This week, I speak with William “Bill” McNabb. He’s the former chairman and CEO of Vanguard and now sits on the board at UnitedHealth, IBM, Axiom, and Altruist. We discuss his 30+ years at Vanguard and his career after leaving the company, working in the boardroom and with startups in fintech and more.

He explains how Vanguard ran from under a trillion dollars before the financial crisis to over $13.3 trillion today. Bill also emphasizes the power of “We” versus “I” at the corporation level. We also discuss his corporate governance book, “Talent, Strategy, Risk: How Investors and Boards Are Redefining TSR.”

A list of his current reading/favorite books is here; A transcript of our conversation is available here Tuesday.

You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube (audio), and Bloomberg. All of our earlier podcasts on your favorite pod hosts can be found here.

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business next week with Seth Bernstein, CEO of AllianceBernstein and Head of Asset Management of Equitable Holdings, the 69% owner AB. The firm manages $905.5B. Previously, he spent 32 years at JPMorgan Chase, where he eventually became the Global Head of Managed Solutions & Strategy at JPAM, responsible for all discretionary assets for Private Banking clients, and Global Head of Fixed Income & Currency. He eventually became CFO of JPM’s Investment Management & Private Banking division.

 

 

 

Current Reading/Favorite Books

 

Authored Book

 

 

Books Barry Mentioned

 

The post MiB: Bill McNabb, Vanguard former Chairman and CEO appeared first on The Big Picture.

The post Five Takeaways from the August Jobs Report appeared first on CEPR.

Three-day weekend! Pour yourself a mug of Danish Blend coffee, grab a seat outside, and get ready for our longer-form weekend reads:

• How to build a cancer vaccine, and whether they will work this time: Typical cancer vaccines are vaccines given to you when you have cancer. These have been worked on for forty years, and have largely failed. But there is something in the air these days. If you really try, you can feel it too. There is optimism afoot in cancer vaccines. Really, there may be optimism afoot in cancer at large. ​Abhishaike Mahajan of Dyno Therapeutics with a deep dive on the intersection of machine learning and immunotherapy. (Seeds of Science)

• What if America Went Completely Dark? The power grid relies on thousands of aging, hand-built transformers. If enough fail, the blackout could last years. Jim Tankersley from the Asheville G-20, where a summit meant to showcase Trump’s economic policies as a model became a venue for European complaints about tariffs and the Iran war. (New York Times) see also Is This the Future of America? Massive AI infrastructure is being built out across the US. But if you want to know what the data center occupation looks like, visit Loudoun County, Virginia, where that future arrived 20 years ago. (The Verge)

​• Anthony Scaramucci Thinks He Can Save America. I Hopped in His Lamborghini to Hear Him Out.: Jack Holmes rides a Huracán past the Golden Pear in Southampton — home of the $22 breakfast burrito — while the Mooch holds forth. The former White House communications director says he wants to own his bad bets, from Donald Trump to Sam Bankman-Fried. At his summer house—and around town in his Huracán—Anthony Scaramucci makes his case to Vanity Fair for how to fix this country for the working class. (Vanity Fair)

• The ‘reverse Kindleberger Trap’: reasons to worry about the next financial crisis: A US crisis is very likely to be associated with a capital outflow, rather than a capital inflow, with the result that the dollar could weaken substantially against other currencies. (Chatham House)

• No Car? No Problem: An East Coast Odyssey by Train, Ferry and Bus: A self-described transit romantic set out to visit prime summer destinations using only public transportation. Would getting there really be half the fun? (New York Times)

• Using legal loopholes and executive power, Trump is remaking Washington The president’s ballroom and other projects are racing the courts and the clock, as the GOP-led Congress largely sits silent.  Dan Diamond on the ballroom exchange — “Sir, this is the White House, you’re the president of the United States. You can do anything you want.”  (Washington Post) ​see also Who Approves Trump’s Washington Makeover Projects?: Elena Shao on the green-lit ballroom and the projects still stalled. (New York Times)

• All Wired Up: Spurred on by this paper-induced memento mori—or maybe just in an attempt to avoid my collection being too entrenched in the ’70s—I recently picked up a complete 1995-1997 run of Wired magazine. While I’m a regular reader of present-day Wired, I knew very little about the magazine’s early years, as they coincided with my toddlerhood. What became clear after flipping through these older issues was that above all, 1990s Wired is an index fossil for a period when the science and techology industry was still culturally marginal—tech’s own toddlerhood, essentially. In these early years, the field was experimental and eccentric. It was a community of hackers and artists rather than multi-billionaires on super-villainous yachts; a moment when no one would ever think to describe themselves as a nerd aspirationally. (Casual Archivist)

​• What Makes the Most Expensive Paintings So Expensive?: Jackie Wullschläger on Klimt’s Lady in Gold, bought by Ronald Lauder for $135 million in 2006 — then the record for any painting — and bound for the Met in 2028. (Financial Times)

• A Mysterious Kidney Disease Has Arrived in Texas: The condition, linked to heat on a warming planet, is affecting immigrants from Central America and Mexico. As scientists race to track the growing epidemic, its victims have been driven further into the shadows. (Texas Monthly)

• The Plays of Shakespeare Rehabilitating Richard. We’ve gotten to know William Shakespeare’s Richard III pretty well by now. But who was the real Richard when he was at home? That question has been raising eyebrows and hackles for at least 400 years.  (Analog-Antiquarian)

Video of the day: Death Cab for Cutie: Tiny Desk Concert

Be sure to check out our Master’s in Business next week with William McNabb, former CEO and Chairman of the Vanguard Group from 2007-17. He is also an advisor to Venrock, and was an investor and advisor to Altruist, which was just sold to VG for $2 billion.

 

AI Data Centers & Our Communities

Source: Brockovich AI Data Center Reporting

 

