Who's Next... What's Next...?

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

It’s all backstage now. This fraught moment, the power-centers locked in the coldest cold of the year, the Spanish language lessons of Bad Bunny behind us, all the real action in the battle to save the country is out of sight, moiling and churning in the deep background. Everybody’s on edge waiting for shoes to drop, praying they don’t drop on their heads.

Bad Bunny’s Superbowl House Party. . . So Long, Been Good to Know Ya!

You should have seen Senator Mark Warner (D-VA; Vice-chair of the Senate Intel Committee) on Face the Nation Sunday, frothing at the mouth over Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence (DNI).

He cannot believe she turned up at the Fulton County, GA, election warehouse last month, where the FBI extracted 700 boxes of ballots and other evidence for what happened there in the 2020 election.

Senator Warner doesn’t want you to find out.

Senator Warner, you understand, is one of the darkest creatures slithering through the cypress knobs of the DC swamp, and his lair, the Senate Intel Committee, is a fetid backwater of seditious intrigue. Senator Warner is setting the stage for yet another hoax against the country. He’s got a “whistleblower,” ID unknown, who supposedly imputes that last spring “an individual associated with foreign intelligence” made a phone call to “a person close to President Trump” and DNI Gabbard failed to report it to his committee.

DNI Gabbard simply called Sen. Warner a liar, which is exactly and succinctly correct.

Senator Warner is wetting his pants because the Georgia 2020 election tally looks sketchy to an extreme and he knows the case is beyond his control now.

Pulling on that thread will unravel the whole fake tapestry of “Joe Biden’s” election and will reveal the Democratic Party to be a criminal enterprise.

The nation itself has to face some unappetizing reality. Four years were stolen from the people and political devices were aligned to destroy the nation. They almost succeeded.

Over in Minnesota the major players are laying low now.

Governor Tim Walz, a creep of the thirty-second degree, surrendered his career weeks ago but nervously awaits indictment for presiding over massive social service fraud. ICE is still extracting psychopathic alien mutts out of Minneapolis, while the Cluster-B ladies and their mentally-ill Antifa spear-carriers remain out in the streets banging on sauce-pans. But somewhere in an office, away from the deafening whistles, the money trails are getting tracked from taxpayers to the Learing Centers to the state’s politicians and the DNC and then off forever into the Horn of Africa. You just can’t see it now.

The giant poisonous amoeba that Jeffrey Epstein became has not yielded all of its secrets.

Everybody knows that there are darker scenes lurking behind the curtain. The rumors are outlandishly horrifying, worse than anything out of Hollywood’s scare factory, a slaughter of the innocents. Who knows if they are true — well, possibly somebody knows, but these would be things you cannot want to know. One thing I’d like to know: why don’t the dozens of so-called “Epstein Survivors,” grown women supposedly raped and abused by celebrities years ago as children, name their abusers publicly? What’s stopping them as they grandstand around the country? Or is it just another grift?

It’s seven o’clock in the morning as I write (and fifteen-below zero), and World War Three has not started yet, though it seems like the whole US Navy and half the Air Force has deployed in the vicinity of Iran: the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group, a Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea, accompanied by guided-missile destroyers USS Frank E. Petersen Jr., USS Spruance and USS Michael Murphy. . . destroyers USS McFaul and USS Mitscher in the Straits of Hormuz. . . littoral combat ships USS Canberra, USS Tulsa, and USS Santa Barbara in the Persian Gulf. . . at least a dozen F-15E Strike Eagles relocated to Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan (from RAF base Lakenheath, UK). Additional aircraft like A-10C Thunderbolts noted at regional bases. . . support aircraft, KC-135 Stratotankers for refueling (active at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar), P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol, MQ-9 Reaper drones, and transport/refueling planes (C-17s, etc.), deployed around the region.

You have to wonder whether the regime running Iran has already selected martyrdom rather than yielding anything to forces who are sick of them, including many Iranians.

Iranian missiles are targeted for Tel Aviv, US bases in the Emirates, and possibly even Saudi Arabia. Could be all bluff. The truth of the situation remains hidden, like everything else right now in the global arena.

Down in Fort Pierce, Florida, today, a grand jury will hear more witnesses in the sedition and treason conspiracy carried out by our own government officials since 2016. And being a grand jury, it is all secret, you will not be hearing about it in the news. Like so much else now, the action there is behind the curtain. Too many cynics believe that nothing will come of it. Yet, the blast zone from it, when it comes, will blow at us like a second American Revolution in the 250thanniversary year of the first one.

Different dynamics are aligning now, forces better structured to the survival of our nation. The only thing we know for sure: Bad Bunny has had his fifteen minutes of fame.

Who’s next and what’s next?

Patience, please.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/09/2026 - 16:20

 

 

The transcript from this week’s MiB: Bob Moser, Prime Group Founder and CEO, is below.

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

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This is Masters in Business with Barry Ritholtz on Bloomberg Radio.

Barry Ritholtz: This week on the podcast, what a fascinating conversation. Bob Moser is founder and CEO of Prime Group Holdings. Uh they’re the largest privately held self storage owner operator, investor in the country. Fascinating conversation. Started acquiring properties in college. Eventually, uh started doing RVs and uh mobile homes. Just really fascinating uh methodology of identifying undervalued properties. Uh I thought the conversation was fascinating and I think you will also. With no further ado, Bob Moser of Prime Group Holdings. 

Bob Moser: Thanks for having me.

 Barry Ritholtz: So, let’s start out with your your background, bachelor’s with honors in economics from Union College. What what was the original career plan?

Bob Moser: Tell you the truth, it was always real estate. So, I’ve always had an affinity for real estate.

Barry Ritholtz: Really?

Bob Moser: Yeah. My mom tells the story that when I was like 14 or 15, she’d drop me off at the local real estate broker’s office and I would drive them nuts for a couple hours and it was either that or just to get rid of me out of her hair probably. But I always had it. Got my real estate license before college. I got my brokerage license while at college and actually started the business basically my sophomore junior year while at Union.

Barry Ritholtz: Wow, that’s amazing. So, so your college thesis focused on how to value income producing real estate investments by comparing demand and value like so you really knew exactly what you wanted to do by your senior year. What was the outcome of that college thesis?

Bob Moser: It’s a good question. So, it was on the valuation of income producing properties using hydonic and non-hydonic regression analysis.

Barry Ritholtz: So, when we say hydonic you’re adjusting for quality…

Bob Moser: …location, attributes of the property, uh taking away basically the revenue stream, what else adds value to the asset. Uh and I was really hyperfocused on fragmented real estate assets. So basically every real estate asset when you look at it goes through the same life cycle when they’re originally owned, developed, managed by local regional developers. Then over time the larger groups come in and consolidate. So I was looking for that reflection point when that consolidation starts. And I was focused back then in college on the thesis for manufactured housing communities.

And when you’re a college student, you know, people pick up the phone when you call because they’re always trying to help somebody out. And I was very fortunate to speak to Sam Zell uh and some other obviously leaders in the real estate business. And they gave me some great insight. And one of the ones he said to me was that there’s a lot of buyers, but there’s not much product out there. You have to go out and find product for people.

So, I decided to start a company in college to facilitate that transaction. Obviously, I didn’t have any money. My dad was a retired New York City detective. Uh my mom was a teachers aid, so I didn’t grow up with any wealth. But I figured out that if I could find good product, there was a numerous amount of buyers to buy it. And I did this by using the Freedom Information Act of New York and then various other states where I figured out that I could track all real estate asset classes using the the same common denominator of water and sewer per So I went down to Albany and I made my request…

And one day, you know, UPS knocked at my door… and handed me a box. I’m like, “Oh, there’s my real estate information.” And he’s like, “Actually, that truck out there is.” I had boxes and boxes of the old DOSs printouts of every self storage facility, every mobile home park, every RV park, marina, multifamily. Just so some of the younger listeners can appreciate this, forget AI. This is really before there was any sort of usable internet… This is physical paper stored in physical um office buildings and file cabinets. I had to pay per page on the print out.

