against NATO and EU member Hungary. If Germany can’t advance its interests vis-à-vis Nord Stream despite hosting more US military troops than any NATO member and being the EU’s de facto leader, then comparatively less important Hungary stands no chance of advancing its own vis-à-vis Druzhba. The same goes for Slovakia and non-NATO and -EU member Serbia.

    Poland’s ruling on the Nord Stream suspect therefore enraged Hungary because the precedent that was established could soon be weaponized against it.

    Another significant point is that this amounts to one NATO and EU member legally justifying an attack against another. The implications are far-reaching and could further divide both blocs. 

    Poland’s gradual revival of its lost Great Power status is thus shaking up the European order and creating even more uncertainty in a continent that’s already bedeviled by it.

    Tyler Durden Fri, 10/24/2025 - 11:45

    Watch: Modular Energy Pioneer Nano Nuclear Begins Drilling First Reactor In Illinois

    Watch: Modular Energy Pioneer Nano Nuclear Begins Drilling First Reactor In Illinois

    US modular nuclear technology pioneer, NANO Nuclear Energy, is hosting a milestone ceremony today at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to mark progress on the research and prototype development of its KRONOS MMR Energy System, a micro nuclear reactor. The ceremony is being live streamed on the company's website here (or click on the image below). 

    Event speakers include NANO Nuclear leaders Jay Yu, James Walker, and Florent Heidet, Ph.D., who will discuss the company’s strategy. Advisory Board Members Retired Vice Admiral Charles Leidig Jr. and Retired General Wesley Clark will address military and microgrid applications. 

    As previously reported, amid the broader shift to advanced nuclear energy, NANO recently announced a key step in the commercialization of its KRONOS micro modular reactor, when it unveiled that drilling and site characterization would begin today. 

    At a time when electricity bills are exploding across the country to feed AI data centers using conventional sources of electricity which are woefully insufficient to power the chatbot revolution, new technologies are coming online to power the grid at a much lower cost. 

    Today's event highlights site and drilling work by AECOM, setting the stage for the future construction and operation of the MMR, a first-of-its-kind real-world demonstration for future academic, government, and commercial use.

    Developed to meet the demand for "resilient, modular, and clean energy solutions for artificial intelligence and data centers, industrial projects, military applications, remote communities, and other commercial applications" Nano Nuclear, KRONOS is a stationary, high-temperature gas-cooled microreactor designed to deliver 15 MWe (45 MWth) of carbon-free power, for multi-decade use across multiple industries and environments.

    NANO Nuclear expects to submit its construction permit application in early 2026, based on AECOM’s site data. Slides will be available at this link after the presentation.

    The company says multiple units can be synergistically used to achieve any desired power level. The KRONOS MMR is being designed to shut down and remain in a safe state automatically without any human intervention or external power (so called “walk-away safety”) while seeking to ensure the ability to disconnect from the main grid and operate autonomously during outages or other disruptions.

    Most importantly, the commercial launch of NANO's MMRs which allow for targeted electrification, should lead to substantially lower electricity prices at a time when everyone's powerbill seems to be doubling year after year...

    Tyler Durden Fri, 10/24/2025 - 11:30

    White House Stands Firm Against Obamacare As Shutdown Drags Into Fourth Week

    White House Stands Firm Against Obamacare As Shutdown Drags Into Fourth Week

    As the government shutdown enters its 24th day with no end in sight, White House Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair says the Trump administration has no intention of backing down on the dispute at the heart of the impasse: the expiring enhanced Obamacare premium tax credits.

    President Donald Trump at the White House on Oct. 14. Photo: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg

    In an interview with Punchbowl News on Thursday, Blair - who oversees legislative, political and public affairs for President Trump - framed the credits as “subsidies to insurance companies,” signaling that the administration is unwilling to negotiate on their extension.

    "These insurance subsidies, and to be clear, these are subsidies to insurance companies," Blair said. "They don’t actually go to people. They’ve been artificially masking the cost of premiums. OK? They put these in during the Covid era.… [Democrats] voted not once, but twice, to make this program temporary that we’re now discussing and for them to expire."

