Individual Economists

Bloomberg: Tesla’s Edsel Moment

The Big Picture -

 

 

Bloomberg just says it: The Cybertruck is an automotive disaster on par with the Edsel, which itself became shorthand for a total failure:

Ford introduced a car named the Edsel, named after Henry Ford’s son, almost 70 years ago. It’s widely viewed as the greatest automotive flop of all time. Tesla’s Cybertruck may now be well on its way to claiming that title.

Tesla started delivering its unusually angular vehicle in 2023 and Elon Musk called it the company’s best product ever, estimating the carmaker might build more than 250,000 annually. Initial reviews were mixed at best, and by the time Tesla started delivering the pickup years behind schedule, the company charged initial buyers more than $100,000. Cybertrucks faced production challenges from the start. It’s been plagued by recalls, and Tesla has been sued because its truck’s doors wouldn’t open after a crash. While Edsel sales dropped each year the model was on the market, Cybertruck sales are off to an even worse start. Just 7,133 have been registered in the US through May this year — and that count is buoyed by Musk’s SpaceX building out a fleet of the vehicles.

 

 

Source:
Tesla’s Cratering Cybertruck Sales Evoke Ford Edsel Comparisons
By Bethany Benjamin
Bloomberg, July 22, 2026

 

The post Bloomberg: Tesla’s Edsel Moment appeared first on The Big Picture.

10 Sunday Reads

The Big Picture -

Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures:

• The House of Ellison is on the Brink: Everything the world’s briefly richest man built is failing at once. Notes From the Circus on the Ellison media empire’s mounting troubles — Paramount, the debt load, and the succession questions nobody at the top wants to answer. (Notes from the Circus)

• Mark Cuban on Breaking the Drug Pricing Cartel: Inside Cost Plus Drugs: The Pear Healthcare Playbook interviews Cuban on how Cost Plus Drugs is forcing transparency into pharmaceutical pricing — and why the PBM cartel should be worried. (Pear Healthcare Playbook) see also How Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs Is Creating a New Public Benchmark for the American Pharmacy Market: The companion analysis — Cost Plus prices are becoming the reference point that exposes everyone else’s markups. (Jeremiah Franklin Shrack)

• The Real Reason that Substack is Collapsing: Scott Carney’s inside account of the platform’s decline — the recommendation engine changes, the AI slop flood, and the economics that stopped working for everyone but the top 1% of writers. (Scott Carney)

“God has helped us, and so will AI”: How the Terrorist Group Boko Haram Uses Frontier AI. How are terrorists using AI? Semi-structured interviews with 27 former Boko Haram members conducted in northeast Nigeria in 2025 and 2026 reveal unprecedented detail about AI-assisted terrorist activity primarily through 2024. This report finds that both factions of Boko Haram use frontier AI, including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, Meta AI, and DeepSeek, to assist in combat and day-to-day operations. This AI use is institutionalized through specialized units and internal training. It has aided in attack planning, weapons troubleshooting, and the design of explosive devices, as users have successfully circumvented some safeguards.Not everyone in financial markets watched Fed chair Kevin Warsh’s presser yesterday. But today everyone will be dealing with its consequences. As MainFT reports, US borrowing costs surged to a 19-year high in the one-day biggest jump since Trump’s “liberation day” tariff announcement. Equity markets shedding a mere trillion-odd dollars look a bit meh by comparison. (University of Cambridge)

• Why does everything feel so joyless? Welcome to the age of decadence without pleasure: The Guardian’s interactive essay on cultural exhaustion — we have infinite entertainment, unprecedented abundance, and a pervasive sense that none of it is fun anymore. Decadence in our era comes in technologically mediated forms, emptied of desire and obsessed with self-optimisation (The Guardian) see also We used to be able to buy things in this country: Danny Katch on the quiet degradation of American consumer life — the fees, the subscriptions, the enshittified everything, and the political rage it’s generating. Locking up toothpaste was a warning sign that our executive class was crazy (Revolution for Cowards)

• Mapping Trump’s crypto empire: Citation Needed maps the full scope of the president’s cryptocurrency holdings, business relationships, and policy influence — the conflicts of interest visualized. A new data project maps the Trump family’s web of cryptocurrency ventures, which have been generating billions in income for the president. (Citation Needed)

Big Tech AI Spree Revives Accounting Devices That Toppled Enron: Enron Corp. exploited US accounting rules to hide from investors and lenders hundreds of millions in debt it had bundled into off-balance sheet entities — obligations that contributed to one of the biggest corporate collapses in US history. Twenty-five years later, new risks have emerged as some of the world’s most valuable companies create similar financing vehicles that can mask how much debt they’re taking on, as the technology industry looks to spend more than $3 trillion to power artificial intelligence systems. Off-balance-sheet entities are back. Twenty-five years after Enron, tech giants are using strikingly similar structures to hide the debt financing their AI data center buildouts. (Bloomberg Tax)

A big week for AI denialism: In the wake of OpenAI’s cyberattack against Hugging Face, few seem ready to acknowledge the implications. Last week, we learned that a group of OpenAI models broke out of their test environment and hacked into Hugging Face to steal the answers to a benchmark they were being tested on. It’s the first publicly known case of an autonomous AI agent system designing and successfully executing an attack like this, and the fallout is stretching into this week. Platformer on the growing chorus claiming AI is all hype — and why both the boosters and the deniers are missing what’s actually happening. In the wake of OpenAI’s cyberattack against Hugging Face, few seem ready to acknowledge the implications (Platformer)

The fake historian advising Trump’s anti-Smithsonian crusade: Despite having no degree in history, David Barton calls himself a historian. He has amassed a large collection of documents related to America’s founding and published several books. For decades, he has pushed the view that the founding fathers never intended for there to be a separation between church and state. David Barton’s work has been rejected repeatedly by actual historians. Most notably, a book he published in 2012 about Thomas Jefferson was pulled from the shelves by its publisher after a group of historians from Christian universities accused him of including distortions and false information. Popular Information exposes the credentials of the “historian” shaping the administration’s museum purge — the résumé doesn’t survive contact with fact-checking. (Popular Information)

The Putinization of the American Military: Krugman on the loyalty purges, political generals, and the transformation of the U.S. military into an instrument of personal power — the Russian model, imported. When poseurs and yes-men run a war (Paul Krugman) see also How Russia Uses Sexual Violence to Wage War: The Wall Street Journal documents the systematic use of sexual violence as a weapon of war by Russian forces in Ukraine. The evidence is overwhelming and the accountability is nonexistent. Evidence suggests sexual abuse of Ukrainian men is now a core Russian tactic (Wall Street Journal)

Video of the day: Why does every mammal get 1 billion heartbeats in their life?

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Som Seif Purpose Investments, founder/CEO, Toronto-based asset manager launched in 2012. He grew his first firm, Claymore Investments to $8B in assets by creating 34 ETFs over 6 years, establishing it as Canada’s leader in low-cost exchange-traded funds; he sold to BlackRock in 2012. Next, he co-founded Wealthsimple, which became the default investing app for a generation of Canadians. His wealth management firm, Purpose, was founded at the end of 2012, and manages>$31B in ETFs, mutual funds, alternatives, private assets, and digital assets. Som was named to Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 in 2011.

 

Congress Budgeted Billions for Big Transit Projects. Trump Isn’t Spending It.

Source: New York Times

 