Barry Ritholtz: And what did that cost and how how long ago was this?

Bob Moser: So this was back in 97 96 97. Uh it probably cost me a couple hundred dollars which I really didn’t have as a college student. But I realized quickly that that information was the key to finding assets. And what I would do is I would systematically go through these lists basically county by county… identifying the institutional quality assets that were still owned by mom and pops or non-institutional investors. Then I would do a deep dive on those assets. I would call and get the rent. I would call the tax assessor to get the real estate taxes. My goal was to know more about the real estate than the owner did by the time I called them on the phone to see if they’d be interested in selling.

Barry Ritholtz: That’s unbelievable. So that’s what led you to unconventional and overlooked segments. You mentioned marinas and RV parks and um other things like that. Um uh manufactured homes. How long did it take you before you managed to acquire your first property?

Bob Moser: So, there was a I I acquired my first property shortly after college. And what happened was there was a mobile home park in Streetsboro, Ohio. Uh it was actually called Camelot Village. Again, a guy named Mike Duffy owned it. And I used to call Mr. Duffy probably every 30 days to see if he would sell his asset. And one day, I finally got him to sell. And I made a nice fee on the transaction. But I still needed a little bit more. And the year I graduated, my mom took a home equity loan against the family house.

Barry Ritholtz: Is that how you financed?

Bob Moser: That’s how I financed my first acquisition. So before that, I was facilitating transactions, making fees, almost like a broker, but not a listing broker. And then the first asset I bought was when my my parents took a home equity loan.

Barry Ritholtz: So if in you mentioned you got your real estate license in college, how are you finding buyers for these sort of unconventional properties. Are you going to the big institutions and saying, “Hey, I have a property that fits into your portfolio.”

Bob Moser: No, what I actually did was I had these lists obviously that I got from the foil request and I kept on seeing the same name show up in buyers or that were owners. Okay. So, if I knew they own five assets in that particular region, I thought, hey, if I develop one or I get a relationship with a seller that would sell, I would bring it to that.

Barry Ritholtz: You knew where to bring it.

Bob Moser: 100%.

Barry Ritholtz:  Really, really quite fascinating. And so, when did you found your own real real estate brokerage firm?

Bob Moser: So that was basically in college. So that was in college.

Barry Ritholtz: So how long did you do that as a um as a broker rather than an investor or they kind of ran parallel paths?

Bob Moser: No. So I was basically working exclusively for generating fees from like 97 to 2000ish 20 2001. I started buying my first asset around 99 going into 2000.

Barry Ritholtz: So, you ramp up various assets until 2013 when you start Prime Group. Was that the path?

Bob Moser: So, what I did was I so my mom took the home equity loan, my parents did against their home. Uh the first asset I bought actually I had sold to that gentleman 10 months prior and I called them up and I said, “Hey, uh you know, Wayne, I sold you this property. It was on Cape Cod. Uh would you be interested in selling it? And he I sold it to him for 3 million. He ended up selling it to me for 5 million.

Barry Ritholtz: Wow.

Bob Moser: Uh 10 months earlier. And then I moved up to Cape Cod and I actually ran the asset for the first two years to see how the business worked cuz I didn’t want to be that owner that would tell people what to do without actually being able to do it themselves. And then I bought my second property and then I bought my third. And then by 2005, August 12th, 2005, I had a large liquidity event. I sold the group of assets to Sam Zell.

Barry Ritholtz: So So I want to draw a line. So you’re a college kid randomly calling big real estate investors…

Bob Moser: 100%.

Barry Ritholtz: Including Sam Zell who took your phone call.

Bob Moser: Took my phone call.

Barry Ritholtz: And you had a long conversation with him.

Bob Moser: I did. I did.

Barry Ritholtz: And so how many years later is like, “Hey Sam, do your It’s me, Bob. Do you remember me? I have some assets for you.”

Bob Moser: It was funny when you say that because when I was dealing with the CEO, there’s a CEO at the time. Uh I always wonder because I never really spoke to him then after. So I wonder if he actually put two and two together. I’m sure he did.

Barry Ritholtz: So now you have a liquidity event. You’re tapping into Wall Street securitization or to fund this. How uh at what point do you say, “Oh, there’s a ready source of capital. I could just put a rollup strategy together and run all these properties more more efficiently than mom and pops can do…”

Bob Moser: 100%. The what I so basically from let’s say 2000 through 2005 2006 I was acquiring a lot of mobile home RV parks… And what really transitioned to me to become an asset specialist which we are now was how well self storage was doing during the first financial crisis… I decided at that point to become an asset specialist singularly focus on self storage.

Barry Ritholtz: So I’m curious why would self storage do well during the financial crisis. Was it literally people were losing their homes? They had to figure out where all their stuff had to go or what was happening in that period that made that such a a a standout performer.

Bob Moser: I would say it was more the defensive nature of it where these other assets were decreasing dramatically. Storage was holding its own. And it’s need-based real estate. I do not buy aspirational real estate.

Barry Ritholtz: It seems like you are in a variety of different regions everywhere from Saratoga to Springs to Chelsea here in New York City. Um, how do your uh underwriting assumptions differ relative to is this urban, is this suburban…

Bob Moser: So, we truly obviously real estate and that sound cliche, but it’s location, location, location. So, if you look at our portfolio, it basically you take the United States and it looks like a U. So, we’re up and down the coasts… and the reason why we’re along coastlines and then we’re up picking up in the mountain cities out in like Utah and Colorado is that there’s a barrier that’s natural barrier keeping the population tight to a nucleus.

Now, we have built very sophisticated software that helps us pre-identify these areas that we should be buying, not even the area, the exact asset we should be buying even though it’s not for sale. So, we built out this program where it pre basically I can put in our buy box and it populates out of the 60,000 self-storage facilities in the country the ones we should go after… And then what we have is our deal teams, which are group of roughly three dozen people internally that we allocate the deals that fit our criteria to and then they continue to call and visit those owners until we convert them to sellers.

Barry Ritholtz: Really, really fascinating. Coming up, we continue our conversation with Bob Moser, CEO of Prime Group Holdings, discussing the Prime Storage business. I’m Barry Ritholtz. You’re listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.

([Break])

Barry Ritholtz: I’m Barry Ritholtz. You’re listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My extra special guest this week is Bob Moser… So, let’s talk a little bit about the business model of self storage. I see these areas popping up everywhere… How widely used are they? How profitable are they versus, you know, traditional commercial real estate?

Bob Moser: It’s a great question. So self storage has the lowest break even occupancy of any institutional real estate asset class I can think of. So at 40% occupied, you’re breaking even on expenses.

Barry Ritholtz: So, no lobby, no door man, no showers, none of the things that multi family correct makes so expensive.

Bob Moser: Well, you think about a multif family, if you’re going to turn a unit, it’s going to cost you anywhere from, let’s say, 1,500 to 5,000 depending on what you’re doing. Self storage is $5. We’re sweeping it and replacing a light bulb if there is one.

Barry Ritholtz:  Really really quite interesting. What about ancillary revenue streams? We’ve all seen those silly reality shows where they find these, you know, someone abandons a unit and they find some million-dollar painting in there. H how much nonsense is…

Bob Moser: Yeah, I haven’t had that luck. But the uh it’s funny that you bring that up. So, prior to those TV shows, we would have the auctions on site… What happened though, everybody also and started showing up to these had a personality. They thought they were on TV, right? So everything now is virtual. So when we have an auction, it’s all done online. But the and it’s not a revenue source for the business… One of them is a tenant protection program where uh the tenants are able to push the liability of a storm or something happening to their goods onto the landlord for paying a certain price.

Barry Ritholtz: I hadn’t even thought about the idea of a storm. So you live near a coast, there’s a big hurricane coming. Hey, I have a bunch of furniture and I want to get soaked. If we’re if we’re swamped, let’s move it inland to a storage area…

Bob Moser: 100% and and god forbid something happens to their home. You know, obviously a lot of stuff gets moved into the storage facility.

