Zero Rss

China Extends Mortgages To 40 Years, But Homebuyers Remain Reluctant To Borrow

Authored by Michael Zhuang via The Epoch Times,

China's decision to extend the maximum term for individual home mortgages from 30 years to 40 years has received a lukewarm response from homebuyers.

Residential buildings under construction by Chinese real estate developer Vanke in Hangzhou, in eastern China's Zhejiang province on May 9, 2024. STR/AFP via Getty Images

Several major Chinese banks moved quickly to offer 40-year mortgages after the policy took effect, with some advertising approval times as short as 15 minutes. However, Chinese media reports indicate that relatively few prospective buyers are opting for the longer loans.

The policy change, announced jointly by the People's Bank of China (PBOC) and China's National Financial Regulatory Administration on Aug. 28, allows individual home mortgages to run for up to 40 years, according to Chinese state media Xinhua News Agency.

The PBOC said the longer term would give borrowers and lenders greater flexibility and help promote a "virtuous cycle" between finance and the property sector.

However, the longer repayment period has done little to change a broader shift in household behavior. Chinese consumers are still reluctant to take on additional debt and are instead seeking to reduce their existing liabilities.

Households Pull Back From Debt

Chinese news portal Sina reported on Sept. 20 that banks had been actively promoting the new mortgage option, but prospective buyers remained cautious.

A report by the Chinese media outlet China Times, via Sina, attributed the weak demand to households' growing reluctance to take on debt as China's economy slows.

PBOC data showed that household loans fell by 1.03 trillion yuan ($150 billion) during the first eight months of 2026, according to state-run mouthpiece Xinhua.

The slowdown is particularly pronounced in longer-term household borrowing, which includes mortgages. Such loans increased by 1.17 trillion yuan ($33 billion) during the first half of 2026, according to data from China's Ministry of Commerce.

Another sign of the shift came in April, when repayments of long-term household loans exceeded new loans issued that month. The scale of early repayments reached a record high.

Chinese media Securities Times, in a report carried by Sina, described the trend as Chinese households collectively seeking to "quit" mortgages.

Mike Li, a U.S.-based investment consultant and China expert, told The Epoch Times that the longer mortgage terms do not address the underlying financial pressure facing households.

"The regime is trying to ease borrowers' economic pressure by extending the repayment period, but the pressure is only being postponed and has not actually been reduced," Li said.

The reluctance to take on mortgages comes as China's housing market remains in a prolonged downturn.

Falling home prices create an additional obstacle for households considering a long-term mortgage. Buyers taking on large mortgages face the risk that their homes' values could decline while their outstanding debt remains high.

Li said this could also create risks for banks if borrowers begin to default.

"If a default occurs, when banks dispose of the property, they may face a decline in the property's value, insufficient collateral, increased disposal costs, and a lower recovery rate," he said.

Li said the broader policy response had so far failed to reverse the weakness in the property market or revive consumption.

"The policies introduced by the Chinese Communist Party so far have had very little effect. The property market has not been rescued, and consumption has not improved," he said.

Jon Sun contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Sun, 09/27/2026 - 21:50

Bring Your Own Power Plant: Goldman Now Sees Behind-The-Meter Powering 25% Of All Data Centers By 2030

For the past year we have been banging the same drum: if hyperscalers want to plug a city's worth of load into an already-strained grid, especially without being burned down to the ground by an angry mob after it has seen its electricity bill 10x in a year, they should bring their own power plant.

And 'AI Power' has been tracking lower as the odds of a Democratic Party sweep in the MidTerms rises...

Back in November, as electric bills began their now-familiar vertical ascent, we said it plainly:

To prevent skyrocketing electric bills, every state has to follow the Texas example: each data center must have its own "behind the meter" onsite power generation.

“We believe data centers should pay for the full cost of their power,” Dominion Energy spokesperson Aaron Ruby… https://t.co/0u1owTeAs8 pic.twitter.com/8W421s3rzV

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) November 23, 2025

A month later we dropped any pretense of nuance:

Make "behind the meter" mandatory https://t.co/ZEcmX5Ge0e pic.twitter.com/bCBnwx2E5g

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) December 24, 2025

It took a while, but Goldman has now fully joined the "make behind-the-meter mandatory" camp... or at least the "behind-the-meter is inevitable" camp, which is close enough.

In a new, fascinating 50-page Carbonomics report (yes, the bank's climate desk just wrote 50 highly combustible pages about the best ways to burn natural gas, more on that below) titled "Behind-the-meter power solutions for data centers: gas turbines, fuel cells and reciprocating engines", Michele Della Vigna's team raises its outlook for behind-the-meter (BTM) power generation for data centers from 40GW to 67GW by 2030, and now expects gas turbines, reciprocating engines and fuel cells to supply 28% of US and 25% of global data center power demand by 2030 - versus "effectively 0%" in 2025.

The reason is simple: there is not enough grid, and there won't be for years (and for those wondering, yes: it will cost a lot of money, which means much more debt is coming).

The demand side: another 170%

Back in July, Goldman's US Technology and GS SUSTAIN teams raised their global data center capacity forecast to 217GW by 2030, up from 101GW in 2025 (and vs. 168GW in their prior forecast), with the US alone expected to hit 108GW.

Source: Global Data Center Capacity update: Increased capacity expectations, but continued tightness

In power terms, the bank now sees 170% global data center power demand growth in 2030 vs. 2025 (up from 117% previously), more than 60% of which comes from the US.

That, in turn, pushes Goldman's total power demand CAGR to 3.5% through 2030 - a number that would have been laughed out of any utility investor day just five years ago.

The supply side: the grid is not coming to save you

Here is where the report gets properly grim for anyone waiting patiently in an interconnection queue (recall a month ago we said that just Texas alone is facing 474GW of interconnection requests (ERCOT), of which 90% is data centers. Which is why gov Abbott froze rollout of new data centers in Texas). According to Goldman, the pace of new US high-voltage transmission construction has collapsed from an average of 1,700 miles per year in 2010-14 to just 350 miles per year in 2020-23, with only 55-125 new miles added in 2023-24. Meanwhile, the median time from interconnection request to commercial operation is now approaching 5 years.

And the grid-side outlook is actually the optimistic read. INNIO, one of the engine makers profiled in the report, says grid connection times have stretched from ~2 years historically to 7+ years today, which is why hyperscalers are now signing 15-year contracts for BTM power. When the alternative is waiting until the next decade to switch on a multi-billion dollar campus, "temporary" on-site power has a way of becoming permanent (as we noted in "Why Data Centers Favor On-Site Gas Power", the marginal cost of running an on-site gas plant may well end up below industrial tariffs anyway).

There is also the ratepayer angle, which is the whole reason we started pounding the table on BTM in the first place. Every GW that a hyperscaler generates on site is a GW that doesn't get socialized into Grandma's electric bill, and with 142 anti-data-center rallies across 42 states this summer (see "The Data-Center Revolt Goes National" from July 19), the political cost of not doing BTM is only going up, and is virtually assuring 

So how big does BTM get?

Goldman's US Utilities team raised its estimate of Behind-The-Meter capacity (excluding fuel cells) available to serve data center load to 31GW by 2030 from 20GW previously, corresponding to 22GW of delivered power vs. 14GW before. Globally, gas-BTM capacity for data centers hits almost 50GW by 2030.

On top of that, Goldman now models a separate pool for fuel cells, which it sees supplying 8% of US data center demand by 2030 (7% globally), on top of the 20% / 18% delivered by gas-BTM. In installed terms, that's 12GW of fuel cells in the US and 18GW globally by 2030, from a de minimis base today, translating into a cumulative equipment TAM of $35bn in the US and $55bn globally, with a recurring service and stack-replacement stream on top.

Regular readers will recall that back in February, in "Fuel Cells Poised To Capture 1/3 Of Data Center Power Demand By 2030", we covered Goldman's first pass at this, when the bank estimated 7-19GW of fuel cell capacity would be needed by 2030. The new 12GW US / 18GW global numbers sit at the top end of that range, which Goldman says gives it "higher conviction in both the level and the composition of the addressable market."

Why LCOE no longer matters (much)

Here is the part of the report that should make every utility-model spreadsheet jockey slightly uncomfortable. On pure cost, fuel cells are the worst option on the table. Goldman's LCOE (Levelized Cost of Energy is the average cost to build and operate a power plant per unit of electricity generated over its entire lifecycle) work for a 500MW data center shows reciprocating engines at $80/MWh, CCGTs at $81/MWh, OCGTs at $91/MWh and fuel cells at a hefty $117/MWh - roughly 45% above CCGT and RICE and c.30% above OCGT (at $4/mmbtu gas). Even with the 30% ITC, fuel cells only get down to $90/MWh.

The culprit is capex: Goldman assumes installed costs of $1,800/kW for recip engines, $2,400/kW for OCGT, $2,600/kW for CCGT and a whopping $4,750/kW for fuel cells (the ITC takes the fuel cell system down to ~$2,700/kW). Note also that CCGT costs have gone from ~$1,300/kW in 2023 to $2,000-2,200/kW in 2025, with post-2030 deliveries approaching $2,500/kW - turbine inflation is doing the fuel cell salesmen's work for them.

And yet fuel cells win Goldman's weighted scorecard, with a score of 76.6 vs. 68.2 for aeroderivative turbines, 67.0 for recip engines and 59.6 for heavy-duty GT/CCGT.

The radar version of the same scorecard shows the trade-off even more clearly. Fuel cells (solid dark blue) max out on time-to-power, availability, load-following, power-path efficiency, water use, noise and sensitivity to gas prices, then collapse toward the center on the two metrics utilities have traditionally cared about most: LCOE and upfront capital costs. Recip engines (green dashes) are close to the mirror image, with top marks on cost, modularity and load-following but near-bottom scores on maintenance, noise and emissions. And the heavy-duty turbine/CCGT, the workhorse of every utility IRP for the past 30 years, scores well on LCOE, availability and efficiency, but ends up close to the center on time-to-power, which is the one axis that matters when the order book runs to 2031.

Why does the most expensive option win? Because the scorecard weights time-to-power at 20%, availability at 15%, LCOE at 15% and upfront capex at 10%, and when it comes to time, nothing else comes close. SOFC manufacturers quote 6-12 months from order to power. Recip engines are now 1.5-2.5 years. Heavy-duty gas turbines? 5-7 years, vs. 2-3 years in a "normal" market.

Bottom line: if you want power soon, you're gonna pay. A lot.

Bloom Energy (not covered by Goldman) summed up the new math on its 2Q call better than any LCOE model could: customers now think in terms of "total cost of power to token revenue," and one month of earlier power availability for a 1GW data center could be worth $1-2 billion of revenue. At those numbers, a $37/MWh premium over a CCGT is a rounding error. No wonder Bloom stock ripped to record highs after it blew out estimates and hiked guidance in April (see "Bloom Energy Erupts On Beat, Guidance Upgrade As On-Site Data Center Power Demand Soars" from April 29).

Two more wrinkles work in the fuel cells' favor. First, they need the least overbuild: to serve a 500MW IT load, Goldman estimates fuel cells need just ~9% excess capacity (c.725MW installed) vs. +22% for recip engines, +26% for OCGT and a massive +47% for CCGT (c.979MW).

Second, fuel cells spit out DC power, which plugs straight into Nvidia's push for 800V HVDC rack architecture and skips the transformer/converter/inverter chain that currently loses ~10-12% of electricity along the way (vs. ~3% in the DC design).

Finally, for those who believe (as we do) that natgas prices aren't staying at $4 forever, fuel cells have the lowest sensitivity to the fuel bill thanks to their ~60% electrical efficiency. At around $12/mmbtu - close to Goldman's normalized 2027 TTF estimate of c.$11 - fuel cell LCOE converges with single-cycle gas turbines.

The turbine queue: "now taking reservations for 2031"

Of course, the main reason fuel cells, recip engines and even refurbished boilers are all suddenly in vogue is that the gas turbine market is sold out. Goldman notes that global gas turbine awards hit 100GW in 2025 (vs. 55GW in 2024), and 2026 is tracking even hotter with 67GW booked YTD (38GW in 2Q alone).

GE Vernova's backlog plus slot reservations reached 116GW at the end of 2Q26, and the company expects >125GW by year-end with all of 2030 sold and >50% of 2031 production slots on contract - which is why, back in July, we titled our GEV earnings recap "Now Taking Reservations For 2031 Delivery". Siemens Energy has accumulated 87GW of commitments, 24GW of which are data center related, and still sees a ~10% supply-demand gap in 2030 after all announced expansions. MHI is already negotiating projects to ship in the 2030s.