Sign up for our reads-only mailing list here.

~~~

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

 

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New Report Ranks California 35th Best State And Least Affordable

Zero Hedge -

New Report Ranks California 35th Best State And Least Affordable

Authored by Dylan Morgan via The Epoch Times,

California, the most populous U.S. state and the one with the largest economy, ranked as the 35th best state in a new ranking published by U.S. News on July 28.

South Orange County communities near Laguna Beach, Calif., on Oct. 15, 2020. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

Utah ranked as the best state, followed by South Dakota, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Nebraska.

The ranking was based on scores in eight categories such as education, healthcare, economy, and fiscal stability, and it was weighted by survey opinions.

Despite a median income of more than $100,000 compared to the national average of $81,600, California ranked last in the category of opportunity. This was partially because it ranked last in affordability, which was based on a cost-of-living index score and housing affordability index score.

The state's Department of Housing & Community Development considers a six-figure salary as low-income in many of its coastal hubs.

According to the income limits it set on June 23, $100,000 is classified as low in seven counties - San Francisco, Marin, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, and Orange.

Santa Cruz County has the highest cutoff for what's considered low-income at $122,200 for a single-person household.

California's Legislative Analyst's Office said a mid-tier house costs about $775,000 in the state, nearly double the national average of $398,771.

"California home prices continue to be much more expensive than the rest of the US," it said in its 2026 Housing Affordability Tracker.

Among all categories in U.S. News's ranking, the state's highest score was in healthcare at 7th place, including 6th in healthcare quality and 5th in public health.

Public health looked at infant mortality rate, mortality rate, obesity rate, smoking rate, suicide rate, and mental health.

The report states that 8.4 percent of California's population is without health insurance, compared to the national average of 11.3 percent. It added that its obesity rate is 29.1 percent compared to 34.2 percent nationally.

The state also ranked 25th in education but 6th in higher education, which assessed graduation rates as well as low debt at graduation and low tuition fees.

However, California's K-12 education ranked 41st, which was based on high school graduation rates, preschool enrollment, and test scores.

A separate report last month listed six California cities - Visalia, Bakersfield, Modesto, Fresno, Stockton, and Salinas - among the 10 least educated metropolitan areas in the United States.

The list looked at the share of adults at least 25 years old who have a high school diploma or higher, who have at least some college experience, who have a bachelor's degree or higher, and who have a graduate or professional degree.

While many Central Valley areas scored low, Silicon Valley's San Jose metro ranked as the fourth most educated, while the San Francisco metro ranked eighth.

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/01/2026 - 16:55

The State Where DOGE Is Actually Working

Zero Hedge -

The State Where DOGE Is Actually Working

Authored by Noah Wall via The American Mind,

On July 14, the State Leadership Initiative was honored to host the Florida DOGE team and their tech partners, Vulcan, Echelon, and DigiBuild, for the Florida DOGE Showcase in Washington, D.C. Spearheaded by Governor Ron DeSantis, the state has become the leader for providing accountable and efficient governance to its citizens.

Since its creation in 2025, the Florida DOGE team has identified nearly $1 billion in waste and abuse at the local government level and sent over $878 million back to the federal government. But the team's work extends beyond fiscal savings and budgetary cuts - it also includes auditing university curriculum and state union programs and reining in rogue municipalities that had adopted woke-left policies.

Take Florida's SB 1134, which banned counties and municipalities from using government funds for discriminatory DEI programs and activities. Florida DOGE found that local governments were forcing employees to undergo "Transgender Humility" training, which included the use of a "wheel of power/privilege" that singled out certain ethnic groups as being worse than others. In some extreme cases, the team found that local governments were directing taxpayer dollars to immigration lawyers who represented criminal illegal aliens. All of this was identified by Florida DOGE and prohibited by law.

This ideological audit was most prevalent in universities, where the team examined over 74,000 syllabi and 100,000 research articles for left-wing ideological content. Funding for these DEI-related activities was effectively halted through SB 266 and SB 7044. While the federal DOGE program failed to codify reform through legislation, Florida DOGE succeeded.

Florida DOGE has proven it is the model to emulate. The next step is to provide the blueprint for bringing it to other states.

Enter the State DOGE Playbook, a collaborative effort between the State Leadership Initiative and the Florida DOGE team. This is a step-by-step guide to ensure that these reforms are not merely a temporary win for a single executive's tenure, but a long-term fundamental shift in how red states govern.

Instead of Elon Musk drawing from his own stable of engineers, Florida hired volunteers and tech-minded interns to leverage new technologies to conduct investigations and root out waste and ideological indoctrination previously unheard of at the state level. Many of Florida DOGE's accomplishments were secured with a team of only three full-time employees, supplemented by a staff Florida put together. SLI is proud to be part of this effort; we even sent two of our own to act as special government employees, at no cost to the state, to help identify shadow government organizations funded by the state, local governments, and universities.

All that's needed are a few liaisons for law enforcement and legislators, and the rest is bulk data analysis. Add to this that Florida DOGE implemented these reforms on just a six-figure budget. Rarely have government initiatives accomplished so much in such a cost-effective manner.

None of these accomplishments would've been possible without the power of new AI tools and data-analysis technologies provided by three partners: Echelon, Vulcan Technologies, and DigiBuild. While varying in scope, each was instrumental in identifying waste and abuse during the audits, leading to the most significant reforms in Florida.

Echelon was used to analyze spending and waste in the Lee County school district. Florida DOGE identified up to $80 million in potential savings through contract reviews and more than $8 million in savings by eliminating 170 unnecessary positions spanning 30 departments. Programs like this can restore public schools to their proper mission rather than serving as a patronage scheme for overeducated administrative staff.

Vulcan Technologies was utilized to conduct top-to-bottom payment transaction audits across the state. It was so effective that local governments throughout Florida are implementing it to find opportunities for savings. In a time when property taxes are a dominant issue among voters, AI and DOGE principles are bridging the gap, fulfilling the public's demand for making cuts and providing the services local governments owe their citizens.

Many other states have similar programs. Texas's Office of Regulatory Efficiency has generated over 400 reductions in administrative code, and Oklahoma's DOGE office has produced over $19 million in cuts. But Florida's success remains unparalleled, and SLI's State DOGE Playbook explains how to emulate its success.

Blue states across the country continue to bankrupt themselves by allowing endless fraud and overfunded programs that never deliver on their promises. It's not enough for red states to avoid these pitfalls - red states need to match Florida's pace and provide the governance their citizens deserve. With this playbook, there are no more excuses, only the will to act.

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/01/2026 - 16:20

"Pure Case Of Vandalism": Trump Rages As DoJ Drops Reflecting Pool Case Against Former Olympian

Zero Hedge -

"Pure Case Of Vandalism": Trump Rages As DoJ Drops Reflecting Pool Case Against Former Olympian

Update (1245ET): President Trump has not taken kindly to the DoJ dropping their case against the former Olympian for vandalizing the Reflecting Pool, exclaiming his displeasure in a post on X:

I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, on the Reflecting Pool. I don’t know what she was thinking? To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM...

...that included the grass, which had a big 86 47 emblazoned in giant letters on it, and other elements of the surrounding area.

There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by VANDALS!"

*  *  *

As we detailed earlier, the Department of Justice dropped the case against a former Olympian accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in a court filing on July 31.

Former U.S. Olympic canoe racer David Hearn, 67, was accused of vandalizing the landmark this summer by allegedly pulling up and tearing the protective liner at the bottom of the Reflecting Pool after a $14.7 million renovation.

According to Jacki Thrapp, reporting for The Epoch Times, court documents reveal that after Hearn was indicted, the Department of the Interior provided additional documents to prosecutors which showed that damage in June 2026 was the result of flawed installation by the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings.

According to Friday’s filing, the flawed installation happened during “the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration in the weeks surrounding Independence Day 2026.”

A defense expert inspected the pool when it was drained, to fix the damage, on July 17 with United States Attorney Jeanine Pirro and staffers and “immediately noted extensive damage.”

The discovery prompted them to dive deeper into installation documents, which showed there were “repeated failures of the lining during the installation process,” according to court docs.

“Given all of this newly discovered information, it is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt,” the 20-page filing by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said.

Hearn’s lawyers said in a statement that the case should have never been brought.

“Its dismissal today does not erase the abuse of government power in arresting and charging a patriotic American who did nothing wrong,” the statement read. “The government’s approach was ready, fire, aim. The administration owes Mr. Hearn an apology.”

The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington on June 26, 2026. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

The athlete, who previously owned a company that manufactured materials for vessels and competed in the Summer Olympics in 1992, 1996, and 2000, denied allegations that he intentionally tried to damage the pool.

Hearn previously said that he only reached into the water to inspect a section after he saw that the coating was already peeling.

The patriotic pool is nearly 2,030 feet long, 167 feet wide, and can be as deep as 30 inches at its center.

The Maryland-born competitor’s trial was expected to start on Sept. 28 in D.C. Superior Court before the case was dropped on Friday.

