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Why CPI Ignores Homes, Stocks, And The Cost Of Getting Ahead

Tyler Durden — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:55:00 +0000

Why CPI Ignores Homes, Stocks, And The Cost Of Getting Ahead

Authored by Karl-Friedrich Israel via The Daily Economy,

The median-priced home in America now costs $440,600, while the median household earns roughly $84,000 a year. That gap has left a growing share of Americans priced out of buying altogether, while those who already own homes and hold stocks have watched their wealth compound. The renter-owner wealth gap is now the widest on record. Meanwhile, equity markets keep setting new highs. None of this, officially, counts as inflation.

In a previous piece, I explained that the Consumer Price Index leaves out a large and growing share of what households are really forced to pay for: government spending financed by taxes rather than purchased voluntarily on markets. That is one CPI blind spot. There is a second, and it is arguably more consequential for how Americans experience economic reality. The price of stocks, homes, and other assets essentially does not appear at all in conventional inflation measures.

Why Asset Prices Fall Outside The CPI

The reason again traces back to the index-number theory Gottfried Haberler laid out in Vienna in 1927, which I've written about elsewhere. Haberler showed that the standard price indices economists use - Laspeyres and Paasche, and averages of the two - can be trusted as measures of an individual's true cost of living only under a specific set of assumptions about that individual. One of those unstated assumptions is that the individual is a pure consumer: someone who spends the whole of their income on present consumption, full stop. No saving. No portfolio. No home, or even portion of a home, purchased as an investment rather than simply a place to live.

That assumption is a reasonable simplification for the sake of theoretical tractability. It is also the reason a stock portfolio or a home's resale value has no place in a cost-of-living index built on Haberler's logic. The CPI does track shelter, but only through "owners' equivalent rent" - an estimate of what it would cost to rent the service flow of a home, not the price of the home as an asset. Equities do not enter the index in any form. A pure consumer, by design, does not hold assets. An index built for a pure consumer has nothing to say about what happens to their prices.

A Reasonable Exclusion With A Widening Consequence

That exclusion made the CPI theoretically coherent - it's meant to measure consumer spending, after all. It also means that some of the fastest price inflation in the American economy over the past three decades has been completely invisible to the number the Federal Reserve targets (the PCE price index) and the media reports (the CPI).

Since 1995, the S&P 500 has compounded at roughly 9.2 percent a year (15x) and home prices, as measured by the Case-Shiller index, at about 4.7 percent a year (4x). The CPI, over the same period, rose about 2.6 percent a year (2.2x). Stocks have outrun consumer prices by a factor of more than three; home prices, by nearly two. The CPI alone has no way of seeing any of these inflationary pressures - not the run-up in home prices that has priced many younger Americans out of the market, nor the equity gains flowing overwhelmingly to households that already owned assets before the run-up began.

Why Assets, In Particular?

If asset prices simply drifted upward for reasons unrelated to monetary policy, and the PCE's and CPI's exclusion of them was a harmless accident, we might more easily excuse CPI's shortcomings. But there is a plausible monetary explanation for why the exclusion has mattered so much specifically since the mid-1990s.

If money were neutral and its growth simply distributed itself proportionally across real output growth and consumer price inflation, the M2 money supply should grow at roughly the sum of real GDP growth and CPI inflation over time. We can check that directly: take average M2 growth and subtract the sum of average real GDP growth and average CPI growth, before and after 1995.

From 1959 through 1994, M2 grew at 7.2 percent a year, against real GDP growth of 3.5 percent and CPI inflation of 4.7 percent - a combined 8.2 percent. The gap was slightly negative: roughly 1.0 percentage point a year. Money growth, if anything, ran a bit behind the pace of real economic growth and consumer price inflation combined.

Since 1995, the picture flips. M2 has grown at 6.2 percent a year, while real GDP and the CPI have grown at 2.5 percent per year each - a combined 5.0 percent. The gap is now a positive 1.2 percentage points a year, a swing of roughly two full points from the prior 35 years.

That is not a rounding error compounding harmlessly in the background. Over three decades, a persistent 1.2-point annual gap compounds into a very large sum of money that was created by government, but not absorbed by real output growth. By definition, it did not show up as measured consumer price inflation.

Money Is Not Neutral

Additional money does not raise every price by the same proportion, leaving the underlying structure of the economy untouched. It enters the economy at specific points - through banks, credit markets, and the institutions that first receive newly created liquidity - and its effects ripple outward unevenly from there. By the time new money reaches the people, higher prices have already consumed its extra value. Austrian economists, like Haberler's contemporary Friedrich Hayek, have long described this with the Cantillon effect. In an economy where basic consumption needs are largely saturated for a large share of households, additional liquidity is more likely to flow into savings and investment vehicles, such as stocks and real estate, than into proportionally higher demand for groceries and clothing.

That is precisely the pattern in the data. The monetary overhang that opened up after 1995 lines up closely with the period over which stocks and home prices pulled away from the CPI. None of this proves a single, simple causal explanation. Asset prices respond to many forces, from productivity growth to demographics to global capital flows. But a persistent, multi-decade gap between money creation on the one hand and real growth plus consumer price inflation on the other is exactly the kind of monetary overhang that should show up somewhere. In a consumption-saturated economy, the most likely place for it to show up is in the price of the assets the CPI was never built to measure.

That leaves conventional inflation measures with two blind spots stacked on top of each other. The CPI omits the government-financed consumption taxpayers cannot opt out of, and it omits the asset-price inflation driving the widening gap between those who already own homes and stocks and those still trying to buy in. Neither omission is a flaw in how the CPI is calculated. Both are consequences of what the CPI was, by its own underlying economic theory, never designed to measure.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/16/2026 - 20:55

Lavrov Warns That If NATO Attacked Russia, War Would Be "Very Short"

Tyler Durden — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:30:00 +0000

Lavrov Warns That If NATO Attacked Russia, War Would Be "Very Short"

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has again responded to allegations of European officials that Moscow seeks to expand the war beyond Ukraine.

We earlier detailed how recent drone spillover from the conflict, including explosive-laden drones coming out of Belarusian territory and threatening the Baltics, has resulted in Western officials increasingly alluding to NATO 'collective defense'.

This is highly dangerous as it means the situation could rapidly escalate into full-blown Russia-NATO direct confrontation on the basis of a single aircraft shootdown.

In his fresh remarks from Ekaterinburg, Russia - where he was addressing the International Youth Festival on Wednesday, FM Lavrov made clear that Russia has not intent of ever attacking Europe.

Kremlin file image: FM Sergey Lavrov

But he coupled the statement with a very severe and ominous warning, that could have nuclear implications.

"I would like to emphasize that we have no interest in engaging in this [attacking Europe], but if Europe, which is talking about preparing for war against Russia on a daily basis, attacks Russia, it will be a completely different war, and it will be very short," Lavrov said in remarks translated by national media.

According to more:

The minister also expressed the hope that Europe had heard the warning about a short war in the event of an attack on Russia.

Sergey Lavrov expressed doubts regarding the idea that the world is being governed based solely on agreements between the United States and China, noting that China has a completely different approach to global affairs.

Again, though not expressly stated, Lavrov's warning hints a using nuclear weapons - given the emphasis on such a conflict being "short".

Reading between the lines, he is saying that while Russia doesn't want to go to war with Europe, the only scenario where that would be possible is if Russia is under direct attack and deems its existential survival at stake. Such a thresh-hold reached would likely justify use of strategic forces if President Putin made the decision.

What's different or curious about the veiled Lavrov warning is that it is typically the 'hawk' Dmitry Medvedev making them. The former Russian president and current Deputy Chairman of the Security Council is typically the one making such maximalist warnings.

All of this suggests the Kremlin sees escalation with NATO in the atmosphere, which it authentically doesn't seem to want.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/16/2026 - 20:30

Bill Gates Calls For Globalist Crackdown On AI

Tyler Durden — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:05:00 +0000

Bill Gates Calls For Globalist Crackdown On AI

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

Bill Gates has a new emergency. With the climate apocalypse no longer selling, the Microsoft co-founder is touring the press circuit warning that artificial intelligence is an "alien intelligence," that no government on earth is ready for it, and that the only fix is an international organization to police the technology.

President Trump has already rejected the pause. The left, the globalist class, Beijing's spy chief, and now a Sundance-to-Netflix documentary are all at once selling the same story.

In a Reuters interview published Tuesday, Gates said no capital is prepared for what is coming. "I don't think any government is nearly as deep on this as they have to be," he told the outlet. "Governments are way behind on this one."

Bill Gates Calls for an 'International Organization' to Regulate AI

"It's not the role of the industry to self-regulate or understand the whole-of-society impact that comes out of AI ... The depth of understanding of AI ... is too low in every entity, including the government." pic.twitter.com/y85BgPDDJ6
— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) September 15, 2026

He compared AI to a Hollywood invasion plot in which Washington and Beijing suddenly hold hands. "There's all sorts of movies where some aliens are coming, and magically the US and China and everybody comes together to solve the problem," Gates said. "AI is kind of like this alien intelligence. It's here, and we better do like it shows in those movies."

The New York Post framed it as a "terrifying warning." Forbes led with the line Gates attached to his foundation's Goalkeepers report: left to the market, "AI will be designed by and for the richest people in the world."

Bill Gates Warns AI Will Be Designed 'By And For The Richest' Without Regulationhttps://t.co/DXTP4Qjbn5 pic.twitter.com/HKYEuyCQXb
— Forbes (@Forbes) September 15, 2026

He wrote that AI could be "a great equalizer - or widen the gap," and that choices made in "the next 12 to 18 months" will decide whether the tools "benefit the people who already have the most or reach those who have the least." He added that the good outcome "won't happen by accident."

On The Times Tech Pod, Gates went further and called for a dedicated global apparatus. Industry, he said, should not be trusted to police itself. "It's not the role of the industry to self-regulate or understand the whole-of-society impact that comes out of AI," he argued. "The depth of understanding of AI ... is too low in every entity, including the government."

In a late-August essay, Gates wrote that "the transition to the AI era will be one of the most turbulent times in human history" and that "unfortunately, right now, we are not preparing for it."

He floated a new international organization built from pieces of nuclear inspections, aviation rules, and ozone treaties - a permanent cross-border watchdog for a technology American labs still lead. He has been pitching the same idea to Trump's team and says he wants a meeting with China's Xi Jinping later this year.

This guy just wants global authoritarianism

He tries it however he can

Climate, health, now AI
— The Individual (@Tweet137188103) September 15, 2026

While Gates talks crisis, his foundation is writing checks to expand the thing. On Tuesday the Gates Foundation pledged at least $1 billion over two years to spread AI in education, health, and agriculture - 40 percent tutoring and classroom tools, 40 percent diagnostics and drug discovery, the rest farming advice and the data layer that makes models work in languages other than English. The money sits inside a previously announced $9 billion-a-year spend.

David Sirota caught the split in one line.

Bill Gates is warning about the dangers of AI while spending $1 billion to promote the expansion of AI pic.twitter.com/sjgvEalB4r
— David Sirota (@davidsirota) September 15, 2026

That is the move. Sound the alarm. Demand a global referee. Keep a foundation-sized stake in the rollout.

This is not Gates' first end-of-the-world product. For years he sold net-zero as civilization's last exit - fewer cows, fake meat, the whole ritual. Then the data-center boom needed power, lots of it, and last October he allowed that climate change "won't lead to humanity's demise." Trump treated the climbdown as a concession speech. "I (WE!) just won the War on the Climate Change Hoax," he wrote. "Bill Gates has finally admitted that he was completely WRONG on the issue. It took courage to do so, and for that we are all grateful. MAGA!!!"

The scare apparatus was not retired. Once everyone realised the planet was not going to cook on schedule, the same network needed a replacement threat big enough to justify treaties, inspectors, and "international coordination."

AI arrived on cue: jobs, cyberattacks, companions, bioterror, "loss of control." All of it real enough to discuss. None of it a license to park American development under a UN-flavored commission while Beijing keeps shipping cheap open-weight models.

The entertainment wing has added its own contribution in the same news cycle. Netflix has just put up The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist, the Sundance premiere from Oscar-winner Daniel Roher (Navalny) and Charlie Tyrell. The film sits Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, Demis Hassabis, Reid Hoffman, Yuval Noah Harari, and the usual "humane tech" chorus in front of a camera and walks the audience through impending AI dread dressed up as a father-to-be's anxiety.

One of the producers said the hope was that it would work "kind of like 'An Inconvenient Truth' or 'The Social Dilemma' for AI." That is the tell. Same template. New monster.

Want to understand how propaganda works?

Tomorrow, Netflix premieres The AI Doc starring Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, and also Reid Hoffman. ?

The topic? Impending doom about AI.

The movie was launched by Sundance Festival in February. Yup. The Sundance Documentary Program... pic.twitter.com/0BEGcjsLsJ
— Erikaaa (@ErikaCA47) September 15, 2026

The film premiered at Sundance in January, played theaters in March, and dropped on Netflix this week - the same week Gates, Obama's orbit, Bernie Sanders, and the lab CEOs were all pushing slowdown and supervision.

The Sundance Documentary Film Program was built with founding money from George Soros's Open Society Foundations. Users circulating the credits call the Netflix drop a globalist op.