Sign up for our reads-only mailing list here.

~~~

To learn how these reads are assembled each day, please see this.

 

The post 10 Weekend Reads appeared first on The Big Picture.

How Neoliberals Fueled The Rise Of Socialism

Authored by Connor O'Keeffe via Mises Institute,

The rising popularity of politicians on the American left who either explicitly identify as socialist or, at least, don't shy away from or disavow the term appears to be causing genuine concern within the Washington establishment.

That is, of course, entirely justified. Socialism is profoundly unjust and destructive.

These days, the socialists like to present their entire ideology as nothing more than having a bit of empathy for those in need or an interest in seeing everyone "have" access to services like modern healthcare.

Look any deeper, though, or ask some follow-up questions, and the truth will eventually surface. What the socialists actually want is a massive increase in government interventionism that would see nearly every aspect of life politicized and the remaining productive components of the economy hollowed out into a zero-sum lobbying battle to claim some of the diminishing loot of a much larger, more powerful, and tax-happy federal government.

Any step towards socialism needs to be energetically opposed by everyone who cares about the rights and material well-being of everyday Americans.

However, the concern we're seeing from the neoliberal and neoconservative establishment is frustrating. Because the political order that they have built and preserved over the last half century has made the growing popularity of this kind of "democratic socialism" all but inevitable.

Scholars like Gabriel Kolko, Murray Rothbard, and Patrick Newman have written extensively about how the powerful, centralized federal government that we live under today originated in the so-called Progressive Era in the late 1800s and early 1900s. And, importantly, it was not grassroots reformers who spurred the growth of the federal government at the time, but well-connected business interests.

The narrative many of us were taught in school of government officials reluctantly giving themselves more power over the economy at the turn of the century to placate a public demanding an end to laissez-faire capitalism is merely a convenient creation myth to justify what has always been a scheme to use state power to redistribute wealth from the broader public to a small caste of well-connected families and firms.

As nearly all of human history makes clear, these sorts of crony, state-empowered redistributive schemes tend to be rather unstable.

That's in part because people typically aren't all that pleased when it starts to become clear that the government is transferring some of their wealth to people that are already far wealthier - requiring the opinion molders of the political class to frequently scramble to find some new way to excuse the policies making up the racket.

But also, the government doing things like warping credit markets to benefit certain industries or launching unnecessary wars to enrich weapons companies and empower foreign leaders who are good at lobbying has plunged the country into several economic and geopolitical crises.

So far, the American political class has done a remarkable job using these crises to greatly expand and accelerate their self-enriching redistributive rackets. But every crisis is unique. Different situations have required different responses.

Which brings us to the rise of what's often called the neoliberal "Washington consensus."

The political establishment's well-known embrace of neoliberalism in the 1980s was primarily a response to the events of the 1970s. For much of that decade, the country was forced to endure a prolonged period of high price inflation that was caused by the Federal Reserve's extensive money printing in the 60s and early 70s to help finance the Vietnam War and Johnson's Great Society programs. That economic chaos was then intensified by the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, the OPEC oil shocks, and Nixon's wage and price controls.

As we've seen in the past few years, inflation alone is more than enough to create strong public demand for political change. But in the 70s, previous credit expansion combined with the government's persistent unwillingness to allow the economy to correct itself also resulted in a stagnant economy. And that combination of high inflation and stagnant economic growth, or "stagflation" as it's come to be known, was considered economically impossible by Keynesian economists.

So the high inflation, low economic growth, and real-time collapse of Keynesianism - the school of thought the political class had been using to justify its economic interventionism - meant change was coming. Also, by the mid-to-late 1970s, the so-called New Left movement, which had started as student protests against the Vietnam War in the 60s, had descended into a highly disturbing mix of lethargic drug use and outright terrorism.

Into that vacuum stepped Milton Friedman.

The nerdy, quick-witted, suit-sporting economist was a perfect foil to the radical, convention-flouting far left much of the country was growing tired of. Friedman's ability to quickly, thoroughly, and politely eviscerate left-wing economic arguments in a highly entertaining fashion made him a star on the talk shows of the day. And, unlike the Keynesians, Friedman's monetarism seemed vindicated by the stagflation.

Thanks in large part to Friedman, the neoliberals took hold of the culture enough to prompt the left-leaning Carter administration to deregulate many parts of the economy including the railroad, airline and trucking industries.

And then, of course, came Ronald Reagan.

Together with Friedman and his fellow Chicago School economists and foreign leaders like Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and his political successors supposedly rolled back all the reforms made since the Progressive Era, ushering in an age of "market fundamentalism," or unfettered capitalism. They helped bring about the modern "Washington consensus" that the government ought not meddle in the economy at all, which we're told is only just now - four decades later - starting to face some pressure from figures like Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.

At least, that is the narrative that both neoliberals and their opponents have settled on. But it is a lie.

The rise of neoliberalism in the 70s and 80s was, to be sure, a real ideological shift. The Friedmanites did come to dominate the economics discipline and political culture in very much the same way Keynesians had decades before.

However, the actual implementation of those free-market ideas was nowhere even close to what the establishment's narrative would have us believe.

Virtually all the deregulation that occurred during the Reagan presidency had actually been passed during the Carter administration. It was only because the changes were phased in during the Reagan administration that made it seem like the new president was deregulating the economy. In fact, he was doing no such thing.

The same goes for tax cuts. As Murray Rothbard explained, the much-heralded Reagan tax cuts that were passed in 1981 were more than offset by tax increases that same year. The administration then spent years raising taxes even more in the name of "closing loopholes."

And all of that was necessary to help fund the massive increase in government spending that took place throughout the Reagan years. The so-called Reagan revolution was truly, to paraphrase Rothbard, an acceleration of statist intervention, rolled out under the cover of free-market rhetoric.

There was, however, one area where the Friedmanites did see their policy prescriptions implemented in a genuine and lasting way: monetary policy.

Unfortunately, when it comes to monetary policy, the Friedmanites entirely abandon their support for markets and instead advocate for government central planning. These new establishment-approved neoliberal economists believed - not only in a fiat monetary system controlled entirely by a government central bank - but in a highly active, inflationist central bank.

Friedman himself even wrote a famous book with Anna Schwartz that used questionable econometric methods to argue that the Great Depression happened because the Federal Reserve had not been printing enough money.

Unsurprisingly, the political class was a lot more than willing to implement a Friedmanite program that gave them more power over the economy rather than less. And so, it was in the realm of monetary policy that the largest expansions of both state power and the crony rackets it's utilized for took place under the new neoliberal paradigm.

First, the Fed was leaned on to print money to help pay for the hawkish foreign policy of the post-1980 Republican Party. And then, especially under the Chairmanship of the late Alan Greenspan, the central bank began to directly prop up the financial sector.

The evolution of Wall Street from one of many options for investing one's savings to essentially being the nerve center of the entire economy was not the result of some natural change in saver preferences; it was the consequence of government policy. Specifically, Greenspan's Fed helped prop up Wall Street with a steady supply of easy money and cheap credit to artificially boost the sector, paired with extensive bailouts for these firms whenever the good times ran out.

This was, in effect, a major escalation of the kinds of crony rackets the federal government had been carrying out since the Progressive Era - all justified by Friedman's monetarist apologia for government money printing.

And that gets to the core of it. The Friedmanite, Reagan-led neoliberal revolution did not end economic interventionism, it rebranded it. And the financialized economy was that new brand. Getting rich on Wall Street became the epitome of capitalism. The rising stock market was the new metric for economic strength. And the Fed's money printing became the economy's lifeblood.

