Zero Hedge

Berenson On Black Violence, Woke Lies, & Right-Wing Rage

Berenson On Black Violence, Woke Lies, & Right-Wing Rage

Authored by Alex Berenson via Substack,

You’ve seen the photo.

A man stands behind a woman, his arms raised in a frenzy. She sits, focused on her phone, oblivious to the danger behind her. He is about to slash her neck and leave her to bleed to death.

The man is black. The woman is white.

And their races are no coincidence.

*  *  *

(The truth, even when it hurts.)

Black men commit a huge amount of violent crime in the United States.

Every statistic confirms this fact. Black people made up almost 47,000 of the 81,000 murder suspects whose race was known to police in the last five years, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.1 Most of those killers are men.

Put another way, black men, who make up about one-fourteenth of the American population, commit over half of the homicides.

In some cities, the disparities are so stunning as to nearly defy belief. St. Louis has about the same number of black and white people, about 130,000, along with 40,000 Asians and Latinos. So far this year, St. Louis police have identified 83 murder suspects. None are Asian or Latino. Three are white.

The other 80 are black, 73 men and seven women.

(See for yourself.)

SOURCE

I wish this racial gap didn’t exist.

Every American suffers from it. Black people suffer more than white, because most crime is intra-racial, a fact that shouldn’t surprise anyone. People usually commit violence against family members, friends, or people in their neighborhoods. So black people are far more likely to be the victims of violent crime, as well as its perpetrators.

Nonetheless, the crime gap is real, and has been for generations. Whether violent crime is rising or falling, black people are far more likely to commit it.

For a long time, we simply didn’t discuss this fact. Everyone knew it. Maybe people didn’t know the exact statistics, but everyone broadly knew the overall trends.

No one talked about it.

Guess what?

I think that silence was probably the right move.

I know, probably not what you expected from Mr. Unreported Truths.

But who gains from highlighting black criminality? Obviously, police departments must deal with reality, by focusing their officers and detectives on the neighborhoods where most crime happens. But focusing on the racial disparities in crime seems… unlikely to help race relations. And although rates of black criminality are higher, the vast majority of black people — like the vast majority of white people — do not commit violent crime.

Better, then, to arrest and incarcerate and simply ignore the intersection of race and crime whenever possible.

Except the left wouldn’t agree.

For the last 20 years, the left has spun two demonstrably false narratives on this issue.

The first is that large numbers of black men are in prison for nonviolent drug crimes. I examined this argument closely for Tell Your Children, and it is almost totally a myth.

It exploded after the publication in 2010 of a book called “The New Jim Crow,” by civil rights lawyer Michelle Alexander. It has been repeated ever since, even though criminal justice professor John Pfaff exploded it in a book called “Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration - and How to Achieve Real Reform” in 2017.

Pfaff — who is a liberal — pointed out that any serious cuts in prison populations would have to include the release of many violent offenders (a tack he favors). Depending on the criteria, many if most of those offenders would be black.

Now, one can argue that prisons are inhumane and expensive and that a country as wealthy as the United States should have better alternatives even for violent criminals and that no one should be defined by their worst day. Those are honest arguments. I generally don’t agree with them, but they are honest.

But pretending that our prisons are filled with black men in there for smoking pot is not an honest argument.

The second myth, even more maddening, is that the police are constantly shooting black men, and unarmed black men in particular.

In reality, between 2015 and 2024, American police shot and killed about 180 unarmed black people (and 222 white people), according to a database from the Washington Post. Obviously, any police shootings need to be investigated, and if there is evidence officers acted without justification, they should be prosecuted.

But the context here is important. Over the same period, close to 100,000 black people died of homicide — and, again, the vast majority died at the hands of other black people. The statistics could not be clearer: Police officers of any race present a far smaller threat to black men than other black men do.

Unfortunately, the left will not simply acknowledge that fact. Instead, the legacy media, has spent the last decade offering saturation coverage of every case it can find in which police officers, particularly white officers, have killed black men.

These demonstrably false narratives were central to the broader effort to “reform” the criminal justice system, a goal the left justified by arguing that violent crime had fallen so much from its 1980s peak we ought to close the prisons and replace police with social workers.

In reality, at least four big factors seem to have led to the fall in crime.

  • First, we did lengthen sentences and put a lot of violent people in prison in the late 1980s and 1990s. This may come as a shock to progressives, but incarcerating criminals keeps them from committing more crimes.

  • Second, cell phones and apps made drug dealing a delivery business. When you don’t have to sell on corners, you don’t have to fight for them.

  • Third, opioids replaced stimulants as America’s preferred drug class. Opioids cause many, many problems, but their users are generally too zonked (the preferred clinical term) to commit violent crime.

  • Fourth, investigative technology improved. It’s tough to be a serial killer these days. Watch that DNA!

Still, throughout the 2010s, the “Black Lives Matter” anti-incarceration and -police stories gained momentum. To the left, falling crime didn’t signal longer prison sentences had worked. It signaled they were unnecessary.

Then, following George Floyd’s death, calls to “defund the police” exploded. Democratic politicians and prosecutors in cities like Chicago and Philadelphia signaled they would not routinely enforce a wide range of laws or back police who used force in arrests. Many police officers retreated from their work, knowing that they might face lawsuits or worse if they were forced to fight with a suspect.

Within months crime exploded. Murders in the United States rose 30 percent in 2020, the biggest one-year spike ever. Big sections of downtowns in cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles became almost impassible, filled with open-air drug use, aggressive panhandling, and street crime.

The post-Floyd crime wave ended the open calls to defund the police, but it didn’t end the left’s general dishonesty about race, crime, and policing.

But the left doesn’t control what we see and hear anymore.

The center of gravity is on social media, and social media, particularly X, has moved increasingly to the right.

Now the right is responding to the left’s misleading arguments about crime and race in the most inflammatory possible way. Commentators with huge audiences are highlighting cases in which black men have committed unprovoked crimes against white people, especially white women, especially young white women.

Thus the image of Decarlos Brown Jr standing behind Iryna Zarutska, about to strike, now viewed hundreds of millions of times — if not billions — on X.

I don’t know how to put this genie back in the bottle.

These images are powerful because they’re real.

They cut to a truth about crime in the United States that the left will not acknowledge.

But they cannot help but inflame anger about race. At least some people posting are using them for just that reason.

Would greater honesty from the left stop them?

Of course not.

We need strict laws against recidivist violent criminals, and we need to enforce those laws. We need to give police more tools to get floridly psychotic people off the streets, particularly when drugs are fueling their psychosis. Those people are almost by definition dangerous to themselves and others. Ideally, we’d send them to civil confinement for treatment. But if they’re breaking laws against, say, public nudity or harassment, we should not be afraid to send them to jail.

The left needs to accept that a lot of those people are going to be black.

But I wish the right wouldn’t say so out loud.

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

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/09/2025 - 22:35

Americans' Wages Haven't Kept Up With Inflation Since Biden Was Elected

Americans' Wages Haven't Kept Up With Inflation Since Biden Was Elected

The post-pandemic economy has been a story of resilience on paper - low unemployment, strong GDP growth, and record-breaking stock markets.

But for many Americans, the lived experience tells a different story.

As inflation surged through 2021 and 2022, wages struggled to keep up, leaving households feeling squeezed despite broader economic gains.

According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and visualized by Statista, average hourly earnings increased by 21.8% from January 2021 to July 2025.

Meanwhile, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 22.7% over the same period, leaving real wages—the amount adjusted for inflation—down 0.7% cumulatively.

Chart: How Wages Compare to Inflation

The above chart visualizes cumulative changes in wages and inflation over the last four and a half years, and is summarized by the data below:

While wage growth appears strong in nominal terms, real earnings are still underwater. The most striking period was between April 2021 and April 2023, when inflation outpaced wage growth for 25 consecutive months, shrinking purchasing power month after month.

Since May 2023, there’s been a turnaround—nominal wages have once again outpaced inflation, causing real wages to rise. But that hasn’t been enough to fully recover from the inflation shock that began in 2021.

The Lingering Impact of Inflation

The -0.7% drop in real hourly earnings since January 2021 highlights a fundamental truth: even small mismatches between wage growth and inflation, when sustained over years, can erode financial stability for everyday Americans.

There is reason for optimism, though. If the current trend continues, with inflation stable and wage growth healthy, real wages could soon surpass pre-crisis levels. But that path remains vulnerable to shifts in inflation or labor market conditions.

For a longer-term look at how wages and inflation have tracked historically, check out the data from 2007 in this USAFacts visualization on Voronoi.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/09/2025 - 22:10

Make America Great, Secure, And Maritime Again

Make America Great, Secure, And Maritime Again

Authored by William Cahill & Jacqueline Deal via RealClearWire,

It is 2035, and an array of new and revitalized cities along America’s coastlines and waterways are arising to rekindle industry. Leveraging the nation’s incredible maritime geography, these urban centers feature advanced shipyards, manufacturing hubs, cultural centers, and luxury real estate, all organized around the energy and logistical infrastructure of the future.

Imagine Detroit reborn: small, modular nuclear reactors power a humming, cutting-edge shipbuilding industry along with a range of factories connected by air, sea, and land, as advanced drones ferry cargo between them. This revived manufacturing hub employs someone from nearly every extended family, and the abundant clean energy fueling it in turn underpins high-quality education, healthcare, and public transport services for residents. Detroit leads the reindustrialization of the U.S. economy, amplifying manufacturing independence, resilience, and national security.

This future is within reach; the raw material exists to support many more maritime boomtowns, combining new logistics modes with living well on America’s ocean coasts and the Great Lakes and rivers irrigating the Midwest. Executing a strategy to achieve this potential starts with identifying which aspects of business as usual must evolve.

Moving cargo on the water is by far the most efficient means of transportation and accounts for 80 percent of global trade. But the United States can’t use its abundant coastlines and rivers to reinvigorate domestic supply chains—or, if necessary, to sustain a wartime economy—largely because it makes and crews so few commercial ships. Last year, the United States delivered zero, while China delivered over 900. This deficit poses a massive and growing risk to national competitiveness and security.