Barry Ritholtz: So, you you guys are the largest privately held self- storage um set of ownership. Uh what’s the competition like? I know I know Blackstone is in here. We see cubes everywhere. We see public storage. Who are your big competitors?

Bob Moser: Correct. So, there’s the group of public companies that you were just mentioning. You have Extra Space, you have public storage, you have CubeSmart, U-Haul, um, and

Barry Ritholtz: U-Haul. I didn’t even think of U-Haul. That’s right.

Bob Moser: Correct. You know, most people think of them just as the moving business, but obviously they own a substantial amount of self storage. Substantial amount. What we do differently is we operate differently… The REITs are highly focused on occupancy. They want to keep their occupancy above 99 92%. Where I’ll trade occupancy for topline revenue.

Barry Ritholtz: And then the related issue I see are the mobile pods people sometimes use is seems sort of adjacent to the space. What what are your thoughts on that?

Bob Moser: So we’re not in that business. Um it’s a lot more labor intensive.

Barry Ritholtz: You got to physically drop the pod off and then come collect it later.

Bob Moser: Correct. So in storage, one of the main benefits is there’s we take no availment risk. So we’re never taking possession of the person’s goods.

Barry Ritholtz: So this really went from kind of a niche to a mainstream investment class over the past couple of years. You were really early in this space. What did you see that others miss…

Bob Moser: It was the fragmentation… highly fragmented when I first entered the asset class uh even back in around 2015 2014 it was roughly 80% still owned by mom and pops.

Barry Ritholtz: Wow. So just the the REITs and the institutionals only own 20% of the the outstanding…

Bob Moser: It’s probably closer to 70 75% so there’s been a lot of validation.

Barry Ritholtz: So a couple of years ago you did a uh a raise, a couple of billion dollars from outside investors… So why go to outside investors rather than go this securitized route?

Bob Moser: It was basically it’s a it’s it’s scale play. So we I knew the asset class was going to consolidate quickly once the other the large institutions understood it better… and the best way to do it was through the co-mingled fund way.

Barry Ritholtz: So, so not hands off REIT like correct uh numbers. So, so let’s you mentioned your investment committee. Walk us through the typical acquisition. How do you source these things? Is it still just calling people up…?

Bob Moser: So, this this is where it takes the correct personality to be this part of the team… So what we use is our proprietary software we have developed inhouse that we load our entire buy box into this software and it projects it’s an AI system every self storage that fits that criteria in the country… then we allocate that deal to the deal team member that covers that area then he or she continues to call that owner every 30 to 45 days until we convert them to a seller.

Barry Ritholtz: What’s the conversation like with a seller? Hey, spoke to you back in uh October. Just checking in, seeing if anything changes. How receptive are people to this?

Bob Moser: So, it’s more than and I get those same email else and it drives me nuts… So when we call, you know, we’re referring to an exact asset… We’ve already been by the asset. We know what the numbers are. But then we visit them on the holiday. We find out when their their birthday is. We send them a card… and then we try to solve that problem. What they do with the money afterwards, how do they maximize their sale proceeds? And we hold their hand through the process.

Barry Ritholtz: That’s amazing. Maximizing returns afterwards. I’m going to assume that’s some combination of it’s it’s obviously capital gains… I would not have thought that a buyer is going to facilitate that process would hold their hand through it…

Bob Moser: Because we want to eliminate any kind of friction. We need to buy assets… If we weren’t buying it this way, we would be buying it like 99% of every other asset where it gets brokered… and at the end you overpaid for the asset.

Barry Ritholtz: The the winner’s curse in a in an auction situation.

Bob Moser: Exactly. The more buyers there are, the more likely it is the winner overpaid. 100%. So we bypass all that and we go directly to the seller…

Barry Ritholtz: That that’s really fascinating… I would not have guessed that degree of complexity, sophistication, and facilitation to the seller.

Bob Moser: Here’s the crazy thing. We’re closing six to seven deals a month.

Barry Ritholtz: So one or two a week.

Bob Moser: On average when you look at it that way.

Barry Ritholtz: So it sounds like just the prep before you make an offer. If it’s a few weeks, it sounds like you’re spending tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Bob Moser: Easily. But you think about it, if I don’t get that asset today, I might get it in a month… We’re into this for the long run.

Barry Ritholtz: And and when you guys raised fund three, that was the largest dedicated self- storage fund raise at the time. I think that was $2.5 billion or something like that. And and what’s the total um self- storage headcount?

Bob Moser: Uh we have over 300 close to 350 assets. We have around 7 or 800 employees around the country.

Barry Ritholtz: Really really quite fascinating. Coming up, we continue our conversation with Bob Moser… I’m Barry Ritholtz. You’re listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.

([Break])

Barry Ritholtz: I’m Barry Ritholtz. You’re listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio and watching Masters in Business on YouTube. My extra special guest this week is Bob Moser… I want to talk a little bit about the state of commercial real estate today. But I still have a handful of of questions I have to ask you um uh about self storage. You mentioned uh small businesses are are a big customer… What percentage of your units are rented by small businesses and and what do they use this for?

Bob Moser: It’s a great question. It’s probably one of the most overlooked aspects of self- storage… The rest is a 30 to 40% are small businesses, contractors, landscapers, a lot of pharmaceutical reps. So, we are their warehouse. We’re the warehouse for that small business that employs the majority of the US population.

Barry Ritholtz:  Really, really interesting. And we were talking previously about uh self- storage isn’t covered by the traditional landlord tenant law… This is a lean law system. Is that true in all states?

Bob Moser: 100%. And actually it carries to Canada as well uh in parts of Europe that we’re looking at. But yeah, it it and it’s basically very similar to like a bank loaning money… But it provides a way to collect the rent that’s owed unlike a multifamily where it might take you a year if you’re lucky to evict somebody that’s not paying.

Barry Ritholtz: And you mentioned Europe. Uh I don’t think you have a lot of exposure currently in Europe. How big a push are you looking to make on the continent?

Bob Moser: So, we’ve been doing a lot of digging in figuring out what the different aspects and different cities. You know, it’s interesting because some of the owners in Europe, let’s say, let’s look at London, there will be two or three owners that own the majority of that inventory. Our play again is going out and buying from that oneoff owner… In Europe, they’ve been consolidated into groups. So, it really doesn’t provide us that ability to buy assets that we think are highly undermanaged.

Barry Ritholtz: So in the US this laws vary somewhat from state to state but it’s fairly uniform. Um how different is it country to country in in the EU or UK?

Bob Moser: Yeah but even in the states the when it comes to the actual implementation of the lean law it does there’s different timings… So we have a whole legal compliance team that works on this on a daily basis to make sure that each state law is being followed…

Barry Ritholtz: Really Interesting. So, commercial real estates have seeing higher uh rates of of costs, interest rates and inflation have been kind of stubborn and sticky. What sort of refinancing stresses that create or are you sidest stepping that whole interest rate chase these days?

Bob Moser: So, we’re very fortunate being in real estate for as long as we have. We have developed really deep relationships with the large institutional lenders uh from CitiBank, the Goldman, the JP the BMO to uh Northern Trust… But we spend a lot of time making sure that we’re hedging our interest rates.

Barry Ritholtz: We’ve certainly seen shifts in in demographics with everything from migration and remote work and aging populations. How does that affect uh demand for commercial real estate, both self storage and other related real estate?

Bob Moser: It’s a big demand driver for self- storage. So, when you think about it, people now are living in apartments more. I think I just heard the average the firsttime home buyers now until like they’re 40 now. It’s crazy when it used to be like 28 or 26. So obviously they live in smaller apartments, they need place to put their stuff.

Barry Ritholtz: Yeah. Speaking of office, we’ve seen a lot of underutilized um office properties… I just saw a piece in the Wall Street Journal uh this week that there has been a sudden surge of office to residential conversions in lower Manhattan… Do you track that sort of stuff?

Bob Moser: We’re actually working on one of those now, actually.

Barry Ritholtz: Oh, really? So, commercial office to residential real estate.

