My back-to-work morning train WFH reads:

• Why It’s So Hard to Spot a Stock-Market Bubble: Bubbles are obvious only in the rearview. A timely WSJ reminder as the AI-trade froth keeps everyone guessing. (Wall Street Journal)

• Why Americans Hate the ‘Good’ Economy: The sentiment-versus-data gap, examined yet again. The numbers say one thing, the voters feel another, and the disconnect is becoming the story of the cycle. (Axios) see also The ‘Vibecession’ Is Over. The ‘Permacession’ Is Here.: The gap between the data and the mood hardens into something more permanent. A sharp framing of why good numbers aren’t lifting spirits. (The Atlantic)

• Prediction Market Philosophers Got What They Wanted. They’re Not Happy About It: Getting the future right is now big business. But at a festival in the Bay Area, forecasters worry that sports markets could take the whole industry down. (Wired)

• Is AI Good at Stock-Market Timing? A New Study Casts Doubt: Turns out the machines can’t time the market either. A healthy splash of cold water on the AI-alpha hype. Research finds that while large-language models may work well initially, they don’t outperform the market over long periods and in changing conditions (Wall Street Journal)

• AI Sales Start to Justify Data-Center Spending Boom, Report Says. The first real evidence that the capex binge is paying for itself: Revenue from artificial intelligence has reached a tipping point, showing that the hundreds of billions of dollars tech companies are spending on it may be economically sustainable, according to a report from research firm Exponential View. Global AI sales, excluding China, reached $25 billion in the Q1 2026, exceeding $21B estimates. (Bloomberg)

• Hollywood and Big Tech Are Preparing for War: Meta wants to steal TV viewers, Amazon and Apple are meddling with content, and traditional media companies are pursuing megadeals to try and survive. The studios and the platforms circle each other as AI scrambles the economics of content. The fight that will define the next decade of entertainment. (Hollywood Reporter)

• Inside the Onion’s quest to turn Infowars into a comedic revenge story: The satire mainstay has faced legal roadblocks in taking over Alex Jones’s conspiracy theory juggernaut. But it’s moving forward anyway.  (Washington Post)

• The Invention of Antifa: The courts decree a new domestic terrorist: Lauren Fadiman traces how a loose tactic became a political bogeyman. A sharp, skeptical look at how labels get manufactured. The courts decree a new domestic terrorist (The Baffler)

• What It’s Like to See Your Nude Portrait Sell for $39 Million: Lucian Freud’s muse Sue Tilley talks about ‘Sleeping by the Lion Carpet,’ one of four of his paintings that features her unclothed (Wall Street Journal)

• The Big Lebowskization of California: Aging. Jobless. Drinking Canned White Russians and Smoking Pot. Golden State Residents Resemble the Dude.   (Zócalo Public Square)

Video of the day: Why China Is Building the World’s First $2 Trillion Megacity

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business this past weekend with Carl Richards, a financial advisor who is also the creator of the Sketch Guy column, which ran weekly in New York Times for a decade. He hosts Behavior Gap Radio (1,300+ episodes) He co-hosts “Kitces & Carl — Real Talk for Real Financial Advisors” with Michael Kitces.” Richards latest book is Your Money: Reimagining Wealth in 101 Simple Sketches.”

Eli Lilly & Co (LLY) Beats SPY, QQQ, and SMH Over 5 Years

Source: YCharts

 

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The post 10 Monday AM Reads appeared first on The Big Picture.

Supreme Court Expected To Rule On Cook, Elections, And Trans Athletes

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide in the coming days whether President Donald Trump can remove Federal Reserve Board of Governors member Lisa Cook from her post - an extraordinary step that would mark the first presidential firing of a Fed official since the central bank's founding in 1913 and directly test the institution's independence from political interference.

The justices, who hold a 6-3 conservative majority, signaled skepticism during January arguments toward Trump's authority to oust Cook. The Federal Reserve Act requires that governors be removed only "for cause," a term Congress left undefined and without procedural details. Trump cited unsubstantiated allegations of mortgage fraud - which Cook has denied and called a pretext for her removal over monetary policy disagreements. Cook has remained in her role while the case proceeds. No president has attempted such a firing in the Fed's more than century-long history.

This dispute is one of three pending cases examining the outer limits of presidential power under Trump. The others involve his removal of a Federal Trade Commission member and an executive order limiting birthright citizenship. The court has already delivered Trump victories in two immigration cases this week and has frequently sided with the administration in emergency rulings, though it rejected his sweeping tariffs in February.

Firing Federal Officials

The justices appeared ready during December arguments to uphold Trump's firing of Democratic FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter over policy differences. Lower courts had ruled that Trump exceeded his authority. U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer urged the Court to overturn the 1935 precedent Humphrey's Executor v. United States, which has protected heads of independent agencies from at-will removal. While the Court has narrowed that precedent in recent decades, it has stopped short of overruling it. Conservative justices have expressed sympathy for the view that statutory tenure protections encroach on the president's constitutional powers. The Court previously allowed Trump to remove Slaughter while the case continues.

Election-Related Cases

Two election disputes remain as Republicans seek to retain congressional control in the November midterms.

During March arguments, conservative justices expressed skepticism toward a Mississippi law - challenged by Republicans and supported by the Trump administration - that permits mail-in ballots postmarked on or before Election Day to be counted if received up to five business days later. A lower court invalidated the provision. A ruling striking down the law could encourage stricter voting rules nationwide.

Trump issued an executive order in March restricting mail-in ballots across the country, but a federal judge in Boston blocked its implementation on Thursday.

In December, the Court heard a Republican-led challenge - involving Vice President JD Vance - to federal limits on coordinated spending between political parties and candidates. Some conservative justices appeared open to the First Amendment arguments against the restrictions, while the liberal justices seemed inclined to preserve them. A lower court had upheld the limits.

Transgender Athletes

In January arguments, the conservative majority signaled it is prepared to uphold laws in Idaho and West Virginia barring transgender athletes from female sports teams at public schools and universities. The states argue the measures protect fair competition for women and girls; critics see them as part of broader efforts to restrict transgender rights.

Geofence Warrants

The Court also heard April arguments in a Virginia case examining whether law enforcement's use of "geofence" warrants - which sweep up cellphone location data from areas near crime scenes to identify potential suspects - violates the Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable searches.

The Supreme Court's term, which began in October, typically ends in late June or early July. With seven cases still unresolved and the next round of decisions expected Monday, the coming days will bring clarity on these high-stakes disputes.

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2026 - 21:35

"Wants To Be More Political Than His Daddy": Alex Soros Plows $103 Million Into Unhinged Democrats Ahead Of Midterms

The uncomfortable reality for socialist Democrats is that the anti-capitalist and anti-American movement is not an organic uprising from the working class, as they often portray in their propaganda.

Socialism on full display:

AOC wears "Tax The Rich" dress to the Met Gala ($30k tickets) while masked workers serve her (2021) pic.twitter.com/jB2XU0o1zt

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) May 4, 2026

The same left-wing politicians and activists who talk about dismantling capitalism and throwing wrenches into the capitalist system, all while pushing nation-killing progressive experiments across the West, are often backed by billionaire dark money and, in some cases, foreign influence networks.

A New York Post report released this weekend found that left-wing billionaire George Soros and his son, Alex Soros, who is even more politically extreme than his father, have funded Democrats and socialists to the tune of a staggering $102.8 million so far in the midterm cycle.

The Soros family seems hell-bent on advancing a far-left, radicalized agenda to reshape the nation into what can only be described as a leftist hellhole, something already present in blue cities plagued by years of violent crime and chaos.

NYPost adds more color:

Only a fraction of this cycle's contributions — $793,800 — were made in the 95-year-old mega donor's name, a review of publicly available Federal Election Commission data reveals.

. . .

Almost all of the money — $102 million — was funneled through the Democracy Political Action Committee, the super PAC Soros launched in 2020, which acts as the family's main political arm, obfuscating efforts to know which radical candidates the clan is propping up.

Of that, a little over half, $52 million, came from George Soros through the private corporation Geosor under his name and the other half, $50 million, from Fund for Policy Reform, a nonprofit which lists Alex Soros as director in tax filings.

Democracy Political Action Committee

Parker Thayer, an investigative researcher at think tank Capital Research Center, told The Post that Alex Soros "wants to be more political than his dad. This is the first midterm cycle where he is in control," adding, "George is not in control; he hasn't been in control for some time."

Related:

• Musk Calls Out Soros' Radical Son: "Can You Stop Trying To Destroy Civilization?"

NYPost also noted direct donations by George and Alex Soros to several unhinged Democratic candidates and lawmakers, including Graham Platner, Ilhan Omar, Ro Khanna, Raphael Warnock, Jon Ossoff, and Pramila Jayapal.

The report continued:

Alex Soros, 40, and his father George both sent a maximum contributions of $7,000 ($14,00 total) to Maine senatorial candidate Graham Platner, who's been accused of misconduct toward women and regularly slams the rich — despite his own wealthy upbringing and lining his pockets with billionaire money.

The fat cat's spawn maxed out donations and sent $7,000 to Jimmy Choo-wearing Omar, who's been slammed for allegedly knowing about the widespread fraud involving the Somali community in her Minneapolis district. Omar has denied wrongdoing.' He also sent a max donation of $7,000 to multimillionaire Silicon Valley lefty Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who's said to be mulling a 2028 presidential run.  

The nepo baby and his oligarch father also sent maximum donations to two other 2028 Democratic presidential hopefuls with Peach State Pastor Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) and Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) receiving a total of $14,000 each.

In all, the Soros' have already poured an eye-watering 52% more into the family political slush fund than in 2024, when they channeled $67 million into the Democracy PAC, according to campaign filings.

Last fall, Seamus Bruner, Director of Research at the Government Accountability Institute, briefed President Trump and his cabinet on dark-money-funded NGOs and activist groups fueling chaos nationwide, a phenomenon also referred to as the protest-industrial complex.

"We have identified dozens of radical organizations, not just the decentralized Antifa organizations, but dozens of radical organizations that have received more than $100 million from the Riot Inc investors," Bruner told Trump at the Antifa roundtable at the White House.

via Government Accountability Institute

At the time, Elon Musk commented on X in response to a video featuring Bruner's public briefing to the president about dark-money-funded NGOs, saying, "Way more than $100M of US taxpayer money."

Way more than $100M of US taxpayer money

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 8, 2025

Bruner's briefing to Trump builds on last year's New York Times report, which cited a Capital Research Center report stating that "Soros' Open Society gave $80 million to pro-terror groups"...

It is important to understand that the Trump administration's broader NGO investigations appear to be focusing on the radicalization pipeline within the American left.

Soros-linked money is certainly part of the story, but it is not the whole story. The key shift in investigations now appears to be centering around Democratic Socialists and their potential connections to foreign influence networks, including entities allegedly tied to the China-linked Neville Roy Singham network and Cuba.

 

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently signaled, "In the weeks and months ahead, we are going to have a lot to report" on the NGOs.

One major signal came from President Trump himself, who criticized Marxists on Truth Social last Friday, suggesting he may have been briefed on the broader problem of radical left NGOs and Marxist-aligned activist networks. At the same time, top Democratic Party leaders appeared on corporate media at the end of last week, effectively admitting their party has been influenced by socialists and Marxists.

Truth Social Post #1 

Then #2 

So what happens next? If Trump launches an anti-Marxist task force, he could frame it not only as a crackdown on radical NGOs and foreign influence networks but also as an effort to rescue the Democratic Party from its own stupidity by allowing socialists and Marxists to run rampant inside their DEI kingdom.

The unofficial spokesperson of the DSA recently told millions of followers to kill capitalists in the streets.

Hasan Piker calls on his followers to kill capitalists:

“Yeah kill them! KiII those motherfuckers and murder those motherfuckers in the streets. Let the streets soak in their fucking red capitalist blood, dude.”

Democrats are campaigning with him. pic.twitter.com/YiZxGgRkgc

— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) April 9, 2026

DSA's plan for America:

There has been a troubling pattern of youth radicalization targeting "capitalists." Top officials in the U.S. and Europe have agreed in recent meetings that this radicalization is producing increasingly younger extremists.

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2026 - 20:25

AI Demand, War, & Climate Pressure Push World Back To Nuclear

Authored by Haley Zaremba via OilPrice.com,

• The US and Canada each announced plans this week to build ten new nuclear reactors, the biggest coordinated nuclear push in North America in decades.

• The moves come as the AI boom, the war in Iran, and broader geopolitical instability push energy security to the top of the policy agenda worldwide.

• China added 34 gigawatts of nuclear capacity over the past decade to the US's one plant, and is on track to overtake both the US and France as the world's top nuclear producer.

Global energy markets are in turmoil as energy crises keep piling up. The energy-hungry AI boom, war in Iran, geopolitical instability, and climate pressures are creating a polycrisis for the global energy sector, and it’s just getting started. To solve multiple overlapping crises, we will need multiple overlapping solutions.

An all-of-the-above solution to increasing energy security is therefore gaining favor on a global scale as the precariousness of over-reliance on limited energy supply chains becomes dangerously clear. While fossil fuels continue to provide the lion’s share of the global energy mix, alternative energy sources, especially those that are harder to blockade or embargo, are quickly gaining favor.

One of the biggest benefactors of this all-of-the-above approach to energy growth is the nuclear energy sector, which is currently undergoing a worldwide renaissance. While nuclear energy had fallen out of favor in much of the world in the wake of high-profile nuclear disasters like Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima, it has come roaring back due to the undeniable advantages it offers as a zero-carbon, round-the-clock energy source with well-established supply chains and high efficiency.