When the policy class needs the public frightened into a pause, Hollywood still knows how to dim the lights.

Mass media has just launched one of the largest PSYOPs since COVID-19.

This time, it's the World Economic Forum's long-awaited "CYBER PANDEMIC." https://t.co/juLBRN0EfS pic.twitter.com/KRW39D0ZxL
— Nicolas Hulscher, MPH (@NicHulscher) September 15, 2026

Now I'm fully convinced this is a psyop https://t.co/3wJ63q73tB
— Sola Awodiya (@Solaawodiya) September 14, 2026

Over the weekend, Anthropic's Dario Amodei called on rivals to "pace the frontier." Sam Altman and Elon Musk backed the letter. Former researcher Jacob Coxon quit and said AI "could kill us all by the end of the decade."

? JUST IN: Elon Musk just said if Anthropic and OpenAI people are warning that the models are "very dangerous," we should believe them. Then he mocked the pitch. A 10 PERCENT chance of annihilating humanity... and how much of the IPO would you like?

Fox's guest nailed the real... pic.twitter.com/EWLbE1Rte3
— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) September 15, 2026

President Trump waved the pile-on off. The United States is "leading China in AI," he said. "Whoever wins AI, wins." A lot of "very negative forces," he added, are "bringing up things that won't happen." Guardrails, fine. A pause, no. Asked about existential risk leaving Dallas, he shot back: "No, I don't have any."

Jesse Watters noted that the same CEOs are "begging for government regulations," while claiming the tech is more powerful than a nuclear weapon and could wipe everyone out in three years. Then the obvious question: if they are that terrified of their own product, why do they need politicians to slow it down for them? "Something smells fishy with these IPOs."

? WOW: AI CEO's are BEGGING for government regulations! ??

They claim AI is more powerful than a nuclear weapon and could kill us all in 3 years.

But why do they need politicians to slow it down? Something smells fishy with these IPOs! ?? pic.twitter.com/UVsEsZOrUN
— Jesse Watters (@JesseBWatters) September 14, 2026

David Sacks named the shakedown. OpenAI and Anthropic are the frontier. If their unreleased models are too hot, they can simply not ship them. Demanding antitrust waivers, embedded evaluators, and a regulatory architecture as the price of restraint, he wrote, "will look like blackmail of the public and the political system."

Regulation written by the incumbents does not save humanity. It freezes the ladder so the next lab never climbs it - right as those same firms eye public markets.

Barack Obama took the other door. At a Manhattan fundraiser he told Hakeem Jeffries that if Democrats win the House they should make AI a governing project. "Once you are speaker, I would strongly urge that the Democrats put together a framework for a very public conversation."

Then: "This is something that is moving very fast in private hands, and if we don't get on top of it, I think can be dangerous." Jeffries saluted on command. "President Obama is correct that decisive action must be taken on artificial intelligence... Republicans have abdicated their responsibility... We will not repeat their error."

Bernie Sanders has been running the same play for weeks: pause advanced development, permanently ban superintelligence, and get Trump and Xi to sign a treaty. On Tuesday, at a Washington "Pro-Human Assembly," he said a runaway system "will not be an American problem. It will not be a Chinese problem. It will be humanity's problem," and he again demanded a comprehensive pause-and-ban deal at the coming Trump - Xi meeting.

That is the globalist package in one stack: slow the American frontier, internationalize the rules, and call it safety.

Then China's ministry of state security walked into the same conversation. Chen Yixin, Beijing's top spy chief, used the state-run magazine China Cyberspace to warn that AI is "directly threatening our political security, institutional security, and ideological security."

He called for tighter Party control and stricter government oversight. Hostile forces, he wrote, "abuse generative artificial intelligence technologies... to fabricate political rumors, spread harmful information, and incite confrontational sentiments at low cost and in large quantities."

?? BREAKING - Here we go. Now China's top spy chief is warning about the dangers of AI and calling for greater government oversight...

All while China is using Anthropic's AI, Claude, to develop weapons and spy on America. It's like China was behind this ALL ALONG...

He is... pic.twitter.com/Y6Ti1nf3Fd
— The Patriot Oasis™ (@ThePatriotOasis) September 15, 2026

He named American models - Anthropic's Claude Mythos and OpenAI's GPT-5.5-Cyber - as a "disruptive upgrade" in cyber capability, and billed AI as "a new arena for strategic rivalry among major powers."

He is not asking America to pause so the world can be safe. He is asking the Party to lock down speech, data, and "ideological security" at home while Western executives and Democratic politicians talk themselves into a slowdown.

Days earlier, Anthropic's own threat report said China-linked actors had already used Claude for weapons software and intelligence work the company then banned: an electronic-warfare and air-defense suite whose simulation was expanded to twelve targets in Taiwan; research into foreign high-power microwave weapons; and domestic surveillance pipelines that collapse "many teams of analysts" into a single office producing thousands of investigations a month.

Anthropic publishes an alarming new report saying it blocked several possible attempts to use its AI models to develop biological weapons

"Anthropic says a lab outside the US gained access to Claude from an unsupported region, using the model to help research a highly pathogenic... pic.twitter.com/0ngckQbOB2
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) September 15, 2026

Chinese labs, Anthropic said, also tried to strip Claude's capabilities to feed their own models. Beijing's foreign ministry shrugged that it was "not aware" of the report and opposed "smears."

So the sequence is simple. China runs Western models for weapons and control. China's spy chief then lectures the world about AI danger and Party oversight. Gates wants a global body. Sanders wants a Trump - Xi treaty. Obama wants Democrats to "get on top of it." Netflix wants you crying on the couch. The CEOs want a rulebook that just happens to protect their lead.

America does not need Bill Gates' alien-movie summit, Chen Yixin's definition of safety, or another Inconvenient Truth with better animation. It needs the thing Trump already said out loud. Win the race.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/16/2026 - 20:05

Vance Seeks To Assure Trump Base Iran War Entering "Much Different Phase"

Tyler Durden — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 23:40:00 +0000

Vance Seeks To Assure Trump Base Iran War Entering "Much Different Phase"

Vice President JD Vance - who was said to have opposed launching Operation Epic Fury from the beginning - has issued some fresh statements on the future of the Iran conflict which sound a bit off-rampy.

He could just be voicing his own wishful thinking, however, in proclaiming the conflict will soon enter "a much different phase" in the coming months. He still conceded that ultimately it's the Commander-in-Chief who decides when it will end (though it would be nice of Congress or the American people had a word).

via Reuters

President Trump had just last week stated his view that hostilities will wrap up after the November mid-term elections, and Vance appeared to try and defend the statement.

"We can’t predict the future, but I think the [US] President [Donald Trump] is right to say that this thing [the conflict in Iran - TASS] will enter a much different phase in a couple of months," he told New York Post in an interview.

Vance described that the US military had already completed the first phase, which the Vice President described as to "destroy the nuclear program" of Iran as well as "their conventional military."

"And then the second phase of this is ensure that they’re not able to rebuild and try to maintain as much global stability in the wake of that," he said.

But as far as destruction of conventional military, the Iranians have clearly been lobbing large quantities of ballistic missiles at US bases in Jordan, for example just earlier this month during the last flare-up in fighting. This occurred overnight from Sept.8-9, and saw Iran fire some 20 ballistic missiles.

As for "rebuilding" - well, Tehran is proudly and defiantly asserting that it is currently doing just that. According to The Wall Street Journal citing US officials a week ago:

Iran has resumed its production of ballistic missiles using stockpiled components and working in underground facilities, officials from the U.S. and Middle East familiar with the matter said, eroding what the U.S. and Israel have touted as a major achievement of the war.

Despite heavy attacks on its missile sites and industrial facilities during the initial phase of the war, Iran has been busy assembling liquid-propellant missiles, which have to be fueled just before launch, as well as solid-propellant missiles, which can be stored ready to fire, some of the officials said.

The US administration has repeatedly claimed to have destroyed or else severely set back Iran's advanced missile arsenal - and yet they keep on firing.

Read: Bombshell Leaks Seek To Distance 'Skeptical' JD Vance From Iran War

Below: As war expands, US scrambles to contain the fallout and damage, also after Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline was hit in a drone attack (out of either Iraq or possibly Yemen):

Vance says US is in direct contact with Yemen’s Houthis as well as with Saudi Arabia and the UAE over recent developments there pic.twitter.com/C1EM7Lmthn
— Joseph Haboush (@jhaboush) September 14, 2026

Many pundits have also pointed out that Iran's Islamic revolutionary government has essentially been preparing for this war with the US and Israel for several decades. And clearly Washington was woefully underprepared for the Iranian retaliation.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/16/2026 - 19:40

TikTok Mob Now Stalks Clancy Holdout Juror's Family

Tyler Durden — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 23:15:00 +0000

TikTok Mob Now Stalks Clancy Holdout Juror's Family

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

The same online machine that turned a confessed child killer into a cause has a new target. After hanging Lindsay Clancy's murder trial, the lone holdout juror's family says TikTok extremists have them trapped indoors, leaving notes at his mother's house and refusing to let them live in peace.

The juror's brother told the New York Post that the family's life has been flipped over since the September 4 mistrial in Plymouth, Massachusetts. He rejected the claim that Catholic faith drove the holdout vote.

"I don't think religion had anything to do with it," he said. "He looked at the case, and he made the call. For me, that's how I would do it. I would just listen to the case with all the evidence, and go from there."

NEW: The family of the holdout juror in the Lindsay Clancy trial says they are being harassed by TikTok extremists following the trial, according to the New York Post.

The holdout juror's brother says his Catholic faith didn't override his judgment in the trial and that they... pic.twitter.com/D86e1kOMZu
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) September 15, 2026

"My family cannot leave the house," the brother said. "They are leaving notes at my mother's house. They won't leave us alone, and we don't know anything."

He added that none of them even knew their relative was on the jury until after the verdict collapsed. "We didn't know. That's why I was shocked. He didn't tell us anything."

NEW DETAILS: The brother of the lone holdout juror in the Lindsay Clancy mistrial told the New York Post the family's life has been turned upside down. "My family cannot leave the house," he said. "They are leaving notes at my mother's house. They won't leave us alone."

"I don't... pic.twitter.com/Y9Jx3wLRCN
— RedWave Press (@RedWavePress) September 15, 2026

Clancy, 36, admitted strangling her children - Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and 8-month-old Callan - with exercise bands in the basement of the family's Duxbury home on January 24, 2023, while Patrick Clancy was out on an errand she had sent him on. She then cut her wrists and neck and jumped from a second-story window.

The defense never disputed the killings. Attorney Kevin Reddington argued postpartum psychosis and no criminal responsibility. Prosecutors said she cleared the house, chose a method that worked on the children, and chose a method for herself that failed.

After 21 days of testimony, more than 80 witnesses, and nearly 40 hours of deliberations, the panel split 11-1. Judge William Sullivan declared a mistrial. District Attorney Tim Cruz has a status hearing set for September 29 on whether to retry.

Reddington blamed the holdout in public. "They know they were robbed by one man, for whatever his agenda was," he said. "I hope that guy can sleep well at night."

Fellow jurors have since gone on television to attack him. One described wrapping an exercise band around a water bottle in the deliberation room. Others said he would not "follow the law" on reasonable doubt. What they will not say is the simpler point: one juror would not treat the strangling of three children as a medical event.

A GiveSendGo launched for security, lawyers, and lost work shot past $80,000 and, according to the Post, raced toward six figures. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis offered the juror "asylum" if the harassment continued. "A man objected to allowing a woman to kill her three young kids and get away with it, so NBC is trying to smear that juror," DeSantis wrote.

as we previously highlighted, during the trial hundreds of women in pink have been gathering outside Plymouth Superior Court for a "Stand in Peace." They cheered Clancy's transport. Organizer Renee Kimball said, "I think that every one of us women believe that it could be any one of us." Another supporter put it on camera: "It could be me."

The same cohort poured money into a GoFundMe for Clancy's parents that raced toward seven figures. TikTok mothers filmed themselves "relating" to the confessed killer while holding their own infants. Some insisted Patrick must have done it - in spite of Lindsay's admissions, her lawyer's opening, the 911 tape, and the civil lawsuit that says she killed the children.

That inversion did not stay on the internet.

Patrick Clancy sat through the trial as the prosecution's first witness. He described coming home with food and medicine to find his children gone. He has said he forgives Lindsay and calls her ill rather than evil.

His reward has been a smear campaign claiming he was involved. Attorney Howard Cooper of Todd & Weld called it "a relentless, escalating and destructive defamation campaign" driven by "minor celebrities, so-called influencers and outright conspiracy theorists."

"This campaign, now fueled by insatiable media coverage, remains at a fever pitch and has resulted in real-life threats to his reputation, livelihood, and life," Cooper said. "Enough is enough - this spread of blatant and baseless falsehoods must stop." Law enforcement has been notified.

Attorney David Meier said after the mistrial: "The loss of Patrick's children is something from which he will never recover and from which there will never be closure. The prospect of reliving this tragedy through another trial is extraordinarily painful."

