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Lindsay Clancy's Attorney Requests Investigation Into Holdout Juror

Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times,

Lindsay Clancy's attorney has asked the judge to conduct a "limited inquiry" into the holdout juror who wanted Clancy convicted of murdering her three children.

In a motion filed Sept. 18, lawyer Kevin Reddington asked Judge William Sullivan to review the juror's truthfulness on a questionnaire and alleged use of a cellphone during deliberations. He did not identify the juror.

Reddington also sought a court order requiring the juror's cellphone carrier to provide call and text detail records and data-session logs from Aug. 27 through Sept. 4, covering each deliberation day, and directing the juror to submit his cellphone to a neutral examiner designated by the court.

The lawyer asked the court to provide under seal juror information it obtained, details of any background checks it conducted, and whether the Plymouth County District Attorney's Office has handled any case involving the juror as a defendant or complainant.

Clancy was on trial after admitting to strangling her children - a 5-year-old, a 3-year-old, and an 8-month-old - with exercise bands in the basement of her Massachusetts home in January 2023. Her lawyers argued that Clancy was experiencing postpartum psychosis at the time of the killings and sought a not guilty by reason of insanity verdict.

On Sept. 4, Sullivan declared a mistrial in the murder trial after the jurors failed to reach a unanimous verdict. Eleven of the 12 jurors favored finding Clancy not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility for the deaths of her children. The defense team asked Sullivan to remove the holdout juror, but he rejected the request.

The court has not publicly identified the holdout juror, but he later identified himself as Michael Péguy Desronvil in a Sept. 18 statement posted by his lawyer.

Desronvil, the lone black juror and one of three males on the jury, said he "didn't have any doubts" that Clancy was criminally responsible for her children's death.

"As I tried to explain different possible theories during deliberation, I kept getting cut off as if I had doubts based on the evidence presented," he said in the statement.

"Based on all the physical evidence, key witnesses, and what the prosecution presented, I thought it was enough proof that [Clancy] knew exactly what she was doing and planned."

Desronvil's extended family has been hounded by the public since the trial. His attorney, Edward Andrew Paltzik, has urged the public to respect the juror's privacy.

"Please respect his dignity, humanity, and privacy. Stay away from his home, stop calling him, and don't even think about deciphering his location," Paltzik said on X.

Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz said on Sept. 4 that his team had not yet decided whether to pursue a second trial. The next hearing is set for Sept. 29.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/22/2026 - 10:00

Saudis Signal Red Sea Oil Loadings Could Soon Resume For Asian Buyers

Bloomberg reports Saudi Aramco may restart crude loadings at Yanbu this week, raising hopes that the critical East-West pipeline route, which bypasses the Strait of Hormuz, could resume operations at half capacity after a drone attack disabled it.

While no restart timeline has been confirmed, the overnight development adds to positive signs of progress toward resolving the global energy crisis after Brent slipped below $100 a barrel on reports that Iran offered to reopen the strait in exchange for an easing of US naval pressure and the US blockade of Iranian ports.

However, Iran's semi-official Fars News Agency has denied reports from Kyodo and Reuters about reopening Hormuz, calling them "invalid and untrue."

The report also said Aramco executives told at least three Asian refiners they could soon resume picking up crude at Yanbu on the Red Sea.

Loadings at the Red Sea port have been halted since drone attacks launched from Iraq struck an East-West pipeline pumping station on September 10. The route had been carrying about 4 million barrels a day, providing Saudi Arabia with a valuable bypass around the Hormuz chokepoint.

Some Asian and European buyers have already missed their loading dates, leaving vessels near Yanbu or still heading toward the port. The Saudis have ramped up crude tanker transits from Ras Tanura through Hormuz, with cargoes available for ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman.

Despite this morning's encouraging reports, Barclays analyst Amarpreet Singh warned that Brent prices may need to climb another 50% to bring supply and demand into balance if current disruptions persist.

Inventory and consumption indicators suggest "prices have a long way to go before supply and demand converge," Singh wrote in the note.

He pointed out that net Middle Eastern supply losses have narrowed to an estimated 4.7 million barrels a day, down from 12 million to 13 million at the start of the war. But months of disruption have left the market with inadequate buffers to protect against another big supply shock.

Singh forecasts Brent at $95 a barrel in the fourth quarter of 2026, followed by $90, $85, $85 and $80 across the four quarters of 2027. The potential 50% increase represents an upside scenario if disruptions continue.

Separately, UBS analyst Joe Dickinson told clients earlier that "Trump's approval ratings hit new lows and public Republican dissatisfaction continued to build ahead of the midterm elections. Polymarket is now pricing a 65% probability of a Democratic clean sweep, adding pressure on Trump to deliver tangible progress in negotiations over the conflict in the Middle East."

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/22/2026 - 09:25

Friends Don’t Let Friends Wear Dow Hats

 Submitted by QTR's Fringe Finance

At some point, probably sooner than most people think, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is going to hit 100,000. And when it does, you can already picture the scene. It’ll be like every major milestone the Dow has ever hit so far combined.

CNBC will run a countdown. There will be breathless retrospectives about how far the market has come. Somebody will dig up footage from the New York Stock Exchange. And, almost certainly, we will print a stupid hat that says “DOW 100,000”.

Wall Street has been doing this for decades. One of the great traditions of the old NYSE floor was celebrating big round Dow numbers as though humanity had just split the atom for the first time. When the Dow first crossed 10,000 in March 1999, traders cheered, confetti flew and “Dow 10,000” baseball caps were tossed onto the floor.

And back then, maybe the hats actually made sense. The enormous advance in American equities over the preceding generations represented, to a meaningful degree, an extraordinary expansion in American productive capacity, corporate earnings, technological progress and real wealth creation. The country built things, invented things, became more productive and produced companies that generated vastly more earnings than their predecessors. Obviously monetary inflation existed then too, but there was something tangible underneath the milestone worth celebrating.

The hats became part of Wall Street folklore, particularly through Art Cashin, the legendary floor trader who bought his NYSE seat in 1964 and spent six decades becoming one of the most recognizable people on the exchange. When the Dow climbed back above 10,000 in October 2009, the hats came back out and Cashin put his rally cap on again. Shortly thereafter, he was donning a hat again at the 20,000 milestone.

And I’m sure more hats will make their way onto the floor when the Dow hits 100,000, which at this rate feels like it could happen before the turn of the decade. But instead of celebrating, we should remember: this number is nominal. And the further we travel into the modern fiat era, the less impressed I am by nominal milestones.

Creating another semiconductor fabrication process takes years of research. Building a factory takes years. Increasing worker productivity is difficult. Growing corporate earnings requires selling something people actually want at a profit. Creating another trillion dollars of nominal purchasing power requires considerably less effort. Those efforts deserve a hat.

That distinction matters because today we increasingly celebrate the scoreboard without asking how much the measuring stick itself has changed. Nominal numbers are wonderful things to celebrate if you don’t ask too many questions about what the unit you’re measuring them in is worth.

If tomorrow we woke up and every stock doubled in dollar terms while every house, gallon of milk, insurance premium, restaurant bill and salary also doubled, would America suddenly be twice as prosperous? Of course not. But hey….hats.

This is the fundamental problem with treating ever higher nominal stock market levels as some kind of national economic scoreboard. Dow 100,000 will absolutely contain genuine economic progress, including productivity, technological advancement, population growth, corporate earnings growth and successful businesses creating real value. I don’t dispute that for a second.

But unlike building a factory, inventing a new technology or doubling the productive output of a business, increasing the number of dollars in the financial system is not some Herculean accomplishment. And when the supply of money and credit expands dramatically over long periods, some of that expansion inevitably finds its way into the nominal prices of scarce and financial assets. Stocks don’t magically sit outside the monetary system.

Inflation raises nominal prices, and stocks are things with nominal prices. Companies eventually sell their products for more dollars, report revenues and earnings in more dollars and own assets valued in more dollars. Investors, meanwhile, value those businesses in those same dollars. Over sufficiently long periods, therefore, asking whether the Dow will reach some enormous nominal number isn’t particularly interesting. Given enough real economic growth, enough inflation and enough time, increasingly absurd nominal numbers become almost inevitable.

The interesting question is how much real prosperity those 100,000 Dow points represent and what those dollars will actually buy when we get there.

For example, when Wall Street first celebrated Dow 10,000 in 1999, the index really was around 10,000; today it sits above 51,000, a nominal gain of roughly 416%. But consumer prices have risen about 103% over the same period, meaning today’s Dow is only around 25,500 when measured in 1999 purchasing power, a real gain of roughly 155%.

Meanwhile, real GDP has grown about 82% and real median household income only about 19%, while M2 money supply has exploded roughly 424%. To be clear, that doesn’t mean the Dow’s rise is simply the product of money printing, as corporate profits have grown enormously too. It does mean that an increasingly large portion of the spectacular number flashing on the screen reflects the fact that we’re measuring stocks in dollars that buy far less than they did when the original Dow 10,000 hats came out.

Celebrating the nominal number without adjusting for the shrinking measuring stick is increasingly like celebrating that your kid grew from four feet to eight feet after you changed the definition of a foot to 6 inches.

And there’s another uncomfortable part of the celebration. The people receiving most of the benefit from booming financial assets are not distributed remotely evenly across American society.

According to the Federal Reserve’s Distributional Financial Accounts, as of the second quarter of 2026 the wealthiest 10% of American households owned roughly $56.9 trillion of corporate equities and mutual fund shares. The bottom 50% owned about $370 billion. Do the math and the top 10% own roughly 88% of those assets, while the bottom half of the country owns roughly 0.6%.

So when stocks explode higher, who gets rich? Mostly people who were already rich. This isn’t some secret Marxist interpretation of capitalism. It’s literally the Federal Reserve’s own balance sheet data. I’ve written about it often: The Devil Neither Political Party Will Name

That’s fantastic if you own a shitload of corporate equities. It means considerably less if most of your paycheck disappears into rent, groceries, insurance, utilities, transportation and debt payments before you ever get the opportunity to buy them.

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That’s the particularly perverse part of celebrating asset inflation as national prosperity. The people who already own the assets get the protection. The people trying to acquire them get a higher admission price.

That doesn’t mean every stock market gain is caused by inflation. It obviously isn’t. It doesn’t mean monetary policy is solely responsible for wealth inequality, and it doesn’t mean someone becomes poorer every time the Dow rises. The point is simpler: a rising nominal stock index and rising broad based prosperity are two completely different things. Sometimes they coincide. Sometimes a larger portion of the increase is simply the consequence of measuring productive assets in a currency whose supply has grown enormously over time.

The irony is that the monetary and financial architecture that helps produce enormous nominal asset values can create the most spectacular scoreboard precisely for the people who need the scoreboard the least. Asset owners watch their portfolios compound, their homes appreciate, their businesses reprice, their collateral become more valuable and their net worth rise.

Meanwhile, someone without meaningful financial assets can watch the exact same economic process and wonder why a starter home costs a fortune, dinner for two costs $250 and six figures doesn’t feel anything like six figures used to. Both people live in the same economy. Only one of them gets a hat.

So before somebody fires the confetti cannon for Dow 100,000, I’d like to see a few additional statistics displayed next to the giant “100,000” on CNBC. What happened to the purchasing power of the dollar along the way? What happened to median real wages? What happened to housing affordability? How much of the country’s financial wealth is owned by the people wearing the hats, and how much is owned by the people watching them on television?

Because “Dow 100,000” fits beautifully across the front of a baseball cap, but "groceries cost the average lower class family with no financial assets or stock portfolio 2x what they did last year!" doesn’t quite fit as well.

--

QTR’s Disclaimer: Please read my full legal disclaimer on my About page here. This post represents my opinions only. In addition, please understand I am an idiot and very often get things wrong and lose money. I may own or transact in any names mentioned in this piece at any time without warning, meaning if I’m long I could sell or if I’m short I could cover at any time.

Contributor posts, guest posts and curated posts have been hand selected by me, but have not been fact checked and are the opinions of their authors. They are either submitted to QTR by their author or reprinted under a Creative Commons license with my best effort to uphold what the license asks, or with the permission of the author.

I cannot guarantee the accuracy of any or all facts and figures included in this article though I made an effort to get them right. I have been wrong before and will be wrong again, and encourage you to always double check, do your own research and speak to a licensed financial professional, which I am not.

This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stocks or securities, just my opinions. I often lose money on positions I trade/invest in. I may add any name mentioned in this article and sell any name mentioned in this piece at any time, without further warning. None of this is a solicitation to buy or sell securities. I may or may not own names I write about and are watching. Sometimes I’m bullish without owning things, sometimes I’m bearish and do own things I’m bearish on. Just assume my positions could be exactly the opposite of what you think they are just in case. If I’m long I could quickly be short and vice versa. I won’t update my positions.

Starting in 2026, I have been attempting to no longer actively trade as much as I once did (read my story here). My goal is for my investing/saving to be done by recurring contributions mostly to sector ETFs and a few select equities, trusted third parties who oversee my accounts, and advisors. Such advisors or funds, through individual equities, options, index funds, mutual funds, ETFs, or other securities, may have positions in, exposure to, or holdings of names mentioned herein that I know nothing about. It is possible I could own, have exposure to, or not own anything, at any point. In an attempt to lead a healthier lifestyle, I’ve also excluded myself from fantasy sports, sports betting, online and in-person casinos and prediction markets.

Any of my positions can change immediately as soon as I publish, with or without notice and at any point I can be long, short or neutral on any position. You are on your own. Do not make decisions based on my blog. I exist on the fringe. If you see numbers and calculations of any sort, assume they are wrong and double check them. I failed Algebra in 8th grade and topped off my high school math accolades by getting a D- in remedial Calculus my senior year, before becoming an English major in college so I could bullshit my way through things easier. Hence, why I am a writer.

The publisher does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided in this page. These are not the opinions of any of my employers, partners, or associates. I did my best to be honest about my disclosures but can’t guarantee I am right; I write these posts after a couple beers sometimes. Many times I edit after my posts are published because I’m impatient and lazy, so if you see a typo, check back in a half hour.

