These Are The Countries Buying (And Selling) The Most Gold Since 2020

As gold prices surged more than 230% since 2020, central banks around the world launched one of the largest gold-buying waves in modern history.

For many countries, bullion became more than just a hedge—it became a strategic reserve asset amid rising geopolitical tensions, currency volatility, and growing efforts to diversify away from the U.S. dollar.

Yet not every nation followed the same playbook: some were accumulating gold aggressively, while others were trimming reserves.

This chart, via Visual Capitalist's Niccolo Conte, ranks the countries that made the biggest net additions and the largest reductions in gold reserves over the past five years.

The data comes from the World Gold Council.

China and Eastern Europe Lead Gold Buying

Together, the top 15 buyers added nearly 2,000 net tonnes of gold to their reserves over the period, underscoring a broad shift in official sector strategy.

China recorded the largest increase in gold reserves over the period, adding more than 350 tonnes. This move aligns with Beijing’s long-running push to diversify reserves away from the U.S. dollar and reduce exposure to Western financial systems, reinforcing gold’s role as a politically neutral anchor within global reserves.

Poland followed China closely in the ranking, increasing its gold holdings by over 300 tonnes as part of a long-term push to bolster monetary security.

Türkiye and India also ranked among the top buyers. Both countries face persistent inflation pressures and currency volatility, making gold an attractive hedge within official reserves.

Emerging Markets Step Up Accumulation

Beyond the largest buyers, several emerging markets made notable additions. Brazil added more than 100 tonnes, while Azerbaijan’s increase came through its sovereign wealth fund, the State Oil Fund of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

Japan, Thailand, Hungary, and Singapore also expanded reserves, signaling broader global interest in gold as a stabilizing asset during periods of economic uncertainty.

Who Reduced Gold Holdings?

While many central banks were building gold stockpiles, a smaller group reduced exposure, highlighting sharply different reserve priorities.

The Philippines recorded the largest reduction, cutting reserves by more than 65 tonnes. Kazakhstan and Sri Lanka also posted significant declines, often reflecting domestic liquidity pressures or active reserve rebalancing during periods of economic stress.

Several European countries, including Germany and Finland, posted modest reductions. Switzerland’s change was minimal, underscoring its generally stable approach to gold management compared with more active buyers elsewhere.

Taken together, the data shows how gold has reasserted itself as a cornerstone of global reserves, even as countries take sharply different paths in preparing for an uncertain monetary future.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out The Rise of Major Currencies Against the USD in 2025 on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/16/2026 - 06:45

My three-day weekend reads:

• Why a ‘K-Shaped’ Economy Means More Risk for Stock Investors: The wealthy are propping up consumer spending thanks to a multi-year bull run, while lower earners pinch pennies. That creates a fragile circular dynamic — if stocks stumble, spending drops, and the whole thing unwinds fast. (Morningstar) see also Older Americans power a gray-shaped economy: Forget K-shaped, try gray-shaped: Boomers aren’t just aging — they’re reshaping the entire labor market. Health care job growth is booming, the retirement wave is accelerating, and the economy is increasingly being built around serving people over 65. The changing demographics in the U.S. — more old people, fewer young ones — are reshaping jobs and spending in all kinds of ways. (Axios)

• The Mega-Rich Are Turning Their Mansions Into Impenetrable Fortresses: Anxiety over high-profile violence has the wealthy spending big on armed security, bunkers and even moats to keep themselves safe from intruders. (Wall Street Journal)

• Who Is Paying the Trump Tariffs? Until recently the question of who pays tariffs wasn’t controversial among economists. The overwhelming consensus was that under normal circumstances tariffs — taxes on imported goods — are passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices. There are caveats and exceptions to this consensus, but these caveats are well understood and for the most part don’t apply to the tariffs imposed by the Trump 47 administration. (Paul Krugman) see also How a supplier of nuts and bolts could curb Trump’s tariff overreach: A new lawsuit reveals how businesses are forced to navigate an opaque and arbitrary system. (Washington Post)

• $185 billion is the down payment — the 4 skills that survive when agents code for months The infrastructure bubble for AI is actually just a down payment, and only a handful of human skills will remain valuable as AI agents become more capable autonomous workers. Here’s what changed and what it means for your career (Nate’s Newsletter / Substack)

• The British Are Furious at Donald Trump Over Chicken. They Actually Have a Pretty Good Point. The UK’s “chlorinated chicken” panic is back — Trump is pressuring Britain to accept American poultry in exchange for a tech deal, and 150,000 Brits have signed petitions to keep it out. It’s part food safety fight, part cultural identity crisis. (Slate)

• This venture capital firm believes investing in climate is ‘Obvious’—and just raised another $360 million to prove it: Obvious Ventures managing director Andrew Beebe tells ‘Fast Company’ why now’s a great time to be backing climate tech, the trendy idea he’s glad the Trump administration is killing, and why he’s still optimistic for the future of the planet. (Fast Company)

• Gallup Will No Longer Measure Presidential Approval After 88 Years: The most-cited barometer of presidential job performance since FDR is being retired. Gallup says it’s a strategic shift in research priorities. The timing — with Trump’s approval at a historic low of 36% — is purely coincidental, of course. (The Hill) see also Poll: Trump’s Ratings on Immigration Tumble as Americans Lose Confidence in His Top Issue: The one issue that was supposed to be Trump’s ace in the hole is now underwater. Americans are losing confidence in his handling of immigration, even among Republican-leaning voters. (NBC News)

• AI Helps Scam Centers Evade Crackdown in Asia, Dupe More Victims: Scam operations across Southeast Asia are using AI to scale up fraud, outsmart law enforcement, and target more victims than ever. (Bloomberg)

• The Bay Area’s most unlikely landmark: A 125-year-old light bulb that’s still burning: A typical light bulb can last about a year. The one hanging from the ceiling at Fire Station No. 6 in Livermore has lasted more than a century. The Centennial Light Bulb, as it’s known, has been glowing almost continuously since 1901. In June, it’s expected to reach its 125-year mark. Time has turned a simple light fixture into one of the Bay Area’s head-scratching curiosities. (San Francisco Chronicle)

• TV, It’s Not Just for Humans Anymore: Videos aimed at pets are drawing millions of views. But who’s actually watching? (New York Times)

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business this week with Heather & Doug Bonaparth, a married couple who work together and wrote a book on the financial challenges couples face: “Money Together: How to find fairness in your relationship and become an unstoppable financial team.” Our discussion sits somewhere in between financial planning and couples therapy, built around real stories that try to help couples find a healthier approach to money.

 

U.S. government has lost more than 10,000 STEM Ph.D.s since Trump took office

Source: Science

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India Might Soon Replace Russian Oil With Venezuelan At Scale After All

Authored by Andrew Korybko,

A new US license is being interpreted as prohibiting Venezuelan energy companies from transactions with China among other countries, which if true, could lead to India purchasing the 642,000 barrels of oil per day that China imported on average last year and thus halving its import of Russian oil.

RT drew attention on social media to the Department of the Treasury’s newly issued “Venezuela General License 48” allowing US companies to provide “goods, technology, software, or services for the exploration, development, or production of oil or gas in Venezuela” with two strings attached.

The first one is that any contract that their partners enter into will be governed under the laws of the US, which segues into the second one prohibiting any transactions with Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and China.

It’s for this reason that RT interpreted the abovementioned license in their tweet as the “US Ban[ning] Venezuelan Oil Producers From Doing Business With Russia & China”.

That’s reasonable since it was explained here that the Trump Doctrine is shaped by Elbridge Colby’s “Strategy of Denial”, which in its simplest form, seeks to deny strategic resources to US rivals such as the previously described countries.

This is especially the case as regards China, the US’ systemic rival, but Trump earlier sent mixed signals.

He recently welcomed Chinese investment in Venezuela’s energy industry, but in retrospect, that might have just been for the sake of managing the Sino-US rivalry amidst their ongoing trade talks.

Trump wants a deal with Xi, which might become much more difficult for his counterpart to agree to if he openly declares his intent for the US to deny China continued access to Venezuela’s strategic resources. It therefore makes sense for the US to quietly implement this policy through its new license instead.

Even prior to its promulgation, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov complained that “our companies are being openly forced out of Venezuela”, so this policy was already being informally implemented by Delcy Rodriguez’s government under US pressure. Apart from Cuba, none of the countries that the US’ new license prohibits transactions with are dependent on Venezuelan energy, but cutting them out of this industry serves another purpose arguably even more strategic than denying them its resources.

Trump boasted earlier this month that India agreed to stop purchasing Russian oil as part of the terms of its trade deal with the US and replace its imports with American and possibly Venezuelan oil instead. It was hitherto assessed prior to the US’ new license that “India Is Expected To Only Slowly Reduce Its Import Of Russian Oil” in no small part due to the Venezuelan Ambassador to China confirming his country’s interest in continuing exports to it and Trump welcoming Chinese investment in this industry.

If RT’s interpretation of the license is correct, and Lavrov believes so after complaining about the US’ new prohibition on Venezuelan energy transactions with Russia during his latest appearance at the Duma, then India could purchase the 642,000 barrels per day of oil (bpd) that China imported on average last year.

That’s more than half of the 1 million bpd that India imported from Russia last month, which could lead to a sharp reduction in the budgetary revenue that Russia expected to receive from such sales.

The US is actively monitoring India’s direct and indirect import of Russian oil per the condition under which it recently lifted last summer’s punitive 25% tariff that was imposed because of these dealings.

Therefore, by cutting China out of the Venezuelan energy industry and consequently enabling India to replace its import of that country’s oil, the US is facilitating India’s rapid reduction of Russian oil imports and might even zero it out if this policy is soon replicated with respect to Iran’s oil exports to China.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/16/2026 - 06:10

Mercedes-Benz Recalls Nearly 12,000 Electric Vehicles, Says Battery Packs Could Ignite

What happens when spending $70,000 to signal virtue with your fancy EV goes wrong? FIRE! 

Mercedes-Benz USA has announced a recall of 11,895 electric vehicles due to potentially faulty cells in the automobiles’ high-voltage battery packs that could lead to a fire, like what happened in front of a MBZ dealer in Malaysia in 2024 - though that one was in the middle of charging, while this recall says they can 'spontaneously catch fire' either while parked or while driving. 

The move comes after the NHTSA issued a safety recall notice posted on X on Feb. 12 announcing that it affected 1,708 Mercedes-Benz EQB 350 4Matic battery-powered SUVs model years 2022-2024. On top of that, 3,674 Mercedes-Benz EQB 250+ hybrid compact SUVs model years 2023-2024 and 6,513 2022-2024 EQB 300 4Matic vehicles were recalled. 

According to the agency, the vehicles could spontaneously catch fire either while parked or while driving due to an internal short circuit in the automobile’s high-voltage battery power supply. The issue stems from variations in the battery manufacturing process, the notice stated.

“Certain battery cells in the high-voltage battery, from an early production period, are considered to be less robust against different stress factors potentially occurring during the life of the vehicle,” Mercedes-Benz said.

“If a thermal incident were to occur during driving, the driver would be made aware of the issue by a high-voltage battery warning malfunction message in the instrument cluster. Should the thermal incident occur while the vehicle is parked, the driver would not receive a warning.”

In early 2024, an EQB caught fire while charging outside a MBZ dealership in Jahor Bahru. 

As the Epoch Times notes further, the lithium-ion batteries were manufactured by China-based Farasis Energy.

Mercedes-Benz said that after being made aware of vehicles catching fire it issued a software update to remedy the problem. However, in November 2025, two vehicles located in Europe combusted after receiving the software update, triggering an in-depth analysis of the efficacy of the software remedy in markets outside of China.

The logo of Mercedes-Benz is seen on the wheel rim of a passenger car on Feb. 17, 2023. Thomas Kienzle/AFP via Getty Images

In December 2025 and January 2026, Mercedes-Benz began working with the battery supplier to tear down and test battery packs and cells. It also conducted an on-site inspection of production methods at Farasis Energy’s manufacturing facilities in Ganzhou in southeastern China.

“MBAG concluded that the effectiveness of the current software update to sufficiently reduce the risk of thermal incidents cannot be fully confirmed for all affected vehicles,” the NHTSA recall notice said.

To date, Mercedes-Benz has received reports of two vehicle fires in the United States that were attributable to faulty battery cells. The company said it would replace battery packs in the recalled vehicles at licensed Mercedes-Benz dealerships at no cost to owners.

Owners of recalled vehicles are advised to only charge their vehicles to 80 percent until they can get their battery packs replaced.

“Out of an abundance of caution, customers are additionally advised to park their vehicles outside,” the recall notice said.

MBAG said a change in production procedures eliminates the issue with faulty cells for vehicles produced after July 31, 2024. Owners will be notified of the recall campaign beginning on Feb. 27. The NHTSA recall number is 26V073.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/16/2026 - 05:35

'No Prospect' Of European Governments Preventing Civil War, Warns British Army Colonel

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

Major unrest looms as political leaders kick the can down the road on immigration and integration failures, according to a seasoned military expert.

Retired Colonel Richard Kemp, a former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, has issued a stark warning about the trajectory of social cohesion in Europe and Britain. Speaking to Israeli broadcaster i24News, Kemp highlighted how integration breakdowns have worsened over the past two decades, paving the way for inevitable conflict.

“Things have been getting worse, getting bad, for many years, and they are only going to get worse,” Kemp stated, pointing to the reluctance of governments to confront the issues head-on.

Kemp, who also served in counter-insurgency operations in Northern Ireland and held intelligence roles in Westminster and the Cabinet Office, emphasized the lack of political will to address what he termed the “Islamification” of the UK. 

“No government, the government now or any prospective government of the UK, has the guts to stop it,” he said. “If they want to take strong action to prevent the Islamification of the UK, it’s going to mean big trouble for them. They don’t want trouble, they look four years ahead, they will kick the can down the road to someone else.”

This political shortsightedness, according to Kemp, is fueling the risk of “civil war in Europe.” He described a potential scenario resembling Northern Ireland but on a far more intense scale, where “you have the indigenous British and some of the immigrant population and the British government all on three different sides fighting against each other.”

The officer attributed the slim chances of maintaining social order to democratic dysfunction and a lack of real choice for voters. 