“With energy security now ranking alongside climate commitments as a top policy priority, nuclear power appears positioned to play a central role in the global electricity landscape through mid-century,” the Foreign Policy Journal reported earlier this month.

Just this week, the United States and Canada unveiled separate plans to build ten new nuclear reactors each, marking a massive acceleration of nuclear energy development across North America. On Monday, Energy Minister Tim Hodgson introduced a plan for a “new civilian nuclear renaissance” that serves as a central component of a larger plan to double the capacity of the national electrical grid by 2050 to keep up with projected demand growth.

“If our goal is to double our grid and build a low-carbon economy in less than 25 years, there is no credible plan to do that without nuclear energy and the clean, reliable baseload power it provides,” Hodgson said at a news conference in Ontario. “There is no credible plan for Canada to become an energy superpower if we choose not to build upon one of the strongest energy advantages we have,” he went on to say.

Just a day later, the Trump administration announced that it plans to funnel billions of dollars in federal loans toward kickstarting a buildout of nuclear power plants across the United States as part of Trump’s desire to to “produce lasting American dominance in the global nuclear energy market.”

The new Department of Energy plan, which a New York Times report describes as “complex and unusual”, would rely on utilities to put forward hundreds of millions of dollars of their own money in order to access the federal loans, with the ultimate goal of easing the sticker shock of the components for large new reactor types.

These two plans are designed to reverse a yearslong inertia in Western nuclear energy markets. In the last ten years, the United States only built one new nuclear plant, and it was years overdue and billions over budget by the time it was finally finished. Over the same time period, China added a staggering 34 gigawatts of capacity over the same time period. As a result, China is on track to overtake the United States (and France) to become the world’s biggest producer of nuclear energy within the next ten years.

The United States and Canada’s new plans pale in comparison to China’s lofty nuclear goals as outlined in the country’s newest five-year plan, but they mark a major shift in energy strategy for the two powers, and potential progress toward rebalancing the global nuclear sector.

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2026 - 19:50

CDC Raises Ebola Response To Highest Level As Outbreak Grows

Authored by Kimberley Hayek via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has activated its highest-level emergency response to the growing Ebola outbreak in central Africa caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain, as the agency says that the risk of spread within the United States remains low.

The move to Level 1 activation, signifying the most severe health crises, comes as the outbreak, which is now in its second month, has infected more than 1,200 people in Congo, with 321 deaths reported there, plus additional cases in neighboring Uganda, according to the World Health Organization. This marks the highest first-month total of any Ebola episode on record.

Dr. Satish Pillai, the CDC’s incident manager for the Ebola response, detailed the agency’s efforts during a briefing on June 26.

Pillai said the CDC has stationed 19 staff members overseas to aid country teams and local health ministries with data analysis, exit screenings at airports, laboratory support, and training. Those personnel join approximately 100 CDC staff already on the ground in Congo and Uganda.

There are no approved vaccines or specific treatments for the Bundibugyo strain, distinguishing it from more common Zaire ebolavirus outbreaks. Mortality rates for Bundibugyo have historically spanned from 25 percent to 50 percent, according to the CDC.

The United States is currently developing a vaccine to combat the Bundibugyo strain through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA).

That agency is also sending doses of the experimental monoclonal antibody therapy MBP134, which was developed with Mapp Biopharmaceutical for compassionate use and a randomized clinical trial spearheaded by the University of Oxford. BARDA has also pre-positioned 2,500 rapid diagnostic tests for deployment to Africa.

BARDA is also seeking proposals for vaccine candidates using the same platform as Merck’s Ervebo vaccine, which targets the Zaire strain.

The effort strives to support both the current outbreak response and longer-term preparedness in coordination with global partners, including the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.

The outbreak, first confirmed in mid-May in Congo, has spread to additional health zones, with recent jumps in cases and deaths. Congo’s Ministry of Communications reported 72 new cases and 32 new deaths in one update, raising the regional toll. Death totals in the outbreak have surpassed 200, with confirmed fatalities climbing steadily.

The outbreak has encompassed the displacement camps where the first Ebola deaths were reported, and challenges like laboratories running low on testing supplies early on in the response. Uganda has closed its border with Congo, and has confirmed cases and deaths of its own.

U.S. officials have issued travel advisories for the impacted regions. The State Department and CDC have issued guidance for travelers, with certain restrictions expanded in response to the outbreak.

Health authorities underscore that while the situation in Africa is serious, transmission requires direct contact with bodily fluids of infected individuals or contaminated surfaces, lowering the threat of widespread spread in the United States.

No cases have been reported in the United States connected to this outbreak.

Prior Ebola outbreaks, including the 2014–2016 West Africa epidemic, have also prompted a previous Level 1 CDC activation. International partners, including UNICEF and Gavi, have also urged accelerated vaccine development for the Bundibugyo strain.

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2026 - 18:40

Chinese AI Matches Mythos In Cybersecurity Tasks With Open-Weight Model

While Anthropic has been forced to shut down its latest general-use models for over two weeks after it emerged that the company's de-tuned public-facing Fable 5 model could be 'jailbroken' into its unrestricted form (Mythos 5) to perform tasks that pose security risks, a Chinese AI company backed by Alibaba and Tencent has released a model that matches the performance of Mythos in some cybersecurity scenarios. 

The company, Zhipu AI - also known as Z.ai, can match the latest US models when it comes to finding security bugs - though it still lags at other tasks, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

Overall, the capability gap between top U.S. models and those built by Chinese companies has narrowed significantly, and use of Chinese AI systems has surged as businesses seek to rein in runaway costs. A host of companies, including Microsoft, are weighing how they can offer Chinese models on their platforms, a development that is set to alter the balance of power among tech companies.

What's more, Zhipu's GLM-5.2 is an open-weight model, meaning it can be downloaded and run on hardware by anyone and can be modified and used without supervision - which hackers are undoubtedly loving. 

GLM-5.2 has ranked as one of the 10 most-used AI models, according to data from OpenRouter, a company that provides access to more than 400 AI models. In some benchmarking tests, according to the cybersecurity company Semgrep, GLM-5.2 bested Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.8 model, which was released in May. When given further instructions, Opus 4.8 and GLM-5.2 can match Mythos in bug-finding ability, according to researchers.

As we noted last week for our premium subscribers, this is how Goldman's Delta One head, Rich Privorotsky framed the latest Chinese shock to the system from open-weight models: 

The big development over the last couple of days has been GLM-5.2, another Chinese open source model that appears highly competitive on SWE benchmarks relative to some of the latest private models. It is not quite cutting edge, but the gap between open and closed models continues to narrow. The weights are open (MIT license), models can be distilled, quantized and reproduced...its a big leap in capability and a clear sign the field is narrowing.

It's not just some of Wall Street's top thinkers who were immediately drawn to the stats of the latest Chinese offering: various industry insiders were in shock.

Artificial Analysis’ new knowledge work benchmark rated it higher than GPT 5.5

"This kind of powerful weapon that can alter the landscape of cyberwarfare can’t remain solely in American hands," Zhou Hongyi - CEO of Chinese cybersecurity company 360 Security Technology, speaking at a cybersecurity conference in Beijing. His company has released a new bug-finding tool called Tulongfeng - which it claims is comparable to Mythos when it comes to finding bugs. 

Zhou Hongyi, chief executive of 360 Security Wu Hao/EPA/Shutterstock

So while the Trump administration restored some access to Mythos 5, IT departments across America are now at a disadvantage when it comes to using something this powerful to find and patch their own vulnerabilities. 

"Banning Fable while selling chips China needs to develop its own version is a gift to China," said Saif Khan - a distinguished technology fellow at the Institute for Progress think tank who focused on export restrictions under the Biden administration. Kahn says that the US needs to maximize the use of Mythos and similar models to harden cyber defenses while it can. 

Among the Mythos 5 and Fable 5 users that had lost access before Friday’s decision to restore Mythos 5 access for some trusted entities: the National Security Agency, which had been testing the tools and found them impressive in trials, according to people familiar with the matter.

Critics of the White House approach have said it has been lax in restricting use of Chinese open-weight models from companies such as DeepSeek and Zhipu, which are popular among U.S. businesses. -WSJ

Meanwhile - OpenAI on Friday said it will now limit access to its latest model - GPT 5.6, after Trump administration officials raised security concerns. The company warned that the government's current case-by-case evaluation process isn't a good long-term solution, but they're adhering to it following a recent executive order focused on security and model oversight. 

In short, the Trump administration is driving people to use open-weight Chinese models, while hobbling the US AI industry. 

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2026 - 18:05

The Coming Return Of Commodity-Backed Money

Authored by Chris MacIntosh via InternationalMan.com,

This piece is as much a mental exploration as a fact-gathering exercise.

Let’s begin with the problem. Bank failures come together with economic failures.

So trusting banks is a problem, but furthermore, trusting fiat currency is also a problem. This is on top of the issue that moving capital from one bank to another is increasingly fraught with headaches. AML and KYC have become weaponised, and the global surveillance system is tightening its grip. So movement of capital, treasury, and of course what to own in your treasury are all problems as I see it.

How to solve for all?

The Inversion

Most investors think in fiat terms — what’s the IRR in dollars, what’s the EBITDA multiple. That’s measuring real assets with a rubber ruler.

The better question is: What is this stake worth in hard asset terms, and what hard asset exposure does it give me per unit of fiat deployed?

Fiat currency is a liability of a central bank. It has no intrinsic floor. Now consider a warehouse receipt for oh say 500 tonnes of copper. That is the asset. There’s no counterparty sitting behind it who can dilute it, default on it, or sanction it into worthlessness.

The Real Monetary History

The current system is historically aberrant. Pre-1971, every dollar was a claim on gold. What Nixon did at Camp David wasn’t just a policy change — it was the largest unilateral default in history, redenominating global savings from hard asset claims into sovereign promises.

Since then, global M2 has expanded roughly 50x. Gold has gone from $35 to $4,000+. Real wages in the developed world have largely flatlined. Asset prices have inflated dramatically… but measured in gold, most assets are flat to down.

The money supply expansion didn’t create wealth. It merely redistributed it from savers and wage earners toward asset holders… and those closest to the money creation spigot.

What Warehouse Receipts Actually Represent

Imagine owning a warehouse receipt just like in the good old days when gold was held with a goldsmith and you received a receipt of ownership. But one can expand this beyond gold into most any commodity. This then isn’t just “a useful treasury instrument.” Rather, it’s a pre-fiat-style monetary instrument.

Medieval banking was largely built on exactly this. A Florentine merchant deposited grain or wool, got a receipt, and that receipt circulated as money because it was a claim on something real. Through this lens, the Medici didn’t invent credit — they institutionalised the monetisation of physical inventory.

What if one could enjoy a partial return to that model: hold receipts for oil, copper, wheat, cocoa. Those receipts are denominated in the asset itself, not in a currency. The currency price of those assets will fluctuate, but the asset quantity doesn’t. When the next monetary reset comes — and the direction of travel is clear — you hold the denominator, not the numerator.

The Hierarchy of Real Assets

Not all hard assets are equal in this context.

Gold and silver (the monetary metals). No industrial consumption risk on gold; pure monetary store. Silver has a dual role: monetary and industrial (solar, electronics). Both have 5,000-year track records as money. Central banks are net buyers of gold at record pace right now. They know what’s coming. Since you’re here… you do too.

Oil and energy (the master resource). Everything in industrial civilisation is downstream of energy. A barrel of oil contains the energy equivalent of roughly 4.5 years of human manual labour. It can’t be printed. It is under attack now globally and being fought over.

Agricultural commodities — arguably the most underappreciated. Food is the original hard asset. You can live without gold but not without calories. Soft commodities (cocoa, coffee, sugar) and hard agricultural commodities (wheat, corn, soy) sit at the base of social stability. History is littered with governments that fell not from military defeat but from grain price spikes.

Industrial metals, especially copper. The copper price is essentially a real-time vote on global industrial activity. Also increasingly a monetary metal proxy given its role in electrification, regardless of which energy path dominates.

So the question I asked myself is this: where in the world does something exist that has all or some of these commodities in physical form? And how to move them and turn them liquid?

The Trading House as Hard Asset Node

The answer appears to be trading houses.

A commodity trading house at its core is a node in the physical asset network. It handles the logistics, financing, and title transfer of real goods. The warehouse receipts it holds at any given moment are snapshots of real-world production: tonnes of metal, barrels of oil, bushels of grain.

It makes sense to own a stake in that node. It provides continuous exposure to the physical flow of real assets without having to warehouse them yourself; receipt access as treasury — you’re not holding a gold ETF (someone else’s promise), you’re holding a title document to a specific physical lot; and participation in the spread between jurisdictions — the firm makes money on the arbitrage between where goods are produced and where they’re consumed. That spread is denominated in real goods, not financial engineering.

What’s the alternative? Compare this to holding cash in a bank. The bank holds your deposit as a liability on its balance sheet and lends it out 10:1. You have an unsecured claim on an institution that is itself leveraged against a system that can be inflated, bailed-in, or sanctioned. The warehouse receipt has none of those layers.

The Monetary Reset Angle

The direction of travel globally is already toward commodity-backed settlement.

The BRICS payment system discussions keep circling back to commodity baskets. Saudi Arabia is actively diversifying away from dollar settlement. Russia’s war chest rebuild post-sanctions was done largely through commodity export surpluses held outside Western systems. China has been accumulating gold at the sovereign level while simultaneously building out commodity infrastructure across Africa, South America, and Central Asia.