While the Clancy jury was still out, Corie Walsh of Frankfort, Illinois, hanged her 2-year-old son, Barrett, from a basement rafter. She told police the boy was the "devil" and the "anti-Christ." Witnesses said she had become "very invested" in the Clancy trial and was still texting friends about it hours before the child was found.

Her lawyer, Andrea Lyon, reached for the same line the pink shirts have been rehearsing: "It is also a tragedy in that Corey herself was experiencing a psychotic episode at the time this happened." Prosecutors said she spoke of harming the remaining children and her husband.

Rep. Nancy Mace, speaking to TMZ DC, called Clancy a "serial killer" and said the country should watch the penalty.

"Her children are dead. She should be dead too," she said. "She should get the death penalty. It should be public. It should be a public execution."

However, Massachusetts has not executed anyone since 1947. First-degree murder there is life without parole.

Reddington went on Good Morning America and asked President Trump to pardon his client. "Mr. President, I would hope that you would consider this young lady and the person she is, what she's been through, and consider a pardon," he said. A president cannot erase a Massachusetts murder case. Trump treated it as the state matter it is.

After the mistrial he said Clancy "did a horrible, horrible thing," that "there'll be a price," and that it would be "mental institution or jail or something." Asked again after the pardon plea, he said: "There is no winner there. There's no win no matter what you do. Three children are dead."

* * *

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/16/2026 - 19:15

DOJ Uses Never-Before-Used Terror Court to Deport Afghan Woman Over Election Day ISIS Plot

Tyler Durden — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 22:50:00 +0000

DOJ Uses Never-Before-Used Terror Court to Deport Afghan Woman Over Election Day ISIS Plot

The Justice Department has used a national-security court that sat unused for three decades to deport an Afghan woman from the United States who supported an ISIS-inspired plot to carry out a mass shooting on Election Day in 2024.

AG Todd Blanche

On Friday, officials announced that Nazira Haji Zada, 47, a permanent resident from Fort Worth, Texas, was kicked out from the country after admitting that she is an "alien terrorist."

Zada's removal is the first completed case in the history of the Alien Terrorist Removal Court, a specialized tribunal Congress created in 1996 and that no prior administration ever used.

Federal prosecutors said Zada was the family matriarch who supported a plot by her son, Abdullah Haji Zada, and son-in-law, Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, to carry out an ISIS-inspired mass shooting on or around Election Day 2024. The two men were arrested after buying firearms and ammunition from an undercover FBI employee. Abdullah, who was 17 at the time of arrest, later pleaded guilty as an adult and was sentenced to 15 years. Tawhedi pleaded guilty to terrorism charges and is awaiting sentencing.

Court records describe the family selling property, signing a contract to sell their house, and buying one-way tickets to Kabul, while the two men prepared to stay behind and attack. The government used classified information to establish Zada's terrorist status and provided her court-appointed lawyers with a massive document production. Zada appeared before ATRC Chief Judge Joan Ericksen, conceded the designation, and waived appeal. The removal order was signed August 20 and unsealed after she was already out of the country. Zada is now permanently barred from the U.S.

FBI Director Kash Patel hailed Zada's deportation, saying that an individual who supported a plot by ISIS-sympathizing relatives "has paid the price."

"This is a historic and vitally important step in our work to protect the U.S. homeland from terrorism," Patel said in a statement. "An individual who supported a plot by ISIS-sympathizing family members to commit an attack in America has paid the price for that. She came to our country, betrayed it, and has now lost the right to live here and enjoy our democratic freedoms. This FBI and our Justice Department partners will protect the American people from the threat of terrorism, using all means necessary."

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin also hailed the move.

"From the moment President Trump took office, he made clear that his Administration would put the safety and security of the American people first," said Mullin. "The President's direction to use the Alien Terrorist Removal Court to expel Nazira Haji Zada, an Afghan national who plotted with members of her family to carry out an ISIS-inspired attack on American soil, delivers on that promise. Thanks to the President's leadership and the coordinated efforts the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice and State, Nazira Haji Zada's final order of removal is now FINAL. Those who plot acts of terrorism against the United States have no place in our country. We will find them, and we will use every lawful tool available to remove them."

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/16/2026 - 18:50

Who Aligns The Aligners? Brief Legal Thoughts On The "AI Safety" Fights To Come

Tyler Durden — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 22:25:00 +0000

Who Aligns The Aligners? Brief Legal Thoughts On The "AI Safety" Fights To Come

Authored by Preston Byrne via Preston Byrne,

Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, has published an essay - We Must Pace The Frontier - in which he writes:

I have worked on AI for the last twelve years because I believe it could dramatically raise the quality of human life. I've written often about these incredible benefits: I believe that AI could cure most major diseases in the next 5-10 years, greatly accelerate economic growth rates, create a world of abundance and empowerment, and usher in a renaissance of democracy and freedom.

But - and there is always a but -

...like many technologies before it, AI brings risks, and because it is such a powerful technology, these risks are serious.

Those risks include, according to some, the complete destruction of the human race.

See, e.g., Eliezer Yudkowsky confidently asserting today that if we do not institute immediate global techno-communism, instituting draconian government control over speech and publication of a type never before seen in any Western society, we are all going to die:

There are currently zero things more important than "don't die to AI" becoming a bipartisan project rather than a Democrat-polarized issue. If you have any political capital you can spend on this, do it now, I beg of you. Life or death.
— Eliezer Yudkowsky ⏹️ (@ESYudkowsky) September 13, 2026

There is no evidence that this will happen. Some proponents of regulation tell us that the only response is the most extreme response available: total state control. There is no evidence that this response is correct, either. One could just as easily argue, hypothetically, that the government should force Anthropic to open-source its weights, so that everyone can have free, equal access to the latest model as a personal defense AI to protect themselves from cybersecurity risks from other AIs, a "Second Amendment for AI" if you will. In the alternative, if you really think AI is an extinction-level risk, it would seem to me that the only rational response to that position - if genuinely, truly held - is not "let governments run it" but rather to agree to destroy, by treaty, all modern computers and revert to 1970s technology in perpetuity.

There are myriad policy responses. Whatever we do, those responses will require popular consent and careful deliberation. No one person, or one company, or one movement, knows the answer and history is no guide, save that apocalyptic predictions about new technologies have, to date, all been wrong.

History does provide a great deal of guidance, however, about the use and misuse of government power. It tells us that the state is in fact likely the worst possible custodian for the most powerful publication and data analysis technologies.

This notwithstanding, to address this risk, Amodei proposes

...building AI at a balanced rate that aims to ensure its safety while still achieving its benefits and grappling with important geopolitical dilemmas.

To wit, regulation.

As my regular readers will be aware, I have been engaged, on behalf of my clients, in legal combat with Internet censors around the world, agencies who think that they have the standing, the competence, and the right to tell American companies what software they can write and run, for the better part of 18 months.

This censorship apparatus is about to be rebuilt from scratch, except this time for AI instead of social media. I expect to fight that, too, at the appointed time. I feel now is an appropriate time to offer my preliminary thoughts.

Amodei's Proposal

Anthropic is, as David Sacks correctly pointed out on X, free to slow down its research and development efforts into AI at any time, to any extent it wishes. Amodei proposes something else: that everyone slow down together, under supervision. While Amodei initially writes that the "slowdown" should be voluntary, the plan would be to progress to legal regulatory regimes - meaning, this proposal necessarily involves the use of coercive state power - which software developers would be expected to obey on a compulsory basis:

The most effective method of pacing is via regulation that targets all US frontier AI companies, as that covers even those who are unwilling to cooperate voluntarily. (Emphasis added.)

His plan has three elements.

Embedded Evaluators (aka Appeasing Pressure Groups)

The first element is for "Embedded Evaluators" -

...employee-like access to a team of embedded third-party evaluators (such as METR), whose role is to verify adherence to safety practices and commitments, report incidents, and help assess the alignment of not just completed AI models but training pipelines and processes.

There is already a robust industry of third-party "safety" overseers for Web 2.0 - what the House Judiciary Committee has described as the "censorship-industrial complex." The track record of these entities from the last time around tells us how this arrangement plays out in practice.

"Evaluate This!!!"

One well-known private actor in this space was the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, or GARM. GARM, a commercial enterprise, described itself as "a voluntary cross-industry initiative created in 2019 to address digital safety." Among other things, GARM provided a range of policy frameworks and guidelines, among them "the Brand Safety Floor and the Adjacency Standards Framework, which have supported brand owners in their independent development of their own bespoke, brand-specific safety frameworks to ensure that their advertising dollars do not inadvertently support illegal or harmful content that damages their brands."

Although GARM disbanded in 2024, according to the House Judiciary Committee, during its active period GARM worked with global regulators to pressure companies like Twitter, now X Corp., to wield "significant collective power" to coercively influence Twitter's moderation decisions, including "silencing President Trump," and to procure boycotts of the platform if the platform refused to obey.

Presumably, platforms that follow the "safety" NGOs' recommendations and allow the "evaluations" would not be threatened with that stick. This calls back to the way in which social media companies who followed GARM's policy frameworks and guidelines were not targeted with advertiser boycotts - and those who did not, like X, allegedly were.

He adds:

This is the key step for verifiability of any pacing commitments, and has precedent in the banking industry, which sometimes involves regulatory "supervisors" embedded along with employees.

As it happens, the banking analogy is the exact argument leading "misinformation/disinformation" (read: pro-censorship) academics employ to justify the UK's Online Safety Act and similar regimes; see e.g. Alan Jagolinzer from Cambridge University, who comes from the world of financial accounting and analogizes speech regulatory regimes to post-2008 financial reporting regulations.

The problem, of course, is that financial accounting fraud is not a constitutional right; speech is. In America, software development absent the intent to commit or facilitate the commission of a crime is, as a general rule, protected expression. I fail to see how standing up a new crop of NGOs to perform substantially the same function as the "Online Safety" NGOs, using the same methods - only, this time with NGO commissars possessing highly sensitive employee-like access to internal systems - will lead to a different or better result than it has so far.

Democratic Coordination (aka Government Regulation)

The second element is "Democratic Coordination," whereby

Frontier AI companies within democratic countries coordinate to establish common safety standards as well as limits on the rate of unchecked AI progress. Some forms of coordination that would be impactful for pacing are legally challenging, and will require government support.

There are two aspects to this: (a) competition law and (b) content regulation law.

From a competition law standpoint, the problem Anthropic has is simple. Anthropic and OpenAI are the largest players in the AI market, by some distance, and coordinating their policies, procedures, and "standards" with each other risks classification as an unlawful cartel. This would particularly be the case if, for example, the two giants aligned on pricing or terms - say, by conforming their API terms so that anyone who used a model that defected from the standards in the global marketplace (e.g., Kimi, Deepseek) would be ineligible to interact with OpenAI's or Anthropic's software.

"Government support" for "legally challenging" coordination is a polite way of asking for an antitrust exemption to allow greater coordination between competitors in the name of "safety." It is a problem any industry consortium of any type needs to account for and this would be no exception. Given the global scale of each company, they would likely need to get numerous exceptions, from the United States, the European Union and its member states, the United Kingdom, Japan, and elsewhere, to undertake the full "safety" initiative laid out in Amodei's post on a global basis.

Law reform on that scale will be very difficult to accomplish; in countries like the UK, where "AI Safety" fits into existing political thinking that the state's proper role over technology is to aggressively regulate it, and there is already parliamentary traction for a slowdown, this might be easier. It is exceedingly unlikely that they will receive any accommodation from China.

From a content regulation standpoint, the language "common safety standards as well as limits on the rate of unchecked AI progress" paints with a broad brush. This suggests that Anthropic envisages that practically any industry using its software - from manufacturing, to biotechnology, to news publication and copywriting - will require (a) de novo "safety" standards in relation to non-expressive conduct, and (b) limits on how quickly AI software itself can be developed.

In foreign countries, particularly the United Kingdom and Europe, where national governments have fewer constitutional guardrails on their power, I would expect that both (a) and (b) can be legislated without much difficulty in legal terms. If the ease with which rules like the Online Safety Act and Digital Services Act were implemented is any indication, there should not be terribly much difficulty in political terms, either.

The primary legal problem with this aspect of Anthropic's proposal is in the United States, particularly with (b) - limits on how quickly software itself can be developed. Software development, software publication, and web hosting are inherently expressive activities. See. e.g., the Bernstein v. United States line of cases, as well as Smith v. California, Cubby v. CompuServe, the fact pattern of Stratton Oakmont v. Prodigy, and the related legislative history around 47 U.S.C. § 230. The differences between the United States and its allies on Web 2.0 date back to our very founding, and in both subsequent caselaw and subsequent statutes, America has chosen to protect that activity from state interference.

To the extent Anthropic and its fellow-travelers intend for this aspect of their plan to restrict American citizens from either (a) developing AI models or (b) using models and published FOSS model weights from China, First Amendment issues are immediately apparent and the weight of the precedent militates against government regulation.

Global Coordination (aka Treaties and Extraterritorial Censorship)

The third element of Amodei's plan is "Global Coordination," whereby

[t]he US and other democratic governments attempt to coordinate with authoritarian governments, to the extent this is possible, while taking seriously the challenges of verifying compliance.

Authoritarian governments aren't the only problem America has here.