"The big problem that British people have is they don’t have political choice. We don’t really live in a democracy,” Kemp asserted. “Whatever party you vote for, you get the same policies. That applies also to immigration and to the way in which the Islamic population is allowed to grow in numbers and dominance.”

Kemp also noted the rise of Islamist politics in the UK, with Gaza-focused candidates winning seats in high-migration areas. “We’re going to see much more of that in the next election,” he predicted, referencing concerns within the Labour Party, including Health Minister Wes Streeting’s private message: “I fear we’re in big trouble here – and I am toast at the next election. We just lost our safest ward in Redbridge (51% Muslim, Ilford S) to a Gaza independent. At this rate, I don’t think we’ll hold either of the two Ilford seats.”

This isn’t the first time Kemp has raised the alarm. As we highlighted last year, he previously warned of growing unrest over mass migration and allegations of child sexual abuse by new arrivals, stating: “There’s only so much that I think people can take of that, and they’ve been very quiet up until now, the people in the UK have not really raised their voices against this, or in a very limited way only. But the more it develops, and it is going to develop more and more, the more unrest we are going to see.”

In that earlier commentary, Kemp went further: “And they have no option. I’m not encouraging or supporting this, but I think the people will feel they have no option than to take action into their own hand rather than rely on political leaders who are doing nothing, in their eyes. I think there is every likelihood, I don’t know what the timeframe is, but I would go so far as to not just predict civil unrest, but civil war in the UK in the coming years if this situation continues which I believe it will.”

Kemp’s views align with broader expert analyses on Europe’s fracturing societies. King’s College London Professor David Betz has warned that countries like the UK, France, and Sweden are already in a “pre civil war” state, with “dire social instability,” “economic decline,” and “elite pusillanimity” as key precursors. 

Betz stated: “We’re already past the tipping point, is my estimation… we are past the point at which there is a political offramp. We are past the point at which normal politics is able to solve the problem… almost every plausible way forward from here involves some kind of violence in my view.”

Betz further urged: “I would probably avoid big cities. I would suggest you reduce your exposure to big cities if you are able,” and concluded: “Things are bad now, but they are going to get very much worse. Hopefully after they will get better, but you will have to go through the period of very much worse before you get there.”

Echoing these concerns, academic Michael Rainsborough described Britain’s path as intentional rather than accidental, rooted in elite strategies of division. 

He referenced historical policies under Tony Blair aimed “to rub the Right’s nose in diversity,” and warned of a “descent into what we termed dirty war,” involving internal repression and low-intensity strife.

Rainsborough highlighted the erosion of national sentiment, noting public spaces filled with “Pride flags, Palestinian flags, Ukrainian flags — anything, it seems, but the Cross of St George.” 

He cautioned that such dynamics could lead to “Balkanisation — or, in the local idiom, Ulsterisation,” drawing parallels to Northern Ireland’s troubles.

These repeated warnings from military and academic figures underscore a pattern: unchecked mass migration, elite detachment from public will, and a refusal to enforce borders are eroding the fabric of Western societies. 

As globalist policies prioritize appeasement over security, the pushback from ordinary citizens grows—demanding leaders who put their own people first, before the powder keg ignites.

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/16/2026 - 05:00

Munich, 2007: The Day The West Was Told 'No'

Authored by Gerry Nolan via The Islander

They like to pretend it came out of nowhere.

They like the bedtime story: Europe was peacefully humming along in its post-history spa — open borders, cheap energy, NATO as a charity, Russia as a gas station with a flag… and then, one day, the barbarian kicked the door in for no reason at all.

That story is not just dishonest. It’s operational. It’s the propaganda you tell yourself so you can keep the addiction going without ever admitting how self-destructive it is.

Because the truth is uglier and far more incriminating: In Munich, on February 10, 2007, Vladimir Putin stood on the most flattering stage the Atlantic system owns — the Security Conference where Western officials applaud themselves for maintaining “order” and he laid out, to their faces, the skeleton of the coming disaster. He didn’t whisper it in a back channel. He used the microphone to deliver some much needed medicine, however hard it would be for the Empire to swallow.

He even signaled he wasn’t going to play the usual polite theatre — the kind where everyone agrees in public and stabs each other in classified annexes. He said the format allowed him to avoid “pleasant, yet empty diplomatic platitudes.”

And then he did the unforgivable thing, (gasp!) he described the empire as an empire. He named the unipolar intoxication — that post–Cold War hallucination that history had ended, that power had found its final owner, that NATO could expand forever without consequences, that international law was optional for the enforcer class and compulsory for everyone else.

Putin’s core argument was brutally simple: a unipolar model is not only unacceptable, it’s impossible. Not “unfair.” Not rude. Impossible.

(Because in a world with) “one center of authority, one center of force, one center of decision-making” is a world where security becomes privatized — where the strong reserve the right to interpret rules (with exemptions for themselves), and the weak are told to accept it as morality. (And yes, he put it in exactly those terms — one center, one force, one decision — the architecture of domination.)

And when you build that kind of world, everyone else does the only rational thing left: they stop trusting the wall of law to protect them, and they start arming for survival. Putin said it outright: when force becomes the default language, it “stimulates an arms race.”

This is where the Western client media — professionally disenginuous as ever, clipped one or two spicy lines and missed the larger point: Munich 2007 wasn’t “Putin raging.” It was Russia publishing its redlines in front of the class.

And then came the part that should have frozen the room. Putin named it – NATO expansion. Putin didn’t argue it as nostalgia. He argued it as provocation — a deliberate reduction of trust. He asked the question no Western leader ever answers honestly:

“Against whom is this expansion intended?”

And then he drove the blade in: what happened to the assurances made after the Warsaw Pact dissolved? “No one even remembers them.”

That line matters because it goes well beyond grievance — it’s a window into how Russia saw the post–Cold War settlement: not as a partnership, but as a rolling deception. Expand NATO, move offensive infrastructure, then call it “defensive.” Build bases, run exercises, integrate weapons systems, and insist the other side is paranoid for noticing.

Putin’s formulation was clean: NATO expansion “represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust.”

Now pause and look at the psychology of the West in that room. They didn’t hear a warning. They heard audacity. They didn’t hear “security dilemma.” They heard “how dare you speak like an equal.” That’s the cultural glitch at the heart of the Atlantic project: it believes its own core lie and cannot process sovereignty in others without treating it as aggression.

So Munich 2007 became, in Western memory, not the moment Russia told the truth — but the moment Russia “showed its hand.” The implication: Russia’s “hand” was evil, and therefore any response to it was justified. Which is exactly how you sleepwalk into catastrophe.

The real prophecy: not mysticism, mechanics

What was prophetic about Putin’s speech isn’t that he had a crystal ball.

It’s that he understood the West’s incentive structure:

• A security system that expands by definition (NATO) needs threats by definition.
• A unipolar ideology needs disobedience to punish, otherwise the myth collapses.
• A rules-based order that breaks its own rules must constantly produce narrative cover.
• An economic model that offshore-outs its industry and imports “cheap stability” must secure energy routes, supply chains, and obedience — by finance, by sanctions, by force.

Putin was saying: you can’t build a global security architecture on humiliation and expect it to be stable. Russia had lived through the wreckage of Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq and that this playbook would be used again and again, with Georgia, with Syria, Libya, Iran and Russia itself if Putin did nothing.

He was also saying and this is where the Russophobic mass hysteria accelerates — that Russia would not accept a subordinate role in its own neighborhood, on its own borders, under a wannabe hegemon’s military umbrella.

This is where the Western catechism kicks in: “neighborhood” is called “sphere of influence” when Russia says it, and “security guarantees” when Washington says it. And so the hysteria machine warmed up.

You saw it in the immediate reception: Western elites, including Merkel and McCain treating the speech as an insult rather than a negotiation offer. You saw it in the years that followed — the steady normalization of the idea that Russia’s security concerns were illegitimate, and therefore could be ignored with moralistic lectures, free of consequences..

Ignore, expand, accuse, repeat.

That loop is your road to 2022 and to today, in Munich 2026. Groundhog day without learning the vital lessons to end the loop of utter madness.

Munich, Feb 13 (2026): Merz admits the order is dead — and calls it “uncertainty”

Fast forward. Same city. Same conference. Same Western liturgy, just with more panic in the eyes and the nucleus of a terrifying realization.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz using his best performative courage, murmured that the world order we relied on is no longer there. Framing the post–Cold War “rules-based order” as effectively crumbled and almost begging for a reset in transatlantic relations. He goes further: he talks up a stronger European defense posture, and pointed to discussions with France about a European nuclear deterrent concept, a “European nuclear shield.”

And then comes the line that should be carved into the marble of the Munich conference hall as Exhibit A: Merz argues that in this era, even the United States “will not be powerful enough to go alone.”

Read that again. The BlackRock chancellor on NATO’s spiritual home turf is effectively saying: the empire is overstretched, the illusion of old certainties are gone, and Europe will be left hung out to dry. Talk about strategic vertigo!

And it is exactly what Putin was talking about in 2007: when one axis tries to act as the planet’s owner, the cost accumulates — wars, blowback, arms races, fractured trust, until the system starts to wobble under its own contradictions.

Merz also reported begged the U.S. and Europe to “repair and revive” transatlantic trust. Repair trust with what currency? Because trust isn’t repaired by speeches. Trust is repaired by reversing the toxic and suicidal behaviors that destroyed it.

And those behaviors were precisely what Putin named in 2007:

• expanding military blocs toward another power’s borders,
• treating international law as a menu,
• using economic coercion as a weapon,
• and then pretending the consequences are “unprovoked.”

Europe is now gasping at the invoice for that policy set: industrial stress, energy insecurity, strategic dependency, and a political class that can’t admit how it got here without indicting itself.

So instead of confession, you get moral performance. Instead of strategy, you get hysteria and cartoon slogans. Instead of peace architecture, you get escalation management — the art of walking toward the cliff while calling it deterrence.

Merz’s remarks underscore that Europe is being forced to contemplate a harsher security environment and greater responsibility, all of its own suicidal making — but it still frames the Russia question in the familiar moralizing register.

Which is the whole tragedy: they can feel the tectonic plates shifting beneath them, yet they keep reciting the same old prayers that summoned the earthquake.

Why we’re here: the Western addiction to expansion — and the manufactured Russophobia that lubricated it

Russophobia is more than just bloodthirsty prejudice. It’s the (failed) policy tool of choice of the last few empires against Russia. It’s what you pump into the Mockingbird media bloodstream to make escalation feel like virtue and compromise feel like treason.

You don’t have to love everything Russia does to see the mechanism: a permanent narrative of Russian menace makes every NATO move sound defensive, every EU economic self-harm sound righteous, and every diplomatic off-ramp sound like appeasement.

It creates a psychological environment where:

• NATO expansion becomes “freedom,”
• coups become “democratic awakenings,”
• sanctions become “values,”
• censorship becomes “information integrity,”
• and war becomes “support.”

Putin's 2007 Munich speech is the most important he ever gave. After years of failed attempts to have Russia included in a shared pan-European security architecture based on indivisible security, Putin warned Russia could no longer accept the threats posed by US global primacy pic.twitter.com/qQg7d3X0g3

— Glenn Diesen (@Glenn_Diesen) August 21, 2025

And once you install that operating system, you can torch your own industry and still call it moral leadership.

That’s the dark comedy of Europe since 2014 — accelerating post 2022: self-sanctioning, deindustrializing pressure, energy price shocks, and strategic submission to Washington’s delusion of carving up Russia, sold as “defending democracy.” Meanwhile, Moscow reads the West’s behavior the same way it read it in 2007: as a hostile architecture closing in, dressed up as virtue.

Putin’s Munich speech — again, not mysticism — warned that when the strong monopolize decision-making and normalize force, the world becomes less safe, not more.

So what did the West do?

It made the “rules-based order” a brand — while breaking rules (international law) whenever convenient. Exceptionalism at almost biblical levels, God’s chosen people. It expanded NATO while insisting the expansion was harmless.

It treated Russian objections as evidence of Russian guilt — which is circular logic worthy of an inquisitor. And it nurtured a media culture that could not imagine Russia as a rational actor responding to a pattern of ugly regime change behavior — only as a cartoon villain driven by pathology. Not analysis but theological warfare.

The punchline Munich won’t say out loud

Here’s the line Munich still cannot speak, even in 2026, even with Merz admitting the old order is gone: The West didn’t misread Putin’s warning. It rejected it because accepting it would have meant limiting itself.

Munich 2007 was a chance — maybe the last clean one — to build a European security architecture that wasn’t just NATO with better PR. A chance to treat Russia as a Great Power with legitimate interests, not a defeated adversary to be regime changed and broken apart.

And now, in Munich 2026, they stand amid the wreckage and call it “uncertainty,” as if the storm blew in from nowhere. The BlackRock Chancellor calls for resets, for revived trust, for Europe to become stronger, for new deterrence ideas.

But the reset Munich needs is the one it refuses:

• reset the premise that NATO will remain a viable alliance beyond the war in Ukraine,
• reset the premise that Russia must absorb strategic humiliation and accept the inverse, the reality as it is – where it’s in fact Western Europe that is wearing the humiliation.
• reset the premise that international law is a tool of the powerful,
• reset the premise that Europe’s role is to be the forward operating base and European sovereignty sacrificed to buy the Empire time .

Until that happens, Munich will keep happening — every year, more anxious, more militarized, more rhetorical, more detached from the material reality its own disastrous policies created. And Putin’s “prophecy” will keep looking prophetic — not because he conjured the future, but because he correctly described the machine.

Tyler Durden Sun, 02/15/2026 - 23:20

The "Swipe Era" Has Forever Reshaped How Couples Meet

Tinder forever changed the landscape of online dating when it introduced the swipe function in 2012: left to pass, right to like. The result was a gamified experience that felt frictionless and addictive. Other dating apps copied it, and then the "swipe era" ignited.

Before that, online dating was mostly on boring websites, like Christian Mingle and Farmers Only, that felt closer to digital classifieds. Matches were more local and delivered in slower batches, and users worked through profiles and messages to decide whom to meet. The process is now largely automated by an algorithm and resembles a game, with matches presented in rapid succession.

