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Mon, 27 Apr 2026 06:00:00 +0000 Reset Germany: Breaking With An Exhausted Ruling Class
Reset Germany: Breaking With An Exhausted Ruling Class
Reset Germany: Breaking With An Exhausted Ruling Class
Authored by Frank-Christian Hansel via American Greatness,
Germany is not, in the first place, suffering from an economic crisis, an energy crisis, a migration crisis, or a crisis of state. Germany is suffering, chiefly, from a crisis of its elites.
More precisely, Germany is suffering from a crisis brought on by that milieu which regards itself as the country’s morally, intellectually, and administratively legitimate leadership class but which has, for years, sustained a regime of reality-avoidance, self-congratulation, and rhetorical substitutes for genuine action.
The misery of our situation is not that mistakes have been made. Mistakes are part of politics. The real misery is that Germany has produced a class of managerial elites that refuses to change course even when the consequences of its actions lie plainly exposed. That class does not correct itself, because it no longer measures itself against reality; rather, it measures itself against the approval of its own circles. It does not want to be right before the tribunal of reality; it wants to be right before the tribunal supplied by its own milieu.
That is the root of Germany’s decline.
The Federal Republic was once—for all its flaws—a country that drew its strength from a peculiar mixture of sobriety, an ethic of performance, technical reason, institutional discipline, and bourgeois self-restraint. This country was not great through pathos but through seriousness, not through visions but through reliability, and not through moral grandstanding but through quiet competence. That was precisely why it was strong: because it had the capacity to concentrate on what was necessary, instead of losing itself in what was desirable.
Of that Germany, little remains inside the ruling apparatus.
In place of prosaic sobriety, a political-media class has emerged that mistakes governing for pedagogical world-improvement. Its first instinct is no longer to secure, to enable, and to set limits. Its first instinct is to educate, to frame, to therapize, to reinterpret, and to morally cultivate. Its relationship to the citizen is no longer republican; it is curatorial. The citizen no longer appears to this class as the sovereign on whose behalf it works—as Helmut Schmidt once understood the office—but as a problem case: too skeptical, too stubborn, too set in his ways, and too interested in normality, safety, and prosperity.
This is where the real cultural rupture becomes visible.
Germany’s elites no longer distrust merely particular political positions. They distrust ordinary life itself. The desire for normality, the desire for affordable energy, the desire for borders, the desire for safety in public space, the desire for cultural continuity—the desire, in short, that a state should first be obligated to its own—all of this is held in the upper reaches of society to be suspect, unpleasantly banal, and morally backward.
A paradoxical situation has emerged: the more obvious the functional failures of the state, the louder the moral self-celebration of its representatives. The thinner the substance of the country, the more clamorous the professions of stance , diversity , transformation , and responsibility —with the federal president, at the top of the hierarchy, leading the chorus.
We live, accordingly, in a state that announces ever more and delivers ever less. Politics that indulges in historical sermonizing while failing at train stations, borders, schools, the electricity grid, housing, the Bundeswehr, public administration, and internal security—an elite that cloaks its own barrenness with the claim that it, at least, stands on the right side of history. That formula is the real total loss.
For whoever believes himself to be on the right side of history ceases to answer to the present. He replaces examination with conviction, outcomes with intentions, and reality with narrative. From this posture comes the mixture of hypermoralism and state failure that characterizes Germany today. They speak of humanity and lose control of migration. They speak of responsibility and destroy the energy foundations of our industry. They babble about worldly openness and ask us to tolerate the degradation of public spaces. They speak of democracy and exclude millions of voters. They take the word “diversity” in their mouths and drive cultural estrangement in their own country.
This is not accidental. It follows a deeper logic. Those who rule the Federal Republic today have grown accustomed to drawing legitimacy not from performance but from moral elevation. They no longer govern out of their own solidity but out of symbolic self-immunization. Whoever objects is not treated as an opponent but as a disturbance. Whoever points to the limits of what a society can bear is not treated as a realist but as a suspect case. Whoever invokes people, nations, cultural inheritance, sovereignty, or self-interest is not tested argumentatively but ritually delegitimized.
Which is exactly why the opposition in Germany today is, at its core, not simply one more party among others. It is, apart from its internal difficulties and the external attacks against it, the political expression of a surviving cast of mind in this country.
A surviving cast of realism, of the will to self-assertion, and of a sense for reality. It is the form in which Germany still articulates itself politically: the Germany that is not yet willing to let itself be parted from its history, its cultural identity, its industrial reason, and its claim to the normality of the state. We can say it plainly: yes, we are bourgeois dissidents.
This also explains the frenzied state of mind of the establishment. We are not opposed so bitterly because we are irrelevant. We are opposed so bitterly because we touch exactly the point that the ruling cartel must conceal at any cost: that the decline is not fated, but politically engineered; that the crisis does not come from the voters, but from the leadership classes; and that the real scandal lies not in the protest, but in the necessity of the protest—in the necessity of dissent itself.
What has exhausted itself in Germany is not merely a government or a coalition. It is the whole style of governing: a style that dissolves all limits and manages everything at once; that relativizes every binding and sanctions every deviation; that treats national self-assertion as indecent and state overreach as progressive; that subordinates economic reason to climate, legal clarity to a false morality, cultural self-respect to a pedagogy of guilt, and democratic equality to the political firewall . This model is depleted. It has no answer left to reality except to impose further demands on those it governs.
It has, ultimately, no future.
What Germany needs, therefore, is not merely a change of policy. It needs a mental restart—a return to Go—so that a true reset becomes possible. Every renewal begins with a reset. Not with grand programs, but with a rediscovery of what is real. A country must know again who it is before it can decide where it wants to go. It must stop despising itself morally before it can become politically capable of action again. That is where the real task lies.
Germany must—we must—free ourselves from our exhausted elites. Not only in terms of personnel, but also mentally and spiritually. We must find our way back to a politics that distinguishes between one’s own and the foreign, between responsibility and posture, between freedom and paternalism. We must remember that the purpose of a state is not to redeem the world but to protect its own political community. And that a nation which loses the will to self-assertion will, in the end, lose its capacity for freedom as well.