In the decades since, that Fed-enabled racket has expanded dramatically and has seeped far beyond the financial sector. It has allowed the political class to supercharge the rackets built up over the last century - which, remember, the neoliberals never did away with - transferring far more of our wealth to that small caste of well-connected cronies.

And yet, thanks in large part to the neoliberals of the past and present, this highly-interventionist system where the government is actively warping the market to benefit those already on top is called - and truly considered by many to be - genuine, free-market capitalism.

That isn't true. It's a trick - a trick meant to mislead us so that whenever a new economic crisis strikes, we reflexively conclude the crisis happened only because the government isn't involved enough in the economy. And that is the mindset that has made so many normal, everyday, non-ideological people open to the arguments of these self-described democratic socialists.

The neoliberal and neoconservative establishment has done much to carry out this trick. They shouldn't be surprised that it's working.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/04/2026 - 21:45

Pimco's Top-Performing 60/40 Fund Bets AI's Next Winners Are In Asia, From Chips To Rare Earths

Emmanuel Sharef, who oversees Pacific Investment Management Co.'s flagship Balanced Income and Growth Fund, spoke with Bloomberg about how the next leg of the artificial-intelligence boom could be concentrated in Asian stocks and beyond. 

Wealthy clients in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and mainland China have been piling into the $19 billion fund, which has outperformed 97% of its peers during the past three years.

The fund is underweight most hyperscalers and members of the Magnificent Seven as soaring AI capital expenditures increase debt loads, pressure free cash flow, spark credit concerns, and make already eye-popping valuations much harder to justify. 

"We're underweight the majority of hyperscalers at the moment and we're underweight the majority of the Mag seven just given their high valuations," Sharef told the outlet earlier this week.

He continued, "You don't necessarily need to own the most expensive stocks to capture a particular theme or a particular market trend."

The 60/40 Balanced Income and Growth Fund has been moving further down the supply chain toward companies that build data center components and has become overweight in Asia, where it sees stronger earnings growth, cheaper valuations, and greater exposure to the companies that should be viewed as the building blocks of a data center.

That infrastructure includes semiconductor components, cooling systems, cable interconnects, optical equipment, power supplies, construction machinery, and industrial metals.

"The AI capex build-out is enormous," he said. "It would imply significant demand for semiconductor components for chips, cooling equipment, cable interconnects, optical equipment, power supplies, construction equipment, metals, all of the things that go into building a data center."

The fund's 60% stock allocation gained exposure to AI last year by plowing billions of dollars into firms such as Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing.

Sharef also highlighted a theme we've been developing: the importance of exposure to mining and materials companies tied to data-center construction and global rare-earth supply chains.

"Chinese resource extraction and materials companies are quite significant, not just for the data center buildup, but also for rare earths," he added.

Sharef's call to gain exposure to rare earths and critical materials reinforces a theme we have been developing: the AI trade is ultimately constrained by access to the physical inputs required to build chips, data centers, and power infrastructure. Rare earths and other critical materials are becoming a crucial component of the next AI trade as Chinese suppliers restrict some shipments to the US and US companies accelerate efforts to secure alternative sources beyond Beijing's reach. 

The takeaway from Sharef's conversation with Bloomberg is that the next AI winners will be on an ex-US basis, mostly in Asia. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/04/2026 - 21:20

AI Tax Increases Are Like The Tractor Tax Proposals Of Old

Authored by Bruce Thompson via RealClearMarkets,

President Ronald Reagan famously described Washington politicians' solutions to every problem as "if it moves, tax it." That is exactly what many in Washington today want to do with artificial intelligence.

As Wall Street Journal chief economic commentator Greg IP wrote recently, a growing number of experts believe there is "a simple answer to AI job losses." Tax it. His column described a petition signed by 1,000 economists, including 17 Nobel laureates, pleading for higher taxes on AI to prevent "large scale" job losses.

Reagan knew what he was talking about. He grew up in the Midwest in a small town surrounded by farms, and he surely remembered a time when politicians wanted to tax tractors, a new technology driving change. In the early 1900s, the tractor was revolutionizing farming, and politicians were pushing proposals to tax the tractor and prevent the loss of farm jobs. Rep. Willian Connery, a Massachusetts Democrat and Chairman of the House Labor Committee, was a leading advocate of taxing tractors and other labor-saving machines to stop mass unemployment.

The introduction of tractors was the most revolutionary change in our history, affecting millions of jobs and driving millions off the farm. Between 1910 and 1960, nearly 10 million farm workers lost their jobs and 25 million people left their farms for the city. The benefits of the tractor were enormous. Farm production soared, food prices dropped, and the U.S. provided enough food to feed people around the world.

The farm revolution transformed the American economy, creating growth, and increasing prosperity. Millions of farm workers were freed from back-breaking labor and found better jobs in the city. An NBER study called tractors the "engine of growth" and estimated they doubled per-capita GDP and created millions of jobs.

AI promises a bright future of technological and scientific progress, increased productivity, and a more prosperous economy. Like many changes in the past, there are concerns about the impact on jobs. But taxing AI would be just like taxing tractors, a futile knee jerk reaction to change.

Not surprisingly, there is no shortage of terrible tax ideas floating around Washington. Senator Bernie Sanders has proposed a 50% tax on the equity of AI companies. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden have proposed new taxes on data centers. House Democrats have proposed a new tax on AI computing powers, and others have proposed a tax on robots. If it moves, they want to tax it.

None of these tax increases are a good idea. Raising taxes on AI would slow investment, curb innovation, and only help our foreign competitors. Just like a tractor tax, a new AI tax would only slow new technological advances that will benefit everyone.

Rather than taxing AI, Washington should focus on assisting those jobs which have been most affected by automation, such as entry-level jobs. Congress should consider targeted tax incentives for entry-level employment, including payroll tax relief and job training for junior workers. Helping young workers get started is a much better response to the AI revolution than trying to stop it with a tax increase.

Bruce Thompson was a U.S. Senate aide, assistant secretary of Treasury for legislative affairs, and the director of government relations for Merrill Lynch for 22 years.

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/04/2026 - 20:55

Online Betting Adoption Goes Parabolic: First-Timers Triple, Gen Z Overtakes Millennials, And Football Season Hasn't Even Begun

Online betting is off to the races - and this summer the adoption curve started looking like a hockey stick.

According to a new analysis by Bank of America - which can see every ACH, debit and credit card payment its customers make to and from sportsbooks, horse-racing platforms and prediction markets their own customers make: 

• Roughly 5% of BofA customers sent money to an online betting platform in July.
• The number of online bettors is up 40% since the start of the year.
• The number of first-time bettors in June and July was more than triple the January level.

The bank credits the summer spike to the World Cup and "promotions and buzz" around prediction markets, and fair enough: every adoption curve has a catalyst. What matters is what the base looks like once the catalyst passes, and here the seasonal pattern is instructive. First-time users jump with every major sports season, and the 2025 football season - which the bank defines as September through February, so it sweeps in the NFL, college ball and most of the NBA and NHL - produced 22% more first-timers than the year before. Each season enrolls a larger freshman class. The class that enrolled this summer was three times the size of January's, and it arrived right before the busiest stretch of the calendar.

Nor is this something people try once and forget. Per a CivicScience survey cited in the note, 34% of online sports bettors wager weekly and 23% bet daily; fewer than one in five are the several-times-a-year Super Bowl crowd. That is the engagement profile of a social app, not a lottery ticket.

The turning point

By generation, Gen Z (48%) and Millennials (40%) accounted for 88% of online betting activity in July. Gen X managed 9%; Baby Boomers, 3%. And as recently as this spring, Millennials were the larger group. Gen Z overtook them this summer - a shift BofA describes as a "turning point" in the composition of online bettors.