Tinder and other dating apps have forever changed how heterosexual couples in the U.S. meet, overtaking introductions through friends around 2013, according to a recent survey.

The chart below shows how online dating was fundamentally transformed by two waves of technology: first, the online web's takeoff in the mid-1990s, and then the smartphone era after 2007. The rise of the iPhone and Tinder in 2012 helped propel the second wave, with roughly 40% of heterosexual couples in the U.S. now meeting online. That figure was in the low single digits in the mid-1990s.

"We find that Internet meeting is displacing the roles that family and friends once played in bringing couples together," researchers Michael Rosenfeld, Reuben Thomas, and Sonia Hausen wrote in the 2019 paper.

Online dating hasn't rewritten love - it's just greatly expanded the pool of potential partners. It also shows how an even larger share of human life now happens online.

Remember during the Covid-era when Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg aggressively pushed the metaverse as a way to move more of daily life online?

Beyond the metaverse's failures, online dating has also been running into headwinds lately, as younger people reduce screen time and choose to meet in the real world again.

According to Adjust.com, an app insight blog, "Looking at dating app installs and sessions from January 2023 to December 2024, it's clear that user interest has been gradually declining. From January 2023 to December 2024, dating app installs and sessions declined by 13% year over year. Despite this overall decrease, sessions remained resilient, particularly during key seasonal periods."

And, weirdly enough, Gen Z has given up on alcohol (readers already know that), but a new report suggests they're also giving up on sex. Likely because sex can lead to babies, and babies can lead to drained bank accounts.

It increasingly looks like Gen Z's habits are reshaping daily life and parts of the economy. They've certainly dented alcohol consumption and may soon influence family formation. And, as noted above, they could also be contributing to a peak in dating app usage.

Tyler Durden Sun, 02/15/2026 - 22:45

The Biggest Bait-and-Switch War Of The Century

Authored by Jim Bovard

A few presidencies ago, Washington politicians used boundless political and intellectual chicanery to drag America into a ruinous war. Thousands of Americans died and scores of thousands of Iraqis perished due to the official myth of Saddam Hussein as the twentieth hijacker.

Last November, Axios published new damning information on the role of Saudi government officials in bankrolling the 9/11 attacks on New York City and the Pentagon. Private lawsuits against the Saudi regime "unearthed evidence showing one Saudi official—who acknowledges aiding two men who became hijackers—made a drawing of a plane and a mathematical formula that allegedly could have been used to fly into the World Trade Center." That was only the latest stunning revelation in a coverup that will celebrate its twenty-fifth birthday this year.

In 2002 and early 2003, the W. Bush administration rushed to exploit 9/11 to justify invading Iraq. But there was a problem with that con job. A 2002 FBI memo stated that there was "incontrovertible evidence that there is support for these [9/11 hijacker] terrorists within the Saudi Government." A joint House-Senate congressional investigation found extensive evidence that the Saudi government, not Saddam Hussein, propelled the hijackers. The Bush administration succeeded in suppressing the key twenty-eight pages of that congressional report on the Saudi role on 9/11. 

The late Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) became a leading proponent of declassifying those twenty-eight pages, declaring in 2013:

"If the 9/11 hijackers had outside help—particularly from one or more foreign governments—the press and the public have a right to know what our government has or has not done to bring justice to all of the perpetrators."

Those twenty-eight page were finally released (mostly) in 2016, revealing how Saudi government officials directly financed and provided diplomatic cover for several of the hijackers in the United States shortly before they unleashed havoc.

Truth delayed is truth defused. Blocking the evidence of the Saudi bankrolling of 9/11 enabled the Bush administration to kill tens of thousands of Iraqis.

The Bush administration sold the Iraq war as payback for 9/11. While false claims by President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney on Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) have received ample coverage, the Bush Saudi-Iraqi Bait-and-Switch has faded into memory.

In a memo Bush sent on March 18, 2003, notifying Congress that he was launching a war against Iraq, Bush declared that he was acting "to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001."

Bush invoked this justification even though his administration had never offered a shred of evidence tying Saddam to 9/11. Bush and team continually threw out new accusations and then backed off, knowing that few people were paying close enough attention to recognize that previous charges had collapsed like a houses of cards.

In the first months after 9/11, there was little mention of Iraq in the public pronouncements by Bush and his top officials. But in his State of the Union address on January 29, 2002, Bush stunned many people by announcing that Iraq, along with Iran and North Korea, were part of an "axis of evil." Since the Global War on Terror had stratospheric support levels in the polls from the American people, the best way to sanctify a war against Iraq was to redefine it as part of the Global War on Terror. Bush declared on September 25, 2002:

"Al Qaeda hides, Saddam doesn’t, but the danger is, is that they work in concert. The danger is that al Qaeda becomes an extension of Saddam’s madness and his hatred and his capacity to extend weapons of mass destruction around the world…You can’t distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror. They’re both equally as bad, and equally as evil, and equally as destructive."

The next day, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced that the United States possessed "bulletproof" evidence linking Saddam and Al Qaeda. But it was a bullet that could never be exposed to sunlight. An earlier alleged link between Iraqi agents and hijacker Mohamed Atta meeting in Prague had collapsed, with the story disavowed by both the CIA and the Czech government.

On October 7, 2002, Bush, speaking to a selective audience of Republican donors in Cincinnati, laid out his logic:

"We know that Iraq and the Al Qaida terrorist network share a common enemy—the United States of America. We know that Iraq and Al Qaida have had high-level contacts that go back a decade…And we know that after September the 11th, Saddam Hussein’s regime gleefully celebrated the terrorist attacks on America."

The fact that some Iraqis cheered the carnage on September 11 proved Saddam could team up with Al Qaeda for a second 9/11.

The link between Saddam and Al Qaeda then took a three-month recess, returning in the 2003 State of the Union address, when Bush declared that “Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of Al Qaeda.” Bush reached for the ultimate hot button:

"Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans, this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known."

Three days later, when Bush was directly asked by a journalist at a White House press conference, "Do you believe that there is a link between Saddam Hussein, a direct link, and the men who attacked on September the 11th?" Bush replied, "I can’t make that claim." Yet, that did not stop him from endlessly making the inference.

But the Bush administration’s new "evidence" failed the laugh test. The Los Angeles Times revealed:

"The Bush administration’s renewed assertions of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda are based largely on the murky case of a one-legged Al Qaeda suspect who was treated in Baghdad after being wounded in the war in Afghanistan."

Time noted of Bush’s message on Saddam and Al Qaeda:

"If there was no visible evidence to link the two, he just used that fact to argue his point: the danger is everywhere, even if we can’t see it; the threat is growing, even if we can’t prove it. The Administration’s argument for war is based not on the strength of America’s Intelligence but on its weakness."

In the days after 9/11, when pollsters asked Americans who they thought had carried out the 9/11 attacks, only 3% of respondents suggested Iraq or Saddam Hussein as culprits. But by February 2003, 72% of Americans believed that Hussein was “personally involved in the September 11 attacks.” Shortly before the March 2003 invasion, almost half of all Americans believed that “most” or “some” of the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqi citizens. Only 17% of respondents knew that none of the hijackers were Iraqis. 73% believed that Saddam “is currently helping al-Qaeda.”

American soldiers were hit with more concentrated doses of propaganda than private citizens. A 2006 poll of American troops revealed that 85% believed the U.S. mission sought “to retaliate for Saddam’s role in the 9/11 attacks.” That belief likely helped spur some of atrocities against Iraqi civilians by U.S. troops.

U.S. intelligence agencies always knew that the Saddam-9/11 link was a political concoction by pro-war politicians. In July 2004, the Senate Intelligence Committee issued a 511-page report that recognized that the CIA accurately concluded that “to date there was no evidence proving Iraqi complicity or assistance” in the 9/11 attacks. The report noted that the CIA’s accurate judgments on Saddam, Al Qaeda, and the non-link to 9/11 “were widely disseminated [prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq], though an early version of a key CIA assessment was disseminated only to a limited list of Cabinet members and some sub-Cabinet officials in the administration.”

Neither George Bush nor Dick Cheney were ever held liable for their lies that led to carnage in Iraq. Perhaps that is the biggest lesson that Washington policymakers take from the Iraq War.

On the campaign trail in 2016, Donald Trump sounded as if he recognized the vast folly of invading Iraq to topple Saddam. But Trump’s promise to “end the endless wars” seems like a hundred years ago. An Associated Press poll last month found that 56% of Americans believed that Trump had already “gone too far” with his military interventions abroad. But will pro-war politicians and political appointees fabricate new pretexts to attack Iran or elsewhere?

Tyler Durden Sun, 02/15/2026 - 22:10

 

Why the Traditional Media No Longer Serves Our Needs
The Truth Matters, Chapter 1
Bruce Bartlett
Bartlett’s Notations, Feb 09, 2026

 

 

 

 

With the decimation of the Washington Post newsroom by billionaire Jeff Bezos, the crisis of the media seems to have reached an apex. I saw this coming in 2017 and wrote a book about it: The Truth Matters. Since I believe that the message of the book still resonates, I’ve decided to serialize it here on Substack. It’s a short book so it shouldn’t occupy too much of your time. Following is chapter one.

Key points:

· The fairness doctrine was obsolete and cannot be revived.

· Conservatives were underserved for many years by traditional media.

· Progressives were slow to embrace new media such as talk radio.

People have never been happy with the news media, always blaming it for lying, misinforming and being unfair to one side or the other. Thomas Jefferson expressed views on this subject that many people today no doubt would share. In an 1807 letter to John Norvell, Jefferson said,

To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted, so as to be most useful, I should answer, “by restraining it to true facts & sound principles only.” Yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more completely deprive the nation of its benefits, than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood. Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day….

I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false.

The complaint that the news media have a built-in bias is an old one and there is truth in it. The major media have long been based in our major cities where people naturally tend to be more socially liberal. That has been one of the great attractions for living in cities rather than small towns and rural areas that tend to be socially conservative. Additionally, it’s a fact that people with a liberal disposition have tended to gravitate toward journalism as a profession, while conservatives gravitate elsewhere.

Media consolidation also tended to make it more liberal. In any town with more than one newspaper, one would usually be conservative if only for competitive reasons. Partisan affiliation and ideological compatibility in editorials, news judgement and among columnists was one reason people subscribed to a particular paper. But as newspapers have closed, those with a conservative bent tended to be the first to go because they were usually the afternoon papers. Those with no competition tend toward bland mushiness when it comes to politics.

Radio and television have always tended to be more even-handed because news presentation focused on breaking stories where audio or video was available. It didn’t lend itself to commentary or editorializing. Moreover, there was a government rule called the fairness doctrine that required both sides to be presented when political endorsements were made or opinions expressed. But the main effect of this rule was to discourage the presentation of any opinions at all, rather than waste precious air time presenting alternative viewpoints.

In 1987, the fairness doctrine was abolished. Many rue this day as the one when fairness itself began to disappear from the media. But the fairness doctrine never applied to the print media and it was already clear by 1987 that cable—CNN went on the air in 1980—was ushering in a new era of news coverage. It was untenable to maintain restrictions on over-the-air media that didn’t apply to print publications or cable. It’s likely that the fairness doctrine would have been struck down by the courts if it wasn’t repealed.

It is indisputable, however, that abolition of the fairness doctrine gave rise to talk radio. Developments in the radio market were also critical; the AM band had been suffering for years as the FM band was better suited to music. Rush Limbaugh was the first to recognize that the end of the fairness doctrine meant that he could do an entire show devoted to nothing but expressing his opinions, of which he had many, all strongly felt and vigorously expressed. The AM band was well-suited to talk and was cheaper than employing disk jockeys to curate music selections.

It’s perhaps an accident of history that a strong conservative like Limbaugh was first to recognize the political potential of talk radio. It was probably also true that conservatives were underserved by the liberal sameness of conventional journalism at the time. At least in his early years, Limbaugh was a genuine news source, giving national attention to stories, research and viewpoints that were hard to find elsewhere. Before him, the only national publications with a broad reach that reflected a conservative bent were the Wall Street Journal and Reader’s Digest.

Limbaugh’s success led to the creation of Fox News by Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch, based on a vision long nurtured by Republican media guru Roger Ailes. With most television tilting a bit to the left, they cleverly positioned Fox in the middle of the political spectrum, which made it slightly to the right of its competitors.

The enormous financial success of conservative talk radio and Fox News stimulated growth of a vast conservative media network. Meanwhile, efforts to copy its success by progressives have uniformly failed. No one is quite sure why; it may be that those on the left are inclined to be satisfied with the traditional mainstream media. The problem is that it is dying a slow death. Something will replace it, we don’t know what just yet. Many analysts believe that virtually all print publications will disappear in a few years.

It may be that progressives have more to gain from developing new methods of acquiring news and information than conservatives, who seem very satisfied with the availability of compatible news and views on Fox, talk radio and the internet. But conservatives should avoid complacency. By having a closed-loop of news sources, they are more prone to deception by charlatans peddling conspiracy theories, fake news and extreme views far outside the mainstream. These are likely to be political albatrosses in the future.

In the long run, political parties and movements are best served by truth, accuracy and responsible news reporting. It may be that this needs to be subsidized in some way. The federal government has long done this by giving newspapers and magazines subsidized mailing rates; and radio and television stations were given extremely valuable spectrum for literally nothing. Legal requirements that certain public notices be published in local newspapers is another sort of government subsidy. Given the importance of a well-informed electorate to the functioning of democracy, it is not unreasonable to think that market forces alone may be inadequate to the job.