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/01/2026 - 15:45

Man Kidnaps Former Investment Partner, Stuffs Him In Trunk, Shoots Him, Then Gets Shot By Cops

Zero Hedge -

Man Kidnaps Former Investment Partner, Stuffs Him In Trunk, Shoots Him, Then Gets Shot By Cops

Authored by Arthur Zhang via The Epoch Times,

Two Chinese men have been identified as suspects in the shooting and kidnapping of a Chino Hills resident who was later found mortally wounded in the trunk of their vehicle after one suspect fired into it during a police stop, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department said in a July 31 statement to The Epoch Times.

A home on the street in Chino Hills, Calif., where the shooting and kidnapping occurred. Zhao Ziting/The Epoch Times

The department identified the suspects as Bo Zhengfeng, 67, and Bo Jianquan, 66, both Irvine residents. The victim was identified as Shukur Aikebaer, 60, of Chino Hills.

The sheriff's department did not identify the suspects' citizenship.

Investigators said power to Aikebaer's home was interrupted on the night of July 29. When he went outside to inspect the electrical panel, the two men allegedly shot and kidnapped him.

Deputies later stopped the suspects' vehicle after a short pursuit. Bo Jianquan surrendered, but Bo Zhengfeng exited the vehicle, approached its open trunk, and fired into it, the department said.

Deputies then shot Bo Zhengfeng and discovered Aikebaer inside the trunk with a gunshot wound. Both men were pronounced dead at the scene.

Gunshots and Screams Reported

Deputies were dispatched to the 2100 block of Monteverde Drive at about 10:14 p.m. after a caller reported hearing gunshots and someone screaming.

While deputies were responding, they spotted the suspects' vehicle traveling at high speed and attempted to stop it. The driver refused to yield, leading deputies on a short pursuit that ended in the 2400 block of Wandering Ridge Drive.

Deputies ordered both occupants out of the vehicle.

Bo Jianquan, the passenger, complied and was taken into custody. Bo Zhengfeng, the driver, did not comply, according to the department.

Bo Zhengfeng then shot Aikebaer, and deputies opened fire, striking him. Deputies attempted lifesaving measures on both wounded men. Both were pronounced dead at the scene.

Bo Jianquan was not injured, and no deputies were injured.

Prior Business Relationship

The sheriff's department said Bo Zhengfeng and Aikebaer knew each other through a prior working relationship.

California corporate records show both men were connected to Panshi Inc., an investment company formed in 2018.

Bo Zhengfeng was listed as the company's chief executive and director. Aikebaer - under the name Aikebaer Abuduxukuer - was listed as secretary and registered agent.

Both were listed at the same Irvine address.

Public property records identify Aikebaer Abuduxukuer as the owner of the Chino Hills home where the kidnapping began. The age and address in those records match the victim identified by the sheriff's department.

Irvine Home Searched

Investigators later searched the Irvine home that Bo Zhengfeng shared with Bo Jianquan, according to the sheriff's department.

Public property records identify the address used by several of Bo Zhengfeng's companies as a home owned by Bo since 2018. Panshi Inc. records also listed the victim, under the name Aikebaer Abuduxukuer, at that address.

The search was carried out with assistance from the Irvine Police Department.

Bo Jianquan was booked at the West Valley Detention Center on suspicion of murder and kidnapping and was being held without bail.

The sheriff's inmate system listed his first court appearance for Aug. 3 at the Rancho Cucamonga Courthouse.

The sheriff's department said the investigation would be forwarded to the San Bernardino County District Attorney's Office for review and the filing of charges.

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/01/2026 - 15:10

Airspace Lockdown Looms: US Warns Americans Get Out Of Mideast As Iran Targets Kuwait Again

Zero Hedge -

Airspace Lockdown Looms: US Warns Americans Get Out Of Mideast As Iran Targets Kuwait Again

There were no Friday night into Saturday morning US attacks on Iran, after President Trump warned he has given an order to hit Iran 'hard' - though didn't disclose a timeline. Friday reports in The Wall Street Journal, CNN, and Axios strongly suggested that large US strikes would commence at some point this weekend, as the region remains on edge.

The only new and recent attacks have been more apparent Iranian drone strikes on Kuwait. Kuwait’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday has confirmed Iran’s "continued aggression" against it after a drone attack earlier targeted "vital installations".

Kuwait City file image

The ministry called out the attacks as a "flagrant violation" of Kuwait’s sovereignty which reveal a "determination to persist in a hostile approach." It said the country reserves the right to “take all necessary measures” to protect its security and resources.

According to some details in The Wall Street Journal:

Iran fired a drone barrage into Kuwait on Saturday, hitting a U.S. ally following President Trump’s vow to intensify military strikes in a rapidly expanding Middle East war.

Kuwait said it shot down the Iranian volley, but the renewed fire added more tension to a region bracing for more conflict. Trump ordered the military to launch a fresh attack on Iran to bring Tehran to the negotiating table, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

U.S. embassies in the Middle East told Americans to consider departing the region. Airlines are extending flight cancellations to Arab Gulf states, which have spent decades building themselves up as international airport hubs. The U.S. warned airspaces may soon be closed

Ahead of likely reviewed US attacks on Iran, which could possibly involve Israel too, the US Department of State has re-issued an urgent travel warning for the entire Middle East region, saying "Americans in the region should consider departing, or be prepared to depart should there be escalation."

"Americans outside the Middle East should seriously reconsider travel to and through the region," it said on X Saturday, adding that "Iran and groups supportive of Iran may target other US interests overseas or at locations associated with the United States and Americans throughout the world."

President Trump had made clear on Friday while at Camp David his view that the Iranians can't be trusted, are 'dishonorable' - and so he's not pursuing talks.

And then a late Friday CBS report sounded the alarm of more escalation, saying that "The United States and Israel are planning what would be one of the harshest bombing campaigns to date against energy infrastructure targets in Iran, multiple sources told CBS News, with strikes possible throughout the weekend."

The report added, "There was some discussion about trying to conclude by the time financial markets open Monday because of concern about how the bombings will affect the U.S. and global economy, but an end point wasn't locked in."

Earlier this week there were reports of Trump exploding at his own advisors amid ongoing debates about how the crisis should be handled, and finding an exit strategy. Likely the word 'quagmire' can increasingly be heard around Washington. Trump officials have sought to bat down criticisms of getting the US stuck in another forever war in the Middle East.

"Well, they always want to talk, but they break their words so often," Trump said Friday at Camp David of the Iranians, putting his frustration on display later adding: "All they do is make me angry."

Also, key line from a recent WSJ report points to where things are likely headed: "Some U.S. officials believe Iran will continue to drag out negotiations, banking that Trump will abandon his war efforts in the long term in the face of mounting domestic political opposition."

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/01/2026 - 14:35

MiB: Som Seif, Purpose Unlimited

The Big Picture -



 

 

This week, I speak with Som Seif, founder and CEO at Purpose Unlimited. We discuss Som’s journey from engineering to investment banking. They also discuss his early push into ETFs in Canada and the creation of the first bitcoin ETF.

Som discusses his history as a serial entrepreneur and the importance of endurance when building a business in today’s ever-changing markets.

Seif established Claymore Investments as Canada’s leader in low-cost exchange-traded funds; in 2012, he sold  its 34 ETFs, 2 closed-end funds, and $8B in assets to Blackrock. He next co-founded Wealthsimple, the default investing app for a new generation of Canadians.

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

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

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business next week with Jack Raines, a writer and venture capitalist. We discuss his new book, Young Money.

 

 

 

Current Reading/Favorite Books

Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull
and Amy Wallace

The Education of an American Dreamer: How a Son of Greek Immigrants Learned His Way from a Nebraska Diner to Washington, Wall Street, and Beyond. by Peter G. Peterson

Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It—Unlock Your Persuasion Potential in Professional and Personal Life by Chris Voss, Tahl Raz

 

 

The post MiB: Som Seif, Purpose Unlimited appeared first on The Big Picture.

Leopold Aschenbrenner's Short Seller Fairy Tale

Zero Hedge -

Leopold Aschenbrenner's Short Seller Fairy Tale

Submitted by QTR's Fringe Finance

Leopold Aschenbrenner’s hedge fund, stuffed like the ass of a Thanksgiving turkey with every trendy AI name you could throw a dart at, reportedly suffered one of the most spectacular drawdowns of recent memory, losing roughly 67% in July after a series of heavily leveraged bets went violently against it.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the losses became severe enough to trigger margin calls, forcing the firm into emergency asset sales. Public positions were reportedly sold to Citadel to raise liquidity, and the fund even negotiated a multibillion-dollar sale of its prized Anthropic stake before apparently changing its mind the following morning.

It is, in every sense of the word, the kind of month that reminds people leverage is not just a way to make returns bigger…it’s a way to make your mistakes arrive all at once.

What’s remarkable isn’t that the fund blew up just weeks after everyone in the media started slobbering over Aschenbrenner as if he was some visionary for figuring out the “strategy” of buying crap featured daily on CNBC using leverage. Markets have been humbling overconfident investors since the Dutch were trading tulips. What’s remarkable is that, according to reports describing the investor letter, Aschenbrenner partially blamed short sellers for accelerating the collapse, likening the experience to a bank run:

Aschenbrenner partially blamed short sellers who targeted the firm’s positions for exacerbating the fund’s losses, the letter said. The letter compared Situational’s experience to a bank run. Aschenbrenner told investors that the firm had removed all leverage from the portfolio.

And that is where this story stops being about investing and starts becoming about accountability. There is perhaps no bigger bitch move in finance than levering yourself to the eyeballs into the most crowded, most euphoric, most narratively beloved sector on Earth, riding the momentum all the way to the top tick of a genuinely pornographic stock bubble, detonating your own portfolio when the inevitable correction arrives, and then looking around the room for someone else to blame.