The German reset will therefore not come from the centers of today’s operations. Not from the party apparatuses, not from the editorial offices, not from the committees of a class that is blind to its own failures and seeks refuge in haughty notions of moral superiority. The reset and restart can only come from those places where something of the country’s sense of reality still remains intact: where decline is not celebrated as transformation, where the normal is not dismissed as reactionary, and where Germany is not regarded as a problem but as a task.
That surviving cast of mind, on which the reset depends, still exists. But it is not infinitely resilient.
The question, therefore, is not whether this country needs a rupture. The question is whether that rupture will be organized politically in time—or whether Germany must first pass still deeper through the exhaustion zones of its old elites. In this situation, the opposition is not merely an opposition party. It is the only political force that understands the necessary rupture not as a breakdown to be managed, but as the precondition of renewal.
Whoever truly wants to restart Germany must first have the courage to stop treating this country‘s elite misery as its fate. It was done. And what was done can be undone.
Tyler Durden Mon, 04/27/2026 - 02:00 Close Mon, 27 Apr 2026 03:50:00 +0000 Hayek, Orwell, And 'The End Of Truth'
Hayek, Orwell, And 'The End Of Truth'
Hayek, Orwell, And 'The End Of Truth'
Authored by Jonathan Miltimore via Civitas Institute ,
In 1942, after fighting in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1937), a disillusioned writer returned to London to write about his experience. It wasn’t just that the fascists in Spain had won and his side—a small, anti-Stalinist Marxist group—had lost. What frightened him was the ease with which truth itself had been erased and replaced by propaganda.
“I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as the heroes of imaginary victories ... and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that had never happened .”
The writer was George Orwell, and the quote appears in his book “Looking Back on the Spanish Civil War .”
The disconnect between reality and narrative clearly made an impression on Orwell, who worried that “the very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world.” The theme of falsified history and the destruction of truth would resurface in his fictional masterpiece “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” where “memory holes” swallowed inconvenient facts and the past was rewritten to suit the Party’s needs.
Orwell’s book would go on to sell 25 million copies worldwide, and he is today remembered as a prophet for foreseeing a future in which the state’s deliberate power could extinguish truth itself.
Yet few today remember that five years before the publication of “Nineteen Eighty-Four ,” an Austrian economist, in his own magnum opus, explored how the state destroys truth.
Management of Minds
Unlike George Orwell, Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) is not a household name, but his 1944 classic “The Road to Serfdom” made him one of the twentieth century’s most influential thinkers—despite the book’s inauspicious beginning.
Originally a memo penned at the London School of Economics, “The Road to Serfdom” was rejected by three publishers before finding a home with Routledge. The first run—2,000 copies—sold out in 10 days. Hayek’s book went on to sell more than two million copies and be translated into over twenty languages. Its core argument was straightforward: central planning, however well-intentioned, erodes individual freedom and sets society on a path toward serfdom.
What is often overlooked is Hayek’s deeper insight. Economic control does not remain confined to the economy. Once the state directs production and prices, it inevitably reaches into thought, expression, and belief. For Hayek, the danger of socialism was not only material impoverishment—as seen in the USSR—but the steady expansion of intellectual control.
“... It is not enough that everybody should be forced to work for the same ends,” Hayek wrote. “It is essential that people should come to regard them as their own ends.”
Hayek was warning that once the state begins to manage prices and production, it will soon find it necessary to manage minds. When a government takes control over economic life, it must “justify its decisions to the people” and “make people believe that they are the right decisions.”
In doing so, it inevitably begins to decide which opinions and values align with its plan—rewarding and amplifying voices that comply while punishing, suppressing, and silencing those that do not.
‘The End of Truth’
The quotes above appear in Chapter 11 of “Serfdom,” aptly titled “The End of Truth.”
When I first read the book twenty years ago, the chapter didn’t stand out to me. Today it does. After all, we recently lived through a period in which the phenomenon Hayek described played out before our eyes.
The COVID-19 pandemic was a vast economic experiment. The federal government issued a wide array of public health “recommendations” that soon became dogmas. To question the efficacy of masks or social distancing—a policy we learned in 2024 had no basis in science—was to risk being censored or accused of spreading “misinformation.” Scientific debate gave way to official decree, and many who questioned “the plan” or resisted it lost their jobs or were booted from platforms.
None of this would have surprised Hayek, who warned that the plans constructed by central planners must be “sacrosanct and exempt from criticism.”
“If the people are to support the common effort without hesitation, they must be convinced that not only the end aimed at but also the means chosen are the right ones,” he wrote. “Public criticism or even expressions of doubts must be suppressed because they tend to weaken public support.”
Hayek’s chapter is not primarily about censorship. Instead, he argues that the rise of state power will systematically undermine the concept of truth itself and the human pursuit of it.
As governments assert control over economic and social life, facts and evidence are subordinated to political goals—an idea Orwell illustrated vividly when the Party refused to accept Winston Smith’s claim that two plus two equals four.
‘Sometimes, Winston...’
The phenomenon Orwell described was not moral relativism but factual relativism. It was a theme Hayek also addressed. The Austrian economist noted that in totalitarian systems, even basic facts—including mathematics—become subservient to state dogma. He reminded readers that in the USSR and Nazi Germany, ideology had consumed even the sciences. There was “German Physics” and a “Marxist-Leninist theory in surgery.”
“It is entirely in keeping with the whole spirit of totalitarianism that it condemns any human activity done for its own sake and without ulterior purpose,” he wrote. “Science for science’s sake, art for art’s sake, are equally abhorrent to the Nazis, our socialist intellectuals, and the communists.”
Hayek observed that as the state’s power grows, the sciences become corrupted. Instead of advancing truth, they become tools in the hands of planners.
“Once science has to serve, not truth, but the interest of a class, a community, or a state,” he wrote, “the sole task of argument and discussion is to vindicate and to spread still further the beliefs by which the whole life of the community is directed.”