The engine makers are no better off: Wärtsilä has sold out 2028 and is negotiating 2029-30 slots; INNIO's backlog plus reservations is >15GW, more than 4x trailing 12-month deliveries (and it just booked a 1.1GW prime-power order for a single megascale data center); Caterpillar's large-engine backlog is up >3.5x; Cummins is taking orders out to 2028; and Rolls-Royce says data centers now account for 80%+ of its power generation sales.

dc

The desperation is palpable: last month Elon Musk's SpaceX moved to build its own turbine blade factory in Texas to break the bottleneck ("Profound Game-Changer", August 29), and AI developers have gone full 19th century, reviving industrial boilers and steam turbines just to get something spinning before 2032 ("Gas Turbine Shortage Sends AI Developers Back To Boilers And Steam").

...and fuel cells aren't immune either

Before anyone concludes that fuel cells are the silver bullet, Goldman's own supply math tells a different story. Bloom's new 2GW production line, assuming full ramp and 85% utilization, would deliver a cumulative ~7.7GW by 2030 - well short of the ~18GW Goldman forecasts is needed. Getting there requires ~3.8GW of installations per year globally, which means multiple manufacturers (Ceres Power licensees Doosan, Delta, Weichai and whoever else signs up) all scaling at the same time. Doosan's dedicated Ceres-tech facility, for reference, currently has 50MW of annual capacity.

In other words, even the "fast" solution is set to be capacity-constrained for years. And let's not forget what these boxes actually run on: natural gas. The fuel cell is cleaner and quieter than a turbine, and it's great that Goldman's Carbonomics team has found a way to love a methane-powered data center, but at the end of the day every one of these BTM solutions is a bet on cheap, abundant gas and pipeline access. Which brings us to...

The long-term answer: go nuclear, go modular

Buried on page 6 of the report is the sentence that matters most for anyone thinking beyond 2030. Goldman lists small modular reactors among the viable BTM options, noting that they are "reliable and relatively cheap over the long run," but concludes that "owing to their long investment cycle, the majority of the investments from data centers are unlikely to result in their realization before 2030."

We agree with the timing, and that is precisely the point. Everything in this report - turbines, recips, fuel cells, even gas - is a bridge. It is the best bridge available, and we'd make it mandatory tomorrow, but it is a bridge built on 5-7 year turbine queues, capacity-constrained fuel cell lines, and the assumption of $4 gas forever. The only permanent, scalable, fuel-price-insensitive, zero-emission, genuinely behind-the-meter solution for a 1GW AI campus is a modular reactor sitting on site.

That's why we have long argued that modular reactors such as those being developed by NANO Nuclear are the only long-term solution to the data center power crunch. As we previously reported, NANO's KRONOS micro modular reactor - designed to produce 15 MWe (45 MWth) - began drilling at the University of Illinois, with the reactor explicitly targeting data centers, industrial sites and military applications. And just last month, NANO signed a commercial framework with Tillman Digital Gateway to deploy modular reactors across US data center campuses, targeting 2GW by the mid-2030s and 6GW by 2040 ("Nano Nuclear Energy Signs Commercial Framework With Tillman To Enable Nuclear Power For Data Centers", August 24). As NANO CEO James Walker put it, "power availability is becoming one of the defining constraints on the continued expansion of AI infrastructure."

In fact, if you line up Goldman's timeline with the SMR developers', the handoff almost writes itself: gas-BTM and fuel cells carry the load through 2030 (and absorb the ratepayer backlash), while modular nuclear scales into the 2030s just as the first generation of on-site gas assets comes up for recontracting and gas prices do whatever gas prices do. (For more on why the "nuclear renaissance" keeps coming back to small reactors, watch our ZH debate on the topic of "Modular Reactors To Solve Data Center Hysteria?" from July 8).

Stock exposure

For those looking for the trade, Goldman's Buy-rated names most leveraged to the BTM theme are:

• Fuel cells: Ceres Power (CWR.L, PT 930p) - asset-light licensing model, with royalties seen reaching £99mn (base) to £178mn (upside) by 2030 and EBIT margins going from loss-making to ~50%; Weichai Power (2338.HK, PT HK$55) - holds a 17.8% stake in Ceres, targets 700MW+ of SOFC capacity by 2030, and every GW shipped adds an estimated Rmb3.5-4bn of net profit; and Delta Electronics (2308.TW, PT NT$4,120) - pilot SOFC production by end-2026, mass production in 2027-28.
• Conventional gas BTM: GE Vernova (GEV, PT $1,268), Siemens Energy (ENR1n.DE, PT €212), Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (7011.T, PT ¥6,200) and INNIO.

And, of course, for those who, like us, think the real endgame is nuclear, there are plenty of names that we have been flagging for a while which aren't in Goldman's report at all - that would be the entire nuclear modular space - and which is trading between 50% and 80% lower compared to a year ago. 

The full 50-page Goldman Carbonomics report is available to pro subscribers.

Tyler Durden Sun, 09/27/2026 - 21:25

Two-Month China Truce Falls Short Of Expectations As Markets Fade Trump-Xi Summit

Donald Trump gave Xi Jinping the full state-visit treatment in Washington, but markets were more interested in what the two leaders did not deliver.

After three days of ceremony, an unusually warm presidential welcome and repeated pledges to stabilize relations between the world's two largest economies, the main economic outcome was a two-month extension of the existing U.S.-China trade truce, pushing its expiration from November 10 to January 10, 2027.

That averted an immediate return to escalation, but fell short of the longer runway many investors had expected.

President Donald Trump, center right, first lady Melania Trump, right, China's President Xi Jinping, center left, and his wife Peng Liyuan watch a silent drill platoon review on the new helipad from the Blue Room Balcony of the White House, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Following the meeting, China's CSI 300 fell 1.7% on Thursday, its worst session in a month, while the Shanghai Composite lost 1.2%. On Friday, with the mainland shut for the Mid-Autumn holiday, the Hang Seng dropped another 1.7% to a two-month low, with technology and AI shares leading the decline. The yuan also gave back part of its pre-summit advance as the dollar strengthened.

The reaction was notable because expectations were hardly euphoric going in. The summit had been billed primarily as an exercise in stabilizing a relationship still divided over tariffs, advanced technology, rare-earth supplies, Taiwan and Iran. Even against that modest bar, the two-month extension came in short: Wall Street had generally been discussing three to six months, while some investors had hoped for a one-year rollover.

Barclays senior China economist Yingke Zhou summed up the meeting as "more signaling, less substance." Zhou's broader point was that Washington and Beijing appeared focused on preventing another breakdown in relations rather than resolving the disputes that produced the truce in the first place.

The Deal Wasn't Nothing

The White House said the two governments formally operationalized their previously announced Boards of Trade and Investment. Under the Board of Trade, officials reached consensus on recommendations for more favorable tariff treatment covering roughly $30 billion of non-sensitive goods in each direction, including U.S. agricultural products and medical devices and Chinese consumer goods. China also committed to importing at least 10 million metric tons of U.S. coal in both 2027 and 2028.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Friday that the two sides had reached agreements allowing certain products to remain outside future tariff disputes and promised significantly more detail on Monday.

"We're in a managed trade situation," Greer said, adding that the administration would release "a lot more details" about the negotiations.

That means Monday's announcement could materially change the initial assessment of the summit. A detailed list of tariff exclusions, purchase commitments and implementation dates would give businesses something they can actually model.

But the official fact sheet also made clear how much remains unfinished.

Rare earths are the most obvious example. Washington said the two governments "continue to work" on U.S. concerns about shortages of rare earths and other critical minerals - careful language that confirms the supply issue remains unresolved. Chinese shipments of rare-earth magnets to the U.S. had already fallen sharply in August, and Beijing's export-licensing regime continues to give it substantial leverage over Western manufacturers.

There was no broad settlement on advanced semiconductors. No breakthrough on Taiwan. And although the two countries have agreed to establish what the White House calls a "Super Intelligence Dialogue" and an emergency-communication channel, the details remain thin enough that markets have little basis yet for pricing an investment impact.

Rare Earths And Taiwan Are Still There

The rare-earth issue may be the clearest test of whether the current detente has changed the balance of leverage.

China remains dominant in both mining and, more importantly, processing of rare-earth materials, while U.S. officials have complained that deliveries have not fully met earlier commitments. The White House's own language after the summit indicates that Washington is still seeking more reliable shipment levels.

Taiwan is similarly unresolved. Xi pressed Trump during the visit to take a harder line against Taiwanese independence. At the same time, Washington has been weighing another arms package for Taipei worth roughly $14 billion. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said during the visit that delays in arms sales to Taiwan reflect concerns about U.S. weapons production.

Whatever the eventual timing of that sale, the important point for markets is that the summit did not remove Taiwan from the bilateral risk ledger.

The same is true of AI. Both sides agreed to continue talks, including work on an incident-communication channel, but they remain competitors in advanced chips, models and computing infrastructure.

Sixty Days Of Visibility

For companies exposed to U.S.-China trade, January 10 is better than November 10. It gets the current arrangement through the Christmas import season and prevents an immediate reopening of the tariff war.

But sixty days is not much planning horizon for a manufacturer deciding where to build a plant, sign a multiyear sourcing contract or commit billions of dollars in capital.

And the tariff burden has not disappeared. The latest Penn Wharton Budget Model data put the effective U.S. tariff rate on Chinese imports at roughly 23%, compared with about 7% overall. China still faces the highest effective rate among major U.S. trading partners.

That helps explain why investors distinguished between stability and resolution.

There is a constructive side to that. China's export sector has remained remarkably resilient, and keeping the truce intact removes the immediate threat of another tariff shock. U.S.-bound manufacturers, electronics suppliers, appliance makers and auto-parts exporters all benefit from having the deadline pushed into next year.

A Summit Built Around Stability

Trump personally greeted Xi and Peng Liyuan at Joint Base Andrews, an unusual gesture for a visiting head of state. The White House staged a formal arrival ceremony and military flyover, followed by bilateral meetings, a state dinner, tea and a visit to the National Archives. Xi repeatedly called for a stable long-term relationship and said the U.S. and China could avoid the so-called Thucydides Trap of conflict between a rising and established power.

China also revived one of its oldest diplomatic tools: pandas. Beijing agreed to send two giant pandas to Zoo Atlanta. Ping Ping and Fu Shuang arrived in Atlanta on Sunday.

But the composition of the summit showed the limits of the commercial thaw.

The American side brought a who's who of technology and finance, with executives from Nvidia, AMD, OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Apple, Tesla and major Wall Street firms involved in the broader visit. Xi's official delegation, by contrast, was dominated by government officials rather than Chinese CEOs - a contrast Barclays cited in arguing that Beijing approached Washington primarily as a strategic dialogue rather than a corporate dealmaking exercise.

Washington and Beijing appear to have decided that keeping the relationship inside guardrails is itself valuable. What they have not done is settle the economic and geopolitical disputes inside those guardrails..

What To Watch Monday

First, Greer's trade details. The White House has already disclosed the framework for preferential treatment of about $30 billion in non-sensitive goods. Monday should show how much of that framework is operational - which products qualify, when tariff treatment changes and what purchase commitments accompany it.

Second, mainland equities. China's markets were closed Friday, leaving Hong Kong to absorb the final day of the summit in thin holiday trading. Monday will be the first full onshore session able to react to the completed visit and whatever additional trade details Washington releases.

Third, the yuan. Beijing guided the currency stronger ahead of the summit before allowing some of that move to reverse as the dollar rallied. With the diplomatic event now over, traders will be watching the PBOC's daily fixing for clues about whether authorities still prefer gradual appreciation or are prepared to tolerate more two-way movement.

The Washington summit therefore leaves investors with a peculiar combination: less immediate danger, but few reasons to declare the underlying dispute settled.

Tariffs remain elevated. Rare-earth supplies remain an issue. Taiwan remains unresolved. AI competition remains intact. And the new trade deadline arrives less than four weeks after the leaders are expected to meet for the fourth time this year.

Washington bought another sixty days of stability. What happens inside those sixty days will determine whether it bought anything more.

Tyler Durden Sun, 09/27/2026 - 21:00

Bill Gates Predicts A Billion Deaths Via Evolutionary Event

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

Bill Gates is back on the Sunday-show circuit spreading doom and predicting a massive reduction in the human population.

In an exclusive Meet the Press interview set to air this weekend, the Microsoft co-founder told Kristen Welker that artificial intelligence is "certainly powerful enough to drive events that... cause a billion deaths" - then used the line to demand federal legislation, law-enforcement monitoring, and an end to industry self-regulation.

Gates is touting AI as a species-level emergency, and calling for handing over total control to politicians and a new class of global inspectors.

? Bill Gates predicts that AI could "drive events that cause a billion deaths" pic.twitter.com/o1k6KqAkS4

— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) September 25, 2026

Welker put the extinction question to him directly: "Do you believe AI is powerful enough to end all of humanity?"

Gates answered: "AI is certainly powerful enough to drive events that, you know, cause a billion deaths, you know, so even though it's pretty hard to get to 100%, there's never been a weapon as powerful as the combination of people with ill intent using the latest AI tools."

