Fascinating conversation updating the book, The Big Short:

“Of all the characters in The Big Short, fund manager Michael Burry (depicted by Christian Bale in the movie version) seemed the least likely to grant Michael Lewis a follow-up interview. Burry was one of the first to see the subprime housing market crisis coming, and he actually helped Wall Street banks develop the credit-default swap, the instrument that allowed short sellers to make their bets against the market. Lately, Burry has been in the news again because his fund has taken short positions against tech giants Nvidia and Palantir. Now he finally sits down with Lewis as part of this series.”

 

 

The post Michael Burry Speaks to Michael Lewis appeared first on The Big Picture.

Here is a graph of the year-over-year change in shelter from the CPI report and housing from the PCE report this morning, both through September 2025.

CPI Shelter was up 3.6% year-over-year in September, down slightly from 3.6% in August, and down from the cycle peak of 8.2% in March 2023.
Housing (PCE) was up 3.7% YoY in September, down from 3.9% in August and down from the cycle peak of 8.3% in April 2023.

Since asking rents are mostly flat year-over-year, these measures will slowly continue to decline over the next year as rents for existing tenants continue to increase.
The second graph shows PCE prices, Core PCE prices and Core ex-housing over the last 3 months (annualized):

Key measures are above the Fed's target on a 3-month basis. 

3-month annualized change:
PCE Price Index: 2.8%
Core PCE Prices: 2.7%
Core minus Housing: 2.6%

From the BEA: Personal Income and Outlays, September 2025

Personal income increased $94.5 billion (0.4 percent at a monthly rate) in September, according to estimates released today by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Disposable personal income (DPI)—personal income less personal current taxes—increased $75.9 billion (0.3 percent) and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $65.1 billion (0.3 percent).

Personal outlays—the sum of PCE, personal interest payments, and personal current transfer payments—increased $70.7 billion in September. Personal saving was $1.09 trillion in September and the personal saving rate—personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income—was 4.7 percent.
...
From the preceding month, the PCE price index for September increased 0.3 percent. Excluding food and energy, the PCE price index increased 0.2 percent.

From the same month one year ago, the PCE price index for September increased 2.8 percent. Excluding food and energy, the PCE price index increased 2.8 percent from one year ago.
emphasis added

The September PCE price index increased 2.8 percent year-over-year (YoY), up from 2.7 percent YoY in August.
The PCE price index, excluding food and energy, increased 2.8 percent YoY, down from 2.9 percent in August.

The following graph shows real Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) through August 2025 (2017 dollars). Note that the y-axis doesn't start at zero to better show the change.

Click on graph for larger image.

The dashed red lines are the quarterly levels for real PCE.

Personal income was at expectations and spending was below expectations.
Inflation was slightly lower than expected.

From Manheim Consulting today: Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index: November 2025 Trends

The Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index (MUVVI) rose to 205.4, reflecting a 1.3% increase in November’s wholesale used-vehicle prices (adjusted for mix, mileage, and seasonality) compared to October. The index is mostly unchanged compared to November 2024. The long-term average monthly move for November is a decrease of 0.6%.
emphasis added

Click on graph for larger image.

This index from Manheim Consulting is based on all completed sales transactions at Manheim’s U.S. auctions.

The Manheim index suggests used car prices increased in November (seasonally adjusted) and were mostly unchanged YoY.

The post GAO Identifies Fraud Risk in Obamacare Exchanges: Where Was Elon Musk and DOGE? appeared first on CEPR.

As AI Booms, US Ignores One Threat That Could Turn Off Everything

Authored by Richard Porter via RealClearPolitics.com,

We are now well past dawn in the age of artificial intelligence: According to a recent survey by Pew Research Center 62% of respondents say they interact with AI a least several times a week. Nearly every company in the U.S. is now urgently evaluating the ways in which AI can be deployed to lower costs, improve products and services, and ultimately to increase profits. Some, such as Elon Musk, are predicting AI and robots will generate such abundance that in 10 to 20 years, work will become optional and money irrelevant.

Hundreds of billions of dollars are being poured into building new data centers to house the computers to meet expected demand as AI becomes ubiquitous, not just in the U.S., but around the world. Some see a 25% growth in U.S. electricity demand over the next five years as these data centers come online, and predict consumer electricity prices will go at least 40% higher, too.

Our economy, our money, our livelihoods, our lives are increasingly virtual and online; our dependence on electricity and access to data processing cannot be overstated. Just over 140 years since the commercialization of electricity, just 75 years after the first commercial computer was introduced, and just over 30 years since the Internet was opened to the public, human civilization in the U.S. and much of the world depends on the continuous flow of electrons through circuits.

While there’s been much handwringing over the risk that AI will take over the world, as in “The Terminator” series of movies (Google’s AI estimates there have been hundreds of thousands or more articles on this topic), perhaps we should focus more attention on the opposite risk.

What if AI, the computers, indeed all electricity and electric circuits are suddenly turned off? What happens if the continuous flow of electrons through circuits upon which our civilization increasingly depends just – ends?

How could this happen? Wires and circuits are designed to carry a certain voltage and amperage: Volts measure pressure on electrons and amps measure the volume or flow of electrons. When volts or amps are too high for the wire or circuit, it overheats, melts, or catches fire. So, for example, when lightning strikes an electronic device, the wires in the device act as antennae and pick up the electric charge from the lightning, which causes the voltage on the wire to surge millions of times higher than typical voltage. 

Lightning rods, invented by Ben Franklin in 1753, and Faraday cages, invented by Michael Faraday in 1836, have long been used to protect structures and electronic devices from the regularly and naturally occurring risk of lightning and ambient electromagnetic waves from the sun or other sources, by redirecting the electricity caused by these phenomenon.

So, how might the entire flow of electricity upon which our civilization depends ever just be turned off?  There are two types of relatively low-probability events that could cause a massive electromagnetic pulse directing millions of volts onto wires, thereby destroying unprotected electronic devices in the U.S.

• The first is a massive solar storm called a “Carrington event” after the astronomer who observed the largest geomagnetic storm ever recorded in 1859 – a storm hundreds of times larger than “typical” solar storms – that destroyed telegraph systems in Britain and the U.S.

• The second is the creation of electromagnetic pulses by detonating a nuclear device high in the atmosphere above the U.S., called a HEMP, or high-altitude electromagnetic pulse.

While no one knows for sure the odds of either event occurring in the next 10 years, some have put the odds for each at 10-12%. In any event, the risk is non-trivial and the consequences to life in the United States of either event continue to grow every day as our reliance on AI, computers, robots, and the electricity that makes it all possible, grows. 

Our government formed a commission to assess this risk in 2001, which reported in 2008 that 90% of Americans would likely be dead 6 months after a HEMP attack on the U.S. – because our modern civilization operates as a system of systems, but all of the systems require electricity and electric components to function.

Americans are even more dependent on electricity today than we were 17 years ago, and our dependence on electricity will grow even deeper as we integrate AI into our lives.

So, as we depend more on electricity and AI, the policy question is: Are we actually implementing strategies for mitigating EMP risk, as the expected cost of this known risk is massive and continues to grow?

Note in this regard that triggering a HEMP is actually the easiest type of nuclear attack a rogue state or actor could launch against us – because a missile only has to go up and explode over the U.S. and does not have to be targeted back to a particular location on earth. It’s also relatively “clean” in that radiation fallout to the ground is lower the higher the bomb is detonated. Some scholars believe that HEMP weapons are central to China’s nuclear and cyber strategy against the U.S.

It’s uncomfortable to consider this risk, and it’s human nature to sometimes ignore small risks with major consequences, but a rational policymaker should increase investments to mitigate this risk as the expected cost of the risk increases.

Are we doing this? How many of the new, massive data centers are incorporating protections against EMP in their design and construction? As utilities build new power plants and upgrade the aging, unprotected grid, are they planning and designing to mitigate EMP risk? And what of our transportation equipment and infrastructure?

Ubiquitous, reliable, low-cost electric energy has been our greatest strength, but it’s also become our Achilles heel in the nuclear age. We know this to be true.

Last March, President Trump ordered the creation of a National Resilience Strategy by July and a National Critical Infrastructure Policy by October to address risks such as these, but neither the follow-up strategy nor the policy contemplated by the order appears to have been published. While empowering states and localities to deal with these risks may be efficient, it’s unclear whether states are seriously taking on this task either.   