Hayek said the phenomenon he described was most pronounced in dictatorships, but he added that it was not “peculiar to totalitarianism.” Even in free societies, he warned, “the most intelligent and independent people cannot entirely escape [the] influence” of state propaganda. His point was unsettling: susceptibility to propaganda is not limited to the gullible or uninformed—propaganda ensnares the thoughtful and educated as well.
The erosion of truth becomes apparent through a decay in language. Words like “freedom,” “right,” “equality,” and “justice” lose their meaning. Eventually, the word “truth” itself “ceases to have its old meaning.”
“It describes no longer something to be found,” Hayek wrote, “it becomes something to be laid down by authority—something which has to be believed in the interest of unity of the organized effort, and which may have to be altered as the exigencies of this organized effort require it .” (emphasis added)
All of this sounds familiar to readers of “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” who see Winston Smith struggling to hold onto objective truth in a world where truth is dictated by power. Surely two plus two equals four, he pleads.
“Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five,” he is told in the Ministry of Love. “Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder.”
‘The Tragedy of Collectivist Thought’
Orwell was a master, and “Nineteen Eighty-Four” is a masterpiece. But Hayek was describing Orwellianism several years before Orwell gave it fictional form. (It’s also worth noting that G.K. Chesterton used the “two plus two equals four” blasphemy metaphor nearly a half-century before Orwell.)
This doesn’t diminish Orwell’s work. On the contrary, it shows how powerfully he dramatized ideas that Hayek had already diagnosed in theory. (Orwell, it should be noted, read “The Road to Serfdom” and enjoyed it, with caveats .)
Still, Hayek deserves credit for superbly articulating—in one chapter!—the phenomenon that Orwell would translate into a terrifying warning, one that millions of junior high and high school students would receive in English courses.
The economist Daniel Klein recently called “The End of Truth” the most important chapter in Hayek’s most important work. I couldn’t agree more. The chapter serves as a reminder that the human mind is not something to be controlled but something to be unleashed. If we forget this simple lesson, we risk surrendering the very capacity for independent thought that sustains civilization.
“The tragedy of collectivist thought,” he noted, “is that, while it starts out to make reason supreme, it ends by destroying reason because it misconceives the process on which the growth of reason depends.”
Tyler Durden Sun, 04/26/2026 - 23:50 Close Mon, 27 Apr 2026 03:25:00 +0000 Compute Costs More Than Talent In AI
Compute Costs More Than Talent In AI
For leading AI companies, the biggest expense is not talent. It is compute.
This chart from Visual Capitalist’s Read more.....
Compute Costs More Than Talent In AI
For leading AI companies, the biggest expense is not talent. It is compute.
This chart from Visual Capitalist’s AI Week , sponsored by Terzo , uses Epoch AI data to compare spending at Anthropic, Minimax, and Z.ai across R&D compute, inference compute, and staff plus other costs.
In every case, compute accounts for the majority of total spending, underscoring how capital-intensive it has become to build and serve frontier AI models.
How AI Company Costs Break Down
Despite differences in scale, all three companies allocate the largest share of their budgets to a single category: compute.
The data below compares spending composition across Anthropic, Minimax, and Z.ai. Anthropic’s figures are for 2025, while Minimax’s are from Q1 to Q3 of 2025 and Z.ai’s are for H1 2025.
Across all three AI companies , compute is the main cost center. Epoch AI estimates that R&D compute and inference compute together account for 57% to 70% of total spending, making infrastructure more expensive than staff and other costs in every case.
Among the three, Z.ai has the most R&D-heavy profile, with 58% of spending tied to compute powering model development and training.
Anthropic stands out for sheer scale. Epoch AI estimates the company spent $9.7 billion in 2025, including $6.8 billion on compute alone across training and inference.
Its costs are significantly higher than Minimax’s and Z.ai’s, even if the two Chinese AI companies’ figures were annualized to match Anthropic’s full-year period.
Both Chinese companies release many of their models as open source , meaning the model weights are freely available for anyone to download, modify, and run. This strategy helps them compete with better-funded U.S. labs by building developer adoption at a fraction of the cost.
AI Talent Costs Less Than Chips and Compute
One of the clearest takeaways is that talent costs less than compute in this comparison. Even though top AI labs pay some of the highest salaries in tech , staff and other costs still account for less than half of total spending at each of the three firms.
While the chart focuses on costs, Epoch AI estimates these labs are currently spending around 2–3x more than they generate in revenue, even as some expect economics to improve over time.
How These Estimates Were Built
This dataset comes with a few important caveats. Anthropic’s figures are based on reporting from The Information and are more speculative, while Minimax and Z.ai figures come from IPO filings released in January 2026.
The time periods also differ: Anthropic data is for the full year of 2025, Minimax covers 2025 Q1–Q3, and Z.ai covers 2025 H1. Epoch AI says its expense totals include operating expenses, cost of goods and services, and non-cash items such as stock-based compensation.
If you enjoyed today’s post, check out The Soaring Revenues of AI Companies on Voronoi.
Tyler Durden Sun, 04/26/2026 - 23:25 Close Mon, 27 Apr 2026 03:00:00 +0000 Charlottesville: The Deceit Underlying The Hoax
Charlottesville: The Deceit Underlying The Hoax
Charlottesville: The Deceit Underlying The Hoax
Authored by Steve Cortes via RealClearPolitics.com,
For years, Democratic politicians and their allies in the legacy media have spread the damnable Charlottesville Hoax: the propaganda myth that President Trump praised bigots who rioted in 2017 in the Virginia town.
Of course, the opposite is true, as Trump actually said : “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and white nationalists because they should be condemned totally.”
Now, we learn that the entire hoax of Trump and Charlottesville is, itself, built upon another grand lie. The media and people like Joe Biden have continually pushed the narrative that some big, organic gathering of hateful Americans descended upon Charlottesville and represented some larger threat to the republic itself. But it now turns out that the “Unite the Right” rally was organized and financed by the highly partisan, left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center.