Watch:

"Pretty hard to get to 100 percent." He almost seems disappointed by that.

Gates did not describe a rogue machine deciding to wipe out the species. He framed the threat as people using the newest models as a weapon - then immediately converted that warning into a Washington to-do list.

Asked whether self-regulation was enough, or whether it had to come with legislation, Gates said: "No one thinks self-regulation is enough, so there needs to be legislation passed in Washington. Absolutely. You need law enforcement and the politicians to get into the discussion about what safeguards and monitoring look like and that has to be a required thing and it will be a little bit of overhead for the industry but not a dramatic slowing of what they're doing."

Three days earlier, Gates was on CBS Mornings laying the metaphysical groundwork. Comparisons to past technologies, he said, miss the point. "Most of society is still not aware of how quickly it's moving," he told Gayle King and Norah O'Donnell. "AI is almost an evolutionary event."

Bill Gates makes his boldest prediction yet saying, "AI is almost an evolutionary event" pic.twitter.com/zXgQ6NKmuL

— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) September 22, 2026

He used the same appearance to appeal to President Trump after he called the most extravagant AI-harm claims a "hoax."

Gates said the president is "in the place that everybody else is in, where at first you're like, 'Isn't this just like the technologies of the past?'"

Then came the sales close: "If he wants to get credit for helping the entire world, the AI topic is his best bet. The leader that brings people together there will deserve positive recognition."

Earlier this month, Gates was already calling AI an "alien intelligence," declaring that "no government is nearly as deep on this as they have to be," and floating an international organization built from nuclear inspections, aviation rules, and ozone treaties.

In that press round he reached for a Hollywood script: "There's all sorts of movies where some aliens are coming, and magically the US and China and everybody comes together to solve the problem. AI is kind of like this alien intelligence. It's here, and we better do like it shows in those movies."

On The Times Tech Pod he said industry should not be trusted to police itself: "It's not the role of the industry to self-regulate or understand the whole-of-society impact that comes out of AI." In a late-August essay he wrote that "the transition to the AI era will be one of the most turbulent times in human history" and that "unfortunately, right now, we are not preparing for it."

Ai is the new big bad threat. For years Gates sold net-zero as civilization's last exit. Then the data-center boom needed power, and last October he asserted that climate change "won't lead to humanity's demise."

The scare machine was not retired. It needed a replacement threat big enough for inspectors and "international coordination." AI arrived on cue: jobs, cyberattacks, companions, bioterror, "loss of control."

The entertainment wing ran the same template. Netflix's The AI Doc was pitched internally as "kind of like 'An Inconvenient Truth' or 'The Social Dilemma' for AI." Lab chiefs and "humane tech" voices walked audiences through impending dread.

Anthropic's Dario Amodei called for a slowdown. Sam Altman piled on. Former Anthropic and OpenAI researcher Jacob Coxon quit and said people building the systems "earnestly believe that it could kill us all before the end of the decade."

Trump has already rejected the pause. The doomer chorus wants the opposite: slow the labs that still lead, write rules in Washington that China will not obey, and call the result "safeguards."

While Gates talks extinction, his foundation writes checks. On September 15 the Gates Foundation pledged at least $1 billion over two years to spread AI through education, health, and agriculture - 40 percent tutoring and classroom tools, 40 percent diagnostics and drug discovery, the rest farming advice and the data layer that makes models work outside English. That money sits inside a previously announced $9 billion-a-year spend.

Gates wrote that left to the market, "AI will be designed by and for the richest people in the world," and that choices in "the next 12 to 18 months" will decide who benefits. The good outcome, he added, "won't happen by accident."

He is NOT predicting anything. He is telling us exactly what his plan is.

— Gr8tfulGoose (@Gr8tfulGoose) September 25, 2026

Sounds like he's worried AI's ability to destroy humanity will outpace his own.

— Political Blasphememes (@PBlasphememes) September 25, 2026

Karim Hawi reached for the last failed countdown: "Same guy that said climate change was going to do that but nothing has happened yet?"

Same guy that said climate change was going to do that but nothing has happened yet?

— Karim Hawi (@karimhawi) September 25, 2026

TheConspiracyReport called the clip priming - "the AI hoax table has been set" - and warned of a convenient pre-election shock.

This is Priming??

Prediction?
The AI hoax table has been set.

Expect a big AI false flag that has real economic consequences ~2 weeks prior to Nov election.

An October surprise for Democrat Socialists and the AI 'Governor me harder, Daddy' cucks.

We must get ahead of this.

— TheConspiracyReport (@TheConspiracyR1) September 25, 2026

Readers can weigh those claims themselves. What does not require a theory is the sequence on tape: invent a body count, declare self-rule insufficient, demand legislation and monitoring, and invite Trump to become the man who "brings people together" with Beijing.

America does not need Gates's alien-invasion summit. It needs the labs here to stay ahead, the rules written by voters rather than foundations, and a hard no to any regime that treats a billion imaginary corpses as the argument for a new police power over code. The last apocalypse did not arrive on schedule. This one is being pre-sold with a clip package and a Sunday booking.

 

* * * FREE SHIPPING!

Tyler Durden Sun, 09/27/2026 - 20:10

TikTok To Pay Alabama At Least $100 Million, Add Teen Limits Before First State Trial

Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times,

TikTok and its creator ByteDance struck a deal Friday with Alabama that will pay the state at least $100 million and force changes in how teenagers use the app, days before what would have been the first state trial over claims the platform was built to addict minors.

TikTok is so powerful its logo alone can mesmerize children. George Chan/Getty Images

The money is due within 45 days. It can climb to $300 million if certain conditions are met, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall's office said. Alabama was set to select a jury on Monday.

"This is a great day for Alabama parents," Marshall said. "Tonight, they can rest easier knowing real protections are in place to shield their children from the dangers of social media addiction. TikTok has agreed to give parents real control over what their kids see and how much time they spend on the app."

The complaint had accused TikTok of designing addictive features, exposing young users to serious mental harms, and misleading the public about safety.

TikTok did not admit those claims in the papers released Friday.

The company did not immediately return a request for comment.

The deal requires teen accounts in Alabama to have a two-hour daily cap, which parents can further shorten. After 15, 60, and 90 minutes of continuous use, the app must interrupt the session, a feature the office called "productive pauses," intended to break endless scrolling.

Teen accounts will be unavailable from midnight to 6 a.m. Messaging and push alerts face extra limits overnight and during school hours. In addition, cosmetic filters are banned for teen users.

The default feed for those accounts is to remain non-personalized, and teen accounts are to be harder for adults to find. Parents get notice of suspicious contacts. Parental controls are supposed to be easier to use.

Last month, a multi-state Meta deal was set to bring Alabama $117 million on similar youth-harm allegations. Earlier, Roblox paid the state $12.2 million and agreed to tighter age checks and chat rules.

The Alabama deal arrives as other fights progress.

On Sept. 10, a Travis County, Texas, judge ruled that TikTok violated the state's consumer protection law by misleading users about tools meant to keep minors from harmful videos. Judge Cory Liu found Restricted Mode did not work as marketed.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said the case now goes to trial next month to set penalties.

"TikTok sacrificed the safety and innocence of children for engagement and numbers, and now they are being held accountable," Paxton said then.

In early August, TikTok moved to settle three confidential teen mental-health suits. Lawyer Joseph VanZardt said written papers still had to be finished.

The plaintiffs - identified only as S.J., 15, of Illinois; P.M.Y., 15, of New Jersey; and K.D.B., 18, of Mississippi - alleged addiction, depression, self-harm and, in two cases, eating disorders. Roughly 3,300 similar suits sit before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Carolyn Kuhl. Meta, YouTube, and Snapchat still face an October trial calendar.

A March jury in that same court awarded $4.2 million against Meta and $1.8 million against Google in a related individual case. TikTok settled that one before opening statements.

In August, the Justice Department separately announced TikTok and ByteDance would pay $400 million to resolve Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) claims. Officials called it one of the largest COPPA recoveries on record. The company did not admit fault.

Tyler Durden Sun, 09/27/2026 - 19:20

Beyond The SPR: Stifel Spots Another Depleted Strategic Stockpile In Urgent Need Of Rebuilding

Stifel's "own the bottlenecks" theme favors producers that can supply Western markets with conflict-free critical materials today. China's tightening export controls will collide with a looming multiyear rearmament cycle and reinforce the urgency of finding stable production outside China.

The Trump administration's big push to rebuild the US defense industrial base is creating a multiyear investment opportunity in critical materials supply chains as sourcing shifts from China to allied countries.

Stifel aerospace and defense analyst Jonathan Siegmann wrote in the note titled "National Security Critical Materials & Supply Chain: Own the Bottlenecks" that clients should look beyond big defense giants to producing miners that control scarce supplies of tungsten, magnets, microdisplays, lasers, and drone components.

"Stock playbook: own the choke point, don't chase the press release," Siegmann said.

He continued, "Front-running announced federal support has paid impressively, but outperformance is usually short-lived, and the strategy is hard to repeat. We prefer investing in stocks already positioned as bottleneck solutions, where active government support is additive rather than a requirement. A strong defense cycle plus a committed, supportive US customer will structurally improve growth and returns, in our view."

China is a top-four supplier for 14 of 31 minerals and the single largest for eight; Russia appears among the top suppliers for three: palladium, silicon, and potash.

Siegmann shows that China has been an investment powerhouse in mining and refining since the mid-1990s, while US investment has lagged. Now the Trump administration is playing catch-up.

China Produces the Periodic Table

Siegmann outlines China's weaponization of critical materials exports against the US and its Western allies.

Why the Critical Materials Shortage Is a National Security Problem

The federal government is attempting to rebuild its critical materials supply chains outside China.

Here's what happens to mining stocks after the US government announces a strategic stake or partnership deal.

All the deals so far.

One of the most stunning charts Siegmann created for clients shows the 25-year drawdown of the US government's massive tungsten stockpile, which it will have to reverse for national security reasons.

Against that backdrop, Stifel critical materials analyst Brock Cannon initiated coverage on Almonty Industries, believing the Nasdaq-listed miner is set to be a major beneficiary of Western efforts to reduce dependence on Chinese tungsten.

Siegmann said that building critical materials supply chains outside China has been a national priority and is "not just a Trump trade," a point politicians on both sides of the aisle agree on.

Siegmann prefers exposure to miners already in production that can deliver conflict-free supplies to the West today. Washington has the money and the urgency. These critical materials are the building blocks for the rearmament cycle, AI, reindustrialization, powering up America, and many other themes shaping the modern economy. That makes this a long-lasting investment theme in which early movers stand to be rewarded.

Tyler Durden Sun, 09/27/2026 - 18:55

Failing Lesbian Bar Faces Angry Leftist Mob After Finally Ending Mask Mandate

When your business model's foundation is catering to mentally ill lunatics, don't be surprised when the most common sense changes evoke insane responses.  

One day, probably in the very near future, there will be a hailstorm of studies done on the Covid pandemic era and the absolute hysteria that surrounded it.  The virus was essentially a non-issue with an average infection fatality rate of 0.23%, meaning 99.8% of all people would easily survive.  Yet, most of the world shut down vast areas of the economy and tried to force the global population to wear masks that were eventually proven to do absolutely nothing to stop the spread.  

Perhaps the most interesting detail of all, though, is the political left's continued obsession with the lockdown period.  Leftists treat the pandemic as their "golden era", the moment in history when they basked in pure authoritarianism, the moment when they had all the power.  And like an addictive drug, they just can't seem to let the pandemic go.  

The N95 mask in particular represents a symbol for progressives, a kind of uniform that they used to identify each other and show their fealty to the cult of Covid.  Many deep blue areas of the country refused to stop wearing masks well into 2023 long after it was obvious that the virus was not a legitimate danger. 

Even today, there are still wacky activists that continue to mask up regularly, because taking off the masks is the same as admitting they are wrong, and taking accountability is the last thing any leftist will ever voluntarily do.  Now imagine there's a lesbian bar that placates such people as their primary customer base?  Can you think of a more horrible place to get a drink?

Up until August 31st the Last Ditch Bar and Arts Venue in Greenfield, MA had required patrons to wear KN-95 masks or better just to get in the door.  The bar was also known for banning police and posting signs portraying people throwing Molotov Cocktails that said "Cops Are Not Welcome At Last Ditch".

Massachusetts lgbtq bar ‘Last Ditch’ announced they're BANNING police from their venue, called them "pigs" and shared images showing them throwing Molotov cocktails at police.

This is a call to violence against law enforcement. @fbi

Trans violence is an epidemic. pic.twitter.com/dwxcg3xYXW

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) September 30, 2025

The problem is that their ridiculous clinging to pandemic mandates destroyed their customer base and the business was failing.  In response the lesbian bar finally announced that, on Saturday's only, the bar would become mask-optional while keeping the requirement on its other nights.