In Aesop’s fable of the wild boar and the fox, the fox questions why the boar sharpens its tusks, and the boar replies it would be foolish not to get ready when you can for what comes. I fear we are not giving this well-known, truly-existential, but oft-ignored risk the attention, planning, oversight, and investment it deserves as electric infrastructure spending soars in pursuit of AI.

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

Tyler Durden Fri, 12/05/2025 - 07:20

Suspected Pirates Swarm Bulk Carrier In Critical Red Sea Maritime Chokepoint

This week's maritime focus, mostly centered on Ukraine's drone strikes against Russia's shadow-fleet tankers, has shifted to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the critical chokepoint linking the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, where reports now indicate a bulk carrier has come under attack.

UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said it received a report that a bulk carrier transiting the Bab el-Mandeb Strait was attacked by a swarm of 15 small craft.

"A vessel reports sighting approximately 15 small craft; some of the small craft closed to within a range of 1–2 cables, and there was an exchange of fire," UKMTO wrote in a warning notice.

Maritime analytics provider MarineTraffic posted an update on X stating that the bulk carrier was approximately 14 nautical miles west of Yemen when the captain issued the first distress call.

MarineTraffic provided further details about the attack:

A bulk carrier transiting the Bab el-Mandeb Strait came under attack early Friday, according to incident reports shared by UKMTO. #MarineTraffic data shows the vessel Bobic maintaining speed while altering course at 03:32 UTC, approximately 14 nautical miles west of Yemen, when the first distress call was issued. The ship reported being approached by up to 15 small craft, prompting its onboard security team to return fire. A second attack followed shortly afterward, involving two skiffs and a suspected mothership several miles away.

Another vessel, the Globe Aliki, was also transiting the area at the time and crossed paths with the Bobic at 03:35 UTC. According to reports, the Globe Aliki observed the small boats from roughly 1 nautical mile away, describing them as fishing-type craft. The vessel itself was not targeted.

Prior to the incident, AIS data shows that on 3 December at 17:55 UTC, the Bobic's AIS destination was changed to "Armed Guard Onboard." On 5 December at 05:47 UTC, the AIS destination changed again to "Chinese Crew." The Bobic is now continuing toward its next port of call, with all crew reported safe and the security team having successfully repelled both attacks.

Bulk carrier attacked by suspected pirates in Bab el-Mandeb Strait

A bulk carrier transiting the Bab el-Mandeb Strait came under attack early Friday, according to incident reports shared by UKMTO. #MarineTraffic data shows the vessel Bobic maintaining speed while altering course… pic.twitter.com/Y8hhisPGKX

— MarineTraffic (@MarineTraffic) December 5, 2025

Shipping journal Lloyd's List posted exclusive footage showing security personnel on the ship firing long rifles at the small boats.

Lloyd's List noted: "The lack of serious intent from the attackers, as well as the location of the incident, suggest the perpetrators are as likely to be local fishermen protecting their nets and lines as they are to be Somali pirates or Houthi militants."

Tyler Durden Fri, 12/05/2025 - 06:55

My end-of-week morning Miami/Art Basel reads:

• How Much Will the Stock Market Fall in 2026? What will the worst drawdown look like? Going back to 1928, the average peak-to-trough drawdown in a given calendar year is -16%. Drawdowns were worse than average in 2025 (-18.9%), 2022 (-25.4%) and 2020 (-33.9%). Peak-to-trough drawdowns were better than average in 2024 (-8.5%), 2023 (-10.3%) and 2021 (-5.2%). (A Wealth of Common Sense)

• The End of the Lunch Bowl Era: Diners have bowl fatigue, with some deriding them as ‘slop.’ Even Chipotle’s founder has moved on by starting a sandwich chain. (Bloomberg free)

• Basic statistical flaws of bitcoin’s four-year price ‘cycle’ The idea that BTC follows a four-year cycle at all originates from the cadence of its coinbase reward halving every four years. Because the supply of BTC issuance programmatically decreases every four years, it is easy to invent a statistical model about that halving’s supposed effect on price. However, this ignores the reality of financial markets where millions of investors discount future prices based on all presently known information. (Protos)

• Game Theory Explains How Algorithms Can Drive Up Prices: Recent findings reveal that even simple pricing algorithms can make things more expensive. (Wired)

• Everything Is Not Fine in the Art World: Auction headlines offer a picture of health that hides a body in crisis. (Hyperallergic)

• The Price of Remission: When I was diagnosed with cancer, I set out to understand why a single pill of Revlimid cost the same as a new iPhone. I’ve covered high drug prices as a reporter for years. What I discovered shocked even me. (ProPublica)

• It’s their job to keep AI from destroying everything. Spoiler: the nine-person team works for Anthropic. What happens when just a handful of employees at one of the world’s leading AI companies — one that nearly tripled its valuation to $183 billion in less than a year, and is now valued in the range of $350 billion — are given the blanket task of figuring out how the ultra-disruptive technology is going to impact society? (The Verge)

• Would You Track Your Stools Like You Track Your Steps? Equipped with sensors and AI, smart toilets promise to monitor hydration, gut health and even cancer risk — if users can get past the ick factor. (Bloomberg free)

• Will new physics affect our Universe’s far future? We have a picture of how and when it will all come to an end. These three big ideas could still profoundly change how our cosmos evolves. (Big Think)

• The NBA Superstar Who’s Kobe, Steph, Wilt and Jordan—All Rolled Into One: Nikola Jokic, the three-time NBA MVP, is having the best season of his entire career. He’s also surpassing some of the best players of all time in several statistical categories. (Wall Street Journal)

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Paul Zummo, Chief Investment Officer and Co-founder of JPMorgan Alternative Asset Management. The JPM group manages $35 billion in external hedge fund solutions for institutional and high-net worth investors. He also heads the Portfolio Management Group, and is a member of the JPMAAM Investment Committee.

Will Netflix be the winner of the Warner Bros. Discovery contest?

Source: Sherwood

 

Sign up for our reads-only mailing list here.

 

The post 10 Friday AM Reads appeared first on The Big Picture.

6 Reasons Jack Dorsey Is Definitely Satoshi... And 5 Reasons He's Not

Authored by Felix Ng via CoinTelegraph.com,

Over the years, we’ve explored some intriguing theories about who (or what) created Bitcoin, ranging from the top government spy agency in America to a time-traveling AI and even the lizard people. 

(StarPlatinum)

However, some are adamant that the creator of Bitcoin is much more human and has been under our noses this whole time, sporting a guru beard, sandals, and wearing a T-shirt with Satoshi written on it in large letters: the billionaire Twitter and Block founder Jack Dorsey. 

“I believe that Jack has been outwardly signaling that he’s Satoshi for more than a decade,” deBanked chief editor Sean Murray tells Magazine. 

“I don’t think his actions over the past decade are of someone saying ‘don’t find me’ but rather someone building on to the lore of how it’s him, why it’s him, that each blatant but indirect admission is part of the art, the brand of poetic terrorism that he subscribes to.”

So what makes some intelligent and respected people — including VanEck’s head of digital assets research Matthew Sigel — so confident that Dorsey is the creator of Bitcoin? 

1. Jack Dorsey was one of the original cypherpunks in the 1990s and wanted to end dependence on the dollar

Like any good murder mystery, a killer requires a motive. Dorsey has this in spades. 

Dorsey was one of the original 1,300 members of the famed Cypherpunk mailing list — a foundational online community founded in 1992 that prized privacy and digital freedom and laid the groundwork for Bitcoin as money outside the control of the state. He joined the list in 1996 while a student at the University of Missouri–Rolla at around 20 years of age. 

Jack Dorsey wearing an RSA shirt designed by Dr Adam Back in protest of the US government’s ban on the export of RSA encryption. (Sean Murray)

Dorsey even created a website that promoted the cyberpunks’ mission using his university domain. It’s safe to say he was a massive fan of the movement and familiar with Adam Back and Hal Finney and DigiCash long before they became well known.

Fun fact: In 2003, Dorsey reportedly blogged, “I also wish to end my dependence on the American Dollar ($) and in that vein am setting up a bartering network.”

2. Dorsey’s ventures are about Bitcoin and decentralization

Dorsey’s alignment with the cypherpunk movement persists to today. In 2009, he founded the now crypto-forward payments company, Square (now known as Block), which has just rolled out Bitcoin payments to over 4 million merchants. 

In 2019, after his second return as CEO of Twitter, he created Bluesky, a decentralized Twitter alternative that embodies some of Bitcoin’s decentralized ideals. It didn’t live up to his ideals of decentralization so he focused his efforts on supporting Nostr instead.  