Also, again I just straight up get shit wrong a lot. I mention it multiple times because it’s that important you understand.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/22/2026 - 08:50

Futures Flat As Oil, Yields Drop Ahead Of Trump UN Address

Futures are flat, having recoverd  a modest drop after the European open, following yesterday’s strong, positive performance despite energy prices and yields being lower for a second consecutive day. As of 8:00am ET, S&P and Nasdaq futures are fractionally in the green after an advance in tech giants and chipmakers drove the index to a one-month high. In premarket trading, semis are down ~60bp after a blistering 5-day run that added 11.2%. Memory names are weaker as Mag7 and Software remain bid. Alibaba ADRs (BABA) gain 3% as the company is rolling out what it calls China’s most powerful AI chip, an accelerator to compete with Nvidia Corp. Brent crude erased gains of as much as 2% to fall toward $98 a barrel. The reversal came after Japan’s Kyodo News Agency reported that Iran has proposed to reopen Hormuz within seven days if the US blockade is lifted. While Iran has since denied this report, a separate report that Saudis may restart the East-West pipeline helped sentiment. Treasury yields turned lower, with the 10-year rate down two basis points to 4.93%. The dollar barely budged while the entire commodity complex is lower, though Base Metals are a bid. These moves likely reflect growing optimism around a diplomatic solution in the Middle East and improved US / China relations, which combined will support AI and lower energy prices, and potentially lower tariff rates. Today’s macro data focus is on ADP’s weekly number, regional Fed activity indicators, and another Fedspeaker. Looking ahead, highlights include UN Meetings: UN General Debate including Trump, Macron, Burnham; Trump-Zelensky meeting; Trump-Burnham meeting; Trump-Gulf Leaders meeting. 

In premarket trading, Mag 7 stocks are mixed: Alphabet +0.5%, Amazon +0.4%, Apple +0.2%, Meta -0.7%, Microsoft +0.8%, Nvidia -0.2%, Tesla +0.7%

• Alibaba ADRs (BABA) gain 3% as the company is rolling out what it calls China’s most powerful AI chip, an accelerator to compete with Nvidia Corp.
• GameStop (GME) rises 4% after CEO Ryan Cohen disclosed a $26.4 million stock purchase in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
• Grab (GRAB) rises 6% after Chief Executive Officer Anthony Ping Yeow Tan disclosed a $29.9 million stock purchase in a filing with the SEC.
• Quest Diagnostics (DGX) falls 6% after the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released new preliminary medicare payment rates for lab services.
• Vicor (VICR) jumps 9% after the power equipment company raised its third-quarter revenue growth guidance, citing royalties from non-exclusive license to Vertical Power Delivery.
• Viking Therapeutics (VKTX) soars 32% after announcing positive topline results from a study of dosing regimens for maintaining weight loss.

In other corporate news, Roche’s experimental obesity shot enicepatide reduced body weight by 15.5% in trial, potentially ramping up competition with Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk. On Holding plans to increase constant currency sales at a rate in the high teens through 2029 and ratchet up profitability, as the Swiss brand introduces new products for golf and soccer in its effort to take on Adidas and Nike.
Federal prosecutors are investigating whether Binance, the operator of the world’s biggest crypto exchange, violated US sanctions on Iran by not stopping certain trading on its platform. The newly merged Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. will be headquartered in Los Angeles, CEO David Ellison said.

Stocks are set to for a breather after the strongest session since early August. Positive geopolitical developments and a new lease of life for the AI trade made Monday an easy win, but questions remain on both fronts. Crude prices reversed earlier gains after Kyodo reported, citing an Iranian official, that Iran has suggested to the US administration that it will open the Strait of Hormuz within seven days if the US lifts its blockade on Iranian ports and stops military operations related to Hormuz. Alongside the Kyodo report were constructive comments by the IRGC, stating that if Iran’s national interests require negotiations alongside war, then it must negotiate. Elsewhere, Saudi Arabia was testing a restart of its East-West pipeline, according to a person familia with the matter, offering another potential boost to supply. Brent has returned below USD 94/bbl on the above headlines. A constructive risk tone followed, with equity futures and fixed income rising while the USD weakened.

President Donald Trump is set to address the United Nations General Assembly in New York later Tuesday, with traders watching for a possible meeting with his Iranian counterpart that could prove pivotal.

AI-linked stocks were mixed after a positive reception for Meta Platforms Inc.’s new AI agent fueled broad gains in the previous session. Microsoft Corp. rose 0.9% in premarket trading to lead gains among the Magnificent Seven. An exchange-traded fund tracking chipmakers was slightly lower.

Monday’s price action showed that AI FOMO is still a big driving force in the market. One indication appears in call to put skew on a 10% move in SPX over the next month. That skew metric is at its highest since late August, hovering just below its year-to-date high.

The sentiment is across asset classes, with SoftBank said to have drawn more than $20 billion of preliminary demand for its junk bond deal to help fund investments in OpenAI.

The swings in sentiment after Monday’s rally highlighted how confidence in the AI trade remains vulnerable to macroeconomic risks. Bond yields remain near their highest levels in years despite easing this week, as traders continue to price in imminent interest-rate hikes and persistent fiscal shortfalls.

“I don’t see anyone shorting tech and AI before the third-quarter earnings season begins,” said David Kruk, head of trading at La Financiere de l’Echiquier in Paris. “There’s also some hope that Trump will find a way to lower oil prices before the midterms. It makes sense that the market consolidates slightly.”

The strong early uptake of Meta’s Muse AI agent revived hopes of agentic AI coming to the mainstream consumer market, with more insights expected during Zuckerberg’s keynote speech at Meta Connect tomorrow night. Elsewhere in AI, Alibaba rolled out what it called China’s most powerful AI chip, an accelerator to compete with Nvidia and underpin a massive expansion of data center capacity in coming years. Tencent launched its latest image-generation model. Headlines may also come from Amazon Accelerate over the next few days.

Still, angst about the data center buildout continues, with Texas Governor Greg Abbott halting all permits sought by data centers until an audit of risks to the grid is complete. Texas is home of one-fifth of the US’s data center pipeline in terms of IT power capacity, by far the largest of any single state.

Global investors are also gearing up for the summit between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping later this week. Officials from the two sides wrapped up their second day of talks in New York on Monday as they sought to advance negotiations ahead of Xi’s visit to the US. For markets, the big question is what happens when the yearlong trade truce expires in November, noted Jim Reid at Deutsche Bank AG. While the tone between the two sides remains positive, they have yet to reach an agreement.

“Given increasing geopolitical uncertainty worldwide, keeping the world’s two dominant economies on speaking terms has rarely mattered more,” said Roman Ziruk, lead FX strategist at Ebury.

In trade, Vietnamese President To Lam said his nation is “very close” to a deal with the US as he pledged to buy more high-tech goods to narrow the trade gap. Canada’s trade minister said talks with India are “moving along really well” as his country looks for new markets amid a tariff war with the US. Meanwhile, China’s expansion in the rare-earth supply chain could help provide Xi leverage over the US during their talks.

The Stoxx 600 briefly touched a session high too and is up by around 0.2%, rising on Tuesday as oil drops, with tech shares also fueled by optimism around artificial intelligence developments. Retail and consumer shares are the best performers. Energy and insurance fall.
Stoxx 600 gains 0.2% to 643.25 with 200 members down, 390 up and 10 unchanged. Here are some of the biggest movers on Tuesday:

• Bureau Veritas rises as much as 2.1% after saying it expects double-digit revenue growth over 2027-2028 and aims to deliver €1 billion from AI-driven markets by the end of the decade.
• Kingfisher shares rise as much as 11% after the B&Q and Screwfix owner posted a first-half earnings beat and lifted its full-year profit guidance beyond analyst expectations.
• Vusion shares rise as much as 11% after the French maker of electronic labels for retail stores reported first half results that included an almost 50% increase in adjusted Ebitda.
• Verbund gains as much as 5.1%, while ERG is up as much as 2.9%, after Bank of America upgraded both to neutral from underperform.
• Smiths Group gains as much as 6.4% with analysts generally positive on the UK manufacturing equipment firm’s performance in 2026, and its outlook for 2027.
• Buzzi shares fall as much as 5%, to the lowest since January 2025, as UBS downgrades the Italian construction materials firm to sell from neutral, warning that import pressure and CO2 allowance costs could drive sharp earnings downgrades.
• UBS shares fall as much as 4.1% after CEO Sergio Ermotti says year-on-year transactions in wealth management and banking fee pool are likely down in 3Q.
• Ericsson slips as much as 4.3% after Morgan Stanley downgrades the Swedish mobile networks and technology group to underweight from equal-weight, saying margins are “inflecting to the downside.”
• Industrie De Nora tumbles as much as 14% after investor Snam offloaded a chunk of shares at a hefty discount to the last close. The stock has slipped below the offer price.

Asian stocks advanced for a fifth day, as technology sector gained amid optimism over Meta Platform Inc.’s new personal agent. The MSCI Asia Pacific excluding Japan Index jumped as much as 1.5% before paring about half of those gains. Taiwan’s Taiex climbed to a record before erasing most of the advance. Korea’s Kospi closed 0.2% higher, while Japan remained shut for a holiday. In FX, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fluctuated, and is now flat. The yen wiped out its decline, with USDJPY briefly slipping below 157. Tencent shares jumped 5%, as positive feedback on Meta’s new personal agent unleashed investor optimism that the Chinese social media giant may unlock similar AI‑driven optionality through its WeChat ecosystem. Alibaba gained 2% after it rolled out an AI chip and announced plans to expand data center capacity over the coming years. 

In rates, treasuries hold modest gains after erasing losses during European morning following a sharp drop in oil prices. US yields are about 2bp-3bp richer across the curve led by the belly, steepening 5s30s spread by around 1bp. 10-year, near session lows around 4.93%, keeps pace with German counterpart and trails UK by about 1bp. European bond yields shifted direction on the slide for crude, with 10-year yields down by about a basis point in the US, Europe and the US, having been pushing higher through the first portion of the session. 2-year note auction at 1 p.m. has WI yield near 4.75%, about 55bp cheaper than last month’s, which stopped through by 0.4bp; $70 billion 5-year and $44 billion 7-year note auctions follow over next two days. IG dollar issuance slate includes a few offerings so far. Nine were priced Monday totaling around $10 billion, with issuer paying about 3bp in new issue concessions on deals that were 3.4 times covered. US session includes $69 billion 2-year note auction, the first of this week’s three coupon sales, with additional supply pressure possible from Sysco Corp. jumbo multi-currency bond offering. 

In commodities, crude futures fell on signs of diplomatic efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz - driven by a Japanese media report on a possible early reopening of the Strait of Hormuz - and as Saudi Arabia sought to reopen a pipeline Brent is sitting just below $100/bbl while WTI has slipped below $94. Gold fell below $4,300 but recovered some ground, though is still off for the day.

US economic data slate includes ADP weekly employment change (8:15 a.m.), September Philadelphia Fed non-manufacturing activity (8:30 a.m.) and September Richmond Fed manufacturing index (10 a.m.). Fed speaker slate includes New York’s Williams (10:05 a.m.), Vice Chair Jefferson (10:20 a.m.) and Richmond’s Barkin (1 p.m.)

Market Snapshot

Top Overnight News

• Brent crude dropped below $100 on a Kyodo report that Iran could reopen the Strait of Hormuz if the US lifted a blockade of its ports. Futures whipsawed. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said it must negotiate if it’s in the national interest to do so. BBG
• Several Asian refiners have been told informally by Saudi Aramco they will soon be able to pick up oil from the Red Sea port of Yanbu. Loadings from Yanbu have been all-but-halted since the East-West pipeline was closed after being attacked by drones launched from Iraq on Sept. 10. BBG
• China's Xi Jinping is expected to press US President Donald Trump to halt Taiwan arms sales under a 1982 joint statement during a visit to Washington this week, which he could do at the US National Archives, sources briefed on the matter said. BBG
• Alibaba unveiled what it called China’s most powerful AI chip, an accelerator to rival Nvidia and underpin a massive expansion of data center capacity. BBG
• Saudi Arabia spent months rerouting oil across the desert to circumvent the Strait of Hormuz. Now, with its Red Sea bypass route disrupted by attacks, the world’s oil kingpin is having to return to the waterway it was trying to avoid in the first place. Saudi Aramco, the country’s state-controlled oil giant, is loading more oil onto tankers in the Persian Gulf and then taking its chances sending them through the Strait of Hormuz. WSJ
• Republican lawmakers are ratcheting up pressure on Donald Trump to ban diesel exports as surging prices squeeze American farmers and truckers just weeks ahead of pivotal midterm elections. FT
• SoftBank drew more than $20 billion of preliminary demand for what’s shaping up to be one of the biggest junk bond deals ever. BBG
• Trump's approval rating fell to 32% - the lowest of his political career - as his fellow Republicans soured on his handling of the cost of living amid the unpopular Iran ‌war. RTRS
• US office real estate is entering a new phase as billions in maturing debt force owners and investors to confront losses. Office CMBS delinquencies are near a record 12%, with almost $40 billion of debt maturing this year and next already troubled. BBG

Iran War

• A Senior Iranian Official said that Tehran welcomes the revival of diplomacy if the US takes tangible steps, stating that the Iranian delegation is in the US and has full authority to revive diplomacy in the US, Reuters reported. The official added that details of an agreement to end hostilities with the US can be discussed in New York via mediators. Furthermore, the official said the proposal was delivered to the US via mediators on September 16th while reiterating the Kyodo report that Iran can reopen the Strait within seven days if the US eases military pressure and lifts the blockade.
• Iran has reportedly suggested to the US administration that it will open the Strait of Hormuz within seven days if the US lifts its blockade on Iranian ports and stop military operations related to Hormuz, Kyodo reported citing an Iranian official. The official added that the proposal called for renewed talks aimed at reaching a permanent end to hostilities between the two countries. Furthermore, the official went on to say that there is a possibility of moving toward an agreement, but the US must demonstrate "seriousness and commitment" if diplomacy is to advance.
• IRGC said that if Iran’s national interests require negotiations alongside war, then it must negotiate but it will respond to any enemy strike with multiple strikes across different arenas and in various ways, Al Jazeera reported. To add, the IRGC said it will have no contact with the US as a military institution, even if Washington requests it and its assessments indicate the US and Israel are not prepared for a new war, but Iran is ready if they miscalculate.
• US President Trump said he had meetings regarding Iran and that Iran is not doing well.
• Iranian Parliament Speaker Ghalibaf said US President Trump cannot impose his power on Iran, adding that Iran will neither shut down nor surrender. Ghalibaf went on to say that missile technology is at a stage where Iran can "target anywhere it decides" and they will never yield in the conflict.
• Iran's Judiciary Spokesperson said Iran has full control over the Strait of Hormuz, SNN reported.
• Iran's Foreign Ministry said introducing Iran as a cause of fuel price hikes is merely a sign of the US administration's evasion of responsibility for consequences of military aggression against Iran.
• G7 issued a statement on the Middle East which noted the situation in Yemen poses an unacceptable threat to the stability and security in the region and to global energy security, while it condemned in the strongest terms the unacceptable continued strikes carried out by the Houthis in Yemen and against Saudi Arabia. It called on the Houthis to immediately cease all military actions, threats and attacks against civilian shipping, as well as called on Iran to end its arming of and support for the Houthis, which it noted violates UN Security Council resolutions. Furthermore, it stated that Iran's reprehensible actions constitute a dangerous pattern of escalation and risk further exacerbating the conflict.
• Israeli Defence Minister said they will bomb Iran for the 3rd time if necessary until the regime is overthrown, Al Arabiya reported.
• French President Macron said he had a constructive discussion with US President Trump on the Red Sea and Ukraine.
• UK PM Burnham agreed for the UK to provide Saudi Arabia with defensive air-to-air refuelling, with the support to begin in days and last for weeks.
• EU's Kallas said the EU naval mission in the Red Sea requires additional naval and air resources, while she added the EU would need more than 10 ships in the Red Sea.