In a sweeping 11-count indictment, the Department of Justice and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche charge the advocacy group with criminal defrauding of donors and “manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred.”
The charges contained in this indictment are akin to the fire department becoming an aggressive criminal arson enterprise, setting fires all across a town, and then demanding more budget and authority to fight the very infernos it set ablaze.
So…the end result is that America endured years of propaganda that convinced a large segment of the population – in contravention of the facts – that their president supported violent hate merchants. Even worse, masses of unskeptical Americans, who consume only legacy media content, believed that the entire America First populist movement was based on bigotry, rather than patriotism.
Now, nearly a decade later, the truth is revealed about the deception that lay beneath that grand lie. There was a layer of duplicity here that is almost difficult to fathom. Only true Marxists could excuse this level of propaganda. The SPLC created hate groups and activities like the Charlottesville rally, and the complicit media then weaponized these concocted offenses by spreading outright lies about Trump’s reaction to the staged events.
I myself played a role in this saga regarding Charlottesville, best explained by a timeline:
March 2019 – After more than a year serving as a contributor on CNN, I grew tired of the near-nightly lies told about Charlottesville during the primetime hits when I was on-air. I tried my best to debunk the myth, but was routinely shouted down, and even “benched” for short periods for daring to tell the truth. So…I wrote a column at RealClearPolitics with the exact Trump transcript and precise citations.
April 2019 – Joe Biden launched his 2020 presidential campaign based entirely upon the Charlottesville lie , claiming that the “bulging veins” of the racists convinced him to run for the White House.
August 2019 – Dennis Prager had read my RealClearPolitics article and had me on his radio show repeatedly to discuss what we branded as the “Charlottesville Hoax.” He also asked me to narrate a five-minute video for his online platform, PragerU, debunking the hoax , which went mega-viral, with well over 10 million total views.
September 2019 – CNN removed me from the air. Rebecca Kutler, now the head of MSNOW and then the director of talent at CNN, expressly told me that the permanent “benching” was because of the Charlottesville video, even though I was clearly allowed to make such online videos, per the terms of my contract. I asked to be released so that I could do TV elsewhere, and she refused. In other words, they paid me to be silent, to stay on the sidelines.
December 2019 – I was released from CNN.
June 2024 – Supposedly objective “fact-checking” site Snopes finally admits the clear reality of the full transcripts and video evidence that Trump never praised bigots at Charlottesville.
April 2026 – The Southern Poverty Law Center was indicted for millions of dollars in secret payments to racists to foment and organize racial unrest and events, including the Charlottesville event itself.
This entire sad saga matters.
First, it unveils the systemic duplicity of the left in America. Because their demand for “hate” far exceeds the actual supply, they had to pay to manufacture bigotry, so that they then could oppose it.
Second, the record reveals that lies build upon lies, while the truth remains, inherently, emancipating.
Whatever any citizen thinks of Donald Trump, the entire madness of Charlottesville represents a preventable and despicable tragedy. The actions of the SPLC were criminal and mafia-like. A young woman, Heather Heyer, lost her life because of this mayhem. More broadly, millions of Americans bought into an insidious lie and believed it for years, doing grave damage to the cohesion of our society.
Only a full accounting, now, can begin the process of healing and truth-telling.
Tyler Durden Sun, 04/26/2026 - 23:00 Close Mon, 27 Apr 2026 02:50:06 +0000 Futures Jump To Record High After Report Iran Offered New Non-Starter Proposal To Reopen Strait
Futures Jump To Record High After Report Iran Offered New Non-Starter Proposal To Reopen Strait
Update (10:30pm) : Just when it seemed that the market may have its first red Monday in a while - and the semiconductor
Read more.....
Futures Jump To Record High After Report Iran Offered New Non-Starter Proposal To Reopen Strait
Update (10:30pm) : Just when it seemed that the market may have its first red Monday in a while - and the semiconductor bubble may actually have a down day after a ridiculous 18 day streak higher - the Trump-Axios plunge protection team struck again, and courtesy of Axios' in-house market levitator, Barak Ravid, whose specialty is creating cheerful market narratives to preserve faith that the Strait of Hormuz will open any second now, coupled with a few strategically timed flashing red headlines from Bloomberg, futures surged to a new record high, and oil pared after Axios reported that Iran offered the US a new proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
According to the report, which is a rerun of news which hit about 12 hours earlier on Sunday, Axios ran earlier in the day but which no algos noticed, Iran - through Pakistani mediators - gave the Trump admin a new proposal for reaching a deal on the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and the ending of the war, however with nuclear negotiations postponed for a later stage , something which Trump has repeatedly said is a non-started.
According to Ravid, the new proposal is aimed at overcoming the current stalemate in the talks and bypass the internal disagreements in the Iranian leadership about the scope of nuclear concessions it is willing to give in order to get a deal with the Trump administration. Meanwhile, the report is meant to eliminate the bitter taste in the market's mouth from yet another weekend where there was zero progress on either peace, of extending the ceasefire, or certainly on unblocking Hormuz. So it was time to sprinkle an anonymous US official and two anonymous "sources with knowledge" to kickstart the market meltup. As for the actual "proposal" even Axios admits it is unlikely to make any impact:
But reaching a deal on the Strait of Hormuz first and lifting the U.S. blockade would leave President Trump with no real leverage in order to get Tehran to give up on its stockpile of enriched uranium and commit to a suspension of uranium enrichment for at least a decade.
Addressing those two nuclear concerns through military action or diplomacy are a key objective for Trump in the war against Iran.
Which is precisely why nothing will happen, but at least stocks will now levitate higher instead of drifting lower.
Sure enough, Asian shares rose 1.3% while MSCI’s emerging markets index hit a record high, as easing oil prices help curb inflation and support economic growth. As sentiment improved, US equity-index futures erased earlier losses to rise 0.1%. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index erased earlier gains and fell 0.1% after the report.