Then, earlier this year, Dorsey launched Bitchat. This decentralized communications platform enables people to contact each other without the need for the internet, which has proven particularly valuable amid government protests and natural disasters, much like Bitcoin has in the past. 

Screenshot of Jack Dorsey’s early cypherpunk website. Credit to Sean Murray

His charity, Start Small, donated a whopping $21 million to OpenSats, a nonprofit that supports the developers of Bitcoin Core and other projects related to Bitcoin. 

No matter which way you slice it, Dorsey is a cypherpunk OG who has the motivation, and as we will see, the know-how to create and support the growth of Bitcoin.

3. See? Plus, plus: Jack Dorsey had the know-how to code Bitcoin

So, if Dorsey wanted to create Bitcoin, did he have the skills to code it?

The answer to this is also a resounding probably. Dorsey was obsessed with computers since his father brought home an IBM PC Junior, when he was around 8 years old. They later got a Macintosh, and by the age of 11, he had taught himself to code. 

What an IBM PCjr looked like (Wikimedia Commons)

“I was enthralled by both of them, mainly the ability to just change what they do. So I learned how to program in BASIC, and I played with HyperCard, and little by little I got better and better at newer programming languages like C,” said Dorsey in a Harvard Business School podcast in 2014. 

By around the age of 15, Dorsey was already writing dispatch software for taxi cabs, couriers and emergency services that would later be used for decades. 

When deBanked’s Murray Dorsey uncovered Dorsey’s early cypherpunk website from the late 90s, it showed Dorsey already knew coding languages including C, Python, Java, Perl, PHP, OCaml, JoCaml, Lisp, ObjC and more. And yes, it did show he knew how to code in C++, the language the original Bitcoin client was written in.

So, it’s not a giant leap to think that Dorsey would have had an even firmer grasp of programming by the time he was 32, which was how old he was when the Bitcoin white paper was released. 

4. Dorsey was focused on other things outside his day job in the lead up to the BTC white paper

The theory becomes even more intriguing once you realize that Dorsey, who founded and ran Twitter from 2006 to 2008, happened to have some downtime just weeks before the Bitcoin white paper was released — downtime potentially related to spending too much time away from his day job. 

Writing Bitcoin would not have been an easy task. Nakamoto once told early Bitcoin user and developer Mike Hearn in 2010 that it took him two years of development before releasing the Bitcoin paper and code, “and I could only spend so much time on each of the many issues.” 

This would have been precisely the time frame that Dorsey was working as the CEO of Twitter before he was fired in October 2008. 

Why did he get fired? Many reports pin it to Dorsey’s failure to address the platform’s frequent service disruptions and perceived leadership issues. 

However, some suggest that part of the reason is that he would leave the office early to “de-stress and attend night courses in fashion and drawing.” 

Satoshi Nakamoto would go on to share the Bitcoin white paper for the first time on Oct. 31, 2008, with the message: 

I’ve been working on a new electronic cash system that’s fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party.” 

Bitcoin officially launched a few months later on Jan. 3, 2009. 

5. The coincidences

Then, there are the many “coincidences” aligning specific dates in Bitcoin with aspects of Dorsey’s personal life. Believers are convinced these Easter eggs were made to subtly point toward Dorsey. 

Here are some key ones, with credit to Murray and Sigel; however, there are countless more that we didn’t cover, which can be found here. 

(Matthew Sigel)

Oct. 31, 2008: Bitcoin white paper comes out / Oct. 31, 2008: Neal Stephenson, author of “Snow Crash,” birthday. Dorsey is a fan of the book.

Jan. 9, 2009: Dorsey attends an award show in San Francisco / Jan. 10, 2009: Nakamoto accidentally logged into IRC from an IP address in California

Jan. 11, 2009: Nakamoto’s first recorded transaction / Jan. 11, 2009: Dorsey’s mother’s birthday

Nov. 19, 2009: Nakamoto registers for the Bitcoin forum as “satoshi” / Nov. 19, 2009: Dorsey’s birthday / Nov. 19, 2015: Square (now Block)’s IPO / Block Investors Day, Nov.19 2025.

May 3, 2010: Nakamoto’s last mined Bitcoin / May 3, 2010: Dorsey’s father’s birthday.

Then there’s the coincidence that his good friend Alyssa Milano wrote a graphic novel called Hacktivist about a billionaire character based on Dorsey who runs a social media company but is a secret hacker who develops a decentralized encrypted peer to peer network. Hmmm.

6. Jack Dorsey bankrolled the case against Faketoshi

Another circumstantial piece of evidence is what Jack Dorsey did when he saw a man parading around the world claiming to be Satoshi Nakamoto. 

For years, Australian computer scientist Dr. Craig Wright claimed to be the inventor of Bitcoin. He ultimately lost the battle last year and was forced to admit he was not.

But before that, his lawyer, Anthony Grabiner, had argued that it was “striking” that no one else had publicly claimed to be the creator of Bitcoin. 

“If Dr Wright were not Satoshi, the real Satoshi would have been expected to come forward to counter the claim,” said Grabiner. 

Jack Dorsey answered the call.

In May 2020, 145 ancient Bitcoin addresses signed a message stating that Craig Wright was not Satoshi and a liar and a fraud. The oldest Bitcoin address that signed the message started with 1jak — Jack’s old pseudonym.

Through Block, Dorsey co-founded and bankrolled the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA), which sued Wright in 2021 to legally declare he is not the creator of Bitcoin.

Dorsey began wearing the Satoshi T-shirt in February 2022, in the midst of the saga.

The case concluded with a High Court ruling in March 2024 in their favor. Dorsey simply and humbly labeled it a “W” after the verdict was announced. 

5 good reasons why Jack Dorsey isn’t Satoshi Nakamoto

While none of the evidence above could be considered bulletproof, supporters of the theory say there’s more than enough circumstantial evidence to seriously point toward Dorsey. Not everyone agrees, though. 

Knowing how to code and being a member of the Cypherpunk mailing list is probably just the bare minimum to be a Nakamoto candidate. Julian Assange was also on the list, along with Adam Back and Wei Dai, for example.

Critics of the theory argue that there’s no single piece of evidence that concretely links Dorsey to Nakamoto.

Jameson Lopp, the co-founder of crypto security company Casa, is one of these people, calling the theory a “half baked narrative.”

“It’s true that Jack was a cypherpunk and a programmer, but that’s the strongest ‘evidence’ available to support this theory. Everything else is circumstantial if not outright mental gymnastics via numerology,” says Lopp. 

1. Dorsey would have had to juggle Bitcoin, Square and Twitter

“I think Jack is by far one of the least plausible theories because there’s so much evidence that he was too busy doing other things (traveling, building, and promoting Twitter) to be deep in the weeds on a project as novel as Bitcoin,” Lopp tells Magazine. 

Common sense says that Dorsey wouldn’t have had the time to work to grow Bitcoin, argues Lopp. While Dorsey was indeed fired as Twitter’s CEO in 2008, just before Nakamoto released the Bitcoin white paper, Dorsey remained chairman of the board.

Then a year later, Dorsey founded Square, a company that allows anyone to accept credit card payments on a mobile device. It would be pretty challenging for Dorsey to have assembled a brand new company while steering the Bitcoin ship.

2014: "We found Satoshi. Turns out he was hiding in plain sight and was listed in the phone book."

2025: "We found Satoshi. Turns out he was hiding in plain sight and appearing on national television wearing a Satoshi shirt." pic.twitter.com/Vs7suPUCZI

— Jameson Lopp (@lopp) February 18, 2025

“It’s quite clear that he was an extremely busy person not only overseeing multiple companies, but traveling around the world meeting important people, doing press interviews, speaking at conferences, promoting philanthropic causes, and more,” argues Lopp. 

His activities do not fit the profile of someone who had the time and mental bandwidth to also be building a completely new financial system from scratch while maintaining perfect anonymity.”

But Murray argues that this is precisely why Nakamoto complained about being “really busy” on several occasions between 2009 and 2011, eventually leaving the Bitcoin project, posting on April 23, 2011 that “I’ve moved on to other things. It’s in good hands with Gavin and everyone.”

2. Satoshi wary of government, Dorsey worked with them

Another piece of evidence that suggests Dorsey is not Nakamoto is that the creator of Bitcoin comes across almost as a cautious recluse and wasn’t a fan of the government or government control.

Lopp argues that, in contrast, Dorsey is a highly public figure. 

“The funny thing about Jack is that, unlike most cypherpunks, he was an extremely public individual who posted what he was up to on nearly an hourly basis,” he explains.  