Bob Moser: So, what it was was we there was a uh a group of assets in West Chelsea… We’re converting one to a high-end storage of the future we’re calling it… And the other part of the project was a nine story building that’s on the Highline that we are going in to have it converted from office to residential.

Barry Ritholtz: On the Highline, all those properties have become incredibly valuable… When you say high tech self storage, I can imagine uh an app… What What is high-tech self- storage look like?

Bob Moser: So, we have actually harnessed the free energy of your cell phone to unlock the lock.

Barry Ritholtz: Mhm.

Bob Moser: So, it’s pretty interesting… So, basically, if you look at the lock is what controls this business, the actual lock that’s put on… So, we’ve devised and have built a lock that your cell phone gets an electronic key sent to it and then you can use that to open up the lock. There’s no batteries needed. There’s no Wi-Fi needed.

Barry Ritholtz: Some of the new EVs are the same way where you show up with a phone and it not only unlocks the car, it lets you start it.

Bob Moser: So, we’re bringing this to the self storage business and And we have our first 5,000 being deployed as we speak right now… The other thing is if they’re late and don’t pay, their electronic key is turned off…

Barry Ritholtz:  That that’s really fascinating. Um, if it’s not Wi-Fi, How does the key operate? Is that Bluetooth or something else?

Bob Moser: It’s purely off. So, your cell phone gives off energy just sitting there. And it was enough to harness to actually flip that solenoid. It’s pretty amazing. So, we’ve been working for a couple years to get this perfected.

Barry Ritholtz: I’m assuming there has to be a battery.

Bob Moser: No battery. Your phone.

Barry Ritholtz: No battery.

Bob Moser: No battery. That’s the key to this. So, and it’s good that you brought that up because everybody else has done it with a battery in the lock and eventually that battery dies.

Barry Ritholtz: This wasn’t supposed to happen.

Bob Moser: Now it is. So, you think about it. One of our facilities in Astoria is 3,300 units… First of the month comes, if people haven’t paid, that manager has to leave the front desk, go around and double lock those units. Right now, the electronic key just magically freezes the unit. So, it reduces our labor. It gives the consumer a better product.

Barry Ritholtz: Quite quite fascinating. So, given your perspective uh and experience in all sorts of commercial real estate, 2026, there’s a lot of questions… What are you seeing in the commercial real real estate space circa 2026.

Bob Moser: It’s a good question… You know, obviously I think SOFR is going to be coming down. You know, obviously rates are being lowered. I’m hoping to see that on the 5-year Treasury as well.

Barry Ritholtz: is that your benchmark for for fees as opposed to, you know, 10 year for mortgages?

Bob Moser: Yeah. So, I look at the five year quite a bit.

Barry Ritholtz: So, uh, we’ve been hearing from various manufacturers. There’s no sort of clarity as to policy. Everybody is kind of frozen… I get the sense that’s not really an issue with your business.

Bob Moser: Going back, it’s need based real estate. People need it to no matter what the life cycle is, whatever the macro economy is, they need space for their products, goods, inventory, their personal items.

Barry Ritholtz: Really, really fascinating. Last question before we get to our favorites. So, so what do you think commercial real estate investors aren’t thinking about or talking about um but perhaps should be…

Bob Moser: I really think it’s about how to really create value in real estate real estate is not a short term investment and a lot of people look and I’m not even talking 3 to 5 years is short in real estate I remember years ago this old-timer told me that you know real estate’s boring for the first 30 years.

Barry Ritholtz: It’s it’s funny the line, real estate is boring for the first 30 years. After Sam Zell passed away, I read a biography of him and one of the things that kind of that stunned me was he owned some of his properties for for half a century 50 years forever. That’s just that’s just a unbelievable number.

Bob Moser: It’s almost like the Warren Buffett way of buying real estate. Long-term is really long term when it comes to real estate.

Barry Ritholtz: So, so let’s jump to our favorite questions that we ask all of our guests. Starting with who who were your mentors who helped shape this obsession with real estate from the earliest days and helped shape your career?

Bob Moser: I’ve had I’ve been very fortunate to have some great partners along the way. Um, from some of my like Ken Langone, founder of Home Depot, was a really close friend and mentor… but I’ve been fortunate to have some of the largest investors in the world like the late Ira Harris who was absolutely amazing and taught me a lot.

Barry Ritholtz: So, let’s talk about books. What What are you reading and what are some of your favorites.

Bob Moser: I think probably one of my favorite was Remnants of a Stock Operator [sic]. It was a great book.

Barry Ritholtz: Uh what about streaming? What are you listening to or watching? Anything keeping you entertained these days?

Bob Moser: Podcast wise, obviously besides yourself, we were all in listening to some of that on the way down. I was just listening to actually your interview with Unlang’s uh CEO, Wilhelm Schmid of A. Lange.

Barry Ritholtz: Yeah. Fascinating guy. I didn’t realize how big into cars he was. So final two questions. What sort of advice would you give to a recent college grad uh interest in the career in commercial real estate investing?

Bob Moser: I think it’s in anything. Don’t count somebody else’s money. I see a lot of younger people wondering what the other person next to them is making and concerned about that. Always do more than what you’re paid for. And you have to be enthusiastic. Enthusiasm is probably the biggest driver of success. I can think of

Barry Ritholtz: enthusiasm. That’s that’s really fascinating. And our final question, what do you know about the world of commercial real estate investing today? Would have been helpful back in the 1990s when you were first starting out.

Bob Moser: I would say it was more about managing people. I It took me a long time to learn how to manage people… and the ability to empower people. It took you know obviously it took me probably a decade and a half before I really felt comfortable doing that. Uh but yeah I think that was probably if I had done that earlier I’d probably be bigger.

Barry Ritholtz: Really really quite fascinating. Thanks Bob for being so generous with your time. We have been speaking to Bob Moser. He is the founder and CEO of Prime Group Holdings. America’s largest privately held self- storage uh investment fund. If you enjoy this conversation, well, be sure and check out any of the 592 that we’ve done over the past 12 years. You can find those at iTunes, Spotify, Bloomberg, YouTube, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. I would be remiss if I did not thank the Crack team that helps me put these conversations together each and every week. Alexis Noriega is my video producer. Shan Russo is my head of research. Anna Luke is my podcast producer. I’m Barry Ritholtz. You’ve been listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.