A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk

APAC stocks mostly gained following the advances on Wall Street, where the Nasdaq outperformed and notched a record close as Meta shares surged over 11% on strong adoption of its Muse AI agent and with AMD joining the USD 1tln market cap club, while markets in Japan were closed again for the holidays. ASX 200 traded marginally higher but with gains capped as the strength in tech, consumer discretionary and health care was partly offset by losses in utilities, energy and financials. KOSPI took its cue from the tech and communications outperformance stateside, while South Korea's Industry Ministry noted that the final announcement on the US investment plan will be made by President Trump, with the funds to be remitted within 45 days if requested by the US. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp were positive as tech stocks led the advances in Hong Kong, although some property, energy and biopharmaceutical stocks lagged while participants also continue to await the Trump-Xi summit this week.

Top Asian News

• RBA Governor Bullock said supply shocks are difficult for monetary policy to deal with and that policy needs to deal with second-round effects on inflation, while she stated that the current decline in house prices is consistent with past episodes and that unemployment at 4.5‑5% is likely to reduce inflation pressure. Furthermore, Bullock said she is not signalling anything on policy, and it is up to the board, as well as noted that inflation risks are materialising from the Middle East and excess demand at home.
• RBNZ Governor Breman said near-term inflation is expected to be somewhat higher if elevated oil prices persist, while she noted the RBNZ remains focused on the inflation outlook ahead of the October policy decision. Breman also commented that the economic outlook remains subject to significant risks and that current data points to continued economic recovery, though progress remains uneven.
• Alibaba (9988 HK) unveiled its Zhenwu V900 chip, which it said is the most powerful in China with three times the performance of the predecessor, while the Co. targets 20GW of data centre capacity by 2032 and the Qwen team plans to train a new model at a scale of 5tln-10tln parameters.

European bourses were initially lower this morning, but then flicked into the green after a report in Kyodo suggested that Iran could open the Strait of Hormuz within seven days, citing a source. This helped boost sentiment, with crude benchmarks falling to lows, hence weighing on yields. European sectors hold a positive bias. Retail took the top spot, joined closely by Media and Tech. To the downside resides Insurance and Telecoms. Key European movers include: Kingfisher (+8.2%) , raises its FY26/27 adj. PBT guidance; Smiths Group (+4.5%), FY26 revenue raises Y/Y and raises its dividend above estimates; Evonik (+3.3%), reports that BASF explored a potential deal with the Co. earlier in 2026; Bureau Veritas (+1.0%), raises its 2027-28 total revenue CAGR guidance; Ericsson (-3.5%), downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley.

Top European News

• German Chancellor Merz’s woes cast doubt over the bloc's EUR 2tln budget deal, with his authority in Brussels hobbled by his party’s poor results in regional elections, according to FT.
• UK PM Burnham to call on EU Commission President von der Leyen to allow the UK to partake in the EU's Made in Europe industrial framework, according to the FT.

FX

• Snapshot: The FX space has been exceptionally choppy this morning. Initially, G10s were mixed against the USD, but are now mostly lower, as the USD clambered higher as the session progressed. The Kiwi outperforms after hawkish comments from RBNZ Governor Bremen. She noted that near-term inflation is expected to be somewhat higher if elevated oil prices persist.
• DXY is a touch lower this morning and holds within a 100.30 to 100.66 range. The bias was initially stronger for much of the European morning, before a report in Kyodo, citing an Iranian source, suggested that Iran had told the US admin that it will open the Strait within seven days, if the US lifts its blockade on Iranian ports. This spurred immediate and sustained pressure in the crude complex, weighing on yields and therefore on the USD.
• Following this action, JPY was the largest beneficiary, flicking from red to green within a few minutes. USD/JPY fell from 157.62 to a session trough of 156.85 within a small timeframe – largely thanks to narrowing yield differentials.
• Some may view this move as a bit outsized, given that there is currently no progress to peace at this stage. However, it points out that the mood is a bit more constructive heading into the UN General Assembly, where the Iranian President is set to make an appearance. No sideline meetings are currently expected between the US and Iran, however, the US and Gulf leaders will meet. Any positive mood music following that meeting will no doubt put another bout of pressure on the USD.

Fixed Income

• A bearish start for fixed income, amid initial crude strength and a modest reversal of some of Monday’s action. Gilts underperformed modestly in early-trade, given the unwelcome borrowing data for the UK vs both market and OBR consensus.
• However, this action, of circa. 30 ticks lower in Bunds, five in USTs and over 40 in Gilts gave way to a geopolitical/energy-induced move higher and into the green. After a Kyodo source outlined that Iran has suggested to the US that it would open Hormuz in one week if the US blockade is lifted, alongside a tone change from the IRGC on negotiating with the US if needed.
• This lifted USTs to a 106-09+ peak, firmer by just under 10 ticks on the day. Bunds and Gilts followed, to the upside of 23 ticks and just over 30 respectively. However, as the energy move pauses for breath and updates since the two above have, net, been more bullish for crude, this has unwound with fixed income now near-enough unchanged on the day.
• The day was always headlined by the UN General Assembly, but following the morning reporting, the speeches by US President Trump and Iranian President Pezeshkian tomorrow now draw even greater attention; for any rebuttal of the above, or signs of tangible progress between the sides.
• That aside, BTPs were disappointed by the 2025 deficit/GDP revision, which remained above the key 3.0% mark that determines the EU’s EDP system. As such, we now look to see if Italian Finance Minister Giorgetti moves forward with using the Escape Clause or not. For reference, the BTP-Bund 10yr spread remained steady at 90bps at the time.
• Germany sells EUR 3.735bln vs Exp. 5bln 2.90% 2031 Bobl: b/c 1.21x (prev. 1.56x), average yield 3.28% (prev. 3.09%), retention 25.3% (prev. 22.16%).
• UK sells GBP 4.75bln 4.625% 2032 Gilt: b/c 3.07x (prev. 3.34x), average yield 4.843% (prev. 4.613%), tail 0.4bps (prev. 0.2bps).

Commodities

• WTI Nov and Brent Dec futures have reversed earlier gains and are now sharply lower following a notable shift in tone from Iran, alongside a report from an Iranian source in Japan's Kyodo. First, the IRGC said that if Iran’s national interests require negotiations alongside war, then it must negotiate; this contrasts with the usual escalatory tone of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Shortly after the IRGC headline, and adding to the diplomatic mood, Iran reportedly suggested to the US that it could reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days if Washington lifts its blockade on Iranian ports, reiterating Iran's conditions for Hormuz concessions. The Kyodo report was later corroborated by a Senior Iranian Source who noted that the Iranian delegation is in the US to revive diplomacy with the US. On the supply front, Saudi Arabia has reportedly restarted the East-West oil pipeline to resume crude oil exports from the Yanbu port.
• Following the above developments, Brent fell from USD 97.70/bbl before the headlines to a USD 93.84/bbl low, while WTI fell from USD 93.14/bbl to a USD 89.40/bbl low. Dutch TTF has followed the broader energy complex lower as the prospect of progress around Hormuz reduces some of the Middle East supply risk premium. The contract has fallen from a EUR 75.22/MWh high to around EUR 72/MWh.
• Precious metals have trimmed some of their earlier downside as energy prices and global yields fall following the more diplomatic Iranian headlines. Spot gold has recovered from a USD 4,292/oz low to above its 50 DMA (USD 4,316/oz), having earlier reached USD 4,376/oz. Spot silver similarly trades around USD 65.50/oz after falling to a USD 64.57/oz low from a USD 65.81/oz high.
• Base metals remain firmer, with copper supported by the broader positive global risk tone, while the sharp pullback in energy prices provides some relief to the inflation and growth outlook. COMEX copper trades around USD 6.66/lb, near the upper end of its session range. 3M LME copper trades towards the upper end of a USD 14,703.60-14,790.00/t range.
• Saudi Arabia restarts the East-West oil pipeline and prepares to resume crude oil exports from Yanbu port later on Tuesday, according to trade sources.
• Saudi's Aramco has reportedly told Asian refiners that they will be able to pick up oil from Yanbu soon, Bloomberg reported citing sources.
• Libya's NOC said an armed group closed valve 7 on the Sharara crude pipeline to Zawiya port, causing a sharp drop in output at the Sharara oilfield. It was later reported that the Sharara oil field production fell by more than half to about 127k bpd after an armed group shut the pipeline to the Zawiya export terminal.
• Russia's oil exports from Black Sea Novorossiysk Port reportedly surged to 650k bpd in September, +50% M/M, sources suggested.
• Indonesia's nickel hub will cut output as an El Niño-driven drought reduces production.
• Russia's Agriculture Ministry said its grain procurement planned for 2026-27 at 3mln tonnes, IFX reported.

Trade/Tariffs

• Chinese President Xi's most urgent goal during the summit with US President Trump is extending the trade truce with the US, but he is also expected to discuss Taiwan, Iran and AI, according to FT.
• USTR will hold a hearing regarding the Section 301 investigation into Germany's pharmaceutical policies today.
• EU Trade Commissioner Sefcovic is to visit China between October 8th-9th for trade talks.
• Canada's Trade Minister said the country is making great headway in concluding a free trade agreement with India, while they will continue to have talks with the US.
• China's MOFCOM announced the adjustment to the "Catalogue for the Administration of Export of Precursor Chemicals to Specific Countries", stating that export permits will be required for the US, Mexico and Canada under new rules.
• China's MOFCOM said that its Commerce Minister met with the German Auto Industry Association President to discuss bilateral auto cooperation and China-EU trade. MOFCOM said that China is not the root cause of EU trade problems.

Geopolitics

• Russian Kremlin said they are finding alternative routes for their grain and that Ukraine is the reason for the export issues. Discussions with Turkey around the Black Sea have taken place.
• Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and US Secretary of State Rubio are set to meet on September 23rd, TASS reported.
• Russian Defence Ministry said Russian forces struck an oil refinery in Ukraine’s Kremenchuk, TASS reported.
• Ukraine's Naftogaz said that the Russian attack caused critical damage, which makes it effectively impossible to restore it.
• Polish Army said it commenced military aviation operations in Polish airspace following a Russian aerial attack on Ukraine, although it later announced that military aviation operations in Polish airspace concluded and there was no violation of Polish airspace observed.
• The US will reopen a military base in southern Greenland and establish presence at a second site in eastern Greenland, according to sources.

Event Calendar

DB's Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap

Markets have put in a strong performance over the last 24 hours, with Brent crude oil (-3.40%) briefly falling beneath $100/bbl again as hopes grew for a diplomatic solution in the Middle East. Brent is a little above $101/bbl this morning but net net the week has started more optimistically. This has been highlighted by the record high for the Nasdaq (+2.26%), Bitcoin moving back above $85,000 for the first time since January, whilst the 10yr bund yield (-6.3bps) had its biggest daily decline since May. And despite September’s reputation as one of the worst of the year for markets, the latest moves actually leave the S&P 500 (+1.49%) back in positive territory for the month and within half a percent of its all-time high.  

Although oil is back up a little overnight, Brent fell back beneath $100/bbl yesterday for the first time in nine trading sessions before closing at $100.34/bbl. In part, that followed more positive headlines over the weekend, including comments from President Trump to Fox News that he would be open to meeting Iran’s President at the UN this week. So that raised hopes about some kind of deal between the two sides, and it helped drive a big reduction in energy prices across the board. In fact, European natural gas futures (-7.88%) saw their biggest daily decline since July, which was a huge positive impulse to risk appetite given Europe’s dependence on imported energy. Even though there are hopes of diplomatic progress, the rise back in oil overnight seems to be in part due to Bessent suggesting that all Iranian airlines will be shut down from tomorrow with anyone providing fuel, landing services etc., shut out of the dollar system.  

For now the momentum is on the more positive side though and with inflation fears subsiding again, that meant investors dialled back the likelihood of rapid rate hikes, even if plenty are still priced in for the month ahead. For instance, markets are still fully pricing in another ECB hike by year-end, but the probability of a second hike this year fell from 52% on Friday to 40% by the close. The read across from the energy pullback to Fed repricing wasn’t as clear, with 33bps of Fed hikes still priced by year end. That came amid some hawkish-leaning commentary from regional Fed presidents, with Goolsbee suggesting there was some “traditional demand overheating” around the AI investment boom, while Musalem said that the current fed funds rate of 3.75% to 4% is “on the accommodative side”.    

Notwithstanding the hawkish Fedspeak, lower energy prices proved to be a huge tailwind for sovereign bonds, particularly in Europe. So yields came down across the continent, with those on 10yr bunds (-6.3bps), OATs (-9.3bps) and BTPs (-9.6bps) all seeing sharp declines. In fact, in all three cases that was their biggest decline since May. In the US, the declines weren’t quite as big, with the 10yr Treasury yield down -4.5bps to 4.95% while the 2yr yield actually inched up +0.3bps to 4.75%. That brought the Treasury 2s10s slope to its flattest since February 2025, just before Trump’s tariff escalation raised questions about the sustainability of US exorbitant privilege.  
For equities, it was also a very strong session, as fresh optimism on the outlook led to big gains across the major indices. In the US, the S&P 500 (+1.43%) rose for a third consecutive session and had its best day in seven weeks, leaving the index just -0.44% beneath its record high from last month. Tech stocks led the rally, with the Nasdaq (+2.26%) and the Magnificent 7 (+3.44%) rising to new record highs of the own. Top performers included Meta (+11.43%), amid optimism over its Muse AI agent, and chipmaker AMD (+9.95%), which became the latest company to reach a $1trn valuation. Meanwhile, there were broad gains in Europe, where the STOXX 600 (+1.02%), the DAX (+1.07%) and the CAC 40 (+0.92%) all climbed.  

Speaking of geopolitical developments, there were plenty of headlines on the US-China trade talks yesterday, ahead of the meeting between Presidents Trump and Xi later this week. For markets, the big question is what’s going to happen when the current one-year trade truce expires in November, and whilst the general tone remains positive, there still isn’t an agreement yet. For instance, the New York Times reported yesterday that the US had proposed a 6-month extension, whilst China had pushed for a longer one. So that fitted with comments from US Trade Representative Greer on Bloomberg, who was asked if it would be a 3-6 month extension, and he said “that’s probably the right kind of range”. Otherwise he sounded positive though, saying that “we’ll continue talking and I think both sides want it”.