    Blair accused Democrats of creating "a sideshow" around the subsidies “because they don’t want to admit there’s bigger issues that they’re not focused on,” and said it was Democrats who “set up this ticking time bomb to begin with.”

    Republicans in Congress have long struggled to come up with an alternative to Obamacare for 15 years - however Blair suggested Trump intends to reopen that debate, saying the administration will push for a “broader overhaul” of health policy once the government reopens.

    “We’re not just talking about Obamacare,” Blair said. “We’re not even talking about the repeal of Obamacare. We’re talking about making health care more affordable.… The president wants to make life affordable for people, he wants to make health care affordable for people. He’s been talking about this for years.… [O]pen the government. Let’s find a solution. Let’s figure out what we’re going to do together, but you have to open the government.”

    According to Blair, the White House also plans to enlist pharmaceutical companies to “come to the table” to help reduce prescription-drug costs. Some Republicans are urging their leadership to use the party-line budget reconciliation process as the vehicle for such a health-care package, though Senate GOP leaders have shown little enthusiasm for what they call a “Reconciliation 2.0” effort.

    Trump’s Political Operation Gears Up for 2026

    Blair also discussed the president’s plans for the 2026 midterm cycle. He said Trump will draw from his own political war chest - hundreds of millions of dollars in available funds - to bolster Republican candidates and has already begun covertly spending in races across the country.

    “It’s very important for the president that Republicans keep control of the House and Senate,” Blair said, pointing to what he called favorable “macro markers of the political environment,” including voter registration and polling trends.

    Blair cited improvement in Sen. John Cornyn’s (R-TX) numbers ahead of a competitive primary and called Rep. Wesley Hunt’s entry into the Senate race a “wild card.” Trump, he said, would spend his own money “if it’s absolutely necessary” to keep the seat in Republican hands.

    He also rejected skepticism from Indiana GOP leaders who doubt the legislature can pass a redistricting plan, saying, “I think we’ll see how Indiana continues to evolve, but I don’t think that’s a correct assessment.”

    Shutdown Stalemate Deepens

    Meanwhile, Congress remains at a standstill as the shutdown enters its fourth week. The Senate adjourned until Monday, virtually guaranteeing another lost weekend of negotiations.

    Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) is considering votes next week on narrow measures to fund military pay and air-traffic-control operations in an effort to pressure Democrats. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has refused to bring the House back until Democrats agree to broader government-funding terms.

    On Thursday, Senate Democrats blocked a bill from Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) that would have paid federal employees working without pay, arguing it would give the White House too much discretion. A Democratic alternative from Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) also failed.

    Thune said he was open to combining the proposals but blamed Democrats for prolonging the impasse. “I can’t explain the level of dysfunction on their side right now,” he said. “But they’re consistently shifting their messaging, which, to me, suggests they really don’t know how to get out of this right now.”

    A Johnson spokesperson said the senator “will work diligently and in good faith to find agreement between the two sides in order to pay federal workers during the shutdown.”

    Political Fallout and the 2026 Landscape

    The standoff is already reshaping political calculations heading into 2026. Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock of Georgia joined Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) in voting for Johnson’s bill - making them the only Democrats to back it.

    Ossoff, viewed as one of the most vulnerable Democrats facing reelection, cited the impact on Georgia’s large federal workforce and major installations, including Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    Republicans seized on his record. “Jon Ossoff could’ve easily voted to reopen the government and pay Georgia workers any of the 12 times he voted to keep it closed,” said NRSC spokesperson Nick Puglia.

    Warnock defended the Democratic position, arguing Republicans are “holding federal workers hostage.”

    Tyler Durden Fri, 10/24/2025 - 11:05

    After A Decade Of Bitching About Bitcoin... JPMorgan Reportedly Plans To Allow Crypto As Collateral

    After A Decade Of Bitching About Bitcoin... JPMorgan Reportedly Plans To Allow Crypto As Collateral

    JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has been nothing if not consistent in his views on cryptocurrencies over the past decade:

    But now, according to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, JPMorgan plans to allow institutional clients to use their holdings of Bitcoin and Ether as collateral for loans by the end of the year.