Dorsey also reportedly spent 2008 and 2015 engaged with the US State Department as part of several delegations to Iraq, Iran and Russia with other representatives from the tech sector, which would appear to be out of character for Nakamoto. 

3. Satoshi Nakamoto had regular PT posting patterns

Lopp also noted that Satoshi’s online activity suggests a consistent sleeping pattern in the Pacific timezone. Cities in this timezone include Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver and Tijuana. 

In contrast, Dorsey’s tweets were far more erratic — consistent with someone who is constantly travelling between different time zones. However, it is worth noting that Dorsey was based in San Francisco around the time Bitcoin was created. 

Satoshi Nakamoto and Jack Dorsey had different online activity patterns (Jameson Lopp)

4. Dorsey and Nakamoto had conflicting activities

A related point is that Lopp argues that there are specific event conflicts that make it doubtful that Dorsey and Nakamoto are the same person. 

For example, in November 2009, Dorsey tweeted he was having a “late lunch” with venture capitalist Fred Wilson, but only five minutes later, Nakamoto committed code to the SourceForge repository. 

In another instance, Jack said he was walking to meet the mayor of Paris at City Hall on Dec. 9, 2009, and only 18 minutes later, Satoshi posted several responses to a technical suggestion thread about Bitcoin. 

Satoshi Nakamoto’s post to BitcoinTalk, as Jack Dorsey was set to meet the mayor of Paris  (Jameson Lopp)

Another potential conflict arose in July 2010, when Jack tweeted that he was getting ready to go on stage to present at the Square headquarters, and posted “Boom” around 28 minutes later, presumably when he had finished the presentation. 

During this time, Satoshi posted to the Bitcoin talk forum.

Of course, if you can design an entirely new monetary system in your spare time, you can probably schedule in a few posts to throw people off the scent.

Lopp acknowledges that it’s not impossible that Dorsey pre-timed certain posts on Bitcointalk or posted with his mobile phone while on the go, but argues that if that was the case, Dorsey would have picked much more public events and settings to set his pre-timed posts as Nakamoto. 

5. Coincidental dates are meaningless

Lopp also argues the so-called “numerology” — like Nakamoto signing up for BitcoinTalk on the same day as Dorsey’s birthday is “absolute junk.” 

“You can find patterns in anything,” Lopp tells Magazine. “It preys upon our monkey brain’s innate desire to find patterns in random noise and try to make sense of them.”

There’s actually a scientific term for this called “Apophenia” — the psychological phenomenon of perceiving meaningful patterns or connections between unrelated or random things. It’s seen as one of the key reasons why humans can navigate the world in the way we do. 

Apophenia could be why people keep accidentally finding Jesus Christ in their grilled cheese toast (YouTube)

Famed physicist Neil deGrasse Tyson once made a similar observation. 

“Over centuries of evolution, humans’ pattern recognition skills determined natural selection. Hunters skilled at spotting prey and predator and telling poisonous plants from healthy ones offered them a better chance of survival than those blind to the patterns. It enabled the survivors to pass on those pattern-friendly genes to future generations.” 

The debate goes on

The evidence pointing to Dorsey is certainly fascinating, but is far from irrefutable. Murray remains convinced that Dorsey is Nakamoto. 

“I believe that the Satoshi character is a Jack Dorsey story, that the circumstantial evidence, skillset, timeline, background, and modus operandi are a perfect match,” he tells Magazine. 

“Prior to my research, there were very few people, if any, that were even aware Jack was one of the original cypherpunks or that he was obsessed with cryptography as a youth, that he knew of Adam Back and Hal Finney and DigiCash by name.”

The pieces were intentionally put there to be found, even if we may never be afforded the satisfaction of him directly coming out and saying it’s him.”

Lopp thinks it’s more likely to be someone other than Dorsey — but argues that for the sake of Bitcoin, we would be better off not looking. 

“I find the aggregate of all the evidence to provide so much doubt that a reasonable person would conclude that it’s far more likely that Satoshi was someone else,” says Lopp in a blog post. 

Bitcoin is better off with Satoshi’s identity remaining unknown. A human can be criticized and politically attacked. A myth will withstand the test of time.

Tyler Durden Fri, 12/05/2025 - 06:30

The UK Dominates The Most Damaging Tax Havens

A new analysis from the Tax Justice Network (TJN) has revealed the United Kingdom to be the biggest enabler of corporate tax dodging in the world.

As Statista's Anna Fleck shows in this infographic, British overseas territories and crown dependencies dominate the top eight roundup of places allowing multinationals to avoid paying tax on their profits.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Overall, this makes the UK responsible for about one third of global tax avoidance risk.

Ireland remained in ninth place for a second consecutive year in 2025, with an index value of 1,432.

It is followed by Luxembourg (1,399) and then the Bahamas (1,283), the latter of which is an independent member of the British commonwealth but not an OT or CD. In position 12 comes the Isle of Man (1,189) and in 13 comes Guernsey (1,145), both Crown Dependencies. The United Kingdom places in 19th position with a value of 865.

The index evaluates jurisdiction laws and monitors the volume of corporate financial activity entering and leaving jurisdictions. A Haven Score is determined by more than 70 questions under 18 indicators to find the extent to which a jurisdiction’s laws and regulations allow for corporate tax abuse. The outcome of these indicators are then combined with global scale weights, which are based on IMF data on foreign direct investments. The final figure is a measure of the contribution of each jurisdiction to the global problem of corporate tax abuse.

Tyler Durden Fri, 12/05/2025 - 05:45

Washington's F-35 Sale To Saudi Arabia Might Be Part Of Trump's Ultimate Plan To Revive IMEC

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

This could make it easier for Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel even in the absence of Palestinian independence and thus restore the political viability of this geo-economic megaproject.

The announcement that the US will sell F-35s to Saudi Arabia is a monumental development. Israel is the only country in West Asia to field these cutting-edge fighter jets so its “qualitative military edge” could be eroded as a result, ergo why the IDF officially objected to this. 

Axios reported that Israel wants the sale conditional on Saudi Arabia normalizing their relations, ideally through the Abraham Accords, or at least the US guaranteeing that the F-35s won’t be deployed in Saudi Arabia’s western regions near Israel.

It remains unclear whether the US will comply with these requests, but what’s much clearer is that Saudi Arabia will occupy a greater role in the US’ regional strategy, which brings the Kingdom back into the US’ orbit after it diversified its partnerships in recent years by expanding ties with Russia and China. Saudi Arabia was already moving towards a rapprochement with the US after the last four years of troubled ties under Biden, however, as proven by its reluctance to formally join BRICS after being invited in 2023.

The latest Gaza War that broke out shortly afterwards, which evolved into the first West Asian War between Israel and the Iranian-led Resistance Axis and ended in the latter’s defeat, derailed progress on the “India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor” (IMEC) from that year’s G20. IMEC’s geo-economic scope importantly necessitates the normalization of Israeli-Saudi ties for facilitating this, which the US might now try to broker after ending the Gaza War that disrupted this previously fast-moving process.

Saudi Arabia’s commitment to invest nearly $1 trillion in the US economy, up from the $600 billion that it agreed to during Trump’s visit in May, can be interpreted as a bribe for obtaining the best terms possible. Trump might therefore try to coerce Bibi into at least making superficial concessions on Palestinian sovereignty in the West Bank so that Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman (MBS) doesn’t “lose face” by agreeing to the normalization of their countries’ relations without Palestine first becoming independent.

At the same time, selling F-35s to Saudi Arabia and bestowing it “Major Non-NATO Ally” status might suffice for MBS abandoning even the minimal aforesaid implied demand, especially since IMEC is indispensable to his Kingdom’s post-oil future and associated “Vision 2030” development program. If the US brokers an Israeli-Saudi deal that leads to swift progress being made on implementing IMEC, then it can push IMEC as a replacement for India’s North-South Transport Corridor (NSTC) with Iran and Russia.

The US already revoked India’s Chabahar sanctions waiver before reinstating it, correspondingly as a form of pressure amidst their trade talks and then as a goodwill gesture therein as they made progress, but it arguably aims to redirect India from the NSTC to IMEC as a means of containing Russia. After all, the NSTC enables India to help Russia counterbalance the expansion of Turkish influence in Central Asia via TRIPP, so an indefinite waiver is extremely unlikely even in the event of an Indo-US trade deal.