Instead of getting relief and applause for showing a pinch of common sense, the locals pulled out their torches and pitchforks in outrage and started making threats.

The Instagram announcement drew hundreds of responses, including accusations that the change excluded disabled and immunocompromised customers who had regarded Last Ditch as one of the few nightlife spaces built around their mentally deranged needs.  In other words, the Last Ditch Bar had "betrayed" the cult by admitting masks are not necessary.  

Critics called the decision ableist, eugenicist, and complicity in a “mass disabling event.” Some comments went further:

“People like you kill disabled people in the name of your own leisure and convenience...”  

"Just say you’re being complicit in a mass disabling event and get it over with...”  

“I hope your venue gets firebombed for robbing my fellow immunocompromised people of their Saturday plans just to scrape extra revenue from ablists...” 

It's like taking a time machine back to 2020.  The last remaining owner of the bar became emotional as she explained how she had ended up running the business on her own.  "It was not my passion project," she said. 

She told the group she had been living in her truck for six months while putting money into the business, working four jobs, and carrying responsibility for the $50,000 loan the founders had taken out to open Last Ditch.  "I never really wanted this," she said. "I don't think I'm doing a very good job." 

Some critics remained unmoved, including the bar's biggest critic, a trans "woman" who identifies as a lesbian and also a he/him. 

UPDATE: One of the loudest critics of the Last Ditch COVID-Conscious Lesbian Bar is a male lesbian named Soe Noire 😭 pic.twitter.com/H5y0UwVnjG

— Zack Peter (@zackpeter) September 25, 2026

But this is to be expected when dealing with progressive psychopaths.  They want businesses to enable their emotional dysfunctions, but they don't want to spend any money keeping those businesses in operation.  We have seen this trend in every venue that leftists invade, from movies to video games to marketing and corporate culture - They want every company to reflect their values but they are the worst customers imaginable when it comes to revenues.    

The last Ditch Bar owes nearly $4000 in back rent and foot traffic has dried up; the business is likely to close in the near term.  The owner says she hopes to convert Last Ditch into a "cooperative" so the financial responsibility does not rest so heavily on one person.  However, this is how the business was already being run, and it was a disaster.  

The lessons here are many.  But first and foremost, incidents like this remind us of the horrors of life under progressive rule during the Biden years.  The popular memory is short, it would be a catastrophe if the public were to forget.

Tyler Durden Sun, 09/27/2026 - 18:05

Homan Says 157,000 Missing Unaccompanied Immigrant Children Located

Authored by Savannah Hulsey Pointer and Jan Jekielek via The Epoch Times,

Around 157,000 children who crossed the border as unaccompanied minors have been found since the start of the Trump administration while many are still missing, White House border czar Tom Homan told The Epoch Times.

White House border czar Tom Homan after an interview with "American Thought Leaders" in Washington on Sept. 24, 2026. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

In an interview with senior editor Jan Jekielek for "American Thought Leaders," airing on Sept. 26, he said that just under half a million children were "smuggled" into the United States during the Biden administration.

Homan said officials at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) at the time were proud of the fact that children weren't in detention for long.

"They weren't [held] very long, but the problem is they released them quickly because the sponsors weren't properly vetted," he said, and with caretakers not responding to communications or check-ins, that caused the government to lose track of nearly 300,000 of the children.

Homan said that when President Donald Trump asked him to return to the federal government under his second administration, one of the top directives he was given was to address the problem of missing children.

"He asked me to do three things: secure the border, run deportation operations, and find these kids."

The border czar said he was much more optimistic about the first two directives than he was about finding the children, because his team would have to count on the digital footprint of the sponsors, based on information provided by the sponsors.

"We can find you, we can find me. We own homes, we own cars, we have credit cards. We can find us because we all have a digital footprint. Children don't," Homan said.

Some Democrats on Capitol Hill have objected to the treatment of unaccompanied minors after they've been located.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) condemned the current administration in June for plans to deport some of the children back to Mexico.

"You have been entrusted with the care and safety of the children placed within the [Office of Refugee Resettlement] network," Wyden said in a letter to the HHS. "Proceeding with this plan knowingly endangers their lives and violates your duty to these vulnerable children."

When officials began searching for the children, they learned that many of the sponsors had given the wrong information, such as home addresses that turned out to be supermarkets, parking lots, or churches. False names had been used for identification, and locating where the children actually were proved to be a massive undertaking.

Homan told The Epoch Times that of the roughly 157,000 children who have been found, more than 20 have died - some due to natural causes, and others from a drug overdose or as a result of violence.

The work isn't done, however, and he said he intends to find every one of the 140,000 still missing children, even those who have aged out of the system.

"Just because you're 18 and 19 doesn't mean they're not in forced labor or sex trafficking, so we're going to keep running down every one of these leads until we find them," the border czar said.

In 40 years of working at the border Homan has seen many victims of human trafficking, but one in particular broke his heart. He said he'll never forgot a 9-year-old girl who was sexually assaulted while making the journey to the United States years ago: "That little girl's never going to be the same again."

"Illegal immigration is not a victimless crime. You don't come across the border without approval and paying off the cartels," he said. "A lot of women and children are sexually assaulted making that journey."

Last month, HHS announced that the Trump administration had located more than 148,000 unaccompanied illegal immigrant children who had been missing after being released into the care of someone in the United States.

A statement from the Department of Homeland Security last November announced an initiative partnering with local law enforcement to conduct welfare checks on the lost children.

Homan told The Epoch Times that despite the monumental task of finding the still missing children, "We're not giving up."

"President Trump has promised that we're going to look at this until the last day of the administration, and the American people can have my word that we're going to do that."

Tyler Durden Sun, 09/27/2026 - 17:30

Supreme Court Again Rejects Missouri Congressional Map Backed By Republicans

The Supreme Court on Friday refused to let Missouri Republicans run November's House races on the 2025 map that would have given them a 7-1 edge in the state's delegation, leaving in place the 2022 lines, which split the eight seats 6-2.

The Supreme Court in Washington on Sept. 14, 2026. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

The court's unsigned, five-page opinion in People Not Politicians v. Onder drew no dissents. "In short, as a matter of state law, the 2022 map - not the 2025 map - must be used in the 2026 congressional election," the justices wrote.

The fight has run through three courts in a month. Missouri's Aug. 4 primaries, run by Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, were held on the 2025 lines. On Sept. 3, the Missouri Supreme Court unanimously ordered the 2022 map for November, and county clerks began mailing military and overseas ballots on it. On Sept. 21, an Eighth Circuit panel ordered the 2025 map restored, ruling that holding the general election on different districts than the primary would violate the Constitution. People Not Politicians, the group opposing the 2025 map and seeking a referendum on it, asked the justices to step in the next night.

As The Epoch Times notes further,

In the high court's new opinion, the justices summed up the legal theory argued by the federal plaintiffs - Rep. Bob Onder (R-Mo.), Republican congressional nominee Rick Brattin, and two Republican voters.

Their argument was that three parts of the U.S. Constitution - Article I, Section 2, which establishes the fundamental rules governing the U.S. House of Representatives, the Elections Clause, and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment - combine to forbid Missouri from using different congressional maps in the primary and general elections.

The justices did not reject Onder's constitutional theory. Instead, they said they did not have to rule on it.

"On the merits, the Court's precedents have not previously stated that Article I, Section 2 requires a state to use the primary election map in a general election, and given that the equities heavily favor staying this late-breaking intervention, it suffices that the merits are not entirely clearcut."

In other words, the justices did not hold that using different maps in the primary and general elections is constitutional. They held that the claim was too unsettled - and the election too far along - to justify an injunction.

The justices then turned to the Purcell principle, the doctrine that federal courts should not change a state's election rules close to an election. The justices said the principle "applies with even greater force here" because the election "is not merely upcoming; it has already started."

Local election officials told the courts it was "practically impossible to revert" to the 2025 map. "At this late date, ordering reversion to the 2025 map in the midst of an ongoing election would usher in electoral chaos. Purcell protects against such disorder."

The Eighth Circuit argued the opposite: that Purcell favored the 2025 map because that was the map used in the August primary, and that the Missouri Supreme Court's Sept. 3 ruling constituted the last-minute disruption.

The justices said that federal courts' interpretation of Purcell was incorrect because Purcell constrains federal courts, not states.

"Even though federal courts should not impose changes close to an election, States are free to decide for themselves whether last-minute changes to an election are in their best interests," the justices said, quoting Allen v. Milligan (2023).

The Missouri Supreme Court, the justices added, was not the source of the late change. In opinions issued in May 2026 - months before the primaries - the state high court had already said the 2025 map would not take effect unless voters approved it in a referendum, as long as the petition calling for it was legally sufficient.

Hoskins "was well aware that conducting the August primary election with the 2025 map carried significant risks," the justices said.

"The Secretary nonetheless chose to proceed with the 2025 map for the primary."

Tyler Durden Sun, 09/27/2026 - 16:55

Almost Half Of Americans Now Hold Positive Views Of Socialism

Authored by Jonathan Turley via JonathanTurley.org,

Karl Marx believed that "Democracy is the road to socialism." Socialists seem to have found a generation of dupes to buy their ahistorical, fanciful pitch. A new poll shows 43% now have a positive view of socialism. An astonishing 65% of Democrats have a positive view. Socialism is now the rage on the left.

Like clothing styles, if you wait long enough, socialism tends to come back into style with generations with no memory of past failures. However, it is an astonishing trend in one of the most prosperous nations on Earth that outlasted a history cluttered with the broken failures of socialist and communist systems.

A new slick packaging of socialism has emerged with leaders such as Zohran Mamdani offering to teach people of the "warmth of collectivism." The Democratic Socialists of America are enticing voters with narratives like "Imagine the end of capitalism." Those words promise voters that there is a brave new world without landlords, debt, mandatory work hours, and "food, education, energy, medicine, and transportation... are common goods and utilities."

What is incredible is that many are buying this pitch.

It is also ironic that this is happening not just on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence but also on the 250th anniversary of the publication of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations.

As I write in Rage and the Republic:

"While he never visited the United States, his theories seemed quintessentially American to many of his generation. For a revolution that was triggered by tariffs and fueled by events like the Boston Tea Party, Smith's general principles read like an economic version of Common Sense. It was a type of declaration of independence not just from the British policy of mercantilism (emphasizing British exports over imports) but from economic controls over individual productivity and self-determination....

In summary, Smith was first and foremost viewed as a political theorist, and his economic theories were closely tied to his views on the natural liberties of humanity. He saw capitalism as a liberating system for individuals to allow them the wealth and resources to pursue their own chosen paths. Conversely, he saw government controls and subsidies as forms of control and potentially forms of suppression of the human will. If people are to be truly free, they must have the resources to pursue that freedom. The government dole can become a type of servitude or at least a subterfuge for citizens. If they are dependent on the government, they are never truly free."

The book compares many of these proposals to identical policies of the Jacobin movement in the French Revolution. Both the American and French revolutions arose during the same period, but one became the world's oldest democracy while the other became the blood-soaked "The Reign of Terror."

Notably, the Jacobins pushed for the same unicameral system that the socialists are now advocating as well as attacks on the wealthy.

The DSA is the direct descendant of the Jacobins in seeking to tear down moderating institutions and replace the president and justices with democratically elected figures by a Congress composed only of the House of Representatives.

As with the original Jacobins, those demanding these changes are not the working class but professors, pundits and young college-educated voters.

Pushing this analogy to a more menacing level, another poll shows that roughly 60 percent of Democrats now would support a military coup to remove President Donald Trump.

The return of socialism is like the reappearance of low-rise jeans. You are left mystified by anyone who believes that this is a worthy theory to emulate after consistent and catastrophic failures. Long forgotten is the disaster of the socialist government of François Mitterrand in France.

Most recently, Prime Minister Andy Burnham condemned the privatization policies of Margaret Thatcher: "The country surrendered control of the essentials - housing, water, energy, transport - and left people exposed to higher costs." What he does not mention is that she followed the collapse of socialist policies under Labour Prime Minister James Callaghan in 1977-78 during the so-called "winter of discontent," which I also discuss in the book.

Perhaps Marx was right after all: "History repeats itself, first as a tragedy, second as a farce."

Jonathan Turley is the best-selling author of "Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution."

Tyler Durden Sun, 09/27/2026 - 16:20

Xi Will Return And Put His Foot On The Pedal To Develop Better Chips, Better Models, And The Energy To Drive That Compute

We came into this week with a list of things to think about with the Fed Behind Us, and a SITREP focusing on the Houthis vs Saudi Arabia. We also kicked off the week with a preview on CNBC. Our “official scoring” was stocks did well, Bessent faced setbacks on bonds and the yen, and for the world, well, not as much clarity as we could have hoped for. I was going to go with i instead of ? but √−1 seemed overly complex vs ? even if it is more reflective of the current complex state of the world!