Ahead of the Trump-Xi meeting, our geopolitical analysts, economists and strategists are hosting a China macro webinar at 9am LDN today. You can register  here.

Otherwise, the big political news came from Germany yesterday, where there was plenty of reaction after Sunday’s state election results. As a reminder, that vote saw Chancellor Merz’s CDU party fail to meet the 5% threshold in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, meaning they’re not in the regional parliament for the first time in Germany’s post-war history. Yet despite the speculation over Merz’s position, he said that he had the backing of CDU party leaders, and that both the CDU and SPD wanted the governing coalition to continue. 

Asian equity markets are broadly higher this morning, led by technology stocks as an overnight rally on Wall Street reignited investor appetite for AI-related stocks. Across the region, the KOSPI (+0.69%) is leading gains, while Japanese markets remain closed through Wednesday. Elsewhere, China’s CSI 300 (+0.51%) is trading moderately higher, with the Shanghai Composite (+0.23%) and Hang Seng (+0.33%) posting modest advances. Meanwhile, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 (+0.29%) is also edging higher. US equity futures are fairly flat.  

Looking at the day ahead now, data releases include the UK public finances for August, the European Commission’s preliminary consumer confidence reading for the Euro Area in September, and the US Richmond Fed’s manufacturing index for September.  Otherwise from central banks, we’ll hear from Fed’s Vice Chair Jefferson, the Fed’s Williams and Barkin, ECB President Lagarde, and the ECB’s Kaasik, Nagel, Kocher, Seijpen and Simkus.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/22/2026 - 08:39

UK's Burnham Approves Military Support To Saudis, Limited To Aerial Refueling 

The UK has finally made a formal decision on the intense political and foreign policy question it has faced for the couple weeks since the Houthis started making rapid gains against the Saudi-backed coalition in Yemen.

London has announced it will increase its military support to Saudi Arabia, albeit it has become clear that this will still be very limited. "We're doing it for national security reasons in support of our own national security," Defense Minister Luke Pollard told Sky News of "defensive" air-to-air refuelling for Saudi warplanes engaged in air raids over Yemen. Needless to say Riyadh was hoping for much more.

RAF Voyager, via UK Defence Ministry

"In dangerous times, good friends stand together," he added, defending the support as consistent with international law.

Confirming the action Monday, Prime Minister Andy Burnham said he was "acting to secure the interests of Britain and the wider region, because of course Saudi Arabia has been experiencing attack, is looking at potential further disruption, and we need to keep those pathways (for oil) open."

The appeals from Riyadh only intensified after the kingdom's East-West pipeline was taken offline by a devastating drone attack. Blame immediately fell on the Houthis, which have been mounting cross-border missile and drone strikes; however, a US official also pointed to Shia paramilitaries out of Iraq as a likely culprit.

The UK has further said it will "work with partners to support regional stability, protect civilians and support humanitarian access."

Certainly this Burnham government move is largely political and symbolic - a way to tall the Saudis and the world that 'we are doing something' but without actually doing much of deep substance. After all, this is all that's apparently been offered so far:

U.K. officials say the agreement will start in the coming days, and involve one RAF Voyager refueling Saudi planes on “defensive” missions.

Certainly the Saudis were hoping for much, much more - possibly even ground troops, or at the very least jets actively involved in combat as part of the coalition. The Associated Press suggests that eventually the Saudis will be supported with refueling planes (plural).

While Britain has long had a close defense partnership with the kingdom, it hasn't shown an interest in getting bogged down in Yemen operations, also at a moment the Iran conflict remains unpredictable

But if the Houthi attack on Aramco sites intensify, the UK could get more deeply involved in the conflict given that Burnham said keeping the pathways for oil "open" remains a high priority. 

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has also of late been pressing Egypt, France, Turkey, and Pakistan to step up. The Saudis recently signed the Mecca Defense Pact with Pakistan and Egypt.

All involved on the Saudi side probably fear getting sucked into a quagmire, but also have clear interests in seeing Red Sea shipping stay open and free.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/22/2026 - 08:35

Joby Completes First Autonomous Flight Across US

Authored by Mary Prenon via The Epoch Times,

Joby Aviation completed the first-ever autonomous flight across the United States using an aircraft equipped with its autonomy technology.

A Joby Aviation electric aircraft takes off from JFK International Airport in New York on April 27, 2026. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Manned with only an onboard safety pilot, the aircraft navigated 3,199 miles with no human control inputs as it finished its eastbound leg of a monthlong tour in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, Joby announced on Sept. 18.

The aircraft's first cross-country tour ended, coincidentally, near the Kitty Hawk monument, the site of the Wright brothers' first powered flight in 1903.

The converted Cessna Caravan was able to take off, navigate, land, and taxi under remote supervision from Joby's Santa Cruz, California, headquarters and Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina, some 2,323 miles away.

"This journey across America offers a glimpse into a new era of aviation," Joby Aviation founder and CEO JoeBen Bevirt said in the announcement. "Autonomy has an important role to play in the future of flight, allowing us to connect remote communities, deliver critical supplies, respond faster to disasters, support military operations and keep pilots out of harm's way."

The aviation firm's Electric Skies Tour originated in Concord, California, departing from Buchanan Field Airport bound for Phoenix. From there, the self-guided aircraft traveled to Fort Worth, Texas, through Shaw Air Base in South Carolina to its destination in the Outer Banks, landing at Dare County Regional Airport.

"During the cross-country journey, the aircraft proved its ability to seamlessly integrate into high-density environments like Phoenix Deer Valley, one of the nation's busiest general aviation ports," the announcement noted.

The Joby plane was also able to remotely reroute around severe weather conditions in real time.

According to the report, the aircraft will begin its return westbound journey with stops including Raleigh, North Carolina; Washington; Louisville, Kentucky; Wichita, Kansas; Oklahoma City; Salt Lake City; and Portland, Oregon.

In a March blog, Robert Wilkos, co-founder of VIPJets.com, a private jet charter firm headquartered in Houston, expressed some concerns about the possibility of future pilotless flights.

Wilkos noted that moving accountability from "crew in cockpit" to "system plus remote supervision" shifts the liability and affects insurance. As a result, he believes that total "pilotless" aircraft for passenger business jets will remain a long-term objective.

He said single-pilot operations are a better choice since they incorporate human decision-making along with technology.

"If regulators and stakeholders demand extremely high evidence for airlines to reduce crew, you should assume the evidence bar will be high for passenger-carrying business aviation too, even if the equipment is technically capable," he said in the blog.

"Regulators are still showing caution about removing human redundancy, and industry resistance is visible."

Wilkos also noted the importance of certifications for such flights and believes programs such as Joby have highlighted that certification process.

"Joby reported progress toward Type Inspection Authorization (TIA) flight testing and noted FAA acceptance of a large portion of its certification test plans, describing TIA as a key step toward certification flight testing."

Federal Aviation Administration described TIA as a formal phase where aviation regulators, such as the FAA, review tests and flight operations to ensure safety standards.

Founded in 2009, Joby has completed more than 400 flights and 800 automated flight hours in both controlled and uncontrolled airspace. The aircraft has also been used in U.S. military exercises.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/22/2026 - 08:05

Agentic Wars Begin: Amazon Blocks Meta's Agents As Muse Takes World By Storm

Amazon.com has blocked Meta’s new AI agent from its retail site after the social media company declined a request to remove the bot, Bloomberg reported.

Meta’s Muse, which was introduced earlier this month and has taken the world by storm, quickly rising to the top of mobile app charts, a sign that the social media company is gaining traction in the increasingly crowded market for consumer AI assistants, and sent the company's stock price soaring, is designed to help people carry out such common online tasks as shopping and booking appointments.

However, since it has its own agentic product, Amazon prohibits other companies from deploying automated tools to shop its site and started blocking Muse on Sunday night, a spokesperson said. Shoppers using Muse see a series of pop-ups saying its use violates Amazon’s terms of use.

“We think it’s fairly straightforward that third-party applications that offer to make purchases on behalf of customers from other businesses should operate openly and respect service provider decisions about whether or not to participate,” Amazon spokesperson Lara Hendrickson said in an emailed statement, adding that an opt-in requirement is standard practice for food delivery apps and online travel agencies. “Agentic third-party applications such as Muse have the same obligations, and we’ve requested that Meta remove Amazon from the experience.”

Amazon builds its own automated shopping tools, but has sought to prevent rivals’ bots from browsing and making purchases from its catalog. The company last year sued Perplexity AI Inc., saying the widely used artificial intelligence startup sought to conceal its shopping agents after Amazon asked Perplexity to remove them. The legal skirmish is widely seen as a high-profile test case that could help determine the rules of the road governing agentic shopping.

So far, consumers are mostly using bots to research products rather than let them make purchases. So Amazon’s move to block shopping agents from accessing its site means the company is unlikely to lose much business. But if consumers start using AI agents to buy stuff, the bots could select other e-commerce sites, costing Amazon sales and advertising revenue.

Amazon Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy said earlier this year that the agentic shopping experience left much to be desired, and that the bots often flubbed pricing or other data.

“We’re having conversations with all those folks to try and make that better and find something that works for customers and all the companies,” he said in April. 

Perhaps to offset the negative vibes from the angry Amazon response, late on Monday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that he was "teaming up with Shopify to make shopping and checkout easier in Muse. Shoppers find more. Shops sell more. More partnerships like this coming soon."

Teaming up with Shopify to make shopping and checkout easier in Muse. Shoppers find more. Shops sell more. More partnerships like this coming soon. https://t.co/ccak4J7IIb

— Mark Zuckerberg (@finkd) September 21, 2026

Maybe... but more likely the won't be, since every retailer will want to have their own proprietary agents access to their own content and product offering. 

Hence agent wars. 

Meta's Muse is ranked the No. 1 free app on the US Apple iOS App and Google Play stores as of Monday. The assistant, which is available for people 18 years and older, was downloaded more than 902,000 times in the six days after Meta introduced it on Sept. 8, according to Abe Yousef, senior insights analyst at Sensor Tower. That’s more than the 773,000 downloads of its predecessor, the Meta AI app, in the same post-launch period. 

According to Goldman, Meta’s Muse (powered by Muse Spark) represents a major leap because it delivers ready-to-use personal agents with simple chat interfaces, including deep WhatsApp integration for Muse, so no coding is required - unlike earlier Claude-style bots.

They actively handle tasks like booking holidays or restaurants, and go further by proactively chasing email follow-ups, flagging inconsistencies or conflicts in your inbox, monitoring threads, and advancing goals in the background even when you’re offline. Classic chatbots like ChatGPT stay reactive: they answer questions or draft text only when prompted, never independently act across your apps or keep working on your behalf. As Goldman's TMT specialist Sean Johnstone writes, "the more I use Instinct the more I like it – its really is like having your own dedicated PA."

The sudden surge of Muse means the frontier models' agentic dominance just got another major competitor. It also means there will be an unprecedented demand for hardware: as Wccftech writes, "If Meta’s Muse Personal Agent Scales To Just 100 Million Users, It Would Require 1.58 Million AMD Ryzen CPUs, 800 Petabyte Of RAM, And 10,000 Petabyte Of SSD Under Ideal Conditions." More: 

If you were wondering why everyone has suddenly turned so bullish on CPUs from Intel, AMD, and Arm, look no further than the underlying compute requirements for serving Meta's Muse personal agent to just 100 million users, assuming minimal sharing, especially as Meta has promised each Muse user a dedicated VM that can work continuously in the background.

Also, Meta is currently allowing up to 100 million free tokens per week, with paid subscription tiers starting around $20 per month for heavy power users.

Every Muse user is supposed to get their own cloud PC.
2 vCPUs, 8GB RAM, 100GB disk.

If Meta actually leaves those boxes on, user growth turns into a chip and memory problem.

that’s what i'm trying to size

a few thoughts on $META and Muse:

Muse is 13 days old and US only… https://t.co/57wvCNGsIj

— dylan ツ (@demian_ai) September 21, 2026

Of course, the agentic fee will only cover a tiny fraction of the hardware required to run the compute the agents will soak up, which means that - if successful in getting more people to use it - Zuckerberg is about to take Meta's capex into hyperdrive. Which, for the company formerly known as Facebook before it changed its name to Meta after a catastrophic foray into the metaverse which cost it nearly $100 billion in wasted funds, won't be the first time it has aggressively chased an overhyped concept only to crash and burn. 

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/22/2026 - 07:55

'Survival Mode' - Farmers Crushed As Trump's War On Iran Sends Diesel Cost Soaring

As Donald Trump's war on Iran nears the seven-month mark, the economic damage is reverberating all over the world, and all across the United States. Among the Americans who are feeling the most pain from a war their federal legislators never declared are the nation's farmers, who are growing increasingly desperate under the weight of rising costs for diesel, fertilizer and equipment.

It's a demographic that leans hard to the right, but now feels let down by Trump and others in Washington. "It's his war that caused this, this war in Iran. We're not winning that war. And many farmers feel like we shouldn't be there," farmer John Boyd, Jr told CNN. Trump says the war in Iran is necessary to prevent the country from building a nuclear weapon. However, going back to 2007 and up to the eve of the war, the US intelligence committee has repeatedly assessed that Iran was not building one. 

"I've done this 34 years. I have never worried and stressed like I have the last year," North Carolina farmer Matt Bell told CBS News. "We've cut everything we can cut." Trying every option he can think of to improve his cash flow, Bell has put off replacing equipment, produced some of his own fertilizer, and opened a pumpkin patch and hayride business for the fall. The rising costs come after a difficult period had already weakened his operation's financial security. 

"We're just getting to the point now there's nothing left to cut," farmer Matt Bell told CBS News

"The last several years in agriculture have been terrible, and we have just cut the fat anywhere we could. But we're just getting to the point now there's nothing left to cut. You cannot run without fuel. You cannot run without fertilizer. You have to have that," Bell said. 

As a result of a major reduction in oil exports from the Persian Gulf, the nationwide average cost for a gallon of diesel hit $6.49 this week, up 75% from a year ago, according to the AAA. Lately, the price volatility has led Bell's diesel distributors to offer price quotations that are only good for a matter of hours. He'd budgeted $35,000 for fuel in 2026, but blew past that number in August. "Every piece of equipment on this farm runs on diesel," he emphasized. 

In an interview with Sky News, Texas cattle rancher Lynn Fleming said her August outlay for few was almost double what she'd paid in recent years. "Obviously the main [factor] is what we're facing everyday with the Iranian situation," Fleming said. Her husband, Robert, said he felt blindsided by the war. "We had no idea that he was going to pull the prank with the Strait of Hormuz. He didn't tell us ... he was going to go do the military maneuvers and try to control the oil supply over there. We had no warning of what was going to happen." A major cornerstone of Trump's 2024 campaign was his pledge to be a "peace president" who would refrain from starting any new wars.    