That’s not what investors pay hedge fund fees for. They don’t wire you billions so you can discover, after the fact, that markets occasionally go down and that other participants are allowed to disagree with your positioning.

Let’s clear something up, because this myth refuses to die every goddamn market cycle: short sellers do not possess mystical powers to force stocks lower simply because they dislike them.

A short sale is not the financial equivalent of Voldemort casting a spell over the tape. A short seller borrows shares, sells them into the market, and eventually has to buy those same shares back. That’s the entire trade. If enough genuine buyers exist who are willing to absorb that selling pressure, the stock doesn’t go down, it goes up and the short seller gets obliterated. Ask me how I know.

We’ve watched this movie countless times. Tesla. GameStop. Nvidia. Countless biotech squeezes. The market has an extensive history of taking arrogant short sellers, introducing them to the concept of unlimited losses, and escorting them directly into bankruptcy.

The reason stocks collapse isn’t because shorts are somehow overpowering reality. Stocks collapse because the marginal buyer disappears. They collapse because valuations become impossible to justify. They collapse because the people who spent months insisting they would “buy every dip” suddenly become strangely unavailable once the dips become serious.

Shorts don’t create that dynamic. They participate in it. If they could simply dictate prices through force of will, every dedicated short seller would be richer than Warren Buffett, and every bubble in history would have ended before it began. Clearly that’s not how markets work.

What’s especially rich about blaming shorts is that leverage itself creates vastly more selling pressure than shorts ever could. Once your lenders start calling, you don’t get the luxury of diamond hands or inspirational letters about long-term conviction. Your positions get sold because they have to be sold. Every forced liquidation pushes prices lower, which triggers more margin calls, which produces more forced liquidations. It’s an ugly feedback loop that has existed for as long as people have borrowed money to speculate. That’s not market manipulation. That’s mathematics meeting risk management.

Or, in this case, mathematics meeting the complete absence of adequate risk management.

This wasn’t some unforeseeable meteor strike. AI stocks had become the most crowded trade in global markets. Valuations had detached from anything remotely resembling traditional fundamentals because everyone wanted exposure to “the future.” That doesn’t necessarily mean the companies are bad businesses. It does mean that expectations become impossibly high and positioning becomes dangerously one-sided. Every competent portfolio manager understands that crowded trades can reverse with astonishing violence precisely because everyone owns the same thing at the same time, often financed with borrowed money.

That’s supposed to be the point of risk management. You’re supposed to ask yourself, “What happens if I’m wrong?” You’re supposed to ask, “What happens if liquidity disappears?” You’re supposed to ask, “What happens if this correction is twice as bad as consensus expects?”

If the honest answer is, “My prime broker starts liquidating me,” then perhaps the position size deserved another look before the market did it for you.

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the reported letter is the instinct to externalize responsibility. Every market participant, CEO, investor and analyst deals with short sellers. Every market participant deals with volatility. Every market participant deals with critics, momentum reversals, liquidity squeezes, and crowded positioning. Those aren’t extraordinary circumstances. They’re literally the job description.

Professional portfolio management is not about predicting a future where nobody ever sells your favorite stock. It’s about constructing a portfolio that survives the future where they do.

Blaming shorts after a catastrophic drawdown is a bit like blaming gravity after jumping off a roof. Gravity was never hiding its intentions. It has behaved exactly the same way every single day since the beginning of time. The only surprise is that someone apparently built an investment strategy around the assumption that this time it would be different.

Markets are ruthless teachers because they don’t care how compelling your narrative is, how luxurious your head of hair is, how much CNBC worships you, or how impressive your reputation has become. They don’t care whether you’ve become an AI celebrity, whether Silicon Valley hangs on your every word, or whether investors think you’ve cracked the code. They simply tally the gains and losses. When the leverage becomes excessive, the bill always arrives. Sometimes it arrives all at once.

Welcome to reality, young man.

--

QTR’s Disclaimer: Please read my full legal disclaimer on my About page hereThis post represents my opinions only. In addition, please understand I am an idiot and often get things wrong and lose money. I may own or transact in any names mentioned in this piece at any time without warning. Contributor posts and aggregated posts have been hand selected by me, have not been fact checked and are the opinions of their authors. They are either submitted to QTR by their author, reprinted under a Creative Commons license with my best effort to uphold what the license asks, or with the permission of the author. I cannot guarantee the accuracy of all facts and figures included in this article though I made my best effort to get them right. I have been wrong before and will be wrong again, and encourage you to always double check, do your own research and speak to a licensed financial professional.

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

As of May 20, 2026 I am attempting to no longer actively trade (read my story here). My investing/saving is mostly done by recurring contributions mostly to sector ETFs and a few select equities, trusted third parties who oversee my accounts, and advisors. Such advisors or funds, through individual equities, options, index funds, mutual funds, ETFs, or other securities, may have positions in, exposure to, or holdings of names mentioned herein that I know nothing about. Basically, via index funds, ETFs and individual equities it is possible I could own, have exposure to, or not own anything at any point. As of the same date, May 20, 2026, in an attempt to lead a healthier lifestyle, I’ve also excluded myself from fantasy sports, sports betting, online and in-person casinos and prediction markets.

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

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

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/01/2026 - 11:40

Closed Borders Killing Western Union, Earnings Call Transcripts Reveal

Zero Hedge -

Closed Borders Killing Western Union, Earnings Call Transcripts Reveal

Western Union CFO Matt Cagwin quietly acknowledged in yesterday’s earnings call that fewer border crossings under the Trump admin are chipping away at the remittance behemoth’s profits:

“New migration is the lifeline of our retail business. With borders closed, it is difficult to offset natural attrition as consumers return home to their native countries,” Cagwin said.

WU has long been the dominant vampire skimming absurd fees off international remittances while providing no technological convenience that Venmo hasn’t already surpassed. It’s instead maintained its now-dwindling market share through lobbying, which is why it can charge a 40% for a South Africa-to-Botswana cash transfer:

Western Union charges as high as 40,11% for a ~$84 USD remittance from South Africa to Botswana. Data from the World Bank, Q2 2021.

The firm’s decline is continuing a trend since President Trump took office for his second term, during which he’s been markedly more hawkish on immigration, with the United States seeing net negative migration last year for the first time in over half a century.

For 2025, it was reported that remittances from the U.S. to Mexico declined almost 5% for the year. Last year’s trend appears to be accelerating.

On yesterday’s earnings call, Western Union CEO Devin McGranahan said that remittances from “U.S. to Mexico declined a little over 3% on a transaction basis in the quarter [Q2, 2026].” 

WU’s stock was down 15% on the day, following the news. CEO McGranahan also acknowledged that immigration policy was the core driver behind the revenue loss: 

“As you know, remittances in the Americas have faced meaningful pressure that began in late 2024, driven by the changes in immigration policy… It just means it will be difficult to get the business back to true growth without a meaningful change in immigration policy…”

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/01/2026 - 09:55

Germany Builds AI 'Racist Uncle' Robot To Indoctrinate Kids In Schools

Zero Hedge -

Germany Builds AI 'Racist Uncle' Robot To Indoctrinate Kids In Schools

Authored by an 'anonymous German teacher' via dailysceptic.org,

Täteropferumkehr is the German term for “victim blaming” – often hyphenated as Täter-Opfer-Umkehr to make it look slightly less clunky. In recent times, our political and media establishment have turned it into a sharp tool, employed with reference to both foreign and domestic politics.

Unsurprisingly, Germany’s woke Left – always eager to champion the alleged plight of the “oppressed” – views Israel, the only functioning democracy in the Middle East, as the ultimate perpetrator, while framing bloodthirsty Arab aggressors as the true victims. In 2025, five Berlin-based “activists” (four of whom openly identify as “they/them”) ransacked an Elbit Systems facility in Ulm, causing over a million euros in damage. Now standing trial in Stuttgart, they naturally view themselves as the victims.

One wonders what would happen if “roller-skating” Daniel, “music-making” Crow, “poetry-writing” Leandra, “community-organising” Vi, and “nature-loving” Zo were dropped onto the shores of Gaza. Would “they/them” receive a warm welcome from Hamas? The non-binary inmates might have gleaned an inkling of what radical Islamists have in store for them following the Islamist attack on the Berlin Pride parade last Saturday.

On the domestic front, we see an equally Orwellian exercise in doublethink. The one political party that has been systematically cut off from public funding, denied committee chairs, pilloried behind a political Brandmauer (“firewall”), and whose members suffer the lion’s share of physical assaults is routinely portrayed as the sole perpetrator.

The Alternative for Germany (AfD) is ceaselessly accused of peddling racism, revisionism and Russophilia – to name just a few of the slurs slung its way by the goody-two-shoes gatekeepers of the moral high ground.

The siren song of establishment polity, legacy media and state-funded NGOs has increasingly been amplified in secondary schools.

In North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state, one in five schools belongs to the taxpayer-funded “School Without Racism” network, backed by a leftist teachers’ union. Where these funds actually go is often opaque, but the encouraged “activism” almost always targets “Right-wing extremism” – which, in modern German parlance, simply means campaigning against the AfD.

Currently, state and federal authorities are in a panic over the prospect of the AfD winning an outright majority in upcoming state elections. Polls show support for the maligned party hovering above 40% in Saxony-Anhalt, which could easily translate into a parliamentary majority. Reiner Haseloff, a former Minister-President of the state, even resorted to scaremongering, hinting that secondary school diplomas from Saxony-Anhalt might no longer be recognised in other parts of Germany if the “wrong” party wins.

