Samsung Inks Labor Deal, Averts Chip Strikes As AI Bonus Boom Fuels Ferrari Purchases Global stocks pushed higher on Wednesday as momentum in AI and memory chips fueled a continued risk-on rally. The MSCI All Country World Index, South Korea’s Kospi, and Japan’s Nikkei all hit record highs. The rally was led by chip stocks, with SK Hynix and Micron’s market values topping $1 trillion for the first time. Sentiment from Tuesday into […]

EU Packaging Rules Create Another Bureaucratic Monster Submitted by Thomas Kolbe Regulation follows regulation. On August 12, the so-called EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) will enter into force, reorganizing the recycling framework for packaging across Europe. Adopted last year, the regulation becomes binding for all EU member states and companies on August 12 and, as an EU regulation, does not require […]

Ukraine Donor Fatigue: Half Of Countries Withdraw From Czech Ammunition Initiative According to Czech President Petr Pavel, a full half of the Kiev-supporting Western coalition has quietly abandoned Prague’s flagship initiative to jointly procure artillery ammunition for Ukraine’s military. Pavel said that while 18 countries participated last year, only nine are still making financial contributions now. “This initiative has been […]

Germany’s Tax Revenue Collapse Signals Fiscal And Industrial Breakdown Submitted by Thomas Kolbe The German federal government and municipalities are the major fiscal losers of 2026. The partly dramatic collapse in tax revenues reveals two things: the transformation disaster is staggering toward its end, and citizens are being squeezed by the state like lemons until the very last moment. No matter how you spin it, the tax party of […]

Aluminum Supply Crisis Is About To Get Worse Aluminum prices in London are up nearly 17% since the onset of the U.S.-Iran conflict, as a growing chorus of top commodity desks, including Mercuria, Goldman, JPMorgan, and others, warn that the market is facing a major supply shock. That disruption, driven firstly by Middle East smelter outages and the Hormuz maritime chokepoint, is now colliding with new concerns that China may be […]

The Islamic Terrorist Conquest Of West Africa Authored by Lawrence Franklin via The Gatestone Institute, The widened scope and quickened pace of the Islamic State’s military operations in the Sahel region — just below North Africa, roughly from Senegal to Sudan — threatens to alter the strategic orientation of the African continent. Efforts at countering terrorist operations in the Sahel, such as they were, have evidently failed. […]

Putin Authorizes Debt Relief To Lure New Ukraine War Recruits On Monday President Vladimir Putin signed a law that effectively wipes clean up to 10 million rubles (approximately $140,000) in unpaid debt for new military recruits and their spouses, at a moment Russia needs more manpower to keep up its grinding ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine. The debt exemption applies to any Russian citizen who signs a minimum one-year […]

Europe’s Deindustrialization vs America’s Quiet Investment Boom Submitted by Thomas Kolbe German Chancellor Friedrich Merz appears disoriented, whiny-apathetic, and remarkably weak in leadership these days. Perhaps the chancellor senses that the project of his political generation is entering its final phase. Is he aware that the construction of eco-socialism has failed? That both his reckless debt policies and Germany’s rapid […]

Space-Squatters Will Open The Final Frontier Authored by Rainer Zitelmann via American Greatness, When we talk about the future of mankind in space, we should learn from history. Squatters played a crucial role in the settlement and economic development of the American West. Long before government institutions were firmly established, settlers moved onto unclaimed land, built homes, cultivated farms, and created entire […]

US To Set Up Quarantine Facility In Kenya For Americans Exposed To Ebola The Trump administration is expected to deploy US public health officers to Kenya to staff a quarantine facility there amid the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in a departure from procedure used during previous outbreaks of the virus, the WSJ reported.  According to the report, the facility – which is pending signoff from the […]

Paxton Crushes Cornyn In Stunning Texas Senate Upset In a brutal repudiation of the GOP old guard, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton crushed four-term incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in the Republican Senate runoff Tuesday night, winning by a commanding margin of roughly 63% to 37%. The victory marks one of the biggest primary upsets in modern Texas political history. Cornyn, a powerful Senate insider and former Majority Whip, was […]

Texas Woman Arrested After Facebook Post Over Unsafe Brown Drinking Water: Report A woman in Trinidad, Texas, was arrested after she posted on Facebook raising concerns about the safety of the city’s discolored drinking water, according to Fox 4. Jennifer Combs posted the message on April 6 to her citizen-watchdog group page, Southern Belle Watch, urging residents who had been sickened by the city’s tap water to come forward. […]

Taiwan Defense Chief Contradicts Trump On Enormous Arms Package Moving Forward Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com, Taiwanese Defense Minister Wellington Koo Li-hsiung said on Monday that he’s “cautiously optimistic” that the US will advance a $14 billion arms package for Taiwan after the US Navy secretary said it was on hold due to the war with Iran. Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao told Congress last week that the US was […]