When — not if — the next monetary architecture emerges, it will be anchored to something real. The countries and entities that hold the physical nodes of that system will be on the right side of the reset.

A trading house stake, held correctly, is a small position in that inevitable infrastructure.

Practical Implication for the Deal

Price the stake in hard asset terms. What quantum of warehouse receipt access does this buy you? Expressed not in dollars but in tonnes of copper equivalent, barrels of oil equivalent, or ounces of gold equivalent.

If a firm has, say, $15 million of inventory at any given time and you own a 20% non-operating stake with receipt participation rights, you have a claim on $3 million of physical commodity inventory. At current gold prices, that’s roughly 1,000 oz gold equivalent.

That’s your real floor. Not the EBITDA multiple.

*  *  *

The shift Chris describes is already underway. The old financial system is being strained by debt, inflation, political pressure, and a growing loss of trust in fiat money. That does not mean you need to predict every detail of what comes next. But it does mean you should understand the forces now reshaping the world—and what they could mean for your wealth, freedom, and future. We’ve prepared a free special report that explains the major economic, political, and cultural trends unfolding right now, the risks they create, and how a contrarian investor can think about staying one step ahead. Click here to get it now now.

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2026 - 17:30

The Path To A September Rate Cut (Despite AI Inflation)

By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

The Path to a September Rate Cut (despite AI inflation)

A lot has changed in the past 24 hours. After Thursday’s CNBC interview, it seemed obvious (to me) that I needed to write about how there is a real path to a Fed Rate Cut in September. Not only has the market priced in a 75% chance of a hike in September, and 1.25 hikes by the December meeting, most have also taken any chance of a cut off the table. I think that is missing the path that I believe Warsh is trying to create. We argued last weekend, The Fed and Rates, that Warsh had curtailed the tail risk on the long end of the curve. We switched from bearish to neutral on the long end of the curve (10s went from 4.46% to 4.37% this week). The more we think about it, the more we believe that he has started us on a path, that despite his hawkish rhetoric, sets up for a cut in September to be followed by another cut in October, just ahead of the midterms.

Two things occurred, making me rethink today’s topic: Iran and doubts about the AI trade.

Those two topics are important enough that we need to at least address them, but in the end, we decided to focus on the path to rate cuts, as the other two stories will take time to play out.

Iran, Attacks Resume, But Ceasefire is Not Officially Broken

Iran and the U.S. exchanged fire on Friday and Saturday, and fighting continues to be a risk this weekend. Academy published a SITREP on The U.S. Strikes Iranian Targets over Ceasefire Violation.

For now, the working assumption is that this round of back-and-forth attacks will not derail the discussions. That both sides were “flexing” to remind the other side of why they are at the table. If the ceasefire breaks down, the hostilities escalate, and the oil trade is once again disrupted, then the odds of a September rate cut look bleak, but for now, that is not our base case on Iran.

There are two things that have not gotten the attention they deserve with respect to oil prices:

• The U.S. drained the SPR (strategic petroleum reserve) rapidly and to its limit, which kept oil prices capped, but that ability is largely gone, so something needs to be done.
• Providing sanction relief to Iranian oil may be as important as re-opening the Strait. Providing sanction relief not only brings more Iranian oil to the market than before, but it also lets them move the oil they were already sending (above sanctioned limits) with a higher degree of flexibility and transparency.
  • The fact that the concept of OPEC seems to be in tatters doesn’t hurt either.

Admirals Joyner and Whitworth, along with Bret Lowry, Maria Donnelly and I (Peter Tchir), touched on the f ragility of the peace between Iran and the U.S. in this month’s Around the World Podcast (iTunes and Spotify). The podcast also provides an update on our take on the Russia/Ukraine war, Cuba (which doesn’t get the attention it deserves), and of course, China and macro.

We need to keep a close eye on Iran, but for now, we see us limping along the path to discussing the details of the rather vague MOU that both sides seem to interpret very differently.

Questioning the AI Growth Story

We continue to see two economies. The AI and Data center economy and the rest of the economy. The former has been generating the jobs, the growth, and the earnings. The SOX Index (Philadelphia Semiconductor Index as if anyone, anywhere doesn’t know what the SOX is at this time) hit a high on Monday before dropping almost 10% from there.

Micron’s earnings call helped generate a rebound on Thursday, but that proved to be short-lived.

Questions are swirling around the spending. The cost of the buildout (more on that later). The utility of AI versus the cost of using AI. At some level, is the cost of using AI rising even faster than the benefits?

The growing angst about AI and Robotics (in our AI Revolution pieces) continues to grow and is something the AI companies need to aggressively address before it becomes a problem (via legislation or taxes, for example).

This isn’t a debate that will be answered today, but it does seem like the market is starting to rethink valuations. Stories were circulating that OpenAI may delay their highly anticipated IPO from this year to 2027. Since there is no official timetable, it is difficult to evaluate the veracity of such news, but it did little to help market sentiment.

It is always risky (and not wise) to publish a chart that one does not really understand. But rarely has the T-Report been accused of being risk averse and wise, so here it goes.

According to Bloomberg the Silicon Data LLM Token Expenditure Index (is a daily statistical benchmark to measure the effective expenditure level of the actively traded broad LLM Market, measuring price per million tokens). Say that ten times quickly!

I really don’t know how good this index is at measuring what it tries to measure (and it is in its infancy in any case), but it seems like something worth paying attention to as we all try to figure out where we are headed on AI spend (not just the spending to build out AI and data centers, but the actual spending on the compute they provide).

For what it’s worth, credit spreads in the sector started to widen recently. Not that problematic and certainly not enough to derail the borrowing to spend, but it is always worth paying attention to credit.

Expect more questions about valuations, even with good news, let alone with bad news.

The Path to a September Rate Cut

Let’s get to the “ fun ” part of today’s Report. We will lay out a case for September Rate Cuts that is entirely consistent with Warsh’s messaging.

We will do this, step by step. Some of the “steps” may seem to be disjointed, but I think they all tie well together.

Miran and The Neutral Rate

Let’s just go back in time, before the U.S. attacked Iran.

Miran was the administration’s inside person on the Fed. I didn’t like that he voted to cut every single time, but I think he did a lot of good work on the Neutral Rate.

The Neutral Rate, like R* and many other things in the field of economics, sounds precise, but is incredibly difficult to measure. There is a range of what the Neutral Rate is at any given time. That range moves along with the economy and technology.

• I felt attacking the neutral rate, and arguing that it was lower than the previous Fed had thought, was a solid argument towards getting cuts. You could probably justify 50 to 100 bps of cuts, just based on arguing that the prior Fed had been wrong on where the neutral rate was.
  • It is not an accident that I try to frame this as the “new” Fed blaming the “old” Fed for mistakes. It is consistent with this admin (and every other administration), to blame prior administrations for mistakes. It is often reserved for Presidents, but the tactic can be applied more broadly.

While no one is talking about the neutral rate today, I think this work will become relevant again.

STOP WITH THE PCE CHATTER!

Surprisingly, few things make my head explode (though high on the list is The Big Short’s portrayal of just a few people seeing cracks in the housing market, when lots of people saw the issue, but got stopped out because they timed it wrong).

But on Thursday my head nearly exploded, as I heard over and over that “ PCE, The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge ” did whatever it did.

I don’t know what it did because the PCE is NOT this Fed’s preferred measure. I’m not even sure if it was Powell’s favorite measure. I’m pretty positive Bernanke said it was the best measure. Maybe Yellen did too? Maybe Powell, though that doesn’t stand out. But I can pretty much guarantee you that Warsh doesn’t stay awake at night looking at PCE data.

The Data Source Task Force

I keep raising my hand (though I’m not sure that is a thing), but I’d love to be on the data source task force. Garbage In, Garbage Out.

This is where we square the circle on Warsh’s tough stance on inflation, with achieving a September Rate Cut.

Which data set do you believe?

The blue line is Owners ’ Equivalent Rent of Residences. It feeds into CPI. You can read the BLS Description. I challenge anyone to read that and argue it reflects anything in the world of renting shelter today.

In our “beloved” CPI, OER didn’t peak until the middle of 2023. Even then it “peaked” at 8%. Zillow peaked at almost 16% back in early 2022! For anyone who remembers the rental market post-Covid, which metric seems right?

Remember Team Transitory, who was still going ahead with QE while “contemplating” a rate cut, basing their assessment on inflation in shelter on OER versus something actually seen in the real world?

What is the BLS & Cleveland Fed New Tenant Repeat Rent NTRR YoY index? If you guessed, worst name ever for an index, you are probably correct! It is an index that the Cleveland Fed introduced (with little fanfare) to try to track rents. Guess what? It tracks the Zillow index pretty darn well!

So, Warsh doesn’t even need to go to outside sources! The Task Force can ask the somewhat obvious question – Why don’t we use the index that the smart people in Cleveland created? They did this work for a reason! They know OER is flawed. Maybe OER needs to be in CPI because it takes an act of Congress to change the CPI calculation (because it is used for Social Security benefits). But maybe, just maybe, someone at the Fed can say we should base monetary policy on something that resembles the real world, instead of some archaic, obsolete metric?

Two things come out of this work:

• The Team Transitory mistake was waiting too long to tighten monetary policy, because they were looking at the wrong data.
• Affordability, not inflation, is the bigger problem people face, and the affordability problem was a 2021/2022 problem, that was NEVER picked up accurately by the inflation data.

Now let’s go back to PCE and bring back Truflation.

I put the “green” line for inflation target at 2.9% rather than 2%. Yes, we have been “conditioned” to treat 2% as the target, but Warsh did “hint” that the left side (i.e., “big figure”) is more important than the total or “rounded” number. Sure, 2.9% isn’t 2%, but expect to be “conditioned” over the coming months to see that 2 point something is close enough to 2.

Truflation core is currently at 1.45% and has been below 1.8% since February.

Truflation produces real-time, daily inflation indices and other economic data to provide a more transparent and current view of the market than traditional government-reported metrics. Unlike monthly, survey- based methods, Truflation’s indices are compiled using extensive datasets (you had me at real time. You also had me at datasets).

It is also quite obvious, that had Team Transitory even glanced at Truflation we might have moved to tighter monetary policy sooner?

The same two mistakes that show up in housing show up in this as well:

• The Team Transitory mistake was waiting too long to tighten monetary policy, because they were looking at the wrong data.
• Affordability, not inflation, is the bigger problem people face, and the affordability problem was a 2021/2022 problem, that was NEVER picked up accurately by the inflation data.

The Data Source Task Force will come back with data that provides cover to cut and that data is likely better for basing decisions on, than the data the Fed has been wedded to!

Affordability NOT Inflation

I’m not even sure how to “fix” this chart, but I will figure it out (maybe with the help of AI).

We don’t look at the CPI data series very often. We tend to focus on monthly or annual changes. But affordability is the cumulative effect and that is what is hitting people.

• Given what we saw with Truflation and with rent, I suspect that CPI understates the real-world problem – by a LOT. And the problem is primarily a 2021 and 2022 problem!

I think there are cases to be made around past mistakes being made because the wrong data was used.

Avoiding future mistakes by looking at the correct data makes sense!

The Impact of the War Being “Over”

We can quibble about whether the war is over or not, but going back to Academy’s SITREP, we expect peace talks to continue, and the flow of oil to also continue.

Yes, there are problems in the energy ecosystem. We are “higher for longer” in prices, from oil out to January, to diesel, etc., but by all accounts the worst is behind us.

Why would we possibly be pricing in war impacts on inflation, when we seem to be in some new status quo? Maybe I spend too much time with geopolitical experts, but we don’t see a return to full hostilities, or significantly higher oil prices. Again, the removal of sanctions is a big deal.

The Administration’s Goals Have NOT Changed

The President didn’t wake up one day a few weeks ago, and tell Warsh, go ahead and hike. The President, as I believe he reiterated again this week, says he knows a lot about real estate and lower rates help real estate.

So, you can believe that Warsh is truly hawkish, that Bessent no longer cares about 3, 3, 3, and the President is oblivious to his hand-picked Fed Chair being hawkish (a chair who will likely spend Thanksgiving dinner at the home of his father-in-law, a large Trump donor), or you can think about what “master plan” is behind all of this.

Imagine (it is easy if you try) that Warsh convinced Trump that sounding dovish right now would be a disaster. Imagine (again, it is easy if you try) that he convinced the President to let me sound hawkish on inflation. That my hawkish message will control the long end of the yield curve (which it did). That we will convince every reporter and Wall Street analyst to believe we are going to hike and fight inflation. That we are retaining our independence (which they will to a degree).

And then Mr. President, this is the “good” part, data will start rolling our way. Inflation is already overpriced and with the war ending, it will come down more. Then, we will argue (persuasively, because it is true) that we should use other sources of data that show lower inflation.

Then, Mr. President, we will dazzle them with “neutral rate” mumbo jumbo. It has always been mumbo jumbo, but we will use it to our advantage.

Then, when the hawks and “dumocrats” (or is it spelled with a b?) say we are not protecting the people against inflation, we will point out it is all about affordability and the prior administration and “their” Fed (despite Powell being appointed by Trump) being “too late” resulting in “the mess” we are in.

You can agree or disagree with anything I just wrote on “political” grounds or otherwise, but can you really argue that it cannot play out that way?

AI and Data Center Inflation

Do you know what sort of spending is not affected by 50 bps of hikes?