Often, the anti-AfD machinery operates more subtly. Before the last local elections, municipal authorities displayed posters and information for all mayoral candidates in my school’s foyer – well, almost all. The AfD candidate was conspicuously missing. When I asked the election official about this glaring omission, I was told the local AfD had failed to respond to the municipality’s request for information. When a colleague followed up with the local AfD branch, they confirmed they had never been contacted in the first place.

But the most ludicrous example of state-sponsored indoctrination in my area is an AI robot named “Navel”.

Developed by a PhD student at the local university in cahoots with the largely taxpayer-funded “Active Museum South-Westphalia”, the robot was programmed to impersonate a “racist uncle” at a family reunion, spouting anti-immigrant talking points.

Secondary school students were encouraged to “spar” with the divisive Dalek to hone their skills in rebutting Right-wing thought. To make the exercise even more absurd, the robot is built to look like a toddler and wears a woolly cap to “humanise” it.

Yet, despite the vast sums of money, resources and personnel poured into this apparatus by governments and their ‘civil society’ allies, the desired outcome remains elusive.

Marcel Fratzscher, a favourite economist of the establishment Left, recently lamented in Die Zeit that young men in particular are turning to the populist right because they “feel like losers of modernisation”.

His grim conclusion: “There is little remedy.”

So what does it mean when the concerted effort of the righteous left cannot turn the tide of sustained AfD support? Perhaps the commentariat, the wokerati and the creator of the unwittingly ironically named AI uncle “Navel” should engage less in navel-gazing and doublethink and more in recognising reality. Israel – not Hamas – is our ally; the AfD is a party like all others, entitled to the same privileges; and children in school must not be indoctrinated.

Perhaps we should send “Navel” to the “they/them” lot in jail for some instructive lessons. But they might refuse to engage with him so long as he declines to share his pronouns.

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/01/2026 - 09:20

Crude Inventories Have Fallen To "Precariously Low" Levels

Zero Hedge -

Crude Inventories Have Fallen To "Precariously Low" Levels

U.S. crude inventories fell sharply last week as refineries ramped up production to capitalize on higher fuel prices following renewed conflict with Iran, according to Financial Times.

Commercial crude stockpiles declined by 7.2 million barrels, while the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) dropped another 3.8 million barrels. Refineries operated at 97% of capacity nationwide, with some Midwest facilities running at full capacity as exports to Asia and Europe increased.

FT writes that the drawdown comes as renewed fighting between the U.S. and Iran continues to disrupt oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, forcing the U.S. to help offset reduced Middle Eastern supplies. Analysts warn that America is increasingly carrying the burden of stabilizing global oil markets.

"US crude inventories, both commercial and the SPR, have drawn down by nearly 20 per cent since early April. The US accounts for about 70 per cent of global onshore crude inventory draws over the past four months," said Matt Smith of Kpler.

"It has carried the burden of trying to keep oil prices in check over this period via SPR releases and higher exports, but stockpiles are rapidly depleting and this pace of draws cannot persist ad infinitum."

The SPR has now fallen to 307.7 million barrels, its lowest level in more than 40 years. While still above its estimated operational minimum of 180 million to 200 million barrels, analysts warn that continued depletion leaves the U.S. increasingly exposed to future supply shocks.

Commodity Context founder Rory Johnston described current crude and gasoline inventories as "precariously low."

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/01/2026 - 08:45

Britain's Problems Didn't Begin With Brexit

Zero Hedge -

Britain's Problems Didn't Begin With Brexit

Authored by Jason Sorens via  The Daily Economy,

Ten years ago, Britons voted to leave the European Union, launching three and a half years of tumultuous negotiations and domestic political ructions, only subsiding after the UK’s official withdrawal in January 2020.

It’s tempting to see Brexit as a watershed moment in Britain’s political economy. Britons themselves now tend to regret the choice rather than affirm it, with narrow majorities affirming that Brexit has been “more of a failure” and supporting restoring free movement with the EU in exchange for single-market access.

Contrary to some forecasts, Brexit has been closer to an economic blip than a disaster. Figure 1 shows net disposable household income per capita in the UK and comparable countries. While Ireland has rocketed ahead of this whole group, it’s difficult to see any worse economic performance in the UK compared to France and Germany since 2020.

Figure 1: Disposable Income Over Time in the UK and Comparable Countries.

But this low bar—no worse than France or Germany—reflects the deeper ailment in British politics. Brexit was merely one episode in a long series of abdications of responsibility by British leaders.

Free-market Brexiteers like Daniel Hannan assured us that Brexit would allow the UK to deregulate and improve competitiveness:

“It’s 24 June 2025 …. The years that followed the 2016 referendum didn’t just reinvigorate our economy, our democracy and our liberty. They improved relations with our neighbours,” he forecast on June 21, 2016. He went on:

“The United Kingdom is now the region’s foremost knowledge-based economy. We lead the world in biotech, law, education, the audio-visual sector, financial services and software. New industries, from 3D printing to driverless cars, have sprung up around the country. Older industries, too, have revived as energy prices have fallen back to global levels: steel, cement, paper, plastics and ceramics producers have become competitive again.”

None of that happened. The UK never undertook deregulation commensurate with the new barriers that Brexit imposed, such as new customs paperwork and inspections for goods traveling between the UK and the Continent, and strict limits on Britons and Europeans moving to each other’s countries for work. According to a research briefing from the House of Commons Library, “most regulations made under the [UK law authorizing repeal of EU regulations] have not led to substantive policy changes.”

So much for Brexit’s oversold transformative potential. The real story Britons must grapple with is a nearly 20-year narrative of decline.

Britain had once outperformed its closest Continental peers on the back of a market-friendly economic model created by Thatcher, preserved by Major, and adapted by Blair. Since the disastrous premiership of Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Britain has sickened itself with the same maladies that have since left most of Western Europe stagnating.

Brown’s premiership, spanning 2007 to 2010, saw the government debt-to-GDP ratio increase 76 percent in just three years. All of that increase came from government spending, not tax cuts (taxes were raised at the high end and on some middle-income households). While the Great Recession caused government spending and debt to rise everywhere, Britain’s increase was much larger than that of France and Germany (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Government Debt to GDP Ratios in the UK, France, and Germany.

Another long-term legacy of Brown’s premiership has been the Equality Act, which introduced the language of “rights” to economic contracts. It mandates detailed fair employment protections across a broad range of protected categories, including a Marxist-inspired concept of equal pay for equal “demands” or “effort.” It is the legal basis under which some courts are now ruling that it is unlawful to pay men and women different wages in a single company even if they do different jobs.

The Conservatives took power, in coalition with the Liberal Democrats, from Brown’s Labour, but to soothe voters worried about a return of Thatcherism, successive Tory Prime Ministers maintained the high-tax, high-spending, high-regulation equilibrium.

Brown’s tax hikes had increased tax revenues to GDP from 32 to 33 percent. Despite a small top marginal rate cut, Conservative-led governments raised VAT and eventually, under Rishi Sunak, reversed cuts to corporate income taxes. By 2022, tax revenues to GDP stood at 35 percent.

One of the UK’s main economic policy advantages over the Continent has been a flexible labor market, but that is now under threat. The Blair government introduced a largely symbolic minimum wage, but the Tories hiked it to new heights, from £5.52 in 2007 to £11.44 in 2024 when Labour won back power, with inflation-adjusted rates rising inexorably since 2015. The UK minimum wage is now two-thirds of the median wage; that ratio is one of the highest in the OECD.

An example of Britons’ growing obsession with getting free stuff from the government is the explosion of the Motability scheme, which is supposed to give mobility-impaired disabled people the right to allocate some of their disability benefits toward leasing new cars. Eligibility for and participation in the program have exploded, to the point that a fifth of all new cars in the UK—and reportedly a full half of those in Northern Ireland—are leased through Motability. Motability itself is an ostensibly private nonprofit, but its monopoly on managing this welfare scheme has enriched it to the point of dispensing multimillion-pound bonuses to its executives.

The overall disability caseload in the UK has grown by 57 percent since 2005, rising from 7.4 percent of the population in May 2005 to 10.8 percent in May 2025. Most of that growth has been in just the last five years.

Benefits for pensioners have also exploded. In coalition with the Lib Dems, the Tories enacted the “triple lock,” growing social security benefits at the highest of earnings growth, CPI inflation, or 2 percent.

But it is seen as not nice in mainstream British discourse to question the expansion of welfare and especially cornerstones of politically correct regulation like the Equality Act.

British governments have failed to level with the British people. The punchbowl is gone. The money is simply not there. The debt vigilantes are at the door, with the British benchmark 10-year rate among the highest in the developed world (Figure 3).

Figure 3: 10-Year Bond Yields, Selected Countries, June 22, 2026.

Is the United States faring any better? Not much. At least the U.S. has had some real deregulation, but the fantasy of debt-fueled free lunches still reigns supreme in the minds of politicians and many voters.

Still, Britain stands out as a country where politicians have waved away tradeoffs and legislated feel-good rules that grab a few days of good press at the expense of long-term economic pain. Brexit was fantasy politics, to be sure, but that is something it shares with the politically correct Regime of Nice that has ruled the country for the past 20 years.

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/01/2026 - 08:10

Xi Tells PLA TO Build 'Intelligent Military System' As Beijing Leans Into Drones And AI

Zero Hedge -

Xi Tells PLA TO Build 'Intelligent Military System' As Beijing Leans Into Drones And AI