American farmer on Trump: “We had no idea the he was going to pull the prank with the Strait of Hormuz.. and try to control the oil supply. We had no warning of what was going to happen.” pic.twitter.com/u3IE50pEqn

— Molly Ploofkins (@Mollyploofkins) September 18, 2026

In addition to the war, Bell blames Trump's tariff policies for boosting the prices of many of a farmer's essentials. "Everything we're touching, the fertilizer, fuel, chemicals, seed, parts — you know, the whole nine yards, everything that we touch has gone up," he said.  

Cattle ranchers say they felt undercut by Trump's decision to combat rising food prices by eliminating tariffs on imported beef -- at a time when US ranchers were already under financial duress. "I'm already absorbing your high fuel prices that came out of nowhere," South Texas rancher Josh Eilers told Sky. "It's like, c'mon guys, just help me out a little bit. I just can't keep absorbing more and more and more, or I simply won't be able to afford to do this anymore." 

“I’m paying $7 a gallon here for diesel fuel.”

“My combine holds 140 gallons.”

“That’s right at $1,000 to fill up my combine.”

For farmer John Boyd Jr., those numbers illustrate a much bigger problem in American agriculture.

Farmers are paying more for the fuel, fertilizer,… pic.twitter.com/lTesmNvLHW

— Farm Action (@FarmActionUS) September 16, 2026

"I do not want any American to feel sorry for the American farmer," said Bell. "I want the Americans to be mad that we have been put in this situation. We're fighting for survival and we're running out of options... I am very mad. I think there's been some very bad policy that's been made that has led things to get to where we are." 

Most of the farmers and ranchers quoted in this article say they voted for Trump. Their ire over the state of affairs is surely contributing to a major nationwide dip in Republican enthusiasm going into the midterms. Robert Fleming had this to say: "I'm afraid there's going to be some changes made [in] voting. Maybe people not even voting, who knows, because a lot of the people feel like we the people are not being heard." 

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/22/2026 - 07:45

NY Lawmaker Launches $30 Million Effort To Coordinate Democrat Control Of AI

New York Assemblymember Alex Bores is launching a $30 million effort to unite Democrats behind a common artificial intelligence regulatory agenda ahead of the 2028 elections, taking the issue that defined his unsuccessful congressional campaign to a national stage.

New York State Assembly member Alex Bores

His congressional run was bankrolled by Anthropic's political money, a PAC funded with $20 million from the company and $401,250 from its employees, and his new group has not said who is funding it.

The organization, "Who Decides," is launching Tuesday with Bores and his former chief of staff, Anna Myers, leading an effort to "build the winning Democratic answer to AI." Its objective is to turn concerns about the technology into a shared platform for Democratic candidates, from presidential contenders to candidates further down the ballot.

"Who Decides' goal is that by 2028, Democratic candidates from the top of the ticket on down run with a common AI safety agenda," the group's launch announcement states. "That means addressing the harms people already see and the broader danger that increasingly powerful and out-of-control systems could destabilize our economy, our democracy, and our safety."

The group plans to concentrate on 11 states it identifies as important to the 2028 presidential primary and general election: South Carolina, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Michigan, Virginia, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Its plans include quarterly state and national polling, national conferences and partnerships with local organizations, Politico reports.

Those partnerships would bring together labor unions, parents, educators, civil-rights organizations, faith groups and other constituencies. The organization says it will work with those groups to develop AI policy positions and put them before candidates through questionnaires, forums, endorsements and briefings.

"We don't let five people write the laws for hundreds of millions of Americans," Bores says in the announcement, referring to the concentration of decision-making among AI executives. "There is no reason to let them write the rules for AI."

An Organizing Push Ahead Of 2028

The launch follows a series of warnings from within the AI industry and competing political responses over how aggressively Washington should intervene. Former Anthropic and OpenAI researcher Jacob Coxon warned last week that increasingly powerful AI could threaten humanity. Leaders at Anthropic and OpenAI subsequently called for slowing development so safety measures could keep pace.

Former President Barack Obama has urged Democrats to make AI a central political issue, with plans addressing both safety and the technology's economic consequences. His comments included a call for the party's 2028 presidential candidates to focus on the issue.

The launch comes days after AI techbros agreed that a 'pause' in development was needed along with new oversight (something Beijing won't agree to). In a Saturday essay which set off the calls to slow down, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei proposes governance that lives largely inside the industry: third-party evaluators embedded in the labs on terms the labs set, with the right to publish their findings; coordination among frontier companies on safety standards, enabled by a narrow antitrust waiver from Washington; and, only later, agreements with foreign governments. He calls federal regulation of every frontier lab the most effective approach but argues that passing laws takes time. Who Decides starts from the premise that "a few executives inside a handful of companies are making all the decisions," and it refuses their money. The two efforts want many of the same rules, including published safety plans, incident reporting and independent testing of frontier models, and disagree about who should write them and how soon. The industry's safety wing has already bet on Bores once: Public First Action, a PAC funded by a $20 million Anthropic donation, spent $450,000 supporting him in the primary.

President Trump pushed in the opposite direction Monday, rejecting calls for additional restrictions and arguing that existing government powers were sufficient. He also warned that slowing American development could benefit China.

Incest Is Best?

Bores' new group grew out of a campaign funded by Amodei's network - which runs through Effective altruism. The same network produced METR, the evaluator Amodei's essay names as his preferred watchdog - which itself was bankrolled largely by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz. Its most famous adherent, Sam Bankman-Fried, is in prison for fraud, and his $500 million stake in Anthropic, bought in 2022 with FTX customer funds, was liquidated in the exchange's bankruptcy. Anthropic grew up inside that world: Moskovitz and Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn funded its early rounds; Dario Amodei was an early signer of the movement's giving pledge; his sister and co-founder Daniela is married to Holden Karnofsky, the Open Philanthropy co-founder who joined Anthropic last year; and the trust with power over the company's board includes the CEO of the Centre for Effective Altruism.

Bores' new group grew out of a campaign funded by Amodei's network - which runs through effective altruism, a left-wing 'movement' that began with global poverty and animal welfare, preaches earning as much as possible in order to give it away, and over the past decade made preventing an AI catastrophe its central cause, bankrolled largely by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz. The same network produced METR, the evaluator Amodei's essay names as his preferred watchdog. The movement's most famous adherent, Sam Bankman-Fried, is in prison for fraud, and his $500 million stake in Anthropic, bought in 2022 with what prosecutors said were FTX customer funds, was liquidated in the exchange's bankruptcy. Anthropic grew up inside that world: Moskovitz and Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn funded its early rounds; Dario Amodei was an early signer of the movement's giving pledge; his sister and co-founder Daniela is married to Holden Karnofsky, the Open Philanthropy co-founder who joined Anthropic last year; and the trust with power over the company's board includes the CEO of the Centre for Effective Altruism.

The same network reached Bores. Anthropic's $20 million gift to Public First Action, which backed him, sits alongside $401,250 that Anthropic employees gave to campaigns supporting him. Who Decides' pledge bans frontier-lab executives and corporate money - but doesn't bar the philanthropies that fund the AI-safety field. The group won't say who supplied the $10 million it has reportedly raised. The movement has tried electoral politics before: in 2022, Bankman-Fried's super PAC spent more than $10 million on Carrick Flynn's House primary in Oregon (which Flynn lost). 

Who Decides, meanwhile, is calling for an AI agenda that a future Democratic president could act on during the first 100 days in office.

From A Congressional Defeat To A National Campaign

Bores made AI regulation a central issue in his congressional primary campaign after helping pass New York's RAISE Act. The legislation requires major frontier AI developers to publish safety plans and report critical safety incidents. Although he lost the primary, Bores and Myers describe the campaign as the foundation for their new organization.

"The lesson Bores and Myers took from those fights was that confronting the AI industry is fertile political ground and that public demand for answers on AI policy exists but remains scattered," the announcement states.

The organization says it will reject "corporate money or contributions from senior executives at frontier AI companies." Its website directs prospective donors to a Givebutter fundraising page.

The $30 million figure refers to the overall effort, rather than an established amount already raised. A New York Times report summarized by Techmeme says the nonprofit has raised $10 million and plans to seek another $20 million in 2027.

For Bores and Myers, the stated task is to turn separate concerns about AI into a coordinated political program.

"What's missing is a coalition capable of turning that energy into a governing consensus before the technology, the economic dislocation, and the partisan battle lines harden," the launch announcement says.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/22/2026 - 06:55

Wholesale Gas Prices Are Reaching Consumers Faster, ECB Says

By Michael Kern of OilPrice.com

The surge in wholesale natural gas prices is set to pass through the retail and electricity inflation in the Eurozone faster than in the past, the European Central Bank (ECB) said in its Economic Bulletin on Monday.

While the pass-through is faster and can manifest in the inflation numbers within one to three months for most Eurozone members, the pressure on electricity prices has been lower so far in 2026 compared to 2022, partly due to the higher shares of electricity generated from renewables, the ECB’s economists wrote.

“The impact of wholesale gas prices on wholesale electricity prices – which is typically strong with gas prices being the marginal price-setter for electricity prices – was dampened by a shift towards electricity generated from renewables,” they noted.

Natural gas prices have doubled since the start of the conflict in the Middle East, while oil prices have increased more modestly, by about 40%.

For Europe, soaring energy prices have rekindled inflation fears in Europe mostly due to the spike in wholesale gas prices.

The Iran war and the intensified competition for spot LNG supply from Asia came just as Europe was trying to build in the spring and summer natural gas inventories for winter.

The ECB, which in June raised the key interest rate for the euro area for the first time since 2023, raised the rates once again in September, by 0.25 percentage points, as inflation at over 3% is running well above the long-term ECB policy target of 2%.

“The outlook remains highly uncertain, with risks to the upside for inflation and to the downside for economic growth,” the ECB said in its monetary policy decision on September 10, the day on which Saudi Arabia’s onshore oil pipeline that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz was attacked with drones.

“The pass-through of wholesale prices to retail prices has sped up for gas prices overall, but the broad pattern of lagged and uneven transmission remains for both gas prices and electricity prices,” the ECB economists said today.

An ECB survey of central banks in the Eurozone showed that changes in wholesale gas prices are expected to be passed on to consumer gas inflation within 1-3 months in more than half of the euro area, within 4-6 months in around one-tenth of the euro area, and within 7-12 months in around one-third of the euro area – all higher than in 2022.

“Notably, the share of countries to report a slow pass-through within 13-24 months has decreased from around 40% to around 5% since 2022,” the ECB noted.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/22/2026 - 06:30

The Nuclear Renaissance Disconnect: Utilities Plan Big While Stocks Lag

The Nuclear Energy Institute's (NEI) newly released 2026 Future of Nuclear Power survey captured American nuclear energy ambitions across 21 utility companies covering 95 commercial reactors. Reactor owners find themselves planning new reactors to meet the AI-juiced electricity demand of the future, along with the added demand from increased domestic manufacturing and electrification.

More than 97% of the units surveyed are considering or pursuing approval to operate for at least 80 years. It goes to highlight the long lifespan of reactor plants, with some owners now planning for operations out to 100 years from initial construction. 

NEI estimates that uprates, restarts, longer refueling cycles, and other improvements could collectively add more than 7 GW of nuclear generation from the existing fleet over the coming decade. That's more than the power you would get by building six new Westinghouse AP1000 reactors.

That includes roughly 2.2 GW from restarting the previously shutdown plants at Palisades, Three Mile Island, and Duane Arnold.

Between the 21 utilities surveyed, the report states those companies are planning for 33.6 GW of new nuclear generation over the next 15 years. Roughly 28 of those GWs are concentrated in 2035-2039.

New capacity is broadly split between large reactors and small modular reactors, while respondents reported no microreactor plans.

As we noted when covering The Nuclear Company's South Carolina reactor plans, America's “nuclear renaissance” still has to make the transition from announcements to actual construction.

Interest in supplying power to specific loads sheds some light on what the utilities are looking at powering with their growing nuclear ambitions. Over a dozen respondents are looking to provide energy for data centers. However, this is the first year that has seen zero interest in powering hydrogen generation plants.

2024 saw about a dozen respondents interested in behind the meter setups for powering hydrogen production facilities. After Congress changed up the tax credits for hydrogen applications to expire in 2028, interest from the utilities dropped down to only three respondents in 2025, leading to zero for this year.

Despite the incredibly rosy future being painted by the nuclear segments of America's utilities, the stock market holds a different opinion on the nuclear sector's constituents.

With SPY up about 12% this year and XLE up over 40%, the nuclear sector has trailed behind significantly. Of the three main nuclear-themed ETFs, none of them currently hold positive returns since the beginning of the year.

The uranium-heavy URA and the industrial/services-heavy NUKZ are down about 2-3%, while the more concentrated NLR is down about 13% YTD.

After multiple reactor developers, including Oklo and NuScale, had explosive runs in 2024 and 2025, multiple names in the nuclear corner have fallen over 50% in recent months as the nuclear theme is still tightly tied to the momentum and AI infrastructure trade.

The sector has a chance of being taken more seriously if grid-scale construction can finally start getting announced at scale, but for now, everything still seems to be in the talking stage, which is exciting absolutely no one.

The microreactor space has seen an increase in interest on the private side, with recent funding rounds for microreactor developers pushing over $1 billion. These reactors have some different application opportunities outside of the scope of traditional utilities, such as national defense applications and remote community power. 

As we've detailed at length with the DOE's Reactor Pilot Program, this class of reactor capacity is actually showing tangible progress towards commercialization.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/22/2026 - 05:45

Despite German State Stimulus: Machinery Industry Braces For A Catastrophic Year

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

Friedrich Merz does not make it easy to interpret current economic data correctly. The debt king from Brilon is not only distorting the statistics with his “special (debt) assets”: More than 320 billion euros in direct and indirect state subsidies are flowing, according to Freiburg economist Lars Feld, through subsidy channels that are penetrating ever deeper into the German economy. Artificial economies are emerging there, economic homunculi that will remain permanently dependent on the taxpayer.

What Is Still Growth, and What Is Debt-Financed Illusion?

In July, the Federal Statistical Office reported a strong increase in orders for German industry: Real order backlogs rose by 2.5 percent compared with the previous month, and by as much as 10.9 percent year-on-year – a figure of Olympic proportions.

Behind the statistical facade, however, it quickly becomes clear where the wind is actually coming from: Above all, the Other Transport Equipment sector increased its order backlog by 3.9 percent compared with the previous month – the billions in debt for the defense industry are creating a positive mood at Rheinmetall, Hensoldt and Co.

What a contrast to the real economy! The automotive industry, still the backbone of the German economy, can no longer escape its downward spiral: In July, carmakers once again recorded a decline in their order volume, this time by 1.7 percent compared with the previous month.