BofA defines Gen Z as anyone born after 1995, which means the oldest members are turning 30 this year and the cohort came of age alongside legal, app-based sports betting. BofA points out that younger consumers have consistently been first to adopt every emerging digital platform - crypto, BNPL, online marketplaces - and that betting appears to be following the same script.

When it comes to income - betting activity is split almost evenly across terciles - 37% lower, 34% middle, 29% higher.

Oh it's investing!

According to a BofA survey conducted in March, 20% of respondents said they consider sports betting a form of investing, with Gen Z twice as likely as everyone else to say so. Across every generation, buying event contracts on a prediction market was more likely to be classified as investing than placing a sportsbook wager.

Prediction markets have listed contracts on almost anything - whether a politician sips water on camera during a speech, how many flu cases the year will bring - dressed in the language of derivatives: standardized, exchange-traded, resolved at a point in time. BofA notes that prediction markets, crypto, retail trading and sports betting all share "community participation and real-time pricing," which is a polite way of saying they share a user interface. To a generation raised on the Fed put, zero-day options and a community tab, a football game is simply another underlying.

And then there's  the red tape...

Naturally, the regulators have noticed - and, naturally, their first move is a jurisdictional fight. The CFTC's position, per BofA's public-policy team, is that certain event contracts traded on federally regulated exchanges are derivatives under the Commodity Exchange Act and therefore federal turf. State and tribal regulators counter that contracts tied to sports and entertainment are gambling with extra steps and belong under existing state gaming, licensing and consumer-protection law. Lawmakers from both parties and both chambers have filed bills. The CFTC has also opened a rulemaking on perpetual futures and issued an advisory warning event-contract venues away from sweepstakes-style rewards and prizes "based on pure chance" - the sort of promotional program that helped fill the summer's freshman class - and, per BofA Global Research, is trying to draw a brighter line between prediction markets and sportsbooks by targeting in-house market making, incentive programs and "casino style odds."

None of it slows adoption. Arguing over whether a contract is a "derivative" or a "wager" is an argument over who gets to regulate and tax the growth, not whether the growth happens. By the time the rulebook is written, the users will already be there. Most of them already are.

And it's not even football season yet...

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/04/2026 - 20:30

Cannabis Gummies Harm Driving Performance Hours After Use, Study Says

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

The use of commercially available cannabis edibles impairs people's driving ability, even after several hours of consumption, a study has found.

Published in the JAMA Network Open journal on Aug. 31, the peer-reviewed study looked at simulated driving performance after the consumption of cannabis edibles.

Conducted in a Canadian hospital, the study analyzed data of 40 people aged 19-45 years. They received gummies containing delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) - the main psychoactive chemical in cannabis that causes brain-altering effects. Various combinations of THC and placebo edibles were given to achieve four doses of THC exposure - 0 mg, 2 mg, 10 mg, and 20 mg.

The study measured the standard deviation of lateral position (SDLP), which assesses how drivers adjust lane position and is used to evaluate the effects of medicines and illegal drugs.

Researchers found that SDLP was "significantly increased" at 20 mg and 10 mg doses compared with the placebo at two and five hours post-consumption, suggesting greater difficulty in maintaining lane position.

Reaction time and the standard deviation of speed were "negatively influenced" among drivers due to THC exposure, the study said. The individual's willingness to drive was also found to have "significantly decreased" at 20 mg exposure, according to the study.

For the highest dose of 20 mg, whole-blood THC concentrations peaked at 3.4 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL). This falls within the 1 to 5 ng/mL limits for drivers set by some U.S. states.

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto highlighted the link between driving impairment and blood THC levels in an Aug. 31 statement.

All peak blood THC concentrations in the study were below or near common thresholds used for roadside enforcement, the statement said. This was true even among those who consumed the highest dose.

"Many people may underestimate the impairment caused by cannabis edibles," Dr. Christine Wickens, co-author of the study, said in the statement. "Our findings show that commonly consumed doses can significantly affect critical driving skills, reinforcing the need for caution when making decisions about driving after use."

The study was funded by a grant from Public Safety Canada. Two authors reported conflicts of interest, including receiving grants from pharmaceutical companies.

In an April 20 statement, the University of Colorado Anschutz also reported similar findings. In these studies, people were made to use a driving simulator before and after consuming cannabis.

Cannabis was found to affect driving performance, especially lane-control measures, such as lane departures and weaving. Inhaling cannabis showed smaller and less consistent changes, while edible cannabis resulted in "more noticeable impairment, including slower speeds and increased lane variability and departures," the statement said.

US Cannabis Reclassification

In the United States, the Trump administration recently reclassified cannabis, or marijuana, under the Controlled Substances Act. On April 23, the Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Administration announced placing some cannabis products under Schedule III of the Act.

Schedule III drugs are deemed to have lower abuse potential and are accepted for medical use. The classification is only applicable to cannabis items approved by the Food and Drug Administration or regulated by a state medical marijuana license.

The American Trucking Associations (ATA) has raised concerns about public safety risks arising from the reclassification.

In an April 24 statement, Brenna Lyles, ATA's vice president of safety policy, highlighted concerns about rescheduling cannabis without proper safeguards to preserve the U.S. Department of Transportation's (USDOT's) testing authority for workers carrying out safety-sensitive jobs.

"Absent clear protections for USDOT's marijuana testing authority, a policy shift could undermine the Department's drug- and alcohol-testing program and weaken highway safety," Lyles said.

"That risk is compounded by the lack of a reliable, widely accepted standard to measure marijuana impairment, whether roadside or before a driver gets behind the wheel."

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/04/2026 - 20:05

This Red State Is Betting It Can Abolish Its Income Tax

The data center debate isn't going so well for the builders, as Americans far and wide seriously oppose the construction of new data centers near where they live. One state, however, thinks it can incentivize residents. 

Country roads take West Virginians home across the Virginia state line near Charles Town, where the data center debate has intensified. (Charlie Creitz/Fox News)

Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey (R) has unveiled seven principles aligned with 2025 legislation to reduce and eventually eliminate state income tax. Under the plan, West Virginia would set aside 50% of its revenue from approved hyperscale data center projects towards the elimination of the state personal income tax - though let's be clear: the poor, rural residents they'll be building the DCs next to don't pay income tax - so no benefit to them. Middle class voters (and up), however, will have all sorts of reasons to support the move. 

"Today, as the world stands on the cusp of a new digital and economic frontier, West Virginia is stepping forward once again to lead, not by repeating the mistakes of other states, but by implementing a proactive, 20-year development strategy on our terms," Morrisey said in a statement obtained by Fox News. 

The second listed "principle" in Morrisey’s plan says all West Virginians should benefit from data center projects approved through Charleston’s "High Impact Data Center Designation (HIDC)" process and the revenue they generate. The process was established under a separate 2025 state law.

Morrisey’s plan includes "direct tax relief for citizens," with none of the HIDC revenue entering the state general fund.

"By law, 50 percent of project revenue is dedicated directly to reducing and ultimately eliminating the State Personal Income Tax," reads the plan. 

Counties would benefit also - with those hosting data centers receiving 30% of the revenue for schools and local government, and 10% of the revenue distributed to all 55 counties. Another 10% will fund infrastructure upgrades, which include public water systems in a state that's struggled since the decline of the coal industry. 

"This shared framework gives us the exact blueprint we need to attract billions in private investment, create thousands of high-paying construction and technology jobs, lower taxes for our citizens, and revitalize economically distressed regions, all while preserving the wild and wonderful state we call home," said Morrisey. 

The anti-data center movement, meanwhile, has become quite vocal in neighboring Virginia's Jefferson and Berkeley counties - as residents have taken note of sprawling data centers in Loudoun county.