We live in an era in which most of the Western world, with the exception perhaps of the United States, has enacted comprehensive technology regulation statutes focused on yesterday's tech: chiefly, search and social media.

The last great global effort to regulate publication and communications technology began following a moral panic brought about by the twin shocks of (a) Brexit and (b) the election of Donald Trump to the American presidency in 2016. The result was comprehensive Internet censorship laws in Australia (the Online Safety Act 2019), the United Kingdom (the Online Safety Act 2023), and the European Union (the Digital Services Act), plus perhaps a half-dozen copycats around the world, including Brazil (see e.g. the 2025 revisions to the Marco Civil da Internet by Brazil's Supreme Court), Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and more - all of which seek to control speech and conduct which (a) lives on American servers and (b) in the United States, on those servers, is constitutionally protected under the First Amendment.

Generally speaking, the censorship regimes of the West choose not to describe themselves as such. That does not mean they are not censorship schemes.

Take the UK, which calls its law the "Online Safety Act" and asserts that the law exists to keep the UK safe from the evils of the Internet. Its enforcer, the "Office of Communications," more commonly known as "Ofcom," is not a law enforcement agency and has no power, by itself, to remove content or make arrests; it cannot, and does not, keep anyone safe from anything.

British politicians are not popular enough to get away with carrying out censorship directly, so they outsource it to Americans through a vague and complicated bureaucratic procedure which basically boils down to this: "censor your websites, or we (Ofcom) will hit your (American) company with ruinous fines or jail time if we, in our sole discretion, determine that your platform didn't censor itself well enough."

This censorship is ostensibly performed to keep Internet users "safe" from ideas and expression of which the British state formally disapproves. All that is required, for most users, to circumvent the entire regime and get all the "unsafe" Internet experience they want is a free VPN with an American exit IP. Millions of Britons have done so, evidently feeling that they don't require the "safety" that Ofcom provides, making the UK one of the top VPN-using nations on the planet in the process.

Broadly speaking, the British regime, like many of these regimes, requires companies to (a) age-verify (i.e. dox) users before they access services, and (b) ensure that users accessing those services cannot see content the Act proscribes. Whilst there are some areas where U.S. and UK speech regulations are in agreement, there are many more areas where they are not - and for many of these areas, speech the Act requires be taken down is explicitly constitutionally protected in the United States. I have written about this at length elsewhere (in addition to actually drafting the quite extensive legislative surgery required to align our two nations' systems) and do not propose to do so again here.

A "global coordination" framework for AI will be built by the same governments, staffed by the same regulators, and pressured by the same NGOs that built the above. It is possible, even likely, that any global attempts at harmonization will collide at exactly the same point: it will not be possible for an American company to comply with European controls and enjoy the full breadth of their U.S. constitutional rights at the same time, as the rulesets will be drafted incompatibly.

Moreover, the verification problem Amodei mentions with respect to authoritarian states is, in fact, a fatal flaw with any such scheme if it has global pretensions (as the UK Online Safety Act once did); as a certified enjoyer of the defector strategy, I am in a very good position to confirm that, given a single defector who is demonstrably outside of the jurisdiction's reach, deterrence begins to falter. The higher the stakes, the more likely it is that defection will occur.

Although many U.S. companies do, and absent law reform in America (such as a clear censorship shield law) will likely continue to, comply with foreign censorship regimes out of fear, the only parties against whom such a framework will ever be consistently enforced are the companies which are not judgment-proof in the countries which are most likely to get these laws enacted - global companies which, at least for now, includes not many startups but certainly includes Anthropic and OpenAI. In the United States, AI regulation will be subject to early and doctrinally sound constitutional challenges.

Amodei writes:

We should approach any global pacing decision, especially in the near term, in such a way that protects the lead of the US and its allies.

I do not view this as being particularly realistic. Among America's geopolitical adversaries, several of which America is at war with (directly or by proxy) and who have every incentive to defect, effective compliance levels will likely approach zero.

Preliminary View: Who Aligns the Aligners?

If I have learned anything from our fight against European censors, it is that regardless of a regulatory regime's good intentions, regulators are subject to political control. Regulators will, subject to that political control, do political things.

The clearest illustration from my own files is Ofcom's pursuit of a small, highly controversial American website - a mental health discussion board, called SaSu, with no UK presence, personnel, or assets - which operates entirely lawfully in the United States. SaSu voluntarily geoblocked the entire United Kingdom in July of 2025. Ofcom initially accepted that remediation as resolving the matter.

Within days of Ofcom's acceptance of my client's geoblock in October and initial closure of the file, following a coordinated pressure campaign by parliamentarians and activist NGOs, Ofcom reversed its own settled position and reopened the case. Ofcom and its NGO partners then circumvented the geoblock using VPNs, created login credentials from behind that circumvention, and cited the resulting VPN-based access as evidence that the block was inadequate.

In May 2026, Ofcom purported to fine the site £950,000, announcing the penalty through a coordinated, embargoed press rollout; weeks later it escalated further, demanding that the site rewrite its terms of service and force a site-wide forced logout, of every user on Earth, to terminate the sessions the regulator's own circumvention had created. My client, which, by way of reminder, had voluntarily blocked the UK, decided enough was enough, and refused these further demands.

On July 21, 2026, 480 days after the file was opened, Ofcom closed it, having collected nothing.

At no point in that sequence was the regulator's conduct determined by the evidence in its file - evidence which, the file shows, was only able to be obtained from accessing the website by circumventing a geoblock that the regulator itself had earlier accepted. Nor was the regulator governed by legal reality of American constitutional law, backed by the political reality of American power.

The regulator was, instead, governed by the political mood in its home country. SaSu was one of the reasons given for the necessity of the Online Safety Act; political pressure created the censorship law to target the site. Pressure opened the case when the censorship law entered into force. Pressure reversed an approved remediation. Pressure produced a fine that everyone involved understood could never be collected.

Pressure arising from the absence of any face-saving exit kept Ofcom's enforcement machinery running, at redline but in neutral, for nine months after the target had lawyered up and stated the American legal position correctly. The enforcement ended long after the futility of the regulator's actions became apparent to any legally qualified observer.

The entire enforcement process against SaSu, from pre-enactment lobbying to closing the file, was a single, continuous, political act. That is how a so-called "independent" expert regulator in a modern western democracy will behave under political pressure in what should have been an easy case, and a quick settlement and file closure.

This is also what we may expect an "embedded evaluator," a coordinated standards body, or a global AI compliance regime will do under political pressure, because those bodies will be run by humans, and human beings are (a) fallible and (b) respond to incentives.

It is probable that Amodei's proposals are already being ingested gleefully by "Online Safety" regulators and the related academic ecosystems around the world as they look to expand the reach and remit of the censorship schemes over Web 2.0 that they have spent the last decade building - and which a handful of American clients have spent the past year fighting tooth and nail. It will not take a decade to update their censorship apparatuses to try to regulate yet another area of American tech, nor will it take a decade for the vast advocacy apparatus they have built around "Online Safety" to replace-all and begin pushing an AI safety narrative in legislatures around the United States, and around the world.

Our societies can do better than this; so too could OpenAI and Anthropic, if they chose to, but one suspects that the sort of people manning these companies' "Online Safety" teams are philosophical descendants, if not professional descendants, of the "Trust and Safety" crowd that once worked at companies like Twitter or Facebook, and later created and/or currently staff the censorship agencies of the West.

It took nearly a decade, and actual sight by the British electorate of the Online Safety Act being implemented, for the British public to turn against that regulation and realize that the British government made a grave policy mistake in enacting it.

If OpenAI and Anthropic choose to adopt formal endorsement of prior restraint as corporate policy, those who would oppose the global regulation of AI must move quickly. The most recent counteroffensive against government censorship of the web took seven years to organize. The counteroffensive against government censorship of AI does not have the luxury of time.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/16/2026 - 18:25

Mysterious Illness Striking Young Workers In The South

Tyler Durden — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 22:00:00 +0000

Mysterious Illness Striking Young Workers In The South

Doctors at Harris County's public hospitals have spent more than a decade treating an unusual group of dialysis patients, men in their 20s and 30s who work outdoors and whose kidneys have failed without a clear medical explanation, Fox News reports, following a Texas Monthly investigation.

A review of county hospital records found that roughly one in six emergency dialysis cases among uninsured or undocumented patients had no identifiable cause. The records ran from 2012 to 2015, and the study was published as a preprint last year. One physician told Fox the share is consistent with chronic kidney disease of unknown etiology, a condition that has caused widespread deaths among laborers in hot regions abroad but has rarely been documented in the United States until now.

Many of the patients are immigrants from Mexico and Central America, often illegal aliens, and they work in roofing, construction and other trades that demand hours of strenuous labor in extreme heat. Few have diabetes or high blood pressure, which account for most kidney failure nationwide. For someone that young, the loss of kidney function can mean dialysis several times a week for the rest of his life.

First identified among sugar-cane workers in Central America, the illness has since appeared in parts of South Asia and Mexico, where many young patients died without access to dialysis. A 2019 article in the New England Journal of Medicine called it "a sentinel disease in the era of climate change," though researchers still disagree over whether heat causes the disease or only worsens it.

Gauging how widespread the problem is will be difficult. Kidney function can erode for years without noticeable symptoms, and many patients learn they are sick only when fatigue, nausea or breathlessness signal that their kidneys are nearly gone.

Medicine offers limited help once the damage is done. No single test confirms the disease, so doctors reach the diagnosis by ruling out other causes and examining a patient's work history. Treatment focuses on preserving what function remains and controlling blood pressure until dialysis or a transplant is unavoidable.

Dr. Richard J. Johnson, an emeritus professor of medicine at the University of Colorado and a leading expert on kidney diseases, has cautioned that some patients are treated with ACE inhibitors, medicines commonly prescribed for high blood pressure, even though those drugs can sometimes worsen kidney function in people who are already dehydrated.

"Disease often progresses rapidly over a few years, and dialysis and transplantation are rarely available, so mortality is high," he told Fox News.

Dr. Gokul Paidi, a New York family physician who has published a review of the condition, told the outlet that outdoor laborers in hot climates should have kidney function checked at least twice a year. "A simple blood test for creatinine (a waste product normally filtered from the blood by the kidneys) and a urine test for protein can catch early changes long before symptoms appear," he said.

* * *

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/16/2026 - 18:00

BRICS Summit Takes Aim At US Influence Over The Global Economy

Tyler Durden — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 21:40:00 +0000

BRICS Summit Takes Aim At US Influence Over The Global Economy

Authored by Eurasianet via OilPrice.com,

BRICS demanded greater developing-country influence at the IMF, World Bank and WTO but avoided directly naming the United States in its criticism.
The declaration urged “maximum restraint” in the Middle East and made no mention of Ukraine, illustrating the compromises required to maintain consensus.
Kazakhstan used the summit to balance BRICS ties with Washington, while Uzbekistan’s president traveled to South Korea and sent a deputy prime minister to represent the country in New Delhi.

Like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, BRICS, the global grouping of emerging markets and developing countries, is intent on diminishing Western influence over the world economy. And just like the SCO summit earlier in September, the latest conclave of BRICS leaders fell short of presenting a united front against the West, the United States in particular.

Both the SCO and BRICS include China, India, Iran and Russia as permanent members. Among the four, India, the host nation for this edition of the BRICS annual summit, has acted as a brake on efforts to de-dollarize the global economy. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are both BRICS partner countries.

BRICS members adopted a 140-point joint statement September 12 that featured calls for major reforms of Western-dominated financial institutions, including the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, to give developing countries a greater say in policymaking and practices.

Some joint statement provisions took oblique swipes at the Trump administration. For example, in comments on the WTO, the statement noted a "proliferation of trade-restrictive actions that are inconsistent with WTO rules, whether in the form of indiscriminate raising of tariffs and non-tariff measures, or protectionism under the guise of environmental objectives."

But the statement does not mention the United States or Trump by name, and it soft-pedals the group's stance on the Gulf war currently embroiling the US, Israel and Iran, calling for "maximum restraint" of all sides, instead of adopting a clear position more favorable to Tehran.

Iran came away with a symbolic victory of sorts, however, underscored by a one-on-one between Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Abu Dhabi's crown prince, Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed, a meeting designed to counter the image that the United States is succeeding in economically isolating Tehran.

A statement issued by Abu Dhabi officials was non-committal about future bilateral ties, however. The two "discussed a number of regional and international issues of mutual interest," while emphasizing a need to promote "de-escalation and strengthen regional stability."

Beyond the Gulf war, the BRICS statement makes no mention of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, a clear win for the Kremlin.

Underscoring a lack of unity within the broader BRICS framework, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev passed over the summit in New Delhi, instead making a state visit to South Korea, where he promoted stronger economic ties with the East Asian Tiger.

South Korea will host a gathering of leaders from all five Central Asian states in Seoul under a C5+1 format on September 16.

Meanwhile, in an expanded session of the BRICS gathering, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev adopted a middle-of-the-road stance that, consistent with the country's multi-vector foreign policy, sought to balance the interests of China, Russia, the United States and the European Union.