• Spending by companies trading at 100x some multiple! (Ok, probably some hyperbole here, again, but seriously, 50 bps of hikes is meaningless to the data center/AI build). Just look at the price of electricity. Hiking to slow down AI/Data center spending (which is inflationary for now), will be incredibly ineffective/useless. The people hurt by 50 bps of hikes aren’t the ones driving inflation, they are the ones trying to stay one step ahead of the Repo Man (still a bizarre movie).

AAPL dropped after announcing some price hikes. The price hikes on relatively expensive things to begin with (the upper part of the k rather than the lower part). But the market, I believe, perceived that those price hikes would not be absorbed easily. If one of the largest consumer product companies raises prices and the market questions their ability to pass on costs, what does that mean for the

average company selling to consumers? I don’t read that as inflationary.

Someone in my stream, who I cannot seem to find at the moment, pointed out that some of the survey data pointed to increases in prices paid, and declines in prices received. Bad for margins, but hardly inflationary.

Anecdotally, and this was somewhat confirmed by a chip company we met with recently. Remember when they were “giving away” memory? I looked at updating my 5-year-old desktop. I have 64 gig of RAM. I do remember paying “up” for the upgrade. While today’s RAM is better, faster, etc., I was shocked, that most desktops came with 32 gig as standard and 64 gig was a relatively costly upgrade.

This feeds back into the “ are AI/Data Centers getting too expensive” question? And yes, it is inflationary, but has nothing to do with the true affordability or the inflation problems many are dealing with.

Bottom Line

Look for the market to start pricing in rate cuts. If there is one “pound the table message” I’d give, it is lower yields at the front end of the curve. The “hike” community is applying the wrong data to this Fed.

I’m less clear on the long end, but I’m neutral, to even slightly bullish on 10s. Bessent wants a 3 handle. Warsh took out the tail risk. There are all sorts of headwinds facing the longer end of the yield curve, but I think with some “appropriate” timing, the admin can launch Operation Twist with some other tools and force the long end lower.

I’m far from certain on AI/Data Center valuations.

I think with recent weakness, go heavily overweight energy, especially nuclear across the globe. As the President focuses on domestic issues, energy and electricity production remains front and center. Even Europe is nearing that point.

Lean heavily on ProSec and overweight the biotech/pharma component, while underweight the chip component (still a critical part of ProSec but not where the best value is).

Look for credit spreads to come under some pressure, as the big tech/data center/AI/space issuers have more to do and are less price sensitive than we are used to, because their multiples allow them to be less price sensitive. Just like their potential to issue more equity (after years of buybacks) is weighing on their equity.

While Bitcoin and crypto in general aren’t moving markets like they once did (thanks to prediction markets and leveraged ETFs, etc.), the losses in crypto may slow down the “gambling” crowd, which won’t help equities in general, especially the high-flyer, momentum stocks that have benefited most from this crowd.

Good luck and get ready for another short week, that will probably feel much longer than 4 days!

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2026 - 16:20

Next Switzerland Talks 'Stalled' After Past Days' Flare-Up In US-Iran Fighting

(Update1500ET): An expected next round of US-Iran talks in Switzerland has been 'stalled' by the latest fighting flare up in the Strait of Hormuz, after US forces bombed Iran's coast a couple times - and following more Iranian 'retaliation' on Gulf states, as well as against at least two international vessels in the Strait. WSJ is reporting Sunday:

The fighting has rattled shipowners and has thrown a budding reopening of the waterway into doubt, threatening the key achievement of Trump’s preliminary deal, which pushes discussions of more contentious issues, including Iran’s nuclear program, into a second phase.

Those talks were expected to resume this weekend in Switzerland but have been stalled by the fighting, people familiar with the matter said.

This should come as no surprise, however, neither side has yet announced they are fully walking away, amid this testing of each's red lines.

Increased chatter that the Iranians may not dispatch a delegation for technical talks with the U.S. due to start in Switzerland tomorrow.

Foolish decision if it proves accurate. https://t.co/aTvDucLDqq

— Ali Vaez (@AliVaez) June 28, 2026

*  *  *

“The Strait of Hormuz will return to its pre-war operating conditions within 30 days under a management framework implemented by Iran," Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has warned during a joint press conference with his Iraqi counterpart Fuad Hussein. 

The timing behind his visit to Baghdad is interesting, right at the moment a widening corruption sweep conducted by elements of the Iraqi government, which has unleashed mass protests and unrest outside Baghdad's Green Zone. The symbolism of defiance and readiness to fight was on display too, given Araghchi's corresponding visit to the site of former IRGC Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani's assassination outside Baghdad Airport.

Source: WANA News Agency

Iraq's state-run Iraqi News Agency reported that several political figures were arrested in a corruption probe tied to testimony from former Deputy Oil Minister Adnan al-Jumaili, who was detained last month.

As we reported earlier, security forces locked down Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone and carried out raids inside the government and embassy district that sits on the west bank of the Tigris River. It contains key Iraqi state institutions, including parliament and government offices, as well as foreign embassies, most notably the US Embassy.

As for Aragchi, he also also called on "all parties to refrain from interfering in Iran's management of the strait and to allow the memorandum to proceed as agreed."

This also as a separate statement out of the Iranian government condemned what it called severe violations of the ceasefire and agreed-to Memorandum of Understanding by the US.

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) spokesman Brig. Gen. Hossein Mohebbi vowed harsher retaliation in the scenario of any new US attacks.

"We have responded, and will continue to respond, to every action the enemy takes in this regard. We reiterate: if the enemy breaks its commitments and violates the ceasefire, we will respond more forcefully than before," said Mohebbi.

Crucially while in Iraq Sunday the top Iranian diplomat FM Araghchi visited the site where Qasem Soleimani, the former IRGC Quds Force commander, was killed in a US strike during the first Trump term:

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is in Iraq today and visited the site where Qasem Soleimani, the former IRGC Quds Force commander, was killed in a U.S. strike during the first Trump administration. pic.twitter.com/p1jRdroKtD

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) June 28, 2026

The aforementioned major Baghdad protests triggered by the ongoing anti-corruption sweep appears aimed at Iraq's political class aligned with Iran. The US has long sought to peel away this influence, which ironically became solidified only in wake of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and overthrow of Baathist secular Sunni strongman Saddam Hussein. 

The timing is also critical, coming just after Iran targeted Bahrain and Kuwait with drones and missiles in response to US strikes. That suggests Baghdad, with US influence, may be moving to eliminate Iran-linked networks inside Iraq before they can become a more worrisome pressure point.

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2026 - 15:00

"Navigation Extremely Limited": Top Shipper Warns IRGC Mines Complicate Hormuz Normalization

The top executive of Japan's largest shipping company told the Financial Times in an exclusive weekend interview that the path toward normalization in the Strait of Hormuz remains far more complicated than anticipated. He warned that shipping volumes may stay well below prewar levels for months, as IRGC-laid mines are forcing vessels into narrow, safer corridors near Iran and Oman.

"The routes available for navigation are extremely limited — they're very narrow corridors," Takaya Soga, chief executive of Japan's NYK Line, told the outlet. "We're still nowhere near returning to conditions before the closure of the Strait of Hormuz."

The warning comes days after International Maritime Organization Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez stated that IRGC forces had laid 80 naval mines across the main shipping channels in Hormuz.

Tanker transits through Hormuz have gradually resumed in recent weeks following the interim peace deal between the U.S. and Iran, with tracked vessel traffic peaking at 57 transits last Wednesday. That figure, however, likely understates the true level of activity, as the Bloomberg data captures only vessels with transponders.

Related:

• Tanker Rates Nearly Halve As Hormuz Shipping Normalizes

Last week, IRGC forces warned that commercial vessels must coordinate with Iran's naval command before transiting Hormuz and cautioned against using unauthorized routes. That warning was followed by an attack on an Evergreen-operated container ship, U.S. retaliatory strikes against Iran, and a subsequent Iranian response targeting Bahrain and Kuwait this weekend.

UK maritime authorities also reported that a tanker's bridge was damaged by an unidentified projectile. Meanwhile, Iraqi forces locked down Baghdad's Green Zone and arrested pro-Iranian political officials under the guise of a corruption probe, suggesting the regional pressure campaign is now spilling into Iraq.

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2026 - 14:35

Are The Epstein Survivors Being Exploited Yet Again?

Authored by Nick Bryant,

On February 8, 2026, the advocacy group World Without Exploitation launched a 40-second public service announcement during the Super Bowl featuring Jeffrey Epstein survivors demanding the full release of federal files related to Epstein's sex trafficking network.

The Epstein survivors held up pictures of themselves when they were initially abused by Epstein as minors or young women. "After years of being kept apart, we're standing together," they said.

The background was pitch black, and the music was haunting.

The PSA ended with the following: "Stand With Us. Tell Attorney General Pam Bondi IT'S TIME FOR THE TRUTH."

As a longtime advocate for justice in the Epstein case, the PSA felt like a supernova. I felt an eruption of gratitude. But as my elation faded, I wondered how World Without Exploitation could afford the PSA.

The co-founders of World Without Exploitation, Lauren Hersh and Rachel Foster, have certainly generated remarkable fanfare. In fact, they've even been hailed as two of Time magazine's most influential 100 people of 2026.

I'm the director of Epstein Justice, a 501(c)(3), and our raison d'être is an independent congressional commission to investigate the Epstein case. Like many nonprofits, we struggle to find funders. So, I've marveled at the success of World Without Exploitation, which was founded in 2016. By 2019, the Atlanta Jewish Times reports, World Without Exploitation was the "umbrella group of 140 organizations." The landing page of its website states: "Our 175+ member groups are working to end exploitation."

But I started to hear whispers about World Without Exploitation that were less than stellar. Let's dive in.

The Strange Case of World Without Exploitation Co-Founder Lauren Hersh

On paper, Hersh would appear to have impeccable credentials to be the director of an organization dedicated to ending exploitation. She joined the Brooklyn (King's County) District Attorney's office in 2004 after graduating from Brooklyn Law School, then transitioned to the domestic violence bureau before joining the rackets division, where she ultimately became "chief" of the Brooklyn District Attorney's Sex Trafficking Unit. Yet Hersh's last case as a Brooklyn Assistant District Attorney would be marred by apparent prosecutorial misconduct. The case involved the alleged trafficking and rape of a young woman by four men.

The Backstory of Hersh's Resignation from the Brooklyn DA's Office

On March 31, 2010, a 22-year-old Brooklyn woman told NYPD officers that Damien Crooks took her to a party, where she was raped and beaten. She said that she managed to escape her abusers and phoned her best friend. Her friend took her to the police, and she was then sent to the hospital. A June 2, 2012, New York Times article reports that at 6:30 AM the following morning, the young woman talked to an NYPD detective and filed a formal statement, discussing rapes, beatings, and Crooks pimping her out. She said she was "afraid for her life."

By 10:45 AM, however, she was interviewed again by a second NYPD detective and recanted her prior statements. She informed the detective interviewing her that she was a prostitute, was not forcibly raped by Crooks, and had had consensual intercourse with him several times over the preceding years. The detective wrote that the accuser promulgated her allegations, because one of the men at the party had sex with her, and he hadn't worn a condom and hit her. The following day, the NYPD terminated its investigation - a turn of events that would prove integral to Herch's prosecutorial problems.

But the woman's allegations were not without foundation. She lived in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which has been a melting pot for both Orthodox Jews and African Americans. Crooks lived in the house directly behind her family's house.

The young woman said she'd been molested by a family member. She also said her teenage nightmare continued when her brother asked her to purchase marijuana from Jawara Brockett who lived nearby. As her brother waited for her downstairs, she said she was forced to have oral, anal and vaginal sex with three men that included purported perpetrator Jawara Brockett.

The alleged victim claimed that she quickly became immersed in a double life. Women at a neighborhood hair salon remembered a teenager regularly ducking into the salon's bathroom, where she disrobed from long dresses and slipped into clothes suited for working the streets.

There is a picture of the alleged victim donning a crimson dress - surrounded by black men, including one she named as a perpetrator. Like the men, her hand is rounded into a "C," which law enforcement asserts is a signal for Crips. One of her alleged perpetrators, Jamali Brockett, would ultimately be sentenced to 24 years in prison on unrelated federal charges for sex trafficking women and minors.

Police records reveal that when she was 13 and 14 years old, in 2004 and 2004, she phoned the police at least four times to report assaults and provided her address. The NYPD said that one arrest was made because of the alleged victim's complaints in 2003, but the responding commanders didn't remember meeting her father, who claimed that the police never visited their family home. Her best friend also said that she approached police officers on the street as a teenager, but they had a callous attitude: "You put yourself in this situation, you get yourself out."

In September of 2004, the alleged victim said a tipping point occurred: a "client" stabbed her. By the time she made it home at 3:00 AM her sweatshirt was drenched in blood. Her panic-stricken parents met her at the front door - and would eventually place their teenage daughter in a psychiatric hospital. She was discharged in 2006, finished high school, and enrolled in John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

The young woman maintained that Crooks' threats against her sister drove her back into a life of prostitution.

Hersh Forces Botched Indictments

In June of 2010, approximately two months after the young woman recanted her allegations to the NYPD, she met with Hersh and others associated with the Brooklyn District Attorney's office, and despite the young woman's earlier recantation these officials nonetheless prepared her for a grand jury appearance based on her first statement to the NYPD. Hersh presented the case to a Brooklyn grand jury.

The grand jury returned multiple indictments against four African Americans. Damien Crooks was charged with four counts of rape and two counts of sex trafficking, and Jamali Brockett was charged with rape, compelling prostitution, and criminal sex acts. The Brooklyn DA also indicted Jawara Brockett and Darrell Dula for rape.