"We are a cautionary tale for the rest of the country," Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA) in recent remarks. "[I]f my district were a country, it would have more data centers than almost every other country in the world."

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/04/2026 - 19:40

Victor Davis Hanson: The Left Is Dragging America Back To The Dark Ages

Via The Daily Signal,

Editor's note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today's video from Daily Signal senior contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos.

Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for the Daily Signal.

The more you look around us today, I think a good description of 2026, culturally, economically, socially, politically, is that we are in a modern medieval world.

Maybe we're progressive regressives, and I don't mean that just in the sense that progressives are regressive, and they are, but that one part of our society is advancing at lightning speed to the future and progressing. But the other part is regressing, and regressing at a phenomenal pace back to what I would call the medieval period.

Remember, the medieval period was roughly that area in time after the fall of the Roman Empire in the West, roughly AD 500 to around AD 1300 to 1400, the beginning of the Italian Renaissance. In medievalism, we often talk about primitivism after the destruction of the classical world during the Dark Ages, the early medieval period, and it's characterized by epidemics, bubonic plague, typhus, typhoid, smallpox, terrible sanitation in urban centers. They had forgotten the Roman use of sewage and aqueducts.

There were open borders. National states popped up that couldn't defend themselves, so you saw castles and walls pop up all over the European countryside in a way you had not during the Roman period. In cities, they were walled, towns even, and the gates closed at dusk to prevent gratuitous crime.

But at the same time that this was happening, you had some of the greatest works of literature in the Western world. You had Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales," Dante's "Inferno," St. Thomas Aquinas' "Summa Theologica." And if you look at the architectural expertise and scientific knowledge of architecture, it was progressing at a geometric rate when you look at the huge cathedrals at Seville or Cologne.

I should remind everybody that around 536, Santa Sofia was created, the Church of the Holy Wisdom in Constantinople. It would be the largest church in Christendom for a thousand years. And everything from the mass production of crossbows to eyeglasses was a product of the medieval period, even if, as I said, the daily lives of most people were wretched.

Now let's switch to the modern period.

All of us now can call anywhere in the world in seconds on our iPhones. Anything you want to know, past, present, future, you can just get on a cheap computer and ask an artificial intelligence program from the many free platforms. You can watch movies, you can watch entertainment on satellites. Anything you want is at your fingertips.

The nation itself is exploring space. We're getting close to conquering cancer. I can attest to that. Computers allow you to write without even speaking. You can, unfortunately, compose a whole term paper or a book with AI. You can make a movie with AI.

Yet at the same time that's happening, look at what's going on in Berkeley here in California or Los Angeles. We're seeing outbreaks of medieval diseases that we thought had been conquered years ago, given our sophisticated knowledge of sewage and water treatment. We had a typhus breakout in Los Angeles. We had leptospirosis, a rat disease, in Berkeley.

You look at the homeless camps all over our major cities. People are just out in the open fornicating, urinating, defecating, injecting drugs. There's tons of feces that has to be removed, and it's so strange in this modern medievalism.

We have sophisticated researchers who go into a hospital in Chicago or go to a cancer center in San Francisco and have to check the bottoms of their shoes to make sure they don't have feces as they go into their space-age laboratories.

It's really funny. In the medieval period, public hangings and beheadings were sort of public events that people flocked out to see. Is that any different than our glorification of murderers?

And there is a difference. Luigi Mangione, they named an opera after him in California. The killer of Charlie Kirk brought people jubilation. I won't even get into Lindsay Clancy, who strangled her three children and became every woman to the feminist left.

At least in the medieval period, they knew that the murderer had done something wrong and was being punished. In the post-medieval period, we are glorifying that murderer, and that's really striking.

And so, what I'm getting at is we are the most regulated, the most advanced, the most modern, the most scientific society in history, even as we can't solve problems that were solvable, and the medieval period would have died to know the solutions that we have in our hands to make sure we have clean water, to make sure there is no crime, to make sure there is no disease, to make sure that people don't defecate on the street. But we don't do it. We willingly don't do it.

Now, the question to finish is why?

We have an elite that has embraced a very toxic ideology throughout history, and that is mandated, government-sanctioned equality of result. And they have divided, therefore, to further that ideology, the world into victims and victimizers, an arbitrary classification, sometimes based on class, but increasingly on race.

And once they identify someone as a victim who's not responsible for his plight, then it's the duty of the society to allow him to express himself. If you have a lot of teenagers who want to loot a jewelry store, then you say they were hungry and they needed food.

If you see homeless people living on the street, then it was because of something the majority culture did to them.

And the result of that is when people engage in very dangerous antisocial behavior, an elite will tell the rest of us that they're not subject to law enforcement or they're not subject to the laws that apply to the rest of us.

But there are two really pernicious addenda here.

No. 1, the people who do this on the left, who believe in this mandated equality and a binary of victim and victimizer, are never subject to the consequences of their own ideology. Nancy Pelosi's home is not surrounded by homeless people. Jane Fonda doesn't have to trip over people injecting drugs when she walks outside her door. The Hollywood stars in Malibu who champion the homeless have very clear security. You can't get near their homes.

In other words, we, the lab rats, are those upon whom they experiment.

And there's another reason as well. It's not just that they experiment on us - and this ideology is not applicable to itself - but more importantly, they believe that they are morally superior because most of them are agnostics or atheists. They have lost their God, but they have found it in a post-Enlightenment caring, abstract though it may be, for victims.

And when you put this religious element to it, because it makes no sense to allow medieval diseases and medievalism to dominate your cities in crime, filth and homelessness, but they do it.

They feel morally superior, and it gives them meaning in their life in a way that we, the majority, find not morally superior, but morally repugnant.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal or ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/04/2026 - 19:15

El Nino Crushes Atlantic Hurricane Activity, Lowest Since 1941

The peak of the Atlantic hurricane season arrives next Thursday, yet by this point the basin would normally have produced multiple systems tracking through the Caribbean, the Gulf of America, and the open Atlantic. This year, however, a strengthening El Niño and record vertical wind shear are tearing apart disturbances before they can rapidly intensify.

Bloomberg reports that only five short-lived tropical storms have formed this season, and none has intensified into a hurricane. The Atlantic has not recorded so little activity at this point in the season since 1941.

"We're crushing all sorts of shear records this year," said Phil Klotzbach, lead author of Colorado State University's annual seasonal forecast. "The models are so anemic on storm development coming up in the next 10 days too."

Forecasters and researchers are tracking accumulated cyclone energy, or ACE, which measures the combined strength and duration of tropical storms and hurricanes during a season.

"We currently have an ACE of 4.4," Klotzbach said. That is the lowest since 1941. A low ACE indicates that storms have generally been weak or short-lived, reflecting the fact that no tropical disturbance has intensified into a hurricane.

For the US energy complex, the absence of hurricane activity is great news. Gulf Coast refineries, offshore platforms, pipelines, and LNG export terminals have avoided precautionary shutdowns, allowing facilities to operate near full capacity as the global refined-products crisis deepens. This has been a boon for US producers as the country exports record volumes of crude oil and diesel. 

Still, a lull in tropical activity does not entirely rule out the possibility of a destructive late-season storm, as roughly 12.5 weeks remain before the season ends on November 30.

Meanwhile, Southern California and Hawaii are bracing for potential impacts from tropical systems over Labor Day weekend.

"It just seems like it's one storm after another out there because of the atmospheric conditions and the water being pretty warm," Robbie Berg, a warning coordination meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center, told the outlet, referring to the activity in the Pacific.

El Niño Impacts

"For an El Niño year, this is what we would expect," Berg said. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/04/2026 - 18:50