    The offering would store clients’ Bitcoin and Ether holdings through a third-party custodian, according to people who spoke to the news outlet.

    As CoinTelegraph's Zoltan Vardai reports, if confirmed, the development could make the two leading cryptocurrencies more attractive for institutional investors, akin to the historic approval of the first US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) in January 2024.

    A spokesperson for JPMorgan declined to comment.

    The report follows months of speculation that JPMorgan could soon accept Bitcoin and Ether ETFs as collateral.

    JPMorgan continues crypto push

    JPMorgan has been considering cryptocurrency-collateralized loans since at least July, when the first reports on this matter emerged.

    Still, the Financial Times previously reported that adopting Bitcoin and Ether as collateral assets may not occur until 2026.

    JPMorgan was among the first US banks to venture into crypto. In 2020, it launched JPM Coin, a dollar-pegged stablecoin. In 2024, the bank reported holding shares of different spot Bitcoin ETFs.

    The early integration came despite JPMorgan’s CEO previously expressing criticism of digital assets.

    In 2018, Dimon said he had no interest in cryptocurrencies.

    In 2022, he called digital assets “decentralized Ponzi schemes,” but commented positively on blockchain and smart contract technology.

    Lately, Dimon has moderated his stance somewhat, while remaining skeptical.

    “I don’t think we should smoke, but I defend your right to smoke,” Dimon said at JPMorgan’s investor conference in May.

    “I defend your right to buy Bitcoin, go at it.”

    The investment bank also expressed interest in stablecoins during an earnings call on July 15, when CEO Jamie Dimon said they planned to be involved in stablecoins to better “understand” this emerging asset class. 

    Tyler Durden Fri, 10/24/2025 - 10:45

    Trump Denies Report Suggesting US Deployed B-1 Bombers Near Venezuela

    Trump Denies Report Suggesting US Deployed B-1 Bombers Near Venezuela

    Despite Wall Street Journal reports, based on open-source flight tracking data, President Trump said that reports claiming the U.S. military deployed B-1 bombers near Venezuela to intensify military pressure on the South American nation were false.

    As Aldgra Fredly reports below for The Epoch Times, Trump was responding to a reporter’s question on recent reports claiming that two B-1 Lancer bombers took off from Dyess Air Force Base in Texas on Oct. 23 and headed toward the coast of Venezuela.

    The president denied that any such deployment had occurred.

    “No, it’s not accurate. It’s false. But we’re not happy with Venezuela for a lot of reasons, drugs being one of them,” Trump told reporters following a roundtable with administration officials at the White House.

    Trump also noted that “sea drugs”—referring to drugs smuggled into the United States by sea—have been largely stopped, claiming they are now “like five percent of what they were a year ago.”

    But the president warned that drug cartels may shift to land routes as sea-based drug smuggling declines.

    “So now they’re coming in by land. And even the land is concerned because I told them, that’s going to be next, you know, the land is going to be next,” he said.

    “And we may go to the Senate, we may go to Congress and tell them about it. But I can’t imagine they'd have any problem with it.”

    Since September, the U.S. military has conducted lethal strikes against boats in the Caribbean Sea that U.S. officials said were carrying illegal drugs to the United States.

    Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said on Oct. 23 that the U.S. military conducted a “lethal kinetic strike” on a vessel suspected of narco-trafficking in the Eastern Pacific, killing two suspected drug traffickers onboard.

    In a post on X, Hegseth said the vessel was carrying narcotics while transiting along “a known narco-trafficking transit route” in the Eastern Pacific.

    He later posted another statement on X, saying the U.S. military carried out a second lethal kinetic strike on a suspected narco-trafficking vessel in the Eastern Pacific, killing three suspects onboard.

    No U.S. forces were injured in either operation. The strikes raised the total number of vessel attacks by the U.S. military in the waters near the United States to nine amid rising tensions with Venezuela and Colombia.