One idea I have had is to allow foundations and other groups to endow reporting positions at news organizations as has long been common for university professorships. Something like this is already being done at the Boston Globe, where local nonprofits are subsidizing the cost of employing a music critic, with the paper retaining full editorial control over the critic’s work.

~~~ About Bruce Bartlett:

Bruce Bartlett is a longtime observer and commenter on economic and political affairs in Washington, D.C., who has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Politico, and many others. A bestselling author, his latest book is The Truth Matters: A Citizen’s Guide to Separating Facts From Lies and Stopping Fake News in Its Tracks.

His prior writings on the Big Picture are here,

@BruceBartlett

The post Bartlett: Traditional Media No Longer Serves Democracy’s Needs appeared first on The Big Picture.

The AI Transition: Even Dinosaurs Weren't Stupid Enough To Create Their Own Extinction Event

By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

A Bridge Too Far? The AI TRANSITioN?

Last weekend we discussed Molotov Cocktails, Volatility, Stability, & Faux Liquidity. In a nutshell, it was about:

• The transition from one steady state to another steady state can be volatile.
  • A rules-based world, dependent on trade, to a ProSec-based world where each country operates more independently.
  • The transition from a pre-AI world to an AI world.
• Faux liquidity – or our assessment that market structure is set up to produce bigger moves than the headlines or news warrant.

We got to discuss many of these things on Bloomberg TV on Friday, where Academy was part of the first half hour. While the focus was on AI, I kept arguing that geopolitics and this transition from one stable system to another stable system was also likely playing a major role in this week’s price action. Of all the things I regret saying, or not saying, I flubbed the final question on Walmart’s multiple. It isn’t something I focus on, and my answer was weak. I wish I’d highlighted that Walmart is the sort of company that should do well – big enough to navigate the changing global trade system and well positioned enough to extract the maximum benefit from AI-related efficiencies.

In any case, we certainly have a lot to follow up on based on this past week’s volatility and rapidly evolving narrative.

A Bridge Too Far?

One heck of a movie, and one of the few that comes to mind where the “good guys” lose. They put up an epic struggle, but don’t achieve their goal.

As you know I am Canadian, so you can choose to take this with a grain of salt, but I believe that this week’s “Truth Social” post about the new bridge, almost completed, fits the “bridge too far” narrative.

• There was a lot of concern about imposing tariffs on countries that had been deemed to be blocking the U.S. “taking” Greenland. Not just from foreign countries, but there also seemed to be some degree of backlash and concern domestically. Not “just” from economists (which were front and center during Liberation Day). Nothing broke, and nothing really changed, but it seemed to set the stage for what happened this week.
• On Sunday night (or early Monday morning) the President posted some complaints about the new bridge being built. The Gordie Howe Bridge. He is legendary both in Canada and Detroit. As we’ve become used to there was a mix of fact and fiction, and some weirdness (like China going to take away the Stanley Cup – which no Canadian team has won since 1993).
• He went down the path of ownership. But it quickly came out that Michigan will have ownership, once the bridge costs are paid for (which were heavily skewed towards being paid by Canada). The argument of “ownership” also looked “flimsy” as people discovered that the Ambassador Bridge (the current connecting bridge) is privately owned by an American company (or family). I’ve used that bridge a lot, and it leaves a lot to be desired. One thing that I think of a lot is how great the new Tappan Zee Bridge is (technically the Mario Cuomo Bridge). It is a beautiful bridge and it has changed traffic patterns for the better. I don’t even know how old the bridge is now, but I still feel a sense of awe (and even pride) when driving across that bridge. I’m not sure the Gordie Howe Bridge is anywhere near as impressive as the new Tappan Zee Bridge, but it certainly has to be an improvement (and additive).
• I’ve left out a myriad of other allegations around this to focus on the pertinent point. Michigan, with the approval (and support) of U.S. Presidents (including President Trump) has engaged in a project that they viewed would help their economy. Out of the blue, that is being challenged?

Now maybe it is pure coincidence, but this week, the House of Representatives voted to stop the tariffs between the U.S. and Canada. There is no way this won’t get stopped with a veto (assuming it gets passed the Senate), but this is the first time during this administration that we saw Republicans go against the President even as they were warned about reprisals such as “being primaried.”

We’ve had some questions about the American Brand. Tourism to the U.S. from abroad is down (not horrific, but down). We have yet to notice a discernible change in consumer tastes abroad, but many of these “bridges too far” have occurred only recently.

While I’m not sure much will come of it, France announced on January 26th that civil servants would have to use Visio by 2027, instead of Zoom.

While we have “goods” trade deficits with many (even most countries), we have “services” surpluses.

We’ve always argued that the total trade balance is most important (goods and services).

• While I don’t see it tracked anywhere, “profitability” of trade is even more relevant and what little evidence there is points to the fact that from most countries, the U.S. imports low margin products and exports higher margin products (or services as the case may be).
• That is NOT inconsistent with ProSec which prioritizes domestic (or trade with close allies) for “things” that are vital for national security in a wholistic way (rather than purely military).

We’ve also argued that tariffs put pressure on the system slowly. It is the cumulative effect of tariffs that matter (especially when the rates themselves seemed subject to change at any moment). As we move into the 10th month of higher tariff revenue (around $30 billion per month) the cumulative effect seems to be appearing (lots of reports this week citing amounts eaten by exporters, versus paid by importers, or passed on to customers).

Now maybe it is pure coincidence, but this week, stories circulated about reducing tariffs on steel and aluminum. There were some denials but this makes sense – as it will take the U.S. time to crank up production and it is “confusing” how to apply this, as both steel and aluminum are a part of so many products.

Markets like some degree of certainty. Even if the certainty is somewhat variable. The market has grown to accept the volatility and the “maximalist negotiating leverage” game. 

But have we crossed a bridge, where that game no longer functions like it has for the previous 6 months or so?

U.S. stocks underperformed most other indices last week, especially when converted to dollars.

I think we have seen enough Molotov Cocktails lobbed domestically and internationally (from all sorts of directions and parties) that this volatility extends and resolves itself in lower valuations, especially domestically, as the U.S. has outperformed by so much for so long.

The AI TRANSITioN?

I was trying to find a font that had more of a computer/sci-fi “vibe”. I wanted to use one of The Far Side’s dinosaur cartoons where a couple of dinosaurs are laughing at a mammal while one looks mildly concerned about some snowflakes that are falling (but we probably needed some actual copyright permission to do that – though I urge you to search The Far Side for dinosaurs).

I guess I was thinking about that because Even the Dinosaurs Weren’t Stupid Enough to Create Their Own Extinction Event. They were not smart, and they did become extinct, but they didn’t do it to themselves.

So, we will use this little picture to symbolize what may have happened last week (and I’m pretty sure we don’t need any copyright permission from Grok).

We have been talking about the little I (or i-shaped) economy. Arguing that maybe it is a k-shaped economy rather than a K-shaped economy. We’ve also been talking about the “working poor” in recent pieces (The Fed, Electricity, & Affordability).

You could almost convince me that it is an h-shaped economy, but that might be too negative.

But for now, I think the K in the K-shaped economy just cracked. Let’s look at this “cracking” of the K in two ways.

The first from “margin compression” and even “margin differential” compression:

• High margin, low physical asset businesses are likely to face margin pressures. I don’t think we are close to the day where AI can create products that remotely compete with the biggest and best software programs – but they could face margin pressures as they head off any potential competition at the pass. The selling may already be overdone, but we could see some margin compression continuing in sectors that don’t have as big of a “moat” as previously thought. Installed base is still a very powerful “moat” and the market may have forgotten that, but margin pressure is likely to be a story that becomes a recurring theme to pressure markets.
• Low margin business, especially those with large “physical” undertakings (property, plant, and equipment, shipping, logistics, etc.) may benefit and see margin expansion. These are the sorts of business that can see margins expand as they get benefits from efficiencies delivered by AI (I should have done a better job on this on Friday’s TV appearance).
• So, the high margin sectors that the market owns heavily could see margins shrink, while the low margin businesses that many investors are underweight in could see margins expand. Both the margin expansion and compression come from the same force – rapidly improving AI. This rotation could have some staying power. Call this the margin differential compression trade. It will adjust what are the appropriate multiples for different companies and different industries.

Weirdly, that might be the more benign way to think about this.

• White collar job losses.
  • The FT published an article where Mustafa Suleyman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, predicted (according to a Grok summary) that most tasks in white-collar professions – such as those performed by lawyers, accountants, project managers, and others working at computers – will be fully automated by AI within the next 12 to 18 months. There seem to be a lot of takes on his words that are even worse than what he said, though what he said doesn’t seem great. Presumably, at least some people on the upward sloping part of the K have white-collar jobs?
    • I did manage to write a T-Report this weekend, rather than giving up, but…
  • If you haven’t seen, or I’m the first person to suggest checking out Something Big Is Happening, I recommend it. It is another, I think I can say, “dire” warning about potential job losses.

We’ve been living in a “no hire, no fire” economy. Anyone who had been proclaiming massive job losses from AI was viewed as a tin foil hat wearing “doomer.”

Most people were explaining that AI would:

• Enhance what people could do, so those who harnessed it would benefit greatly.
• The counterpoint to this, recently, has become that since AI is getting so easy to use, don’t even bother, because by the next generation, we won’t need to have a clue on how to use AI, to use it.
• Create some job losses but create many more jobs. Ironically AI prompter is one of them, but see the above comment.
• Basically, the argument has been that AI, like many other technological advances, would be a big net benefit to humankind (and not a self-made extinction event).

That narrative, like the K, seems to have cracked in the past few weeks.

• Will that change how people spend their money? This narrative has appeared rather “suddenly” and has an “alarmist” ring to it. Maybe, like the initial concerns about DeepSeek, it will fall by the wayside.
  • The risk is that, even before job losses occur, people will change their spending behavior out of fear of those job losses.

I’m not in this camp, but the concern that “Someone’s Efficiency is at the cost of Your Job” was almost palpable this week.

Probably overdone, but if the upward sloping leg of the K has been driving the economy and spending, we might want to be very careful (in our investing and spending).

Yet another reason to be cautious on risk as we make it through this “transition.”

The Fed

I remain convinced that:

• We will have 75 bps of cuts by the end of the September meeting. That there is a far higher chance of one more Powell cut (March or April) than the market is pricing in. The market moved in our direction this week, but plenty of room still to price in what we are positioning for.
• 10-year yields will be sub 4%. 10s closed at 4.05% on Friday.

This has nothing to do with the rest of today’s report, but I didn’t want anyone to think we’ve stopped pounding the table on these trades. Though in some ways it has a lot to do with everything in today’s report if we’re right about the volatility and its disruptive nature.

Two Last Things

• The Supreme Court is likely to rule, at least partially, against the U.S. government on the IEEPA tariffs.
  • Countries that have set up trade deals are unlikely to be impacted as the trade deals themselves should overrule the IEEPA tariffs (to the extent there were any). Though there isn’t a lot of evidence that agreements in principle have turned into formal documents.
  • The admin has many other ways to attack tariffs other than under IEEPA, especially for tariffs in the 15% and lower range.
  • It is likely the admin, on any losses, will make it very difficult to collect money paid on tariffs that were deemed illegal. Do you really want to sue the government or do you just view it as a sunk cost?
  • I don’t think the ruling will have much of an impact, though I’m rethinking that, as the reaction might be different if we really did go “a bridge too far” this week.
• Expect nuclear arms proliferation.
  • Ukraine gave up what nukes it had and it was invaded by Russia (which does have nukes and has muted any military response to their actions).
  • Iran has been attacked before, and the U.S. is positioning forces capable of launching another major attack.
  • North Korea, with a backwards economy, and few friends, is largely left alone (while executing cybercrimes to fund themselves). Would the world tolerate such blatant cyber activity if they didn’t have nukes?
  • France has discussed the possibility of working with other nations about sharing (in some form) either technology or weapons.
  • Nuclear energy will be important to the world for ProSec, and I’d be shocked if nuclear weapons didn’t play an important role in smaller nations figuring out how to ensure their sovereignty. So probably bad for humankind and extinction events, but good for uranium and others in the nuclear fuel business.

Bottom Line

More of the same. We could get some bounces.

• Some markets are at or near being oversold.
• We could get pleasant surprises with Iran or Russia.
• There are likely to be new “pronouncements” from the administration in their efforts to run hot heading into the midterms – and I continue to believe people are not pricing in the Fed as aggressively as they should. I also remain a huge fan of the ProSec™ trade. Not in the least because many of the industries that fit the trade criteria are in the camp of stocks that have been underinvested in and are positioned to do well.

I wasn’t even depressed when I started writing this report. Sorry if this report did nothing to brighten your day, but this is the dark spot my thoughts led me to.

Though I do remain skeptical of the ability for AI to change things so quickly that we are hurt before we can reap the benefits.

There, at least we ended on a positive note, and for those on holiday on Monday, do enjoy! It is difficult to believe it is only the middle of February.

Tyler Durden Sun, 02/15/2026 - 15:10

Pentagon Gaming Out "Sustained, Weeks-Long Military Campaign" Against Iran Which Could Open Pandora's Box

The Pentagon is preparing for a "sustained, weeks-long military campaign" against Iran if President Trump gives the green light, according to fresh reporting in Reuters which cites two US officials.

The scenario under review envisions a far broader conflict than last June's 12-day war, when the US and Israel launched strikes on the Islamic Republic. But some who better remember the recent Iraq and Afghan wars say it won't just be "weeks" - but any major Iran action has the likelihood of becoming a much lengthier and bloodier than envisioned quagmire.

Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