"The erosion of the international security architecture and protracted conflicts are increasing the risk of a new arms race and strategic miscalculations and practical wrongdoings," Tokayev said. "Therefore, high-level dialogue among nuclear powers is needed to reduce nuclear risks, including those linked to new technologies."

The comments could be seen as referring to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. But they can also be interpreted as a call for the US and China to de-escalate their deepening rivalry for dominance in the development of artificial intelligence. Central Asia is emerging as a central battleground in the brewing race for AI leadership.

Tokayev went on to characterize BRICS as "an open platform for practical cooperation that complements the UN-centered multilateral system and connects peoples, regions and markets."

On the sidelines of the BRICS gathering, Tokayev met with Sergio Gor, the US ambassador to India, who is also the Trump administration's special representative to Central Asian states. Tokayev told Gor that he is looking forward to participating in the G20 meeting to be held in Miami in December. But he also delivered an unusually blunt message, indicating that he expects faster progress on deal-making between the United States and Kazakhstan and the repeal of the Central Asian nation's Jackson-Vanik trade status.

The Miami gathering will provide "a good opportunity to discuss bilateral issues," a Kazakh readout of the conversation quoted Tokayev as saying. "We prefer concrete actions and practical steps to advance our mutual cooperation, rather than just words."

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/16/2026 - 17:40

US Interceptor Inventory Took Another Big Hit Last Week, As CBO Pegs War Cost At $38 Billion+

Tyler Durden — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 21:20:00 +0000

US Interceptor Inventory Took Another Big Hit Last Week, As CBO Pegs War Cost At $38 Billion+

America's already-diminished inventory of air defense interceptor missiles took another significant hit last week, as dozens more were expended to defend US troops in Jordan from an Iranian attack. This latest incident illustrates Iran's use of crafty and increasingly technologically-advanced attacks to further sap US munitions supply and degrade the Pentagon's ability to continue mounting defenses -- or provoking attacks -- in a war nearing the seven-month mark.

The action unfolded on Sept 8, when Iran attacked US forces at the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Azraq, Jordan. Unleashing what it called a "punitive operation" following the destruction of five Iranian oil tankers by the US military, Iran fired a volley of about 20 ballistic missiles at the base. No one was killed, but fighters and other aircraft positioned at the facility were damaged.

WATCH: Iran fired 20 ballistic missiles at the U.S.-hosting Al-Azraq Air Base in Jordan overnight.

Dramatic Patriot launch footages show massive Patriot salvos, with OSINT counts estimating 60–100+ interceptors fired in minutes.

At $4–5M per PAC-3 MSE round, that's roughly… pic.twitter.com/bjmuHgydW6
— Clash Report (@clashreport) September 9, 2026

To defend the air base, US forces fired 60 to 70 Patriot interceptors and more than dozen Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors, according to US officials who talked to the Wall Street Journal. Patriots cost the Pentagon about $4 million each, and the more sophisticated THAADs go for $12 to $15 million. That means the defense from this attack on a single target may have cost half a billion dollars or more.

The large expenditure of interceptors was driven by the complexity of the Iranian attack. Part of the strike package included missiles that, at high altitude, release multiple munitions. Over the course of the war, Iran has continued to enhance its already formidable missile capabilities, making warheads more maneuverable and giving some an ability to greatly accelerate before impact. “These types of new tactics that we’re seeing show that the Iranians continue to adapt, continue to learn, continue to experiment, see what works, what doesn’t work,” Conflict Armament Research's Fabian Hinz told the Journal.

News of the latest dent in the US war chest follows a report from the Pentagon's inspector general declaring that the war on Iran “has resulted in strategic inventory shortfalls and revealed industrial base bottlenecks for munitions resupply.” The IG report landed just after President Trump claimed "the United States is producing more Exquisite and Elite Weapons than at any time in our History. They are being delivered on a daily basis to our Forces in the Middle East, and beyond." (Retarded capitalization scheme is, of course, Trump's.)

This photo of a shattered US Air Force jet at Prince Sultan AFB in Saudi Arabia was one of several leaked to CBS

Also this week, the Congressional Budget Office said the Pentagon spent $38 billion on this war of choice -- and that's only through Aug 1. CBO said it expects the meter to keep running at about $2 or $3 billion a month as long as the war goes on. Critically, CBO warned that its estimates were hampered by the Defense Department's refusal to respond to requests for information.

CBO's numbers do not account for a rebuilding of the many US bases in the region that have been hammered by Iranian fire and abandoned by US forces. To the extent this abandonment becomes prudently permanent, excluding that cost may make sense.

CBO further estimated that, as things stood back on Aug 1, it would take $22 billion to restock expended munitions -- attributing $7 billion to cruise missiles and $13 billion for air defense interceptors. “The shortfall would become especially problematic if a conflict arose with an opponent whose arsenal included large numbers of ballistic and cruise missiles,” the CBO reported.

“Claims of U.S. munition shortages are false,” said Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell. “We have everything required to strike at the time and place of the President’s choosing.” Of course, this is the same administration that falsely told us Iran was on the threshold of having a nuclear bomb.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/16/2026 - 17:20

House Panel Votes To Hold Billionaire Leon Black In Contempt For Ghosting Epstein Investigators

Tyler Durden — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 21:00:00 +0000

House Panel Votes To Hold Billionaire Leon Black In Contempt For Ghosting Epstein Investigators

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

Businessman Leon Black, who skipped a deposition regarding his relationship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, should be held in contempt of Congress, a House of Representatives panel recommended on Sept. 15.

Former Apollo Global Management CEO Leon Black (R) arrives for an interview with the House Oversight Committee in Washington on June 26, 2026. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

The House Oversight Committee unanimously voted 41-0 to advance a contempt resolution of Black, 75, to the full chamber. House leadership will decide whether to take up the matter in the future.

Black's lawyer did not return a request for comment by the time of publication.

Black was subpoenaed to testify to the committee regarding his relationship with Epstein, who was convicted of soliciting a minor for prostitution and faced sex trafficking charges when he died in federal prison in 2019. The committee also told Black, under subpoena, to provide documents it said were critical to its investigation of Epstein and his network.

"He defied Congress and refused to do either," Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), committee chairman, said ahead of the vote. "Instead, Mr. Black is hiding behind litigation to delay having to provide answers to the American people. No one is above the law. Mr. Black will be treated the same as anyone else in this investigation, and his actions have consequences."

Black had previously appeared for a voluntary interview, but had refused to answer some questions, prompting the subpoenas.

Black sued the committee after avoiding the subpoenas, telling a court that the subpoenas were invalid because they sought "private information that bears no legitimate connection" to the committee's legislative purpose and would "expose women who value their privacy, who have no known or public connection to Epstein, who bargained for confidentiality and have refused to release it, and who have no ability to protect themselves and their privacy before the Committee."

The case is ongoing.

Black, who co-founded Apollo Global Management, had a "close personal relationship" with Epstein during the time that Epstein was allegedly engaged in sex trafficking, according to a report from the panel. Black also paid Epstein more than $158 million over the years, and potentially more than $170 million, according to the report.

"As a result of his extensive dealings with Epstein, Mr. Black possesses firsthand information regarding the activities of Epstein and Maxwell and their efforts to establish relationships and curry favor with influential individuals while engaged in sex trafficking," the report said. "His testimony may inform the Oversight Committee's consideration of legislative reforms designed to combat the operation of sex-trafficking rings and efforts to shield such activities from scrutiny."

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the panel, said on Tuesday that lawmakers believe Black "is at the heart of the Epstein network."

"This is a private equity billionaire worth roughly $13 billion dollars. We need to know why Jeffrey Epstein got over 180 million dollars from Mr. Black. We know this money enabled Epstein's activities for years, and we need to know how and if it led to the abuse of women and girls. We need to know about Leon Black and Jeffrey Epstein's financial dealings," he added.

* * *

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/16/2026 - 17:00

Dario Amodei's Brain Trust Of Bad Ideas

Tyler Durden — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 20:20:00 +0000

Dario Amodei's Brain Trust Of Bad Ideas

Authored by Jordan Schachtel via American Greatness,

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei wants to shape the future of artificial intelligence - and, by extension, the future of civilization. Yet in doing so, he seeks input and advice from an ideologically uniform group of individuals and institutions.

In a series of sprawling essays on his website, Amodei has outlined his expectations for a world transformed by powerful AI. His forecasts range from curing diseases and accelerating economic growth to creating catastrophic biological threats and destabilizing the balance of power between the United States and China.

These essays are presented as the work of a sober-minded technologist trying to navigate humanity through an unprecedented transition.

In the acknowledgments section, Amodei inadvertently reveals insight into the ideas forming his worldview.

Across four of his major essays - "Machines of Loving Grace," "The Urgency of Interpretability," "The Adolescence of Technology," and "Policy on the AI Exponential" - Amodei thanks a recurring cast of advisers and intellectual collaborators. The list includes Tom McGrath, Martin Wattenberg, Chris Olah, Ben Buchanan, Kevin Esvelt, Parag Mallick, Stuart Ritchie, Matt Yglesias, Erik Brynjolfsson, Jim McClave, Allan Dafoe, Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, Richard Fontaine, Buddy Shah, Vas Narasimhan, Nick Beckstead, Jason Matheny, and Brad Carson.

Amodei thanks this group for their contributions to his ideas, comments on his drafts, and help to strengthen his thinking.

Of course, these acknowledgments do not prove some kind of uniformity of worldview. However, they help us map his intellectual world.

And that world is remarkably homogeneous.

It includes, unsurprisingly, Anthropic insiders but also establishment academics, liberal policy experts, national-security think tankers, NGO executives, and prominent figures intertwined with the Effective Altruism (EA) movement.

Here are some of the more notable characters Dario Amodei has cited:

Matt Yglesias is a high-profile liberal journalist.
Ben Buchanan, an Anthropic adviser, served as a special adviser for AI at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Allan Dafoe is a prominent name in the Effective Altruism community, and he established one of its AI academic centers at Oxford.
Nick Beckstead is a high-profile figure in the Effective Altruism network.
Jason Matheny has deep, longstanding ties to the EA world, and he's now president of the RAND Corporation.
Richard Fontaine runs the left-leaning Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a major Democratic Party policymaker incubator in D.C.
Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar is the chief global affairs official at Anthropic and has long been a staple in the Democratic Party legal world.
Chris Olah is an Anthropic cofounder.
Stuart Ritchie is the research communications lead at Anthropic.
James "Jim" McClave is an early Anthropic investor who has long been embedded in the EA community. McClave reportedly made one of the largest 2022 contributions to Future Forward, a super PAC that supported Joe Biden.
Neil "Buddy" Shah is the CEO of the Clinton Health Access Initiative.
Brad Carson is a former Democratic congressman who served in senior positions in the Obama administration.

What is missing from this collection of contributors?

Meet Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s handpicked super-woke globalists he thinks will save us from an AI apocalypse. Read today's cover here: https://t.co/vdhqenPM9e pic.twitter.com/j2WimVa75l
— New York Post (@nypost) September 16, 2026

First and most obvious, there is no identifiable right-leaning intellectual, academic, or policymaker in the mix. Dario Amodei does not appear to consult with any White House-aligned voices, and few, if any, critics of centralized power or anyone skeptical of unverifiable international agreements with China.

We can't find anyone publicly mentioned within Amodei's brain trust who seems to recognize that global, U.N.-like institutions frequently fail or become quickly corrupted by a group of credentialed "experts" who inevitably just seek to increase their own power and status.

His brain trust is indeed diverse in professional specialization, but it's painfully narrow in ideological diversity.

That likely explains the liberal-internationalist-meets-Effective-Altruist blend that runs through his writing and media appearances. Amodei combines the Effective Altruist obsession with extinction-level AI risks with the liberal internationalist worldview, which posits that an "expert" class can design more useful international institutions outside of America's sovereign borders.

In "Machines of Loving Grace," putting aside the hyper-pagan notion of a machine God, Amodei is quite optimistic about AI being used to advance a variety of fields that can result in human flourishing. The essay considers a near future in which powerful AI systems are making decades of scientific progress in just months or years.

In "The Adolescence of Technology," however, Amodei concentrates on the darker side of the same exponential curve. He discusses autonomous AI, bioweapons, economic displacement, and authoritarian inputs that could threaten much of humanity. Consulting with his brain trust, Amodei is determined to construct systems capable of guiding us through this dangerous period of "adolescence."

In "The Urgency of Interpretability," he calls for transparency laws and strict export controls on AI chips to China. He argues, in consultation with his brain trust, that America could create enough breathing room to make powerful systems more understandable before geopolitical competition makes caution impossible.

Amodei isn't wrong to point out that AI companies should definitely test their systems before public release.

And it's wise to continue dedicating resources to researching how to understand these novel systems.

Yet Amodei's institutional reflex is visible throughout his writing. When he encounters something that is determined by his West Coast bubble as a risk, the "expert" brain trust fills in the gaps on policy and morality.

In his latest proposals, Amodei has floated something of a U.N.-style AI standards body and a Paris Climate Deal 2.0 with China.

Amodei told CBS, "The worry I have - I am concerned that one single government could abuse this technology just as easily as a single company could."

He added, "But I think a combination of democratically elected governments - I don't know about handing over, but some kind of oversight, some kind of joint governance."