The Brooklyn DA's office reported that the men began sexually assaulting the victim when she was just 13 years old, and then they forced her into a life of prostitution until she was 21 years old. She said she came forward because the men had threatened to harm a family member.

"That's when she realized she had no choice but to say something," said Hersh.

The judge set bail at $1 million for Crooks and $50,000 for Dula. They were arrested at the end of June in 2011 and incarcerated on Rikers Island. Jamali Brockett and Jawara Brockett had already been incarcerated on unrelated charges.

April of 2012 was a cruel month for the Brooklyn DA. It was nearly a year after Crooks et al. had been incarcerated while awaiting trial. Assistant District Attorney Abbie Greenberger had been assigned to prosecute the case. Though she found the evidence in the case to be problematic, Hersh pressured her into prosecuting it anyway. In April, Greenberger resigned.

"When I brought the inconsistencies to Lauren Hersh, I was told that I didn't do my job right and that I'm trying to dismiss the case and that I should work harder," Greenberger told the New York Daily News.

Assistant District Attorney Rebecca Gingold was then assigned to the case, and she discovered that Hersh failed to disclose the existence of the alleged victim's recantation. Gingold provided it to the men's defense attorneys.

Greenberger also specified that she didn't know about the recantation before she resigned. "I feel horrible about Dula," Greenberger said. The alleged victim had not named Dula as a perpetrator in her initial statement to the NYPD.

A New York Times article from May 25, 2012, reports that Crook's attorney, Elliot Kay "said prosecutors had turned over another batch of evidence in April that included a document produced by the district attorney's office with a handwritten note referring to a recantation, indicating that prosecutors knew, before Ms. Hersh presented the case to the grand jury, that the accuser had changed her account. The grand jury indicted Mr. Dula and Mr. Crooks on rape stemming from the episode that the alleged victim had recanted."

A civil lawsuit filed by Damien Crooks' attorneys stated he consented to submit DNA before the grand jury, but it "appears" that his tests were not conducted.

After the Brooklyn DA's office severely fumbled the ball, Justice John Walsh of the King's County Supreme Court ordered that Crooks and Dula be released from their 10-month incarceration at Rikers Island. The Brockett brothers remained incarcerated on separate charges, but the charges against the men in the rape case were dismissed.

Damien Crooks in court, April 2012

In May of 2012, Hersh resigned from the Brooklyn DA's office four hours after appearing before an ethics panel. And while the panel found "insufficient evidence" to sanction Hersh, her botched prosecution of the case ultimately ensured that justice would be conclusively denied for the alleged victim, and the grand jury was an additional trauma that she had to endure.

Crooks sued the City of New York for false arrest, malicious prosecution, negligence, and being deprived of his rights under the Constitution of the United States and New York State. He was represented by the New York-based law firm of Sullivan, Papain, Block, McGrath & Cannavo and received a settlement for an undisclosed amount.

Dula sued the City of New York for false arrest, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, defamation and violation of due process.

"I deposed the Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes," said Jonathan Sims, who represented Dula in his civil lawsuit against New York City. "Hynes said that he had authorized Hersh to bring this case before a grand jury. But after the grand jury, he was alerted to the recantation, and also to the fact that the woman had not initially implicated my client. Hynes testified that if he were aware of those facts, he wouldn't have authorized a grand jury, and obviously the recantation was not presented to the grand jury."

Sims said that Dula settled his civil lawsuit against New York City for $750,000

One Epstein survivor told me that Hersh had privately claimed she resigned from the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office because, while working on a human trafficking case, she discovered her boss’s name and phone number in the records of a trafficking ring she was investigating. Charles Hynes, now deceased, was the Brooklyn DA at the time of Hersh’s resignation. Abbie Greenberger declined to comment for this article. 

I emailed various questions to Hersh, and one of the questions pertained to her account of the circumstances surrounding her departure from the Brookyln DA’s office, but she didn’t respond to my questions.

Approximately four years after Hersh resigned as a Brookyln assistant district attorney, she and Rachel Foster started World Without Exploitation.

World Without Exploitation, Tides, and "Dark Money"

After reading about the revelations about Hersh's resignation from the Brooklyn District Attorney's office, I started delving into World Without Exploitation. I noticed that the organization didn't file 990s. A 990 is an annual return that federally tax-exempt organizations file every year, which reports on its financial information, program accomplishments, and compliance with IRS codes.

World Without Exploitation does not file its own 990s, because it is a "fiscally sponsored project" of "Tides." The Tides Network contains five separate legal entities: Tides Center, Tides Advocacy, Tides Foundation, Tides Two Rivers Fund, and Tides Inc. According to a Tides Network 990 from 2024, the Network had $846,636,595 in "total assets."

Tides was founded by entrepreneur Drummond Pike in 1976, and he served as its CEO until November 2010. Pike is a progressive, and Tides primarily funds progressive organizations and causes. Tides was a former fiscal sponsor of Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, but Tides and BLM GNF had a very acrimonious split. In a scathing 2024 lawsuit, BLM GNF claimed that Tides withheld $33.4 million from it, alleging myriad transgressions that included breach of contract, fraud, financial mismanagement, and intentional wrongdoing. However, BLM GNF dismissed its lawsuit against Tides and retracted all its allegations.

The Tides Network grants its donors anonymity and allows donors, unions, and corporations to donate unlimited amounts of "dark money" to their recipients of choice - dark money refers to donations that are designed to influence elections or policies without disclosing their donors to the public. Tides terms the practice "donor advised funds," which "provide our partners with an efficient, high-impact way to champion social justice leaders driving change."

Though Tides is intentionally opaque regarding its donors, its website from January 17, 2011 through September 16, 2017 listed its "partnership" with the California Endowment, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Open Society Institute, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Gates Foundation, and the Ford Foundation. Tides also received $27 million from the U.S. Agency for International Development from 2016 to 2024.

I've repeatedly asked a Tides representative to disclose the amount of funding Tides allocates to World Without Exploitation, but my emails haven't been returned.

Tides and the Epstein "Family"

As I researched World Without Exploitation and Tides, I typed "Tides" into the search engine of the Department of Justice's Epstein Library, and I found a $100,000 check from Tides to the "TERRAMAR PROJECT" "ATTN: MS. GHISLAINE MAXWELL." The Terramar Project was a nonprofit organization founded by Ghislaine Maxwell that ostensibly focused on ocean conservation. The check was dated June 6, 2014. In December of 2021, Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking and recruiting and grooming teenage girls for Jeffrey Epstein. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

I found that disclosure to be disconcerting, and I continued searching for "Tides" in the Epstein Library. I then found an enigmatic email, dated February 26, 2011, from Jes Staley to Jeffrey Epstein that merely had the address of the Tides Foundation. The thread starts out with Staley asking a redacted name: "Where does Gary work?" The email thread then has Jes Staley's brother, Peter, forwarding the address of Tides to Jes Staley, and the latter forwarding it to Epstein. According to Philanthropy New York, Gary Schwartz had multiple roles at Tides for 14 years before becoming Tides' interim CEO in 2013. Schwartz became the Senior Director of the Novo Foundation in 2015.

Though Jes Staley forwarding the address of Tides to Epstein is seemingly innocuous, Staley himself is not. Staley was formerly the CEO of Barclays and CEO of JP Morgan Asset Management. In a May 27, 2010, email to then-Prince Andrew, Epstein referred to Staley as "family." Documentation from the Epstein files notes serious accusations of sadistic sexual misconduct by Staley: he forced a woman to touch his genitals during a massage and then raped her, and he also left "bloody marks" on the arms of a woman he called "Tinkerbell".

Google Epstein Island

Google co-founder Sergey Brin has also been affiliated with both Epstein and Tides. A January 31, 2026, New York Times article, "Powerful Men Who Turn Up in the New Batch of Epstein Files," published in the wake of the latest tranche of Epstein files, describes facets of Brin's relationship with Maxwell and Epstein.

"Brin, the co-founder of Google and one of the richest men in the world, visited Epstein's private island near St. Thomas, made plans to dine at Epstein's New York home and corresponded with Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's longtime companion and convicted co-conspirator, according to the documents released Friday.

'Dinners at Jeffrey's are always happily casual and relaxed,' Maxwell wrote to Brin in April 2003. 'Look forward to seeing you.'

It has long been known that Epstein introduced executives at JPMorgan to Brin, whose net worth exceeds $250 billion, helping the bank land him as a client.

Sarah Ransome, one of Epstein's accusers, claimed in court documents in 2024 that she had met Brin and his then-fiancée, Anne Wojcicki, on Epstein's island, which was the center of his sex trafficking operation for many years. One of Epstein's former boat captains told The New York Times earlier this year that he had seen Brin on the island more than once."

As mentioned, Tides offers donor anonymity, which makes it difficult to discern its donors and their donations. But a February 2nd, 2023, article from Inside Philanthropy reports that the Sergey Brin Family Foundation had $5 billion in assets as of 2021. And dating back to at least 2017, his foundation channeled money through the Tides Foundation to causes like Black Lives Matter and public safety reform. Moreover, as of 2023, Brin's foundation continues to "funnel money" for various causes through Tides.

Epstein's "Go To" Shrink

Billionaire and famed psychiatrist Henry Jarecki has been relatively unscathed by his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, even though he is prominently displayed in Epstein's Black Book with at least 13 contact numbers, and he also appears on Epstein's flight logs. And like Epstein, Jarecki owns a private island in the Virgin Islands.

In 2024, Jane Doe 11 filed a lawsuit contending that Epstein introduced her to Jarecki for the treatment of depression that was the result of Epstein's abuse, and Jarecki raped Jane Doe 11 on her initial visit. She also accused Jarecki of "coercing her into being his modern-day sex slave" over the course of three years.

The lawsuit alleged that Jarecki was Epstein's "go-to-doctor" for his victims.

The lawsuit also claimed that Jarecki used testosterone pills to increase his sex drive, and he frequently forced Jane Doe 11 to have sex with other men in front of him.

Jarecki has adamantly denied her allegations, claiming the relationship was consensual.

Brad Edwards, a lawyer for the accuser, wrote in an email to CNBC, "A 'consensual' relationship to describe a patient 60 years his junior, referred by Jeffrey Epstein, and known to be a sexual abuse victim, is a creative 'defense,' if nothing else."

Jane Doe 11 ultimately recanted her accusation about Jarecki. And the lawsuit was "dismissed with prejudice," which means the case is permanently closed and barred from being refiled. A case dismissed with prejudice indicates the case was settled or the judge dismissed it due to a party's wrongdoing or lack of evidence.

Prior to suing Jarecki, Jane Doe 11 received compensation from a fund established for victims of Epstein.

Astonishingly, Epstein sent Jarecki a 2011 email that excoriated Jarecki for mistreating people!

Jarecki is the president and founder of the Falconwood Foundation, which donated $2 million to Tides in 2020.

Gates, Epstein, and Tides

The Epstein documents released in January contain July 2013 emails that Epstein sent to himself, which appear to be drafts earmarked for Bill Gates. The drafts, if factual, portray Gates as a rather unpleasant individual. The drafts indicate that Gates wanted Epstein to participate in "unethical" and possibly "illegal" behavior, from facilitating trysts with married women to providing Gates with drugs to "deal with the consequences of sex" with Russian girls. In a second email, Epstein wrote that Gates requested Epstein provide him with "antibiotics" that Gates could "surreptitiously" slip his wife after Gates apparently gave her an STD.

Tides listed a "partnership" with the "Gates Foundation" from January 17, 2011 through September 16, 2017. But I cannot find Tides mentioning the Gates Foundation on its website after September of 2017. However, in 2022, 2023, and 2024, respectively, the Gates Foundation gave Tides' entities $300,000, $7,540,812, and $2,795,174.

As previously mentioned, I emailed various questions to Hersh. One question pertained to whether or not she was aware that Epstein cronies or perpetrators have given millions of dollars to Tides, and I also inquired if she were aware of any monies that Epstein cronies or perpetrators donated to Tides that were ultimately allocated to World Without Exploitation. Again, she did not answer my questions.

Reid Hoffman and World Without Exploitation

Like his PayPal alumni Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman had a furtive association with Jeffrey Epstein. Hoffman was on PayPal's board of directors when it was founded, and he became its chief operating officer. Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal, called Hoffman PayPal's "firefighter in chief," because the company had numerous glitches in its early days. Hoffman was also a co-founder of LinkedIn, which was acquired by Microsoft for $26.2 billion in 2016. After the sale of LinkedIn, Hoffman joined Microsoft's board of directors.

Also like Musk and Thiel, Hoffman has a tenuous relationship with the truth about Jeffrey Epstein. Business Insider reports that Hoffman wrote: "My few Interactions with Jeffrey Epstein came at the request of Joi Ito, for the purposes of fundraising for the MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology] Media Lab. Prior to these interactions, I was told by Joi that Epstein had cleared the MIT vetting process, which was the basis for my participation." Ito was the director of the MIT Media Lab, and he resigned after his financial ties to Epstein were exposed.

But after the tranche of Epstein files was released in January, Hoffman confessed that he had meetings with Epstein from 2016 to 2018, even though he had previously said they last met in 2015.

In November 2014, Hoffman and Ito took a private flight to Epstein's island in the US Virgin Islands. Epstein then paid for Hoffman to fly to New York, and Hoffman spent the night at Epstein's Upper East Side mansion. Afterward, Hoffman attended a breakfast with Bill Gates and other high-profile guests that was organized by Epstein.