We weighed in on some possibilities in Let’s Make a Deal: NYC Style. We started off with a bang, with the Greenland deal and a pre-summit trade “status quo” extension, but finished the week with a lot of wasted opportunities. The confusing messaging with Ukraine and Russia (confusing on everything except a desire for diesel prices to go lower). The contradictory messaging with Iran: public threats, closed door meetings allegedly leading to a deal, the terms of which seemed to be rejected by the President on Friday after the close. The summit had a lot of pageantry, some amazing moments, some awkward moments, but little seemed to come out of it in terms of concrete proposals.

We ended the week on Bloomberg TV (click play, as we kick off Friday’s show) where we get to review what happened and preview what’s next. I’m sure I got some of the military details incorrect, but I lay out a case (explained more thoroughly in last weekend’s report), why the admin might be pushing to frame the midterms as a re-launching point, rather than an artificial constraint on U.S. activities (fortunately, Friday’s messaging from the admin is consistent with that view). So far, the admin has not proceeded with a diesel export ban, which I think would backfire in a relatively short period of time.

If you haven’t heard Academy’s latest Around the World Podcast (Academy Podcasts, iTunes, and you can also find on Spotify) I highly recommend it. We cover:

• Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the Houthis
• Cuba
• Russia/Ukraine War
• Greenland Deal
• The Trump / Xi Summit
• Macro Impacts

Recently retired Air Force General Kruse joins Spider, Maria, Bret, and me to run through the variety of topics, with some pretty interesting takes.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Intelligence

Who knew that was a word that not only appears in the Oxford English Dictionary, but also in spell check?

According to a Truth Social post, the President and Xi agreed to rename Artificial Intelligence as Super Intelligence. As you might guess, the number of memes is growing exponentially (with the aid of AI). My favorites so far are the Terminator ones where AI Terminator is BAD, Super Intelligent Terminator is GOOD. Never one to doubt the power of marketing, but this name change doesn’t seem likely to address the questions, domestically, internationally, and geopolitically around the development and deployment of AI.

Trump: "A big day with President Xi of China. Super Intelligence (SI) will be a big topic of discussion, but I want to leave it exactly where it is." pic.twitter.com/QYEWYMQlLF

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 24, 2026

But if we are going to go for “super,” why not supercalifragilisticexpialidocious? You’ll always sound precocious. (I am scared of what small percentage of readers will recognize the song, but for those who do, it isn’t a bad song to have stuck in your head, getting ready for another long week).

But seriously, by the time you are done saying Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Intelligence, you will have forgotten what you are arguing about!

Stocks did quite well this week, with the Nasdaq up 2% and the SOXX index up 6.3% (though, depending on the index you track, most of the gains came on Monday’s rip-roaring rally!). Also, the Russell 2000 was down on the week.

As many have pointed out, the lack of breadth remains an issue. We continue to have a “compute” economy, which funnels into semiconductors (a sector with a disproportionate number of large sector and single stock leveraged ETFs).

ZeroHedge has been focused on this more than most and pointed out on Friday that we had 9 days in a row of more 52 week lows in the S&P 500 than 52 week highs. 

The market has given up: there is no more breadth - 9th day in a row of more 52 week lows than highs pic.twitter.com/fUeIqlXfZ9

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 25, 2026

The “mechanical” nature where $1 of new money triggers activity in ETFs (and leveraged ETFs), along with other fears around “faux liquidity” (a market driven by algos and machines, that is incredibly liquid for small moves, but prone to gaps on larger moves), are growing concerns for me. Trying to dig deeper into this, but some of the experts in the area are arguing (persuasively to me) that depending on the sector, the market impact of that $1 in new money can create much larger market cap changes (hence the fixation on leveraged ETFs in particular).

Short term, markets are swinging around with oil, but longer term, it is the compute build and spend that will drive markets and the economy.

A lot of positive vibes, but not sure what was really accomplished or not this week on the AI front, especially with China. Much Ado About Nothing is the likely case there, as I expect whatever was said, Xi will return home and put his foot on the gas to develop better chips, better models (using distillation if need be), and I would say the energy to drive that compute, but on that front, they seem to be ahead of the U.S. where braggawatts remains a concern.

At its most simple, since last year in Geneva, if not before then, I think the simplest way to frame every meeting with China is that after they go back to their respective countries, each side has one specific agenda:

• The U.S. must continue to maintain or increase its lead in compute, while working on being less dependent on China in sectors where we need to be truly resilient (ProSec). Processing, refining, and smelting rare earths, critical minerals, and even basic commodities is a part of that, but it goes far beyond those industries (more on this later).
• China needs to grow its compute and chip industry (in terms of size and quality) faster than the U.S. can catch up on things that the U.S. is currently over-reliant on China for.

Both sides have improved their hands (or cards) since the Geneva meetings, but my nagging concern is that China is more fixated on its goal and better organized in terms of achieving it, hence my repeated concerns for markets AND National Security, on Cheap Chinese Compute.

The House Doesn’t Always Win

10-year Treasury yields jumped to 5.2% this week. A 20 bp move. The part of the move that seemed to be triggered by S&P PMI data seemed particularly unusual (it is rarely such a market moving event).

Bessent of I am the House Now and 6 Billion Dollar Man fame, is not getting his way on bond yields, nor on the yen.

On bond yields, the data isn’t helping him. The war isn’t helping him. At the same time, the supply (just not in size but in average maturity) from the corporate market isn’t helping him. Neither are bond yields that are higher globally than they have been in a long time. Treasuries just aren’t that exciting, which is one of the messages the 5-year bond auction seemed to send.

The buybacks left a lot to be desired. The Treasury continues to only help buy back some illiquid bonds, even then only at yields in the context of the market.

Bessent Plays Hardball With "Bloomberg Bros": Yields Spike As Treasury Accepts Just 68% Of Maximum Buyback Offers https://t.co/c4WFUI7Cej

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 24, 2026

Some “don’t bet against the Fed (or Treasury)” positioning was likely wiped out this week on that move, meaning it should be more difficult to push yields higher. But to get yields much lower, we need peace in either Russia/Ukraine or the Middle East (which we didn’t seem to get) or something akin to the “whatever it takes” moment Draghi unleashed on the Euro.

The yen move hasn’t been quite as bad as the move in yields, and the yen diligently responded to more chatter about intervention (and maybe some actual intervention), but look for a weaker yen to remain a talking point, for both the admin and markets. To some degree I’m not sure why it is so front and center, especially as I’m not a big believer in the yen carry trade, but it is, and markets need fewer rather than more distractions.

The World

I’ll admit, I was kind of optimistic about the UN convening in New York City with so many opportunities to address so many potential issues. NYC is where Trump is really in his element.

My main takeaway from this week is that I’m convinced that Mark Rutte, the Secretary General of NATO, was on the cusp of saying ProSec™ during his interview with Annmarie Hordern on Thursday.

He wasn’t comfortable talking about trade (that was for the politicians), but he had no problem lamenting the lack of refining capacity in Europe.

Rather than rehashing our thoughts on this subject, we can just direct you to our longer pieces:

ProSec 2026 (our start of the year kick-off piece).

Is ProSec The New ESG? What sounded preposterous even in the U.S. when we first started touting this concept seems to be turning into the norm. Look at investment committees. Look at recent ETF launches. Look at Canada and Australia, who seem to be contorting themselves to this reality. And finally, while Europe isn’t quite there, it seems a growing part of the population, including leaders like Rutte, is starting to face that reality that “true” sustainability requires real world resiliency.

Our Mid-Year ProSec Update and first real attempt to introduce the concept of Vertically Integrated Nations.

While investing in ProSec has been mixed outside of the compute/semiconductor/energy side of the concept (including the companies that make the equipment to build out compute), I think it is time to

add to some of the ProSec sectors that have lagged (nuclear for one, rare earths and critical minerals as another) and also to start moving allocations more aggressively into Global ProSec!

Bottom Line

Difficult to be bearish rates after the big moves. Even on oil and diesel and the wars, the “surprise” would seem to be a solution rather than ongoing problems (though by no means have markets priced in bad cases, let alone worst cases, for global energy distillate supplies). Let’s call rates “neutral” here, maybe playing for a bounce in prices (lower yields).

TLT (long-dated Treasury ETF) dropped 2.4% on the week, while LQD (long-dated IG) dropped only 1.4%. Some of that is linked to a shorter duration, but I continue to want to combine my credit risk with my duration risk and own longer-dated corporate bonds, with an emphasis on the compute build bonds (which make up a large part of the end of the curve anyways). Any slowdown in compute build (which was off the table this week) will be incredibly good for all-in compute bond yields.

Energy, energy, and more energy. While rare earths and critical minerals (especially the processed and refined versions) are important, they don’t resonate with the public the way higher energy prices do (or god forbid, actual shortages). What the public wants, the public often gets, so continue to be skewed heavily to energy and energy production in all forms (electricity, LNG, diesel, etc. are at the top of your investing list). Yes, the sector will sell off on any resolution of today’s oil price problems, so be careful there (plenty of profits to be taken already), but look to reload on any sell-off. If Canada and Australia can start addressing their self-inflicted energy wounds, and Europe can at least admit they might have a problem, there is a lot more opportunity in this space!

Good luck and I cannot help but feel a bit disappointed that this week’s opportunity in the U.S. didn’t seem to create much real momentum that markets or the economy could latch on to. On the other hand, it is difficult not to smile with supercalifragilisticexpialidocious running through your head on repeat. If you haven’t heard it, look up the word and Mary Poppins and give it a shot; it can’t hurt!

Tyler Durden Sun, 09/27/2026 - 15:55

Iran 'Fully Prepared' To Resume War, We Don't Trust Trump: Iran FM

The two big weekend Iran war developments are 1) President Trump has rejected Tehran's seven day ceasefire roadmap proposal, and reportedly plans to resume bombing Iran - likely after the November midterm elections; 2) the Iranian government announced Sunday its forces have struck 19 ships in the Strait of Hormuz over the past two nights, per Fars News Agency.

The Fars report indicated the Iranians hit 12 vessels Friday night and 7 more Saturday - though Western sources have been slow to report or confirm this, and the Pentagon has not initially commented.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has meanwhile once again emphasized in the wake of Trump's rejection of the latest proposal that on the one hand Tehran stands 'ready' for renewed fighting and won't back down - and on the other has not yet abandoned diplomacy.

JPost/Getty Images

"We are fully prepared for the war to be resumed. We stand firm in the face of any new aggression, even if it comes to a doomsday war," Araghchi told NBC News Meet the Press on Sunday.

He was specifically asked about the Friday Wall Street Journal report which strongly suggested Trump is ready to resume bombing the Islamic Republic after the midterms.

But Araghchi offered the key caveat and opening: "At the same time, we stand ready for diplomacy. It is up to President Trump to choose," he said.

The top Iranian diplomat further make clear his country is not backing off its initial conditions to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz:

Our proposal is very clear. We are ready to open the strait if certain things are done by the U.S. And these certain things are not new, have not come from the space. These are our rights, that we want to be respected. First of all, we want to end this war of aggression. They started this war eight months ago with the hope that in two, three days, you know, they can win the war. It's now eight months. And we want it to be ended. We want our money, our assets, which are illegally frozen, to be released. We want, you know, to be able to sell our oil. So we want certain things that the U.S. has already committed itself to in the previous, you know, deals.

The main conditions can be summarized as the end of the war on all fronts, the release of frozen assets and the end of the naval blockade.

The NBC show host tried to hold Araghchi down on Iran's insistence that its funds be unfrozen and returned - which is proving a tall ask from a White House which has unleashed its 'Economic D-Day' campaign seeking to totally isolate Iran.

The interview transcript is quite illustrative of the main impasse:

KRISTEN WELKER: But Mr. Foreign Minister, the ambassador's point was the United States is not going to unfreeze assets on the front end. It's not going to lift sanctions on the front end. Is it possible to negotiate a new peace plan at this juncture? Or has diplomacy failed?

FOREIGN MINISTER ABBAS ARAGHCHI: Well, why aren't they ready to release our money? It is our own money. It is not, you know, any other's money.

KRISTEN WELKER: Because they want to see some actionable items from Iran, like opening the Strait of Hormuz, before they do that. Has diplomacy failed, Mr. Foreign Minister?

FOREIGN MINISTER ABBAS ARAGHCHI: Well, there is always hope for diplomacy. But to be honest with you, we have no reason to come back to diplomacy and engage with this administration once again, because of how they've behaved in the past two years. You know, in 2025 they offered negotiations...

And so clearly the situation is back to square one in terms of the stalemate that's been on from the beginning, and has persisted for seven months, as Washington finds itself in yet another quagmire in the Middle East.

🔺 Iran says it struck 19 ships in the Strait of Hormuz over the past two nights, Fars News Agency reported Sunday, after Kpler reported over 20 million barrels of crude and products exiting the US blockade line as 7-day average.