As for the China deal, he says the agreement must be verifiable. He even concedes that an AI pause is unlikely because the incentive to cheat would be enormous. Yet he still presses as if this is the best option. If that sounds like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, it's not some accident of interpretation. He is using the liberal internationalist playbook.

As the Paris climate agreement already showed, the Chinese Communist Party is not a good-faith participant in international agreements. It is an adversarial regime seeking technological, military, and geopolitical supremacy over the United States.

A climate change-style agreement is hard enough to verify. With AI, it's even more difficult. Do we really think China is going to hand American inspectors a list of its most capable data centers, military facilities, intelligence-gathering sites, and a whole variety of other secret networks that are critical to its national AI program?

Amodei can see the problem, as evidenced in his writing, but his narrow intellectual brain trust prevents him from following it to its logical conclusion. He recognizes the behavior of adversarial states while retaining faith in the institutions that assume cooperation among them. And he wants to create new global government institutions that will supposedly solve these problems.

This is the reality of living and operating in the San Francisco tech bubble. Dario Amodei and his ideologically narrow group have introduced a series of highly elaborate ideas that have not been stress-tested by reality and history.

Everyone helping him answer complex questions comes from the same constellation of institutions, liberal policy shops, Effective Altruist-connected organizations, and technocratic philanthropy. His U.N. for AI and Paris 2.0 "solutions" reflect the blind spots in his thought process.

Before determining that he has all of the firepower to solve all of the big problems in AI, Dario Amodei should first consider expanding his own context window.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/16/2026 - 16:20

Houthis Issue Video Of Saudi F-15 Shootdown, As Ground Clashes Intensify In Yemen

Tyler Durden — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 20:15:00 +0000

Houthis Issue Video Of Saudi F-15 Shootdown, As Ground Clashes Intensify In Yemen

Update(1135ET): The Houthis have released new footage which appears to confirm the earlier Saudi F-15 jet shootdown, with aircraft falling in the Marib area. The footage shows militants celebrating near the wreckage.

Below is the clip as released by Ansar Allah officials, which has since been given confirmation by some foreign and international outlets. It suggests that the Houthis have locally-made ability to down advanced aircraft, which should seriously worry Riyadh and Washington.

مشاهد نوعية لإسقاط طائرة مقاتلة سعودية من نوع F15 وحطامها في محافظة مأرب - 16 سبتمبر 2026م pic.twitter.com/rk0suliePT
— الإعلام الحربي اليمني (@MMY1444) September 16, 2026

According to the latest on the fighting in Yemen, clashes are intensifying:

Yemen’s pro-government Southern Giants Forces say that they are engaged in clashes with Houthi forces on the Kahboub front near the Bab al-Mandeb strait.

The government-aligned forces claim in a social media post that they have inflicted heavy personnel and equipment losses on the Houthi forces.

Global oil prices continue climbing amid a slew of negative headlines:

WRIGHT: LOOKING AT USING DPA TO INCREASE REFINING CAPACITY
WRIGHT ON EAST-WEST PIPELINE: 3 PUMPING STATIONS WERE HIT

From bad to worse for the coalition:

Looks like the Yemenis weren't lying about downing a Saudi jet today. pic.twitter.com/2t4tTYoa6F
— Russians With Attitude (@RWApodcast) September 16, 2026

* * *

Yemen's Ansar Allah (Houthi) movement has claimed to have shot down a Saudi fighter jet in a Wednesday statement, saying they utilized domestic made munitions to do it.

"The Yemeni Armed Forces, with Allah's aid and grace, succeeded in shooting down a Saudi F-15 fighter jet while it was carrying out hostile operations," Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree announced.

Royal Saudi Air Force

He said the fighter jet had been targeted "using a locally made" missile over Marib - after the Saudi coalition has launched some 450 strikes. The area of the alleged downing is some 75 miles east of Sanaa.

Saudi authorities have not acknowledged any shootdown and have not immediately commented on the claim.

Overnight, the big news out of the conflict focused on Saudi claims that it had intercepted a Houthi drone targeting Yemen in a "heinous" act targeting Islam's holiest site.

However, the Houthis are vehemently denying sending a drone on Mecca. "Our operations target its oil facilities and military bases, which are far removed from the sacred sites," Saree said further.

The Houthi military spokesman called out the "fabrications and lies propagated by the criminal al-Saud regime cannot deceive anyone."

Missile alerts had been issued for the population of Mecca, and plenty of old and fake social media videos purported to capture footage of a drone inbound on Mecca, but so far no clear evidence has emerged of the alleged targeting.

But the Saudi claims were enough to get Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to condemn Wednesday "in the strongest possible terms the dastardly and heinous" the alleged attack on Mecca.

"The people of Pakistan are saddened and perturbed by this outrageous act," he said on X.

Unconfirmed image of downed jet posted by Iranian state media:

On Wednesday morning, Yemeni Army confirmed that it had shot down a Saudi F-15 fighter aircraft over Marib Province. pic.twitter.com/4nk1d1DYi6
— IRNA News Agency ☫ (@IrnaEnglish) September 16, 2026

Pakistan and Turkey just recently this summer signed a comprehensive "Mecca Defense Pact", and the Saudi claims that Mecca was targeted by drone are perhaps intended to secure the help of allies in dealing with the advancing Houthis menace while a Red Sea 'siege for siege' policy is still in effect. As for the lates developments to emerge Wednesday, via Newsquawk:

Houthis say they carried out two military operations, targeting Saudi Aramco in Yanbu with dozens of ballistic missiles and drones and Khamis Mushait Air Base with a number of ballistic missiles.

The damaged Saudi East-West pipeline could still take five to six weeks to come back online, according to some estimates.

* * *

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/16/2026 - 16:15

Beyond Oil And Gold: Venezuela Readies First US Aluminum Shipment In Years As Resource Race Heats Up

Tyler Durden — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 19:45:00 +0000

Beyond Oil And Gold: Venezuela Readies First US Aluminum Shipment In Years As Resource Race Heats Up

Venezuela is emerging as a source of energy and critical materials for the US as the Trump administration expands sourcing channels within the Western Hemisphere. Existing crude trade and a gold supply agreement with Caracas are being paired with efforts to develop broader industrial metal ties, including potential access to nickel and iron ore. That expansion may now include aluminum.

Bloomberg reports 15,000 metric tons of aluminum produced by state-owned Venalum could depart Venezuela by the end of the week under a deal involving Mercuria Energy Group and Heeney.

US officials could announce the deal earlier this week during the G20 energy summit in Houston. Folks familiar with the shipment say it is worth nearly $50 million and would be modest relative to US consumption.

The outlet previously reported that Mercuria and New York-based mining investment firm Heeney are in discussions with Venezuelan authorities to operate the Venalum smelter that was built in the 1970s with annual capacity of 430,000 tons.

Years of underinvestment and power outages left the Orinoco River complex operating at a fraction of that level but new investments could revitalize the smelting plant.

The 15,000-ton Venezuelan cargo equals roughly .4% of that annual import requirement. It would provide modest relief and another sourcing channel for the US when the domestic market is already tight.

Beyond aluminum, the US Energy Under Secretary Kyle Haustveit said last month that US refineries were receiving more than 500,000 barrels per day of Venezuelan crude. There was a report earlier this year that State-owned Minerven agreed to supply US with 650 to 1,000 kilograms of gold dore bars to Trafigura for US markets. Washington is also seeking access to critical material markets in the country, such as niobium and tantalum.

The Trump administration's stated strategy links greater US influence in the Western Hemisphere with secure access to critical resources and supply chains. Its new relations with Venezuela's energy and mining sectors reflect just that. Developing those resources will require substantial investment in production, processing, and infrastructure.

Building a stable South America really began with ridding the continent of pro-China socialist regimes. Brazil's presidential election next month could cement a generational rightward shift.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/16/2026 - 15:45

Fed Hikes Rates For First Time Since July 2023, Signals 1 More Hike In 2026

Tyler Durden — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 19:30:00 +0000

Fed Hikes Rates For First Time Since July 2023, Signals 1 More Hike In 2026

Tl;dr: As the market expected, The Fed hiked rates by 25bps (for the first time since July 2023) despite a trend lower in CPI over the last three months.

Today's decision was unanimous and the 'Dots' signal one more hike in 2026.

The Fed members increased their GDP outlooks, lowered their unemployment forecasts, but hiked their inflation outlooks...

The big question for today of course, assuming they do hike, is whether this is likely to be a “one and done” move.

Quick reminder:

In 2024, the Powell Fed cut 50bps 2 months before the presidential election with core CPI at 3.3%
In 2026, the Warsh Fed hikes 25bps 2 months before the midterms with core CPI at 2.4%

* * *

Since the last FOMC Meeting on July 29th, a lot has happened amid the supposed Summer doldrums, the dollar is lower while the anti-fiat trades (gold, bitcoin) and crude are all significantly higher with bonds the worst performers...

Stagflationary signals abound as inflation data has surprised to the upside while growth data has surprised to the downside since the last FOMC

But, the market is all-in, betting on a 25bps hike today - 95% versus 70% at the last FOMC, with a lot of noise in between. Dec odds are up from 40% to 70%. The market is pricing in 3.5 hikes into September of next year as the peak of the cycle...

So, before we get the decision, putting things in context, if Warsh were to hold rates here, it would be BY FAR the greatest surprise The Fed has ever hit the market with...

The Fed has historically always gone when market pricing is this high. That’s on top of a substantial hawkish repricing that has recently taken two-year yields to their highest since 2024 and pushed the 10-year through 5% to levels unseen since 2007.

So, what did he do?

Statement

After three dissents (in favor of a hike) in July, the Eccles Building establishment appears to have won the tug of war against The White House, with The Fed hiking rates 25bps (as fully priced in by the market)

*FED UNANIMOUSLY RAISES BENCHMARK RATE 25 BPS TO 3.75%-4% RANGE
*FED: RATE HIKE WILL SUPPORT `TIMELIER' RETURN TO 2% INFLATION

Dots

In June, 9 members saw at least 1 rate-hike in 2026:

3 hikes - 1 (Jun)
2 hikes - 5 (Jun)
1 hike - 3 (Jun)
No rate change - 8 (Jun)
1 cut - 1 (Jun)

Now in September, with 1 hike in the books, these are the number of hikes/cuts left in 2026

2 more hikes - 4
1 more hike - 12
No rate change - 2
No one sees rate-cuts

So the median dot suggest one more rate hike in 2026...

1 member sees four rate-cuts in 2027 and 3 see 2 cuts

1 hike in 2027 - 8
No rate-change in 2027 - 6
2 cuts - 3
4 cuts - 1

Only 18 of 19 officials submitted their 'dots' with some suggesting Warsh himself did not contribute again.

SEP

The Fed members increased their GDP outlooks, lowered their unemployment forecasts, but hiked their inflation outlooks...

Full Redline

Key changes:

Addition of "domestic spending has been resilient"
Capital investment reduced from "strong" to "robust"
Adds that "Today's policy action will support a timelier return to the Committee's 2 percent goal"

The big question for today of course, assuming they do hike, is whether this is likely to be a “one and done” move.

We haven’t seen one of those this century so far.

Jim Reid at Deutsche Bank catalogues that there were a few of those in the 1980s and 1990s.

Outside of them, "the shortest cycle on record remains the four hikes of 1986-87."

* * *

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/16/2026 - 15:30

The Fed's Mortgage Policy Made Homeownership Cost More

Tyler Durden — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 19:25:00 +0000

The Fed's Mortgage Policy Made Homeownership Cost More

Authored by Antón Chamberlin via The Daily Economy,

The median household in Miami earns about $62,000 annually; homeowners with a mortgage have monthly housing costs pushing $2,900. Annualized, this equals more than half the median household income. In Los Angeles, the numbers come in at $82,000 and $3,500 for 51 percent. New Yorkers are paying 49 percent, and New Orleanians are paying 47 percent of their annual income on housing.

Elena Berd via Shutterstock.

Different coasts, different housing markets, different incomes, regulations, and supply constraints. And all of these cities illustrate a national reality that seems beyond dispute: housing has become extraordinarily expensive.

Lest these cities appear cherry-picked, let us consider Harvard's 2026 State of the Nation's Housing report. Existing-home sales are at a three-decade low. Meanwhile, median new and existing home prices exceed $400,000. Prices for the latter are now 54 percent higher than in 2020, nearly five times median household income.

Financially, mortgage rates sit above 6 percent. By late 2025, the monthly cost of the median-priced home reached roughly $3,100, requiring an annual income above $120,000 to afford it, compared with about $1,700 and $66,000, respectively, in early 2020.

This bleak picture is obviously the product of many factors. One, however, was the Federal Reserve's intervention in the housing market. During the COVID lockdown era, the Fed entered the mortgage market on a massive scale, helping push borrowing costs to historic lows. But its intervention did more than simply lower mortgage rates. It also affected households differently, creating benefits for those already in the housing market while making entry more difficult for those who were not.

The Fed's mortgage-backed-security (MBS) purchases helped capitalize cheap credit into higher home prices, which enriched current homeowners, all the while increasing the costs of entry for prospective buyers. Then, when the Fed raised rates to fight inflation, those same outsiders faced both higher prices and higher financing costs.