 

~~~

 

 

 

The post Transcript: Bob Moser, Prime Group Founder and CEO  appeared first on The Big Picture.

Russia Vows 'All Possible Assistance' To Cuba As US 'Strangles' The Population

Russia warned Monday that the United States is "strangling" Cuba through long-running sanctions, as well as the current de facto oil blockade on the Latin American island-nation in full force.

As a result the Kremlin is exploring ways to get urgent assistance to the Cuban people, as the economic situation and national infrastructure worsens after Havana's number one energy source, nearby Venezuela, has cut off supplies in the wake of Maduro's ouster by US military intervention.

File image, Havana 

"The situation in Cuba is indeed critical... We are aware of this, and we maintain close contact with our Cuban friends through diplomatic and other channels," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at a Monday press briefing.

He added that "the stranglehold imposed by the United States is already causing a lot of difficulties for Cuba" and this has resulted in the two allies discussing "possible ways to resolve these problems or at least provide all possible assistance."

Blackouts across various parts of Cuba have persisted and even grown worse in the last weeks, given power plants are struggling to keep the lights on, as The Associated Press recently described:

The smell of sulfur hits hard in this coastal town that produces petroleum and is home to one of Cuba’s largest thermoelectric plants. Yet, even as the plant cranks back to life, residents remain in the dark, surrounded by energy sources they cannot use.

As tensions deepen between Cuba and the U.S. after it attacked Venezuela and disrupted oil shipments, so have the woes of Santa Cruz del Norte.

People in this town east of Havana are plunged into darkness daily and forced to cook with coal and firewood, but not everyone can afford this new reality.

This is after President Trump in mid-January vowed there will be "zero" oil and outside money going to Cuba, and threatened that its leaders must "make a deal, before it is too late." Washington has labeled the island a "national security threat" to the US - a viewpoint hearkening back to the Cold War.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla has lashed out, saying Cuba faces "a total blockade of energy supplies" by the US, which violates "all principles of international trade," creating "extreme life conditions" for the Cuban population.

The crisis is rapidly impacting various industries, and most recently "Cuba has warned airlines it is suspending jet fuel supplies for a month, an official at a European carrier said Sunday."

BREAKING Cuba has warned airlines it is suspending jet fuel supplies for a month because of an energy crisis, an official at a European carrier says pic.twitter.com/gc7SOVgXVA

— AFP News Agency (@AFP) February 9, 2026

Russia isn't the only one rushing aid to the island. Mexico has been pressured to also cut energy supplies, but at the same time President Claudia Sheinbaum has reportedly ordered two Mexican naval vessels to transport over 800 tons of aid, including food and hygiene items, to Cuba.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/09/2026 - 15:40

Not Clear Whether Vaccines Cause Autism, Needs More Research; NIH Director Says

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

The director of the National Institutes of Health said in a new interview that there’s a dearth of high-quality research into vaccines and autism and that the health agency is funding research that will determine the causes of autism.

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the NIH’s director, told EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” in an interview released on Feb. 10 that he has read studies that have found no connection between the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and autism. Bhattacharya sees the studies as robust.

“For other vaccines, there actually isn’t this kind of rich literature,” he said.

“‘Do vaccines cause autism’ is a poorly formed question,” Bhattacharya added later.

“Do I believe that we know that there are some vaccines that cause autism? The answer—I don’t think that’s true. Do we know for a fact that every single vaccine in the combination it is given doesn’t cause autism? Also, I don’t know that we know that. These are things that are worthy of research.”

A small number of studies have found indications that autism can be caused by vaccines, while others have identified no increased risk in autism following receipt of the measles shot.

Bhattacharya, during a Senate Health Committee hearing on Feb. 3, told Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) that he does not believe autism is caused by the measles vaccine. Sanders pressed for a broader answer.

“I have not seen a study that suggests any single vaccine causes autism,” Bhattacharya said.

President Donald Trump has directed health officials to study autism, noting that more kids than ever are being diagnosed with the disorder. One of the efforts, led by the NIH, is called the Autism Data Science Initiative and involves investing more than $50 million in projects aimed at pinpointing autism causes.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has also said that the government is looking into potential links between autism and vaccines.

“We’ve invested a tremendous amount of money in trying to understand the etiology of autism, because there’s millions of families around the country that have children that ... they would love to be able to help, but we don’t really have great answers, both for the cause and how to sort of reverse whatever problems there are. And of course, there’s a whole range of phenotypes ... ranging from very, very severe autism to much milder, and so you can have different answers and different biology,” Bhattacharya told The Epoch Times.

“We need to have better science underlying all of these conditions, and that’s something I’m investing in to make sure that the next generation of folks who have these conditions will have better answers provided to them.”

A baby after receiving a vaccine for hepatitis B and other diseases, in an undated illustration photograph. Riccardo Milani/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images

Bhattacharya also said he views the NIH’s role as funding research that will provide answers to key questions.

“Even if some people think that the question is already settled, if there’s a lot of the population that doesn’t agree, then, in my view, the right, respectful thing to do is to—rather than just to censor them or argue with them to marginalize them—is to provide more, better, scientific answers to the questions that they have,” he said.

Some organizations, such as the American Medical Association, say existing literature makes clear that vaccines do not cause autism. Certain groups maintain that all or many autism cases are caused by genetic factors.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which for years said that vaccines do not cause autism, said in 2025 that the available evidence does not support that stance.

Kennedy has said multiple times that the available studies are poorly designed and do not disprove a vaccine-autism link.

Some parents of children with autism say that their children were harmed by vaccines, and the government vaccine injury program has paid families who suffered problems associated with autism following vaccination. Researchers with Children’s Health Defense, founded by Kennedy, said in a Jan. 31 paper that epidemiological and other evidence demonstrate that aluminum in vaccines can trigger autism in certain people.

“I don’t know the answer,” Bhattacharya said in the new interview.

“I don’t understand how people can so confidently say they know what the answer [is] for a biological condition that is so heterogeneous and [has] so many different hypotheses. That’s the way I’ve been approaching it.”

The CDC recently downgraded recommendations for six vaccines to shared clinical-decision making, or advising parents to consult with doctors before having their children vaccinated, while keeping in place routine recommendations for the measles vaccine and seven other shots. Bhattacharya said that he favors vaccinating children with most of the vaccines recommended by the government, because they protect against infectious diseases.

“Now it may be that for some kids with different kinds of susceptibility in different areas, there’s going to be some risk, and you have to take that into account,” he said. “And so there should be a sort of a shared decision-making kind of thing for vaccinations.”

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/09/2026 - 15:20

Democrat Lawmakers Seek Pentagon Probe Of SpaceX Over Potential China-Linked Investment

Authored by Sean Tsang via The Epoch Times,

Two senators are urging the Pentagon to find out whether investors tied to China hold stakes in SpaceX, one of America’s most important defense contractors and a key provider of military launch services.

In a Feb. 5 letter to Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Andy Kim (D-N.J.) said recently unsealed court records and media reports raise concern about whether Chinese money reached SpaceX through intermediaries and offshore entities.

“These [alleged] ties could pose a national security threat, potentially jeopardizing key military, intelligence, and civilian infrastructure,” they wrote.

The senators argue it could trigger U.S. safeguards meant to keep foreign adversaries from gaining leverage over companies that handle sensitive national security work.

Warren and Kim cited media reports describing a market for SpaceX shares that allegedly included Chinese investors, sometimes using middlemen and structures in places such as the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands.

A Delaware court last year backed a fund manager’s decision to remove a Chinese investor from a fund set up to buy SpaceX shares, according to court filings.

Iqbaljit Kahlon, who managed the fund, had admitted Leo Investments, a publicly traded Chinese company, as a limited partner.

SpaceX told Kahlon the fund could not purchase shares if Leo remained involved, prompting him to remove the investor and return its $50 million. The fund was structured as a special-purpose vehicle (SPV), a common way for investors to pool money to buy shares in private companies like SpaceX. SPVs let multiple investors combine capital into a single ownership stake, making it easier to trade smaller slices of stock without the company having to deal with a large number of individual shareholders.

In the letter, the senators said that as SpaceX is privately held, the public can’t see how much of the company is owned by China-linked investors or whether any such holdings are large enough to influence the company.