Iranian forces hit 12 vessels Friday night and 7… https://t.co/UnVeYf99k0 pic.twitter.com/LP8tZknZqo

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) September 27, 2026

Regional analyst and editor of Amwaj.media, Mohammad Ali Shabani, concludes of weekend events: "The next phase of the war will likely revolve around destroying Iran's economic infrastructure. The method is collective immiseration until desperate Iranians with nothing to lose will do the regime change."

This of course sets the US on a trajectory of yet another 'forever war' in the region. Trump, it seems, may also opt for bombing in search of a 'better deal' - though this will simultaneously ensure a more hardline resistance will be entrenched in decision-making centers in Tehran.

Tyler Durden Sun, 09/27/2026 - 15:45

Tech CEO Found Guilty In $2 Million Ponzi Scheme

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

Michelle Bisnoff, the CEO of wearable tech company Esos Rings Inc., was convicted of running a nearly $2 million Ponzi scheme.

Michelle Bisnoff

Bisnoff tricked investors into believing she owned patents for "smart rings" payment technology that rightfully belonged to her former employer, according to a statement by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Friday. Of the $2 million scammed from investors, the victims lost roughly $1.4 million.

Bisnoff, 59, from Boca Raton, Florida, was hired by United Kingdom-based company McLear Ltd. to develop a market in the United States for its near-field communication wearable payment rings, which embedded credit card information. McLear received a patent for this "smart ring" technology in 2016.

In addition, Bisnoff fraudulently obtained $150,000 in COVID-19 pandemic business relief loans. Instead of using funds for business expenses as initially claimed, Bisnoff used some of the money to pay for personal expenses.

In 2017, Bisnoff formed Esos, and as part of bringing investors into the company, she falsely represented that Esos owned patents for its smart rings, which were actually patents owned by McLear, according to an August 2024 complaint filed in the case.

According to the DOJ, Bisnoff deceived investors, saying that Esos was profitable, had made use of investor money for expanding manufacturing capabilities and inventory for meeting demand from major retailers like Target and Walmart, and received large infusions of capital from tech companies such as Apple and Roc Nation.

"She also falsely claimed to be on the cusp of a licensing arrangement with Middle Earth Enterprises (MEE), which controls The Lord of the Rings brand," the DOJ said.

However, Esos had no agreements with Target; sold only six smart rings on Walmart.com, out of which three were returned; generated little revenue; did not finalize any licensing agreement with MEE; and did not secure investment from Roc Nation or Apple, the department said.

Bisnoff was found by the jury on Thursday to be guilty on various counts of wire fraud, securities fraud, money laundering, and identity theft. Her sentencing hearing is scheduled for January.

According to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), there are several red flags that help identify a Ponzi scheme. One is the promise of high returns with little to no risk. People should be suspicious of any investment opportunity claiming to generate guaranteed returns.

On Sept. 15, the House passed the Tax Relief for Fraud Victims Act. Under current law, the federal government can tax victims of financial fraud on the money that is stolen from them, according to a Sept. 16 post on X by Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio). This bill seeks to rectify this issue, said Miller, who introduced the bill.

Specifically, the bill allows taxpayers to elect to claim a tax deduction for losses that occur due to fraud, deceit, and misrepresentation.

"Victims of financial fraud should not face an additional tax burden after already suffering significant financial losses," Dale Brown, the CEO of the Financial Services Institute, said in a statement on Sept. 16, urging the Senate to take up the bill.

Tyler Durden Sun, 09/27/2026 - 14:00

The DOE Demands Faster Uranium Enrichment Buildout. Who's Answering The Call?

DOE officials told Reuters they are pressing Centrus Energy, General Matter, and France's Orano to accelerate their new build programs.

The start of the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022 sent prices soaring across the nuclear fuel chain, as the start of the war was also followed by the US implementing a ban on importing Russian enriched uranium.

The panic of fuel for the US commercial reactor fleet not showing up evaporated almost immediately, as waivers were granted to any and all importers (mostly Centrus and US reactor-owning utilities). But, those waivers are set to expire at the start of 2028, and DOE's Michael Goff says there are no plans to extend them.

To solve the enrichment capacity gap, Washington is doing what they do best: throw as much money as they can at the problem. Earlier this year, money was getting thrown around at almost $1 billion per handful.

“If we are going to have this nuclear renaissance, we are not going to be able to do it without fuel,” Deputy Energy Secretary James Danly said.

The government has started by awarding $900 million apiece for Centrus Energy, General Matter, and Orano. 

Centrus Energy traces its roots back to the Manhattan Project, when the US invented uranium enrichment technology to fuel the bombs that were dropped over Japan. With the last domestically owned enrichment facility being shutdown over 10 years ago, Centrus has since served as an enriched uranium broker, supplying reactor-owning utilities in the US and abroad with imports from Europe and Russia.

Orano is the state-backed uranium enrichment company from France. The company has been supplying the massive French fleet for decades and has previously tried to expand in the US but failed for lack of support in the post-Fukushima era. The company is now attempting a second run at a project in Tennessee to assist the US in replacing Russian imports.

Then, there’s General Matter. The secretive, Peter Thiel-backed startup led by former SpaceX engineer Scott Nolan.

The nuclear industry has been mostly devoid of any details on the uranium enrichment startup, with only traces of their business being seen in some of the prep work for a facility in Paducah, Kentucky, and discussions of operations in California, Utah, and Washington State.

Finally, though, it seems Politico found a way to squeeze some details out of the silent company.

Politico’s reporter Francisco Camacho notes a diversified team of outsiders and nuclear veterans, as well as some backstory and the plans ahead. He also brings particular attention on a couple of occasions to the barbed relationship between Centrus Energy and General Matter.

First, when Founders Funds' Scott Nolan was first looking for how to go about entering the enrichment industry. Camacho describes Nolan as looking to initially find an existing company he could invest in. Nolan reportedly concluded the centrifuge design used by Centrus was not commercially competitive.

Second is when Camacho shed some light on the details of discussions between the enrichment companies and the DOE when competing for the $900 million awards earlier this year.

“One person familiar with the DOE contracts said [General Matter] offered 355 metric tons of HALEU annually for the $900 million. With its $900 million, Centrus said it would initially deliver 12 metric tons annually and subsequently scale up.”

Equal taxpayer dollars for almost 30 times the annual capacity ambition is painfully difficult to ignore. The reporting doesn't explicitly state that the goal is 355 MTU annually right off the bat when the company anticipates starting in 2029. But, the difference, as printed, is significant.

Centrus also expects its first new capacity in 2029, while February guidance placed the full 12-ton annual rate after 2030. With the DOE posturing that no further extensions of the ban are going to be affected in 2028, it's understandable why Reuters is reporting the DOE’s desire for companies to start moving faster.

Centrus does deserve credit for being the only facility in the US licensed by the NRC to produce HALEU-level uranium. The company has also been producing the higher-enriched uranium for almost three years, giving them time to improve operations and centrifuge designs.

Centrus has tried to demonstrate some additional concrete offtake agreements with recent supply contracts being signed with advanced reactor development companies Radiant, X-energy, and Antares, with target deliveries by the end of this decade.

Details about General Matter were also revealed in the Politico article, as the company apparently also signed contracts with X-energy and Antares, as well as an unnamed utility.

Based on the numbers provided in Politico, only one of the enrichment companies is actually targeting enough supply capacity to make these deliveries happen in commercial quantities.

We previously highlighted Centrus's $560 million manufacturing expansion for good reason. The company holds preference with the US government over foreign-owned enrichers such as Centrus, Orano, and GLE. But, if Centrus wants to keep its position as the leader of American-owned and operated enrichment capacity, the build times need to drop dramatically and goals need to be raised significantly.

Tyler Durden Sun, 09/27/2026 - 13:25

The Easy Money Fairy Tale Is About To End...Violently

Submitted by QTR's Fringe Finance

For the better part of the last couple years, I have wondered whether financial markets are permanently broken. Not simply overvalued or temporarily irrational, but actually broken at the mechanical level and permanently distorted. I’ve written about it.

The basic process that is supposed to make capitalism work goes like this. Capital flows toward good ole’ fashioned productive uses (like the George Foreman Grill™) and away from flashy hot-shit stupid ones (like the Apple Vision Pro). Good businesses eventually outperform bad ones. Fraud eventually gets exposed. Making money is the point of a business. Price is a rationing mechanism and is determined by free markets. This system appears to have been dead for the last 10 years, at least.

Nowadays, we function under a derivative of capitalism (hereinafter referred to as “crony capitalism snorting bath salts, operating under policies so disorganized they’d make a Jackson Pollock painting look like the blueprints for a nuclear reactor”) where trillions of dollars can be created overnight, governments and central banks focus obsessively on a handful of key numbers, and preserving the nominal value of stocks and other financial assets has become the priority.

Everything else in the economy is then forced to adjust accordingly, and if you don’t like it, or it causes the price of your Whopper Jr.™ to go to $57, f*ck you…that’s just how money works nowadays.

We’ve spent most of the last 20 years systematically removing consequences from the financial system. Rates went to zero and stayed there for years. The Fed expanded its balance sheet by trillions. Every major crisis was met with an intervention, liquidity facility, bailout or assurance that policymakers stood ready to keep the machine running. Capital was forced to become extraordinarily cheap, and investors eventually became conditioned to believe it would remain that way. We laughed off our country’s credit downgrades. Economists and analysts turned into total pussies and cowards, crumbling into bits every time the market sold off 5%. Financial projections have turned into Hunter Thompson-esque 3AM drug induced astral projections.

And we turned into the real life version of Idiocracy for markets.

When money costs almost nothing, the hurdle rate for stupidity also approaches nothing. Businesses that never should have existed could raise billions of dollars. Venture capitalists could fund companies whose principal innovation was taking an existing business, attaching an app to it and losing money faster. Private equity could lever mediocre companies into supposedly brilliant investments. Private credit could convince investors that illiquid loans were somehow less volatile because nobody bothered marking them every afternoon.

SPACs could raise billions before investors even knew what they were buying. Crypto tokens created out of thin air could acquire enormous valuations. Meme stocks became religions. Companies substituted adjusted EBITDA for profits, stock based compensation for salaries and “community” for customers. Entire industries emerged whose economic purpose sometimes appeared to consist primarily of raising money from the previous industry.

None of this ever had to end because the one thing that normally kills financial stupidity, the cost of capital, had been put into such a deep coma it made Mitch McConnell look like Jackie Chan in Rush Hour 2.

Jim Chanos, who shares my view that the AI buildout may have overshot the mark, has called this period a “golden age of fraud,” and I think there is an important connection between that description and the monetary environment that produced it.

Cheap money does not merely inflate asset prices. It extends the expiration date on bullshit.

A company burning $500 million a year does not necessarily have to confront reality if somebody will hand it another $2 billion. A commercial property does not need to be marked down if its owner can refinance it. A private equity sponsor does not have to admit an acquisition was terrible if it can amend, extend, refinance and wait. A venture fund does not need real price discovery if the next financing round can establish a higher valuation. A struggling public company can survive for an astonishing amount of time if equity investors remain willing to finance it.

The fundamental question has gradually changed from “Does this business work?” to “Can we keep financing it?” Those are completely different questions, and for an extraordinary period of time the answer to the second one was yes.

That environment also allowed narrative to become a substitute for analysis. Investors learned that understanding the story could be more profitable than understanding the financial statements. It’s what powers IPOs for unprofitable companies with grandiose visions at 100x sales. TAM became more important than margins. Growth became more important than returns on capital. Adjusted numbers became more important than GAAP numbers. Momentum became more important than valuation.

The market increasingly rewarded understanding what everybody else was going to believe next instead of determining what an asset was actually worth. Traditional fundamental investors either adapted or got carried out. You could identify deteriorating economics, ridiculous accounting, absurd multiples and terrible capital allocation, then watch the stock triple because management said “AI” on an earnings call.

And now we may be approaching the point where the environment starts adapting back. (Read: Bonds Just Killed The Easy Money Era For Good)

🔥 85% OFF FOREVER IF YOU SUBSCRIBE TODAY: I am again offering an 85% discount to anyone that wants to become a Fringe Finance annual subscriber today. It’s a discount you can keep and stays applied for as long as you wish to remain a subscriber: Get 85% off forever

If the post 2008 assumption of structurally cheap money is actually dying, then I think markets are about to rediscover something they have not had to consistently deal with in decades: truth.

The reason is simple. Higher rates restore consequences. When investors can earn meaningful returns in Treasury securities and other relatively safe assets, they no longer need to finance every revolutionary dog walking blockchain SaaS platform that comes along. Junk bonds have to offer genuinely attractive yields. Private credit has to compete against liquid alternatives. Venture investments have to offer enough potential return to compensate for years of illiquidity and enormous failure rates.

Suddenly, the hurdle rate exists again.