Asian Oil Buying Spree Sends Dubai Crude Toward $100

Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,

Stronger appetite for Middle Eastern crude grades from China and India has added upward pressure on prices for these grades, pushing the Dubai futures close to $100 per barrel, Bloomberg reported today, citing unnamed traders.

Demand for Middle Eastern oil is especially strong from refining majors such as Indian Oil Corp. and PetroChina, as well as refiners in South Korea and Japan, the report said. This is despite the latest escalation between the United States and Iran, with Saudi Arabia's oil exports dropping to the lowest since 2017, according to data from ship-trackers including Kpler and Vortexa.

A further price rally may well be on the table as some cargoes face delays from August to September and October, Bloomberg also noted. At the time of writing, Murban futures, the UAE benchmark, was trading at $106.10 per barrel, and DME Oman, the Middle East sour crude benchmark for Asia, was trading at $99.18 per barrel.

The stronger demand comes despite depressed flows of oil via the Strait of Hormuz. Over the past week, the average daily volume of oil making its way via the waterway stood at between 6 and 8 million barrels.

Asian buyers, meanwhile, are also stepping up purchases from other regions, notably Brazil, Canada, and Argentina, with China and India also buying more Russian crude.

While Middle Eastern oil prices rise, Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate dipped yesterday, reflecting uncertainty about developments in the Middle East even as mutual strikes between the United States and Iran continue. According to some analysts, the dip in prices came in response to a pause in the strikes. It appears traders believe the pause could extend, despite a statement by President Trump that "It was a very heavy attack last night, and we're prepared to do another one any time we want."

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/04/2026 - 18:25

Brazilian Lift: Diplomats Accused Of Helping Fugitive 'Dr. Frankenstein' To Flee US

Authored by Jonathan Turley via JonathanTurley.org,

There is an intriguing story out of Brazil where Joao Arajuo, 57, a plastic surgeon known as "Dr. Frankenstein," resurfaced after cutting an ankle monitor and fleeing the United States. The infamous plastic surgeon mocked the police and recounted how easy it was to flee the country. However, in detailing his escape, he implicated Brazilian diplomats in actively assisting the flight, making them accessories after the fact.

Araujo was awaiting trial for a variety of crimes linked to cosmetic surgeries, including procedures that were botched and left patients disfigured. These treatments included liposuction, fillers and laser treatments.

The 14 counts included felonies for grand theft, practicing medicine without a license, and fraud.

However, Araujo decided not to wait for a trial: "When I decided to leave, I simply cut off the electronic ankle bracelet. I took [Interstate] 95. I took a boat owned by an acquaintance and went to [the island of] Bimini [in the Bahamas], [then to] Nassau, Panama, Rio de Janeiro."

He offered details that could be used to identify any collaborators: "I left at 4:30 a.m. I arrived in [the island of] Bimini [in the Bahamas] early. From Bimini, I took a plane at 230 p.m. I arrived in Nassau 40 minutes later. Because the flight was fully booked to Panama, I had to spend the night" before going "from Panama to Rio de Janeiro."

So Araujo had his friend sail him to the Bahamas and then flew to Rio. He celebrated by mocking the police. However, he implicated Brazilian diplomats in making the escape:

"Any idiot knows how to leave the United States. I had all the support of the Brazilian consulate ... They are all my friends. Both the Brazilian federal police and the Brazilian embassy gave me all the support in Miami."

The direct assistance of diplomats in the flight of a fugitive would be a serious breach of diplomatic status.

For any diplomat, this would be the knowing commission of a criminal act as an accessory after the fact.

While diplomats have immunity, they could be declared persona non grata under Article 9 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

Araujo was required to surrender his only known passport from Brazil. That means he somehow obtained a new one. It is unclear whether the passport was fake or whether his "friends" took the extraordinary step of issuing him a new passport to facilitate his flight.

While he did not name his "friends," he noted in a prior interview that "the consul in Miami is my friend" and used the first names of both the current general consul and his recently departed predecessor. The acting consul general in Miami, Andre Odenbreit Carvalho left in May. He also referenced Marcelo Ivo, the Brazilian Federal Police Liaison for the Consulate in Miami.

Notably, according to Steven Nelson at the New York Post, the US government in April asked Ivo to leave his post "in a reciprocal action after Brasilia booted an unnamed American official in apparent retaliation for US immigration officials briefly detaining a former Brazilian congressman."

Tensions between the countries are already high under leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. The Trump Administration previously canceled the visa of the Brazilian ambassador, Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti.

The administration has also hit Brazil with massive tariffs in a trade war.

While Araujo expressed a desire to live in Europe, the United States will likely seek an Interpol warrant that would expose him to arrest. The Brazilian Constitution bars the extradition of its citizens. However, even if Brazil does not extradite him, he will have trouble traveling. Even those "idiots" that he attacked could track and arrest him in international transit.

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/04/2026 - 17:40

Excavation Work On Trump's Arch To Begin Over Next 2 Weeks, Burgum Says

Excavation work on President Donald Trump's triumphal arch is scheduled to begin over the next two weeks, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said on Sept. 3.

"This will be one of the great pieces of American architecture, honoring the history and significance of Arlington Cemetery and befitting the most powerful capital in the world," Burgum said in a post on X.

Burgum also included pictures of what the arch would look like.

The proposed monument would include a mezzanine level at 166 feet, a 24-foot-high observation deck, and a 60-foot statue of Lady Liberty at the top.

The structure, which is intended to mark America's 250th anniversary, would prominently display the inscriptions "One Nation Under God" and "Liberty and Justice for All."

It was inspired by the 164-foot-high Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

However, as Jackson Richman reports for The Epoch Times,the proposal has sparked a legal challenge.

A group of veterans and a historian, represented by public interest law firm Public Citizen Litigation Group, have filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block construction, arguing that the arch would interfere with the historic sightline between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington House, among other concerns.

The Justice Department has responded that Congress approved large structures at the planned site decades ago and gave authority to the National Park Service to change their design.

The National Park Service released a report on the arch on Aug. 28 that supported the project but warned there would be adverse effects on the sightlines between a host of iconic landmarks such as the Washington Monument and Lincoln and Jefferson memorials.

The arch, announced last October, is proposed to be built on a man-made island overseen by the National Park Service, located on the Virginia side of the Potomac River near Memorial Bridge, which connects to the Lincoln Memorial.

At 250 feet, the structure would be significantly taller than the Lincoln Memorial, which is 99 feet tall, and roughly half the height of the Washington Monument.

It is one of the numerous projects Trump has undertaken as part of his stated goal of beautifying the nation's capital.

The president also seeks to renovate East Potomac Golf Links, build an arch near the Lincoln Memorial, and construct a ballroom on White House grounds.

He renovated the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which will need to be refilled after deficiencies were found. The president blamed vandalism as well as contractor error.

Although the arch proposal has been approved by the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, the National Capital Planning Commission, the federal government's planning agency for the D.C. region, has to give final approval for the project.

When it will do so is to be determined.

The commission met on Sept. 3, but the arch was not on the agenda.

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/04/2026 - 17:20

IRS, Treasury Propose Cutting Tax-Exempt Status For Schools With Diversity Policies

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

The Trump administration is proposing a new rule that would strip private colleges and schools of their tax-exempt status if those institutions engaged in racial discrimination through policies such as diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

The U.S. Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service said on Thursday that a proposed rule would bar a private school from obtaining tax-exempt status under section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. tax code if the school "adopts, maintains, or enforces a policy or practice that discriminates on the basis of race, color, or national or ethnic origin."