A perfect storm is brewing. As China seeks to dominate critical markets and supply chains, the United States “protected” its shipbuilding and maritime logistical capabilities nearly out of existence, while allowing its leading research labs and firms to send their know-how to the adversary. Now, China has become the world’s leading manufacturer of everything from ships to micro-electronics and missiles, and critical U.S. infrastructure is in its crosshairs.

Warding off this threat depends on building maritime freedom cities.

These new coastal population, technology, and logistical hubs will provide both demand and capabilities for the U.S. industrial base, deepen U.S. resilience, and complicate adversary targeting. Fortunately, this solution is emergent.

Even before the One Big Beautiful Bill’s passage, President Trump had steered the ship of state toward a mix of tariffs, tax incentives, and regulatory relief to help American manufacturers. The bill advances this agenda and includes a down payment on the Defense Department’s Golden Dome initiative to protect the homeland from Chinese missiles.

The next step is to build the freedom cities the President pitched during his last campaign to “reopen the frontier, reignite American imagination, [and provide] … a new shot at home ownership and in fact, the American dream.” In one speech, then-candidate Trump linked America’s primary geopolitical threat with deindustrialization and social malaise.

The administration is now positioned to address these interlinked challenges by designating locations on all three U.S. coasts (Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf of America), as well as cities around the Great Lakes and its tributaries, tax-free air and maritime opportunity zones.

Each city could generate sustainable, growth-oriented demand for advanced marine vessels, many of which could support dual-use capabilities and infrastructure.

Such economic clusters would usher in an era of maritime innovation, strengthening the allied maritime industrial base.

This would bring America off the bench and provide opportunities for thoughtful integration with partners such as Japan and South Korea.

Meanwhile, representatives of hostile foreign adversaries such as China should be excluded from relevant labs and start-ups. Long-overdue investments in research security and counterintelligence must be made so that American research and development doesn’t continue to help Beijing tighten its hammerlock over global maritime trade.

Life on the water in support of hands-on industries has inherent attraction. If you build it, they will come and thereby contribute to the great rebuilding effort that the President has already begun.

To the relief and excitement of Americans—and the disappointment of our adversaries—America is poised to return to the fundamental business of industry, homeland defense, and maritime innovation.

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

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/09/2025 - 21:45

Where Are All The Hurricanes?

Where Are All The Hurricanes?

Where are all the hurricanes?

And where are the climate alarmists, leftist corporate media outlets, and Greta Thunberg with their predictions of imminent doom for planet Earth? 

In Greta's case, perhaps the funding for climate change propaganda dried up, and she has since shifted her focus to everything Palestine. As the saying goes, "follow the money". 

Back to the Atlantic hurricane season: it's been eerily quiet, with no signs of activity this week - even though this is typically the peak of the season. This is the period when tropical cyclones and hurricanes are expected to be churning in the Atlantic Basin, often threatening or making landfall in the U.S., while leftist corporate media unleashes propaganda blaming the working class and their gas stoves, diesel trucks, and meat consumption for fueling the crisis. Yet many of these climate alarmists present more taxes and banning cow farts as the solution to save the planet, yet never mention that they fly around in private jets and sail diesel-powered mega yachts. 

"Peak hurricane season. No activity this week. Just sayin," former Trump 2016 transition team member and JunkScience publisher Steve Milloy wrote on X. 

Weather Trader meteorologist Ryan Maue told USA Today in an email that peak hurricane season can be described as a "ghost town," adding that "the Atlantic tropics have gone DORMANT again."

Seasonality-wise, this week is supposed to be the busy one...

Hurricane specialist Michael Lowry wrote on X, "Only two hurricane seasons in the modern record – 1992 and 1968 – went the two weeks leading up to the traditional hurricane season peak without an active named storm. Now we'll add 2025 to the list. My thoughts on the unusually quiet start to September." 

The result of climate propaganda by leftist corporate media outlets has been a mental health crisis among some youngsters, causing them to develop climate anxiety.

Someone needs to tell the youngsters that Al Gore has been wrong for decades. 

* * *

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/09/2025 - 21:20

Experts Warned Us About Algorithms But Missed The Kids

Experts Warned Us About Algorithms But Missed The Kids

Authored by Kay Rubacek via The Epoch Times,

For more than a decade, experts have warned us about the dangers of algorithms. In 2015, Frank Pasquale—a legal scholar and expert on law in relation to artificial intelligence—cautioned in “The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms That Control Money and Information” that “authority is increasingly expressed algorithmically.”

Data scientist Cathy O’Neil followed in 2016 with her best-selling book, “Weapons of Math Destruction,” showing how invisible formulas reinforced inequality in areas like credit scores, policing, and hiring.

These warnings were serious, and they were right.

But even as they sounded alarms about fairness, bias, and discrimination in adult systems, one thing was left in the shadows: childhood. The experts were watching how algorithms governed our finances, our jobs, our reputations. Few stopped to ask how those same systems—amplified through social media and now AI companions—would come to govern the daily lives, identities, and futures of our children.

By 2020, the groundbreaking documentary “The Social Dilemma” brought the issue into the mainstream. Former insiders from Google, Facebook, and Twitter, alongside researchers at the Center for Humane Technology, revealed how engagement-driven design was exploiting psychology, spreading misinformation, and polarizing societies. The film was a wake-up call, but even then the focus was mostly on politics and civic trust. Again, children were treated as collateral victims, not as the primary target population. And yet today, it is young people who are most deeply governed by algorithms.

Pasquale and O’Neil were right to call attention to opaque systems that decided who got loans, who got jobs, and who could speak online. But while adults have some defenses such as life experience, critical thinking skills, developed identities, children do not. They are in the most formative years of brain development, when patterns of thought, emotional regulation, and identity are still under construction. 

Developments in neuroscience show us that adolescence is the brain’s second most active growth stage, rivaled only by early childhood. The teenage brain is unusually plastic, craving novelty, sensitive to peer feedback, and wired for risk-taking. It is precisely in this stage that algorithms, optimized for attention capture, now take hold, and form life-long patterns in young brains.

This is why comparing algorithmic control of adults to the control of children is a category error. 

Adults may be nudged, distracted, or even manipulated by algorithms. But children are being formed by them. I emphasize: formed. Where an adult might lose focus, a child may lose the very capacity for focus. Where an adult might feel lonely, a child may grow up never having learned the skills of intimacy at all. The stakes are not simply higher, I dare say, they are existential.

Algorithms now govern childhood in at least four crucial domains. 

  • The first is attention. Social media feeds are designed to keep young eyes locked to the screen, capturing time and focus that once went to family, friendship, or silence. Notifications arrive at all hours, fragmenting concentration and eroding sleep. Children may feel “connected,” but rarely are they truly with anyone. This erosion of real bonds lies at the heart of the loneliness epidemic identified by U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy in 2023 and hitting the youngest generations the hardest.

  • The second domain is identity and self-worth. On platforms like Instagram and TikTok, likes and follows have become the currency of value. Internal research leaked from Instagram in 2021 admitted their algorithms “make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls.” Childhood, once a time to discover intrinsic worth, has been turned into a constant audition for digital approval.

  • The third is community. Recommendation engines steer youth into echo chambers and rabbit holes, narrowing their world and fracturing their social bonds. Friendships rise and fall according to what the algorithm promotes instead of via recess and after-school interactions. These digital friendships are leaving young people with networks that are more broad than previous generations experienced but inconsolably shallow. As Virginia Eubanks, political scientist and author of “Automating Inequality,” has shown, automated systems are not neutral, they are designed to “sort and discipline populations.” For children, this means their very communities are being shaped, fragmented, and policed by invisible corporate code.

  • The fourth is companionship itself. For earlier generations, loneliness could be softened by a trusted friend, sibling, or confidant. Today, algorithms offer substitutes. AI chatbots and large language models are marketed to youth as companions—always available, endlessly patient, apparently empathetic. To a young person feeling isolated, these systems can feel like friends. But they are not friends. They are predictive text machines, trained to simulate care but incapable of love.

The danger used to be subtle but profound: children may grow accustomed to mistaking machine responses for intimacy, weakening their ability to form durable bonds in the real world. Now, more cases of self-harm are surfacing where teens confided in artificial algorithmic “friends” that gave them the “support” to carry out the unthinkable. 

The evidence of harm is already overwhelming. Pew Research reports dramatic rises in teen anxiety and depression since 2012, when platforms shifted from chronological to algorithmic feeds. Murthy’s loneliness warning confirms what parents see every day: today’s youth are more digitally connected than any generation in history, yet feel more isolated than ever.

Recent data makes the cost even clearer. From 2010 to 2020, the suicide rate among U.S. adolescents aged 10–24 rose by 56 percent. Among girls aged 10–14, the rate surged 167 percent, and 91 percent for boys. By 2021, suicide had become the third leading cause of death among high-school students, with nearly 2,000 deaths and one in three girls reporting suicidal thoughts. Social psychologist and author of “Anxious Generation,“ Jonathan Haidt, calls it “the great rewiring of childhood.” These are the fruits of systems not designed for empathy, growth, or love. They are cold machines that fake companionship and compassion for engagement metric and corporate profit, taking advantage of developing brains too young to know the difference.

But even beyond life and death, numbers alone do not capture the cost. What is being lost is not only playtime or friendships—it is the formation of character itself. Childhood is the training ground for citizenship. It is where young people once learned patience, trust, self-control, and meaning through shared struggle. When those lessons are replaced by endless feeds, gamified approval, and machine-simulated intimacy, the loss becomes generational.

Older readers may recall growing up with human governors—parents, teachers, neighbors—who set boundaries and passed down values. Those human guides taught responsibility, restraint, and conscience. The child who learned these lessons became the adult who could build families, businesses, and communities. When algorithms take that role, what kind of adults will emerge? A generation governed by algorithms will not simply be lonely. They will be citizens who struggle to focus, workers who cannot create without machines, neighbors unskilled in empathy, and voters conditioned to trust whatever their highly-curated feed serves up next. Leaders raised this way may lack the moral depth to govern without consulting algorithms as their silent advisers.