Companies burning cash discover that capital has a price. Companies dependent on refinancing discover that lenders have alternatives. Private equity firms discover that an acquisition financed with cheap debt looks considerably less brilliant when that debt has to be refinanced at twice the rate. Commercial real estate owners discover that capitalization rates matter. Governments discover that deficits carry interest expense. Investors discover that earnings expected fifteen years from now are worth substantially less when the discount rate is no longer zero.

Fraud becomes harder…because fraud loves liquidity. It needs it for sustenance. Liquidity buys time, and a questionable business can survive as long as somebody keeps funding it. Once capital becomes scarce, the runway shortens and the questions become considerably less philosophical. Where is the cash? Who owes whom? What is the collateral actually worth? Can you refinance this? Why does EBITDA never turn into free cash flow? Why are you issuing stock every quarter? Why does every supposedly temporary adjustment show up again next year?

Why, exactly, does this multi-billion dollar company make no f*cking money?

If this really is the beginning of a structurally different monetary environment, the psychological adjustment is going to be enormous because almost an entire generation of investors has never experienced markets operating this way. Imagine telling someone who started trading in 2020 that a company can beat revenue estimates and still fall because it loses enormous amounts of money. Imagine telling a venture capitalist that the value of a company might eventually be determined by the cash it distributes to its owners rather than the valuation assigned by the next venture capitalist. (Read: This Next Market Crash Will Break Our Fragile Brains)

For years, every serious skeptic eventually ran into the same argument: look at the stock price. It’s what has fooled people into thinking Tesla is worth paying 350x ttm earnings for. It is, to the best of what I can tell, the entire premise of most of the crypto world. The price itself became the evidence.

If the stock went up, management was brilliant. If the valuation expanded, the business model was validated. If investors continued supplying capital, concerns about profitability could be dismissed as antiquated thinking from people who simply “didn’t get it.”

But price and truth are not the same thing. They just looked similar while money was nearly free.

And we may currently be witnessing the final spectacular expression of that era. Speculative narratives remain enormous, apparent financial engineering is everywhere, private markets have exploded in size and investors have spent so long being rewarded for ignoring valuation that valuation itself can sometimes feel like an obsolete concept. Add a more hands off regulatory environment to the mix and you have about as permissive a backdrop for financial excess as I can remember.

Higher rates will not make markets perfectly rational either. Markets have been doing stupid things for hundreds of years and will presumably continue doing stupid things long after all of us are dead. But the environment in which stupidity operates matters enormously. Cheap capital subsidizes mistakes. Expensive capital exposes them.

If rates remain structurally higher, investors may rediscover a collection of supposedly obsolete concepts: balance sheets, interest coverage, free cash flow, return on invested capital, dilution, debt maturities, liquidation values, accounting quality and, God forbid, valuation.

Mark the Q-man’s words: there are tons of businesses, funds, loans and assets whose health depends on nobody forcing price discovery. There are probably losses buried throughout private markets that have not become losses yet simply because nobody has been required to transact.

And when those losses finally have to be recognized, it could be incredibly ugly. But that is not a bug in capitalism. That is the mechanism. Creative destruction requires destruction. Price discovery requires prices to occasionally discover something unpleasant. Capital allocation requires bad allocators to eventually lose access to capital. Markets cannot distinguish good businesses from bad businesses if everybody gets unlimited time and unlimited financing.

For twenty years, we increasingly tried to engineer those consequences out of the system. Chanos called what emerged the golden age of fraud. Einhorn eventually concluded that markets were fundamentally broken. Countless investors who continued trying to apply common sense watched narrative repeatedly bulldoze arithmetic.

Maybe markets were not permanently broken. Maybe money was simply too cheap for truth to matter.

If the cost of capital is finally normalizing for good, we are going to find out. After two decades of narratives, adjusted earnings, financial engineering, extend and pretend financing, imaginary valuations, unprofitable bullshit and seemingly endless supplies of money, we may finally get to see what is actually standing behind the curtain.

I suspect some of it is going to be horrifying. But after spending two decades drowning in excess, hubris, decadence and Dan Ives’ outfits, at least it will be real.

--

QTR’s Disclaimer: Please read my full legal disclaimer on my About page here. 

Tyler Durden Sun, 09/27/2026 - 12:50

FDA Commissioner Nominee Says Every Vaccine On US Market Is Safe, Effective

The doctor nominated by President Trump to lead the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) told senators this week that vaccines available in the United States are safe and effective.

Dr. Heidi Overton, the nominee, said that if confirmed, she could use her scientific training and clinical background to describe to the American public what is currently known about products that fall under Food and Drug Administration oversight.

"And what is currently known is that the vaccines that have been approved by the FDA meet the standards for safety and efficacy," she said.

Overton, 37, also endorsed the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine, saying it is not lethal and that it is the best tool in the public health response to measles outbreaks that are ongoing in the United States.

She said that mifepristone, an abortion pill, was safe and effective because it had been approved by the FDA. Overton wrote in a 2023 article that chemical abortion through products such as mifepristone was "dangerous to women," drawing criticism from Democrats in the Senate.

As Zachary Stieber reports further for The Epoch Times, Overton would take the helm of an agency that has been under acting leadership since Dr. Marty Makary stepped down in May.

While signing an executive order in August that encouraged breaking up the measles combination vaccine, Trump told reporters that the vaccine is possibly "quite lethal" and that separate shots for measles, mumps, and rubella appeared to be "not at all lethal but just very effective."

When asked after the signing, the White House declined to provide any citations for Trump's description of the vaccine.

Leaders in the Make America Healthy Again movement recently called for removing vaccines containing messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) technology.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), an outspoken vaccine proponent, has been asking people whom Trump nominated to serve in high-level health positions about Trump's comments, as well as other questions about vaccines, during their confirmation hearings before the Senate Health Committee, the panel he chairs. Chris Klomp, selected to be the top deputy to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., recently voiced support for vaccines in response to Cassidy, as did Dr. Nicole Saphier, tabbed to become surgeon general.

Cassidy said on Sept. 24 that Kennedy, whom he voted for, made him guarantees but later backtracked on those promises, citing directives from the president.

Kennedy's department did not return a request for comment.

Cassidy asked Overton how she would handle it if she made guarantees and the president then directed her to go against them.

"I've had robust discussions with the president," said Overton, who was part of Trump's first administration.

"I would give him my best advice, and I would follow the statutory requirements for the role of FDA commissioner regarding individual product determinations for safety and efficacy, and that would be what would guide every decision if confirmed to this role."

Tyler Durden Sun, 09/27/2026 - 12:15

Consumer Credit Stress: What The Data Really Shows

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

A viral stat claims credit card delinquencies just hit their worst level since 2008. However, the New York Fed’s own data shows the opposite, and the real consumer credit stress is hiding exactly where the headlines aren’t looking.

A number has been making the rounds all year, and it’s misleading. The claim: roughly 13% of credit card balances are 90 days or more past due, the worst since 2008. Here’s the twist. That number is real, and it comes straight from the New York Fed. It just doesn’t mean what the scary charts say it means.

Sorting the real signal from the viral one matters because one of them belongs in your portfolio decisions and the other belongs in the trash.

Where The Scary Number Comes From

Let’s start with the Q2 2026 Household Debt and Credit Report, released August 11. Total household debt actually fell $13 billion on the quarter, a rounding error of 0.1%, to $18.8 trillion. Credit card balances rose $21 billion to $1.26 trillion, up 1.7%. So far, nothing that looks like a crisis.

However, this is the point where you are hit with the delinquency rate that everyone screenshots. The share of card balances 90 days or more past due has climbed from 7.6% in late 2022 to 12.8%. That is a real figure from the Fed’s data, and it’s the source the viral posts were reaching for without knowing it. Here’s the problem with reading it as a crisis. The Fed published a companion piece the same day, and its own economists took the number apart.

Crucially, they draw a very clear distinction between a “stock” measure and a “flow” measure. The stock measure simply counts every delinquent dollar remaining on a credit report, including old charged-off debts that lenders keep reporting for years. The flow measure counts how much debt newly goes bad each quarter. The flow indicates how households are actually doing, and it has been roughly flat since 2024. It rose from 6.93% to 6.97% year over year. That’s not an acceleration. That’s noise.

The obvious question is: “Then why is the stock number climbing?”

The answer is that lenders now report charged-off debt to the bureaus far longer than they used to. From 2004 through 2012, only about 40% of charged-off balances were still reported a year later. By 2024, that figure had doubled to 80%. Strip those stale balances out, and the stock delinquency rate falls right back in line with the flow. As usual, when everyone agrees on something, something else is usually going on. In this case, the crowd agreed on a chart that the people who built it were quietly warning you not to trust. I’ve made the same point before about the gap between what the data says and what the tape feels like, in the consumer sentiment disconnect.

(The “stock” delinquency measure that went viral reads 12.8%, but it counts years of stale charged-off debt. The “flow” of new delinquencies, the honest read on current stress, sits at 6.97% and has been flat since 2024. Source: New York Fed, Q2 2026)

“When the question is ‘how are households doing right now?’ the flow delinquency rates provide a more accurate view of current consumer repayment behavior. By those measures, the pace of credit card delinquency is elevated but has been largely stable since 2024.” – Lee, Mangrum, Scally, Sinha and van der Klaauw, New York Fed Liberty Street Economics

The Consumer Credit Stress That’s Actually Real

Dismissing the meme doesn’t mean the consumer is fine. Parts of the consumer are cracking. The stress is REAL. It just isn’t spread evenly across the system, and the aggregate delinquency chart hides that. Dig below the surface, and you find a household sector splitting in two, with the top half spending comfortably and the bottom half running on fumes.

The savings data gives us the clearest read into what is actually happening. In July, the personal saving rate fell to 3.0% of disposable income, with total personal saving of $712.0 billion, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Put that in context. For most of the decade before the pandemic, households saved 7% to 8% of income. The rate spiked above 16% in 2020 when stimulus landed, and there was nowhere to spend it. It has bled lower ever since. A 3.0% print is near the lowest reading in 20 years.

Notably, a thin savings rate isn’t a crisis on its own. There are plenty of households that carry very little cash and never miss a payment. However, it does change the math on resilience. When the family car breaks down or a parent’s work hours get reduced, a family saving 8% of its income can absorb the hit. Conversely, a family that only saves 3% of its income reaches for a credit card more quickly. That’s the mechanism, and it’s why the delinquency increases we have seen are showing up first among subprime and lower-income borrowers, while prime credit performance has barely moved.

The Two-Speed Consumer, In One Table

The cleanest way to see the gap is to line up the viral claim against what the primary sources report. Almost every week, someone sends me a chart or a screenshot from somewhere, showing the consumer on the edge of collapse. The data, however, continues to tell a more specific story.

That split is the whole story, and it shows up in spending, too. The top 10% of earners now drive 49.2% of all consumer spending, the highest share since Moody’s began collecting data in 1989, up from about 36% three decades ago. Meanwhile, spending by households earning under $175,000 has barely grown in real terms since the pandemic. One consumer is fine. The other is the one filling up the subprime delinquency buckets.

The top decile drives 49.2% of all consumer spending, the highest share since 1989 and up from about 36% three decades ago. The bottom 80% has barely grown their spending in real terms. That’s the two-speed consumer in one picture.- Source: Moody’s Analytics, 2025

“Consumer credit stress is real. It’s just wearing a name tag that says subprime, and the headline chart keeps reading it as systemic.”

Where The Bears Are Right

I readily admit that the bearish case has a valid point. They state that aggregate data lags current realities. Therefore, by the time the Fed’s quarterly report confirms a broad deterioration, the damage is already done. Furthermore, a 3.0% savings rate means the marginal household has no shock absorber left.

If you then layer on a labor market that ran soft through the summer, with June and July payrolls revised down to 31,000 and 21,000 before August rebounded to 162,000, you have the setup for spending to roll over faster than the smoothed data will admit.

Those are all valid points. However, here’s the problem with treating it as today’s reality. It’s a forecast about tomorrow, not a reading of the current tape. The same case was made in 2023 and again in 2024. Each time, behavior beat feelings and spending held firm. I’m reasonably confident the low-end consumer market will continue to deteriorate from here. I’m far less confident it will drag down the aggregate over the next two quarters, because the prime borrower, who does most of the spending, is still in good shape.

What Consumer Credit Stress Means For Investors

So what do you actually do with this information?

1. Stop trading off the scary screenshot. A K-shaped consumer calls for a scalpel, not a sledgehammer. The businesses exposed to the bottom third of the income distribution, dollar stores, subprime lenders, buy-now-pay-later names, and lower-end restaurants, are where the stress shows up first and hits margins hardest. That’s a real and specific risk you can underwrite.
2. Respect the split rather than betting the whole book on one side. Higher-end consumer names and companies serving households with intact balance sheets are a different animal. Positioning for a total consumer collapse has been a losing trade for three years running. So has assuming everything is fine. The trade is the divergence itself.
3. Lastly, keep the real watchlist in front of you. Not the meme number. Watch the savings rate, the subprime delinquency trend, the quarterly New York Fed report, and retailer margin guidance through earnings season. We covered the deeper split between what households say and what they do in our look at the consumer sentiment disconnect, and in the piece on record retail inflows. The through line is consistent. Behavior beats feelings, and primary data beats viral charts.