In April 2025, the U.S. Space Force awarded SpaceX a National Security Space Launch Phase 3 “Lane 2 contract” with an anticipated value of about $5.9 billion, and it projected SpaceX would receive 28 missions—around 60 percent of those Phase 3 Lane 2 missions over fiscal years 2025 through 2029.

Space Force’s “Lane 2” missions are its highest-priority launches, carrying the most demanding, least risk-tolerant national security payloads—often major military and intelligence satellites—into harder-to-reach or higher-energy orbits with complex security and integration requirements.

The senators warned that Chinese investors could “potentially gain access to nonpublic information about the company, including ‘details on its contracts or supply chain,’ giving China access to information and technology that could undermine US national security.”

The Epoch Times reached out to SpaceX and the Department of Defense for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.

Review

The senators said their concerns merit the Pentagon to conduct a Foreign Ownership, Control, or Influence (FOCI) mitigation review.

The Pentagon’s security arm, the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA), defines a company as operating under FOCI when a foreign interest has the power—directly or indirectly—to shape management or operations in a way that could enable unauthorized access to classified information or harm performance on classified contracts.

SpaceX launches the Falcon 9 Fram2 Mission from Launch Complex 39A of NASAÕs Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on March 31, 2025. Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/Getty Images

The DCSA says it evaluates factors such as the extent of foreign ownership—including “substantial minority” positions—and the foreign government’s record on espionage and technology transfer.

The senators also asked the War Department to coordinate with the Treasury to consider whether any China-linked investments should be reviewed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the interagency panel authorized to review certain foreign investment transactions for national security risk.

They requested a response by Feb. 20, and asked the War Department to answer questions such as: how many SpaceX shares are owned by China-linked and other adversary-linked investors, whether any such investors have access to nonpublic information, and whether SpaceX is subject to FOCI mitigation requirements.

Policy Backdrop

The lawmakers framed the request against the Trump administration’s “America First Investment Policy.”

The policy explicitly calls China a foreign adversary and warns that the country can use both visible and concealed investment routes—sometimes via third-country funds—to pursue sensitive technologies and strategic leverage.

The Chinese investment ties are “at odds with the administration’s policies on foreign investment from countries of concern in strategic industries,” the senators wrote.

They also said that the matter became “even more salient” after SpaceX announced it had acquired xAI, expanding the combined company’s footprint across AI, rockets, and satellite connectivity.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/09/2026 - 14:40

Lavrov's Rare Rebuke Of Trump: In Reality, Relations No Better Than Under Biden

The Kremlin has lashed out at the Trump administration in a rare moment, revealing its impatience and dissatisfaction with the way trilateral talks focused on ending the Ukraine war are going. 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in a fresh interview also accused Washington of sabotaging efforts to improve bilateral relations while undermining negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. The charge is ironic, given it is typically the West which mounts the same accusation at Moscow.

"Despite all the statements by the Trump administration about the need to end the war… it does not challenge all the laws that Joe Biden passed to punish Russia after the start of the special military operation," Lavrov said in an interview with TV BRICS.

Getty Images

"In practice, the opposite is happening: new sanctions are being imposed, a war is being waged against tankers on the high seas, in violation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea," he said in reference to recent actions involving the US seizing shadow fleet tankers.

The Trump administration also slapped sanctions on the two Russian oil giants Lukoil and Rosneft - in a controversial action last fall.

Moscow is also likely disappointed that President Trump hasn't pressured Zelensky into making serious territorial concessions using the significant leverage Washington has over Kiev.

Lavrov asserted that Trump reneged on certain "understandings" reached directly with President Putin at the Anchorage summit in August.

"Beyond what they claimed to offer on Ukraine … we also see no positive outlook on the economic front," Lavrov said in the interview. "Washington, in our view, is seeking control over global energy supply routes serving major economies across multiple continents."

Russia wants to cooperate with the US toward achieving peace, Lavrov continued, but he went on to say that "the Americans themselves are creating artificial obstacles on this path" - or in essence, sabotaging peace.

This kind of criticism by Russia has typically been reserved only for Europe. EU leaders have remained much more out in the open in terms of imposing extra 'obstacles' and conditions on US-proposed peace measures. So this kind of directly taking aim at Trump is a break from past rhetoric. 

On Europe and its newly investing in defense, Lavrov has said, "We have no intention of attacking Europe. There is no reason to do so."

"If Europe acts on its threats to prepare for war against us and initiates an attack on the Russian Federation, it will face a full-fledged military response from our side, with all available military capabilities," the Russian top diplomat added.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/09/2026 - 14:20

The Inevitable Reversal: When Speculative Narratives Don't Hold

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

For nearly two years, markets were driven by the same speculative narrative that “this time is different.” Bitcoin, precious metals, and AI-linked equities rose not only because of robust fundamentals, but also because investors clung to powerful narratives about inflation, disruption, and monetary collapse. Those speculative narratives are not only seductive but also contribute to investment behaviors that obscure reality.

Bitcoin was cast as “digital gold,” a hedge against a largely false tale of a weakening dollar and fiscal instability. Gold and silver were likewise falsely elevated as defensive stores of value in a monetary regime supposedly at risk of losing purchasing power. AI stocks became shorthand for a new productivity supercycle where profits would follow indefinitely rising valuations. These speculative narratives are fine and drive bull markets in the near term. As John Maynard Keynes once quipped: “Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent,” and those narratives are potent as they frame expectations and justify positions.

However, these speculative narratives have little to do with economic or fundamental realities that will ultimately drive outcomes. In markets, stories don’t replace valuation. As I noted previously, when “valuation metrics are excessive… it is a better measure of investor psychology than fundamentals.” That means price becomes more about sentiment than business results, and we see that in the relationship between consumer sentiment about stock prices over the next 12 months and valuations.

“This broad wave of bullish behavior isn’t isolated to sentiment surveys. Positioning data, equity fund inflows, and trading behavior confirm the lack of bears in the market. Markets are rising not because of strong earnings or economic acceleration, but because of optimism about future prices. In this environment, price momentum drives buying, not fundamentals. We see that in the overlay of consumer sentiment about higher prices versus valuations. Simply, investors are willing to overpay on expectations that things will continue to improve.”

This shift from fundamentals to “belief-based investing” creates a market lubricated by emotion, especially in risk assets with no tangible earnings or cash flow drivers. In AI equities, some names traded on lofty price-to-sales ratios divorced from earnings prospects. In crypto, price discovery was often based on sentiment momentum rather than adoption metrics or utility. Even the spike in gold and silver prices did not reflect changes in industrial demand or monetary policy fundamentals, but the false narrative of a coming “currency collapse.”

These speculative narratives are classic hallmarks of a mania: the story, not the data, becomes the primary driver of price.

Leverage: The Hidden Engine of Mania

Of course, it is not just faulty speculative narratives that move markets. The narratives only motivate investor behavior, but for that behavior to have an impact, investors must have the capital to invest. Notably, as the narratives take hold, investors put their capital to work. However, as the narratives gain momentum, leverage accelerates those behaviors into extremes. As we noted recently:

“However, this surge in allocations has also been accompanied by a massive expansion in leverage. Currently, margin debt as a percentage of real DPI has been reported at around 6.23 %, the highest on record. This ratio also suggests that for every $100 of real DPI, roughly $6 of margin debt is outstanding, a substantial amount. But that number doesn’t include the additional leverage taken on by investors through speculative option trading and 2x and 3x leveraged ETFs, which are also being bought on margin.”

However, it is crucial to remember that “margin debt is not a technical indicator… it represents the amount of speculation in the market.” When speculative narratives take hold, margin buying gives investors more purchasing power, driving prices higher, amplifying gains, and leading to further leverage. Unfortunately, the eventual and inevitable unwind also works in reverse, amplifying losses when prices decline.

But leverage did not stop at margin balances. Investors embraced:

• Ultra‑short dated options strategies that carry outsized leverage.

• Leveraged ETFs offering 2x or 3x exposure to narrow segments of the market.

• Futures and crypto margin accounts that magnified directional bets.

All these instruments enabled investors, particularly vastly inexperienced and unwitting retail traders, to assume exposures far beyond what cash capital would normally permit. The result was, and is always, an increasingly unstable structure in which valuations rose not because of business performance, but because leverage and sentiment chased headlines higher.