Adjusted for debt-financed defense orders, it becomes clear that the trend is still heading south. The fact is that with every additional month of the current policy, the economy is losing ground to foreign competitors. Who is surprised, given the sky-high energy costs and Brussels’ increasingly aggressive regulatory agenda?

The election campaign team of the Federal Chancellor had barely finished celebrating the good news from industry when the band of illusions snapped and reality came rushing back like an arrow.

A current assessment of the actual situation in the engine room of the German economy gives reason to fear the worst for this year: On Thursday, the German Engineering Federation VDMA reported a real decline in production of 4.1 percent for the first seven months compared with the same period of the previous year.

That is a horror figure, descending on the Federal Chancellor like a media guillotine. The outlook is dark: Since 2018, the sector has lost almost one-fifth of its production activity.

This dramatic development is not part of a typical economic cycle. Germany is caught in a spiral of deindustrialization that even historically unprecedented government debt programs will no longer be able to slow down. The parties of eco-socialism bear responsibility for this disaster, above all Merz and the CDU.

Confused, yet firmly committed to this political ideology, the Chancellor steers his government through the fog. At the ceremony marking the 150th birthday of Konrad Adenauer, Merz emphasized his unwavering commitment to reform and was met with icy silence.

He had only one of 630 votes in the Bundestag, Merz said. His authority to set policy guidelines did not extend beyond the cabinet either. After that, he said, one found oneself on the high seas of the Bundestag.

It is always the same game: A commitment to reform and an awareness of the problems are staged for the cameras. In reality, the government remains committed to the joint strategy of the CDU/CSU and SPD: the debt-financed expansion of the state economy.

It seems almost comical when Friedrich Merz resorts to nautical metaphors in his hour of need. Is he not himself the captain who, to put it somewhat pathetically, is steering the state ship straight toward the iceberg visible to everyone?

Where is even the attempt at reform? Why does Merz not dare to break with the destructive climate policy and begin a serious path toward consolidating public finances, one that includes a remigration program, encompasses an end to the senseless development aid, and also includes a rejection of the taxpayer-funded NGO establishment? A return to diplomacy with the Russians would also be the order of the day.

Of course, it would mean the end of the coalition. Merz would have only the AfD left as an option. Yet Merz remains trapped inside the firewall cocoon. Despite the visible crisis, the Chancellor shows no progress in understanding the situation and refuses any willingness to reform. Politically speaking, Merz is a globalist who firmly believes in the success of his military Keynesianism. It is supposed to support the collapsing economy and, if necessary, at the price of geopolitical risks in relations with Russia.

Yet the collapse of the economy is moving faster than he is. How far exactly was described by consulting firm Roland Berger, which in its analysis of the automotive industry drew a definitive line under the Chancellor’s hopes for a rapid recovery. In the coming years, Berger forecasts, another 200,000 jobs will be cut in this sector. A catastrophe is taking shape that everyone can see, yet which is not leading to a political change of course.

Within a few years, only around half a million people will still be employed in the former German key industry, according to Berger. A development with drastic consequences for the entire sclerotic German economy.

Volkswagen alone counts around 63,000 individual companies in its global supply chain – more than 10,000 of them in Germany.

The true significance of the decline of this industrial powerhouse is almost impossible to grasp amid the current dynamics. It is telling that the media mainstream attempted to consistently exclude this historically unprecedented collapse from this year’s election coverage.

The fact remains, however, that the CDU in particular bears a considerable share of the responsibility for Germany’s deindustrialization. Whether it was the nuclear phase-out, largely decided by the Union, the aggressive policy of CO₂ taxation, or ever stricter climate regulation – the CDU has created facts both in Berlin and in Brussels together with its green socialist partner parties.

And against this secular trend, the Federal Chancellor’s military Keynesianism will not be able to hold out for long.

* * * 

About the author: Thomas Kolbe, a graduate economist, has worked for or over 25 years as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/22/2026 - 05:00

US Views Of Islam Have Deteriorated In Past 25 Years

The view that Islam is more likely to encourage violence than other religions is more widespread in the United States today than when Pew Research Center first asked Americans this question in March of 2002, around six months after the catastrophic events of the 9/11 terrorist attacks orchestrated by Al-Qaeda Islamists.

As Statista's Katharina Buchholz reports, in January, 51 percent of surveyed American adults said Islam was more likely to encourage violence, split between 76 percent of Republicans or Republican leaners and 29 percent of Democrats or Democratic leaners.

Shortly after the attacks that claimed the lives of almost 3,000 people, these number had still stood at an average of 25 percent, with both Republicans and Democrats answering more similarly.

You will find more infographics at Statista

As soon as Sept. 17, 2001, president at the time, George W. Bush, visited the Islamic Center of Washington, D.C. and was quoted saying "Islam is peace", showcasing how different sentiments were at the time, even among Republicans.

But 9/11 was also a watershed moment for the United States and the world as a whole, eroding trust in a stable world order and a positive future.

The number published by Pew could be interpreted so that the wars that followed in Afghanistan and Iraq did more damage to the relationship between the United States and the religion of Islam that 9/11 immediately did. The survey answers over time show how political polarization, affecting many if not most topics, has progressed in the United States in the past decades.

Pew Research Center also found that around 40 percent of U.S. adults said Muslims had a negative impact on the country, while another 40 percent said their impact was neutral and 17 percent thought it was positive.

Between the years 2000 and 2020, the number of mosques in the United States had grown from around 1,200 to 2,800 while the number of Muslims living in the U.S. also more than doubled to 5.5 million.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/22/2026 - 04:15

Donald Rumsfeld's New Europe Is Waiting For Its Second Act

Authored by José Niño via The Libertarian Institute

On January 22, 2003, Donald Rumsfeld stepped behind the podium at the Foreign Press Center in Washington and, with one answer to a Dutch public television reporter, redrew the map of Europe. The reporter wanted to know why so many Europeans trusted Saddam Hussein more than then-President George W. Bush. The defense secretary fired back with words the Pentagon transcript preserved in full:

"Now, you’re thinking of Europe as Germany and France. I don’t. I think that’s old Europe. If you look at the entire NATO Europe today, the center of gravity is shifting to the east. And there are a lot of new members."

Rumsfeld kept going. “Germany has been a problem, and France has been a problem.” When the reporter cited public opinion, he refused to budge. “But you look at vast numbers of other countries in Europe. They’re not with France and Germany on this, they’re with the United States.”

Berlin and Paris erupted in response. The transcript shows Rumsfeld never spoke the words “new Europe,” yet headlines supplied them within hours, and Radio Free Europe conceded that his underlying point about a split continent held up. A year later in Munich, he told reporters he felt too old for regretting his comments at the time.

The Iraq showdown gave the phrase its teeth. France and Germany, backed by Russia, wanted inspectors to keep working, and Paris threatened to veto a second war resolution at the United Nations. On January 30, 2003, the leaders of Britain, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Denmark, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic answered with the “Letter of Eight,” a joint commentary urging unity against Baghdad. Six days later, foreign ministers from the Vilnius Ten, a bloc stretching from Albania to the Baltics, endorsed what they called Secretary of State Colin Powell’s “compelling evidence” and demanded “a united response from the community of democracies.”

Washington repaid the loyalty. On May 8, 2003, the Senate voted 96 to 0 to admit Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia while their foreign ministers watched from the balcony. The Senate’s own ratification resolution cited their February 5 statement on Iraq. All seven entered NATO in 2004, bringing three former Soviet republics into the alliance for the first time.

Troops trailed the rhetoric. On August 16, 2004, the Bush White House announced a posture overhaul that would bring home “about 60,000 to 70,000 uniformed personnel” over a decade and ship heavy Cold War forces out of Germany. Romania signed a defense cooperation agreement in 2005, and Bulgaria followed in 2006, opening Mihail Kogalniceanu, Novo Selo, and Bezmer to rotating American units. At Bucharest in 2008, Bush pressed allies to declare that Ukraine and Georgia “will become members of NATO.” Russia later went to war with Georgia that August.

Every president since has pushed the line east. Barack Obama canceled Bush’s Polish interceptor plan in 2009 but substituted a phased shield whose Romanian base at Deveselu went operational in May 2016. After Crimea joined the Russian Federation, NATO stationed four multinational battlegroups in the Baltic states and Poland, with Americans leading the Polish unit. Donald Trump’s first administration quit the INF Treaty in August 2019, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared that “Russia is solely responsible for the treaty’s demise.” A 2020 pact with Warsaw produced a forward headquarters for V Corps in Poznan.

President Joe Biden hardened the frontier further. After February 2022, American forces in Europe swelled to roughly 100,000, congressional researchers noted. The Army opened its first permanent garrison in Poland in March 2023, and NATO declared the Aegis Ashore interceptor site at Redzikowo mission ready in July 2024.

Esteemed diplomat George Kennan saw where this road led. Reacting in 1998 to the first round of enlargement, the father of containment told Thomas Friedman, “I think it is the beginning of a new cold war. I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else,” as The American Conservative recounted.

Donald Trump’s second term scrambled the script. In October 2025, the Pentagon sent a 101st Airborne brigade home from Romania without a replacement, leaving about 1,000 Americans in the country. U.S. Army Europe and Africa insisted the move was “not an American withdrawal from Europe or a signal of lessened commitment to NATO and Article 5” but “a positive sign of increased European capability and responsibility.” Armed Services Chairmen Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL) fired back that the decision “appears uncoordinated and directly at odds with the President’s strategy.”

Then Trump feuded with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz over the Iran war. On May 1, 2026, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced, “The Secretary of War has ordered the withdrawal of approximately 5,000 troops from Germany.” Defense officials told CBS the missile battalion slated for Germany would go elsewhere. Three weeks later, Trump rewarded Warsaw instead. “Based on the successful Election of the now President of Poland, Karol Nawrocki, who I was proud to Endorse, and our relationship with him, I am pleased to announce that the United States will be sending an additional 5,000 Troops to Poland,” he wrote. Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski suggested the move would simply hold American numbers near previous levels.

Punish old Europe, reward new Europe. Rumsfeld would recognize the playbook.

Ukraine will decide how far that playbook runs. In July 2026, Thomas Graham of the Council on Foreign Relations outlined a plausible settlement built on a ceasefire along the front, Western security ties for Kiev without NATO membership, and an end to further eastward enlargement, terms Moscow could market as victory. Graham warned against assuming the tide favors Kiev. Bloomberg sources reported that Vladimir Putin wants the rest of Donbas before serious talks, and envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner left Moscow in September without a breakthrough.

Suppose Russia keeps its conquests at a ruinous price. A pyrrhic win of that kind would shut NATO’s door to new members, and Washington’s national security class would likely respond as it did in 2003, by pouring money and manpower into the eastern allies it already has. The scaffolding survives every Trump trim. Allies have pledged 5% of GDP on defense by 2035, and a CRS report counted about 86,000 U.S. personnel in European NATO countries as of March 2026, with Congress requiring certification before numbers fall below 76,000.

Once Trump exits, the hawks who blasted his Romania cut will still hold the blueprints and the bases. They may well revive Rumsfeld’s New Europe as a permanent front against Moscow, anchored in Poland, Romania, and the Baltics. Kennan warned that such a posture breeds the hostility it claims to deter. Americans deserve a debate before Washington signs them up for another generation of geopolitical tension with the Russian Bear.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/22/2026 - 03:30

Houthis Threaten Strikes On Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan Interests As Yemen Intervention Looms

Houthi officials have put Egypt, Turkey, and Pakistan on notice amid the ongoing Saudi-Yemen conflict, and as Riyadh urges partners to assist militarily against the Ansar Allah movement. Iran's state Nour News, which is affiliated with the country's Supreme National Security Council, has issued a report saying the three Saudi allies "will likely be targeted in the next stages"
 - per a Houthi official.

The Houthi official warned that "The targeting of Iran by the enemies will not be limited to the country's borders and, according to him, the next efforts will be to target Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan."

Source: SPA

Already the Houthis have launched several attacks on Saudi Aramco facilities, also including fuel depots next to Riyadh's international airport. The Houthis subsequently confirmed sending ballistic missiles on the capital, in a first of the war. This happened Friday night into Saturday.

According to more from the Iranian media report:

Referring to the position of these three countries in the Islamic world, he said that their power and influence could be an obstacle to the Zionist regime's plans. The Ansarullah official stated that this plan is based on pushing Egypt, Turkey, and Pakistan towards wars and internal conflicts, and that Saudi Arabia plays a role in this process. According to him, such a situation could lead to the erosion of capabilities, weakening, and disintegration of the internal social fabric of these countries

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was just in Cairo meeting with Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. The visit came just in the wake of an Iranian-backed militia attack on the key Saudi East-West pipeline, which one US official described as having been launched from Iraq.

A big focus of the MbS-Sisi meeting was regional security. The Saudis have been asking all regional allies for support at a moment the internationally recognized Sanaa government is rapidly losing ground to the Houthis.

Washington has appeared to shrug its shoulders, staying on the sidelines thus far. President Trump was reported ready to pull the trigger against the Houthis but reportedly TACO'd by close of the weekend.

But there's even greater pressure on the Pakistanis and Turks to take action, given the recently signed Mecca Defense Pact. We featured the following commentary last week:

Turkey's new commitments to Saudi Arabia under the Mecca defence pact could increase the risk of Ankara being drawn into a confrontation with Yemen's Houthis, a development that could have significant consequences for Turkish supply lines to the Horn of Africa. Although Turkey has yet to ratify the pact, expected in October, continued Houthi attacks against Saudi Arabia, and Ankara’s recent participation in the Saudi-led Multinational Maritime Defense Alliance make some form of confrontation possible.

Another big, obvious risk includes the whole thing spinning out into a full-on regional war, which would likely further fuel US-Iran confrontation, and possibly bring in the Israelis.

Bigger conflict would also likely close Red Sea shipping. The Houthis have so far only declared the Bab Al-Mandab Strait off limits to Saudi and Israeli-linked ships. But the fear is that any moment the group could begin assaults on all international shipping, akin to the ongoing crisis in the Strait of Hormuz.

Even very good reporting on Saudi-Houthi situation often says the Houthis e.g. "reignited" the war this summer, or some such. But this July, Saudi struck airport in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, to block an Iranian plane from landing. Sometimes that's not even mentioned...

— Andrew Day (@AKDay89) September 21, 2026

The Iranians and Houthis know they hold this card, and are likely intentionally slow-playing their leverage, but ready to pull the trigger on the next potential round of escalation with the US-Saudi-Israeli axis.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/22/2026 - 02:45

Germany's Debt King Merz Gets a Greek Lesson in Fiscal Policy

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

Revenge is sweet. It tastes all the sweeter the longer one has had to wait for it to arrive, and the deeper the pain of the humiliation that preceded it.