The implications extend far beyond homes and workplaces. A society of distracted, isolated, and emotionally fragile citizens is easier to manipulate, easier to divide, and easier to control, whether by corporations or by hostile powers abroad. If this path continues, America may not only lose its resilience. It may lose its ability to lead. A culture built on recycling what “performs” rather than imagining what is true or good will stagnate. A nation unable to raise strong, focused, empathetic young people cannot remain free for long. And the world, too, will feel the effects, as a generation raised by invisible governors becomes less capable of resisting authoritarian pressures and less able to build communities rooted in trust and conscience.

And yet, we must remember: algorithms are not spirits in a machine. They are math and data, governed by human objectives. If they are invisible, it is because those who profit from them prefer to remain unseen and ignore the human costs. The invisibility of both the code and its creators is perhaps the greatest danger, because what is unseen cannot be held accountable.

We must recognize this for what it is: a profound transfer of authority over childhood. 

Experts were right to warn us about bias and inequality in algorithmic decision-making, but they missed this deeper cost: an entire generation being shaped, minute by minute and swipe by swipe, by invisible governors of code. Parents, educators, and policymakers cannot afford to treat this as a minor influence because they are shaping the adults of tomorrow. 

Whether these algorithmic governors are designed with innocent intent, willful blindness, or moral disregard, they are not designed by accident. And if we allow algorithms to raise our children, we will not simply lose a generation, we will lose the very qualities that hold America—and humanity—together. That is a loss we simply cannot afford, and a legacy for which no one wants to be accountable.

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

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/09/2025 - 20:55

Thai Court Orders Ex-Premier To A Year In Prison After Popular Outrage Over 'Special Treatment'

Thai Court Orders Ex-Premier To A Year In Prison After Popular Outrage Over 'Special Treatment'

Thailand’s Supreme Court has ruled that former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra must serve one year in prison - which is a huge blow and setback for one of the southeast Asian country's most influential and controversial political figures of the last couple decades.

The 76-year old billionaire appeared in court on Tuesday, after spending days outside the country for what he said was a medical purpose, though his absence had sparked fears he had gone into exile or on the run.

Via Reuters

"The court will issue a warrant for his imprisonment, and Bangkok Remand Prison officials will take him into custody," a judge announced, issuing the one-year prison sentence.

"Though I will lose my physical freedom from today, I still have the freedom of thought to work for the good of the nation and its people," the former premier subsequently wrote on social media.

Thaksin is among the most famous of the country's recent leaders, having established one of its most influential political dynasties - surging to popularity especially among rural populations - before being overthrown in a 2006 military coup.

He was accused by subsequent authorities of far-reaching corruption, during which time he spent 15 years in self-imposed exile, which came to and end in 2023. He had been tried and sentenced in absentia. That's when his daughter, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, became prime minister.

While technically he was given an eight-year sentence for corruption and abuse of power upon return home, he was let off with essentially a slap on the wrist, and widespread angry accusations of special treatment. The NY Times explains:

Mr. Thaksin then spent six months in a V.I.P. suite at the hospital and was released after receiving a royal pardon. His sentence was eventually commuted.

But on Tuesday, a five-judge panel ruled Mr. Thaksin’s condition at the time — including chest tightness, hypertension and low blood oxygen levels — was not critical enough to require a stay in the hospital.

Mr. Thaksin appeared calm and was smiling as the sentence was announced. His two daughters and sons-in-law sat behind him. After the judges left the room, Ms. Paetongtarn walked over to Mr. Thaksin to speak with him.

In a statement released after the court proceedings, Mr. Thaksin said he accepted the prison term, saying he wanted to “look forward, to bring closure to everything in the past — whether legal battles or conflicts related to me.”

It was described as an early parole for time served but it unleashed anger and criticism among political opponents and the public.

He had maintained a significant degree of political influence during his many years in exile, while his populist policies and confrontational, hardline rhetoric made him a target of the more conservative, royalist establishment which has long held greater sway in tradition-oriented Thailand.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/09/2025 - 20:30

Over 400 Genocide Scholars Say That Hamas, Not Israel, Committed Genocide

Over 400 Genocide Scholars Say That Hamas, Not Israel, Committed Genocide

Authored by Catherina Salgado via PJMedia.com,

Four hundred and twenty genocide scholars, survivors, and experts signed a statement affirming that Hamas, not Israel, is guilty of the crime of genocide. The experts also criticized their fellow scholars who falsely accused Israel of genocide in Gaza.

Scholars for Truth About Genocide (STAG) condemned the inaccurate accusations of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) against Israel. While IAGS asserted Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, STAG explained why this is false.

“Genocide is the gravest offense known to humankind; to dilute its legal standards for ideological ends is a form of moral violence,” STAG declared.

“It dishonors the memory of past victims, misleads the public about present atrocities, and obstructs efforts to avert future ones.”

Israel will even endanger its own men, sometimes leading to their deaths, trying to avoid killing civilians in Gaza, even though a majority of Gazans support jihad against Israel. In contrast, Hamas brutally rapes and murders Israelis of all ages while the Palestinian Authority financially rewards them.

The statement’s title is “Legal, antisemitism, history, Holocaust, and genocide scholars, former prosecutors, and other authorities, including descendants of survivors, call on International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) to retract resolution accusing Israel of genocide amid clear misapplication of law and history.” Here is the key passage from the STAG experts’ statement:

On October 7, 2023, Hamas invaded Israel and acted with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, Jews and Israelis, as a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such.

Further, Hamas and their allied organizations took innocent people hostage and continue to hold hostages.

Thus, Hamas committed the crime of genocide and remains the only party to legally meet the requirements of the elements of the crime of genocide.

Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of a Hamas co-founder, previously echoed this sentiment.

STAG pointed out that one of the reasons more “civilians” in Gaza have died than Israel intended is because Hamas always uses human shields, hiding terrorists, weapons, and bases in or under civilian structures such as schools, hospitals, and mosques.

Furthermore, Hamas prevented civilians from leaving Gaza City. IAGS didn’t take any of this into account, especially when complaining that Israel has sometimes attacked “civilian infrastructure.”

STAG also addressed the fact that casualty numbers coming from Gaza are often unreliable or manipulated, partly because Hamas usually issues them, and also because “a significant portion of combatant casualties [are included] without differentiation between civilians and combatants.”

IAGS also misrepresented the decision of the International Court of Justice, which just so happens to be biased against Israel anyway.

In Gaza, there are numerous other plausible explanations for the intent of military operations in Gaza. From Hamas’ weaponization of civilian and humanitarian infrastructure, their documented booby-trapping of buildings, the tunnels that are longer than the London Underground, to the continued holding of hostages.

Another critical failure of the IAGS resolution is that it not only fails to establish the elements of genocide, it does not set the legal standard for which genocide must be proven.

And IAGS also ignored the steps Israel takes to minimize harm to Gazan civilians, while not even mentioning that Hamas has long had the power to end the war by releasing the hostages.

The only attempted genocide was the one Hamas committed on Oct. 7, which they vowed to commit again and again.

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

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/09/2025 - 20:05

Judge Tosses Case Against 15 Accused 'False' Trump Electors From 2020

Judge Tosses Case Against 15 Accused 'False' Trump Electors From 2020

A Michigan judge on Tuesday threw out a case against 15 republicans accused of falsely trying to certify the 2020 election for Donald Trump.

A voter casts an in-person early ballot for the 2024 general election at the Northwest Activities Center in Detroit on Oct. 29, 2024. Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images

Judge Kristen D. Simmons of Ingram County District Court said in a livestreamed hearing that the defendants will not face trial, and announced she was dismissing the charges. 

"These cases will not be bound over to the circuit court," Simmons announced, adding "Each case will be dismissed."

Simmons noted that the charges against the 15 Republicans are part of a fraud case - which requires that prosecutors "prove intent," adding that she does not believe "that there's evidence sufficient to prove intent" of fraud.

Prior to her decision, Simmons said "[State prosecutors] would like the court to believe that these named defendants were savvy or sophisticated enough to understand fully the electoral process, which the court does disagree [with] because the document that was presented doesn’t even align with the level of sophistication that they want me to believe."

As the Epoch Times notes further, Simmons noted that a main witness in the case said that “there was no intent to defraud ... and that all of the proposed Republican electors that he encountered were trying to do what they believed was the right thing.”

All of the defendants pleaded not guilty in 2023 when the charges were brought against them by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel. Initially, there were 16 defendants, but one defendant’s charges were dropped after that defendant cooperated with the office, according to court documents.

Each member of the group, which included a few high-profile members of the Republican Party in Michigan, faced eight charges of forgery and conspiracy to commit election forgery. The top felony charges carry a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison.

Investigators said the group met at the Michigan GOP headquarters in December 2020 and signed a document stating they were the state’s “duly elected and qualified electors,” Nessel’s office said. Michigan electoral officials certified former President Joe Biden as the winner of the state in the 2020 election by about 155,000 votes.

Electors are part of the 538-member Electoral College that officially elects the president of the United States. In 48 states, electors vote for the candidate who won the popular vote. In Nebraska and Maine, elector votes are awarded based on congressional district and statewide results.

Prosecutors in Nevada, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Arizona have also filed criminal charges related to the alleged fake electors scheme. None of the cases has neared the trial stage, and some have been bogged down by procedural and appellate delays.

The alleged effort to secure fake electors was central to a federal indictment against Trump, brought by special counsel Jack Smith in Washington, that was abandoned before Trump took office for his second term.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/09/2025 - 19:40

Attention Boomers: AI-Backed Deepfake Impersonations Are Getting Harder To Detect, FBI Warns

Attention Boomers: AI-Backed Deepfake Impersonations Are Getting Harder To Detect, FBI Warns

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Increasingly hard-to-detect deepfake content created with artificial intelligence is being exploited by criminals to impersonate trusted individuals, the FBI and the American Bankers Association (ABA) said in a report published on Sept. 3.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation in Washington on Aug. 7, 2025. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

In its “Deepfake Media Scams” infographic, the FBI said that scams targeting Americans are surging. Since 2020, the agency has received more than 4.2 million reports of fraud, amounting to $50.5 billion in losses. “Imposter scams in particular are on the rise. ... Criminals are using deepfakes, or media that is generated or manipulated by AI, to gain your trust and scam you out of your hard-earned money.”