    “These strikes will continue, day after day. These are not simply drug runners—these are narco-terrorists bringing death and destruction to our cities,” Hegseth stated. “We will find them and kill them, until the threat to the American people is extinguished.”

    The U.S. military had previously deployed F-35 stealth fighters to a Puerto Rico airbase and warships to conduct operations in the Caribbean, aiming to combat drug trafficking into the United States.

    Trump has accused Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro of involvement in drug trafficking, which Maduro and Venezuela’s ruling regime have rejected.

    Last week, Trump said he had authorized covert CIA operations in Venezuela, citing two main reasons: Venezuela had sent prisoners into the United States and the regime’s involvement in drug trafficking.

    “They have emptied their prisons into the United States of America. ... They came in through the border. They came in because we had an open border,” he told reporters in the Oval Office on Oct. 15.

    Venezuela later responded to Trump’s comments, saying they were a violation of international law and an effort to effect a “regime change” in pursuit of oil resources.

    “Our Permanent Mission to the U.N. will raise this complaint with the Security Council and the Secretary-General tomorrow, demanding accountability from the United States government,” Venezuela said in a statement released by Foreign Minister Yván Gil on his Telegram account.

     

    Tyler Durden Fri, 10/24/2025 - 10:30

    Overnight Drone Attack Hits Moscow High-Rise As Putin Warns Of 'Overwhelming' Response

    Overnight Drone Attack Hits Moscow High-Rise As Putin Warns Of 'Overwhelming' Response

    Ukrainian drones have once again reached the Moscow area, far away from the border, at a moment the Kremlin is strongly warning against Washington allowing the transfer of US Tomahawk missiles to Kiev.

    The attack on a Moscow suburb was part of a broader wave of overnight drone attacks which hit multiple regions across the country, injuring at least five people, including a child, when one drone slammed into an apartment building near Moscow.

    Via Telegram

    According to Moscow region Governor Andrei Vorobyov, the drone hit a 14th-floor apartment in a high-rise building in the city of Krasnogorsk, northwest of the capital.

    According to Moscow region Governor Andrei Vorobyov, the drone hit a 14th-floor apartment in a high-rise building in the city of Krasnogorsk, northwest of the capital.

    Four adults were hospitalized with head injuries, fractures, and shrapnel wounds, and a boy suffered minor injuries in the attack. Circulating photos showed blown-out walls in an apartment. 

    Russia's Defense Ministry said that air defense forces intercepted and destroyed over 110 Ukrainian UAVs over 13 regions overnight. Several drones were also shot down as they approached the capital.

    Ukraine appears to be feeling emboldened, as it has had a series of 'wins' on a global stage given this week's new US and EU anti-Moscow sanctions. This new attacked marked the second consecutive night which saw more than 100 drones assault Russian territory.

    Power outages resulted in some Russian areas, particularly the Rostov region, and drone impacts were reported also in Bryansk, Kaluga, Tula, and Tver.

    Meanwhile President Vladimir Putin has warned in the face of new sanctions and the potential for new long-range weapons including Tomahawk missiles to be given to Ukraine that Moscow stands ready to respond with an "overwhelming" force:

    "Dialogue is always better than confrontation or any disputes, and especially war. We have always supported the continuation of dialogue," Putin told journalists. 

    But if Russia was attacked with US Tomahawk missiles, which Ukraine seeks, the response would be "very strong, if not overwhelming. Let them think about it," he added. 

    So far Trump appears to have resisted Zelensky's and Europe's urging on this front, but shown willingness to later reverse his decisions on such Ukraine war-related issues.

    Via AFP

    Putin has also responded to the new US sanctions on Russia's two largest oil firms, declaring the energy sector is 'confident' in the face of such 'unfriendly' actions. He said the new actions taken by Washington and Brussels "will have certain consequences, but they will not significantly affect our economic well-being." He's essentially once again shrugging them off.

    Tyler Durden Fri, 10/24/2025 - 10:15

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