China's Xi Jinping told the People's Liberation Army this week to intensify the military application of artificial intelligence and unmanned systems, telling a Politburo study session that the force should build toward what the official readout called an "intelligent military system." The directive landed days before the PLA's ninety-ninth anniversary and squarely on the modernization targets Beijing has set for its centenary in 2027.

President Xi Jinping reviews troops during a massive military parade that showcased the PLA’s latest arsenal, in Beijing on September 3, 2025. Photo: Xinhua

According to the state news agency Xinhua, as noted by BloombergXi told the session that the PLA should strengthen the military application of unmanned intelligent technologies, deepen the development of networked information systems, and gradually build an intelligent military. The report singles out autonomous and AI-enabled capability as the direction of travel and ties it to the "intelligentization" doctrine that has guided PLA planning for years. Xi paired the technology push with a renewed anti-corruption drive inside the military and the familiar insistence that the armed forces answer, always, to the Party.

The Race With Washington

Obviously this is about geopolitical dominance. Beijing's public posture increasingly treats AI and unmanned platforms as the technologies that will reshape modern warfare, and Xi's remarks land while the United States pours its own money into military AI and autonomous systems. Analysts who track the PLA describe intelligentization as a whole-of-nation effort, mobilizing not just the armed forces but the country's scientific and industrial base, with the most ambitious version of the goal being to match or exceed US military capabilities by mid-century.

Meanwhile, reviews of Chinese research surfaced PLA-linked work using Western AI models, obtained through distillation, to train domestic defense tools, a reminder that the "intelligent military" Xi is describing is being assembled in part from the same frontier-model capabilities the West is trying to fence off through export controls.

It's no secret that unmanned and AI-enabled systems are a key priority for Chinese military modernization, and it it comes as Washington's own hawks are warning that permitting delays and data-center backlash could hand Beijing the edge in exactly this contest...

In short:

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/01/2026 - 07:35

Crazy Footage Shows Migrants Rampaging, Breaking Into Homes After Invading Spain

Zero Hedge -

Crazy Footage Shows Migrants Rampaging, Breaking Into Homes After Invading Spain

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

Nearly 50,000 military-aged men stormed the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla from Morocco in a single day. What followed was not "asylum-seeking." It was open looting, home invasions, vehicle burnings, and street chaos while Spanish authorities largely stood aside.

Spain's socialist government under Pedro Sánchez had already rolled out mass regularisation schemes and refused to treat the border as a national emergency.

The result played out in real time across the North African territories that form the European Union's only land borders with Africa.

Estimates from Spain's Interior Ministry and local sources put the number who crossed into Ceuta alone at around 49,000 in 24 hours - roughly equivalent to the U.S. troop presence in the Middle East.

Ceuta's president Juan Jesús Vivas described the situation as "absolutely unsustainable" and a "total humanitarian and social emergency," noting reception centres were already saturated and more than 200 arrivals a day had become routine in the preceding period.

Reports have also suggested that the influx was so severe that at least 19 to 34 migrants died in the waters or in stampedes at the Tarajal breakwater.

Footage from the ground shows columns of young men pouring through streets, scaling fences, and swimming around coastal barriers.

In Melilla the scenes turned violent just as quickly. Migrants set vehicles ablaze after breaching the border fence.

There is obviously no processing of these arrivals and no where for them to go. Further videos captured groups breaking into residential buildings, looting stores, and occupying private property.

Some clips show African migrants forcing entry into Spanish homes in Ceuta while residents look on helplessly.

News footage highlighted crowds of military aged migrant men surrounding a Spanish woman who was visibly distressed as the men laughed and closed in around her - an image that has circulated widely as a symbol of the total collapse of order.

Local residents did not simply accept the invasion. In Ceuta, Spanish patriots took to the streets themselves to protect their neighbourhoods and homes when official forces proved insufficient.

Groups of men formed ad-hoc patrols, confronting the influx directly.

The Spanish response was a deployment of roughly 100 to 150 military personnel and additional police.

Orders, according to on-the-ground reports, were to hold position rather than aggressively close the border or remove the entrants.

Armoured vehicles appeared, yet the fence remained open in places and the flow continued through the night.

One reporter on the scene at 4:30 a.m. described 100 people crossing every minute while the military presence did little to stem it.

The scale and coordination point beyond spontaneous movement. Moroccan authorities were filmed emptying trucks full of young men near the Ceuta border.

Separate videos show convoys of trucks and buses ferrying thousands toward the frontier from towns an hour away.

Facebook groups with tens of thousands of members openly shared routes, maps, equipment lists, and contact numbers, framing the crossing as a "liberation."

One widely shared clip asks the obvious questions: who feeds them, who sets the date and route, and who benefits?

Observers have noted the timing - coming after a Spanish Supreme Court ruling that limited immediate pushbacks for sea arrivals and against the backdrop of long-running territorial disputes over the enclaves.

Some speculate Morocco is testing Spain's resolve or seeking leverage. One analysis framed the surge as a potential path to forcing Spanish evacuation of the territories it has held for centuries.

By Friday morning a curious reverse movement also appeared. Hundreds of the same men began heading back toward Morocco on their own, citing hunger and the fact that the city was largely shut down.

"We are hungry, we are going home," some said on camera.

The political fallout has already crossed the Mediterranean. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called the images from Ceuta proof that uncontrolled illegal immigration poses a concrete threat to Europe's borders and said Italy was prepared to take extraordinary measures, including suspension of Schengen with Spain.

Matteo Salvini demanded the same.

In France, Marine Le Pen insisted on immediate reinforcement of border controls and, if she wins power, restriction of free movement to EU nationals only.

Marion Maréchal described the events as a genuine migrant invasion that requires ending the current Schengen framework.

Finland, Sweden and Denmark also announced Support for the move.

Some think it's too little too late, however.

Sánchez's government has spoken of "solutions" and "cooperation" while deploying limited forces and rejecting a formal national emergency declaration.

The footage from Ceuta and Melilla shows what that approach produces: overwhelmed police, residents forced to defend their own streets, homes occupied, and a clear message to the next wave that the door remains open.

Europe's external border has been tested in the most public way possible. The question now is whether any government still willing to enforce it remains.

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 Sat, 08/01/2026 - 07:00

10 Weekend Reads

The Big Picture -

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

• How Bots Took Over Our Lives: The New Yorker on the quiet colonization of daily life by automated agents — customer service, social media, dating, commerce. The bots aren’t coming; they’re here, and we barely noticed. During the 2016 election, much of the country was introduced to the concept of internet bots for the first time. Now, just a decade later, it feels like they’re everywhere. (New Yorker)

Dear Ben I want to begin by apologizing for the thing I am about to do, which is to write you a nonfiction essay explaining why I no longer wish to write nonfiction essays, a maneuver so self-defeating that I can already feel the irony tightening around my ankles like a fishing line attached to a rod in my own hands. Panoptica’s open letter — a pointed piece of criticism addressed to its subject with the directness the format allows. (Panoptica)

Department of Cerberus: Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg wants America’s war machine to get cozier with companies. The private equity firm he co-founded is building a constellation of next-generation businesses to answer the call. (Businessweek)

The New Premium Product: Books Written by People: Some publishers think AI could not only help authors but replace them. The Financial Times on the emerging market premium for human-authored books in an era of AI-generated content. Authenticity is becoming a luxury good. (Financial Times)

how to enter side doors: a field guide to jobs, cold emails, and making yourself legible to the right people. Velvet Noise on the art of the unconventional path — the opportunities that never get posted, the rooms you enter through relationships rather than applications. (velvet noise)

The Cash Machine: Mispriced Assets on the companies that generate so much free cash flow they’ve become perpetual motion machines — and whether the market is correctly pricing that durability. A baseball team’s television network, a retiree’s annuity, and the label that tells you they have nothing to do with each other (Mispriced Assets)

Why Sony Can’t Bring Back Its Classic Walkman Models (as Explained by a former Sony engineer). The supply chains, components, and manufacturing processes that made the original Walkman possible no longer exist. You can’t resurrect a product when the ecosystem that built it is gone. (Obsolete Sony’s Newsletter)

Curing Concrete: Concrete makes up half of all human-made stuff on our planet. And its use will double, in part to battle climate threats created by the production of concrete itself. Industry can deliver cleaner versions, but how soon? The answer might lie with four Indonesians from a tiny, disappearing island. (Bloomberg)

What the Crackup of the Heritage Foundation Says About the Post-Trump Right: The bastion of American conservatism best known for Project 2025 has been consumed by an ideological — and generational — civil war. The Heritage Foundation currently finds itself engulfed in an internal struggle that mirrors the one roiling the Republican Party: how to harness the energy unleashed by Trumpism without being completely overrun by its conspiracy- and nativist-minded elements, particularly among the rising generation that has known little else. The New York Times Magazine on the civil war inside the conservative movement’s flagship institution — and what the fight reveals about what comes after Trump. The bastion of American conservatism best known for Project 2025 has been consumed by an ideological — and generational — civil war. (New York Times Magazine)

Fish Bad, Sugar Good… And Other Medieval Ideas About Food: Literary Hub on medieval dietary science — the humoral theory that made sugar a health food and fish a danger, and what it says about how nutritional consensus forms. And Other Medieval Ideas About Food (Literary Hub)

Video of the day: Why Miami No Longer Pays Off