Unfortunately, in the end, fundamental and economic realities take hold, and speculative narratives fail to hold.

The Inevitable Reversal: When Narratives Don’t Hold

There is an old saying that “Markets don’t die of old age—they die of excess.” That statement doesn’t only apply to the stock market; it applies to every market, asset class, and investment. For example, over the last few years, there has been a mad rush by high-net-worth investors to enter private credit markets. As the assets under management for these funds rose, the managers increasingly invested in weaker deals, pushed credit risk limits, and overlooked fundamentals. As we warned last year, the redemptions of private credit are now accelerating as concerns over stability and illiquidity rise.

What triggered the reversal last week was not some dramatic policy shift, economic upheaval, or credit-related event, but a gradual shift in conditions that exposed the overextension. Softening economic signals, slowing earnings growth in tech sectors, and fading headline narratives removed the justification for trend extrapolation.

As we often discuss with our readers, when speculation is the driver, these reversals are a feature, not a bug, of the system.

What we saw last week started in Bitcoin, spread to precious metals, and then jumped into the equities market. As prices fall, margin calls force deleveraging, requiring liquidations to cover positions. Crucially, margin calls force the liquidation of positions regardless of investors’ desire to hold. That’s why downturns in highly leveraged markets tend to be sharp and fast.

“When lenders fear they may not recoup their credit lines, they force the borrower to sell assets to cover the debt … margin calls generally happen simultaneously, as falling asset prices impact all lenders at once.”

This sequence flips the entire narrative-driven rally. What was once perceived as a hedge or growth trend becomes a crowded trade that unwinds in chaos. Prices can and often do detach from valuation pressures as forced selling begets further selling.

The investor lesson is that speculative behavior always rewards the buyer on the way up, but punishes brutally on the way down.

The Real Lessons for Investors—Especially Younger Ones

What happened should wake up investors, but especially younger ones who have known only bull markets or narrative-driven rallies.

• Narratives are not strategies.

• Leverage is not risk management.

• Volatility is not optional.

Valuation matters. Yes, markets move on liquidity and leverage in the short term, but in the long term, prices must align with earnings, cash flows, and economic reality. Investing based on stories of doom, disruption, or currency collapse, without a grounding in fundamentals, eventually leads to capital destruction.

Speculation disguised as investing is a losing proposition. Excessive trading, especially in leveraged instruments, turns portfolio management into a directional bet rather than a systematic allocation. When speculative bets in the markets via options, leveraged assets, and margin surge, that is a warning, not a reassurance.

For younger investors watching this unfold, there are several enduring principles:

• Don’t confuse confidence with experience. High conviction during a rally is a natural byproduct. But that conviction often precedes drawdowns, particularly when leverage and risk tolerance are high.

• Diversification is real only when exposures are uncorrelated. Owning Bitcoin, gold, and AI stocks doesn’t diversify if they all behave like leveraged growth bets driven by the same sentiment.

• Manage risk first. Heavy allocation to speculative positions without defensive hedges is not investing—it’s gambling.

• Leverage amplifies outcomes in both directions. You may win big for a time, but the downside can be catastrophic.

• Accept corrections as necessary. Pullbacks purify excesses and restore market health. Markets that seem like they will never correct often suffer the worst crashes later, think dot‑com and housing bubbles.

The lure of quick gains is powerful. However, real wealth accumulates through disciplined risk management, valuation awareness, and systematic portfolio construction. If you are a younger investor, market speculation is a powerful drug when you are successful. However, if you can limit your urges and transition from short‑term performance chasing to a long‑term mindset that prioritizes capital preservation, your ability to accumulate and maintain vast wealth expands.

This isn’t bearishness for its own sake. It’s an empirical recognition that markets are cyclical and leverage is structural.

The most successful investors are those who prepare for both runs and reversals, not just the runs. Therefore, the next time you scoff at those not “chasing the latest speculative fad,” maybe ask yourself, “Why aren’t they chasing it?”

It might just save you from heartache.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/09/2026 - 14:00

Gun Rights Group Slams California Ghost Gun Lawsuit For "Criminalizing Law-Abiding Citizens"

California Attorney General Rob Bonta has filed a lawsuit against two out-of-state companies and more than 100 individuals, accusing them of distributing computer code that lets people 3D-print their own firearms - a case critics say pits the right to bear arms and free speech against Sacramento’s latest gun-control crusade.

In a San Francisco Superior Court filing on Feb. 6, Bonta and San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu allege Florida-based Gatalog Foundation Inc. and CTRLPew LLC unlawfully distributed digital blueprints and computer code used to manufacture hundreds of “ghost guns” and banned accessories like Glock switches and illegal high-capacity magazines.

The complaint claims defendants made available over 150 designs for weapons and components that can be 3D printed at home - including frames, receivers, and suppressors - without serial numbers or background checks. California law already bars unlicensed firearm manufacture, background check-skipping schemes, and, more recently, distributing the code that makes it all possible.

According to the complaint, California laws "specifically prohibit 3D printing firearms and prohibited firearm accessories without a license to manufacture firearms, and since 2023, has also prohibited the distribution of computer code for printing them to those without a license."

"Dangerous Untraceables," Says Bonta

Bonta claims that people making their own guns constitutes a "public safety crisis," as law enforcement seizures of ghost guns in the state skyrocketed from 26 in 2015 to an average of 11,000 per year since 2021. Prosecutors argue ghost guns bypass serials, background checks and traditional gun-safety measures, making them a magnet for people prohibited from possessing guns.

“These defendants’ conduct enables unlicensed people who are too young or too dangerous to pass firearm background checks to illegally print deadly weapons without a background check and without a trace,” Bonta said in the press release.

But gun-rights advocates argue there’s more to the story.

"The Second Amendment protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms - and that right does not disappear because California dislikes how a firearm is made," Gun Owners of America Senior VP Erich Pratt told ZeroHedge. "For generations, Americans have lawfully built firearms for personal use. This lawsuit doesn’t target criminals; it targets constitutionally protected conduct and even speech itself. You don’t defend public safety by gutting the Second Amendment and criminalizing law-abiding citizens. Criminals will continue to ignore the law, as they always have.":

Hobbyists or Criminal Enablers?

Among the named defendants is gun-rights attorney Matthew Larosiere - long a voice for hobbyists who argue it’s been legal for Americans to build firearms for personal use so long as they obey federal law. Critics of the lawsuit, including analysts in the gun-rights community, say this latest action blurs the line between hobby and crime and could chill lawful expression and innovation.

A person holds a 3D-printed ghost gun during a statewide gun buyback event held by the office of the New York State Attorney General in the Brooklyn borough of New York on April 29, 2023. Yuki Iwamura/AFP via Getty Images

Indeed, the complaint’s own exhibits show some files are labeled with names like FGC-9 - shorthand for “F** Gun Control”* - and include detailed step-by-step instructions with shopping lists and recommended printer settings that make it easy even for beginners to produce frames compatible with common commercial parts.

To opponents, the lawsuit isn’t just about public safety - it’s about free speech and the right to arms. The digital codes at issue are arguably analogous to protected technical speech, and their suppression raises alarms in a state already notorious for some of the strictest gun laws in the nation.

A Patchwork of Law Meets Cutting-Edge Tech

California has been tightening its grip on ghost guns for years, adding prohibitions on 3D-printed firearms and the distribution of associated digital files only in the past few election cycles. At the federal level, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld regulations on ghost guns in 2025, underscoring the legal complexity around homemade weapons.

Elsewhere, courts have diverged. In Minnesota, for example, a state Supreme Court ruled that older firearms lacking serial numbers aren’t automatically criminal — a nod to common-sense recoil against overbroad interpretation of serialization laws.

What’s Next?

California is seeking an injunction to halt distribution of the files and other relief. Gatalog and CTRLPew didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment, but gun-rights groups are already lining up to challenge this on constitutional grounds.

Whether you see DIY firearm blueprints as a dangerous loophole or a legitimate exercise of liberty, one thing is clear: this lawsuit marks a high-stakes test of how far states can go in regulating code, guns, and the rights of citizens in the digital age.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/09/2026 - 13:40

Re-Set: Reversing The Debt-Debasement Death-Spiral

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

The end-game of debt-debasement is already visible. The only thing that's still up in the air is our response.

The unspoken foundation of the US dollar debasement narrative is TINA: There Is No Alternative to debasing the USD to zero because reversing course by reversing the expansion of debt and the money supply (i.e. monetary inflation) are impossible in a debt-dependent economy.

Without a steady expansion of debt and a steady debasement of the dollar so debtors have an easier time paying existing debts, the economy would crash, and so doing more of what leads to collapse is the status quo "solution."