It would be easier for India to accept this geo-economic concession, which might be reciprocated by tariff concessions on the US’ part, if IMEC is once again viable and could thus replace the NSTC. For that to happen, the US must first mediate the normalization of Israeli-Saudi ties, which it might now prioritize after brokering an end to the Gaza War and reaching its latest series of agreements with the Kingdom. The US’ F-35 deal with Saudi Arabia might therefore be part of Trump’s ultimate plan to revive IMEC.

Tyler Durden Fri, 12/05/2025 - 05:00

Zelensky's Jet Reportedly In Near-Miss With Military Grade Drones In Ireland

Various major publications including The Telegraph and Newsweek are reporting claims that military-grade drones threatened Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's plane shortly before it landed at Dublin Airport on Monday.

The mystery drones reportedly reached the coordinates where the Ukrainian president's plane had been expected, but Zelensky is said to have arrived a little earlier than scheduled, touching down at around 11 pm, thus missing the drones.

Irish security officials believe the drones were intended to interfere with Zelensky's arrival, noting that they were flying with their lights on, also given the UAVs were military-spec. The episode is being presented in Irish and UK press reports as a form of hybrid warfare.

Source: PA Wire/The Sun

Afterward, the unidentified aircraft circled above an Irish Navy vessel that had been covertly positioned in the Irish Sea and which was patrolling there related to providing security for Zelensky's visit.

In all the drones were reportedly airborne for roughly two hours - which again would suggest are more sophisticated or even military drone technology, and the drone operators are unknown, amid an investigation.

Conflicting reports have suggested that four or up to five drones were involved in the incursion. Their operators and current whereabouts remain unknown.

According to more details via The Daily Mail:

The Dublin intrusion occurred inside a no-fly zone ordered by the Irish Aviation Authority for the duration of Zelenskyy's visit. Ahead of the visit, Irish MEP Barry Andrews posted a graphic on social media showing the no-fly zone which was imposed.

The drones then entered Irish-controlled waters and circled above the LÉ William Butler Yeats, which did not have air-search radar and was unable to disable them. An Irish Air Corps aircraft was airborne at the time but did not engage. 

One security official has been cited in press reports as describing of the UAVs, "They had their lights on. They wanted to be seen. They had both the capability and the intent. They could have acted at any time."

Western officials have suspected that this is an extension of alleged Russia-backed 'hybrid warfare' targeting Europe's skies.

However, there is cause for skepticism to these 'Russia did it!' allegations and mystery incursions...

Well colour me shocked. The Dutch magazine Trouw analysed 60 drone incidents throughout Europe and found “hardly any evidence of Russian involvement”. The most obvious NATO psy-op ever.

Link to article: https://t.co/7jPA8tzWJE pic.twitter.com/I7nc6kHEok

— Thomas Fazi (@battleforeurope) December 1, 2025

Suspicious drone sightings have of late disrupted air traffic at key hubs in places like Denmark, Germany, and other places in northern Europe. EU officials are pushing forward with plans to invest in a collective 'drone wall' defense.

Tyler Durden Fri, 12/05/2025 - 04:15

WHO–Gates Unveils Blueprint For Global Digital ID, AI-Driven Surveillance, & Life-Long Vaccine Tracking For Everyone

Authored by Jon Fleetwood via Substack,

In a document published in the October Bulletin of the World Health Organization and funded by the Gates Foundation, the World Health Organization (WHO) is proposing a globally interoperable digital-identity infrastructure that permanently tracks every individual’s vaccination status from birth.

The dystopian proposal raises far more than privacy and autonomy concerns: it establishes the architecture for government overreach, cross-domain profiling, AI-driven behavioral targeting, conditional access to services, and a globally interoperable surveillance grid tracking individuals.

It also creates unprecedented risks in data security, accountability, and mission creep, enabling a digital control system that reaches into every sector of life.

The proposed system:

• integrates personally identifiable information with socioeconomic data such as “household income, ethnicity and religion,”

• deploys artificial intelligence for “identifying and targeting the unreached” and “combating misinformation,”

• and enables governments to use vaccination records as prerequisites for education, travel, and other services.

What the WHO Document Admits, in Their Own Words

To establish the framework, the authors define the program as nothing less than a restructuring of how governments govern:

“Digital transformation is the intentional, systematic implementation of integrated digital applications that change how governments plan, execute, measure and monitor programmes.”

They openly state the purpose:

“This transformation can accelerate progress towards the Immunization agenda 2030, which aims to ensure that everyone, everywhere, at every age, fully benefits from vaccines.”

This is the context for every policy recommendation that follows: a global vaccination compliance system, digitally enforced.

1. Birth-Registered Digital Identity & Life-Long Tracking

The document describes a system in which a newborn is automatically added to a national digital vaccine-tracking registry the moment their birth is recorded.

“When birth notification triggers the set-up of a personal digital immunization record, health workers know who to vaccinate before the child’s first contact with services.”

They specify that this digital identity contains personal identifiers:

“A newborn whose electronic immunization record is populated with personally identifiable information benefits because health workers can retrieve their records through unique identifiers or demographic details, generate lists of unvaccinated children and remind parents to bring them for vaccination.”

This is automated, cradle-to-grave traceability.

The system also enables surveillance across all locations:

“[W]ith a national electronic immunization record, a child can be followed up anywhere within the country and referred electronically from one health facility to another.”

This is mobility tracking tied to medical compliance.

2. Linking Vaccine Records to Income, Ethnicity, Religion, & Social Programs

The document explicitly endorses merging vaccine status with socioeconomic data.

“Registers that record household asset data for social protection programmes enable monitoring of vaccination coverage by socioeconomic status such as household income, ethnicity and religion.”

This is demographic stratification attached to a compliance database.

3. Conditioning Access to Schooling, Travel, & Services on Digital Vaccine Proof

The WHO acknowledges and encourages systems that require vaccine passes for core civil functions:

“Some countries require proof of vaccination for children to access daycare and education, and evidence of other vaccinations is often required for international travel.”

They then underline why digital formats are preferred:

“Digital records and certificates are traceable and shareable.”

Digital traceability means enforceability.

4. Using Digital Systems to Prevent ‘Wasting Vaccine on Already Immune Children’

The authors describe a key rationale:

“Children’s vaccination status is not checked during campaigns, a practice that wastes vaccine on already immune children and exposes them to the risk of adverse events.”

Their solution is automated verification to maximize vaccination throughput.

The digital system is positioned as both a logistical enhancer and a compliance enforcer:

“National electronic immunization records could transform how measles campaigns and supplementary immunization activities are conducted by enabling on-site confirmation of vaccination status.”

5. AI Systems to Target Individuals, Identify ‘Unreached,’ & Combat ‘Misinformation’

The WHO document openly promotes artificial intelligence to shape public behavior:

“AI… demonstrate[s] its utility in identifying and targeting the unreached, identifying critical service bottlenecks, combating misinformation and optimizing task management.”

They explain additional planned uses:

“Additional strategic applications include analysing population-level data, predicting service needs and spread of disease, identifying barriers to immunization, and enhancing nutrition and health status assessments via mobile technology.”

This is predictive analytics paired with influence operations.

6. Global Interoperability Standards for International Data Exchange

The authors call for a unified international data standard:

“Recognize fast healthcare interoperability resources… as the global standard for exchange of health data.”

Translated: vaccine-linked personal identity data must be globally shareable.

They describe the need for “digital public infrastructure”:

“Digital public infrastructure is a foundation and catalyst for the digital transformation of primary health care.”

This is the architecture of a global vaccination-compliance network.

7. Surveillance Expansion Into Everyday Interactions

The WHO outlines a surveillance model that activates whenever a child interacts with any health or community service:

“CHWs who identify children during home visits and other community activities can refer them for vaccination through an electronic immunization registry or electronic child health record.”

This means non-clinical community actors participating in vaccination-compliance identification.

The authors also describe cross-service integration:

“Under-vaccinated children can be reached when CHWs and facility-based providers providing other services collaborate and communicate around individual children in the same electronic child health records.”

Every point of contact becomes a checkpoint.

8. Behavior-Shaping Through Alerts, Reminders, & Social Monitoring

The WHO endorses using digital messaging to overcome “intention–action gaps”:

“Direct communication with parents in the form of alerts, reminders and information helps overcome the intention–action gap.”

They also prescribe digital surveillance of public sentiment:

“Active detection and response to misinformation in social media build trust and demand.”

This is official justification for monitoring and countering speech.

9. Acknowledgment of Global Donor Control—Including Gates Foundation

At the very end of the article, the financial architect is stated plainly:

“This work was supported by the Gates Foundation [INV-016137].”

This confirms the alignment with Gates-backed global ID and vaccine-registry initiatives operating through Gavi, the World Bank, UNICEF, and WHO.