Under the new regulation, which would take effect in May 2027, a broad range of programs administered by schools would be affected. They include admissions, policies, loans, scholarships, and athletics, said the Treasury Department in a news release.

The proposal may impact as many as 18,000 private educational institutions across the United States, the IRS and Treasury estimated.

"This administration is standing up for America's students by ensuring racial discrimination has no place in American education," said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in a statement.

"Schools rebranding race-based preferences as equitable, inclusive, or diversity-enhancing does not change their discriminatory nature."

The proposal, he added, would "establish a clear standard" for private schools to follow, warning that any institution that continues to "use discriminatory practices will no longer receive the benefits of federal tax-exempt status."

The move by the Treasury is another attempt to put pressure on schools and colleges to drop DEI policies that had become common before President Donald Trump returned to the White House. Trump officials have said the policies discriminate against white and Asian American students.

On his first day in office in his second term last year, Trump signed an order ending a number of DEI-related policies implemented under the Biden administration.

Last year, the Trump administration threatened to revoke Harvard University's tax-exempt status during a battle with the nation's oldest college. In a response, Harvard officials said there was no legal basis for doing so and argued it would force cuts to financial aid and crucial medical research.

To maintain nonprofit status, which allows donations to be tax-deductible, organizations must follow IRS rules on lobbying, political campaign activity, and annual reporting requirements, as well as other obligations.

The IRS says on its website that 501(c)(3) organizations also cannot be operated or organized for the benefit of private interests and that their net earnings cannot "inure to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual."

IRS Chief Executive Officer Frank J. Bisignano said private schools that promote discriminatory practices will no longer be exempt from taxes.

"Today's proposed regulations put institutions on notice and schools that continue to engage in racial discrimination should expect to lose that status," he said in a statement on Thursday.

Religious private schools will still be able to maintain a "religious mission, curriculum, or program of religious observance" under the latest proposal, the Treasury Department said.

It added that those schools can continue to select students based on religious affiliation or membership, provided they follow guidelines consistent with federal law.

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/04/2026 - 15:40

Argentina's Milei Escalates Falklands Dispute With Oil Sanctions On UK, Israeli Firms

Argentina's President Milei has announced plans to sign a decree sanctioning companies working on oil exploration of the Falkland Islands, coming a mere days after President Trump indicated that the US position on the archipelago was "under review".

The Libertarian-Right firebrand leader proclaimed quite provocatively that "The Falkland Islands are Argentinian, historically and legally. There is no debate" and added that the "winds of change" have more lately favored Argentina's claim.

Milei characterized the Falkland's Sea Lion Project, which is based out of what firmly remains a British territory, as essentially a resource-grab which undermines Argentinian sovereignty. 

via photojet

The area to be tapped lies some 140 miles north of the Falkland Islands and is widely estimated to hold a whopping 1.7 billion barrels of oil.

The ambitious project involves Israeli and British firms, creating rare tensions between staunchly pro-Israeli Milei and what are primarily Tel Aviv-based investors.

He further warned that given the project has proceeded without Argentina's permission, it marks a "concrete and urgent danger," given that "If we fail to act, within a few months, they will possess the physical capacity to take the oil reserves that lie beneath our waters."

According to more on ownership details via Reuters:

The project's two owners have strong Israeli ties. Sea Lion is operated by Tel Aviv-listed Navitas Petroleum (NVPTp.TA), which ​holds a 65% stake.

Gideon Tadmor, a prominent figure in Israel's energy sector and also the company's chair, holds about 9% of shares in the company, ​according to LSEG data.

The remaining 35% of Sea Lion is owned by London-listed Rockhopper Exploration (RKH.L), with Israel-based Noked Capital, Brosh Funds ⁠and ION Fund Management among its top five investors, owning between 4.6% and 9.2% each.

Navitas and Rockhopper said the Sea Lion project had valid licenses and that ​they did not expect Milei's comments to have a material effect on the project's development.

Navitas is charging ahead, indicating in its statement that it won't bow to Argentine pressure and that it's done everything correctly and legally.

"The Partnership operates pursuant to valid petroleum licences lawfully granted to it by the ​Government of the Falkland Islands, a self-governing UK Overseas Territory, and with the full and ongoing support of the UK Government," Navitas said.

The Falklands remain a unique pressure point for Britain, which fought a war over the islands in the early 1980s. The United Kingdom has controlled it going all the way back to 1833.

However, Trump's recent signaling that he'll reconsider the US' position on the Falklands appears to be a big lever over London, and of course there's the reality that Trump's alignment with Milei is tighter than ever. 

'If we allow it, we create incentive for British govt to DEEPEN its occupation' — Argentina's Milei opposes Falkland Islands 'Sea Lion' oil project pic.twitter.com/M8JmqMr5H4

— RT Intl (@RT_on_X) September 4, 2026

Recent reporting in The Telegraph said the Trump administration is using Britain's sovereignty over the Falkland Islands ultimately as leverage to pressure the European ally into meeting NATO's new defense-spending target. 

Back in April, Milei proclaimed on X in Spanish that "The Malvinas were, are, and always will be Argentine" - using the Argentine name for the islands. He also told media outlets at the time that his government is doing "everything humanly possible" to return the Falklands to Argentina. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/04/2026 - 15:20

Pentagon, HHS Investigating Whether COVID Vaccines Contributed To Military Deaths

Authored by AG News Staff via American Greatness,

The Trump administration is investigating whether COVID-19 vaccines contributed to the deaths of U.S. service members following the Biden administration's military vaccine mandate, according to testimony from an Army doctor assigned to the effort.

Army physician Theresa Long said in an Aug. 14 federal court deposition that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth detailed her to serve as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s senior medical military adviser.

Long said she is examining 2,544 unverified reports of deaths among service members submitted to the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS, following COVID vaccination.

VAERS is an early-warning surveillance system that accepts reports of health problems occurring after vaccination. A report does not establish that a vaccine caused the medical event or death.

Long, who is board certified in aerospace medicine and holds a master's degree in public health, said she hopes to complete her investigation within a year.

She also testified that she knows of 28 people who died because of COVID vaccines but said she was not permitted to provide additional information supporting that assertion.

The investigation comes as the Trump administration reexamines the military's handling of the COVID pandemic and the Biden administration's 2021 vaccine mandate.

Nearly 9,000 service members were discharged for refusing COVID vaccinations before Congress ordered the Pentagon to rescind the mandate in 2022. The Defense Department has since established a COVID-19 Reinstatement and Reconciliation Task Force to assist troops who left the military over the requirement and want to return.

"The Department continues to right the wrongs of the past and to restore confidence in, and honor to, our fighting force," the Pentagon said in announcing the task force.

Long is also reviewing military health surveillance systems and two medical databases from the pandemic period.

A 2026 Pentagon report found an increase in myocarditis and pericarditis among active-duty service members shortly after COVID vaccination, but said the increase was not sustained over one year. The report did not identify vaccine-related deaths.

The FDA has also required updated warnings for mRNA COVID vaccines concerning myocarditis and pericarditis. The agency reported a higher incidence among young men, with 27 cases per million vaccinations compared with 8 per million in the general population for the period it analyzed.

Long's previously undisclosed assignment indicates that the Trump administration's review of the Biden-era military vaccine mandate now extends beyond reinstating discharged troops to examining whether the vaccines themselves caused serious injuries or deaths among service members.

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/04/2026 - 15:00

Deutsche Bank: August US Auto Sales Beat Forecasts, But Incentives Remain A Factor

U.S. auto sales came in stronger than expected in August, offering another sign that consumer demand for new vehicles remains relatively resilient despite elevated borrowing costs and broader questions about the economy.

According to Deutsche Bank’s auto team, led by Edison Yu, August sales ran at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of roughly 16.9 million vehicles. That was comfortably ahead of the bank’s 16.4 million estimate and also above the roughly 16.4 million pace recorded a year earlier.