Some may still have the images of the great debt crisis of a decade and a half ago before their eyes: German politicians, led by then-Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, traveled to Athens at regular intervals to make sure everything was in order. Greece, the supposed sinner of the debt crisis, had gone off the rails, accumulated too much debt and was quickly made the scapegoat for the financial-market and sovereign-debt crisis. It was convenient - because it diverted attention from Germany’s own failures.

That someone had apparently left a score to settle was made clear by Greek Finance Minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis in an interview with Handelsblatt on Monday. When the conversation turned to the debt question, Pierrakakis, who also serves as president of the Eurogroup, noted that reforms in fiscal policy might be painful at first, but would ultimately pay off politically and economically.

The man is right. And Berlin should listen to him, because the debt club around Friedrich Merz is knowingly driving the budget into the wall with new borrowing of more than 5 percent next year.

It really does sound like an open score to settle when the Greek generously praises Germany’s economic potential in flowery language while at the same time noting that the country is not untouchable: “Germany is the industrial locomotive of Europe” — Pierrakakis is mercilessly putting his finger on the wound. For he cannot have failed to notice how rapidly the country is economically destroying itself, how quickly it is deindustrializing in the grip of climate fanaticism and mutating from a nation of tinkerers and engineers into an open-air institution for moralists and degrowth ideologues.

While Germany has embarked on the road to second-class status, Greece is gradually growing out of its permanent crisis. The problem with the local economy remains the euro: The Greeks actually need a significantly devalued currency in order to compete more effectively on international markets. After the introduction of the euro and the cheaper borrowing costs made possible by Germany’s credit anchor, the country slipped into an artificial debt trap — the land of spendthrifts and pleasure-seekers, according to the ugly narrative.

German banks and insurers had invested as much as 45 billion euros in Greek bonds at the time — money for which German taxpayers ultimately had to foot the bill. Distorted interest rates caused by the introduction of the euro and the euro debt club’s highly heterogeneous economies were bound to produce such a disaster — and the next debacle is already taking shape: Debt is rising everywhere, while interest rates are climbing. The bond market is responding by selling government bonds, thereby driving up the cost of servicing debt through higher interest rates.

Were Greece’s efforts toward austerity and thrift ultimately in vain?

Whether the moment of the great debt reckoning has now arrived is rather unlikely — there is still plenty of room to push the sovereign-debt crisis to the point of rupture. Nevertheless, much is reminiscent of the period 15 years ago, when the bond market reacted in a similar way and the U.S. housing crisis spread through the market mechanism to the fragile European sovereign-bond markets. Greece, the EU’s smallest economy with the highest level of government debt, was hit first before the dominoes began to fall.

Schäuble’s Greek counterpart at the time was Giannis Varoufakis: an intellectual, committed socialist who stood up to the Teutons and the Troika of the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission — until his party Syriza and Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras were brought to their knees.

The consequence: austerity policy. Massive pension cuts, hospital closures — the shrinking of the welfare state. The Greeks experienced their social-policy Waterloo and have since managed to reduce their government debt ratio from the peak of the crisis, around 180 percent, to 146 percent.

Chapeau! The Greeks deserve every bit of respect in the face of the lax fiscal policies all around them — whether in Italy, Germany, France or Spain. Athens is staying the course, voting conservatively and struggling through this painful period of adjustment.

In the Handelsblatt interview, Pierrakakis becomes something of a fiscal-policy armchair philosopher: The cost of doing nothing, he says, is ultimately higher for everyone than the cost of reforms. That may be true. But the lesson contains a kernel of truth that will not move the German governing coalition even a millimeter toward the mountain of necessary reforms growing larger by the day.

Because consolidating this year’s 180-billion-euro deficit-ridden chaos budget would imply corresponding spending cuts. Tax increases would strangle the economy — Germany would have to begin with remigration, end development aid, reform the welfare state and seriously consider what to do about the war with Russia and the massive military buildup it entails.

The pain of austerity is still ahead for the Germans. Whether it is brought about through the bond market or through the harsh cuts of a reform government makes no difference.

All in all, it was a memorable interview because it describes Germany’s changing era from the perspective of the underdog. Above all, Pierrakakis’ remark that Germany has economic potential should resonate for a long time in its ironic sharpness. Because the country has overstretched its public finances and now lives on credit — just as the Greeks once did.

* * * 

About the author: Thomas Kolbe, a graduate economist, has worked for or over 25 years as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/22/2026 - 02:00

The Hunger Margin: How Intel Analysts Learned To Measure The End Of Abundance

Authored by Milan Adams via Preppgroup,

The shift happened gradually, then all at once.

By late 2024, analysts at Langley and Fort Meade who had spent careers tracking terrorist cells and nuclear programs found themselves redirected to spreadsheets showing fertilizer shipments, satellite passes over Ukrainian wheat fields, and soil moisture readings from the Sahel. Nobody had issued a memo announcing the change.

It simply became obvious that agricultural data had become national security data, and that the old distinctions between threats to the state and threats to the food supply had collapsed into a single, uncomfortable reality.

The numbers they confronted were not abstract. 266 million people facing crisis-level hunger or worse - not "food insecurity" as bureaucrats define it, the anxiety of choosing between rent and groceries, but the physiological reality of bodies consuming muscle tissue to keep hearts beating. 1.9 million perched on the absolute edge of famine, the IPC Phase 5 designation that translates, in plain language, to mass death. These figures accumulated across six consecutive years of escalating hunger, each emergency layering atop the last until the system began to resemble geological strata of suffering.

Then came the confirmations that turned statistical tragedy into historical rupture. In 2025, for the first time in the twenty-first century, two simultaneous famines achieved formal verification. Gaza and Sudan - regions separated by thousands of miles but united in the mechanics of collapse - entered what the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification calls "catastrophic" conditions. This means households have exhausted every coping mechanism. Assets sold. Wild foods consumed. Migration attempted, often failed. The stage before mortality curves spike.

Intelligence agencies do not typically concern themselves with crop yields. Their mandate runs toward adversaries with intentions and capabilities: states, terrorist organizations, criminal networks. But by early 2025, the distinction between traditional security threats and agricultural data had dissolved. The Director of National Intelligence's Annual Threat Assessment, typically reserved for cyber warfare and nuclear proliferation, dedicated unprecedented space to "food system fragility" as a destabilizing force with implications exceeding regional conflicts.

The logic was straightforward, once you looked at it. Civilizations do not tolerate starvation passively. The 2011 Arab Spring erupted partly from wheat price spikes. The Syrian civil war's origins traced partially to drought-induced rural migration overwhelming urban infrastructure. When 266 million people face acute food insecurity, the number of potential failed states multiplies. Analysts began modeling scenarios where famine drove migration flows that overwhelmed border security, where desperate populations radicalized or simply marched, where governments fell and weapons stockpiles dispersed into anarchic spaces.

The assessments grew darker as 2025 progressed. Satellite imagery revealed anomalies first. Ukrainian wheat fields showed reduced planting density despite marginal territorial gains. Argentine growing regions displayed parched soil patterns invisible from ground level but unmistakable from orbit. The Sahel's marginal agricultural zones retreated further as fertilizer shipments - delayed by shipping disruptions and currency collapses - simply never arrived. Each failed planting season represented a debt against future harvests that could not be repaid.

The fertilizer crisis provided the mechanism for systemic failure. Nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium - the triad of industrial agriculture - had experienced price trajectories that defied market correction. Urea prices in the Middle East remained between seventy-five and one hundred eight percent above pre-conflict baselines. Natural gas, the feedstock for nitrogen fertilizer production, had grown volatile. Farmers in developing regions faced a brutal choice: purchase reduced quantities of fertilizer, or abandon planting entirely. Many chose reduction, gambling that diminished yields exceeded no yields at all.

Soil chemistry does not negotiate. The Council on Foreign Relations noted what agronomists understood but policymakers ignored: soil holds phosphate reserves sufficient to absorb one season of deprivation, perhaps two. Beyond that, yield depression accelerates non-linearly. Reduced nitrogen application could compress yields for certain crops by fifty percent within a single growing season. The human stomach makes no distinction between geopolitical causes and agricultural effects. It registers only absence.

Humanitarian funding collapsed precisely when requirements peaked. The $37 billion allocated globally for food assistance in 2024 - a figure already insufficient - plummeted to $21 billion in 2025 as donor fatigue intersected with domestic economic pressures in wealthy nations. The World Food Programme, which had prevented famines through sheer logistical determination in previous decades, found itself choosing which populations to abandon. The $16.9 billion required to address the most acute crises represented less than three days of global military expenditure, yet remained unattainable.

Grain reserves - the buffer against harvest failure that civilization has maintained since Pharaoh's dreams - had eroded to levels unseen in decades. Global wheat ending stocks for 2024/25 reached 257 million metric tons, a nine-year low and declining. Corn stocks followed similar trajectories. The stock-to-use ratio, indicating how many days of consumption existing reserves could cover, had compressed dangerously. Previous generations maintained reserves sufficient for multiple growing seasons. Contemporary just-in-time agriculture had reduced this margin to months, then weeks.

The geography of vulnerability concentrated in patterns that analysts could map but not prevent. Six nations faced the highest risk of famine or catastrophic hunger as 2025 closed: Sudan, Palestine, South Sudan, Mali, Haiti, Yemen. These were not accidents of weather or bad policy alone. They represented the intersection of conflict, climate stress, and economic collapse - the triad that assessments identified as the new normal. Sudan's conflict destroyed not just this season's harvest but the seed stock and agricultural infrastructure required for future planting. Gaza's siege compressed centuries of agricultural decline into months. Haiti's gangs controlled food distribution as effectively as any medieval siege.

Climate data completed the picture. The 2024-2025 El Niño event disrupted monsoon patterns across South Asia and East Africa. Drought in the Horn of Africa persisted into its sixth year in some regions, exhausting pastoralist strategies developed over millennia. Meanwhile, flash floods destroyed standing crops in Pakistan, Brazil, Libya. The weather had become not merely unpredictable but actively hostile, each season bringing some new permutation of extremity that agricultural systems - optimized for twentieth-century climate stability - could not absorb.

Analysts began employing vocabulary previously reserved for nuclear scenarios. "Cascading failures." "Systemic risk." "Irreversible tipping points." The food system they observed had evolved for efficiency and profit margins, not resilience. Global supply chains assumed continuous functionality of shipping lanes, stable energy prices, peaceful trade routes. When these assumptions failed simultaneously, as they did in 2024-2025, the system lacked redundancy. There was no backup plan beyond hoping that next year's harvest would compensate.

The psychological impact within the intelligence community itself proved noteworthy. Analysts accustomed to studying deliberate threats - enemy actions, terrorist plots, state aggression - confronted a different category of horror: structural inevitability. No amount of drone strikes could restore soil nutrients. No sanctions could compel rain. The famine approaching was not an attack to be thwarted but a physical process to be witnessed, documented, mitigated at the margins.

By mid-2025, classified briefings included projections that would have seemed fantastical five years earlier. Scenarios where multiple breadbasket regions experienced simultaneous harvest failures. Models of migration flows numbering tens of millions. Assessments of which governments could withstand food price spikes of three hundred percent, five hundred percent, a thousand percent. The answers were not reassuring. Modern states rest upon implicit contracts wherein populations accept governance in exchange for basic provisioning. When that provisioning fails, legitimacy evaporates faster than grain silos empty.

Agricultural scientists had warned for decades. The "Green Revolution" that fed billions relied on fossil fuel inputs, aquifer depletion, crop genetic uniformity that maximized yield while minimizing resilience. Each season of intensive cultivation mined soil organic matter that required centuries to accumulate. Each monoculture planting expanded territory available to pests and pathogens. The system worked until it didn't. By 2025, the "didn't" had arrived.

What distinguishes the current crisis from historical famines is not the suffering - human beings have starved in uncountable millions throughout history - but the impossibility of remedy. The 1845 Irish Potato Famine killed one million because the potato crop failed; grain continued flowing from Ireland to England throughout. The 1959-1961 Chinese famine resulted from policy decisions that could theoretically have been reversed. Today's crisis emerges from global systems so complex and interdependent that no single actor controls them, yet no local community escapes their failure. You cannot plant your way out of fertilizer shortages when Haber-Bosch plants require natural gas you cannot afford. You cannot irrigate through drought when aquifers have been pumped dry. You cannot import grain when exporting nations have banned shipments to protect their own populations.

The assessments reportedly concluded with recommendations that bordered on existential. Prioritize stability in nuclear-armed states facing food stress - Pakistan, India, China - regardless of other policy considerations. Prepare for migration flows that would make the 2015 Syrian refugee crisis appear trivial. Accept that certain regions would experience demographic collapse regardless of intervention. This language - sacrifice, triage, strategic abandonment - had not appeared in food security discussions since the Cold War's darkest scenarios. Its reemergence signaled recognition that the present crisis exceeded the framework of humanitarian assistance. It had entered the realm of national security survival.

The 2026 projections, finalized in classified channels during autumn 2025, offered no reprieve. Even assuming average weather - a generous assumption - global grain production would remain below consumption requirements. Stock-to-use ratios would compress further. Prices would rise sufficiently to trigger the political instability that agencies most feared. The "best case" scenarios assumed successful harvests in multiple regions simultaneously, a statistical improbability given recent patterns. The worst cases assumed "compound events" - drought in one breadbasket, flood in another, heat stress in a third - occurring within the same growing season.

Such compound events had occurred before. The 2010 Russian heat wave destroyed one-third of that nation's wheat crop and triggered export bans that contributed to Arab Spring uprisings. The difference in 2025 was systemic vulnerability. In 2010, global reserves could absorb regional failures. In 2025, reserves had been consumed by successive years of deficit. The buffer was gone. Each regional failure would transmit directly to global markets as price spikes, and to vulnerable populations as hunger.

INDICATOR 2022 BASELINE 2025 REALITY TRAJECTORY Global acutely food insecure 193 million 266 million +38% in 36 months People on famine's brink (IPC Phase 5) 570,000 1.9 million +233% expansion Confirmed famines (simultaneous) 0 2 (Gaza, Sudan) First this century Humanitarian funding $37 billion $21 billion -43% collapse Global wheat stocks 284 million tonnes 257 million tonnes 9-year minimum Urea price (Middle East benchmark) $400/tonne $850/tonne +112% volatility Major breadbasket regions at risk 3 8 Systemic contagion El Niño severity index Neutral Strong (1.8°C anomaly) Climate forcing

The table tells a story that prose cannot compress. Each percentage point represents millions of human lives suspended over an abyss. The negative correlations - funding down, need up, reserves depleted, prices soaring - create a vise from which extraction seems impossible. Intelligence analysts deal in probabilities, but by late 2025, the scenario tree had pruned itself to variations of catastrophe.