“The news aligns with market expectations that Iran and the United States would eventually reach an agreement,” said Yugo Tsuboi, chief strategist at Daiwa Securities Co. “The headline came at a good time as we head into peak earnings season.” Of course, the Trump admin is well aware of that.
Separately, Axios reported, citing the usual group of "anonymous sources", that Trump is expected to hold on Monday a situation room meeting on Iran with his top national security and foreign policy team. The meeting is expected to discuss the current stalemate in the negotiations with Iran and potential options for the next steps in the war.
Trump signaled in an interview with Fox News on Sunday that he wants to continue the naval blockade, hoping that it will get Iran to cave in the next few weeks when its oil facilities could be under risk of collapsing due to the inability to export oil.
"When you have vast amounts of oil pouring through your system ... if for any reason this line is closed because you can't put it into containers or ships ... what happens is that line explodes from within ... they say they only have about three days before that happens," Trump said.
"And when it explodes you can never rebuild it the way it was...it would only be 50% of what it is right now. So I think they are under pressure."
We previously discussed the risk to Iran's infrastructure as a result of shut ins in "Tehran Timeline: Iran Has 15 Days Until Its Oil Industry Begins Full Shut-Ins .
* * *
Earlier:
Stocks futures fell and oil and the dollar jumped in early trading, as risk sentiment was dented after Trump scrapped his envoys' trip to Pakistan for Iran talks, breaking down momentum toward a second round of peace talks between the US and Iran, even as the Strait of Hormuz remains indefinitely blocked.
Futures contracts for the S&P 500 Index dropped 0.3% after the underlying index closed at a record on Friday, although with two-thirds of S&P constituents closing red: this was the second worst negative breadth all-time high for the S&P following the bizarre October record high when the S&P printed an ATH with 80% of stocks lower.
The dollar rose against most major peers, with risk sensitive currencies such as the South African rand among the biggest laggards. Brent crude oil rose more than 2% above $107, the highest in 20 days. US Treasury futures edged lower in early trading.
The soft start to a very busy week - the bulk of the S&P is set to report in the next few days including most Mag 7s (MSFT, AMZN, META, GOOGL, AAPL) - comes after efforts to resume US-Iran peace talks collapsed over the weekend when Trump abruptly canceled a planned trip by his top envoys and Tehran said it won’t negotiate under threat. The setback adds to concerns for global equities at or near record highs (hedge funds just sold the most tech stocks in two years ) with Brent crude oil rising to a 20 day high elevated bond yields from Sydney to London driving up borrowing costs.
Investors are still encouraged by strong corporate earnings and the AI boom “while keeping the US-Iran situation on their side mirrors,” said Indosuez Wealth strategist Francis Tan. But “the market is driving at 120km/h now and may have less reaction time when it is really time to change lanes.”
There have been some signs that investor enthusiasm for the biggest beneficiaries of the month-long rally may be waning. According to Goldman and BofA’s trading desks, investors should hedge across rate sensitive areas of the market such as small caps, regional banks and gold, adding that underperformance might still shake out those holding gold as high beta risk asset.
Separately, markets will remain on edge as major central banks including the Fed and Bank of Japan deliver policy decisions beginning Tuesday (no surprises expected). While investors expect them to all leave rates unchanged, traders will be alert to signs officials are worried about the inflation threat posed by the biggest disruption to oil supply in history from the Iran war.
A fresh round of speculation that policy tightening may come in coming months would be negative for government debt, which has already underperformed other assets in recent weeks as stocks and credit markets rallied with traders looking past the war. The Bloomberg GlobalAgg Index, a measure of global investment grade debt, has slid 1.7% since the Iran war broke out against the 1.5% gain in global stocks.
While the aggressive policy tightening cycle that was penciled in during the first part of the Middle East war has been partially unwound, “markets have been forced to recognize that the inflation threat is not over,” Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn Capital Markets wrote. April inflation reports are unlikely to offer relief from firm March readings and the spill over in to core prices is becoming more visible.
But the big variable for markets this week will not be geopolitics but earnings, with tens of trillions in market cap, some 42% of the S&P, set to report: Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon.com and Meta are set to report Wednesday, followed by Apple a day later. The companies are worth nearly $16 trillion combined, representing a quarter of the S&P 500 Index’s market capitalization.
“It’s going to be a critical week,” said Keith Lerner, chief investment officer and chief market strategist at Truist Advisory Services. Results need “to validate this recent move,” he added.
Tyler Durden Sun, 04/26/2026 - 22:50 Close Mon, 27 Apr 2026 02:35:00 +0000 California's Billionaire Tax Proposal Has 'Slippery Slope' Lever
California's Billionaire Tax Proposal Has 'Slippery Slope' Lever
California’s latest effort to tax its richest residents into leaving is barreling toward the ballot - only this time, it's got a built-in 'sli
Read more.....
California's Billionaire Tax Proposal Has 'Slippery Slope' Lever
California’s latest effort to tax its richest residents into leaving is barreling toward the ballot - only this time, it's got a built-in 'slippery slope ' lever once voters hand them the keys.
Backers of the proposed “billionaire tax” say they have already cleared the first hurdle, gathering more than enough signatures (at least 1.5 million) to qualify a measure that would impose a one-time 5% levy on residents with net worths above $1 billion, the Wall Street Journal a targeted strike at roughly 200 ultrawealthy individuals meant to plug a looming multibillion-dollar hole in California’s healthcare funding. But buried in the fine print -and now surfacing in a growing political backlash-is a provision that could allow lawmakers to revisit, revise, and potentially expand the tax later with a two-thirds vote. That clause is fast becoming the real story.
The initiative’s language allows the California Legislature to amend the law so long as changes are “consistent with” and “further the purposes” of the act (aka the slippery slope). In Sacramento, that phrasing is doing a lot of work. Critics argue it effectively hands lawmakers a tool that could evolve well beyond a one-time billionaire levy . With a two-thirds majority, the Legislature could lower thresholds, extend timelines, or reinterpret what qualifies as taxable wealth . In a state where Democrats already hold supermajorities in both chambers, that is less a hypothetical than a political reality.