The headline SAAR number was strong, although the underlying monthly figures were somewhat less impressive. Automakers sold approximately 1.388 million vehicles during August, slightly above July’s 1.380 million but below the roughly 1.482 million vehicles sold in August 2025.

Sales among both the Detroit Three and major Japanese automakers were modestly better than Deutsche Bank expected. But Hyundai Group was one of the biggest contributors to the upside surprise, beating the bank’s forecast by approximately 14,000 vehicles. Other brands accounted for the remainder of the beat.

The closely watched large pickup market was more mixed. Daily sales declined for most major truck models, but Ram was a notable exception. Ram sales increased by roughly 105 vehicles per day to around 1,550, with Deutsche Bank attributing much of that strength to aggressive incentive spending.

Higher sales are obviously positive for volumes, but when they are being generated through heavier discounts and incentives, the improvement doesn’t necessarily translate into equally strong profitability for manufacturers.

Inventory remains relatively controlled. Industry-wide inventories slipped to approximately 49 days of supply, compared with 50 days previously, although that remains above the 47-day level seen in 2025. Truck inventories declined by one day to 52 days of supply, while passenger-car inventories dropped by two days to just 34.

Taken together, the August numbers paint a reasonably healthy picture of the U.S. auto market. Sales are running better than expected, inventories aren’t showing signs of a major glut, and the annualized selling rate remains comfortably above 16 million vehicles.

Deutsche Bank isn’t extrapolating August’s 16.9 million pace into a dramatically stronger industry forecast, however. Yu and his team continue to expect a 16.0 million SAAR for full-year 2026, roughly consistent with forecasts from the major automakers themselves. For 2027, Deutsche Bank is forecasting only a modest improvement to 16.1 million.

In other words, August was a good month, but Deutsche Bank isn’t calling it the beginning of an auto boom. The more interesting question from here may be how much manufacturers have to spend on incentives to keep sales around these levels...particularly if consumers remain squeezed by high vehicle prices and financing costs.

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/04/2026 - 14:40

Trump Admin Asks Supreme Court To Unblock New Mail-Ballot Rules Before States Start Mailing

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,

The Trump administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Sept. 3 to allow the government to begin implementing a regulation that tightens rules around mail-in voting.

In the emergency application, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the justices to stay U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani's Aug. 27 order that blocks the United States Postal Service (USPS) from enforcing a final rule published Aug. 26.

The rule implements Section 3 of President Donald Trump's Executive Order 14399, which assigns federal agencies a larger role in who receives a mail ballot and how those ballots are processed by the USPS.

Talwani issued a 14-day temporary restraining order that blocked the post office from implementing the parts of Section 3 that required state and local election officials to submit outbound and return mail envelopes for USPS design review, place unique tracking barcodes on those envelopes, and upload voter names, addresses, and barcode data to a new federal portal. Mailings that do not match portal data or that fall short of the envelope standards would not be accepted for delivery.

The judge said in her Aug. 27 ruling that the agency had presented no evidence of fraudulent mail-in voting that would justify the new USPS rule and that the rule itself was likely unlawful and adopted in violation of the U.S. Constitution, which gives states primary authority to administer elections.

"USPS's interest in correcting an unsubstantiated problem through likely unconstitutional means is dwarfed by the overwhelming risk of pervasive disenfranchisement of citizens who need access to mail ballots in order to vote," she said. "The balance of harms and public interest warrants a [temporary restraining order]."

New York Attorney General Letitia James said on Aug. 26 that the postal regulation issued under the executive order will "create confusion, unnecessary costs, and unacceptable risks for voters going into Election Day." She said officials would have to rush to redesign envelopes, obtain federal approval, and develop new list-transmission systems while already preparing to mail ballots.

The short-term freeze was set to expire around Sept. 10 if Talwani declined to extend it. Earlier in the day on Sept. 3, the judge held a hearing on extending the temporary restraining order. Separately, the Trump administration previously filed an appeal of the restraining order that is still pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

Sauer said the nation's highest court needs to act urgently.

"Even before September 10, two States - North Carolina and Alabama - will begin sending ballots to voters, the first as soon as September 4. Once those ballot envelopes enter the mailstream, there is no retrieving them," he said.

The solicitor general also asked the Supreme Court for an immediate administrative stay so the rule can take effect while the justices review the briefs.

The application was directed to Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who oversees emergency appeals from Massachusetts, where Talwani is based.

Jackson directed the respondents - including several states and advocacy groups - to file a reply to the application by 10 a.m. on Sept. 8.

On Aug. 24, the Supreme Court lifted an earlier injunction after finding a challenge was premature because the post office had not yet issued a final rule. The high court's ruling allowed Trump - for the time being - to implement his executive order ahead of the November midterm elections that will determine control of Congress.

The justices didn't rule on the lawfulness of Trump's executive order, but said the states that sued weren't harmed and therefore shouldn't have received relief from the Massachusetts judge.

In the new application, Sauer said that days after the Supreme Court issued its ruling, the district court "issued an order partially barring implementation of that rule, without meaningfully addressing the rule's contents or providing any meaningful analysis to support its conclusion that the rule was unlawful."

The lower court's "continued prejudgment of the rule is baseless," and a stay should be issued immediately, because "the District Court's errors deal 'a serious setback' to the Executive's 'goals' while this litigation unfolds."

The states "cannot choose to use the federal mails to carry out their elections but then insist that their election-related mail is somehow exempt from the Postal Service's rulemaking authority," Sauer said.

The USPS rule "imposes only modest requirements on the use of the federal postal system - it does not regulate state administration of elections."

Sauer quoted the rule, which says the USPS "will not play any role in determining voter eligibility, maintaining voter rolls, or counting ballots."

Tyler Durden Fri, 09/04/2026 - 14:20

 

 

Heading out the door for the Labor Day weekend, with blue skies and 85° temperatures, I had to share a chart. It’s from the San Francisco Federal Reserve (via Torsten Slok of Apollo) and shows Wall Street expectations for Federal Reserve rate action.

It’s the perfect explainer for why forecasts tend to be so inaccurate.

As you can see, as recently as February 2026, market participants expected a series of ongoing rate hikes—a simple extrapolation from the prior trend.

Then the war began sending food and energy prices higher.

But the Middle Eastern adventure was promised to be short and indeed already over, so the next set of expectations were flat. A few months later, the “short military operation” turned into a war; inflation remained sticky, and expectations were for modestly higher rates.

Now we are six months into a war that shows no signs of ending, voters are angry, and a bad actor is in control of the Strait of Hormuz, with the likelihood of an ongoing tax on Middle Eastern oil. Once again, expectations were adjusted upwards, and now we see “higher for longer” as the consensus.

Unless, of course, something else unanticipated occurs…

Forecasts are for the most part simple extrapolations of the status quo or the current trend; they also fail to include random or unanticipated events – the kind that happens all the time in the economy, markets, and geopolitics.

When you stumble across a forecast that turned out to be more or less correct, it usually means nothing happened, and the extrapolation proved to be randomly correct.1 

But most of the time, $h*t happens: wars break out, Pandemics occur, terror attacks happen, new technology comes along and fails or succeeds, and governments fail to fund their annual budgets or wildly overspend their fiscal limits.

The parade of endless random events derails even the most thoughtful of predictions. A year is simply too short a time to guarantee that the dominant secular trend asserts itself, and too long a period to avoid random events.

 

 

 

Previously:
The Folly of Forecasting (June 7, 2005)

Nobody Knows Anything (Archive)

 

 

Source:
Productivity -Driven Growth Confronts Elevated Inflation
Huiyu Li
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, September 3, 2026

 

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1. Please note that I said randomly correct — that is not he same as being prescient.

 

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