Beginning in March 2020, the Fed purchased trillions of MBSs, with Agency MBS holdings rising 93 percent in about two years, reaching $2.7 trillion by mid-2022. The Fed's immediate objective was seemingly achieved. Mortgage rates fell to historic lows, which the Dallas Fed explicitly laid at the feet of the Fed's MBS purchases.

Economic consequences, however, as Bastiat and Hazlitt showed for decades, extend beyond the short-run and the targeted groups. Cheaper mortgages increased households' purchasing power and contributed to greater housing demand, placing upward pressure on prices in a market where supply could not quickly adjust. Once inflation arrived, the Fed raised rates, causing this double whammy for would-be buyers. This had important distributional consequences.

At its peak, the Fed owned 32 percent of the entire agency MBS market. These purchases resulted in MBS prices rising and their yields falling, causing mortgage spreads to tighten. This tightening pushed mortgage rates down, allowing buyers to finance larger principal balances. Expanded borrowing opened up possibilities for buyers, further fueling housing demand. With the housing supply unable to sufficiently catch up to the new demand, the financial benefits were met with higher prices on the existing housing supply.

These results were not uniform, however. As with other exercises of monetary policy, where money enters matters.

The Cantillon Effect Comes Home

As Nicolás Cachanosky explains, new money does not enter an economy everywhere, and certainly not simultaneously. Fed actions consist of particular injections at particular points, then following particular paths. It is punctiliar by nature, and this results in changing relative prices, which benefit earlier recipients before prices have adjusted to the intervention. In this context, the relevant "early recipients" do not necessarily receive literal new money, but the injection in question occurs in financial markets closely connected to mortgage credit.

Households can be divided into at least two groups: incumbent owners and prospective buyers, both of whom experience the Fed policy differently. Incumbent owners already possess an appreciating asset, with the potential to refinance at the initial lower rate, seeing their home equity rise. Prospective buyers, by contrast, possess no appreciating asset; therefore, they see their desired homes become more expensive. The same appreciation that increases an incumbent homeowner's net worth increases the price of entry for everyone still trying to buy.

Beginning in 2022, the Fed changed direction. But tightening does not just unwind the past. Homeowners who had purchased or refinanced at historically low rates could keep those mortgages, while new buyers faced even higher rates. The Fed noticed this "lock-in" effect. By June 2024, more than 90 percent of its MBS holdings had coupons below 4 percent.

The Fed's policy can be broken down into two segments, then. During the easing period, low rates and rising prices fed equity gains for homeowning incumbents. Then, the tightening led to a lock-in of those owners at the previously lower rates, as outsiders saw higher rates. And, of course, first-time buyers typically possess neither asset: the equity nor the existing low-rate mortgage to offset these higher financing costs.

A Federal Reserve study from 2023 documented this phenomenon. A one-percentage-point increase in mortgage rates reduced the share of low- and moderate-income homebuyers by about 7.5 percent, with low-income buyers falling by 16 percent. These effects were even larger for first-time buyers. There was also little evidence of larger down payments to counteract the rising rates, suggesting that many could not substitute savings for the higher monthly payment. Evidence also suggests that loose monetary policy passing through to mortgage rates negatively affects family formation and fertility rates.

In total, then, we see the following. Lower rates create unequal access to cheap credit, and the subsequent higher rates affected buyers disparately. The Fed changed not only the cost of financing a house, but the composition of participants in the market. Interest rate policy altered who could buy.

America now has expensive housing, huge mortgages, fewer purchases, declining homeownership, and a growing segment of the population crowded out. At the very least, the Fed exacerbated this from 2020-2022. The broader lesson here is that monetary policy does not change interest rates or prices in isolation. Money always enters particular markets, changes particular relative prices, and creates particular winners and losers. In this instance, the Fed inflated the price of a scarce asset (appreciation for current homeowners). Once the subsidy was removed, the wealth redistribution it caused did not reverse. The consequence is our current state - not just housing inflation, but a higher price of entry.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/16/2026 - 15:25

"Calm Before The Storm?" UBS Warns Of Stock Market Turbulence As Midterms Loom

Tyler Durden — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 19:05:00 +0000

"Calm Before The Storm?" UBS Warns Of Stock Market Turbulence As Midterms Loom

"This may be the calm before the storm," UBS chief economist Arend Kapteyn wrote in a note on Wednesday morning.

Kapteyn is referring to a historically turbulent stretch for equity markets ahead of midterm elections, which threatens to amplify the seasonal rise in market volatility.

"Indeed, since 1928, these have been the most volatile months of the calendar, with volatility increasing in both election and non-election years before falling sharply thereafter," Kapteyn continued.

Since 1950, the president's party has lost an average of 25 House seats and three Senate seats in midterm elections, Kapteyn said.

For this election, Kapteyn cited betting odds close to 50-50 for Democratic control of the Senate, asserting there was little reason to expect less uncertainty or volatility in the months ahead.

Bank of America's Michael Hartnett expects a market rout if Democrats sweep. Traders worry that Democrats have already signaled regulatory safeguards and data center moratoriums that could stymie the AI bubble. We detailed these threats in a note titled "If Dems Win The House: Data Centers, Nuclear, Venezuela Oil Deal Likely Targets."

Meanwhile, JPMorgan's Andrew Tyler recently shared his base-case with clients: Across the 23 midterm cycles since 1934, the sitting president's party has lost roughly 27 House seats and about 3 Senate seats on average. Applied to a 218-seat Republican House majority and a 53-47 Senate, history says Democrats take the House and Republicans hold the Senate. And while betting markets give Dems an 85% chance of taking back the House, the chance Republicans keep the Senate is a very tight 53% according to Kalshi.

Polymarket suggests the market is pretty sure the Dems will sweep...

Kapteyn added more color on equity vol trends:

The S&P's performance mirrors this volatility pattern. During midterm election years, the S&P 500 has typically declined between late August and early October, but by March of the following year it has recovered and delivered an average return of roughly 14% (with a median return of 16.4%).

The only exceptions were 1978, during the inflation shock, 2002, following the tech bubble burst, and 2018, amid trade-war tensions and Fed tightening. By contrast, the average return over the same period in other years is less than 5%. With betting odds of Democratic control of the Senate still close to 50-50, there is little reason to believe uncertainty (and volatility) will be lower this year than in past midterm election years

Kapteyn then questions: "The calm before the storm?"

* * * Perfect EDC flashlight...

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/16/2026 - 15:05

US Announces South Africa Visa Curbs Citing Racism Against Afrikaners

Tyler Durden — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 18:45:00 +0000

US Announces South Africa Visa Curbs Citing Racism Against Afrikaners

Authored by Troy Myers via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. Department of State announced Tuesday new visa restrictions against some foreign nationals in South Africa who are alleged to be involved in discrimination and incitement of violence against minority groups in the country.

A State Department news release said the policy will target any individual involved in racially motivated crime, uncompensated land seizures, government-sponsored discrimination, and race-based legislation against the Afrikaner community, a white South African group of Dutch, German, or French descent, and any other minority ethnic or racial groups in the nation.

U.S. President Donald Trump has alleged on several occasions that a "white genocide" is happening in South Africa, which the country's President Cyril Ramaphosa has denied.

"As [Trump] has made clear, the South African people are being failed by a government that is destroying its economy through an obsessive pursuit of racial grievance against the Afrikaner minority," State Secretary Marco Rubio wrote on X.

"The South African government has consistently failed to adequately address rural crime, violent and dehumanizing rhetoric, and race-based discriminatory policies against Afrikaners and other minority populations."

Rubio added that the alleged behavior will not go unchecked and that actions against minority groups in South Africa undermine peace, economic stability, rule of law, and are incompatible with the foundations of America's foreign policy.

"Those responsible for these injustices have no place in the United States," Rubio said. "We once again strongly urge the South African government to quickly address these egregious actions."

The state secretary referenced Trump's executive order, titled Addressing Egregious Actions of the Republic of South Africa, signed in February 2025.

That directive pulled $440 million in yearly funds that went to South Africa over similar concerns.

The executive order highlighted Ramaphosa's signing of the Expropriation Act, which is facing a legal challenge. Trump said the legislation enabled the government to seize Afrikaners' agricultural property without compensation.

"The United States shall promote the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation," Trump said in his order.

The president directed the State Department and Homeland Security to prioritize humanitarian relief, including admission and resettlement, for Afrikaners.

On May 12, dozens of Afrikaners arrived in the United States after they were granted refugee status.

About a week later, Ramaphosa flew to Washington, where the two world leaders held a tense meeting in the Oval Office.

Trump confronted Ramaphosa with allegations of mass violence against Afrikaners, and the South African leader denied that any killings or violence are taking place.

In a dramatic moment, Trump instructed his staffers to "turn the lights down."

He showed a several-minute-long video showing crowds at rallies calling for white South African farmers to be shot, which was followed by scenes of what Trump described as burial sites for Afrikaners.

"These are burial sites right here. Burial sites of over 1,000 white farmers," Trump said, speaking over the video. "Each one of those white things you see is a cross."

Ramaphosa looked away from the video, said he'd never seen it before, and wanted to know where it was filmed.

"I mean, it's in South Africa," Trump responded.

Relations between D.C. and Pretoria, the South African capital city, have been at an all-time low, as Trump and other administration officials criticized the country's policies. Trump has also imposed high tariffs on South Africa.

Before Ramaphosa's visit to the White House last year, Rubio skipped a G20 meeting hosted in Johannesburg, South Africa.

"South Africa is doing very bad things," Rubio wrote on X, explaining his absence. "Using G20 to promote 'solidarity, equality, & sustainability.' In other words: DEI and climate change. My job is to advance America's national interests, not waste taxpayer money or coddle anti-Americanism."

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/16/2026 - 14:45

Watch Live: Fed Chair Warsh Explains Why He Hiked Rates Into Stagflation

Tyler Durden — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 18:25:00 +0000

Watch Live: Fed Chair Warsh Explains Why He Hiked Rates Into Stagflation

The FOMC just (unanimously) hiked rates for the first time since July 2023 despite recent inflation prints slowing...

Additionally, recent macro surprises are clearly signaling stagflation - the central banker's nemesis...

So, a hike for credibility... but Warsh’s biggest challenge will be communicating his outlook without reverting to forward guidance, even as markets seek clarity on whether today’s likely move is one-and-done, or the start of a broader tightening cycle.

With investors forced to extract more signal from his language, the press conference carries outsized front-end risk.

In a note to clients, BMO notes two-year yields have moved an average 14bps across his five public appearances as chair so far.

The big question for today of course, assuming they do hike, is whether this is likely to be a “one and done” move.

We haven’t seen one of those this century so far.

Jim Reid at Deutsche Bank catalogues that there were a few of those in the 1980s and 1990s.

Outside of them, "the shortest cycle on record remains the four hikes of 1986-87."

While all the talk is about the 'unanimous' decision today with the great majority of dots signaling at least one more hike this year... The Fed is extremely divided next year with four members see at least 2 rate-CUTS (policy error much)...

Quick reminder:

In 2024, the Powell Fed cut 50bps 2 months before the presidential election with core CPI at 3.3%
In 2026, the Warsh Fed hikes 25bps 2 months before the midterms with core CPI at 2.4%

Will Trump comment?

Watch the FOMC press conference live here (due to start at 1430ET):

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/16/2026 - 14:25

DOJ Accuses Russian Intel Ring Of Plotting Murder On American Soil

Tyler Durden — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 17:55:00 +0000

DOJ Accuses Russian Intel Ring Of Plotting Murder On American Soil

In something that sounds straight from the plot of "Homeland" or the more recent CIA thriller "Lioness", the Trump administration has charged multiple members of Russia's intelligence services with running a "global assassination network" that targeted Kremlin critics.

The Department of Justice has newly revealed and alleged that one murder plot even took place on American soil over the summer.

Russian FSB HQ, Moscow. Associated Press

The fugitives have been named but have not been apprehended, and are still at large. A murder-for-hire plot is detailed in an indictment which was unsealed Tuesday by federal prosecutors in New York.

The plot was never followed through on, but a Russian dissident is said to have been targeted, during which time a Brooklyn man was recruited by Cuban and Venezuelan individuals - both which were ultimately being run by a Russian intelligence handler - but the Brooklyn man is said to have gotten cold feet when asked to carry out an assassination.

The five defendants are all believed to live in Russia, and are part of what court documents call the "RIS Network," including a 63-year-old former Russian intelligence colonel named Yuri Khrameev, as well as his son Kirill.

According to a summary of the wild plot and allegations:

It marks the latest alleged attempt by a U.S. adversary to crack down on dissidents abroad, including in the United States and NATO-allied countries.

One of the murder-for-hire plots took place in July and August of this year, the indictment says. The Venezuelan operative and one of the Cuban operatives allegedly recruited a Brooklyn resident to take photos and videos of two locations associated with an unnamed Russian dissident, promising him $1,000 to $1,500 to carry out the "gravely serious work." Another $40,000 was offered to "eliminate" or "disappear" the target of the surveillance.