What the public received were sanitized versions. Press releases about "food security challenges" and "need for increased humanitarian assistance." The classified assessments, leaked in fragments, contained starker language. References to "civilizational stress tests" and "historical inflection points." Comparisons to the fourteenth century's combination of climate deterioration, pandemic, and systemic collapse. Hyperbole, some said. Historical analogy, others countered. The analysts themselves reportedly requested classification upgrades, not to protect sources and methods, but because they feared the political and social consequences of public comprehension.

For comprehension breeds panic, and panic accelerates collapse. When populations understand that grain reserves measure in weeks rather than years, hoarding becomes rational. When farmers realize fertilizer will remain unavailable, they plant less. When governments accept that famine is inevitable, they prioritize regime survival over population welfare. The intelligence community thus faced a paradox: warning loudly enough to motivate action risked triggering the very dynamics that would ensure failure. Warning quietly accomplished nothing.

The 2025 harvests confirmed the modeling. Ukrainian wheat production fell below pre-invasion levels despite territorial gains, because the agricultural labor force had been mobilized, killed, or displaced. Argentine soybeans suffered from drought that irrigation could not mitigate. Australian wheat faced quality downgrades from unseasonable rains during harvest. Each regional failure subtracted from a global balance already overdrawn. The world consumed more grain than it produced in 2024, and again in 2025, drawing down reserves that could not be replenished.

Fertilizer industry executives spoke in private what they dared not announce publicly. The CEO of Yara International, one of the world's largest nitrogen fertilizer producers, reportedly warned that sustained crisis conditions could eliminate ten billion meals per week globally. Ten billion. The number exceeds comprehension until one realizes it represents the caloric foundation for three billion human beings. Remove those meals, and the biological mathematics become inexorable. The body requires approximately 2,000 calories daily for sedentary survival. Below 1,200, organ damage begins. Below 800, mortality becomes probable within months. The hunger margin - the gap between available calories and required calories - had turned negative for hundreds of millions.

What happens when the assessments prove correct is not yet fully visible. History suggests that famine does not produce uniform outcomes. Some societies fragment into violence; others achieve surprising solidarity. Some governments fall; others consolidate authoritarian control over remaining resources. The variables include not just food availability but pre-existing social capital, institutional legitimacy, and the presence or absence of external intervention.

What seems predictable is the silence that precedes recognition. The period when data accumulate but public consciousness has not yet shifted. When grain traders know what consumers do not. When analysts draft reports that policymakers hope to address through incremental measures. When the physics of soil and climate proceed indifferent to human urgency.

This silence characterized 2024 and 2025. The information was available. The Global Report on Food Crises published its findings openly. Agricultural commodity markets reflected scarcity in their price structures. Climate scientists documented the anomalies. Yet the public discourse in wealthy nations remained fixated on other concerns - political scandals, cultural conflicts, technological distractions - while the foundation eroded.

The silence breaks eventually. It breaks when food prices in developed nations spike sufficiently to affect middle-class budgets. When migration pressures overwhelm border infrastructure. When media attention finally focuses on emaciated populations in ways that cannot be ignored. By then, the dynamics have acquired momentum that policy cannot easily arrest. Famine operates on biological timelines - caloric deficits accumulate, immune systems weaken, mortality rises - that do not pause for political deliberation.

The Margin Has Closed

Intelligence agencies prepare for this breaking point because it is their function to anticipate rather than react. They model the scenarios, identify the triggers, recommend the interventions that might - might - mitigate the worst outcomes. But they cannot manufacture rainfall, synthesize fertilizer without feedstock, or force populations to consume less so that others might survive. They operate within constraints that physics and chemistry impose.

The "worst food catastrophe in human history" is not hyperbole if measured by absolute numbers at risk. Previous famines killed millions, but involved populations measured in tens or hundreds of millions. The current crisis threatens hundreds of millions directly, and billions indirectly through price spikes, economic collapse, contagion effects. The scale is unprecedented because the global population is unprecedented, because the integration of food systems is unprecedented, and because the environmental degradation accumulated over centuries is unprecedented.

What the assessments ultimately convey is humility in the face of complexity. The recognition that systems built over generations can fail within seasons. That the margin between subsistence and catastrophe is narrower than comfortable assumption allows. That the future is not an extrapolation of the past but a terrain of radical uncertainty.

The granaries speak in whispers now. The satellite imagery reveals parched fields. The fertilizer plants operate below capacity. The grain traders price in scarcity. The analysts draft their assessments. The populations at risk continue their daily struggle for calories, unaware that their fate has been modeled, projected, and largely determined by forces they did not create and cannot control.

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/21/2026 - 23:25

China's Rare-Earth Magnet Exports To US Plunge As Trump-Xi Meeting Looms

Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump are scheduled to meet in Washington on Thursday. UBS analysts quoted chief China economist Yu Song as saying the meeting between the leaders of the two global superpowers is largely about strategic stability and modest progress on tariffs, rare earths, and AI safety.

Political risk analyst Marcus Bischoff expects no major breakthrough but says the most realistic outcome is continuity in US-China relations as the most likely outcome. He sees cautious grounds for higher expectations following discussions between US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng ahead of the Trump-Xi summit.

Over the weekend, a Reuters report said that Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng were set to discuss advanced AI bots and the global adoption of the technology, as well as rare earths.

As Christian Keller, Barclays' global head of economics research, recently described, China's near-total control of more than 95% of critical material refining has been used as leverage against the US. Whether magnets, tungsten, germanium, gallium, or other critical materials, China has restricted their flows over the last year and a half, forcing the US into a mad sprint to secure conflict-free supplies.

Bloomberg reported the latest details on China's resource nationalism and the weaponization of critical material supply chains overnight, citing customs data released Sunday that showed rare earth shipments from China to the US plunged sharply in August.

Shipments dropped 21% from July to 512 tons, according to the new trade data. The decline leaves US supplies of components used in cars, consumer goods, and weapons as a key talking point, whether in discussions between Bessent and his Chinese counterparts or between Trump and Xi.

Bloomberg Economics' Chris Kennedy said, "Washington needs stability with Beijing to keep these critical inputs moving," adding, "Yet periods of calm that restore access to lower-cost Chinese material weaken the urgency for the US to break its dependence on China."

The latest trade data shows China's quasi-monopolistic control of critical materials can be used as geopolitical leverage.

One major problem for the US is that Barclays' Keller shows Beijing will control mineral mining and global refining of these materials through at least 2030.

Breaking Beijing's quasi-monopolistic grip has been an emerging theme of ours that includes finding producing miners with conflict-free supply chains that can deliver to the West. Those miners will be the early winners because these critical materials are the building blocks of the West's pursuit of reindustrialization, the AI data center buildout, power grid upgrades, and, of course, the incoming rearmament cycle.

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/21/2026 - 23:00

"Supply Shortage Problem Has Disappeared": Acer CEO Says Memory Prices To Decline In 2027 As CXMT Starts Mass Production Of New Chip Platform

At long last, the memory bubble may be finally bursting. 

According to Jason Chen, chairman and CEO of Taiwanese PC and IT hardware giant, Acer, prices for memory chips will start reversing in the latter half of next year, dismissing the memory cartel pardon Big 3 claim that chip prices will keep rising well beyond 2027, and bucking the popular narrative which expects no declines in chip prices for the foreseeable future. 

According to United Daily News, Chen said that only high-end DDR5 parts like LPDDR5X-9600 and niche CPUs like Nvidia’s N1 and N1X chips are in short supply. Since supplier pricing lags consumer pricing by about a few months, he added that PC prices will still rise between 5% and 20% towards the end of this year, plateau by the first half of 2027, before finally declining after years of AI-drive hikes.

The AI boom has driven shortages for various PC components, beginning with GPUs in late 2022, before expanding to memory chips by late 2025. This made memory prices climb 500% in 12 months, although the increases have finally cooled as consumers refuse to absorb further hikes.

Some memory companies like SK Hynix are saying that the shortage will be worse next year and that it won’t be until 2030 before pricing will start to normalize. The Adata chief even said that the DRAM shortage would last another 10 years. This is plausibly true, especially as HBM demand from AI hyperscalers remains strong, and the various memory chip fabs under construction aren’t expected to come online until the 2030s.

However, Chen disagreed with this take. He said that the major memory suppliers naturally want to keep their margins as high as possible for longer, and the reason memory makers keep coming out and saying "the price uptrend will continue into 2027" is that antitrust rules prevent them from coordinating prices directly, so they use public statements to send a kind of "signal" to one another “so they keep putting out the message: let me tell you, prices won’t come down until the year 20-whatever.”

The Acer chairperson argued that there’s already ample memory and SSD supplies, while the purported CPU shortage is now limited to specific models: "No. How could it stay short forever? Chinese capacity keeps coming onto the market. The supply shortage problem has already completely disappeared."

Chen also expects the cost of the SSDs and memory Acer holds in 2027 to be lower than this year. If that gets reflected in end product prices, he sees a possibility that prices at least stop rising and stabilize in the second half of next year. The Acer CEO said prices could be raised further in Q1 27 as well. But since this is a period of pricing chaos, he expects the size of the increases to gradually shrink. He estimates component prices could peak around the middle of 2027, when the capacity that chipmakers have added is expected to start running in earnest.

After that, prices would stabilize, and whether they can actually come down in the second half remains to be seen. He admitted, though, that nobody can know the exact timing of the reversal. Chen said PC selling prices coming back down is strictly "a hope."

He also added that Chinese memory makers churning out cheaper alternatives would disrupt the market - something that SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won feared. In fact, Acer, alongside HP and Asus, has started using CXMT chips in some of its products, while some Lenovo models sold in Germany were found to have YMTC SSDs.

Nevertheless, he said that price increases are becoming their own trend, saying that SSDs, PCBs, and fiberglass cloth used in motherboards are seeing their own hikes. “A lot of people come and tell us they want to raise prices, and we find it a bit baffling — this needs to go up, too?” Chen said to the reporters.

He wrapped up by saying this chain of price hikes creates inflation (according to Goldman, rising memory prices will push core PCE higher by 0.5%) which in turn pushes central banks to raise rates, and that "this is not a normal phenomenon."

As Tom's Hardware summarizes, the overall tenor from Chen is good news for long-suffering PC enthusiasts if computer manufacturers could finally lower prices after years of shortages and expensive parts.

Certainly happy to take advantage of the soaring profit margins, China's best IPO of the decade, DRAM chipmaker CXMT, said on ‌Sunday its fifth-generation technology platform had entered mass production, a claimed breakthrough that could help China build a stronger competitor to Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron Technology in the global market for memory chips. 

The new platform is ​designed to make more powerful memory chips at lower cost and with less power ⁠use, Reuters reported. CXMT, which earlier this year listed on Shanghai's STAR Market, said it would give electronics makers an additional ​source of supply for chips used in smartphones and other devices. The company is currently the 4th largest DRAM maker in the world - but rapidly growing - after the Big-3 cartel of Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron.

CXMT, China's leading producer of DRAM, said the ​new platform packs the tiny structures that store data closer together, allowing more memory to fit on each chip and more individual chips to be made from each silicon wafer.

The Hefei-based memory-chip maker said it had reduced the spacing of key features ​in the part of the chip that stores data to 11.95 nanometres, or about 12 billionths of a ​metre.

It achieved this using "quadruple patterning," a process that repeats several manufacturing steps to produce finer circuit patterns.
"Our process capability is now ‌on ⁠par with the most advanced mass-produced nodes out there in the industry," Luo Xiaodong, CXMT's vice president and head of its marketing centre, said at the 2026 World Manufacturing Convention in Hefei.

CXMT also unveiled two 24-gigabit LPDDR5X products made on the new platform. LPDDR5X is a power-saving type of DRAM used mainly ​in smartphones and other portable ​electronics. The products each hold ⁠50% more data than CXMT's previous equivalent products and are already in mass production, the company said. They are offered in two package formats for different smartphone ​and portable-device designs.

CXMT said the platform can produce at least 50% more gross chip ​dies per ⁠wafer than its fourth-generation platform, using an 8-gigabit-chip baseline. That measures the potential number of chips made from a wafer before defective units are excluded, rather than the proportion that pass final testing.

CXMT said it developed the platform using computer ⁠simulations ​and joint work with Chinese chip-equipment makers on critical production steps.

The ​advance comes as Beijing seeks to reduce reliance on foreign semiconductor technology and US export controls since 2022 have restricted China's access to ​certain advanced chipmaking equipment and related software.

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/21/2026 - 22:33

"Technically Not A Hurricane": Rare Nor'easter Threatens Northeast This Weekend

Meteorologists on X are tracking a potential nor'easter that could form off the East Coast late this week. 

A powerful nor’easter could lash the East Coast this week — a rarity for September.

Only around 1 percent of nor’easters have historically occurred during September.

They are most common from November to April. pic.twitter.com/t9LNEgAeqD

— Ben Noll (@BenNollWeather) September 21, 2026

A late-September nor'easter is rare for this time of year, and it comes as El Niño has curbed hurricane development so far this season. 

Is it nor’easter season already?! Things are getting started early this year!

The East Coast will be on watch for a potentially powerful early-season nor’easter later this week — with rain, wind and waves whose severity depends on the exact track. pic.twitter.com/A1K5vF2Xhj

— Ben Noll (@BenNollWeather) September 20, 2026

"While not technically a hurricane, the coastal impacts from a powerful Nor'easter will bring "battering waves" and erosion plus very strong winds perhaps gusting to 70-80 mph," meteorologist Ryan Maue wrote on X earlier Monday, adding, "Even without a storm name -- news media should take this "climate-fueled cyclone" very seriously." 

While not technically a hurricane, the coastal impacts from a powerful Nor'easter will bring "battering waves" and erosion plus very strong winds perhaps gusting to 70-80 mph.

Even without a storm name -- news media should take this "climate fueled cyclone" very seriously. pic.twitter.com/E57I2hWeAd

— Ryan Maue (@RyanWeather) September 21, 2026

PIX11 senior meteorologist Mike Masco said, "Some model guidance has hinted at gusts of 60–70 mph from eastern New Jersey to eastern Long Island. That is NOT a forecast at this point, but I’m not dismissing the potential, particularly across eastern Long Island." 

🌊 NOR’EASTER SEASON TO KICK OFF THIS WEEKEND?

The European model is showing a setup that could produce a long-duration nor’easter potentially with some tropical characteristics.

Here’s what I’m watching at 500 mb, roughly 18,000 feet up: Upper-level energy rotating in from… pic.twitter.com/7Ar2P7oCY5

— Mike Masco (@MikeMasco) September 21, 2026

The good news is that peak hurricane season was on September 10 (11 days ago), without a named storm, because strong wind shear associated with El Niño was tearing apart developing systems in the Atlantic Basin. However, the season runs through November 30.

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/21/2026 - 22:10