Deepfake content can include altered images, audio, or video. Scammers may pose as family, friends, or public figures, including celebrities, law enforcement, and government officials, the FBI warned.

“Deepfakes are becoming increasingly sophisticated and harder to detect,” said Sam Kunjukunju, vice president of consumer education for the ABA Foundation.

According to the infographic, certain inconsistencies in the AI-generated material can help detect deepfakes.

When it comes to images or videos, people should watch out for blurred or distorted faces; unnatural shadows or lighting; whether audio and video are out of sync; whether the teeth and hair look real; and whether the person blinks too little or too much. In the case of audio, people should listen closely to determine if the tone of voice is too flat or unnatural.

The infographic listed three red flags of a deepfake scam: unexpected requests for money or personal information; emotional manipulation involving urgency or fear; and uncharacteristic communication from what appears to be a known individual.

To remain safe, the ABA and FBI advised Americans to think before responding to emotional or urgent requests, and to create code words or phrases to confirm the identities of loved ones.

“The FBI continues to see a troubling rise in fraud reports involving deepfake media,” said Jose Perez, assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division.

[ZH: for example...]

“Educating the public about this emerging threat is key to preventing these scams and minimizing their impact. We encourage consumers to stay informed and share what they learn with friends and family so they can spot deepfakes before they do any harm.”

According to an Aug. 6 report by cybersecurity company Group-IB, the global economic impact of losses from deepfake-enabled fraud is estimated to reach $40 billion by 2027.

“Stolen money is almost never recovered: Due to rapid laundering through money‑mule chains and crypto mixers, fewer than 5 percent of funds lost to sophisticated vishing scams are ever recovered,” it said.

Vishing, a short form of voice phishing, refers to scammers impersonating authority figures such as government officials, tech support personnel, and bank employees to dupe targets and steal money.

According to Group-IB, deepfake vishing relies heavily on emotional manipulation tactics. Targets of such scams include corporate executives and financial employees.

Elderly and emotionally distressed individuals are also vulnerable to deepfake vishing tactics due to their limited digital literacy and unfamiliarity with artificial voice tech, Group-IB added. As such, scams involving impersonation of familiar-sounding voices may have a bigger impact on these individuals.

In June, a deepfake scam incident came to light involving a Canadian man in his 80s losing more than $15,000 in a scheme that used a deepfake of Ontario Premier Doug Ford.

In the scam, Ford was depicted promoting a mutual fund account, which the victim saw via a Facebook ad. When the victim clicked on the ad, a chat opened up, ultimately convincing him to invest the money.

In June, Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio) introduced the bipartisan Preventing Deep Fake Scams Act, which aims to tackle the threat posed by such fraud.

The bill seeks to address AI-assisted data and identity theft or fraud by setting up an AI-focused task force in the financial sector.

“Scammers are using deep fakes to impersonate victims’ family members in order to steal their money,” Husted said.

“As fraudsters continue to scheme, we need to make sure we utilize AI so that we can better protect innocent Americans and prevent these scams from happening in the first place. My bill would protect Ohio’s seniors, families and small business owners from malicious actors who take advantage of their compassion.”

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/09/2025 - 17:40

Israel Reportedly Targeted Turkish Arms Transfers In Latest Syria Strike

Israel Reportedly Targeted Turkish Arms Transfers In Latest Syria Strike

On Monday night Israel's military carried out more major airstrikes across the central and western parts of Syria, which the Jolani regime's foreign minister condemned as "a blatant infringement" of its sovereignty and regional stability.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has said that "forces are operating in all combat zones day and night for the security of Israel" - and Israel has been using varying justifications for these attacks, including that former Assad army weapons don't fall into the hands of extremists.

Scene of explosion in Homs Monday night, via Turkish Minute

But this fresh assault was the biggest probably in months, given it involved dozens of separate strikes on 'military targets' of the Islamist-led government.

Attacks were observed and reported in Palmyra and Homs, as well as on the coastal city of Latakia. The UK-based war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) described that "the Israeli strike near Homs targeted a military unit south of the city".

Israeli media has pointed to alleged Turkish weapons stores being struck:

The Saudi news channel Al-Hadath reported Tuesday that the IDF site struck overnight in the Syrian city of Homs was a warehouse storing missiles and air defense equipment. According to the report, the weapons were manufactured in Turkey and had recently been transferred to Homs.

Ironically, for years Gulf states like Saudi Arabia and Qatar were completely silent when Israel attacked Assad's Syria literally hundreds of times, but now things have changed, as the Gulf backs the Al-Qaeda linked President Sharaa/Jolani. Arab News writes:

Saudi Arabia has strongly condemned the continued Israeli strikes on Syrian territory, the latest of which targeted several areas in Homs and Latakia governorates.

In a statement on Tuesday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the attacks as a “flagrant violation” of international law and of the 1974 disengagement agreement between Syria and Israel.

“The Kingdom affirms its full support for the measures taken by the Syrian government to achieve security and stability in Syria, preserve civil peace, and uphold the sovereignty of the state and its institutions over all its territories,” the ministry said.

So suddenly Saudi Arabia and the GCC states start talking about "sovereignty" only after they got their desired regime change in Damascus.

Of course, Saudi and Israeli intelligence had worked behind the scenes for years - sometimes reportedly in coordination - to undermine Syria in support of jihadists militants who sought to overthrow Assad. The result, as we've been documenting, has been a huge rise in attacks on religious minorities - including against Christians, Druze, and Alawites.

Radical Saudi clerics have long been present in places like Idlib, and are now in Damascus, in support of the prior anti-Assad jihadist insurgency which now rules the country. Currently, Israel doesn't want Turkish influence or weapons in the war-ravaged country.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/09/2025 - 17:20

Nine Meals From Anarchy

Nine Meals From Anarchy

Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

In 1906, Alfred Henry Lewis stated, “There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy.”

Since then, his observation has been echoed by people as disparate as Robert Heinlein and Leon Trotsky.

The key here is that, unlike all other commodities, food is the one essential that cannot be postponed. If there were a shortage of, say, shoes, we could make do for months or even years. A shortage of gasoline would be worse, but we could survive it, through mass transport or even walking, if necessary.

But food is different. If there were an interruption in the supply of food, fear would set in immediately. And, if the resumption of the food supply were uncertain, the fear would become pronounced. After only nine missed meals, it’s not unlikely that we’d panic and be prepared to commit a crime to acquire food. If we were to see our neighbour with a loaf of bread, and we owned a gun, we might well say, “I’m sorry, you’re a good neighbour and we’ve been friends for years, but my children haven’t eaten today – I have to have that bread – even if I have to shoot you.”

But surely, there’s no need to speculate on this concern. There’s nothing on the evening news to suggest that such a problem even might be on the horizon. So, let’s have a closer look at the actual food distribution industry, compare it to the present direction of the economy, and see whether there might be reason for concern.

The food industry typically operates on very small margins – often below 2%. Traditionally, wholesalers and retailers have relied on a two-week turnaround of supply and anywhere up to a 30-day payment plan. But an increasing tightening of the economic system for the last eight years has resulted in a turnaround time of just three days for both supply and payment for many in the industry. This a system that’s still fully operative, but with no further wiggle room, should it take a significant further hit.

If there were a month where significant inflation took place (say, 3%), all profits would be lost for the month for both suppliers and retailers, but goods could still be replaced and sold for a higher price next month. But, if there were three or more consecutive months of inflation, the industry would be unable to bridge the gap, even if better conditions were expected to develop in future months. A failure to pay in full for several months would mean smaller orders by those who could not pay. That would mean fewer goods on the shelves. The longer the inflationary trend continued, the more quickly prices would rise to hopefully offset the inflation. And ever-fewer items on the shelves.

From Germany in 1922, to Argentina in 2000, and to Venezuela in 2016, this has been the pattern whenever inflation has become systemic, rather than sporadic. Each month, some stores close, beginning with those that are the most poorly capitalised.

In good economic times, this would mean more business for those stores that were still solvent, but in an inflationary situation, they would be in no position to take on more unprofitable business. The result is that the volume of food on offer at retailers would decrease at a pace with the severity of the inflation.

However, the demand for food would not decrease by a single loaf of bread. Store closings would be felt most immediately in inner cities, when one closing would send customers to the next neighbourhood seeking food. The real danger would come when that store also closes and both neighbourhoods descended on a third store in yet another neighbourhood. That’s when one loaf of bread for every three potential purchasers would become worth killing over. Virtually no one would long tolerate seeing his children go without food because others had “invaded” his local supermarket.

*  *  *

Cough

Cough

Cough (this one for closers only)

*  *  *

In addition to retailers, the entire industry would be impacted and, as retailers disappeared, so would suppliers, and so on, up the food chain. This would not occur in an orderly fashion, or in one specific area. The problem would be a national one. Closures would be all over the map, seemingly at random, affecting all areas. Food riots would take place, first in the inner cities then spread to other communities. Buyers, fearful of shortages, would clean out the shelves.

Importantly, it’s the very unpredictability of food delivery that increases fear, creating panic and violence. And, again, none of the above is speculation; it’s a historical pattern – a reaction based upon human nature whenever systemic inflation occurs.

Then … unfortunately … the cavalry arrives

At that point, it would be very likely that the central government would step in and issue controls to the food industry that served political needs rather than business needs, greatly exacerbating the problem. Suppliers would be ordered to deliver to those neighbourhoods where the riots are the worst, even if those retailers are unable to pay. This would increase the number of closings of suppliers.

Along the way, truckers would begin to refuse to enter troubled neighbourhoods, and the military might well be brought in to force deliveries to take place.