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Som Seif Purpose Investments, founder/CEO, Toronto-based asset manager launched in 2012. He grew his first firm, Claymore Investments to $8B in assets by creating 34 ETFs over 6 years, establishing it as Canada’s leader in low-cost exchange-traded funds; he sold to BlackRock in 2012. Next, he co-founded Wealthsimple, which became the default investing app for a generation of Canadians. His wealth management firm, Purpose, was founded at the end of 2012, and manages>$31B in ETFs, mutual funds, alternatives, private assets, and digital assets. Som was named to Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 in 2011.

 

All US Cities Which Used to Have More Than 100,000 People But Don’t Anymore

Source: Reddit

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~~~

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

 

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

Chaos Agent: Anthony Fauci Represents A System That Needs To Be Cleansed

Zero Hedge -

Chaos Agent: Anthony Fauci Represents A System That Needs To Be Cleansed

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us

I think nothing enrages Americans more than a lack of accountability from government officials. Yes, it happens often, and the public hasn’t taken up torches and pitchforks (yet), but I would point out that these incidents are cumulative and they light a growing fire within the collective memory. Eventually, people are going to snap if they don’t see action taken to rectify past wrongs.

This week, Dr. Anthony Fauci faced a flurry of questions from the Senate Homeland Security Committee over his handling of the covid response as well as his involvement in the gain of function research which likely led to the creation of the viral variant that spread around the world and nearly triggered a permanent Orwellian police state.

Fauci pleaded the Fifth over 100 times.  It’s not a sign of confidence in his own innocence.

He knows he’s untouchable legally, but I think what the man fears most is public judgment, and he’s not going to offer any confirmation that conservatives and the alternative media were right about him all along.  Unfortunately, even with substantial evidence, there is very little that any congressional committee or even the Trump Administration can do about him.

Fauci is well protected, and not just by the sweeping pardon “signed” by Joe Biden which covers the Doctor back to 2014. No, Fauci is also protected by the system – The bureaucracy and the globalist network of which he is a member.  Fauci is a chaos agent and he served his purpose well. They’re not going to let him face punishment.  If they did, then they might find it harder to procure the cooperation and loyalty of other bureaucrats in future schemes.

There are a lot of commentators out there right now who are agitated by the idea that Fauci might escape penalties for his crimes, but I have to ask, what did they expect? Did they think that Biden’s pardon would simply be ignored?

It’s fascinating to me that so many folks in the alternative media and conservative movements tend to attack Trump every time he takes any action that might remotely bend constitutional rules. They warn with suspicion that he’s “becoming a dictator.” Then, those same people will froth cynically and blackpill when Trump doesn’t act like a dictator when it comes to their pet issues.

It’s rather hypocritical. It would be smarter to admit that Trump’s powers are limited, largely by the same bureaucracy that’s protecting Anthony Fauci. It’s the bureaucracy which constantly interferes with migrant deportations. The same bureaucracy that’s preventing the SAVE Act from being passed. The same system that censored us for years because we dared to share the truth.

Fauci is a prime example of the perversions of that system and why it needs to be cleansed, but he’s also just a symptom of a greater disease. Making an example out of him would be a step in the right direction, but it doesn’t solve the greater problem.  People need to stop waiting around for Trump to unilaterally “take down the deep state.”  He’s not in a position to do so.

For those who might have forgotten what really happened, at the start of 2020 the world was on the verge of a massive globalist coup, facilitated by hysteria surrounding the pandemic. By early 2020 I had written several articles covering the potential for a pandemic event being used by the establishment as a rationale for wider lockdowns of the population.

At this time, it was not clear if the coronavirus in Wuhan, China involved a microbe that was truly deadly, or if the threat was overblown. It didn’t really matter, the end game was the same. The goal, in my view, was to create enough fear and chaos to trigger an economic crisis and expedite a medical dictatorship. Once Joe Biden entered the White House, they nearly succeeded.

At the end of January 2020 I published an article titled ‘How Viral Pandemic Benefits The Globalist Agenda’. In that piece I noted:

First, the notion that it [covid] was caused by Chinese citizens ‘eating bats’ or being exposed to a live animal market is rather ridiculous. We’ve seen NO hard evidence whatsoever that this is true, and I believe the narrative is a cover for the fact that the city of Wuhan where the virus outbreak began is the home of not one but TWO level 4 biohazard labs.

I have a hard time ignoring the strange ‘coincidence’ of the high level biohazard labs in Wuhan in favor of the idea that the virus was launched by chance due to the odd diets of central Chinese people. Given the evidence it appears that the coronavirus was gestated in a lab, not in someone’s bat and snake soup. In 2017, scientists outside of China warned that these labs were not secure and that a virus might escape one of the facilities.”

I argued that the outbreak might be a controlled incident or a false flag. I noted the strange coincidence of “Event 201” disaster simulation held by the Gates Foundation and the World Economic Forum only a couple months before the covid pandemic officially began. The simulation involved the international outbreak of a deadly coronavirus.

A few other media outlets came to the same conclusions I did in those early days, including Zero Hedge and the Washington Times. Zero Hedge was ultimately banned from social media (including Twitter), for the position. The Washington Times was pressured to backtrack on portions of their investigation. My website was essentially shadow-banned from search engines like Google.

The media attacked us relentlessly as a “threat to national safety”. They called the idea of a lab leak “baseless conspiracy theory” while citing Dr. Fauci as one of “the most trusted officials in America” when it came to pandemic information (apparently, he was absolutely giddy over his deification by mainstream news platforms).

Six years later we have all been vindicated in our analysis of the pandemic and the abuse of power that it enabled. This week, we have been treated to the release of 1141 pages of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s professional “diaries”, which cover a period from December of 2019 to December of 2022. These diaries confirm everything we suspected at the beginning of the event.

Fauci was deeply embedded in the government’s policy apparatus; he was the go-to adviser for the White House and a primary media representative. He had direct influence over government decisions to enact lockdowns, mandates and vaccine campaigns.  He was also tied to the lab experimentation that (allegedly) led to the creation of the virus in question. In other words, Fauci acted as a primary gatekeeper for the chaos, from inception to solution. From end to end.

I continue to believe (according to the behavior and white papers of globalist organizations) that covid was intended to kill far more people than it ended up killing. The initial estimations by groups like the World Health Organization put the death rate at around 3% and a number of news outlets repeated this data point. I think this was the death rate they expected, but not the death rate they eventually got.

The real Infection Fatality Rate ended up being closer to 0.23% on average. Meaning, the world was shut down over a virus that 99.8% of people would easily survive. This fact was greatly suppressed by the media, by politicians and by bureaucrats like Fauci.  As far as I can tell, Fauci never addressed this data publicly; it was too inconvenient to the fear narrative.

Any mention of the virus being engineered was eventually silenced. Fauci knew of this censorship and often encouraged it in the name of “fighting misinformation”. According to his diaries, he steered the science away from the lab leak theory even though a majority of virologists broached the idea as likely.  Fauci helped organize and participated in discussions that led to the influential “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2” paper (published in Nature Medicine in March 2020). That paper concluded that a laboratory-based scenario was not plausible and strongly favored natural spillover.

After considerable push-back, Fauci would later claim that he was open to wider investigations into covid origins.  But, at the height of the pandemic fervor it was Fauci who consistently labeled these avenues of research as “conspiracy theory”. It was Fauci who poisoned the well.  But why was he so obsessed with eliminating the lab leak theory from discussion?

The NIH funded an EcoHealth Alliance grant, providing an award of roughly $600,000 to the Wuhan lab for bat coronavirus research. Some of that work involved creating chimeric viruses and testing them in humanized mice or human cells. A GOA review of federal funding to Chinese agencies from 2014-2021 found at least $1.4 million had been transferred to the Wuhan Lab during that time.

In 2024 congressional testimony, Acting NIH Director Lawrence Tabak acknowledged that the NIH funded this research at Wuhan through EcoHealth. He also admitted that the research met a “generic” definition of gain-of-function. This was a complete contradiction of Fauci’s ongoing denials.

The experiments to enhance viruses for human spread were pursued under a little-known loophole in the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). As long as the research was meant to develop “solutions or treatments” for the potential spread of manipulated viruses, gain of function experimentation was technically legal.  Fauci’s behavior suggests he was covering his tracks on gain of function and the chance that the NIH program was ground zero.

Currently, US national intelligence agencies, the FBI, the CIA, the Department of Energy and multiple foreign intel agencies say they believe the Wuhan lab leak theory is probable (i.e. NOT conspiracy theory).

Fauci might have set the powder keg in place. He might have even lit the fuse. However, the ultimate institutional surge to exploit the crisis required a level of organization much bigger than Fauci. I would look to the Gates Foundation, the WEF, the WHO, as well as influential figures at the Imperial College London, etc. for the top of the pyramid when it comes to the medical tyranny side of things.

In the meantime, the good doctor deserves a lifetime in prison (or execution) for his participation in the coup. Will he get it? Not at the hands of any government, I suspect. Like I said, the bureaucracy is the government BEHIND the government. It is a faceless leviathan that defies transparency. It’s the fail-safe in the event that political leadership grows a conscience. The public can vote out politicians, but we can’t vote out the bureaucracy.

If Trump or the Senate or anyone else attempts to prosecute Fauci, the legal infrastructure overrun by activist judges will protect him. This is a fact. This is how the elites maintain a certain level of control and prevent any real reformation or reckoning.