Bottom Line

In the WHO’s own words:

“Digital transformation is a unique opportunity to address many longstanding challenges in immunization… now is the time for bold, new approaches.”

And:

“Stakeholders… should embrace digital transformation as an enabler for achieving the ambitious Immunization agenda 2030 goals.”

This is a comprehensive proposal for a global digital-identity system, permanently linked to vaccine status, integrated with demographic and socioeconomic data, enforced through AI-driven surveillance, and designed for international interoperability.

It is not speculative, but written in plain language, funded by the Gates Foundation, and published in the World Health Organization’s own journal.

Tyler Durden Fri, 12/05/2025 - 03:30

China Seeks Long-Term Vulnerabilities In US Energy Systems: House Panelists

By Ethan Howland of UtilityDive

While there don’t appear to be any specific, imminent cyber or physical threats to the U.S. power grid, China has been seeking vulnerabilities in network systems to be used in future attacks, panelists said during a U.S. House of Representatives hearing Tuesday on threats to the U.S. energy system.

Volt Typhoon — a group believed to be run by the People’s Republic of China’s state security service — is focused on maintaining ongoing access to U.S. network systems for future potential disruptions, according to Michael Ball, CEO of the Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center and senior vice president at the North American Electric Reliability Corp.

Michael Ball, CEO of the Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center and senior vice president at the North American Electric Reliability Corp., speaks at a hearing held by the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s energy subcommittee in Washington D.C. on Dec. 2, 2025

China is preparing for conflict over Taiwan, potentially in the “very near term,” and its strategy depends on preventing the United States from mounting a successful rescue mission, Harry Krejsa, director of Studies for the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy & Technology, said during the hearing held by the Energy and Commerce Committee’s energy subcommittee.

Part of China’s plan is to target U.S. civilian infrastructure to create panic and chaos, Krejsa said.

“Our aging infrastructure makes these threats easier, including in our energy ecosystem,” he said. “Today’s electricity grid is too often a hodgepodge of digital tools sitting atop an analog foundation, creating seams where adversaries can slip in.”

China is the most persistent cyber threat to the U.S., according to Zach Tudor, associate laboratory director for national and homeland security at the Idaho National Laboratory.

“Through Volt Typhoon, Salt Typhoon [and] Flax Typhoon, the Chinese Communist Party has embedded itself in our energy communications and water systems to set conditions for destructive attacks during the Pacific conflict over Taiwan,” he said. “They’re winning without fighting, attempting to undermine our infrastructure.”

Although no U.S. blackouts have been attributed to a cyberattack, “the threat landscape is dynamic and requires continuous vigilance,” Ball said.

Panelists called on Congress to expand programs and funding for cyber defense.

Congress should continue to fund information sharing collaboration initiatives, like the Energy Threat Analysis Center, a pilot initiative led by the Department of Energy that brings together power sector and federal officials, according to Sharla Artz, vice president for security and resilience policy at Xcel Energy.

“Expanding programs like [the Cybersecurity Risk Information Sharing Program] enhances industry and government understanding of the threat landscape and thus needs additional government funding to accomplish that expansion,” said Artz, who represented the Edison Electric Institute at the hearing.

Tim Lindahl, president and CEO of Kenergy, a cooperative utility based in Henderson, Kentucky, urged Congress to reauthorize the $250 million Rural and Municipal Utility Cybersecurity Program, which runs through fiscal year 2026.

Lindahl called on DOE to disburse $80 million in RMUC awards that were announced last fall. 

“With continued partnership and targeted federal investment, we can strengthen our defenses and ensure the security of the energy infrastructure that powers our nation,” said Lindahl, who spoke on behalf of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.

NERC’s Ball urged Congress to reauthorize the expired Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 to support information sharing between the private sector and government.

During the hearing, Rep. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., said the Trump administration was undermining U.S. infrastructure protection efforts by cutting $5.6 billion in funding for state and local grid hardening and resiliency programs.

The administration also fired more than 1,000 cybersecurity and infrastructure agency staff, according to Menendez. It also moved Department of Homeland Security Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency staff to other agencies, like Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has “no connectivity to what their work has been,” he said.

“Does that make our country safer and more able to respond to these increasing cybersecurity attacks?” Menendez said.

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/04/2025 - 23:25

Note: Mortgage rates are from MortgageNewsDaily.com and are for top tier scenarios.

Thursday:
• At 10:00 AM ET, Personal Income and Outlays for September. The consensus is for a 0.4% increase in personal income, and for a 0.4% increase in personal spending. And for the Core PCE price index to increase 0.2% (up 2.9% YoY).

• Also at 10:00 AM, University of Michigan's Consumer sentiment index (Preliminary for December).

ICE Arrests (Another) Afghan National Accused Of Supporting ISIS

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

Federal authorities on Wednesday arrested an Afghan national on suspicion of providing support to the ISIS terrorist group, the third such arrest in a week, according to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) statement.

Jaan Shah Safi was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Waynesboro, Virginia. Safi is an “illegal alien terrorist who entered the U.S. on Sept. 8, 2021, in Philadelphia” under President Joe Biden’s Operation Allies Welcome program, the statement said.

He had applied for Temporary Protected Status, but his application was terminated once DHS Secretary Kristi Noem ended TPS for Afghans.

The TPS was terminated in May as Afghanistan no longer met the requirements for the designation, and “DHS records indicate that there are recipients who have been under investigation for fraud and threatening our public safety and national security,” Noem said at the time.

The DHS said that Safi was also found to provide weapons to his father, a commander of a militia group back in Afghanistan.

The Epoch Times could not ascertain whether Safi was given any legal representation.

This is the third arrest of a suspected Afghan terrorist in about a week.

The first case was that of Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who was arrested Nov. 26 on suspicion of shooting two National Guard members in Washington. One of the victims, Sarah Beckstrom, died afterward, and the other, Andrew Wolfe, remains in serious condition.

Lakanwal had worked with the CIA during the war in Afghanistan. Authorities charged him with first-degree murder and two counts of assault with intent to kill, among other charges.

Noem said in a media interview that authorities believe Lakanwal became radicalized after he arrived in the United States through connections in his community and state.

A day before the attack and in a separate incident, Mohammad Dawood Alokozay was arrested and charged with making bomb threats.

Alokozay had posted social media videos threatening to blow up a target in Fort Worth, Texas.

The three are among 190,000 Afghan nationals who were resettled in the United States as part of Operation Allies Welcome, later renamed Enduring Welcome.

Regarding Safi, Noem said, “This terrorist was arrested miles from our nation’s capital where our brave National Guard heroes ... were shot just days ago by another unvetted Afghan terrorist brought into our country.”

On Dec. 2, the Trump administration suspended the processing of immigration applications from 19 countries, including Afghanistan and Somalia, citing national security and public safety concerns.

The Epoch Times reached out to Afghan Support Network, a nonprofit that focuses on the welfare of Afghan refugees, for comment and did not receive a response by publication time.

Overhauling Vetting Process

When the United States withdrew from Afghanistan in August 2021, the Biden administration initiated the Operation Allies Welcome program to resettle thousands of Afghan nationals in the United States, including those who worked alongside U.S. authorities in the war-torn nation over the previous two decades.

“It’s the biggest national security failure in the history of the nation,” border czar Tom Homan said in a media interview on Sunday, noting that the DHS inspector general came out with a report at the time stating multiple failures in the vetting process.

“People need to understand, in these third world nations, they don’t have systems like we do. So a lot of these Afghans, who did get here to get better, they had no identification at all. Not a single travel document, not one piece of identification. And we’re going to count on the people that run Afghanistan, the Taliban, to provide us any information who the bad guys were or who the good guys are? Certainly not.”

Noem said in a Dec. 1 post on X that many Afghan nationals brought into the country were “military-aged men” who were not vetted for security clearance.

Homeland Security is currently overhauling the vetting process for aliens, requiring the country of origin to cross-reference biometric data and criminal history, screening social media accounts, and directing individuals to check in every year, Noem said.

According to the State Department’s travel advisory, Afghanistan’s security situation remains extremely unstable, with the highest critical-level threat to U.S. citizens.

All Afghanistan provinces are dangerous for travel, with targeted or random hostile acts perpetrated by the country’s citizens. “U.S. citizens and other foreign nationals are primary targets of terrorist organizations,“ warned the advisory.