On Christmas Eve of 2014, Hoffman sent a pair of presents to Epstein: ice cream for Epstein and "the girls" and "something that may strike your funny bone for the island." The present for the island was from an artist who creates sculptures of little monsters out of recycled metal. A spokesperson for Hoffman later stated that "the girls" referred to adult members of Epstein's team.

In a January 8, 2015, email, Hoffman was evidently aware of Epstein receiving unflattering "recent press." The genesis of the "recent press" was a motion filed in federal court on December 30th, 2014, by lawyers Brad Edwards and Paul Cassell on behalf of Epstein victims Jane Doe #3 and Jane Doe #4. Jane Doe #3 was Virginia Giuffre, and she named Epstein, Maxwell, Alan Dershowitz, and the individual formerly known as Prince Andrew as among her perpetrators.

The motion produced a media firestorm whose epicenter was Jeffrey Epstein, and Hoffman wanted to assist Epstein in counteracting the media firestorm by "looking for help on the on-line front."

In an email dated August 20, 2015, from Epstein to Tom Pritzker, Epstein wrote that he had a "wild" dinner with Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and Reid Hoffman. The dinner was hosted by Hoffman in Palo Alto.

The New York Post reports that Epstein even set up a meeting with Hoffman and formerly-Prince Andrew.

Which Brings Us Back To the 2026 Super Bowl

Prior to the Super Bowl PSA, World Without Exploitation produced a PSA for Monday Night Football, which averages 15 million viewers per game, and a 30-second spot costs an average of $500,000. The one-minute PSA aired during a commercial break in the fourth quarter of the Cowboys-Raiders game on November 17, 2025, and, like the Super Bowl PSA, it featured Epstein survivors talking directly to the camera, holding up pictures of themselves as minors or young women, when they were initially abused by Epstein. The following day, the House voted 427-1 and the Senate unanimously to pass the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

A November 17, 2025, Daily Beast article, "Trump Enemy Spends a Fortune on Epstein Ad," reports that a "billionaire Trump foe helped Jeffrey Epstein's survivors to confront Congress by funding a prime-time ad calling for the full release of the files related to the dead pedophile financier." The billionaire foe was Reid Hoffman, who even tweeted about his contribution on X: "The Epstein Files must be released, in full. Tonight, I supported World Without Exploitation to run this ad on Monday Night Football, calling for exactly that."

Time magazine, which, as mentioned, named World Without Exploitation co-founders Hersh and Foster as two of the 100 most influential people of 2026, gave a step-by-step account of the Monday Night Football PSA:

"Hersch[sic] and her team hired film teams in Los Angeles and New York to interview survivors. But when they sat down to look at the footage collected on soundstages in those coastal caverns, they realized their best material came not from the scripted readings, but from the impromptu observations. "You don't really hear much of the script in the actual PSA because what ended up happening in the space was just so moving. These women came together, the raw emotion that surfaced because of the bond that they shared was so powerful," Hersh said months later. Initially, the ad was just going to go online. Once it went viral, it caught the eye of a donor - LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman - who helped it air during Monday Night Football, hours before House lawmakers were set to vote."

In addition to Hoffman supporting World Without Exploitation, the Hoffman-affiliated, non-profit organization American Future Republic played an integral role in funding the expenses for E. Jean Carroll's civil lawsuits against Donald Trump. A 2023 jury found that Trump was liable for sexual abuse and defamation and awarded Carroll $5 million in damages. A second jury, in 2024, found him liable for defamation and awarded $83.3 million in damages to Carroll. Both judgments were upheld on appeal.

Hoffman's American Future Republic is now facing a Justice Department probe, and he is accusing the Trump administration of waging lawfare against him.

Hoffman posted the following on X: "Trump cannot be allowed to use the full weight and power of the US Government to come after women who speak up, or anyone who supports them in doing so."

Hoffman's financial support for abused children via the World Without Exploitation seems to qualify him for a rarefied Mother Theresa-like sainthood. But before Hoffman is canonized, his motives for financially supporting World Without Exploitation should be scrutinized, because they appear to be highly calculated. Judging by Hoffman's email correspondences with Epstein, he didn't care about the welfare of the Epstein victims. His only concern was whitewashing Epstein's former predations. Hoffman's apparent indifference to the Epstein victims and his seemingly incongruous support for the World Without Exploitation's Monday Night Football PSA indicate that the Epstein survivors were being used for a political agenda.

Unfortunately, the Epstein survivors have been repeatedly betrayed by every facet of our government, and now they've seemingly been used for political expedience.

The Monday Night Football PSA was a pittance compared to the Super Bowl PSA. A 30-second advertisement during the Super Bowl has a hefty price tag of $7 to $ 8 million. Hoffman and World Without Exploitation were transparent about the Monday Night Football PSA, but I've been unable to find a price tag and funder information for the Super Bowl PSA.

The latest tranche of Epstein files dropped on January 30 - nine days before the Super Bowl. Hoffman lobbied for the release of the Epstein files, but he was apparently blind to the fact that they portrayed him in an extremely negative light. When I asked Hoffman via X chat if he contributed to World Without Exploitation's Super Bowl PSA, he declined to comment. Hoffman is a partner at Greylock Partners, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, and I emailed him at two Greylock Partners' email addresses: the general email of company and also what is reported to be his personal email. But, once more, he declined to comment.

I also asked Hersh if Hoffman contributed to World Without Exploitation's Super Bowl PSA, but, again, she didn't respond to any of my questions

Hoffman’s past communications with Epstein, as revealed in the Epstein files, show no evident concern for the victims. This raises legitimate questions about whether World Without Exploitation’s leadership was aware of those documented associations if it accepted Hoffman’s funding for the Super Bowl PSA.

The Epstein survivor who commented earlier about Hersh leaving the Brooklyn DA also expressed frustration with what they described as World Without Exploitation's involvement in certain advocacy efforts, telling me: "The Epstein survivors and their attorneys had a Zoom meeting with congressional policymakers that focused on our demands for justice. But somehow Lauren and Rachel were invited to the Zoom meeting, and they brought their PR people, which I thought was a huge violation of our confidentiality."

I heard an allegation that I've unable to corroborate: World Without Exploitation personnel actually decided which Epstein survivors would testify at the House Oversight Committee's "shadow" hearing held on May 12 in West Palm Beach, Florida. Again, I queried Hersh about that allegation but an answer wasn't forthcoming.

A second Epstein survivor questions the motives of World Without Exploitation: "Everything they're doing seems to be driven by a political agenda and personal gain instead of an agenda for justice."

Moreover, should anti-trafficking and anti-exploitation organizations have opaque funding? Because World Without Exploitation operates as a fiscally sponsored project of Tides, the ultimate sources of some of its funding are not disclosed in public filings in the same way they would be for an independent 501(c)(3). This structure makes it significantly more difficult to trace the origins of certain donations.

Child Sex Trafficking is Not a Partisan Issue

I've been alarmed that so few anti-trafficking and anti-exploitation organizations have made the Epstein survivors a cause célèbre, because Epstein's child trafficking was covered up in broad daylight before all of America. I've come to believe that Epstein is the white elephant in the living room for anti-exploitation organizations. So I was initially impressed by the way World Without Exploitation supported the Epstein survivors: I enthusiastically lauded their efforts and made various overtures to World Without Exploitation to form an alliance with Epstein Justice. But when I started delving into the subject matter of this article, I ceased further overtures.

The US government has flagrantly covered up the child sex trafficking of Jeffrey Epstein and his ilk. To cover up a crime is to aid and abet that crime, which translates into the US government aiding and abetting child sex trafficking. Given the heinous nature of these crimes and their coverup, I'm shocked that Americans haven't hit the streets en masse to protest our government's protection of child molesters.

I believe that a major impediment to justice is the politicization of the Epstein case, and Reid Hoffman's funding of World Without Exploitation seems to epitomize that politicization. Currently, the right blames the left for the coverup, and the left blames the right for the coverup. However, the Epstein coverup has been perpetrated by four administrations - George W. Bush, Barak Obama, Joseph Biden, and now Donald Trump. Two of the administrations have been Republican and two have been Democratic. The Epstein coverup has been, and continues to be, a bipartisan effort.

Nick Bryant is the Director of Epstein Justice, a 501(C)(3) dedicated to an independent congressional commission to investigate the Jeffrey Epstein case: epsteinjustice.com

Joi Ito and Reid Hoffman with Jeffrey Epstein. Justice Department Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2026 - 14:00

Heat Dome Halts German Trains After Track Sealant Liquifies

Europe's heat wave is now quickly morphing from a public health crisis into an infrastructure nightmare, with power prices surging, more than 1,000 excess deaths reported across France, and extreme temperatures bringing parts of Germany's rail infrastructure to a halt.

The local German outlet Leipziger Zeitung reports that after a week of sweltering temperatures above 30°C, with readings climbing toward 40°C on Saturday, critical transport infrastructure in Leipzig failed under the heat.

The city, located in the eastern German state of Saxony, about 120 miles southwest of Berlin, was forced to suspend tram service after the asphalt–rubber joint sealant around embedded tracks softened and liquefied.

Here's more color from the local outlet:

Shortly afterwards, it was the turn of the Leipzig Transport Authority (LVB). At several points across the network, trams simply came to a standstill; nothing was working at all. Finally, on Saturday afternoon, the LVB  announced the  suspension of all scheduled tram services: "The joint sealant between the tracks and the tarmac has become liquid and, in some places, has clumped together," confirmed a representative for the Leipzig Group, to which the LVB belongs, in response to an inquiry from the LZ in the early evening.

One road-sealant spec lists a softening point of 100°C, or about 210°F, while another asphalt–rubber joint sealer has a softening point of 185°F and says the material is heated to 300°F to 350°F for application. That means that on a 40°C day, dark asphalt and rail beds accumulated enough heat to fall within the range noted above for liquefaction.

Bloomberg data shows relief coming for Germany after a week and a half of sweltering temperatures...

The effects of the weather phenomenon El Niño are likely to push average global temperatures to elevated levels in both 2026 and 2027.

Latest El Niño coverage:

• Super El Nino: Famine Follows War?
• Trader's Guide To Navigating The "Super El Niño"
• UBS Warns El Nino May Intensify Food Inflation Across Asia

Welcome to near the peak of Northern Hemisphere summer.

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2026 - 13:25

 

So I’m looking through the midyear issue of “Pollstar” and there’s a chart for “Venues With Capacities Of 5,000 Or Less.”

Now if you’re a dedicated follower of the main “Pollstar
chart (if not fashion), you know it tends to be dominated by the usual suspects, mostly acts with years under their belts, playing big buildings. But it’s the smaller venues where acts break, so that’s why I was interested.

And I’d be lying if I told you I knew every act who appeared.

Now let’s be clear, these are not anomalies. This is a six month chart, you needed to do consistent business in order to triumph.

So starting with the 2,001-5,000 capacity venues…

Number one is Jerry Seinfeld, which is not surprising.

But I’d be lying if I told you I knew number two, Subtronics. Turns out he’s a deejay. That’s a world unto itself, based on word of mouth, a veritable underground scene when it comes to mainstream publicity. But people want to party. So, they’ll come to see the deejay du jour, in numbers.

#3 was Bert Kreischer, not exactly my cup of tea, but he’s a well-known comedian.

#4 Another act I had not heard of, Josiah Queen. Google tells me he’s a Christian contemporary artist, and that’s a world unto itself even more than deejays/EDM, one that would not normally fly on my radar screen.

#5 was Def Leppard. This act goes out seemingly every summer, I didn’t think they were even playing buildings this small. They represent an era, good for them.

#6 Mannheim Steamroller. An annual holiday event (this chart runs from November 13, 2025 to May 13, 2026).

#7 K40S. Now the funny thing is if you Google you end up getting results about a Xiaomi smartphone, they fill the entire first page. K40S, who I was unaware of, turns out to also be an EDM artist, but you have to Google ” K40S music” to discover this, the act doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page, never mind press, but they pulled in in excess of 3,000 people an evening, for a nightly gross of $142,412, and that’s not chump change.

#8 At this point legendary comedian Jim Gaffigan.

#9 Michael McIntyre, another person I’d never heard of. Turns out he’s a British comedian, and he’s 50!

#10 Josh Johnson, another comedian.

So if you’re doing the math, five of the ten highest grossing acts in what we used to call theatres are COMEDIANS!

Whoa, whoa, whoa… How about all those acts in the Spotify Top 50, aren’t they supposed to be driving the culture, isn’t music everything?

NOPE!

Now if you’re on social media…

On my TikTok and Instagram Reels I get a plethora of comedy clips. And in about two-thirds of the cases, I’ve never heard of the person. And almost all of them are funny to a degree. But I’m thinking how competitive it is. Anyone can do it, kinda like music, but building a fan base and earning a living?

Now comedy acts complain, that’s part of their routine, including about the travel and club owners, but I never encounter anyone protesting that they’re being screwed by the system, that they’re entitled to attention and a living, that’s the domain of “musicians.” How can the perspectives be so different? They both live and die on attention, and that delivers remuneration. And to make it in comedy, you must work live. I don’t see people posting clips from their bedrooms, sans audience. You’ve got to get out there. But there are a ton of people who make music who never work live, they can’t get the gigs.

Then again, there are fewer places to play.

But does that have something to do with the music?

I’d say so. People are willing to pay for entertainment, but it seems to be comedians who they want to see. And a comedian can’t bomb on a regular basis or they will no longer be able to work, they’ve got to succeed most of the time.

The bottom line is comedy has usurped music’s spot on the bleeding edge.

Sure, there are chains of clubs, and Netflix specials, but it’s still the wild west compared to music. In music everyone rails on about the labels and Live Nation and Ticketmaster, but in comedy, the acts know they must earn their success.