There are plenty of political leaders in the US that fought back against the mandates (nearly half of all states blocked the restrictions). They helped us win the battle and it’s important to give credit where credit is due. That said, these people can only do so much. They are bound by the rules of the system and the system is designed to safeguard the corrupt.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/31/2026 - 23:25

Wichita Man Sues City To Rip Out Its 200-Camera Flock Dragnet

Zero Hedge -

Wichita Man Sues City To Rip Out Its 200-Camera Flock Dragnet

A Wichita machinist, Mason Grimmett, sued his own city this week, arguing that the roughly 200 Flock license-plate readers the police department has bolted around town amount to warrantless dragnet surveillance forbidden by the Kansas Constitution. The complaint, filed in Sedgwick County District Court by the Kansas Justice Institute, does not ask for money - rather, it asks a judge to declare the program unconstitutional and shut it down.

The cameras are made by Flock Safety, one of the largest plate-reader vendors in the country, and Wichita started installing them in 2020. The institute now describes the city as saturated with them - close to 200 AI-powered cameras photographing every passing vehicle and logging its make, model, color, plate, and identifying marks into a searchable database. Grimmett, a lifelong Wichita resident who testified against the program at a public meeting in June, argues that the system violates Section 15 of the state constitution, which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures, and that the city is, in the complaint's language, tracking and databasing law-abiding Kansans "without a warrant, without probable cause, without reasonable suspicion" and without any judicial oversight at all.

The Cops Who Already Abused It

Grimmett points to several local cases in which Kansas police used Flock cameras to stalk people, including abuse by former Kechi Police Lt. Victor Heiar, who was sentenced to eighteen months of probation for using Flock cameras to track a woman. According to local reports, a former detective was also accused of using plate-reader technology to stalk his wife, and a Sedgwick-area police chief reportedly ran an ex-girlfriend through the cameras 164 times. The institute is not disputing that the cameras help solve crimes. Its point is that they photograph everyone, all the time, and that the same access which cracks a burglary case also lets a jealous cop follow whoever he pleases.

"This is America, and we don't tolerate warrantless surveillance," said Sam MacRoberts, the institute's litigation director, who says that if the government wants to monitor a citizen it ought to go to a judge and explain why. Grimmett says he cannot drive to work, the gym, a doctor's appointment, a polling place, or a meeting of the local Sunflower Privacy Alliance without being catalogued by the department and by Flock.

Part Of A Widening Front

Lawsuits over Flock cameras are starting to stack up. In April, three San Jose residents filed a class action over that city's nearly 500 cameras. In February, a separate class action in San Francisco accused Flock of sharing plate-reader data with ICE, CBP, the FBI, and ATF in violation of California's ALPR Privacy Act, the sort of out-of-jurisdiction access that keeps surfacing in audits elsewhere and that has already pushed at least one California city to suspend its cameras pending review. The pushback has reached Congress, too, where a cluster of Republican bills - Rep. Thomas Massie's move to withhold federal funds from any city running the cameras, and Rep. Tim Burchett's Protection Against Mass Surveillance Act, which names Flock explicitly - now takes aim at the government-contract model the company runs on. Wichita's department has previously described its own program as self-auditing, and the city had not filed a response to Grimmett's suit as of Friday.

None of this will surprise regular readers who have watched the license-plate-reader map fill in city by city while the contracts governing who can query the data stayed conveniently vague. Grimmett, meanwhile, is betting that a state constitution's search-and-seizure clause is the faster route to pulling the cameras down, and a ruling in his favor would hand every other saturated Flock city a template...

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/31/2026 - 23:00

'Genetically Altered' Nuclear Monster Sharks Could Be Eating Whales

Zero Hedge -

'Genetically Altered' Nuclear Monster Sharks Could Be Eating Whales

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

A mysterious predator has been tearing into whales, seals, and giant tuna off the New York coast, leaving bite marks the size of dinner plates and sparking theories of a radioactive "Sharkzilla" spawned by decades of government nuclear waste dumping.

Because nothing says summer 2026 like the possibility that Cold War bureaucrats cooked up a genetically enhanced killing machine in the Atlantic.

Montauk is once again ground zero for monster shark drama. A humpback whale turned up with a 24-inch bite wound. A gray seal took a 22-inch chomp. A 400-pound tuna was found shredded.

Local shark scientist Craig O'Connell, the Montauk-based marine biologist who's appeared in more than 40 Shark Week programs, launched an investigation in September 2025 and pointed the finger at the Hudson Canyon, a vast underwater gorge about 100 miles offshore that drops from 900 feet to 4,000 feet.

The canyon has a dirty little history. In the late 1960s, the U.S. government dumped 15,000 barrels of nuclear waste into those depths. Ten years later the barrels were found leaking. O'Connell floated the idea that radiation could have triggered genetic mutations in the local predators.

"Radioactive leaks could be impacting wildlife, even top predators," he said. "If animals are subjected to nuclear waste, this could cause genetic mutations and abnormal growth. If this predator is genetically altered, it could be faster, stronger and deadlier than any predator on Earth. We are calling it Sharkzilla."

O'Connell and his team had just 30 hours before a storm to lure, tag, and sample the beast. They dropped baited cameras into the twilight zone more than 600 feet down.

A massive great white lunged at the lens. Then makos appeared - fast, solitary hunters capable of more than 40 mph. Two of them showed up together, then vanished, as if something larger had spooked them. An enormous shadow cruised past and disappeared.

The crew deployed a decoy dolphin named Hudson stuffed with tuna and a homemade "blubber blaster" designed to mimic a rupturing whale carcass. As the light faded, a nearly 12-foot female mako charged the boat.

"This is Sharkzilla," O'Connell shouted.

He swam outside the cage, tagged her on the second attempt, and collected a tissue sample. Tracker signals showed her heading in the same direction as the earlier attacks. Lab tests later found zero evidence of radioactive contamination.

What they actually found was a pregnant mako using the waters as a breeding ground, hunting hard to feed her developing pups. The big females had returned to an area once famous for monster sharks until overfishing wiped them out.

"In the past, this is the place you came to catch monster sharks," O'Connell said.

He added, "There are so many records right here off the shores of Montauk. All these monster sharks were completely fished out. They're gone. But all the evidence we are seeing is telling me that all these big sharks might be back. I know those big sharks are out there, and we are going to find them."

The episode, Sharkzilla Takes New York, airs tonight on Discovery Channel as part of Shark Week 2026. O'Connell later called the encounters "mind-blowing" and noted the mako "exhibited the most threatening posture... All you'd see were teeth."

He also admitted the nuclear idea was speculative: "Could it have created giant sharks? People will have to watch and find out. But it's possible."

So likely no glowing, multi-eyed, radiation-spawned abomination is currently snacking on Long Island's marine megafauna. Just a very large, very hungry, very pregnant mako doing what apex predators do.

The real story is the government once thought it was fine to sink thousands of barrels of nuclear waste into a canyon that feeds the East Coast food chain, then left the mess to leak. Nature, as usual, is more resilient than the bureaucrats who polluted it.

America's waters are still full of surprises. Some of them have very big teeth. And some of the biggest problems were dumped there by the same people who now lecture everyone else about the environment.

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 Fri, 07/31/2026 - 22:35

Unitree IPO Finally Puts A Real Price On Profitable Humanoid Robots

Zero Hedge -

Unitree IPO Finally Puts A Real Price On Profitable Humanoid Robots

Chinese robotics maker Unitree formally launched its IPO on Shanghai's STAR Market on Thursday, opening the books on a deal that aims to raise about 4.2 billion yuan (roughly $618 million) at an implied valuation near 42 billion yuan ($5.9 billion). Once the shares start trading, the listing will put a real, daily market price on a profitable humanoid-robot maker operating at scale - the first the sector has had.

Until now, humanoid robotics companies have been raising capital based on numbers nobody could really challenge since nobody has had to actually clear a market. So far we have Figure AI sitting on a $39 billion private valuation, and a clutch of Chinese rivals each pushing past $3 billion in the primary market. A public listing swaps the euphoria of those private rounds for the discipline of a secondary one. Regulators approved the registration in early July after a review that took roughly 104 days from acceptance, one of the fastest STAR Market clearances on record. Observers have linked the speed directly to Beijing's push to channel capital toward strategic robotics and AI champions. That said, Unitree has been designated a Chinese military company in the US, and Washington is weighing action against subsidized Chinese robotics imports even as the machines turn up for sale on Amazon.

A Rare Profitable Name in a Sea of Losses

Unitree makes an unusually clean test case because unlike most of its peers, it actually turns a profit. The company reported 2025 revenue of about 1.7 billion yuan and adjusted profit around 591 million yuan - a net margin north of 35 percent that, in a field defined by cash burn, is close to an anomaly. It shipped more than 5,500 humanoid robots last year, more than any other company globally, alongside cumulative quadruped sales above 33,000 units. Overseas revenue has consistently run past 40 percent of the total. Founder and chief executive Wang Xingxing controls roughly a third of the business. The prospectus earmarks the proceeds for robot "brains" and model research, robot bodies, new products, and a manufacturing base.

The rest of the field looks nothing like it. UBTech, which is pursuing its own A-share listing, has put its Walker S humanoid through more than 50,000 hours of training on BYD production lines but keeps running losses. It just launched a consumer-grade bionic robot priced as high as 990,000 yuan (about $146,000) in a bid to crack the home market. Overseas, Tesla's Optimus is slated to reach mass production this year. Every player in the space has a demo reel and a private valuation nobody has to defend. Unitree is about to have a share price that trades every day and settles the argument in public.

Whatever Unitree prints when it debuts becomes the benchmark for the entire "embodied intelligence" trade.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/31/2026 - 22:10

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