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/04/2025 - 20:05

Federal Watchdog Reveals Rampant Obamacare Fraud; 90% Of Bad-Doc Applicants Approved In Undercover Test

A new bombshell report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) details a long-running vulnerability in the Affordable Care Act exchanges, showing that weak verification controls continue to expose federal subsidies to significant fraud and abuse. 

“Preliminary results from GAO's ongoing covert testing suggest fraud risks in the advance premium tax credit (APTC) persist,” the report reads. “The federal Marketplace approved coverage for nearly all of GAO's fictitious applicants in plan years 2024 and 2025, generally consistent with similar GAO testing in plan years 2014 through 2016.”

According to the report, GAO conducted undercover tests by creating fictitious applicants with fake identities and fraudulent or never-issued Social Security numbers to see how the federal Marketplace would respond. Over the past two years, 90% of those fake applicants were approved for subsidized coverage despite lacking required documentation. In plan year 2024, all four of GAO’s fabricated applicants were approved and received about $2,350 per month in subsidies paid to insurers, even though they failed to provide proof of Social Security numbers, citizenship, or income. GAO scaled up the test for 2025 to 20 fake applicants; 18 were still enrolled as of September 2025, generating more than $10,000 per month in subsidies

More broadly, GAO's preliminary analyses identified vulnerabilities related to potential SSN misuse and likely unauthorized enrollment changes in federal Marketplace data for plan years 2023 and 2024. Such issues can contribute to APTC that is not reconciled through enrollees' tax filings to determine the amount of premium tax credit for which enrollees were ultimately eligible. GAO's preliminary analysis of data from tax year 2023 could not identify evidence of reconciliation for over $21 billion in APTC for enrollees who provided SSNs to the federal Marketplace for plan year 2023. Unreconciled APTC may not necessarily represent overpayments, as enrollees who did not reconcile may have been eligible for the subsidy. However, it may include overpayments for enrollees who were not eligible for APTC.

A big problem with reconciling these Obamacare subsidies is when someone uses a Social Security number that doesn’t actually belong to the person getting the insurance. GAO’s early look at federal Marketplace data found more than 29,000 Social Security numbers in 2023 that showed over a full year of subsidized coverage. One number was used so many times that it totaled more than 26,000 days of insurance across more than 125 plans - the equivalent of more than 71 years of coverage tied to a single number.

The pattern continued in 2024, with nearly 66,000 Social Security numbers being linked to more than a year of subsidized coverage. This can result from identity theft, fake identities, or simple typing errors. According to the GAO, determining the true owner of a Social Security number can be complicated, so it’s examining these cases and other examples of overlapping coverage more closely.

CMS officials say the federal Marketplace lets people sign up even when a Social Security number is already in use. They claim this helps the real owner of the number get coverage in cases of identity theft or simple typing mistakes. The system uses a model that analyzes various pieces of personal information to distinguish applicants, and CMS runs this check monthly to clear out duplicate accounts. They also say applications with repeated Social Security numbers are supposed to go through a data-matching process in which people send in documents to verify their identities. However, even with those explanations, the setup makes it far too easy for fake applicants to slip through, and clearly, they do. The way the system works gives fraudsters plenty of room to abuse Social Security numbers long before anyone notices.

GAO notes that its “covert testing is illustrative and cannot be generalized to the enrollee population.”

This report lands in the middle of an active policy fight on Capitol Hill over whether to extend enhanced Obamacare subsidies, giving Republicans fresh evidence for their arguments about the program’s structural problem, validating their long-standing criticisms of Obamacare. House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) called the report a “smoking gun” showing how a flawed system, protected by Democrat policies, has pushed tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to insurers through identity fraud. 

Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie (R-KY) argued that Democrats’ temporary expansion of subsidies worsened fraud, harmed patients, and hid deeper affordability problems. “Republicans have sounded the alarm on the flawed structural integrity of Obamacare and how Democrats’ failed policies to temporarily prop up the program have exacerbated fraud, hurt patients, increased the burden on American taxpayers, and artificially masked the true health care affordability crisis plaguing Americans today,” Guthrie said. “The concerning findings from GAO’s report further confirm that Republican efforts to strengthen, secure, and sustain our federal health programs are critical and necessary to ensure access to quality health care at prices Americans can afford.”

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/04/2025 - 19:40

The Problem With GDP

Authored by Alasdair Macleod via VonGreyerz.gold,

With signs of economic stagnation hard to ignore, politicians, economists, and even central bankers talk about the necessity for economic growth. Not only are they displaying economic ignorance, but by chasing something that is not a measure of production, they are bound to fail in their objectives.

The consequences for us all end in a crisis of reality. The errors of economic and monetary management by modern governments result in a credit crisis, which ultimately destroys their currencies. The signs that such a crisis is descending upon us are growing.

This article focuses on the delusions and destruction by macroeconomics: its principle objective is demonstrated to be an egregious error: to achieve economic growth. Being the sum of all recorded qualifying transactions over a period usually of a year, the measure of GDP is not of output, but of credit deployed in the economy. The error is to assume that all credit is deployed productively.

Credit recorded in GDP finances consumption, production (including investment), and government spending. Only credit for production and investment in it leads to price stability. But US industrial production is lower than in 2008, when on the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis’s total index, it was 102.38 compared with 101.27 last:

Separately, FRED shows that industrial investment increased by a paltry $100 billion since 2008.

Credit expansion to finance production, particularly of goods, is non-inflationary because it is employed to make goods better, cheaper and more relevant to evolving consumer desires. And if credit funding goods production and investment have gone nowhere in the last seventeen years, then the increase in GDP is misleading.

Since 2008, GDP has more than doubled to about $30,000 billion. With the exception of service industries, many of which add little value, the expansion of credit funds, excess consumption and government spending. Credit expansion to finance the credit bubble is excluded from GDP, which is a separate issue.

It should now be clear that economists and politicians trumpeting growth are being misled or misleading themselves into promoting inflationary policies. The only offset is savings. If consumers save instead of spending, then consumer prices will not be driven up so much by excess credit. But here the US’s record over time is dismal:

Other than the spikes during the COVID lockdowns, when no one could spend, the long-term savings trend is down. Not only are savings down, but consumer debt is up:

Using 2008 as our base, consumer debt has doubled, while production of goods has stagnated. So not only has the personal savings rate generally declined, but the expansion of consumer debt has been a driving factor behind growth in GDP.

That leaves government spending. Governments are notoriously bad distributors of economic resources, and nowhere is this more so than reflected in GDP. Total US Government spending is about 40% of GDP, with the federal government portion being 23%. At least state and local governments’ spending is more relevant to their communities, but federal government spending is not, and that is where trouble is mounting from wasteful spending, all of which is included in GDP. 

The easiest way to grow GDP is for the federal government to increase its useless and economically destructive spending, which undoubtedly encourages the political class to do so.

The deflator myth

Starting with nominal GDP, econometricians point out that it should be deflated for inflation. If nominal GDP is shown to grow by 5%, than an inflation rate of 2% reduces that to real growth of 3%. The deflator usually used is the consumer price index.

The temptation to bolster real GDP growth by tinkering with the CPI is irresistible. Various methods are used to achieve this outcome. The result is that the current US inflation rate is calculated by the Bureau of Labour Statistics to be 3%, while John Williams of Shadowstats, who uses the original 1980 basis of calculation, computes it as 12%. Taking nominal GDP growth currently estimated by the Congressional Budget Office of 4.5%, this changes “real” GDP growth from 1.5% to minus 7.5%.

Imagine the furore if that was admitted! But we can’t even believe this more realistic presentation of the contraction of the value of total credit deployed in the economy (for that is what it is), because in theory there is a general level of prices, but in practice, no such thing exists. Its construction is therefore purely subjective and can say anything a government statistician wants. Hence, the difference between Shadowstats’ 1980 basis and subsequent revisions.

Consequently, the idea that GDP growth, nominal or real, represents the economic progress we all desire gets even further away from the truth. Instead, we can explain how the real economy is being suppressed by statistical misrepresentation, despite GDP headlines.

The debt trap

If there is one thing GDP is genuinely useful for, it gives a nation’s lenders a basis for judging its creditworthiness. Put simply, if national debt is growing faster than its tax base — roughly measured by the growth in GDP — then the economy is in a debt trap. However, if we are realistic about the distortions in the numbers, then many of the G7 nations are already there.

The reason that debt traps are yet to be properly recognised by markets is that they have been captured by governments themselves. The entire macroeconomic myth, coupled with regulatory oversight, have engendered complacency, which eventually will be shattered. 