And I see the equivalent of open mic videos on social media. There are a slew of people who will do standup locally, but won’t go any further, because the response is not solid enough and they’re not willing to do the work. And you have to do the work if you’re a comedian. Even if you theoretically purchased your material, that’s only half of it, you need to know how to deliver it.

And comedians know no bounds, they’re unafraid, they don’t go on stage worried about alienating sponsors, they don’t think of clothing lines, they’re selling their identities, anything that compromises their identity will ultimately hit their bottom line, shortening their career.

If you want the truth, you go see a comedian.

That’s rarely the main feature in music. How could it be, with the music made by committee? Comedians are singular.  You need to have a personality and a point of view to have any success at all.

The bottom line here is the numbers do not lie, the public is responding.

And when you go down the chart to smaller buildings, comedians continue to punch above their weight.

It’s not like comedy is new, but fifty years ago when it came to hip comedians you had George Carlin and…maybe Robert Klein. And a bunch of Borscht Belt hangovers.

This is not the comedy of yore.

It’s comedians who are skewering politicians, and the excesses of the public too. That’s part of the act, ridiculing nincompoops with a profile and things that just don’t make sense. This is not Fox vs. MSNow, there’s not an underlying corporate agenda, comedians are outsiders, commenting on the happenings of the day and life in general. Sure, they want to get paid, but they harbor no dream of  going inside and taking over the jobs of the people they’re making fun of. Scratch that, we did have Al Franken, but you get what I mean.

In other words, comedy has usurped music’s power. And it’s so hot that it’s getting wannabes to participate. It’s exciting and it’s anything but fake.

And there’s no equipment and entourage necessary, if you make it, costs are low and you get paid quite handsomely.

But you’ve got to be good.

No, you’ve got to be GREAT! And competition is fierce, upping everybody’s game.

And the public is riveted.

 

~~~

Visit the archive:   http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/

@Lefsetz  http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz
–
If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter

~~~

Originally published by Bob Lefsetz at the Leftsetz Letter

The post Comedy Is Hot appeared first on The Big Picture.

Five Dynamics That Make Sense Of An Increasingly Chaotic World

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

These dynamics and the incentives they generate lead to systemic crisis and collapse.

As I noted in What Once Explained Everything Now Explains Nothing, the simplicity of either-or ideologies appeal to us. Identifying with an ideology is like having a favorite sports team: yea for our team! Our team good, other team bad.

The roots of this simplistic either-or are obvious: our tribe good, other tribe bad. The problems with this simplistic loyalty arise when we attempt to explain complex real-world dynamics with the comic-book simplicities of ideology, which extend from politics to culture to finance.

Rather than explain everything, they add a layer of mud rather than illuminate. The emotions of tribal / ideological identity and loyalty bypass our rational processes in favor of fight-or-flight limbic responses. Needless to say, these hormonal floods of emotions are the equivalent of smashing a rock on a machine to "problem-solve" what's broken in the device.

Fortunately, we have conceptual tools that bypass this smash-it-with-a-rock approach to making sense of a complex, increasingly chaotic world. These tools show up in all my work, stretching back 20 years.

1. The problem-solving power of self-organization. Humans are social animals because the ability to cooperate with others opens vast vistas of problem-solving power via self-organization: we self-organize to pursue mutual / shared interests in ways that benefit us all. This is the core function of tribes, i.e. self-organizing social structures in which our self-interest is advanced by advancing our mutual interests.

Both markets and society are self-organizing structures that arise to benefit individual self-interests by benefiting shared interests. In other words, both capitalist and socialist structures arise to serve shared interests. They are not either-or, they're both manifestations of the same dynamic. This is why the ideological either-or is such a misleading false choice.

Markets only function to everyone's benefit within a high-trust society. If there is no social structure that serves everyone's shared interests by limiting predation and exploitation, then you end up with the extractive "market forces" of totalitarianism, i.e. rackets, in which the few impoverish and immiserate the many to the exclusive benefit of the small cadre of insiders.

As I have taken pains to explain, private-sector totalitarianism is the "market" manifestation of totalitarianism, a privately owned version of political totalitarianism. The core dynamic is the same: the system exploits and immiserates the many to benefit the few.

When private equity snaps up the only manufacturers of fire engines and then jacks up prices without adding any value, this impoverishes and immiserates the many who must collectively pay more money for no added value to enrich the few who own / control the racket. There is no functional difference between a totalitarian state structure that enriches party insiders at the expense of the many and "markets" in which private equity enriches insiders at the expense of the many.

This leads to the second dynamic:

2. Diffusion and Concentration. Control--i.e. power--self-organizes around the dynamics of Diffusion and Concentration. Consider the power of a monopoly that can raise prices for all customers, customers who have no alternative because the monopoly controls the "market" / political structure. The gains of the price increases (value is unchanged but the cost rises) are concentrated in the hands of the monopoly's managers and owners while the impoverishment and immiseration is diffused across a vast spectrum of customers / taxpayers.

The incentives to raise prices is extremely high for insiders, as they will reap enormous personal gains. The incentives to resist a relatively small increase in price among the millions of customers / taxpayers is low, because life is already demanding, and what's the potential gain of fighting a losing battle against a powerful opponent over a small sum of money? The cost in time and effort is far more significant than the relatively modest financial benefit of winning the battle.

Diffusion and Concentration establish incentives which then organize the system. Consider a local government which sells bonds for a project that benefits only a small sector of the populace. The costs of this borrowing from future income to pay for benefits the few will enjoy today is spread not just over the entire current populace but over future taxpayers who weren't old enough to vote on the decisions they will pay for.

3. Benefits, Risks, Costs and Incentives. Those seeking to reduce their private risks and increase their private gains seek to concentrate the gains generated by control structures and distribute the risks and costs to others. Pull the strings that diffuse the costs and risks over a large populace and gather the gains into the hands of the insiders that manage the control structure, typically some form of monopoly, either public or private, or a fusion of public-private rackets.

So corporations that engage in blatantly illegal skimming and scamming face low risks--managers or owners are never imprisoned, and the fines paid when caught are modest compared to the profits skimmed--while the gains are extremely enticing. This diffusion of risk and concentration of potential gains establishes perverse incentives to increase extractive, exploitive, well-hidden rackets that impoverish and immiserate the many, but in doses small enough to avoid triggering push-back.

In a system that concentrates gains and diffuses risk, the "rational actor" seeks to maximize rackets that distribute impoverishment and immiseration to the many in small doses over time that attract little attention and are not significant enough to trigger an emotionally potent resistance. This leads to:

4. The Ratchet Effect. Costs ratchet up, value ratchets down, but in increments too small to change the risk-reward equation and over time so the pain of this impoverishment and immiseration is normalized as the populace herded into the corral habituates to the decay of value and the rise in costs.

So the parking ticket that once cost $15 is now $60, but exactly how does the individual citizen push back against the monopoly powers of the city government? Yes, the citizen can file a complaint with their representative, but the odds that this will lead to reduced parking fines is zero. The same is true should the citizen attend a public meeting and get 30 seconds to speak at the end of a long meeting when everyone just wants to go home.

Bureaucracies optimize The Ratchet Effect by their very nature. Regulators and administrators must "do something" to justify the high costs of their employment and benefits, and so they "serve the public" by incrementally adding to regulatory thickets that over time strip out self-organizing functionality and replace it with control structures that are impervious to reform.

Reformers seeking to reduce bureaucratic regulations and costs run into Diffusion and Concentration. Those whose jobs are threatened by cost-cutting are extremely motivated to spend every waking second resisting any cost-cutting, while those who stand to benefit--the citizens paying fines or business license fees--will only see a modest reduction in costs, too small to motivate them to self-organize in support of the reforms / cost cutting.

So these control structures, public and private, run on automatic, concentrating benefits in the hands of insiders and owners and distributing the risks and costs to the diffused many. The result is institutional sclerosis, and self-reinforcing resistance to any adaptation that benefits the many at the expense of the few insiders / managers / owners.

5. Semi-chaotic tests of the system's stability. Benoit Mandelbrot's book The (Mis)Behaviour of Markets: A Fractal View of Risk, Ruin and Reward explains how self-organizing structures such as markets--and by extension, all of life, which is also self-organizing--are prone to unpredictable cascades that operate outside the "normal, predictable" rules we've identified as "the way things work."

In terms of selective pressures and adaptation, these unpredictable crises test the system's adaptability and stability. In this way, they are essential to maintaining the adaptive "muscles" and coherence of the system which boil down to the dynamics of self-organization--precisely what all the control structures running on automatic have stripped out in the "rational actor" incentives to optimize concentrating gains and diffusing costs and risks.

These dynamics led to a rising wedge of asymmetric distributions of power, control, wealth and income that strip out self-organizing adaptation and the system's ability to survive unpredictable but inevitable crises. These dynamics and the incentives they generate lead to systemic crisis and collapse.

The only structures capable of re-organizing the post-collapse world are islands of coherence that managed to retain self-organizing capacities that escaped the control and predation of "rational actors" maximizing self-interest at the expense of the system's adaptive capacity and stability.

As noted above, these dynamics inform all my work. You can review all my books here.

My book Investing In Revolution is available at a 10% discount ($18 for the paperback, $24 for the hardcover and $8.95 for the ebook edition). Introduction (free). Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com. Subscribe to my Substack for free

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2026 - 12:15

Sadiq Khan Said There Were No Grooming Gangs In London; Police Investigating 4,000 Cases

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

The London mayor who once insisted there was "no indication" of grooming gangs now faces explosive new scrutiny after a police review uncovered thousands of previously sidelined child sexual exploitation files.

The Metropolitan Police has identified more than 4,000 potential child sexual exploitation cases across London that may require reopening.

These stem from roughly 12,000 reports dating back to 2010, with about one in three previously closed after police or prosecutors took no further action.

Met Police uncovers 4,000 potential grooming gang cases as Sadiq Khan faces fresh scrutiny over London claimshttps://t.co/c2Wpx1MwOL

— GB News (@GBNEWS) June 28, 2026

The cases have now been referred to the National Crime Agency under Operation Beaconport for urgent assessment.

'What on Earth are we doing? Why are we allowing this to happen?'

Journalist Andy Jones reacts to the horrifying news that a Met Police review has identified more than 4,000 grooming gang cases that may need reopening. pic.twitter.com/zaAyo6V7s1

— GB News (@GBNEWS) June 28, 2026

This development directly contradicts Sadiq Khan's past public statements. In January 2025, appearing before the London Assembly Police and Crime Committee, Khan repeatedly dodged questions from Conservative member Susan Hall about the scale of grooming gangs in the capital.

He claimed his understanding from regular police briefings was that there were "no reported cases and also no indication of the grooming gangs" she was concerned about.

When pressed on how many such gangs operated in London, he asked her to clarify what she meant by the term.

Scotland Yard has identified more than 4,000 rape gang cases that may need to be reinvestigated in London alone!

Here's Pakistani mayor Sadiq Khan pretending he doesn't know what a rape gang is.

4,000 rape gangs who are predominantly Pakistani and the Pakistani didn't see it? pic.twitter.com/Xd8Ewg38dW

— Tommy Robinson ?? (@TRobinsonNewEra) June 28, 2026

Critics now describe the position as gaslighting. Hall called the scale "utterly disgraceful," noting it represents 4,000 young girls raped and sexually abused while authorities looked the other way or actively resisted scrutiny.

Khan's team now claims he has always supported leaving "no stone unturned." The gap between that line and his earlier blanket denials has not gone unnoticed.

This London revelation fits a wider, years-long scandal of institutional failure and political cowardice. Earlier this year we detailed how even the BBC exposed the scale of grooming activity in the capital under Khan's watch.

Separate investigations laid bare mini-mart operations where vulnerable children were plied with alcohol and cigarettes in exchange for sexual abuse. Illegal shops were caught handing out free vapes to kids in return for sexual favours. And the weary response from parts of the establishment often boiled down to telling victims and the public to simply "get over it."

The common thread remains the same: authorities slow-walked or buried evidence, prioritised community relations over child safety, and treated any mention of ethnic or cultural patterns as radioactive.

None of this emerged in a vacuum. Long before the current review, the machinery of denial was already well oiled. Official files had ethnicity redacted. In two-thirds of cases, perpetrator background went unrecorded.

Police in some areas told victims the Asian men who abused them were "probably not going to catch them."

A 2020 Home Office report, relying on hopelessly incomplete data, pushed the false narrative that most grooming perpetrators were white - a claim parroted in Parliament and by broadcasters even after it was exposed as statistical sleight-of-hand.

The motivation was always the same: fear of "racism" accusations, dread of community tension, and the overriding imperative to protect the narrative that mass immigration and multiculturalism have been an unalloyed success.

Working-class girls, often from broken homes or care systems, paid the price while officials and media looked the other way or actively smeared whistleblowers.

London's current review notes a broader mix of offender backgrounds than the classic Pakistani-heritage networks documented in Rotherham, Rochdale, Telford and elsewhere. That distinction does not erase the scale of what was ignored or the political class that spent years insisting the problem did not exist in the capital.

Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has already warned that reopening cases will require extra officers and resources on top of the force's existing load of around 2,000 sexual offences a month. Victims are being urged to come forward again, with promises they will be listened to this time.

The public is entitled to ask harder questions. What did Khan know and when? Why did the Met and CPS close so many files prematurely? Who decided that protecting certain community sensitivities outweighed protecting British children?

And why has the political class that championed open borders and diversity dogma shown such consistent reluctance to confront the specific cultural and integration failures that allowed these networks to operate for so long in plain sight?