The operatives believed the Russian dissident lived in the Washington, D.C., area, Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters at a briefing Tuesday. The Brooklyn resident was willing to take photos, the indictment said, but expressed unwillingness to "do the other stuff" — as in, kill the dissident. The operatives then allegedly asked the Brooklyn resident if he knew of anybody else who was interested.

"Let me know as soon as possible because I have a chain and my boss has questions," one of the Cuban recruiters wrote, according to the indictment. "I have people in Mexico right now and they're delayed. I only need a response to know if someone can do the work. It doesn't have to be today or tomorrow just need to know if the[y] can."

Some skepticism is of course always warranted when dealing with official US claims related to what Russian intelligence is up to.

$25,000 to unalive someone for being a “bad guy” who was “telling lies about Russia.” And get this, they were also “spreading dirt about my country” and “distorting history.”

It reads like a cartoon. https://t.co/BLhHLoSxUF
— Aaron Andrew Hickman (@hickman0000) September 16, 2026

For example, the latter part of the above - where a foreign agent reportedly broadly asks his asset whether he knows anyone else that can do the killing - seems amateurish, dubious and needlessly high risk.

The Kremlin has on Wednesday rejected the claims, describing that there's simply no evidence to even warrant a serious explanation:

Until "any plausible evidence" emerges, there is no point in commenting on statements by the US Department of Justice about the exposure of a number of individuals allegedly working for Russian intelligence, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

"Until we have heard and seen any credible evidence and arguments based on something tangible, we do not consider it necessary to comment on this news," he noted in response to a request to comment on a statement by US Attorney General Todd Blanche, who said that a number of individuals working for Russian intelligence had been exposed in the country.

New: The Russian government backed a murder-for-hire plot on U.S. soil, according to this new indictment from the DOJ.

cc @CourthouseNews pic.twitter.com/1EcQctp8Rm
— Erik Uebelacker (@Uebey) September 15, 2026

Washington has over recent years lobbed significant accusations of espionage and nefarious recruitment schemes against Russian intelligence, especially since the Ukraine war began. Russian intel seems much more active in Europe, however.

The other country which tends to get named in these reports is Iran. The Trump administration has even accused the IRGC of its own assassin-for-hire plot against the president himself.

* * * Add two to cart

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/16/2026 - 13:55

Democrats Still Don't Know How To Read Charts

Tyler Durden — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 17:25:00 +0000

Democrats Still Don't Know How To Read Charts

Authored by Matt Margolis via PJ Media,

Democrats can be unintentionally hilarious sometimes. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) reposted a chart on X Tuesday claiming housing prices are "the most unaffordable in history," and that it was Trump's fault.

There was just one huge problem.

Great work, @realDonaldTrump!
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) September 15, 2026

The chart Newsom shared showed that the housing affordability gap actually widened during Joe Biden's presidency, and X users noticed almost instantly, flooding his replies with screenshots of the very data he'd just posted as though it helped his argument. It didn't take long for the pile-on to turn Newsom's own post into a meme about his reading comprehension.

But the funny thing about it is that Democrats keep doing this. In July 2025, the Democratic National Committee posted a chart that they thought proved grocery prices were spiraling out of control in Trump's second term.

The chart told a different story. It showed a huge spike under Biden. The DNC had unwittingly undermined its own attack on Trump. Social media users mocked the party within hours, dissecting the chart line by line, forcing the DNC to quietly delete the post... not that that stopped us from making fun of them anyway.

@TheDemocrats Democrats really are this stupid. https://t.co/SlkAQ1ol2K
— Matt Margolis (@mattmargolis) July 25, 2025

Then came Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who spent the Schumer Shutdown standoff in October 2025 defending Obamacare subsidies. In the process, he put up a chart on X arguing for expanded tax credits. What the chart actually showed was health care costs more than doubling since 2000, climbing at a steady clip both before and after Obamacare passed, proving that Obamacare had failed to slow down the rising costs of healthcare, let alone reduce it.

Costs have never declined, flattened, or stabilized since Obamacare took effect, and every subsequent "fix" failed to make coverage "affordable."

Health care is already unaffordable. We cannot allow premiums to skyrocket by 75% for millions of Americans. That's what this struggle is about. https://t.co/rHFY56HqN4
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) October 1, 2025

And then Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) picked up the baton in late November 2025. She claimed in a post (with a supporting chart) that power bills had surged 11% under Trump and blamed him for rising past-due balances.

The problem with her claim was that the utility rate spike she referenced happened under Biden.

Under President Trump, electricity prices are surging - up 11%! - leaving millions behind on their utility bills, with past-due balances at an all-time high. American families deserve better. https://t.co/OQX8zzl6DB
— Amy Klobuchar (@amyklobuchar) November 26, 2025

X users called her out quickly and spent the rest of the day passing around corrected versions of her own chart.

Are you seeing a pattern here? Democrats and charts - they just don't mix.

The funny thing is that I'm sure they'll keep trying. They think they can make an accusation accompanied by a chart, and it looks authoritative and true. In the end, they just prove how stupid they are.

* * *

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/16/2026 - 13:25

Two Robinhood Engineers Accused Of Making $50,000 By Front-Running Crypto Listings

Tyler Durden — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 17:05:00 +0000

Two Robinhood Engineers Accused Of Making $50,000 By Front-Running Crypto Listings

Federal prosecutors have accused two former Robinhood engineers of turning their access to the company’s crypto plans into personal trades, according to Bloomberg.

Hefu Chai, 36, and Huaisong Xiang, 30, are accused of learning in advance which digital assets Robinhood intended to add to its platform. Rather than simply keeping that information inside the company, prosecutors allege they positioned themselves in derivatives tied to those tokens before the news reached the public.

Bloomberg writes that the trades were placed through Hyperliquid, a decentralized platform offering perpetual futures, and allegedly occurred over a period spanning 2025 and 2026. Authorities say both men walked away with more than $50,000 in profits.

Robinhood says the activity was uncovered internally and subsequently brought to the attention of regulators and law enforcement. Neither man still works for the company.

A Robinhood spokesperson said the firm has “zero tolerance for insider trading” and maintains controls governing employee access to sensitive information, including details surrounding upcoming crypto additions.

The criminal cases are now moving through federal court. Xiang was released on a $50,000 bond after a judge declined prosecutors’ request to keep him detained over concerns that he might leave the country. His attorney, Robert Stahl, says Xiang denies wrongdoing and plans to contest the case. Chai had not publicly commented on the allegations at the time of the report.

And so crypto continues its remarkable technological achievement of recreating virtually every questionable activity from traditional finance, only faster, with more leverage and usually with a Discord server somewhere in the background.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/16/2026 - 13:05

FBI Agent Wanted To Criminally Investigate Elon Musk, Email Shows

Tyler Durden — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 16:45:00 +0000

FBI Agent Wanted To Criminally Investigate Elon Musk, Email Shows

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

An FBI agent pitched investigating Elon Musk for his work with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), according to an email released on Sept. 15.

FBI agent Kevin Gounaud wrote in the Feb. 22, 2025, missive to a supervisor that he wanted to recommend opening a criminal investigation into the person or people at the Office of Personnel Management who approved transmitting an email to government workers about what they had done the previous week.

That person was conspiring with Musk "to violate government-wide security policy and transmit sensitive government information outside of a strict need to know," Gounaud said.

"Furthermore, Musk used a non-government system (Twitter) to relate information that allegedly was for official purposes," he said.

"In doing so, because he is monetized ... he likely generated income for himself based on Twitter's monetization and/or advertising revenues."

Gounaud compared Musk's action to how former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used a private email server to conduct government business.

The FBI declined to take action against Clinton, determining she lacked criminal intent.

Gounaud said Musk also likely violated a federal law that bars executive branch employees from participating in government matters that impact their own interests.

"Happy to write the case opening and find a prosecutor (or at least try)," the agent told the supervisor.

He added later, "And no, I'm not kidding."

Gounaud could not be reached for comment.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) released the letter as senators questioned FBI Director Kash Patel during a hearing in Washington.

Grassley said the email, along with other evidence from actions taken by additional agents, "undercut public statements by former FBI officials that agents don't get to pick their cases."

The FBI and Musk did not return requests for comment by the time of publication.

Patel told senators that the FBI has fired agents who were involved in certain probes, including collecting intelligence in a malfeasant manner.

"And in terms of criminal investigations that sprout from that, I can only comment on what's been public, but there are a number of ongoing investigations regarding this illegal conduct," he said.

Gounaud is no longer with the FBI, as of February, according to his LinkedIn page. He had been with the bureau since 2004.

Musk's time as a special government employee concluded in the spring of 2025, while DOGE formally shut down in July.

Musk has not been charged to date.

It was not clear whether Grassley has obtained other emails involving Gounaud, including any responses the latter received to his pitch for a probe of Musk.

A spokeswoman for the senator did not return contact following an inquiry.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/16/2026 - 12:45

Apollo Puts A Multi-Trillion-Dollar Price Tag On America's Industrial Comeback

Tyler Durden — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 16:25:00 +0000

Apollo Puts A Multi-Trillion-Dollar Price Tag On America's Industrial Comeback

Apollo’s head of thematic investing, Rob Bittencourt, says US reindustrialization is already “underway,” driven by efforts to reshore critical supply chains, rebuild domestic industrial capacity, expand data centers, restart the rearmament cycle, and power up the grid for the next evolution of the modern economy.

Rebuilding the industrial base could require trillions of dollars in additional investment, Bittencourt explained. The effort reflects a broader push to reduce dependence on foreign suppliers, including China, in sectors where disruptions carry significant economic and security consequences, as previously learned during the supply-chain madness of the Covid era.

The Trump administration has made reviving domestic production a national priority. Manufacturing's share of US GDP has fallen from about 28% in the 1950s to an alarming 9%, as investment shifted toward services, software, and other asset-light activities.

Semiconductor chip plants, data centers and supporting energy infrastructure are now attracting the most capital, but Bittencourt cautions that the recovery remains concentrated in tech-related industries. A broader manufacturing revival will require sustained investment flows, highly skilled labor and broadening domestic supplier networks.

Bittencourt's price tag for restoring the combined US manufacturing and defense industry to its share of GDP in the 2000s would require $2 trillion in incremental investment. Returning to 1980s levels would require a staggering $6.5 trillion.

However, Bittencourt raised some important concerns about the reindustrialization underway, including elevated labor costs, lengthy permitting processes, shortages of skilled workers, and power constraints that threaten to delay projects or raise costs.

Let's not forget that Democrats are hell-bent on imposing data center moratoriums and jeopardizing the whole buildout that has been a driver of economic growth. It has become increasingly odd that one political party would want to halt reindustrialization trends that rebuild the core. But given that Democratic Socialists of America leaders say, in their own words, that they want to destroy the nation from within, none of the moves that Democrats in their "big tent" party should be surprising.

Back to Bittencourt, he said, "Reindustrialization should not be confused with the goal of complete economic self-sufficiency. In our view, the US is unlikely to rebuild every supply chain domestically, nor would doing so make economic sense," noting, "The more realistic objective is strategic self-sufficiency: increasing capacity where supply disruptions carry the greatest economic or national-security consequences. That points toward priority sectors including energy, semiconductors, aerospace and defense, rare earth minerals, pharmaceuticals, and the technologies that enable advanced manufacturing."

He continued, "What emerges, we believe, will look very different from the industrial economy of the 1950s: more modern, more automated, and more resilient, built to support the technologies and security priorities of the 21st century."

And Bittencourt concluded, "This rebuilding is part of a much broader Global Industrial Renaissance."

Professional subscribers can read the full note here at our new Marketdesk.ai portal.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/16/2026 - 12:25

Crude Slides On Report Saudis Could Restore Half Of East-West Pipeline Flows Within Days

Tyler Durden — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 16:20:00 +0000

Crude Slides On Report Saudis Could Restore Half Of East-West Pipeline Flows Within Days

WTI futures fell to $101 a barrel around midday in New York after Bloomberg reported that Saudi Arabia could restore roughly half the East-West pipeline's capacity within days. The pipeline, a critical export route bypassing the Strait of Hormuz, has been shut since last week's drone attack.

The outlet reported:

State-run Saudi Aramco is working to bypass a damaged section on the route that will allow it to resume part of the pipeline's capacity, the person said, asking not to be identified because the matter is private. The company is looking to return the conduit to its full capability in about six weeks, they said.

A successful restart of the pipeline, which can carry 7 million barrels of crude per day to Yanbu on the Red Sea while bypassing the Strait of Hormuz, would likely provide welcome relief for Europe, which had crude cargoes for this month canceled because of the disruptions.

However, the reported six-week timeline for full recovery is troubling news for Europe ahead of the Northern Hemisphere winter, with diesel in short supply and natural gas storage levels well below 15-year norms for this time of year.

Saudi Arabia's immediate response to the East-West pipeline disruption has been to ramp up crude loadings from its east coast terminals, maritime research firm TankerTrackers reported earlier today.

Related:

Saudis Threaten Retaliation After Alleged Houthi Drone Attack On Mecca Crosses "Red Line"

Meanwhile, US diesel crack spreads showed no relief, still averaging around $116 a barrel around lunchtime in New York.

US Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Bloomberg TV at the start of the week that the critical pipeline would be restarted "very soon."

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/16/2026 - 12:20