It happened in Britain the last time it had a far-left government. In 1976, sterling began to fall, and the IMF were called in to stabilise government finances. Inflation the previous year had hit 25% and bond yields had soared to over 16%. The problem was that without the IMF forcing the UK government to cut spending and raise taxes to generate a budget surplus, the dynamics of the debt trap would have driven gilt yields higher still.

 An understanding that GDP represents credit and not economic progress, and that most of its deployment is inflationary, tells us that the dollar and other major currencies already face debt traps. That is why central bankers in the know are selling currencies and buying gold.

Conclusion

Investors should be aware that the government statistics upon which they rely for guidance are thoroughly misleading. Nowhere is this truer than in GDP, the quicksand upon which macroeconomics is built. Distortion of the facts compounds distortions of the past. This is why the entire basis of economic analysis is misleading and is bound to end up in a general economic and credit crisis when reality returns.

For this reason, individuals should follow the actions of central banks and protect themselves from a looming credit crisis. That can only be done by getting out of credit and into real money without counterparty risk, which is only physical gold.

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/04/2025 - 17:40

A Newsom Nihilist Nomination?

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

As California Governor Gavin Newsom gears up to run for president, what in the world will he run on?

Californians know that Newsom will not boast, “I will do for America what I have done to California!”

Why not?

Count the reasons.

California’s astronomical gas prices and taxes remain the highest in the continental U.S.

Ditto the state’s trifecta of the highest electricity rates, the costliest home prices, and the fourth-highest home insurance costs.

California has the largest unfunded liability debt in the nation, approaching $270 billion.

The budget deficit each year usually ranges from $15 to $70 billion.

Such profligate spending and deficits explain why the state also has the highest income taxes and state sales tax rates in the nation.

Just 1% of California households pay 50% of the state income tax. And the fleeced are leaving in droves.

Newsom recently boasted that he extended Medi-Cal health insurance to thousands more illegal aliens.

So, no wonder Newsom next begged for a nearly $3 billion Medi-Cal federal bailout.

Half of the state’s 41 million residents are now on Medi-Cal. Some 50 percent of all births are Medi-Cal-provided—and growing.

California has a lot of other firsts among the 50 states:

• The largest population of illegal aliens.

• The largest number of homeless people.

• The largest number of people fleeing a state.

• The largest number (11 million) and percentage (27%) of foreign-born residents.

• The largest number of people living in poverty.

• The highest food prices in the continental U.S.

• The state’s infrastructure is usually rated near the bottom.

• California ranks among the five worst states in per capita violent crime.

Here are a few other observations about the current disaster that is Newsom’s California.

One, California is a naturally wealthy state. It is the third largest by area. It ranks seventh in the nation in oil reserves. No nation has more agricultural production or forested land acreage. So it’s hard to bankrupt California, but Newsom has managed.

Two, under prior governors Pat Brown, Ronald Reagan, George Deukmejian, and Pete Wilson, California used to be the best-run state in the country.

California once produced more oil than any other state except Texas.

Its now-moribund timber industry once used to be the third largest in the nation.

And its currently ossified mining and mineral industries were once among the top ten producers in the country.

Three, no state politician over the last three decades has been more responsible for California’s decline than Gavin Newsom: six years as governor, eight years as lieutenant governor, seven years as mayor of San Francisco, and seven years on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

Four, California chose decline. In the last thirty years, it drove out somewhere between 18 and 20 million affluent and middle-class state residents, the largest state exodus in U.S. history.

Its open border welcomed in an influx of over 10 million illegal aliens.

Meanwhile, Silicon Valley’s $11 trillion in market capitalization created the wealthiest and the most left-wing out-of-touch elite in the United States.

The result was a medieval state of a few million elites, a mass of poor people, and a vanishing middle class.

Five, such influxes and exoduses, along with gerrymandering, have ensured a one-party state. There are no Republican statewide officeholders.

Democrats control all branches of government. Only 17% of its congressional delegation is Republican. So the Left proudly owns what California has become.

What, then, will Newsom run on?

• Certainly not high-speed rail—17 years, $15 billion, and not a foot of track laid.

• Certainly not a $500-million exploding solar battery plant.

• Certainly not illegally issuing 17,000 commercial truck driver’s licenses to non-resident illegal aliens with little or no English competency.

• Certainly not the horrific but preventable Pacific Palisades fire.

• And certainly not a now-closed $2-billion desert solar plant boondoggle.

Instead, Newsom will continue his he-man threats to Trump, like, “We’re going to punch this bully in the mouth.”

But will such bluster lower the state’s gas and power prices or reduce its sky-high taxes?

On social media and in podcasts, Newsom will continue his adolescent threats to federal officials like Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem while serving up his adolescent potty-mouth smears (e.g., “son of a b***h,” “god-d**n,” “f**k,” etc.).

But that profanity will not lower crime or house prices.

In other words, in the Democrat primaries, Newsom will try to out-crazy the violence, profanity, and extremism of the now-crazy Democrat socialists.

Newsom will rant nonstop about the evil Trump, but neither offer a word nor do a thing about his own responsibility for the collapse of a once great state.

Newsom will lecture on “affordability” without mentioning that he has created the most unaffordable state in the nation.

Will all this gobbledygook work?

It did in New York.

So, who knows?

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/04/2025 - 17:00

Connecticut Orders Robinhood, Crypto.com, & Kalshi To Stop Prediction Markets

Connecticut’s Department of Consumer Protection issued cease-and-desist orders to Kalshi, Robinhood and Crypto.com, alleging that the platforms are conducting unlicensed online gambling there.

“Only licensed entities may offer sports wagering in the state of Connecticut,” DCP commissioner Bryan T. Cafferelli said in a statement on Wednesday.

“None of these entities possess a license to offer wagering in our state, and even if they did, their contacts violate numerous other state laws and policies, including offering wagers to individuals under the age of 21.”

DCP Gaming Director Kris Gilman accused the platforms of “deceptively advertising that their services are legal,” adding that they operate outside of the state’s regulatory environment, “posing a serious risk to consumers who may not realize that wagers placed on these illegal platforms offer no protections for their money or information.”

As CoinTelegraph's Martin Young details below, prediction markets have come under legal scrutiny in several US states, as the use of these platforms has skyrocketed this year and attracted billions of dollars in investment for allowing users to bet on the outcome of a variety of events.

Prediction markets saw huge volumes in November. Source: Token Terminal 

Kalshi fires back in court

A Kalshi spokesperson told Cointelegraph that it is “a regulated, nationwide exchange for real-world events, and it is subject to exclusive federal jurisdiction.

“It’s very different from what state-regulated sportsbooks and casinos offer their customers. We are confident in our legal arguments and have filed suit in federal court,” Kalshi added.

In a complaint filed on Wednesday against the DCP, Kalshi claimed that “Connecticut’s attempt to regulate Kalshi intrudes upon the federal regulatory framework that Congress established for regulating derivatives on designated exchanges.”

[ZH: Kalshi is perhaps the most exposed in this suit given their massive push into sports predictions...]

It added that its platform was subject to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s “exclusive jurisdiction” and its sports event contracts “are lawful under federal law.”

“As we’ve previously shared, Robinhood’s event contracts are federally regulated by the CFTC and offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC, a CFTC-registered entity, allowing retail customers to access prediction markets in a safe, compliant, and regulated manner,” a Robinhood spokesperson told Cointelegraph.

Crypto.com did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In its statement, Connecticut’s DCP said that prediction market platforms pose serious risks to consumers because they lack the required technical standards and security protections for financial and personal data.

Source: Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection

The agency claimed that such platforms also lack integrity controls to prevent insider betting or manipulation, operate without regulatory oversight of their payout rules, advertise to self-excluded gamblers and on college campuses, and permit betting on events with known outcomes, thereby giving insiders unfair advantages.

Only three platforms are legally licensed for sports wagering in Connecticut: DraftKings, FanDuel and Fanatics, all of which require users to be at least 21 years old.

Kalshi under fire in at least 10 US states

Connecticut is not the only state to take a hard stance on prediction platforms; regulators in two neighboring states have previously taken action. 

New York sent a cease and desist to Kalshi in late October, and the company responded on Oct. 27 by suing the state. Meanwhile, the Massachusetts state attorney general sued Kalshi in the state court in September. 

Kalshi also previously received cease and desist orders from Arizona, Illinois, Montana and Ohio this year, and it remains embroiled in ongoing litigation in New Jersey, Maryland and Nevada, reported Bookies.

Kalshi announced this week that it has closed a $1 billion funding round at a valuation of $11 billion, after seeing its best-ever monthly volume in November.

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/04/2025 - 16:40