California, meanwhile, has done this kind of thing before where they kick the door open with a seemingly innocuous bill. For example, in 2012 voters approved Proposition 30 as “temporary taxes to fund education,” promising a sunset once the recession eased. Four years later , with the economy recovered, the same coalition returned with Proposition 55 and extended the high-income tax hikes for another 12 years —without extending the sales tax or returning to voters for full approval. Nearly identical “consistent with and furthers the purposes” amendment clauses appear in Proposition 64 (marijuana legalization) and Proposition 63 (Mental Health Services Act), and have been used repeatedly to expand taxes, regulations, and spending far beyond the original ballot language. The billionaire tax measure contains this exact same permissive language. Once voters bless a flexible wealth-tax framework, Sacramento has shown it will use that door when fiscal pressure returns - which, in California, it always does.
The proposal has already triggered a high-profile reaction among the very group it targets. One of the most prominent examples is Google co-founder Sergey Brin .
Sergey BrinPhotographer: Will Oliver/EPA/Bloomberg In a late-evening confrontation at a Christmas party hosted by crypto titan Chris Larsen in a treehouse nestled in redwoods north of San Francisco, Brin and his wellness-influencer girlfriend Gerelyn Gilbert-Soto told Gov. Gavin Newsom they were leaving the state over the proposed billionaire tax, which could hit Brin’s massive stake in Alphabet and his fortune.
Newsom, who opposes the wealth tax, was still telling people about the lengthy exchange at the party months later, complaining of a lingering cold the pair had given him, according to the people, who asked not to be named discussing private conversations with the governor. -Bloomberg
Brin followed through: he relocated to Nevada ahead of the tax’s residency cutoff, purchasing a $42 million lakeside mansion on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe. He has since poured more than $58 million into political efforts over the past four months, becoming the largest donor to the group Building a Better California, which is dedicated to fighting the wealth tax and pushing pro-business policies. His move and massive spending have become a symbol - if not entirely representative - of a broader anxiety rippling through California’s economic base. The concern isn’t just that billionaires might leave. It’s what happens if they do.
Also his wellness-influencer girlfriend (Gilbert-Soto) is pretty hot.
California’s tax structure is unusually dependent on its wealthiest residents. Even a small number of departures can create outsized revenue swings. Analysts have warned the proposed tax could generate “tens of billions” in the short term-but also risk long-term losses if it accelerates outmigration. Gov. Gavin Newsom has echoed that warning, opposing the measure on the grounds that it could destabilize the state’s already volatile revenue system.
That leaves California facing a paradox increasingly common in blue-state fiscal policy: a push to extract more from the ultrawealthy, paired with a growing dependence on keeping them in place. Supporters argue the stakes justify the risk. The tax is designed to offset federal healthcare cuts projected to cost the state more than $28 billion annually and leave millions without coverage.
“This did not start as a political statement about rising inequality ,” said union leaders backing the measure. “We are simply trying to solve a huge and immediate problem. ”
But opponents say the mechanism matters as much as the goal. Their central warning is that once the state normalizes wealth-based taxation through a flexible statutory framework, the definition of “wealthy” can shift. Today that threshold is $1 billion. Tomorrow, critics argue, it could be far lower-especially in a legislature empowered to act without returning to voters.
What a mess...
Tyler Durden Sun, 04/26/2026 - 22:35 Close Mon, 27 Apr 2026 01:45:00 +0000 SBA Sends 562k Pandemic Loans To Bessent For Collections Totaling $22 Billion
SBA Sends 562k Pandemic Loans To Bessent For Collections Totaling $22 Billion
The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has announced a sweeping enforcement action targeting suspected pandemic-era loan fraud , ref
Read more.....
SBA Sends 562k Pandemic Loans To Bessent For Collections Totaling $22 Billion
The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has announced a sweeping enforcement action targeting suspected pandemic-era loan fraud , referring more than 562,000 borrowers tied to $22.2 billion in delinquent loans to the U.S. Department of the Treasury for collection , according to the Small Business Association . The move marks the largest referral package in the agency’s history and signals a major escalation in federal efforts to recover funds distributed through COVID-19 relief programs.
The loans in question stem from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and COVID Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) initiatives, which were designed to support small businesses during the pandemic. According to the SBA, these loans had already been flagged for potential fraud in prior years but were not previously sent for collection or investigation.
Now, in coordination with the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, the SBA has not only referred these debts to Treasury but also transmitted borrower information to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for potential legal action . Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service will begin collection efforts immediately.
"The SBA has transmitted the borrowers to the DOJ . And with today's referral, Treasury will begin collecting on the outstanding debt as part of the Trump Administration's commitment to recouping stolen pandemic-era funds on behalf of American taxpayers and small business owners," the agency wrote in a press release .
Loeffler stated, "From Day One, the Trump SBA has worked tirelessly to crack down on billions in pandemic-era fraud that the Biden Administration forgave or ignored."
"After extensive review, and with the strong support of the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, we are taking our most decisive action yet to end a Biden-era scheme that protected over 560,000 borrowers tied to more than $22 billion in suspected pandemic-era fraud," she continued.
Loeffler's crusade to root out fraud, waste, and abuse was evident earlier this year when her team terminated hundreds of firms from the nation's largest DEI program , otherwise known as the 8(a) Business Development Program. These firms were terminated for failing to comply with the SBA's order to turn over three years' worth of financial documents for review. The companies were allegedly involved in DEI fraud as business pass-throughs.
Separately, the SBA has introduced new anti-fraud controls, including citizenship and birthdate verification, and launched a state-by-state probe into pandemic-era loan fraud. The agency has suspended nearly 112,000 borrowers in California and Minnesota suspected of obtaining fraudulent loans.
The Biden administration's failure to crack down on billions in pandemic-era fraud raises serious questions.