But why worry about the above? After all, inflation is contained at present and, although governments fudge the numbers, the present level of inflation is not sufficient to create the above scenario, as it has in so many other countries.

So, what would it take for the above to occur? Well, historically, it has always begun with excessive debt. We know that the debt level is now the highest it has ever been in world history. In addition, the stock and bond markets are in bubbles of historic proportions. They will most certainly pop.

With a crash in the markets, deflation always follows as people try to unload assets to cover for their losses. The Federal Reserve (and other central banks) has stated that it will unquestionably print as much money as it takes to counter deflation. Unfortunately, inflation has a far greater effect on the price of commodities than assets. Therefore, the prices of commodities will rise dramatically, further squeezing the purchasing power of the consumer, thereby decreasing the likelihood that he will buy assets, even if they’re bargain priced. Therefore, asset holders will drop their prices repeatedly as they become more desperate. The Fed then prints more to counter the deeper deflation and we enter a period when deflation and inflation are increasing concurrently.

Historically, when this point has been reached, no government has ever done the right thing. They have, instead, done the very opposite – keep printing. A by-product of this conundrum is reflected in the photo above. Food still exists, but retailers shut down because they cannot pay for goods. Suppliers shut down because they’re not receiving payments from retailers. Producers cut production because sales are plummeting.

In every country that has passed through such a period, the government has eventually gotten out of the way and the free market has prevailed, re-energizing the industry and creating a return to normal. The question is not whether civilization will come to an end. (It will not.) The question is the liveability of a society that is experiencing a food crisis, as even the best of people are likely to panic and become a potential threat to anyone who is known to store a case of soup in his cellar.

Fear of starvation is fundamentally different from other fears of shortages. Even good people panic. In such times, it’s advantageous to be living in a rural setting, as far from the centre of panic as possible. It’s also advantageous to store food in advance that will last for several months, if necessary. However, even these measures are no guarantee, as, today, modern highways and efficient cars make it easy for anyone to travel quickly to where the goods are. The ideal is to be prepared to sit out the crisis in a country that will be less likely to be impacted by dramatic inflation – where the likelihood of a food crisis is low and basic safety is more assured.

*  *  *

History teaches us that societies are far more fragile than they appear, and the thin line between order and chaos often comes down to whether people can put food on the table. The warning signs are already in place, and while no one can predict the exact moment of crisis, we can prepare. To understand the deeper risks ahead and learn how to safeguard yourself and your family before panic sets in, we urge you to read our Special Report: Guide to Surviving and Thriving During an Economic Collapse. You can access it here.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/09/2025 - 17:00

Charlotte Pocketed $3.3M From Left-Wing NGO To Empty Jails For 'Racial Equity'

Charlotte Pocketed $3.3M From Left-Wing NGO To Empty Jails For 'Racial Equity'

The optics are incredibly awful for the entire Democratic Party machine.

The brutal killing of Iryna Zarutska (Ukrainian refugee) on a commuter train in North Carolina highlights not only the willingness of leftist corporate media to cover up news stories that jeopardize their woke narratives but also the broader failure of so-called criminal justice reform, which appears to have shockingly backfired and become a major public safety threat. Adding to the mounting outrage, a leftist magistrate judge released the schizophrenic monster on cashless bail (before he killed Zarutska) - another failure point. And then there's this: far-left nonprofits accelerated the push for disastrous criminal justice reforms. 

It's now widely known that Decarlos Brown Jr., 34, Zarutska's killer, had been previously arrested 14 times in North Carolina for crimes ranging from assault to firearms possession, and whose own mother admitted he was schizophrenic and should never have been allowed back on the streets, was recently released on cashless bail (before he killed Zarutska) by a progressive magistrate judge despite a two-decade violent crime spree. 

But the failures don't stop with local leftist politicians and rogue progressive judges (or magistrate judges) who embrace woke and enabled criminal justice reform from hell. They extend much deeper - into the shadowy world of the dark-money-funded nonprofit industrial complex, which poured millions of dollars into Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, to push for "reducing the jail population."

"Another factor in the death of Iryna Zarutska on Charlotte's light rail--the left-wing MacArthur Foundation giving Mecklenburg county a $3.3 million grant to reduce the jail population. Specifically as part of racial equity aims," Daily Wire's Megan Basham wrote on X. 

Basham noted, "Like Soros' Open Society, the MacArthur Foundation incentivizes local municipalities to make residents less safe by leaving threats like Decarlos Brown on the streets." 

Basham's screenshots show Mecklenburg County boasting about the MacArthur Foundation plowing $3.3 million into the county as part of a "Safety and Justice Challenge" that aims to "reduce the jail population"... 

MacArthur Foundation's own website shows that it's committed to DEI. 

Using public data via Sayari, the MacArthur Foundation is linked to the usual far-left NGO suspects, including the Rockefeller Family Fund and many others that are not particularly enthusiastic about 'America First'. 

It seems as if the very pillars the Democratic Party has built itself on, whether social and criminal justice reform, progressive judges, or its dark-money-funded NGO complex, all played a role in allowing serial criminals to roam the streets, endangering the public.

Americans must avoid cities and towns where progressives enforce cashless bail and other woke policies, as these places are increasingly crime-ridden and unsafe.

Zarutska's shocking death should've never happened. This is a policy failure by the liberal elites. And there needs to be accountability at the ballot box. 

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/09/2025 - 16:40

In Blind Trust We Trust

In Blind Trust We Trust

Authored by Jenna McCarthy via Jenna's Side Rocks,

Sure, the “experts” sometimes get things wrong. But at least they’re unanimous...

Dear Liberals and Legislative Leeches,

First, I want to personally thank you for trying to protect the rest of us from the answers to dangerous questions like “why are our kids getting autism at unprecedented rates?” and “why is life expectancy in America getting shorter and shorter?” Unfortunately, we’ve currently got a lunatic in charge of our nation’s collective health, and he’s out there right now, clipboard in hand, acting like the Sherlock Holmes of chronic disease and trying to figure these things out. Can you imagine? We’ve lived perfectly fine* without answers to anything for ages!

[*Perfectly fine = the sickest nation on earth, but at least we’ve cornered the market on pity. Other countries get Nobel Prizes, we get GoFundMe campaigns. Go USA!]

Remember when plus-size dudes and bearded ladies were carnival attractions?

Before RFK Jr. even got into office, we ranked first in healthcare spending, first in chronic disease, and last in every measurable health outcome. Sure, that looks bad on paper. But did you know that Kennedy once stole a dead whale that had been hit by a car and then fed the roadkill to his pet ravens (or something like that)? Or that two of his family members have called him a threat to Americans’ health? (Fine, the two family members are his sister Kerry, who was busted for not disclosing she was being handsomely paid for her “activism,” and his nephew Joseph, who sits on the board of a major pharmaceutical company—but I’m sure they’re both lovely, trustworthy people!)

Let’s face it, Kennedy is a former drug addict. I realize he’s been sober for longer than Lindsay Lohan has even been alive, but can’t we please just go back to having a fat dude in a dress making our healthcare policy calls? I felt so much safer back then, when The Science™ (*minus biology and psychiatry) wasn’t under constant, relentless attack.

You think the guy on the left knows a thing or two about health? Please.

Look, if my car makes an awful grinding noise, the last thing I want is some nutcase popping the hood and digging around under there trying to unearth the cause. No, thank you. I prefer my mechanic to pat me on the back and assure me that it’s perfectly safe to drive. How do I know if he’s telling me the truth? I don’t! That’s why cult-level trust is so important.

That’s also why it’s so tragic that Kennedy is destroying our faith in the entire vaccine industry. He recklessly insists on knowing exactly what’s in every shot, where they migrate in the body, and whether they’ll make us glow in the dark. What’s the point of that? I’m not a doctor! Since when am I qualified to read labels and make decisions? It’s far better to let our dedicated public servants decide what’s good for us—especially since every single one of them cashes a paycheck from the same pharma giants they’re regulating. They must have crazy inside intel, am I right?

I know what you might be thinking: “the experts” don’t exactly have a flawless track record.

Take Iraq (the WMDs that definitely existed). Or the opioid epidemic (“non-addictive” painkillers, anyone?). Or masks (wear them, don’t wear them, double them, ditch them), gain-of-function research (doesn’t happen, okay, it does), myocarditis in young men (rare! common! nothing to see here!), lab leaks (total conspiracy… oh wait, maybe not), “two weeks to flatten the curve” (*give or take), the food pyramid (be sure to eat your six daily servings of Wonder Bread!), hormone replacement therapy (miracle, disaster, miracle again), DDT (“what if we just sprayed it on, like, everything?”), Thalidomide (oops, sorry about your debilitating disfigurement), Vioxx (also sorry about your heart attack/stroke/death), the Tuskegee experiments (thank you for your volunteer service, gentlemen!), smoking (“More Doctors Smoke Camels”), Prozac for toddlers (because pills are obviously easier than parenting)…

I could go on, but the point is, people make mistakes. Even experts are only human. Look on the bright side: They’re due to be right any day now. Even a broken clock and all.

Here’s the thing about vaccines: A bunch of people say they have been diligently tested and are both utterly harmless and incredibly effective. Some other people say that they haven’t and that they’re not. Why would we randomly listen to the nay-sayers? I know, it seems like both sides could just present their information to the public and let us decide—but that would be pure chaos. Can you imagine, an entire country of morons trying to decipher complicated charts and graphs? We can’t even agree on how to pronounce “gyro.” (PSA: It rhymes with hero when you say it properly.)

Much better to keep things tidy: one side talks and the other side gets deplatformed.

That’s how The Science™ has always worked!

Why are we messing with that sacred system now?

So please, my progressive and/or parasitic pals, stand firm. Protect the empire of corpulence, cancer, diabetes, depression, and autoimmune disorders. Don’t let Kennedy destroy our proud tradition of blindly treating symptoms while ignoring causes. Because if that fringy health heretic gets his way, we might lose the only thing that truly unites us as Americans: our ability to fill prescriptions faster than we can fill our pieholes.