The report comes after Washington and Tehran resumed indirect talks in Oman last week - also as Israel is pressing for Iran to dismantle not only its nuclear program but also its ballistic missile arsenal - the same capability Tehran used to strike back at Tel Aviv in June.

Even as some White House officials have touted the idea of 'limited' strikes on Iran, akin to the swift and easy Venezuela operation which ousted Nicolás Maduro, Pentagon planners are being more realistic in admitting immediate Iranian retaliation would sustain the conflict, making it "more complex".

From the heart of the Reuters article...

The planning under way this time is more complex, the officials said. In a sustained campaign, the U.S. military could hit Iranian state and security facilities, not just nuclear infrastructure, one of the officials said. The official declined to provide specific details.

Experts say the risks to U.S. forces would be far greater in such an operation against Iran, which boasts a formidable arsenal of missiles. Retaliatory Iranian strikes also increase the risk of a regional conflict.

The same official said the United States fully expected Iran to retaliate, leading to back-and-forth strikes and reprisals over time.

Trump of course ran on a campaign to end the forever wars and to not start any new ones, especially in the Middle East, where Washington has had a horrible and blood-stained track record. 'Blowback' also defined the period of the 'global war on terror' - as groups like ISIS arose in the wake of toppling Saddam Hussein and destabilizing places like Libya and Syria.

Whether Trump is pursuing diplomacy or using negotiations as cover for renewed military action remains an open question, and talks based on Oman are expected to continue this coming week.

White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said the president has "all options on the table" and will decide on war based on national security interests, also at a moment Congress is as usual asleep at the wheel, despite a couple of efforts to reign in War Powers which have quickly failed.

As for the 'option' of a large-scale attack, Pentagon leadership is still cautious on this, given US assets are still being put in place in the CENTOM region, also as a second carrier - the USS Gerald R. Ford - is still en route from the Caribbean.

"Defensively, we’ve got to make sure, before we do anything [that US defenses are in order," said Gen. Joseph Votel, former head of US Central Command. "So we are prepared for the inevitable response that comes back against US interests or against our partners." The NY Times has also lately described the effort as "putting one’s house in order."

Are US dialogue and peace efforts for real this time? Or another ruse to lull the Iranians into thinking it want suffer surprise attack...

Rubio on Iran:

We're dealing with radical Shia clerics.

We're dealing with people who make geopolitical decisions on the basis of pure theology.

No one's ever been able to do a successful deal with Iran, but we're going to try. pic.twitter.com/Au2sOygybZ

— Clash Report (@clashreport) February 15, 2026

Meanwhile, a note via Peter Tchir's Academy Securities: 

“I do believe that before any kinetic action occurs, there would need to be greater consultation with regional allies. For now, the Arab Gulf countries are more comfortable with the weakened devil they know in Tehran than potential chaos in the region, a disruption in oil prices, and investor jitters, not to mention the probability that any Iranian retaliation is likely to include attacks on their soil.” – Linda Weissgold, Former CIA Deputy Director for Analysis

But again, this notion that a military campaign would just take "weeks" (and not months or even years)... is precisely the lie that was floated about the Iraq and Afghan interventions - both which turned into two decade plus nightmares.

Tyler Durden Sun, 02/15/2026 - 14:35

As Demand Grows, US Nuclear Energy Industry Faces Looming Crunch In Reactor Fuel Supply

Authored by John Haughey via The Epoch Times,

The Department of Energy (DOE) has invested billions in incentivizing domestic production of enriched uranium for the commercial development of advanced nuclear reactors, including $2.7 billion issued last month to three companies to build centrifuges and processing plants necessary to produce fuel for reactor cores.

Yet, a fuel crunch that could hobble President Donald Trump’s “nuclear renaissance” initiatives looms as soon as 2028, several experts warned during the two-day U.S. Nuclear Industry Council’s 13th annual Advanced Reactors Summit in Seattle that concluded Feb. 12. 

“If America wants to lead in advanced reactors, we have to do the nuclear fuel here. Make no mistake about that,” Centrus Energy Senior Vice President Patrick Brown told more than 400 nuclear industry professionals on Feb.12.

“Unfortunately, we’re really building from zero.”

Right now, he said, less than 1 percent of the nuclear fuel that the nation’s 94 commercial reactors annually consume is produced domestically, and that is exclusively dedicated to the Pentagon. The nation’s commercial nuclear energy industry is “completely reliant on foreign imports” of enriched uranium, he said, primarily from Kazakhstan and Canada.

Those imports include up to 5 percent from Russia that won’t be available soon. In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Congress in 2023 banned U.S. companies from importing Russian uranium. That ban goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2028.

Brown said with the global nuclear fuel market already constrained, domestic industry’s scramble to revive enrichment—a process American companies invented and once dominated—is now a race to have supply available to meet demand as new reactors come online.

Because that demand—spurred by the president’s May 2025 executive orders to license 10 new reactors by 2030 and quadruple commercial nuclear energy output by 2050—is likely to outpace domestic fuel production until the early 2030s, he said a timing shortage will emerge in 2028. 

“That’s when we'll see that the problem is there’s not enough non-Russian supply” of enriched uranium to replace even the relatively small amount it now produces in a tight market where restrictions on one supplier impacts the entire market.

“Fortunately,” Brown said, the industry and the Trump administration recognize there is an approaching gap between burgeoning demand and static supply, and has deemed restoring domestic capacity to enrich uranium a national security priority akin to “a second Manhattan Project.”

The entrance of Urenco's uranium enrichment plant in Gronau, Germany. Urenco USA also operates a commercial enrichment plant in New Mexico and is among the few companies in the United States authorized to do so. Volker Hartmann/DDP/AFP via Getty Images

Industry Must Respond

The nation’s domestic nuclear fuel supply chain got a $2.7 billion boost when the Department of Energy on Jan. 5 issued awards to three domestic companies to enrich low-enriched uranium and high-assay low-enriched uranium.

Securing $900 million awards each to build uranium enrichment plants are California-based General Matter in a former Paducah gaseous diffusion plant in western Kentucky, North Carolina-headquartered Orano Group’s Federal Services operation in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Maryland-based Centrus Energy’s uranium enrichment plant in Piketon, Ohio.

Brown said unlike the array of demonstration projects the Department of Energy is sponsoring, such as the Energy Reactor Pilot Program that has 10 companies vying for federal funding if they can demonstrate functionality of their designs by July 4, 2026, enriching uranium is not a new process.

“We’re not here to do science experiments, right?” he said. “We’re here to go big or go home. We’re not going home. The era of demonstration is over. We are moving onto large-scale commercial production.”

Centrus is already licensed to produce low-enriched uranium and high-assay low-enriched uranium in its Ohio plant, he said. Its Technology and Manufacturing Center in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, is the only domestic manufacturer of centrifuges needed for the enrichment process. It’s ready to gradually scale-up production.

“We have the site. We have the facility,” Brown said. “We have the room to expand” at the Piketon plant, which is demonstrating with 18 centrifuges what could be replicated by thousands. “Our technologies are proven and are actively producing [high-assay low-enriched uranium] today,” he said.

The Department of Energy award is designed to induce a long-term “demand signal” for investors and utilities, he said, by assuring them there will be ample domestic supply of enriched uranium available should they incorporate nuclear power into their grid expansion plans.

However, Brown said, the Piketon plant and other projects nationwide are not expected to reach peak production until the early 2030s, meaning there could be more demand than supply until production can catch up.

While the Department of Energy funding is critical in seeding domestic capacity to be self-sufficient in producing nuclear fuels, how swiftly that can be achieved is now up to the industry itself, he said, encouraging operators to begin negotiating “off take” agreements with Centrus and others engaged in uranium enrichment so they can secure their fuel supply and processors can commit to ramping up with confirmed orders.

“This is the chicken-and-the-egg problem that [the Department of Energy] was trying to solve. They said, ‘Build the capacity and the advanced reactor development will come while we’re building it,’” Brown said. “That’s the message. So we need firm contracts to proceed to build further. So let us know. We’re ready.”

Tyler Durden Sun, 02/15/2026 - 14:00

Border Patrol Fired Army Lasers At Party Balloons, Forcing El Paso Air Traffic Shutdown

On Wednesday, after the FAA suddenly shut down airspace over El Paso, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced the unsettling move was prompted by a "cartel drone incursion," and assured Americans that "the threat has been neutralized."

However, that shutdown, which impeded everything from commercial air traffic to medevac helicopter flights, was actually caused by a trigger-happy border Border Patrol unit firing a US Army laser weapon at a party balloon, not far from El Paso International Airport. 

The introduction of the weapon into a border-security role without FAA approval may have violated federal law. The proposal for arming the border patrol with the anti-drone weapon was first presented to Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg in the spring of 2025, sources tell the New York Times. The goal was the interdiction of drones used to smuggle drugs across the frontier. According to two people, Pentagon staff cautioned that the idea would require approval of the FAA and Transportation Department, but Feinberg said the Pentagon was free to do what it wanted with the weapons. The Pentagon called their account "a total fabrication." 

In a Feb 6 email obtained by the Times, the FAA's chief lawyer warned a DOD official that putting the weapon into the border-enforcement mix without restricting the airspace "a grave risk of fatalities or permanent injuries” to civilians flying overhead. 

CPB officers reportedly fired an AeroVironment LOCUST laser counter-drone weapon on loan from the US Army (AeroVironment photo)

In the predawn hours on Monday, Feb 9, as military service members observed, Customs and Border Protection officers fired the laser weapon at what they assumed was a drone near Fort Bliss, but it was actually a metallic party balloon. Around 5pm that day, a DOD official emailed an FAA lawyer, reiterating the Pentagon's stance that prior FAA approval wasn't needed, and that the laser weapons would continue to be employed on the border, adding that he "looked forward" to a meeting to discuss the topic. 

FAA officials were said to be outraged. Early Tuesday evening, the FAA warned the Pentagon and National Security Council that an FAA-mandated shutdown of airspace near El Paso was imminent. Then came the extraordinary order from FAA administrator Bryan Bedford that airspace above El Paso would be closed for 10 days. The "temporary flight restriction notice" forbid any flights below 18,000 feet in the affected area. An angry El Paso Mayor Renard Johnson said the "unnecessary" airspace shutdown, which lasted a few hours, caused "chaos and confusion," including the diversion of medevac flights to Las Cruces, New Mexico. Bedford rescinded the order on Wednesday.  

The laser weapon was fired a balloon approaching Fort Bliss, which is immediately adjacent to El Paso International Airport

The incident has intensified pre-existing tension between the DOD and the FAA, which goes back to the disastrous January 2025 collision between an American Airlines jet and a US Army Black Hawk helicopter that killed 67 people. At least two near-misses with Army helicopters followed. 

While it's been widely and credibly reported that CPB fired at a party balloon, the administration has yet to officially rescind its claims about a "cartel drone incursion." Meanwhile, the safety question hangs heavy in the air. In October 2024, an official at US Northern Command said safety concerns were, at the time, keeping lasers off the table where drone interdiction was concerned: 

“The biggest thing right now is the impact of the laser when it moves beyond its target. You know, how far is it going? What’s that going to do? How long does the laser need to remain on target before it begins to inflict damage and so on, right?” 

It's far from clear if those questions have since been satisfactorily answered. To the extent they're still being sorted out, maybe that process shouldn't be taking place next to El Paso International Airport. 

Tyler Durden Sun, 02/15/2026 - 13:25

"This Alliance Has To Look Different Because The World Looks Different": Rubio Expands On Historic Speech In Munich

Authored by 'sundance' via The Last Refuge,

Marco Rubio appears for an interview with John Micklethwait of Bloomberg News. The interview was pre-scheduled as a follow up to the rather historic speech in Munich at the security conference. Within the interview {video and transcript below} Rubio expands on the baseline of the speech, the ‘why‘ is the U.S-EU alliance important.

Beginning with the end in mind, Rubio reminds the interviewer that an alliance must first accept the purpose of the assembly. There are common values and common social components to the relationship that sit at the core of the decision to be allies.

We have a shared civilization based on shared values, and within that central component the Trump administration is staring at the Europeans and saying they have lost focus on these values. Europe is diminishing itself; it is fracturing its culture and has lost its sovereign identity. The United States wants to stay partnered with Europe, but we are not going to be a partner anchored to a collective mindset that has lost its identity.

This culturally Marxist status, a gathering of nations infected with political correctness, pontificating wokeness and apologetic self-flagellation, is the core problem the Europeans are not willing to face. President Trump and Marco Rubio are essentially telling the EU to shake it off, quit being woke, get proud of your heritage, institute political systems that give benefit to the population and regain pride in themselves and their identity.

The process begins with national security, but that is not just about military spending.  Their energy industry needs to support economic independence; they cannot outsource component manufacturing; they need to reestablish economic baselines that are not dependent on Russia, China, India or any other risk vector that could be used to manipulate.

Key Quotes:

These quotes capture the core themes of Rubio's remarks: pride in Western civilization, the urgency of a capable alliance, lessons from history, pragmatic diplomacy (including with adversaries), and a push for negotiated resolutions in key conflicts.

On shared Western civilization and the transatlantic alliance

"Ultimately, it’s the fact that we are both heirs to the same civilization. And it’s a great civilization and it’s one we should be proud of. It’s one that’s contributed extraordinarily to the world and it’s one, frankly, upon which America is built, from our language to our system of government to our laws to the food we eat to the name of our cities and towns – all of it deeply linked to this Western civilization and culture that we should be proud of, and it’s worth defending."

"People don’t fight and die for abstract ideas. They are willing to fight and defend who they are and what matters and is important to them."

"When we come off as urgent or even critical about decisions that Europe has failed to make or made, it is because we care. It is because we understand that ultimately, our own fate will be intertwined with what happens with Europe."

On the need for Europe to share the burden and be capable

"We want Europe to survive, we want Europe to prosper, because we’re interconnected in so many different ways and because our alliance is so critical. But it has to be an alliance of allies that are capable and willing to fight for who they are and what’s important."