The bottom line is this. The consumer credit stress story deserves your attention, but only the true version. A 3% savings rate indicates the cushion is thin, and the low end is exposed. The New York Fed data tells you this is a distribution problem, not a solvency crisis, at least for now. The moment the prime borrower starts slipping in the quarterly print, the calculus changes, and that’s the number that will tell you when to lean out.

If this raises questions about how your own portfolio is positioned for a two-speed consumer and a softening labor market, that’s the conversation we have with investors every day. Our process starts with your complete financial picture, not just your investment account. Schedule a complimentary portfolio review, and let’s pressure-test your exposure together.

Questions This Article Answers

Are credit card delinquencies really the worst since 2008? Only by one measure. The New York Fed’s “stock” delinquency rate, which counts all reported balances 90+ days past due, hit 12.8% in Q2 2026. That measure is inflated by old charged-off debt that lenders now report for far longer. The “flow” of new delinquencies, a better read on current stress, has been roughly flat since 2024 at just under 7%.

What’s the difference between stock and flow delinquency? The stock measure is the share of all outstanding balances currently marked delinquent, including stale charged-off debt. The flow measure is the amount of debt that goes bad each quarter. The flow tells you how households are doing right now, and the Fed’s own economists say it’s the more accurate gauge of current repayment behavior.

Is the U.S. consumer actually in trouble? Part of it. The stress is concentrated in subprime and lower-income households, where the 3.0% saving rate leaves no cushion. Prime borrowers, who account for most spending, are still in good shape. It’s a K-shaped consumer, not a system-wide credit event.

What should investors watch instead of the viral chart? The flow delinquency rate, the subprime delinquency trend, the quarterly New York Fed report, the personal saving rate, and retailer margin guidance. Those tell you when the stress is spreading from the low end into the prime borrower, which is the turn that actually matters for portfolios.

Tyler Durden Sun, 09/27/2026 - 11:40

DHS Ends Biden-Era Solicitation Of Donations For Illegal Aliens In Custody

Authored by Catherine Salgado via PJ Media,

Under the Biden administration, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) was asking for and accepting private donations for illegal aliens in federal custody. The Trump administration just realized it had never officially ended that directive, so it did so this week to remove any lingering confusion.

CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott confirmed to Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin on Wednesday that he issued a memo officially axing the policy. Scott offered as an excuse for its creation that the "elevated number of aliens encountered, processed and held in our facilities" during the Biden-Harris era necessitated private supplements to the billions of taxpayer dollars spent on trafficking criminal foreigners into America.

But times have changed, thank goodness.

"This order is no longer needed or appropriate. With the significant decrease in encounters and apprehensions, CBP no longer requires private donations or gifts for distribution to aliens in custody," Scott observed.

"Additionally, this order does not align with the Trump administration's enforcement posture at our borders. For these reasons, I am withdrawing CBP from DHS Delegation 07107, effective immediately."

John K. Tien, Joe Biden's deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, inaugurated the controversial policy in May 2022. CBP told Melugin that agency leadership did not recall that the policy existed until a recent reminder. That's probably partly due to changes in top leadership since Donald Trump took office.

The Biden Administration manufactured a crisis at our southern border - allowing millions of unvetted criminal aliens to flood our towns and neighborhoods. With our southern border now secure thanks to President @realDonaldTrump, @CBP and @DHSgov, ICE will continue to remove these illegal aliens from the interior. Our work to Defend the Homeland continues.

— U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (@ICEgov) February 17, 2026

Even the title of the newly terminated policy is so obviously Democrat: "Delegation to Solicit, Accept and Utilize Gifts Related to the Care of Undocumented Noncitizens in CBP and ICE Custody."

Calling illegal alien criminals "undocumented" is a favorite Orwellian term among wokies, as if the aliens innocently forgot to complete some unnecessary paperwork.

What Joe Biden and the Democrats did to our country is unforgivable: "Fed Reserve working paper suggests Biden illegal immigrant wave caused 30% of home price increases" https://t.co/d1RnUOESRk

— White House Press Office (@PressSec) July 8, 2026

Watchdog estimates indicate that the Department of Health and Human Services - responsible for trafficking over 320,000 children - alone spent some $22.6 billion on illegal aliens during the Biden era. In early 2024, Newsweek reported that illegal immigration was costing the U.S. $150.7 billion annually across federal, state, and local governments.

And yet, despite all that, CBP says it still needed supplementation from private funds.

That is the scale of the mass illegal alien invasion of our country during the Biden administration.

Tyler Durden Sun, 09/27/2026 - 10:30

"Coming Monday": Trump To Roll Back Costly 'Green' Rules To Drive Down Car Prices

All this "green" technology embedded in vehicles over the last two decades, such as automatic stop-start, cylinder deactivation, turbocharging, advanced transmissions, hybrid systems, and other forms of electric assistance designed to reduce fuel consumption and improve miles per gallon, has made the upfront cost of purchasing a new vehicle unaffordable. 

The average price of a new car has exploded to $50,000, making it unaffordable for many working-class folks. Automakers have to abide by Obama-era and Biden-era "green" climate rules because these climate alarmists supposedly sought to heavily regulate the industry under the guise of saving the planet. In fact, overregulation has driven the cost of driving and maintaining these complex machines to unaffordable levels.

The DEF systems for diesel engines pushed during the Obama era have also added repair costs, maintenance requirements, and costly downtime. Many diesel owners have been infuriated by overregulation of these engines. Talk to any Ford Powerstroke or Dodge Cummins owners; they are no fans of DEF. 

To fix the mess of overregulation and what can only be described as an increase in the upfront cost of new vehicle ownership, as well as thousands of dollars in maintenance bills and headaches, President Trump announced on Saturday that his administration plans to release new fuel-efficiency mandates that roll back costly green mandates.

Trump wrote on Truth Social:

BIG DAY FOR AMERICAN AUTO WORKERS AND CAR BUYERS! I have just approved new Fuel Economy Standards that TERMINATE Sleepy Joe Biden and Pete Boot-EDGE-EDGE's ridiculous EV Mandate. The Dumocrats cost our Great Auto Manufacturers $Billions, forced Americans into cars they never wanted, and wasted Billions on Chargers that were never built.

These new Standards will take the waste out of building cars in America. That means LOWER PRICES, saving families thousands on a new, beautiful, and safe car — Far better than the Environmental Monsters that we were building heretofore. Every Manufacturer, from General Motors to Ford to Stellantis, has called me wanting to build here, and now they can!

Under my Administration, over $ 100 billion is being invested in American Autos, and that's just the beginning.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy quoted Trump's Truth Social post on X and responded, "A major victory for America's auto workers is COMING MONDAY."

A major victory for America’s auto workers is COMING MONDAY 👀 pic.twitter.com/JB79NVufds

— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) September 26, 2026

Bloomberg noted, "If the final rule follows December's proposal, the projected fleetwide fuel-economy average for 2031 would fall to 34.5 miles per gallon from approximately 50.4 mpg under the Biden standards. The final requirements have yet to be released."

An NHTSA report from last December estimated that the proposed rule could lower upfront vehicle costs by $930, assuming manufacturers pass along the savings. 

Tyler Durden Sun, 09/27/2026 - 09:55

Mamdani: Socialism "Will Absolutely Translate" Nationwide

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has stopped pretending his socialist vision is just a local experiment.

On CNN International's Amanpour, the Democratic Socialist was asked whether America is ready to elect people on the hard left - and whether the 2026 midterms will be a referendum not only on President Trump, but on the Democratic Socialists of America.

"I think this will absolutely translate on a national level," Mamdani said.

.@NYCMayor Mamdani says socialism will take over national politics:

"[Socialism] will absolutely translate on a national level. And the reason that I believe that is while we are an exceptional city. As the greatest city in the world, we also know that the struggles that New... pic.twitter.com/CaNc02evFq

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) September 26, 2026

Amanpour noted that other Democrats still believe national races reward moderates, and that local energy is one thing, but winning the country is another. Mamdani answered by recasting New York's cost-of-living crisis as a national mandate.

"While we are an exceptional city, as the greatest city in the world, we also know that the struggles that New Yorkers are facing are the struggles that working-class Americans are facing across the country," he said.

He continued, "I often say that there's only one majority in this country, it's the working class. And their inability to afford housing, childcare, even public transit, that is something that goes beyond any one city."

Mamdani then pointed to the New Deal and Franklin Roosevelt, arguing that people said the same thing then: it could never work nationally. In his telling, the Democratic Party was once "synonymous with workers" and popular because of it. The implication is obvious. He wants that party back - or rather, a DSA-shaped version of it.

He also claimed New Yorkers care less about how he labels himself than "whether there's room for them in that description," accused House Speaker Mike Johnson of talking about him to dodge "current federal policy," and said "to find ambition in the Democratic Party, we often have to look to history books."

This is the same argument Mamdani has been making since his slate smashed New York's Democratic establishment in June. After candidates he backed knocked out incumbents and seized safe House nominations, he told ABC's Jonathan Karl that a democratic socialist "can get elected anywhere across this country for any position."

He talked then about "a hunger that is not just felt by New Yorkers, but, frankly, by Americans from coast to coast." The June winners - including DSA members Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier, plus progressive Brad Lander - ran on tax-the-rich politics, attacks on Israel, and, in several cases, abolishing ICE. In deep-blue New York districts, that was enough.

Republicans have already treated the results as a gift. Johnson said after the sweep: "The Democratic party, the socialists, the Marxists, have nominated some of the most radical candidates to ever run for office, and they're running for Congress. The insurgent left is on the rise."

Mamdani now wants that rise treated as proof the rest of America is waiting for the same program.

A CNN poll in late July found about a third of Democrats and Democratic-leaning adults now identify as democratic socialists. They skew younger. They are more eager to yank the party left. They are nearly twice as likely as other Democrats to want that shift on policy. Nearly half of them would be enthusiastic about a candidate who wants to cut U.S. support for Israel, compared with 20 percent of non-socialist Democrats.

Among those expressing an opinion, nearly all viewed Mamdani and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez favorably. Most Democratic-aligned adults said they would at least be "OK" with nominating a democratic socialist. The center of gravity inside the party has moved. Mamdani is not inventing that. He is trying to nationalize it.

Moderate leftists, such as Bill Maher, are warning that the far left has completely taken over the Democratic Party.

"We already know what he is because it's in his own statements and the people he hires," Maher said. He pointed to tenant advocate Cea Weaver, who said "let's elect more communists." Maher's verdict: "Look, this is not like something you have to really figure out. 'Elect more communists.' That's a communist."

"Communism. It's a political philosophy. It's an economic philosophy," Maher added. "You're allowed to believe it. You're allowed to vote for it. Let's just not pretend that that's not what this is."

Americans have already heard what Mamdani thinks the country is. On the 250th anniversary of the United States, the Ugandan-born mayor used the occasion to lecture the nation that gave him office.

"America, in their view, is an arena of supremacy, where only a select few are allowed freedom, where not all are created equal," he said of "the powerful." He claimed it "belongs only to those with the right accent or the right shade of skin." He accused the Trump administration of running a country "that persecutes those seeking asylum."

The rest was a familiar grievance list: hungry children and "the world's first trillionaire," "oligarchs who buy elections," "masked agents terrorizing our streets," ICE that "invades our neighborhoods," health insurers who "exploit the sick," "corporate landlords," and tax dollars spent "on bombs and bailouts."

That is the worldview he now says will "translate." Not just free buses and city grocery stores. A politics that treats immigration enforcement as an invasion and American history as a story of supremacy waiting to be rewritten.

The sales pitch does not run on speeches alone. An investigation this month found City Hall has cultivated a network of nearly 200 online creators to push administration material. Much of it moves through a private Signal group called "NYC Creators Announcements," overseen by Emilia Rowland, City Hall's $175,000-a-year Director of New Media and Cultural Communications. Communications Director Anna Bhar makes $260,000.

The network grew out of the campaign-era Creators4Zohran operation. Columbia Journalism Review did not find creators being paid simply to praise Mamdani. It did find that some influencers in that ecosystem have received taxpayer-funded pay for city advertising and public-messaging campaigns.

This is what "ambition" looks like in Mamdani's Democratic Party: a socialist mayor, a growing DSA bench, a third of Democrats now comfortable with the label, and a taxpayer-adjacent content army to make it sound like common sense.

Mamdani keeps saying there is only one majority in America - the working class. The wager he is making is that those voters want New York's socialist experiment exported. The rest of the country get a vote on that in November.

Tyler Durden Sun, 09/27/2026 - 09:20