This London revelation drops just days after the release of Rupert Lowe's Rape Gang Inquiry Report, which documented a coordinated national campaign of rape, torture and abuse against up to 250,000 British girls by predominantly Muslim grooming gangs operating across 149 local authority districts.

Lowe's findings laid bare the same pattern of police warnings to rapists, political interference and deliberate suppression of evidence that protected predators for decades while treating working-class girls as disposable.

Sadiq Khan remains in office. The same establishment voices that spent years minimising or denying the problem now urge calm and more reviews. The British public has watched this movie before. The ending is always the same: more victims, more excuses, more demands that everyone just move on.

The only thing that has changed is the number - now over 4,000 in London alone - and the growing realisation that the denial was never accidental.

Real justice requires more than another inquiry. It requires consequences for those who chose political expediency over the safety of the vulnerable. British girls deserve better than gaslighting from City Hall. They still do. The denial only ends when enough people refuse to look away.

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2026 - 11:05

Saudi Aramco Helicopter Crash Kills 14 In Ras Tanura , Cause Unknown

One week after a mysterious explosion - attributed to a "technical incident" - at Qatar's massive Ras Laffan industrial city killed dozens and set back restoration and recovery efforts at the giant LNG production facility by weeks if not months, a helicopter belonging to Saudi ​oil giant Aramco crashed on Sunday ‌in Ras Tanura on Saudi Arabia's eastern coast on the Gulf, west of the Strait of ​Hormuz, killing 14 nationals, the state ​news agency reported, adding that the ⁠cause was unknown.

Aramco had resumed crude oil loadings ​on Friday at its Ras Tanura terminal ​in the Gulf after they were halted for nearly four months.

"The relevant authorities have launched a ​full investigation to determine the cause ​of the crash," the state news agency added.

Aramco did ‌not ⁠respond immediately to an emailed request for comment.

Reuters: Helicopter belonging to Saudi oil giant Aramco, crashed on Sunday in Ras ‌Tanura on Saudi Arabia's eastern coast west of the Strait of Hormuz, ​killing 14 nationals#SaudiArabia #SaudiAramco #BreakingNews #HelicopterCrash #RasTanura #StraitOfHormuz #Aviation #NewsAlert pic.twitter.com/DxHTtsigXt

— VIRAL VOLT (@ViralVolT1) June 28, 2026

The incident took place at 6 a.m. local time (0300 GMT), the state agency ​said, without providing ​further ⁠details.

Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, had joined a rush ​to move cargoes after Middle ​East ⁠producers ramped up oil and gas output and exports ahead of an interim deal ⁠to ​halt the war between the ​United States and Iran.

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2026 - 10:30

Why Are Europeans Leaving Their Own Countries?

While immigration often dominates discussions about Europe’s changing population, another migration trend receives far less attention: many countries are also losing their own native-born citizens.

This visualization, created by DataPulse using Eurostat data via Visual Capitalist, ranks selected European countries by the net migration of native-born residents in 2024. Only Lithuania and Bulgaria recorded net gains, while Germany, Italy, Sweden, and several other major economies saw more locally born citizens leave than return.

The pattern reflects a mix of economic opportunity, housing affordability, demographic change, and labor mobility within Europe, all of which are reshaping where people choose to build their careers and lives.

The Countries Seeing the Biggest Losses

The table below shows net migration of native-born citizens per 1,000 inhabitants across selected European countries.

Lithuania stands out with a positive rate of 2.67 per 1,000 inhabitants, while Bulgaria also records a modest gain. At the opposite end, Luxembourg posted the largest net loss, followed by Belgium, Sweden, Estonia, and Romania.

Notably, several of Europe’s largest economies, including Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands, also show negative balances, indicating that more native-born residents are leaving than returning.

Why Are Native Europeans Leaving?

For many workers, especially younger and highly educated professionals, migration is driven by the search for better wages, stronger career prospects, and improved quality of life. Countries in Eastern and Southern Europe have long experienced outward migration toward larger labor markets in Western Europe.

At the same time, rising housing costs, labor shortages, and demographic pressures are encouraging some workers to look beyond their home countries. Similar dynamics can be seen globally, where migration increasingly plays a role in population growth and workforce sustainability.

A Growing Demographic Challenge

Population researchers increasingly warn that migration alone cannot fully offset Europe’s broader demographic headwinds. Fertility rates remain below replacement levels across much of the continent, while populations continue to age.

When highly skilled workers leave and do not return, the effects can extend beyond population figures. Regions may face slower economic growth, labor shortages, and reduced innovation capacity. As Europe navigates demographic decline, retaining talent may become just as important as attracting newcomers.

Migration patterns continue to reshape economies and societies around the world. Explore Visualizing the World’s Busiest Migration Corridors on the Voronoi app to see how people move between countries at a global scale.

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2026 - 09:55

IPO Market For AI Freezes Up While The Nuclear SPAC Market Runs Hot 

While it looks like OpenAI's IPO has been put on ice as they try to paint SpaceX as the scapegoat, there's still one sector that simply can't launch the IPOs and SPACs fast enough. 

After an announcement earlier this year that saw nuclear industrial company Holtec file privately for an IPO, one of the leading reactor developers X-energy debuted on the public market at an almost $10 billion valuation.

Since then, microreactor developer Hadron Energy has completed their SPAC merger and has subsequently been digging itself deeper into a hole every passing day…

There's now another reactor developer, NuCube, finding its way to the public market through a SPAC merger. This follows a similar announcement from European reactor developer newcleo that we detailed last month.

The company is joining a rapidly growing pool of startups looking to capitalize on the national energy security theme, with the added bonus of the AI revolution demanding a nuclear renaissance. Adding NuCube to the list, the number of public reactor development companies has now reached double digits:

• SMR - NuScale Power
• OKLO - Oklo Inc
• NNE - NANO Nuclear Energy 
• IMSR - Terrestrial Energy
• NKLR - Terra Innovatum
• HDRN - Hadron Energy
• XE - X-energy
• FISN - Deep Fission
• NHIC (NWCL) - Newcleo
• LPBB (tbd) - NuCube Energy

In the press release, the company highlights their current relationship with Halliburton as cause for differentiation from other reactor developers still working on their supply chain. Outside of recent acceptance for the Nuclear Energy Launch Pad program, the company doesn't appear to have any MOUs or LOIs lined up with potential off-takers. 

The reactor design is unique, but shares similarities with designs from Westinghouse and Antares. Their “solid-state microreactors” are not designed to utilize traditional coolants or pumps, but instead will rely on advanced heat wicking methods similar to what's used in electronics. 

With respect to historical precedence, this type of reactor design has some of the least operational experience in the nuclear industry's history. 

Some of the nuclear names have found themselves trading well above their entry price from going public, including Oklo and NANO Nuclear. But some of the other names have fared far more miserably…
 

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2026 - 08:45

IPO Market For AI Freezes Up While The Nuclear SPAC Market Runs Hot 

While it looks like OpenAI's IPO has been put on ice as they try to paint SpaceX as the scapegoat, there's still one sector that simply can't launch the IPOs and SPACs fast enough. 

After an announcement earlier this year that saw nuclear industrial company Holtec file privately for an IPO, one of the leading reactor developers X-energy debuted on the public market at an almost $10 billion valuation.

Since then, microreactor developer Hadron Energy has completed their SPAC merger and has subsequently been digging itself deeper into a hole every passing day…

There's now another reactor developer, NuCube, finding its way to the public market through a SPAC merger. This follows a similar announcement from European reactor developer newcleo that we detailed last month.

The company is joining a rapidly growing pool of startups looking to capitalize on the national energy security theme, with the added bonus of the AI revolution demanding a nuclear renaissance. Adding NuCube to the list, the number of public reactor development companies has now reached double digits:

• SMR - NuScale Power
• OKLO - Oklo Inc
• NNE - NANO Nuclear Energy 
• IMSR - Terrestrial Energy
• NKLR - Terra Innovatum
• HDRN - Hadron Energy
• XE - X-energy
• FISN - Deep Fission
• NHIC (NWCL) - Newcleo
• LPBB (tbd) - NuCube Energy

In the press release, the company highlights their current relationship with Halliburton as cause for differentiation from other reactor developers still working on their supply chain. Outside of recent acceptance for the Nuclear Energy Launch Pad program, the company doesn't appear to have any MOUs or LOIs lined up with potential off-takers. 

The reactor design is unique, but shares similarities with designs from Westinghouse and Antares. Their “solid-state microreactors” are not designed to utilize traditional coolants or pumps, but instead will rely on advanced heat wicking methods similar to what's used in electronics. 

With respect to historical precedence, this type of reactor design has some of the least operational experience in the nuclear industry's history. 

Some of the nuclear names have found themselves trading well above their entry price from going public, including Oklo and NANO Nuclear. But some of the other names have fared far more miserably…
 

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2026 - 08:45

Even Einstein Admitted He Was Wrong... We Apparently Can't Expect As Much From Al Gore

Authored by Gary Abernathy via The Empowerment Alliance,

When it comes to scientific theories, even some of history's most respected and renowned people and institutions have graciously admitted when they were wrong when confronted with irrefutable evidence.

It took 359 years, but eventually the Catholic Church conceded in 1992 that the church was wrong and Galileo Galilei was right - the Earth revolves around the sun.

Throughout the 18th century, chemists widely believed that a substance called phlogiston was released when materials were burned. But when Antoine Lavoisier demonstrated that many metals often became heavier when burned - the opposite of the phlogiston theory - his contemporaries humbly admitted their error and praised his experiments.

And when scientists, including Edwin Hubble in 1929, demonstrated that the universe is expanding rather than remaining static, as Albert Einstein had theorized, even the revered Einstein readily admitted he was wrong, calling it "my biggest blunder."

Twenty years ago, in 2006, former Vice President Al Gore released his film, "An Inconvenient Truth," which included ominous and even hysterical warnings about a coming climate apocalypse if mankind did not dramatically change its ways. In the two decades since its release, the film's most dire warnings have proven to be inaccurate.

Examining Gore's film on the anniversary of its release, several writers have pointed out its most glaring errors. For instance, writing for Newsweek, Bjorn Lomborg, president of the Copenhagen Consensus, notes several calamitous predictions in the film that time has proven wrong: deaths from climate-related disasters have actually plummeted; hurricane frequency and intensity have declined; globally, areas burned by wildfires have decreased over the past quarter century; and the supposedly endangered polar bear population - a memorable visual from the Gore film - has more than doubled from the 1960s to today.

"Gore's apocalyptic climate predictions have aged poorly," Lomborg concludes.

Over the years, countless critics have pointed out the errors both in Gore's film and in his ensuing personal crusade as, like Don Quixote, he continues tilting at windmills (while ironically advocating for their proliferation).

Faced with the overwhelming preponderance of evidence refuting his original hypotheses, one might assume that Gore - like the Catholic Church, the chemists of the 18 th century, and even the great Albert Einstein - would humbly concede his mistakes.

One would be wrong.

In a recent interview marking the anniversary of "An Inconvenient Truth," Gore found an uncritical partner in the form of ABC News meteorologist Ginger Zee, who couldn't have presented the former vice president in a more heartwarming light if she had somehow commissioned the late Norman Rockwell to paint his portrait.

Despite the obvious numerous mistakes and shortcomings in his film, Gore insisted that he and the scientists he relied upon have been right all along - while simultaneously demonstrating that his penchant for hyperbole remains unabated.

"The scientists were dead right on all the important elements of it," Gore insisted, adding that "it really is insane that we are continuing to use the sky as an open sewer and we're trapping so much heat every day it's equal to the amount that would be released by 800,000 Hiroshima-class atomic bombs exploding every day on the earth."

Huh? Would you repeat that please?

It's "equal to the amount that would be released by 800,000 Hiroshima-class atomic bombs exploding every day on the earth."

Thanks.

It is little wonder that Gore finds himself so easily mocked. Gore's atomic bomb analogy originated from climate alarmists who have been using it for years, adding a few hundred thousand to the estimate of bombs every so often.

But for anyone remotely familiar with history, the claim conjures images of people dropping like flies every day because of global warming, since the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 instantly killed more than 100,000 people. Such over-the-top depictions are why so many find it so hard to take seriously the kind of climate change threats that come from the radical left.

Unfortunately for the average citizen - both in the U.S. and worldwide - the far-left (formerly mainstream) media's enthusiasm for propping up Gore and the climate craze have real-world consequences. Despite mountains of conflicting evidence, the media provides cover for leftwing government types who, when in power, throw billions of dollars toward scientifically unsupported efforts to replace our most affordable and reliable energy resources with defective "alternatives" made feasible only because of taxpayer subsidies.

That's why Americans deserve the Affordable, Reliable, Clean Energy Security Act either passed into law by Congress, put into effect by presidential executive order, or at the very least embedded into policy by agency rule. While some states are enacting their own versions of ARC-ES, U.S. citizens from coast to coast deserve to be protected from the whims of the climate cult and their self-styled prophets.

We apparently can't expect Al Gore to show the class of Albert Einstein and admit he was wrong. But it's entirely realistic to expect our government to protect us from ever again implementing energy policies based on his mistakes. Doing so has already cost us far too much.

Gary Abernathy is a longtime newspaper editor, reporter and columnist. He was a contributing columnist for the Washington Post from 2017-2023 and a frequent guest analyst across numerous media platforms. He is a contributing opinion columnist for The Empowerment Alliance, which advocates for realistic approaches to energy consumption and environmental conservation.

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2026 - 08:10