Yours in obesity and obedience,

Jenna

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/09/2025 - 16:20

Dozens Of Containers Go Overboard In Port Of Long Beach Mishap

Dozens Of Containers Go Overboard In Port Of Long Beach Mishap

Footage of the aftermath of dozens of containers falling off a massive cargo ship at the Port of Long Beach surfaced on X in the early afternoon.

Aerial footage from local outlet ABC7 shows containers scattered across the harbor.

Port officials confirmed no injuries were reported, though the contents of the containers and the cause of the incident remain unknown.

One X user joked, "All that Temu merchandise. Total losses estimated at $5,431."

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/09/2025 - 15:30

Worst Revision In History: BLS Admits A Record 911K Fewer Jobs Were Added Under Biden

Worst Revision In History: BLS Admits A Record 911K Fewer Jobs Were Added Under Biden

Two weeks ago, before both Bloomberg and Reuters, we told our subscribers to "brace for another huge negative payrolls revision"...

... and just like one year ago when we did exactly the same, we were spot on: moments ago the BLS reported that as part of its preliminary annual benchmark revisions, a record 911K payrolls for the period April 2024-March 2025 would be revised away.  As shown in the chart below, the biggest revisions were in Leisure and Hospitality, Professional and Business services, and Retail and Wholesale trade sectors.

Some more from the full press release:

The preliminary estimate of the Current Employment Statistics (CES) national benchmark revision to total nonfarm employment for March 2025 is -911,000 (-0.6 percent), the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The annual benchmark revisions over the last 10 years have an absolute average of 0.2 percent of total nonfarm employment. In accordance with usual practice, the final benchmark revision will be issued in February 2026 with the publication of the January 2026 Employment Situation news release.

Each year, CES employment estimates are benchmarked to comprehensive counts of employment from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW). These counts are derived primarily from state unemployment insurance (UI) tax records that nearly all employers are required to file with state workforce agencies. 

The preliminary benchmark revision reflects the difference between two independently derived employment counts, each subject to their own sources of error. It serves as a preliminary measure of the total error in CES employment estimates from March 2024 to March 2025. Preliminary research, which is not comprehensive and is subject to updates in QCEW data, indicates that the primary contributors to the overestimation of employment growth are likely the result of two sources—response error and nonresponse error. First, businesses reported less employment to the QCEW than they reported to the CES survey (response error). Second, businesses who were selected for the CES survey but did not respond reported less employment to the QCEW than those businesses who did respond to the CES survey (nonresponse error). Estimates of other errors, such as the forecast error from the net birth-death model, are not available at this time. Information on how the net birth-death forecasts have reduced benchmark revisions historically are available on the CES Birth-Death Model Frequently Asked Questions page in question 10, www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cesbdqa.htm.

The preliminary benchmark revisions in table 1 are calculated only for March 2025 for the major industry sectors. As is typically the case, many of the individual industry series show larger percentage revisions than the total nonfarm series, primarily because statistical sampling error is greater at more detailed levels than at an aggregated level. 

What is more remarkable about today's print is that after last year's stunning 818K negative revision, which was the second biggest since the global financial crisis (and which we also warned ahead of time was coming), virtually nobody expected this year's number to be higher. It was not only higher, but it was the biggest negative revision on record!

Taken at face value, the preliminary estimate suggests that payroll growth averaged 71k jobs/month between April 2024 and March 2025, vs. 147k jobs/month as currently reported in the payrolls statistics.

No wonder the WSJ now reports that "White House Prepares Report Critical of Statistics Agency" in what is a clear effort at kitchen-sinking all the ugly, fake jobs numbers that were "created" by the Biden admin, and saddled Trump with relentless negative revisions. Expect 1-2 more months of painful job prints, and then another powerful rally higher into the 2026 midterms under a new BLS commissioner as all of Biden's fake baggage is expunged. 

Commenting on the "data" revision, Treasury Secretary Bessent confirms what we said, namely that today's revision "brings the Biden jobs overstatement to a staggering 1.5M. The truth: President Trump inherited a far worse economy than reported, and he’s right to say the Fed is choking off growth with high rates."

But VP JD Vance landed the crushing blow, saying that BLS data has become completely "useless" - something we have said since 2021 - adding that a change was necessary to restore confidence. We are all eagerly awaiting said change, which will need to be far more extensive than just a replacement of the commissioner.

So what does it all mean? Couple things and we will follow up with a more extended analysis but here is the punchline:

  • Trump was absolutely correct to fire the BLS commissioner one month ago: one year of major negative revisions is happenstance; twice is coincidence; three times is enemy action... and in her case, it was just unexcusable incompetence as the most important economic data point the market uses was dead wrong. 
  • There was virtually no domestic job creation in the last year of the Biden admin when one excludes the hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens who entered the work force. 
  • The Fed should have started cutting rates in February, and would have started cutting rates in February if it knew the true sad state of the US labor market.

Just as remarkable: 2 million jobs from the last 3 years of the Biden admin have now been revised away. 

One thing that will never be revised away, however, is the trillions in debt accumulated over his period, and which we now learn encumbered future generations of Americans with massive amounts of debt only to create far fewer jobs than initially reported.

And again, ZeroHedge subs knew all this two weeks ahead of time: to stay ahead of the curve, please consider subscribing. 

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/09/2025 - 15:25

FBI Director, Transportation Secretary Investigating Charlotte Stabbing Murder

FBI Director, Transportation Secretary Investigating Charlotte Stabbing Murder

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

Ahead of President Trump's comments, the FBI and Transportation Department have both signaled that federal officials will investigate the fatal stabbing death of a Ukrainian refugee in North Carolina after video footage of the incident was released last week.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy wrote on Monday night that the agency “will be investigating Charlotte over its failure to protect Iryna Zarutska,” referring to the victim in the stabbing murder.

“If mayors can’t keep their trains and buses safe, they don’t deserve the taxpayers’ money,” Duffy added on X.

“Murders on public transit like that of Iryna Zarutska should never be allowed to happen again.”

At the same time, FBI Director Kash Patel said on social media that the bureau was continuing to investigate the incident.

“The FBI has been investigating the Charlotte train murder from day one. Stay tuned,” Patel wrote on Monday evening on X.

Patel did not provide other details about the nature of the investigation.

Critics say the death of Zarutska, 23, could have been prevented, and they’re blaming officials for failing to keep a man with a history of mental illness, arrests, and erratic behavior off the streets before he killed her.

On Monday, President Donald Trump wrote on social media that “Criminals like this need to be LOCKED UP.”

The suspect, Decarlos Brown Jr., 34, had served time in prison, been briefly committed for schizophrenia, and was arrested earlier this year after repeatedly calling 911 from a hospital, according to court records.

Zarutska had come to the United States to escape the war in Ukraine, relatives wrote in a GoFundMe post and in an obituary, describing her as determined to build a safer life.

Video footage of the incident shows the moments leading up to the stabbing death on a Charlotte Area Transit System light-rail train.

Zarutska is seen wearing a baseball cap, sitting on the train in front of Brown as she scrolls on the phone before Brown pulls out a knife and stabs her from behind.

The two did not appear to have any interaction beforehand.

The footage doesn’t show the stabbing, cutting away to when Brown is seen walking on the light-rail line covered in blood.

Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles, a Democrat, issued a statement on X on Saturday about the video showing the moments before the woman’s death.

“The video of the heartbreaking attack that took Iryna Zarutska’s life is now public. I want to thank our media partners and community members who have chosen not to repost or share the footage out of respect for Iryna’s family,” Lyles wrote.

“This was a senseless and tragic loss. My prayers remain with her loved ones as they continue to grieve through an unimaginable time.”

Brown was arrested at the scene and charged with first-degree murder, officials said in a statement last month. Court records show he had cycled through the criminal justice system for more than a decade, with 14 prior cases in Mecklenburg County, including serving five years for robbery with a dangerous weapon.

On Monday, Duffy said his office would conduct an investigation into the issue, warning that his department could withhold funding to municipalities if public safety isn’t made a priority.

“Your federal tax dollars go to fund a lot of these transit systems across the country,” Duffy told Fox News in an interview on Monday.

“And we have to look at them and say, ‘Well, maybe it’s appropriate that we start pulling some of that money back because I don’t think the American taxpayer wants to pay for the homelessness and criminal element that harm little 23-year-old girls like this who are going home from work.’”

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/09/2025 - 15:05

Government Accidentally Reveals Someone Inside Twitter Fabricated 'Gotcha' Accounts To Frame Conservative Firebrand

Government Accidentally Reveals Someone Inside Twitter Fabricated 'Gotcha' Accounts To Frame Conservative Firebrand

Authored by 'sundance' via The Last Refuge,

The Truth Has No Agenda

Everything that preceded the 2020 federal election was a complex system of control by a network of ideologues, federal agencies, allies in the private sector, financial stakeholders and corrupt interests all working toward a common goal.

There’s no need to go through the background of how the election was manipulated and how the government and private sector, specifically social media, worked to influence the 2020 outcome because you have all seen it.

Whether it was local election officials working to control outcomes, federal agencies working to support them (CISA, FBI, DHS), financial interests working to fund them (Zuckerberg et al), or social media platforms controlling the visible content and discussion (Twitter Files, Google, Facebook etc.), the objective was all the same.  It was a massive one-sided operation against the freewill of the American voter.

In the aftermath of the 2020 election, those same system operators, govt officials, corporate media, private sector groups and social media platforms then circled the wagons to scatter the evidence of their conduct.  If you questioned anything you were a threat.  That’s the context to the dynamic that unfolded.

Lawfare operatives joined forces with Democrat staffers, and allies in social media platforms all worked in concert to target the voices of anyone who would rise in opposition to the corruption that was stunningly clear in the outcome of the election process.  Corporate media then labeled, isolated, ridiculed and marginalized anyone who dared to point out the obvious.