On the Cold War parallels and lessons for today (vs. China)

"It’s reminding people of what we’ve done together in the past. But it’s also a reminder that at the end of that era, when we won the Cold War, there was this euphoria that led us to make some terrible decisions that have now left us vulnerable – it deindustrialized the West; it left us increasingly dependent on others, including China, for our critical supplies. And that needs to be reversed in order to safeguard us."

"We should never be in a situation where our alliance and our respective countries are vulnerable to extortion or blackmail because someone controls 99 percent of something that’s critical to national life."

On European leaders engaging with China

"Nation-states need to interact with one another. [...] I don’t think visiting Beijing or meeting with the Chinese is – on the contrary, I think it would be irresponsible for great powers not to have relationships and talk through things and, to the extent possible, avoid unnecessary conflict."

On the alliance's evolution and core foundation

"This alliance has to look different because the world looks different. This alliance has to be about different things than it’s been in the past because the challenges of the 21st century are different than the challenges of the 20th."

"The fundamental thing that has to change is we have to remind ourselves of why it is we have an alliance in the first place. [...] This is not just a military arrangement. [...] It is what holds us together in the first place as an alliance is our shared civilizational values, the fact that we are all heirs to a common civilization and one we should be very proud of."

On the Ukraine war

"I think that’s a difficult war to say anyone is winning. The Russians are losing seven to eight thousand soldiers a week – a week. [...] Not wounded – dead."

"In the end, this war will not be solved militarily. It will be – in the end, it will come to a negotiated settlement. We’d like to see that happen as soon as possible."

"I don’t think it’s possible for Russia to even achieve whatever initial objectives they had at the beginning of this war. I think now it’s largely narrowed down to their desire to take 20 percent of Donetsk that they don’t currently possess."

On Cuba and the regime

"Cuba’s fundamental problem is that it has no economy and its economic model is one that has never been tried and has never worked anywhere else in the world."

"They would much rather be in charge of the country than allow it to prosper."

"The people of Cuba – and that’s what this regime has not been willing to give them because they’re afraid that if the people of Cuba can provide for themselves, they lose control over them, they lose power over them."

On Iran

"I think it’s pretty clear that Iran will never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon, that that poses a threat not just to the United States, to Europe, to world security, and to the region."

"The President would always prefer to end problems with a deal. He would always prefer that, so we’re going to give it a chance here again and see if it works."

Full Transcript:

QUESTION:  Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, thank you for talking to Bloomberg.  You’ve just made this rather remarkable speech where you talked about the destiny of Europe and America always being intertwined.  You talked about the alliance which has stretched all the way, culturally, from Michelangelo to the Rolling Stones – a first, I suspect, for a secretary of state – but a culture that has bled and died together.  But the very common theme of your speech was the need to share the burden, the need for Europe and America to do things together, which was slightly different from the Vice President last year.  Were you kind of offering a carrot where perhaps he was offering a stick?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  I think it’s the same message.  I think what the Vice President said last year very clearly was that Europe had made a series of decisions internally that were threatening to the alliance and ultimately to themselves, not because we hate Europe or we don’t like Europeans but because – what is it that we fight for, what is it that binds us together?  And ultimately, it’s the fact that we are both heirs to the same civilization.  And it’s a great civilization and it’s one we should be proud of.  It’s one that’s contributed extraordinarily to the world and it’s one, frankly, upon which America is built, from our language to our system of government to our laws to the food we eat to the name of our cities and towns – all of it deeply linked to this Western civilization and culture that we should be proud of, and it’s worth defending.

And ultimately, that’s the point.  The point is that people – people don’t fight and die for abstract ideas.  They are willing to fight and defend who they are and what matters and is important to them.  And that was the foundation he laid last year in his speech – and we add on into this year – to explain to people that when we come off as urgent or even critical about decisions that Europe has failed to make or made, it is because we care.  It is because we understand that ultimately, our own fate will be intertwined with what happens with Europe.  We want Europe to survive, we want Europe to prosper, because we’re interconnected in so many different ways and because our alliance is so critical.  But it has to be an alliance of allies that are capable and willing to fight for who they are and what’s important.

QUESTION:  You see a parallel – you seem to see a parallel between the Cold War, which I think I would argue that the – America beat the Soviet Union because it had a common idea and it had allies on its side.  You’re now in a struggle with China.  As people say, you’ve often been a hawk on that subject.  You’re in a struggle with China.  Do you think you absolutely need Europe to be able to win that?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yeah.  I would say two things.  First, the mentions of the Cold War are to remind people of everything we’ve achieved together in the past in times when there was doubt.  I mean, it’s hard to imagine today, but there were those who believed, in the 60s and 70s, even, that at a minimum, we had reached a stalemate, and worse, that perhaps Soviet expansion was inevitable and that we needed to come to accept it.  There were voices that actually argued this.

And so it’s reminding people of what we’ve done together in the past.  But it’s also a reminder that at the end of that era, when we won the Cold War, there was this euphoria that led us to make some terrible decisions that have now left us vulnerable – it deindustrialized the West; it left us increasingly dependent on others, including China, for our critical supplies.  And that needs to be reversed in order to safeguard us.

And so I do think, yes, it would be ideal to have a Western supply chain that is free from extortion from anyone – leave aside China – anybody else.  We should never have to – we should never be in a situation where our alliance and our respective countries are vulnerable to extortion or blackmail because someone controls 99 percent of something that’s critical to national life.  So I think we do have a vested interest in that regard.

Today is different than yesterday, but it has parallels, not in that China’s the new Soviet Union but that in our future, collectively we’ll be stronger if we work on these things together.

QUESTION:  Do you worry from that perspective the fact that, especially in the recent period, various sort of allies – Mark Carney has just been to Beijing, Starmer has just been to Beijing, Merz is about to go there – do you worry that they’re beginning to drift off too much in that direction?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  No.  I think nation-states need to interact with one another.  Just because you’ve – I mean, remember, I serve under a President that’s willing to meet with anybody.

QUESTION:  Yes.

SECRETARY RUBIO:  I mean, to be frank, I’m pretty confident in saying that if the ayatollah said tomorrow he wanted to meet with President Trump, the President would meet him, not because he agrees with the ayatollah but because he thinks that’s the way you solve problems in the world, and he doesn’t view meeting someone as a concession.  Likewise, the President intends to travel to Beijing and has already met once with President Xi.  And in this very forum yesterday, I met with my counterpart, the foreign minister of China.

So we expect nation-states to interact with one another.  In the end, we expect nation-states to act in their national interest.  I don’t think that is – that in no way runs counter to our desire to work together on things that we share in common or threats we face in common.  But I don’t think visiting Beijing or meeting with the Chinese is – on the contrary, I think it would be irresponsible for great powers not to have relationships and talk through things and, to the extent possible, avoid unnecessary conflict.

But there will be areas we’ll never agree on, and those are the areas that I hope we can work together on.

QUESTION:  So you think the Russia that many people have spoken about is illusory, that hasn’t happened yet?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, there’s no – I mean, even as I speak to you now, there are U.S. troops deployed here on this continent on behalf of NATO.  There are still all kinds of cooperation that go on at every level; from intelligence to commercial and economic, the links remain.  I think there is a readjustment that’s happening, because I think we have to understand that we want to reinvigorate – this alliance has to look different because the world looks different.  This alliance has to be about different things than it’s been in the past because the challenges of the 21st century are different than the challenges of the 20th.  The world has changed and the alliance has to change.

But the fundamental thing that has to change is we have to remind ourselves of why it is we have an alliance in the first place.  This is not just a military arrangement.  This is not just some commercial arrangement.  It is what holds us together in the first place as an alliance is our shared civilizational values, the fact that we are all heirs to a common civilization and one we should be very proud of.  And only after we recognize that and make that the core of why it is we’re allies in the first place can we then build out all the mechanics of that alliance.  And then everything else we do together makes more sense.

QUESTION: The place where that’s being most obviously tested at the moment is Ukraine  You see all these numbers from the front where the Ukrainians do seem to be doing better in terms of what’s happening with the Russians.  Do you think Ukraine – or do you think Russia is still winning that war, or where you do you – where do you place it militarily?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  I think that’s a difficult war to say anyone is winning.  The Russians are losing seven to eight thousand soldiers a week – a week.

QUESTION:  Yes —

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Not wounded – dead.  Ukraine has suffered extraordinary damage, including overnight, and again, to its energy infrastructure.  And it will take billions of dollars and years and years to rebuild that country.  So I don’t think anyone can claim to be winning it.  I think that both sides are suffering tremendous damage, and we’d like to see the war come to an end.  It’s a senseless war in our view.  The President believes that very deeply.  He believes the war would have never happened had he been president at the time.

So we’re doing two things.  Obviously we continue – look, we don’t provide arms to Russia; we provide arms to Ukraine.  We don’t sanction Ukraine; we sanction Russia.  But at the same time, we find ourselves in the unique position of serving as probably the only nation on Earth that can bring the two sides to discuss the potential for ending this war on negotiated terms.  And it’s an obligation we haven’t – we won’t walk away from because we think it’s a very unique one to have.

It may not come to fruition, unfortunately.  I hope it does, and I think there are days when I feel more optimistic about it than others.  But we’re going to keep trying because that is – in the end, this war will not be solved militarily.  It will be – in the end, it will come to a negotiated settlement.  We’d like to see that happen as soon as possible.

QUESTION:  Are you worried that if Ukraine loses the war it’s going to be a disaster for the transatlantic relationship?  Because the Americans will say the Europeans didn’t provide enough arms, and Europeans will look and remember the meeting in the White House and Zelenskyy and Trump, and they will blame (inaudible).

SECRETARY RUBIO:  No, but that – that would ignore reality.  Look, Ukraine – first of all, they deserve a lot of credit.  They have fought very bravely.  They have received an extraordinary amount of support from the United States to the tune of billions of dollars that preexist the war.  In fact, Ukraine probably wouldn’t have survived the early days of the war had it not been for American aid that came to them even before the war had started with the Javelin missile that disabled the tank (inaudible).

QUESTION:  I wasn’t saying it was fair.  I was just saying there’s a – you have to deal with perceptions.

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, I mean people are saying – no, but I’m not worried about that because I can tell you that I think history will understand it.  But I don’t think the war is going to end in a traditional loss in the way people think.  I don’t think it’s possible for Russia to even achieve whatever initial objectives they had at the beginning of this war.  I think now it’s largely narrowed down to their desire to take 20 percent of Donetsk that they don’t currently possess.

And that’s hard.  It’s a hard concession for Ukraine to make for obvious reasons, both from a tactical standpoint and also from a political one.  And so that’s kind of where this thing has narrowed, and we’ll continue to search for ways to see if there is a solution to that unique problem that’s acceptable to Ukraine and that Russia will also accept.  And it may not work out, but we are going to do everything we can to see if we can find a deal.

Like I said, there are days like last week where you felt we had made some pretty substantial progress.  But ultimately, we have to see a final resolution to this to feel that it’s been worth the work, but we’re going to keep trying.  And our negotiator, Steve Witkoff – now Jared Kushner’s involved – have dedicated a tremendous amount of time to this, and they’ll have meetings again on Tuesday in regards to this.

QUESTION:  What about a country with which you’ve had a long interest: Cuba?  You mentioned it obliquely in the speech talking about the Cuban Missile Crisis.  How long do you think the regime can last without oil?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yeah, I think the regime in Cuba is – look, the revolution in Cuba ended a long time ago and – Cuba’s fundamental problem is that it has no economy and its economic model is one that has never been tried and has never worked anywhere else in the world, okay?  It just – it doesn’t have a real economic policy.  It doesn’t have a real economy.

Now, forget – put aside for a moment the fact that it has no freedom of expression, no democracy, no respect for human rights.  The fundamental problem Cuba has it is has no economy, and the people who are in charge of that country, in control of that country, they don’t know how to improve the everyday life of their people without giving up power over sectors that they control.  They want to control everything.  They don’t want the people of Cuba to control anything.

So they don’t know how to get themselves out of this.  And to the extent that they have been offered opportunities to do it, they don’t seem to be able to comprehend it or accept it in any ways.  They would much rather be in charge of the country than allow it to prosper.

QUESTION:  Is there any kind of off-ramp for the regime?  I mean, previous ones – when you negotiated with Venezuela, you said if they agreed with various things it would be possible to continue.

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Sure.  I mean, there is.  I mean, look, I think you have to —

QUESTION:  What could – what could the Cuban regime do to —

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, I’m not going to tell you or announce this in an interview here because obviously these things require space and time to do in the right way.  But I will say this, that that is that it is important for the people of Cuba to have more freedom, not just political freedom but economic freedom.  The people of Cuba – and that’s what this regime has not been willing to give them because they’re afraid that if the people of Cuba can provide for themselves, they lose control over them, they lose power over them.