Tyler Durden Sun, 04/26/2026 - 21:45 Close Mon, 27 Apr 2026 01:20:00 +0000 The Reality Behind US-Iran Negotiations
The Reality Behind US-Iran Negotiations
The Reality Behind US-Iran Negotiations
Authored by Bryan Brulotte via The Epoch Times,
The current negotiations between the United States and Iran are being misread as a chaotic exercise in brinkmanship. They are not. They are the predictable endgame of a contest in which leverage has shifted decisively, and in which one side is now negotiating under constraints it can no longer escape.
Strip away the theatrics, and the picture becomes clear. Iran attempted to weaponize the Strait of Hormuz, calculating that disruption of global energy flows would fracture Western resolve and force Washington into concession. That calculation has failed. The United States has imposed sustained economic and maritime pressure, degrading Iran’s ability to monetize its oil and constraining its room for maneuver. Although Tehran retains the capacity to harass shipping, it no longer controls the strategic environment.
Much of the commentary has focused on President Donald Trump’s negotiating style; his deadlines, his threats, his reversals. This misses the point. Style is not strategy. Outcomes are. And the outcome, to date, is that Iran has been compelled back toward negotiations while publicly insisting it will not negotiate under pressure. That contradiction is not a sign of strength. It is evidence of it eroding.
Iran is not negotiating from parity. It is negotiating from a position of weakness. This is not to suggest the regime is on the verge of collapse. It is not, but it is under strain: economic, military, and internal. The fragmentation within Tehran’s leadership, between hardliners and more pragmatic elements, further complicates its ability to act coherently. That raises a critical question for any agreement: who, precisely, can commit the Iranian state, and who can enforce compliance?
Absent clarity on that point, any deal risks becoming performative. What is emerging, however, is a familiar and realistic framework. Constraints on uranium enrichment. Disposition of existing stockpiles. Monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Conditional sanctions relief. Limited provisions on missile activity and regional proxies. This will not be a transformative agreement. It will be a containment outcome, but that is not a weakness—it is the correct objective.
There is a persistent tendency in Western analysis to overstate what diplomacy can achieve with regimes that define themselves in opposition to the international order. Iran is not negotiating to become a liberal partner. It is negotiating to survive. The United States is not negotiating to normalize Iran. It is negotiating to constrain it. Those aims can intersect, but they will not converge.
The more serious issue lies elsewhere. The current negotiations are narrowly framed around nuclear thresholds, but the strategic risk extends beyond centrifuges. Iran has demonstrated that it can impose global costs through maritime disruption. Even limited interference in Hormuz reverberates through energy markets, supply chains, and inflation. A durable settlement must therefore address freedom of navigation as a core security issue, not a peripheral one.
This requires more than bilateral understandings. It requires a credible enforcement mechanism, ideally with an international dimension, that removes ambiguity about consequences. The absence of such a framework invites repetition of the current cycle: provocation, response, negotiation, relapse. That cycle is not stability. It is managed volatility.
It is also necessary to dispense with illusions about allied coherence. The Western response has been uneven. Some partners have equivocated. Others have postured. Few have demonstrated the operational seriousness required in a moment where global energy security and regional order are directly at stake. This is not a peripheral observation. It goes to the credibility of collective security arrangements in a more contested world. Against that backdrop, the United States has done what serious powers do. It has applied pressure, maintained optionality, and forced a narrowing of choices on its adversary. That does not guarantee success, but it is the precondition for it.
Negotiations conducted without leverage are exercises in self-deception. The path forward is therefore clear, if not easy. Iran can accept verifiable constraints on its nuclear program, curtail its destabilizing regional conduct, and regain access to the global economy under defined terms. Or it can continue to absorb economic attrition and strategic isolation under conditions it cannot indefinitely sustain. That is the choice.
Peace, if it comes, will not be the product of goodwill or rhetorical restraint. It will be the product of pressure, clarity, and enforcement. That is how durable agreements are made and how serious states behave. The outcome will not be determined at the table, but by the balance of power behind it.
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 Sun, 04/26/2026 - 21:20 Close Mon, 27 Apr 2026 00:55:00 +0000 Ilhan Omar Probe Expands Into Hubby's $30M Of Shady Biz Deals In Kenya, Dubai And Somalia
Ilhan Omar Probe Expands Into Hubby's $30M Of Shady Biz Deals In Kenya, Dubai And Somalia
House Oversight Chairman James Comer is cranking the investigation into Rep. Ilhan Omar’s husband, Tim Mynett, into overdrive - Read more.....
Ilhan Omar Probe Expands Into Hubby's $30M Of Shady Biz Deals In Kenya, Dubai And Somalia
House Oversight Chairman James Comer is cranking the investigation into Rep. Ilhan Omar’s husband, Tim Mynett, into overdrive - demanding a full accounting of shadowy international business trips and deals that stretch from the Horn of Africa straight into Kenya, Somalia and the glittering skyscrapers of Dubai.
Omar has been making strange moves since February, after Comer fired off a no-holds-barred letter demanding every document and communication on Mynett’s travel and business dealings in Kenya, Somalia and the UAE. Since then, the story has exploded again with several stunning new twists: Omar quietly amended her 2024 financial disclosure in late March, slashing the reported $30 million fortune down to nearly zero ; just nine days later, on April 4, the California winery central to those valuations was officially dissolved; forensic accountants have publicly torn into the revised numbers for major inconsistencies.
The Feb. 5 letter ordered Mynett - president of Rose Lake Capital LLC and co-owner of the now-defunct eStCru LLC winery - to hand over every record related to travel or business solicitation in those three countries. The Feb. 19 deadline came and went with no public confirmation that Mynett ever complied.
Omar’s original 2024 disclosure, filed in May 2025, showed the two firms exploding in value from a combined $51,000 in 2023 to as much as $30 million the following year . Rose Lake Capital was listed between $5 million and $25 million; the winery sat between $1 million and $5 million. Then came the late-March amendment, in which Omar blamed an accountant’s error in netting out liabilities. The companies’ reported net value was wiped to zero and the couple’s total household assets were slashed to between $18,004 and $95,000.