When AG Merrick Garland says this of January 6, 2021:

[…] “the Justice Department has conducted one of the largest, most complex, and most resource-intensive investigations in our history. We have worked to analyze massive amounts of physical and digital data. We have recovered devices, decrypted electronic messages, triangulated phones, and pored through tens of thousands of hours of video. We have also benefited from tens of thousands of tips we received from the public. Following these digital and physical footprints, we were able to identify hundreds of people.” {link} The targeting operation needs context.

Do you remember on April 27, 2024, when DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz said,

“more than 3.4 million search queries into the NSA database took place between Dec. 1st, 2020 and Nov. 30th, 2021, by government officials and/or contractors working on behalf of the federal government.”  The result was “more than 1 million searches of private documents and communication of Americans that were illegal and non-compliant,” and over “10,000 federal employees have access to that database.” {OIG Testimony}.

Put the statement from Garland together with the statement from Horowitz, and you get an understanding of what was done.

Hundreds of stakeholders in the Lawfare network joined forces with hundreds of people who became staff researchers for a weaponized Congress.  Hundreds more social media background agents then poured thousands of hours into feeding private information to the DOJ, FBI, J6 Committee and all of their hired staff working on the project.

How do I know?… …I was one of their targets.

Before telling the rest of the story, some background is needed.

I am well versed in the ways of the administrative state and the corrupt systems, institutions and silos that make up our weaponized government. I can (a) see them; (b) predict their activity; and (c) know where their traps and operations are located.

Traveling the deep investigative weeds of the administrative state eventually gives you a set of skills.  When people ask how the outlines on this website can seem so far ahead of the sunlight that eventually falls upon the outlined corruption, this is essentially why.  When you take these skills on the road, you learn to be a free-range scout, and after a long while you learn how to track the activity.

When I was outlining how the Fourth Branch of Government works and/or Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop and the DHS system operating inside it, I wasn’t shooting from the hip. However, people will always seek to dismiss the uncomfortable truth.

Sometimes you just have to wait for the evidence you know exists to surface, or for a situation to unfold that is driven by a self-fulfilling prophecy. The often uncomfy CTH predictions turn out to be the truth of the issue because they are based on the factual evidence of the issue.

That level of how the system works came in very handy when I received this subpoena from Chairman Bennie Thompson and the J6 Committee.  [Warning, things could get uncomfortable if you don’t accept the scale of corruption that exists.]

Pay attention to the red box on the page shown.

This is essentially the probable cause that justifies the subpoena itself. 

I have redacted a name in the box for reasons you will see that follow.

I was never in Washington DC on January 6, 2021, nor did I work with or communicate with anyone who was involved in any of the activities that were subject to the J6 committee investigative authority.

I’m going to skip a lot of background noise, irrelevant legal stuff, jurisdictional issues, discoveries from discussions with lawyers and the experience gained in association with this ridiculous subpoena.  Instead, I am going to focus on the biggest story within it.

Sticking to the information in the Red Box above, notice how the J6 committee has evidence, “public-source information and documents on file”, showing my participation, communication, and contact with people and technology that are material interests to the committee.

Here’s the kicker…. I had no clue what the hell they were talking about.

There’s not a single aspect of their outline that I had any knowledge or connection of.

I had no idea what Zello was. I had no idea who 1% watchdog might be. I had never heard of “Stop the Steal J6” or associated “channel.”  I had never heard of the person redacted, and I had never communicated with any Oath Keeper, any communication system, or platform, or anyone or anything – nothing – that is outlined in that subpoena.

Those points of evidence outlined in the subpoena had no connection to me at all.

The subpoena might as well have been asking me to appear in Michigan because my Red Ferrari was involved in a hit and run accident, during my trip to Detroit.

I don’t own a Ferrari; I have never been to Michigan; I certainly never had an accident; I wasn’t on a trip and have never visited Detroit.

The entire construct of their probable cause for the subpoena was silly. Complete and utter nonsense.

That said, how could there be “public records” and “documentary” evidence of something that never happened?

At first, I thought this was some silly case of mistaken identity and they just sent a subpoena to the wrong person. 

However, the investigators were adamant the evidence existed, and the need for testimony was required.

After taking advice from several smart people, and after discovering the costs associated with just the reply to the committee and/or representation therein; suddenly I realized there might be more value for me in this subpoena than the committee.  After all, how can there be public-records and documents that I own a red Ferrari and went to Michigan when I don’t and never did.

After several back and forths I discovered, through their admissions of their own research, and through documents they extracted as an outcome of their tasks to prove the merit of their claims, that someone *inside* Twitter had created a fictitious identity of me associated with the networks and communications as the investigators described them.

Think about what was discovered here.

Someone inside the Twitter platform, an employee of Twitter or a person who had the ability to access their administrative system (ie. FBI), had made a decision to target me.

As a result: (a) they had been doing this for a long time with a specific goal in mind; and (b) they created an elaborate trail of background activity and identity that was entirely fabricated.

Eventually, my assigned investigative unit admitted this. 

Think about it. 

How could they clear me, without them having the underlying evidence that proved my innocence?

Once, the federal investigators realized what took place they wanted to get rid of me -and my snark filled curiosity- with great urgency.  They also had an ‘oh shit’ moment, when they contemplated everything, including what they had revealed to me from the outset of my contact, now several months prior.

What I discovered in this experience was that DHS, and by extension DOJ/FBI and the January 6 investigators, had direct administrative level backdoors into all social media platforms.

Overlay the Twitter files now, and then expand your thinking…. Do you remember Elon Musk promising, several times, that he would provide end-to-end encryption on the Twitter Direct Messages?  Remember that?  It never happened, did it.  Why not?

In their quest to prove that I owned a Red Ferrari, traveled to Michigan and had a hit-and-run accident, these investigators outlined to me how the United States Government, through their DHS authority, has employees, agents and contractors with open portals into all social media platforms.

Yes, the federal government is inside the mechanics of the systems (Twitter, Facebook, Meta, Instagram, Google, YouTube, WhatsApp, Zello, etc) and they have administrative access in real time to monitor, review, extract and evaluate everything, soup-to-nuts.

It was only because the investigators and forensic data knuckleheads have these portals, that they were able to locate the source of the fabricated evidence they were originally attributing to me.  This was an investigative process and research discovery being conducted in the data processing systems of Twitter in real time as they questioned me.

Once they realized what had taken place, and as soon as I started asking how they were making these admissions (now carrying an apologetic certainty), suddenly the investigators wanted no further contact or communication with me.  You’re good, whoopsie daisy, our bad, sorry.

Now, take some time to fully digest and absorb what I have just shared.

The U.S. government is worried about TikTok, because U.S. citizen data might be extracted?

Meanwhile, the U.S. government, at a fully unrestricted administrative level, is inside Twitter, Facebook, Meta, Insta, YouTube etc., running amok and extracting anything – including private messages… and they’re somehow worried about protecting us from TikTok data collection.  Think about it.

Maybe the thing that worried them is not that administrators within TikTok were datamining; maybe, just maybe, the thing that really worried them is that they’re not the administrators.

Ears of an elephant, eyes of a mouse.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/09/2025 - 14:25

Hamas Accuses Trump Of A Set-Up In Doha, After 5 Leaders Killed In Israeli Strike

Hamas Accuses Trump Of A Set-Up In Doha, After 5 Leaders Killed In Israeli Strike

Update(1355ET): Hamas has claimed in an official statement that Israel failed in its attempt to assassinate the group's negotiations team; however, it acknowledged that five of its members were killed in the Tuesday Israeli aerial attack on Doha, including the son of the group's chief negotiator Khalil Al-Hayya.

There's been some back-and-forth on whether the US greenlighted the operation ahead of time, but reports say the White House was informed once the operation had already been ordered by Netanyahu. Trump officials then quickly informed Qatar.

"Qatar, which condemned the attack, hosts America’s most important air base in the region as well as much of Hamas’s political leadership. It has been a key mediator in two years of talks to resolve the war in Gaza," The Wall Street Journal reports. "Israel informed the U.S. that the attack was coming, and the U.S. in turn notified Qatar, people familiar with the matter said."

There's been some speculation over whether Trump just did to Hamas what was done to Iran: lure them into thinking negotiations were happening, only to set them up for a brutal 'decapitation' air strike which no one expected.

The following were confirmed killed, base on the Hamas statement:

"We confirm the enemy's failure to assassinate our brothers in the negotiating delegation. However, a number of our martyred brothers have ascended to the highest ranks of glory, including: Martyr Jihad Labad (Abu Bilal) – Director of Dr. Khalil Al-Hayya's Office, Martyr Humam Al-Hayya (Abu Yahya) – Son of Dr. Khalil Al-Hayya, Martyr Abdullah Abdul Wahid (Abu Khalil) – Companion, Martyr Moamen Hassouna (Abu Omar) – Companion, Martyr Ahmed Al-Mamluk (Abu Malik) – Companion"

Hamas went on to say that the United States is responsible for the attack alongside the Israelis, and alleged a 'set up' of sorts.

Qatari officer killed... what did the US know in term of details and how far in advance?

"Targeting the negotiating delegation, as they discussed US President Donald Trump's latest proposal, confirms beyond doubt that Netanyahu and his government do not want to reach any agreement and are deliberately seeking to thwart all opportunities and thwart international efforts, disregarding the lives of their prisoners held by the resistance, the sovereignty of states, or the security and stability of the region," the US-designated terror group said. "We hold the US administration jointly responsible with the occupation for this crime," it added.

A number of journalists have agreed that it seems the Hamas team was intentionally lured to the targeted location in Doha...

The Israelis have reiterated that it will hunt down terrorists "anywhere in the world". Netanyahu has boasted that this paves the way for the war to end. Certainly, all prospects for peace talks are completely over.

And the White House reaction:

  • White House praises, kinda condemns Israel's bombing of Qatar, promises 'will not happen again'
  • Confirms Qatar was 'informed of impending attack'
  • 'Unilaterally bombing close ally of US...doesn't advance Israel-US goals However, eliminating Hamas worthy goal'

* * *

Multiple explosions have been reported in Doha, Qatar on Tuesday, according to eyewitnesses cited by Reuters. Initial reports suggest a missile strike or series of possible aerial strikes.