So I think there has to be that opening and it has to happen, and I think now Cuba is faced with such a dire situation.  Remember this is a regime that has survived almost entirely on subsidies – first from the Soviet Union, then from Hugo Chavez, and how for the first time it has no subsidies coming in from anyone, and the model has been laid bare.

And it’s not just – look, multiple countries have gone in and helped, but the problem is that you lose money in Cuba.  They never pay their bills.  They never end up paying.  It never ends up working out.  There were European countries that went to Cuba and made what they thought were investments in certain sectors, only to have them – the contracts canceled and get themselves kicked out because the Cuban regime has no fundamental understanding of what business and industry looks like, and the people are suffering as a result of it.

So I think certainly their willingness to begin to make openings in this regard is one potential way forward.  I would also say – and this has not been really talked about a lot, but the United States has been providing humanitarian assistance directly to the Cuban people via the Catholic Church.  We did it after the hurricane.  We actually just recently announced an increase in the amount we’re willing to give.  And that’s something we’re willing to continue to explore, but obviously that’s not a long-term solution to the problems on the island.

QUESTION:  One last thing: Iran.  You’ve just sent a carrier – a second carrier – there.  Is that – and President Trump has talked about a month to give people time.  Are you running out of patience there?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, I’d say twofold.  Number one is I think it’s pretty clear that Iran will never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon, that that poses a threat not just to the United States, to Europe, to world security, and to the region.  There’s no doubt about it.

The second is we obviously want to have forces in the region because Iran has shown the willingness and the capability to lash and strike out at the United States presence in the region.  We have bases because of our alliances in the region, and Iran has shown in the past that they are willing to attack us and/or threaten our bases.  So we have to have sufficient firepower in the region to ensure that they don’t make a mistake and come after us and trigger something larger.

Beyond that, the President has said that his preference is to reach a deal with Iran.  That’s very hard to do, but he’s going to try.  And that’s what we’re trying to do right now, and Steve Witkoff and Jared have some meetings lined up fairly soon.  We’ll see if we can make any progress.

The President would always prefer to end problems with a deal.  He would always prefer that, so we’re going to give it a chance here again and see if it works.

QUESTION:  Secretary Marco Rubio, thank you very much for talking to Bloomberg.

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Thank you.  Thank you.

Tyler Durden Sun, 02/15/2026 - 12:50

Russia Seized A Dozen Ukrainian Villages In February: 'Expanding Security Zone'

The Kremlin on Sunday issued an important battlefield update with Russian army chief Valery Gerasimov having newly declared that a dozen more eastern villages were seized in February.

"In two weeks of February, despite severe winter conditions, combined forces and military units of the joint task force liberated 12 settlements," Gerasimov said while visiting Russian troops operating inside Ukraine.

Getty Images

Gerasimov described Moscow's forces are advancing toward Sloviansk, the industrial city that has been center of fighting between pro-Kiev and pro-Moscow forces going all the way back to 2014.

According to Gerasimov, Russian troops are now roughly 15 kilometers (nine miles) from the city.

Gerasimov said Russian forces are "expanding a security zone" along border areas in the northeastern Sumy and Kharkiv regions, where Moscow holds limited footholds.

He added that he would confer with senior officers on "further actions in the Dnipropetrovsk direction," signaling potential expansion of operations beyond currently claimed territories - as quoted in AFP.

As also related in TASS:

Russian troops liberated 12 settlements in the first half of February, bringing over 200 square kilometers under their control, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Army General Valery Gerasimov, announced during an inspection of the Battlegroup Center units.

The Kremlin officially claims the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions as Russian territory, but still doesn't exercise full control over them, but its forces are still slowly advancing, regional reports indicate.

In parallel with the grinding ground war, a more intense nightly aerial conflict continues. Ukrainian cities can barely keep the lights on, with many plunged into near permanent darkness, as Russia targets the national power grid.

NEW: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reiterated Ukraine’s willingness to compromise ahead of trilateral US-Ukrainian-Russian talks in Geneva, Switzerland on February 17 to 18.

Other Key Takeaways:

Russian officials continue to insist that the issues and terms impeding a… pic.twitter.com/t8xLPA97us

— Institute for the Study of War (@TheStudyofWar) February 14, 2026

But overnight and into the early Sunday hours, Russia's military reported downing over 100 inbound Ukrainian drones within a four hour period. The cross-border attacks have wreaked havoc on Russian oil refineries and export sites, in some cases.

Tyler Durden Sun, 02/15/2026 - 12:15

No Arrests In Nancy Guthrie Case After Major Operation Near Her Home

Authored by Jacki Thrapp via The Epoch Times,

No arrests have been made in the Nancy Guthrie case after a night of heavy police activity two miles from the missing 84-year-old’s home.

Nancy Guthrie, who is the mother of “Today” show co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, was last seen on Jan. 31 after she had dinner with her family.

As the search for Guthrie entered its third week, a large police presence responded to a road near the missing woman’s home in the Tucson, Arizona area on the night of Feb. 13, which included a series of sheriff’s and FBI vehicles as well as SWAT and forensics teams.

The Pima County Sheriff’s Department confirmed the police activity was related to the case, but did not release details about what happened inside the blocked-off scene.

“Law enforcement activity is underway at a residence near E Orange Grove Rd & N First Ave related to the Guthrie case,” the Pima County Sheriff’s Department shared in an X post.

“Because this is a joint investigation, at the request of the FBI, no additional information is currently available.”

The Epoch Times contacted the Pima County Sheriff’s Department and the FBI for more information, but had received no response at the time of publishing.

Around the same time that police activity was taking place in Nancy Guthrie’s neighborhood late Friday night, a separate incident was happening at a Culver’s restaurant, also two miles away from her home.

The FBI and the sheriff’s department tagged and towed a Range Rover SUV from a Culver’s restaurant parking lot, which confirmed the activity was part of the Nancy Guthrie case.

Nancy Guthrie was last seen on Jan. 31 when a relative drove her back home from a family dinner at 9:48 p.m.

The 84-year-old’s doorbell camera was disconnected in the early morning hours of Feb. 1.

The FBI accessed footage from her Nest camera and released video of a suspect, without a time stamp, on Feb. 12.

FBI Phoenix described the suspect in the video as a male, approximately 5 feet, 9 inches to 5 feet, 10 inches tall, with an average build.

A combination of images from a video shows a masked person outside Nancy Guthrie's home in Catalina Foothills, Arizona. FBI via The Epoch Times

The agency identified the suspect’s bag in the video as a black, 25-liter “Ozark Trail Hiker Pack” backpack that was sold at Walmart.

Law enforcement believes Nancy Guthrie was removed against her will.

On Feb. 12, the FBI doubled its reward for a tip leading to an arrest in the case to $100,000.

Multiple ransom notes have been reported by local outlets and TMZ.

Savannah Guthrie previously said that her family “will pay” for the return of her mother, but it’s unclear whether any payment was made to the person who sent the ransom note.

Tyler Durden Sun, 02/15/2026 - 11:40

What Do Monica Lewinsky, Maggie Thatcher, Elvis, Cher, Bill Cosby, & The Pope Have In Common?

In the (alleged) interests of transparency, AG Pam Bondi and Deputy AG Todd Blanche released a statement overnight that included a list of all government officials and politically-exposed persons that appeared in The Epstein Files.

SCOOP: The Department of Justice has sent over a letter to Congress outlining why it made redactions to the Epstein files.

The six-page letter also includes a list of all "government officials and politically exposed persons" in the files. pic.twitter.com/aRCmS2p1Bg

— Aaron Parnas (@AaronParnas) February 15, 2026

The term "politically exposed persons" was not defined in the Act, but consistent with Section 3 of the Act, Department reviewers were directed to notate "all government officials and politically exposed persons named or referenced" in any document, including videos and images, reviewed during this process.

This list includes (as directed by the Act) all persons where (1) they are or were a government official or politically exposed person and (2) their name appears in the files released under the Act at least once. Names appear in the files released under the Act in a wide variety of contexts.

For example, some individuals had extensive direct email contact with Epstein or Maxwell while other individuals are mentioned only in a portion of a document (including press reporting) that on its face is unrelated to the Epstein and Maxwell matters.

So, while we have seen 'lists' before, this is the official DoJ list of potential pedophiles, pizza eaters, or island-partiers (allegedly)...

• Acosta, Alexander
• Adelson, Miriam
• Allen, Woody
• Allred, Gloria
• Assange, Julian
• Audrey, Strauss
• Avakian, Stephanie
• Babino, Vincent
• Baldwin, Alec
• Band, Doug
• Bannon, Steve
• Barak, Ehud
• Barr, William
• Becerra, Xavier
• Belohlavek, Lanna
• Berman, Geoffrey
• Beyonce
• Bezos, Jeff
• Biden, Ashley
• Biden, Hunter
• Biden, Jill
• Biden, Joe
• Birger, Laura
• Bistricer, David
• Bistricer, Marc
• Black, Leon
• Blanche, Todd
• Blinken, Antony
• Boies, David
• Bondi, Pam
• Bongino, Dan
• Bono
• Book, Lauren
• Booker, Cory
• Bowdich, David
• Boyd, Stephen E.
• Bradshaw, Ric
• Branson, Richard
• Brennan, John
• Brockman, John
• Brunel, Jean Luc
• Buckley, Sean
• Bull, Gerald
• Bush Jr., George
• Bush, George W.
• Bush, Jeb
• Byrne, Patrick
• Calk, Stephen
• Capone, Russell
• Carlson, Tucker
• Carper, Tom
• Castro, Fidel
• Cheney, Dick
• Cher
• Chomsky, Noam
• Clayton, Jay
• Clinton, Bill
• Clinton, Chelsea
• Clinton, Hillary
• Clooney, George
• Cobain, Kurt
• Cohen, Michael
• Colleran, Brian
• Collins, Linda
• Comey, James
• Comey, Maureen
• Conway, George
• Copperfield, David
• Cosby, Bill
• De Niro, Robert
• Dershowitz, Alan
• Desantis, Ron
• Diller, Barry
• Donahue, Phil
• Donaleski, Rebekah
• Dupont, Kathleen
• Economou, George
• Egauger, Michael
• Eisenberg, John
• Elizabeth II
• Ellison, Keith
• Emmanuel, Rahm
• Epstein, Jeffrey
• Erben, Germann
• Feinberg, Stephen
• Ferguson, Sarah
• Filip, Mark
• Flynn, Michael
• Foley, Mark
• Fortelni, Marius
• Friedland, Edward
• Frost, Phillip
• Gates, Bill
• Gates, Melinda
• Garland, Merrick
• Geithner, Timothy
• Giuliani, Rudy
• Goldman, Dan
• Graham, Lindsey
• Guinness, Arthur Edward Rory
• Haley, Nikki
• Harrish, Joshua
• Harris, Kamala
• Hatch, Orin
• Hawk, Rony
• Heiss, Howard
• Higgins, Tony
• Ho, Stanley
• Holder, Eric
• Hoffman, Reid
• Horowitz, Andreesen
• Horowitz, Michael
• Hosenball, Mark
• Hoyer, Steny
• Huckabee, Mike
• Huckabee, Sarah
• Hutner, Florence
• Inge Rokke, Kjell
• Iveagh, Clare
• Jackson, Michael
• Jagger, Mick
• Jarecki, Henry
• Jayapal, Pramila
• JayZ
• Jeffries, Hakeem
• Johnson, Hank
• Jones, Alex
• Joplin, Janis
• Kasich, John
• Kendall Rowlands, John
• Kennedy Jr., Robert F.
• Kerry, John
• Khanna, Ro
• Kline, Carl
• Krisher, Barry
• Kudlow, Larry
• Kushner, Jared
• Kyl, Jon
• Lady Victoria Hervey
• Lefkowitz, Jay
• Lefroy, Jeremy
• Leo, Leonard
• Lew, Jack
• Lewinsky, Monica
• Lieu, Ted
• Lofgren, Zoe
• Lonergan, Jessica
• Lorber, Howard
• Lord Robert May
• Lutnick, Howard
• Lynch, Loretta
• Mace, Nancy
• Mandelson, Peter
• Mao, Coreen
• Margolin, James
• Markey, Ed
• Markle, Meghan
• Massie, Thomas
• Maxwell, Ghislaine
• Maxwell, Robert
• May, Theresa
• McCain, John
• McFarland, Nicole
• Meadows, Mark
• Menendez, Robert
• Milano, Alyssa
• Milikowski, Nathan
• Milken, Michael
• Mnuchin, Steve
• Moe, Alison
• Monaco, Lisa
• Monroe, Marilyn
• Mook, William
• Moskowitz, Jared
• Mueller III, Robert s.
• Mulvaney, Mick
• Murdoch, Rupert
• Musk, Elon
• Nadler, Jerry
• Napolitano, Janet
• Nassar, Larry
• Netanyahu, Benjamin
• Newsom, Gavin
• Obama, Barack
• Obama, Michelle
• Ocasio Cortez, Alexandria
• O’Donnell, Rosie
• Oz, Mehmet
• Papapetru, Sophia
• Parker, Daniel
• Patel, Kash
• Paul, Ron
• Pecorino, Joseph
• Pelosi, Nancy
• Pence, Mike
• Pestana, Diego
• Phelan, John
• Plaskett, Stacey
• Plourde, Lee
• Podesta, Tony
• Pomerantz, Lara
• Pompeo, Mike
• Pope John Paul II
• Pope, Susan
• Power, Samantha
• Presley, Elvis
• Presley, Lisa Marie
• Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex
• Price Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor
• Prince Philip
• Princess Diana
• Pritzker, JB
• Pritzker, Thomas
• Quayle, Dan
• Raskin, Jamie
• Ratcliffe, John
• Ratner, Brett
• Readler, Chad
• Reagan, Ronald
• Recarey, Joseph
• Reiter, Michael
• Reno, Janet
• Reynolds, Tom
• Rice, Susan
• Richardson, Bill
• Rod-Larsen, Terje
• Rogers, Matthew
• Rohrbach, Andrew
• Romney, Mitt
• Roos, Nicolas
• Rosen, Jeffrey
• Rosenstein, Rod
• Ross, Diana
• Rossmiller, Alexander
• Roth, John
• Routch, Timothy
• Rove, Karl
• Rowan, Marc
• Rubenstein, Howard
• Rubio, Marco
• Ruemmler, Kathy
• Ryan, Paul
• Salinger, Pierre
• Sasse, Ben
• Scanlon, Mary Gay
• Scarola, John
• Schenberg, Janis
• Schiff, Adam
• Schlaff, Martin
• Schumer, Amy
• Schumer, Chuck
• Schwarzman, Stephen
• Scott, Tim
• Sekulow, Jay
• Senatore, Adrienne
• Sessions, Jeff
• Shamir, Yitzhak
• Shapiro, Ben
• Shappert, Gretchen
• Shea, Timothy
• Siad, Daniel
• Snowden, Edward
• Soros, Alex
• Soros, George
• Spacey, Kevin
• Spitzer, Eliot
• Springsteen, Bruce
• Stabenow, Debbie
• Staley, Jes
• Starmer, Keir
• Starr, Kenneth
• Stoltenberg, Jens
• Stordalen, Gunhild
• Stordalen, Petter
• Straub, Glenn
• Streisand, Barbara
• Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem
• Summers, Larry
• Swalwell, Eric
• Sweency Jr., William
• Thomas-Jacobs, Carol
• Taylor Green, Marjorie
• Thatcher, Margaret
• Thiel, Peter
• Trump, Donald
• Trump, Ivanka
• Trump, Melania
• Tucker, Chris
• Vance, JD
• Villafana, Marie
• Walker, Richard
• Warsh, Kevin
• Wexner, Abigail
• Wexner, Les
• Williams, Damian
• Wolff, Michael
• Woodward, Stanley
• Wyden, Ron
• Yung, Mark
• Zampolli, Paolo
• Zucker, Jeff
• Zuckerberg, Mark

The list contains hundreds of names, spanning politicians, celebrities, business leaders, historical figures, deceased individuals, and others, but leans somewhat left overall due to the inclusion of numerous Democratic politicians and Hollywood figures, but it includes prominent right-leaning ones (especially business donors). 

• Left-aligned: Approximately 130–150 (strong Democratic politicians, entertainers, and donors dominate this side in the list).

• Right-aligned: Approximately 90–110 (strong Republican politicians, recent big-money conservative donors like Musk/Adelson/Thiel, and conservative figures).

• Unclear/Other: The remainder (many historical, foreign, or non-political figures).

Counts are estimates derived from cross-referencing donations, public endorsements/statements, and party registrations/affiliations. Not every name has donation records or explicit statements, so some placements rely on broader consensus from reliable sources.

Still quite a list...

Tyler Durden Sun, 02/15/2026 - 11:05

The Weak Dollar Narrative

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

We have spent a lot of time over the last year debunking “narratives,” which are dangerous to investors, as “narratives” create a rationalization for overpaying for assets. Nonetheless, Wall Street loves a simple story and is happy to jump on a trend with momentum, selling products to unwitting consumers. A good example of that lately has been the “weak dollar” narrative, which has pushed investors to chase foreign assets. The negative correlation between a weak dollar and rising international stock exposure appears to be a free return. Unsurprisingly, the story spreads fast because performance charts look clean during a dollar slide.