Nine days after that amendment, California business records show eStCru LLC was officially terminated and dissolved on April 4 . The winery had never owned a vineyard, tasting room or major production equipment. It produced only tiny batches at a shared custom-crush facility, had no active phone line and went dark on social media years ago. It was already dogged by investor lawsuits alleging fraud. One Washington, D.C., restaurateur, Naeem Mohd, claimed he invested roughly $300,000 after being promised a 200% return in 18 months - plus 10% monthly interest if late. A separate cannabis-related venture involving Mynett’s partner William Hailer ended in a roughly $1.2 million settlement after investors accused the duo of misappropriating funds.
According to Comer's letter, Rose Lake Capital had marketed itself as a globe-trotting player with "deep global networks" built from on-the-ground work in more than 80 countries. Its website - later scrubbed of officer and advisor names, including former diplomats - hyped sustainable investments and solar-panel projects across Africa. One partner reportedly received a $10,699 business-class ticket to Dubai for deal discussions. The firm once claimed to manage $60 billion in assets - an eye-popping figure for a company that, according to earlier disclosures, had less than $1,000 in the bank in 2023.
Because of this, "unknown individuals may be investing to gain influence" with Omar. The timing has fueled even more suspicion: the reported wealth spike overlapped with the massive social-services fraud scandals ripping through Minnesota’s Somali-American community - the heart of Omar’s district - where authorities allege billions in taxpayer dollars were looted through fake daycare and nutrition programs.
Mynett’s past adds another layer. Before launching these ventures, he and partner Hailer ran E Street Group, a political consulting firm that pulled in nearly $3 million from Omar’s own congressional campaigns. Former associates described the pair as well-connected Democratic insiders.
Omar’s office has dismissed the entire inquiry as a "political stunt" and "smear campaign." Mynett has not responded publicly to the document demands or the sudden shutdown of the winery.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly called for Omar to face criminal charges, linking her to what he claims is up to $2.5 trillion in Minnesota welfare fraud - a figure he has offered without direct evidence tying her personally to the full scale of the scandal.
As of April 26, 2026, the $30 million paper fortune has evaporated on paper, the vineyard is legally gone, and the international paper trail now leads from a quiet Sonoma wine label straight into East Africa and Dubai. The House Ethics Committee has the ball, Comer shows no signs of letting go, and citizen sleuths continue digging through the disclosures.
Whether this was a spectacular (if suspiciously timed) business success, a simple accounting blunder, or something far more troubling is the question lawmakers - and the public - now demand answered. The money trail is global. The clock is ticking. And the spotlight is burning brighter than ever.
* * * New ranch | Wagyu | Hotdogs (40)
Tyler Durden Sun, 04/26/2026 - 20:55 Close Mon, 27 Apr 2026 00:05:00 +0000 Maine Governor Vetos Data Center Moratorium, Citing Job Creation And Economic Growth
Maine Governor Vetos Data Center Moratorium, Citing Job Creation And Economic Growth
Maine Governor Janet Mills has vetoed a bill that would have temporarily limited the development of large data centers across Maine, despite expres
Read more.....
Maine Governor Vetos Data Center Moratorium, Citing Job Creation And Economic Growth
Maine Governor Janet Mills has vetoed a bill that would have temporarily limited the development of large data centers across Maine, despite expressing support for a broader pause on such projects, according to Maine's website .
The governor said she would have approved the legislation if it had included an exemption for a $550 million data center redevelopment already underway at the former Androscoggin Mill in Jay, a project backed by local officials and seen as critical to economic recovery in the region.
Mills emphasized that while a moratorium makes sense due to concerns about environmental impact and rising electricity costs seen in other states, the bill in its final form failed to account for the Jay project’s potential benefits. The redevelopment is expected to bring hundreds of construction jobs, create at least 100 permanent positions, and restore a major portion of the town’s lost tax base following the mill’s closure in 2023.
The site says that Mills plans to move forward with an executive order to study the impact of large-scale data centers in Maine. She also signed separate legislation barring such projects from receiving state business tax incentives, signaling a cautious but measured approach to managing the industry’s growth.
“A moratorium is appropriate given the impacts of massive data centers in other states on the environment and on electricity rates. But the final version of this bill fails to allow for a specific project in the Town of Jay that enjoys strong local support from its host community and region,” she wrote.
“The 2023 closure of the Androscoggin Mill dealt a devastating blow to the Town of Jay and its surrounding area. As a long-time resident of Franklin County, I know well how critical the mill was to generations of working families, and how important it is – and how challenging it has been – to promote reinvestment and job-creation at the former mill which is a brownfield site. After prior redevelopment efforts failed, the Town of Jay worked for two years on a $550 million data center redevelopment project to finally bring jobs and investment back to the mill site.”
“I believe it necessary and important to examine and plan for the potential impacts of large-scale data centers in Maine, as the use of artificial intelligence becomes more widespread. Given the serious conversations about data centers here and around the country, I believe this work should commence without delay,” she concluded.
Meanwhile we wrote last week that the outlook for the US AI revolution looks increasingly more dim.
That's because, as Canaccord Genuity analyst George Gianarikas writes, "the American data center boom is hitting a formidable wall of logistical friction." He is referring to the latest outlook by Sightline Climate , which is also reinforced by recent articles from Bloomberg and others, and reveals a sobering reality for 2026: nearly half of the nation's planned 16-gigawatt capacity faces cancellation or delay, with only 5 gigawatts currently under construction.
This inertia stems from a volatile mix of local permitting hurdles, community resistance, and a desperate reliance on overextended global supply chains for critical components like transformers and helium.
That's right: half. Despite $700BN+ of expected 2026 hyperscaler capex, nearly half of the data centers scheduled to begin operations in the US in 2026 "will either face delays or outright cancellations."
The data, which comes from Sightline Climate's 2026 Data Center Outlook , suggests that just 30% - 50% of the ~16 GW of planned US capacity for the year will face risks, with only ~5 GW currently under construction!
* * * Know what's not a massive bitch?
This 2.5lb Tomahawk Steak
Tyler Durden Sun, 04/26/2026 - 20:05 Close
Dotsquares