Axios journalist Barak Ravid, referencing Israeli officials, reported that the blasts were believed to be part of an assassination attempt targeting Hamas members. Netanyahu is really going gloves off at this point, it appears, and all negotiations seem definitively off.

"Israeli official tells me the explosion in Doha is an assassination attempt again Hamas officials," Axios' Ravid reports.

Could this be Hamas targeting the negotiating team, or other Hamas leaders who have long hid out in Qatar? It was apparently an Israeli aerial attack, which is going to outrage the Gulf states over the violation of airspace:

In the first official US comment on the attack, the American embassy in Doha says it has seen “reports of missile strikes occurring” in the Qatari capital.

Channel 12 is citing an Israeli official who says US President Trump gave the green light for the attack on Hamas leadership. There are emerging reports that that US and UK surveillance planes were in the air over the Gulf at the time of the strike.

The attack has resulted in the US Embassy in Doha issuing a shelter in place order for US citizens in the country. The UAE is also said to be furious over the attack. It has condemned the "treacherous" attack by Israel.

Israel Channel 12: Hamas Gaza leader Khalil al-Hayya was the primary target of the Israeli attack on Doha.

According to more confirmation via The Wall Street Journal:

The attack targeted Hamas leaders Khalil Al-Hayya and Zaher Jabarin, one of the officials said. It wasn’t immediately clear whether anyone was killed in the attack or how it was carried out.

Defense Minister Israel Katz earlier warned Hamas leaders abroad that they would be “annihilated” if the group didn’t lay down its arms.

But Al Jazeera is reporting that Al-Hayya has survived the attack. "A Hamas source tells Al Jazeera that Israeli strikes targeted officials from the group who were meeting in Doha to discuss Trump’s ceasefire proposal," the regional outlet says. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has written on social media, "Terrorists have no and will have no immunity from the long arm of Israel anywhere in the world."

The actions sparked a surge in oil prices as geopolitical risk premia re-emerge...

OPEC+ will be pleased.

developing...

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/09/2025 - 13:55

Stockman: Central Planning Is The Problem

Stockman: Central Planning Is The Problem

Authored by David Stockman via InternationalMan.com,

It seems damn obvious that neither Jay Powell, Donald Trump, the 12 geniuses on the FOMC, nor any other set of Washington apparatchiks should be setting interest rates. That’s a job tailor-made for millions of players on the free market without any help, nudges, guidance, or big fat thumb on the supply/demand scale by the central bank.

It also seems equally obvious that under the current post-1987 regime of Keynesian activism at the Fed that interest rates have been way too low for most of the past four decades. Indeed, the very idea that interest rates on the money market should be negative or even close to zero in real terms is an out-and-out recipe for inflation, both with respect to goods and services prices on Main Street and also, most especially, with respect to financial asset prices on Wall Street.

Yet here is what we have had since Alan Greenspan and his heirs and assigns embarked upon the path of heavy-duty Keynesian macro-management of the US economy. Since the year 2000, the inflation-adjusted money-market rate (i.e., Fed funds) has been negative—often deeply so—more than 80% of the time.

Accordingly, the implicit thrust of Fed policy has been to severely punish savers, who, after taxes and inflation, have been badly crushed, and reward borrowers and speculators. The latter have essentially been offered free money on a short-term basis to fund their leveraged speculations via rolling over the Fed’s cheap overnight money day after day for years running.

Indeed, Wall Street speculators literally loved the negative carry pictured in the graph below: It became the foundation for trillions upon trillions of easy, arbitrage profits in the futures and options market and via an endless variety of highly leveraged bespoke trading schemes.

Needless to say, the politicians on the banks of the Potomac were also enthusiastic about their resulting ability to borrow on a massive scale while still paying diminutive levels of annual interest on the soaring public debt. In fiscal terms, the Fed’s negative real rates were the equivalent of a free lunch.

Still, the opposite ends of this 40-year chart tell you all you need to know about why central bank interest rate pegging is both counter-productive and unnecessary. Thus, back in 1984-1987, the real Fed funds rate was clearly not too high at positive 3-5%. That’s because it was exactly during this five-year period that the ballyhooed “Morning in America” Reagan Boom occurred. Real growth averaged 4.8% per annum between 1983 and 1987.

Now, according to GOP orators, the Reagan Boom of 1983-1987 was the be-all-and-end-all of spectacular economic performance. So why in the hell did Jay Powell and his merry band of money-printers insist that the real Fed funds rate in Q3 2024 was too high at barely +2.0% and therefore warranted the 100 basis point rate cut it administered on the eve of the November election?

Moreover, at the present moment, the story is even worse. The Donald was pounding the table for a 300 basis point cut a few weeks ago when, during Q2 2025, the inflation-adjusted Fed funds rate had posted at just +1.27%. So what he apparently wants is a return to the inflationary Fed print-a-thons of the last several decades and to an implied inflation-adjusted Fed funds rate of, well, -2.27%.

That’s right. After more than two decades of inflationary money-printing, the real money market rate has barely peeked its nose above the zero bound per the graph above. Yet we have both of our wanna-be monetary central planners—Powell and Trump—in a public shouting match about how much to cut, how soon to cut, and what flakey excuse should be offered to justify it.

Well, the hell with both of them!

Neither can possibly know the “correct” overnight interest rate (i.e., Fed funds), to say nothing of the level and shape of the entire yield curve all the way out to 30-year bonds or even 50-year loan maturities. The right levels for all the interest rates along the entire yield curve are constantly on the move and shape-shifting at any moment in time owing to a blizzard of changing real-world conditions with respect to the supply and demand for funds, and the undulations of the underlying macro-economy.

Indeed, the very idea of administered or state-pegged interest rates is as unworkable, counter-productive, and absurd as each and every failed past experiment in wage, price, profit, and rent controls with respect to Main Street commerce in daily bread, shelter, clothing, and transit has shown. And most especially so when the far superior alternative of a vast, liquid free market in debt and all other forms of financial assets is readily available.

The reason we have administered interest rates rather than free market rates, of course, is due to the great big Keynesian bugaboo about financial instability, the oscillations of the business cycle, and the alleged grand collapse of capitalism during the Great Depression.

That is, the implicit claim is that unless we have an all-powerful interest rate Sherpa managing debt yields and the related economic activity, a free market in money, debt, real estate, and other financial assets will inexorably tumble into thundering instability and ultimately send the main street economy into depressionary collapse.

The truth is, this is unmitigated humbug. In the first place, it is obvious that the financial and economic instability we have had during the half-century since the dollar was unshackled from its anchor in gold in 1971 has been caused by the “start and stop” policy interventions and interest rate pegging cycles of the Fed itself, not the free market.

As shown in the graph below, once the 12-person FOMC took lock, stock, and barrel control of the nerve center of capitalism—the financial markets and asset prices— after August 1971, there have been eight recessions and short-run volatility of economic activity that has ranged from +35% to -35% on an annualized basis.

If we were in the betting business, we’d wager that left to his own devices, Mr. Market would likely generate less instability than the Fed-controlled economy has displayed since 1971.

If the volatility reduction and business cycle flattening canard doesn’t cut the mustard in terms of justifying the Fed’s interest rate-pegging regime, neither does the claim that it enhances the trend rate of real economic growth and living standard gains. The underlying presumption is that the free market is too stupid to discover the rate of interest that induces optimum growth, so a monetary politburo known as the FOMC needs to take control of the rate-setting process.

Well, here’s an empirical test that can’t be gainsaid. To wit, between the so-called Fed-Treasury agreement in March 1951 and August 1971, we had a gold-anchored monetary system and a Federal Reserve run with an exceedingly “light touch” by William McChesney Martin. By contrast, after the gamblers of Wall Street brought the credit, housing, and equity markets down with the thundering crash in the fall of 2008, we had a rogue regime of massive money-printing and incessant, heavy financial market intervention by the Fed under Bernanke and his successors.

There is no contest on the growth and prosperity front, however, between the two periods. Real growth as measured by real final sales of domestic product rose at a 3.83% annual rate during the “light touch” era of Q2 1951 to Q2 1971, while the growth rate was barely half of that level at 1.94% between Q4 2007 and Q2 2025. Q.E.D.

*  *  *

If decades of Fed meddling have taught us anything, it’s that central planning doesn’t stabilize the economy—it undermines it. The bigger risk ahead isn’t just bad policy, but the potential collapse of the dollar’s global reserve status and the desperate measures Washington may take in response. To prepare for what’s coming and protect yourself from the fallout, click here to claim your free copy of our Special Report: Guide to Surviving and Thriving During an Economic Collapse.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/09/2025 - 13:45

Stellar 3Y Auction Blows Away Expectations With Huge Stop-Through, Near Record Foreign Demand, Record Low Dealers

Stellar 3Y Auction Blows Away Expectations With Huge Stop-Through, Near Record Foreign Demand, Record Low Dealers

With interest rates in freefall in recent days, but reversing modestly this morning, traders were wondering if today's auction of $58BN in 3 year paper would accentuate the modest reversal or extend on the positive momentum observed over the past week. The answer was resoundingly the latter, and here's why.

First, the auction stopped at high yield of 3.485%, down sharply from 3.669% last month, and the lowest since Sept 2024 when the Fed was about to cut rates by a jumbo 50bps on another huge downward jobs revision print. The auction stopped through the When Issued 3.492% by 0.7bps, and following 3 straight tailing auctions, was the biggest through since Feb 2025.

The bid to cover was an impressive 2.726%, up 20bps from August and the highest since February.

The internals were even more impressive, with Indirects taking down a near record 74.24%, up from 53.99% in August and the 2nd highest on record!

And with Directs awarded 17.39%, Dealers were left with just 8.37%, the lowest on record. 

Overall this was a blowout 3Y auction, easily one of the top 3 on record, and the bond market certainly liked it: with yields moving higher after today's record negative revision (on expecations of steepening that will follow the inflation that rate cuts usher in) we have seen renewed buying across the curve.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/09/2025 - 13:29

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