Oklo Lands DOE Plutonium Deal To Turn Surplus Material Into Bridge Fuel Oklo just secured a direct path to turn Cold War-era plutonium into fuel for its advanced reactors.   The Department of Energy selected Oklo for advanced negotiations under the Surplus Plutonium Utilization Program, one of five companies chosen to convert existing stockpiles into usable fuel under strict security and safeguards rules. The move gives Oklo a […]

The Demonization Of Men (And Everyone Else Too) Authored by Thomas Harrington via The Brownstone Institute, Imagine the following message in a public space:  Caution: Area of Frequent Attempts at Reputational Destruction by Females I have never seen a sign bearing the above message in any public space, nor do I want to. Similarly, I have never seen a sign near a heavily African American neighborhood that says, “Caution, […]

Second Chinese ‘Combat’ Patrol Buzzes Taiwan Within Days, On Heels Of Xi-Trump Summit In the wake of this month’s Trump-Xi summit in Beijing, and as a ‘paused’ but still looming major US-approved weapons deal and transfer to Taipei is set to go forward, China is stepping up military patrols near and around the self-ruled island of Taiwan. Taiwan’s military is currently on high alert, having on Tuesday dispatched ships and fighter […]

‘Giant Turd’: Progressive Dems Continue To Rage At DNC 2024 Autopsy Authored by Corbin Trent via Common Dreams This past week the DNC released its autopsy of the 2024 election. DNC chair Ken Martin sat on it for months, assured us there was no smoking gun, promised he’d already been sharing the lessons, and then finally dropped the 48,000 words on a Thursday with a note on the front saying the findings don’t reflect the […]

Condo Prices Already Dropped By Up To 33% In 24 Bigger Markets Authored by Wolf Richter via Wolf Street, The price drops are getting relentlessly steeper: In 24 bigger markets, prices of mid-tier condos through April have dropped by 15% to 33% from their respective peaks between 2021 and 2024. Each of the markets is shown in a chart below: 24 mindboggling charts, depicting breath-taking price explosions, especially from mid-2020 […]

Hezbollah Chief Naim Qassem Targeted Twice In Recent Israeli Assassination Ops The single biggest, and most historic development out of Lebanon in recent years was the Israeli assassination of longtime Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah on September 27, 2024, via massive bunker-busting airstrikes on his underground location in south Beirut. Since then, Hezbollah’s leadership has been greatly degraded, also given the […]

Does Demand Create Supply? Authored by Frank Shostak via Mises Institute, By popular thinking, increases in demand cause economic growth. According to such thought, whenever the economy falls into a recession what is required is to strengthen demand. Since government is seen as an important part of total demand, what is then required is to increase government outlays, thereby lifting overall demand and hence increasing economic […]

Homeowners Face Eminent Domain Bulldozers As Data Centers Demand Ever More Power Georgia Power isn’t negotiating anymore. The Southern Company subsidiary is seizing dozens of homes and hundreds of easements across Coweta and Fayette counties to ram through a 35-mile, 500-kilovolt transmission line that will feed at least four massive AI data centers. Project Wansley is just the latest flashpoint in a backlash that has been […]

Showcase Of Socialism: New York, Europe, And The Rise Of The New Left Submitted by Thomas Kolbe Supporters of bourgeois-conservative or libertarian politics have had little reason to celebrate over the past decades. One could also say that the interim balance sheet of the 21st century will go down in history as a complete failure for patriots, sovereigntists, and friends of liberty. The sparks of hope remain largely confined to a […]

Hasan Piker Says Quiet Part Out Loud, Maps Radical Left NGO Network To China-Based Marxist Financier Far-left Turkish-American millionaire and Twitch streamer Hasan Piker appears to have committed an operational-security mistake by publicly identifying American Marxist tech financier Neville Roy Singham, who has reportedly been living in China and has been linked by The New York Times to CCP-aligned propaganda networks, as a major […]

Iraq’s Oil Collapse Sparks Race For New Export Routes Authored by Simon Watkins via OilPrice.com, Iraq’s oil production has collapsed to just 1.39 million bpd after the Strait of Hormuz blockade stranded exports. Baghdad is urgently trying to revive northern export routes through Turkey, including the Kirkuk-Ceyhan system and a new Kirkuk-Nineveh pipeline. China is re-emerging as a major strategic player in Iraq’s […]

Iran Vows ‘Swift, Decisive’ Revenge After Overnight US Port Attack, As Sides Seek Deal Allowing Each To ‘Sell Their Narrative’ Summary CENTCOM denies that US Navy has officially restarted guiding ships through Hormuz Strait amid fresh tanker explosion and fuel leak incident. IRGC says its military shot down an MQ-9 drone and forced an F-35 jet out of Iranian airspace. Tehran formally accuses Washington of “ceasefire violation” […]