Reuters recently reported that the US dollar hit a four-year low in late January after President Donald Trump said the “value of the dollar” was “great.” Reuters tied the move to rate cut expectations, policy volatility, and concerns about fiscal deficits and central bank independence. However, in reality, President Trump was more correct than not, as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick confirmed the dollar trading at a more “neutral level,” as shown below.

There are two very important points to take away from the chart above.

1. The dollar has been in a very strong uptrend since the Financial Crisis and remains there.

2. Despite the recent pullback in the dollar, it is trading at its “Neutral Value” and is at the same level it was in 1970. Such certainly does not support the “debasement” or “demise of the US Dollar” narratives.

What is true is that the decline in the value of the dollar, after its strong surge starting in 2021, does make foreign assets more appealing as investors seek a hedge against a weaker dollar. However, while the “purveyors of perpetual doom” claim this is evidence of the end of the US Dollar dominance, the recent decline in the dollar, as shown above, is simply part of its long history of rallies and declines as the dollar adjusts to flows as foreign governments seek to balance their currencies against the US Dollar.

If you take a look at the dollar chart above, you will notice that it trades in a band above and below 100 (the “neutral value.) This is because the US Dollar is measured against a “basket” of foreign currencies. It is crucial to understand that foreign governments manage their currency against the dollar through a “peg” or a managed band to reduce exchange rate swings and support trade. As such, foreign central banks set a target rate versus the dollar and defend that target by buying or selling dollars from foreign exchange reserves. This is why, when the dollar was “above neutral,” foreign central banks like China reduced their holdings of US Treasuries to strengthen the Yuan.

When demand for the local currency rises, the central bank buys dollars and sells local currency to keep the rate from rising. When demand falls, the central bank sells dollars and buys local currency to keep the rate from falling too much. Many countries also align short-term interest rates, capital controls, and bank liquidity rules with the peg, since rate differentials and hot money flows pressure the exchange rate.

There are several very important reasons why all countries need a stable currency relative to the dollar:

1. It helps exporters price goods with less uncertainty,

2. Supports long-term contracts,

3. Limits imported inflation on energy and commodity prices priced in dollars, and

4. Lowers currency risk for foreign investors.

The trade-off is less monetary policy freedom, greater reserve requirements, and a higher risk of sharp adjustments when the peg level no longer aligns with inflation, growth, or external deficits.

However, none of this supports any commentary about the “death of the dollar,” or the failure of fiat currencies in general. What those commentaries do is push portfolio behavior. When the dollar falls, international stock exposure often rises in the allocation model. The risk lies in the assumption that a weak dollar stays in place indefinitely.

Looking at the chart above, it is clear that currency trends reverse when positioning crowds in either direction. A weak-dollar narrative encourages investors to pay less attention to valuation, earnings, and country-level fundamentals, leaving portfolios exposed when the thesis breaks.

A Potential For A Dollar Rally

Currency markets move on expectations more than anything else. Yes, interest rates, economic growth, and inflation can all impact the dollar, but it is more about the “expectations” of those variables for the dollar, trade, etc., that move the price. Therefore, investors need to be on the lookout for factors that could reverse expectations. Currently, several conditions are forming that could begin to reverse those expectations.

First, positioning and technicals matter. From a long-term technical perspective, the U.S. Dollar Index is attempting to stabilize after a 2025 downside move. As shown, using a 3-year price momentum measure, the dollar is as oversold now as it was at previous dollar bottoms. The current move lower is becoming increasingly stretched, reducing the catalyst needed to trigger a sharp reversal.

A weak dollar trend also encourages leverage through unhedged international stock exposure. As shown, investors have piled into global sector funds (excluding technology) over the past year to boost returns. However, the last time we saw that kind of exposure shift was in 2021, just before the counter-trend rally in the dollar that hit returns fast.

Second, relative economic growth still supports the U.S. over international economies. As we noted previously,

“While investors are exceedingly bullish on the stock market, forecasts for 2026 are sobering. Even the IMF, which recently produced its global growth estimates, has the US economy growing at 2% for the next two years, and the Eurozone near 1%.”.

Relative growth drives capital flows, and capital flows drive currencies. Therefore, when U.S. growth beats expectations while other regions disappoint, the weak-dollar theme loses its power.

Lastly, policy messaging still matters. Reuters reported that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reaffirmed “a strong dollar policy.” Furthermore, the expected monetary policy under Kevin Warsh, the new Federal Reserve chairman, is also dollar-bullish. While a single statement does not set a multi-month trend, repeated statements and eventual actions will shift short-term psychology toward a stronger dollar view.

Most crucially, a dollar rally does not require booming U.S. growth. A dollar rally only requires growth and rates to look less negative than they’re priced, and the current oversold conditions lower that hurdle.

The International Valuation Risk

Investors often stack a second argument on top of the weak dollar story. International markets look cheaper than the U.S.; therefore, international stock exposure offers better value. The problem lies in relative valuation, when we should really look at each market’s valuation relative to its own history and earnings path. As shown, when you do that, those markets trade at historically high valuations.

MSCI data shows the MSCI EAFE Index (ex-US) forward P/E at 15.3 as of January 30, 2026. The level looks reasonable in isolation; however, the key issue is what investors receive for that multiple. Given that earnings growth rates, margins, and sector mix are vastly weaker than in the U.S., overvaluation will matter in those countries, just as it does in the U.S.

On the U.S. side, FactSet reported S&P 500 analysts project 2026 earnings growth of 14.1 percent and a forward 12-month P/E of 21.5, below 22.0 at the end of the fourth quarter. The U.S. multiple still sits above long-run averages, yet the direction matters, as the U.S. has cheapened at the margin while earnings expectations have remained resilient and profit margins have improved.

International markets also carry concentration risk. A significant portion of EAFE performance is tied to financials, industrials, and exporters, all of which are sensitive to global trade cycles and demand from China. Those forces can change quickly, but when the weak-dollar narrative drives the trade, investors often ignore the macro risk.

A currency-driven bid also inflates valuation abroad. A weak dollar lifts translated returns and encourages inflows, which in turn raise price multiples. However, when the dollar turns higher, international stock exposure faces a double drag as currency hedging reverses. When that translation turns negative, the valuation premium compresses as flows reverse.

While international stock exposure is fine, and there are certainly periods when it performs better than domestic markets, over the last 17 years it has trailed domestic markets by a large margin. Such is because, at the end of the day, it isn’t about dollar weakness; it is about earnings growth, profit margins, and future expectations. Currently, that growth remains in the U.S.

Investment Tactics Dollar Reversal

As shown, the move in Emerging Market Stocks (EEM) has been extremely sharp, making it much more exposed to a deep reversal if the dollar rallies.

Therefore, investors should treat international stock exposure as a tool, not a narrative. The goal, as always, is to maintain diversification but only to the point where you can control risk. Once it becomes a momentum chase, that risk control fails.

• Start with position sizing. Set a strategic range for international stock exposure based on your risk tolerance and drawdown limits. Critically, keep that range stable and don’t allow the recent weakness in the dollar to dictate long-term weights.

• Use rules-based rebalancing. When foreign equities run above target due to a weak dollar surge, trim toward policy weight. When foreign equities lag, add slowly. Rebalancing reduces the damage of an unexpected reversal.

• Add currency awareness. Consider a split allocation between hedged and unhedged developed exposure. Hedged exposure reduces the impact of a dollar rally, while unhedged exposure keeps diversification benefits when the weak dollar resumes. MSCI publishes a 100% hedged EAFE benchmark that helps investors compare results across hedged and unhedged frameworks.

• Focus on earnings quality as fundamentals will always matter in the end. Continue to favor markets and sectors with stable cash flows, strong balance sheets, and pricing power, as those traits matter when currencies swing and financial conditions tighten.

• Avoid valuation shortcuts. Do not rely on “cheaper than the U.S.” Use local history and earnings trends. If international multiples rise while earnings lag, reduce exposure, even if the weak-dollar story remains popular.

• Finally, stress test the portfolio. Model a 5 percent to 10 percent dollar rally and a 10 percent drawdown in foreign equities at the same time. If the model shows unacceptable damage, reduce unhedged international stock exposure before the market enforces the change.

The weak-dollar narrative is just a narrative, and a reversal will arrive again. That is just how markets operate. The question is whether your process will protect you or hurt you when that reversal comes.

Tyler Durden Sun, 02/15/2026 - 10:30

Munich Security Conference A 'Circus' - Iran Says After Exiled Shah's Son Invited

The Munich Security Conference, once regarded as a heavyweight diplomatic forum, has devolved into a spectacle that favors "performance over substance," Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi complained after his country was snubbed.

Organizers barred senior Iranian officials from attending this year's gathering after deadly protests and unrest shook the country last month, threatening the stability of the Islamic Republic. Tehran has lashed out:

"Sad to see the usually serious Munich Security Conference turned into the ‘Munich Circus’ when it comes to Iran," FM Araghchi wrote Saturday in a series of posts on X.

Iran's former crown prince and now self-styled key opposition figure Reza Pahlavi, via AFP.

"The EU appears confused, rooted in an inability to understand what is happening inside Iran… An aimless EU has lost all geopolitical weight in our region," he added.

"Europe’s overall trajectory is dire, to say the least," Araghchi said, branding the bloc "an empty-handed and peripheral" actor irrelevant to serious negotiations - particularly over Iran’s nuclear program.

Instead of inviting Iran - which has permanent representation at the United Nations - the Munich Security Conference invited Reza Pahlavi. He is the exiled son of Iran’s former US-backed shah ousted in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Pahlavi has supporters in the West, including among some Iranians in the diaspora, but the reality remains is that he is barely known among the Iranian populace. For the over 90 millions Iranians in the Islamic Republic, he's not in reality a recognizable figure - but his last name is simply connected with history from a half century ago.

As expected Pahlavi used the platform to push for regime change and to appear at a rally. He went so far as to tell Reuters that Washington should bomb Iran rather than negotiate with it.

Tens of thousands of pro-Monarchist Iranians gathered in Munich, Germany, to protest the Iranian regime. pic.twitter.com/ZSOixiM9nD

— Moshe Schwartz (@YWNReporter) February 15, 2026

He claims that he can lead Iran into a "secular democracy" - though ironically his name is connected with the historic monarchy which is remembered by Iranians today for its harsh repression and overseeing a system of extreme poverty for the non-royal masses.

He's long worked with Washington-backed opposition groups, and he has lobbied the White House to officially back him as a legitimate ruler of Tehran, but it remains unclear to the degree he might have the current Trump's administration's ear.

Tyler Durden Sun, 02/15/2026 - 09:55

Fetterman Reveals His Parents Are Trump Supporters, Refuses To Call MAGA Voters 'Nazis'

Authored by Steve Watson via modernity.news,

Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman has once again set himself apart from the radical elements in his party by admitting that his own parents support President Trump—and using that as a reason to reject the Democrats’ over-the-top attacks on MAGA voters.

In a recent interview with Politico’s Dasha Burns, Fetterman again explained why he won’t join the chorus labeling Trump supporters as threats to democracy, emphasizing personal connections over partisan hysteria.

Burns asked Fetterman directly about Trump’s praise for him as the “most sensible Democrat,” questioning if it’s a “badge of honor or kryptonite for a Democrat in 2026.”

Fetterman responded, “My parents would appreciate it.”

He continued, “I know, and I love a lot of people that vote for Trump. And that’s part of why I refuse to call these people Nazis, or they’re brownshirts, or they’re trying to destroy our democracy.”

Fetterman made it clear he’s not engaging in that rhetoric, stating, “I’m not defending the president, but I will say he hasn’t defied a single court order yet. He hasn’t. And there was the big freak out that he was going to run in 28.”

“And I’m like, no, he’s not going to run. That’s not going to happen. And now, of course he’s not going to run,” the Senator added.

When Burns pressed on his relationship with Trump, Fetterman said, “If I have something to say it’s not going to be, you know, in an insult. It’s not going to be extreme things…when you have members of Congress calling him a piece of shit.”

“And I think it’s crazy, it’s like you just don’t, you know, I’ll always talk and speak, you know, with respect, because I really want to find a way forward.”

This admission underscores Fetterman’s ongoing pushback against his party’s extremes, a stance that has increasingly isolated him from Democratic insiders.

As we previously reported, Democrat extremists are already plotting to primary Fetterman ahead of his 2028 reelection bid, viewing his moderate positions as a betrayal. Despite his popularity in Pennsylvania, including strong support from Republicans, party officials are contemplating challenges because he won’t fully embrace their radical agenda.

Fetterman recently warned Democrats that socialism and far-left ideas are electoral poison, stating that such policies “pushed our party over the cliff” and led to recent losses. He called for “common sense” to prevail, highlighting the party’s shift toward figures like New York City’s socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani as a warning sign.

Fetterman has also urged his colleagues to dial back the constant outrage, telling them to stop turning everything into a “national freak out.” He criticized Democrats for overreacting to issues like the firing of Jimmy Kimmel and risking government shutdowns over partisan squabbles, emphasizing that “people need to just chill a little about a lot of things.”

These repeated calls for moderation have earned Fetterman bipartisan respect, even as they fuel internal Democratic discord. His refusal to demonize Trump voters, rooted in his own family’s views, exposes the growing divide between the party’s base and its leadership’s ideological purity tests.

Republicans stand to benefit from this chaos, as Fetterman’s crossover appeal could complicate Democratic efforts in swing states like Pennsylvania. If pushed too far, he might even consider running independently, further splintering the left.

Fetterman’s approach highlights a rare willingness to prioritize respect and practicality over division, a move that contrasts sharply with the Democrats’ ongoing embrace of extremism. As the party grapples with its identity, his voice serves as a reminder that alienating everyday Americans—including Trump supporters—only weakens their position.

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Tyler Durden Sun, 02/15/2026 - 09:20