The second assumption of the US dollar debasement narrative is that those who own crypto, precious metals and other tangible assets will not just survive the eventual crisis but emerge wealthy, as the value of their assets is not dependent on fiat currencies.

This suggests the following thought experiment: since those holding the levers of power "know" the end-game of debasement is the collapse of the currency and the economy, and they "know" the economic devastation that this collapse will deliver not just to the majority but to the wealthy whose wealth ultimately depends on a functioning economy, wouldn't they consider pursuing a still-painful but less apocalyptic option that steers clear of the death-spiral?

Let's also consider that history hasn't been kind to governments that let their currency collapse. Those in power who "know" this would be wise to seek a way to escape the debasement death-spiral simply out of self-preservation, as their power would not survive the (entirely avoidable) destruction of the currency and economy.

Put another way: is there a way to escape the debasement death-spiral that actually re-sets the economy for legitimate advances in the quality of life after a painful excising of the fatal dependence on ever-soaring debt and debasement to prop up the illusion of "prosperity"?

There is a way to reverse the death-spiral, and the key for those in power is to distribute the unavoidable pain evenly enough that no one class reaches the point where they have nothing to lose in seeking to dismantle the entire status quo.

For the past 50 years, the status quo has slowly bled the bottom 80% while channeling all the gains to the top 10%. There were sufficient crumbs left by those feasting on capital gains to give the bottom 80% a reason to comply rather than revolt, but the pain of reversing debasement could make revolt more appealing than compliance.

Note that this redistribution was the result of policy decisions that benefited those reaping the gains of financialization and globalization. It was a choice, not fate.

Those in power must even out the distribution of pain so those who reaped the gains (the top 10%) bear the brunt of the financial damage while funneling enough of life's essentials to the bottom 80% to avoid revolt.

Recall that the top 10% own the vast majority of financial assets, with the bottom 50% owning a wafer-thin 2.5% of financial assets, a 28% decline from their 3.5% share in 1990. The share owned by the top 1%, meanwhile, rose by 42% to 35.6%.

The only way to reverse the debasement death spiral is to end the economy's dependence on ever-rising debt to fund consumption and an ever-expanding money supply to inflate the asset bubbles that fuel both soaring wealth inequality and the outsized spending of the top 10%--spending that generates a lopsided illusion of "growth."

The most effective way to defend the dollar and suppress debt expansion is to influence supply and demand by jacking up Treasury yields / interest rates. Global capital will flow into US Treasury bonds to reap the higher rates while demand for new loans declines as rates rise. The federal government's borrowing costs will jump, squeezing spending while debt-based consumption falls off a cliff.

This is the recession that's necessary to clear the dependence on debt, inflation and speculative excesses, the recession that's been put off for 45 years by excessive money / debt expansion.

At the same time, the Federal Reserve lets the resulting bankruptcies and defaults reduce private-sector debt by refusing to bail out Wall Street and the "too big to fail" banks. Overleveraged banks will fail as the necessary step to re-establish some semblance of market discipline rather than backstop the biggest gamblers (i.e. Moral Hazard).

As when the Savings and Loan debacle wiped out (often fraudulent) lenders, the appropriate public agencies will liquidate assets and spread the losses borne by the public over enough time to manage the pain.

Note that federal debt (i.e. the national debt) of $38 trillion is about a third of total debt, with 2/3 being private-sector.

Recall that private-sector lenders create most of the new currency: when a bank issues a new mortgage, that origination creates new currency. When the mortgage is paid off, that currency goes to Money Heaven--the money supply declines accordingly. Paying down debt or writedowns of debt both reduce the quantity of dollars.

Concurrently, the Federal Reserve tightens liquidity / ceases creating USD out of thin air, reducing the money supply, which induces a scarcity of dollars globally as investors seeking to lock in the higher yields of Treasuries (see above) are in effect bidding for dollars, as Treasury bonds / bills / notes are denominated in US dollars.

The dollar rises due to this shift in supply and demand, and while this punishes exporters, it increases the purchasing power of the dollar for workers and employers alike. Again, any reversal / re-set will generate extreme pain, and the only management strategy with any hope of success is to distribute the pain widely enough, and fairly enough, so that no one class absorbs all the pain.

The long-avoided rebalancing of federal obligations and revenues is finally undertaken, reversing the past 50 years of policies that benefited owners of capital (the top 10%) at the expense of wage earners (the bottom 90%).

Here's an example of such a policy change: apply the 15.3% social-welfare tax paid by self-employed workers to all unearned income: capital gains, stock option compensation, etc. As with self-employed workers, income tax is on top of this 15.3% social-welfare tax.

On the expense side, ending the perverse incentives built into SickCare and the no-limits funding of all the sacred cows (Big Ag, Big Processed Food, Big Pharma, Big Defense, Big Banks, SickCare, Higher Education, etc.) would spread the pain to those elites and sectors that have enjoyed unimpaired federal largesse for decades.

As recession cuts consumption and employment, mass defaults will wipe out trillions in debt. You can't get blood from a stone, and the owners of all this debt--auto loans, student loans, credit cards, mortgages, etc.--will eat the writedowns. All the currency created by the debt issuance disappears, and the quantity of dollars in circulation plummets, reversing the debt-debasement-inflation death-spiral.

This is a chart of M2 Money Supply, which shows the expansion of the money supply in relation to the GDP generated by the money. (Note that M2 and GDP are imperfect / misleading measures, but everyone uses them anyway.)

Yes, I get it, every one of these steps is "impossible" because some entrenched concentration of wealth / power would suffer. The point here is the suffering that will be inflicted on the elites and sacred cows by the collapse of the currency will be far greater than the pain they will suffer in a re-set that actually changes the nation's course from a debt-debasement death-spiral to an economy with market discipline and a dynamic balance of social and financial interests.

As I explain in my new book Investing In Revolution, the extreme imbalances generated by the current death-spiral policies will get rebalanced one way or the other, and those influencing policy have a stark choice: leave the status quo as-is and guarantee a non-linear (i.e. uncontrolled, chaotic) collapse, or reverse course now while some control of the re-set is still available.

The end-game of debt-debasement is already visible. The only thing that's still up in the air is our response. Don't think it won't happen just because it hasn't happened yet.

*  *  *

My new book Investing In Revolution is available at a 10% discount ($18 for the paperback, $24 for the hardcover and $8.95 for the ebook edition). Introduction (free)

Check out my updated Books and Films. Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com. Subscribe to my Substack for free

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/09/2026 - 13:00

Re-Set: Reversing The Debt-Debasement Death-Spiral

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

The end-game of debt-debasement is already visible. The only thing that's still up in the air is our response.

The unspoken foundation of the US dollar debasement narrative is TINA: There Is No Alternative to debasing the USD to zero because reversing course by reversing the expansion of debt and the money supply (i.e. monetary inflation) are impossible in a debt-dependent economy.

Without a steady expansion of debt and a steady debasement of the dollar so debtors have an easier time paying existing debts, the economy would crash, and so doing more of what leads to collapse is the status quo "solution."

The second assumption of the US dollar debasement narrative is that those who own crypto, precious metals and other tangible assets will not just survive the eventual crisis but emerge wealthy, as the value of their assets is not dependent on fiat currencies.

This suggests the following thought experiment: since those holding the levers of power "know" the end-game of debasement is the collapse of the currency and the economy, and they "know" the economic devastation that this collapse will deliver not just to the majority but to the wealthy whose wealth ultimately depends on a functioning economy, wouldn't they consider pursuing a still-painful but less apocalyptic option that steers clear of the death-spiral?

Let's also consider that history hasn't been kind to governments that let their currency collapse. Those in power who "know" this would be wise to seek a way to escape the debasement death-spiral simply out of self-preservation, as their power would not survive the (entirely avoidable) destruction of the currency and economy.

Put another way: is there a way to escape the debasement death-spiral that actually re-sets the economy for legitimate advances in the quality of life after a painful excising of the fatal dependence on ever-soaring debt and debasement to prop up the illusion of "prosperity"?

There is a way to reverse the death-spiral, and the key for those in power is to distribute the unavoidable pain evenly enough that no one class reaches the point where they have nothing to lose in seeking to dismantle the entire status quo.

For the past 50 years, the status quo has slowly bled the bottom 80% while channeling all the gains to the top 10%. There were sufficient crumbs left by those feasting on capital gains to give the bottom 80% a reason to comply rather than revolt, but the pain of reversing debasement could make revolt more appealing than compliance.

Note that this redistribution was the result of policy decisions that benefited those reaping the gains of financialization and globalization. It was a choice, not fate.

Those in power must even out the distribution of pain so those who reaped the gains (the top 10%) bear the brunt of the financial damage while funneling enough of life's essentials to the bottom 80% to avoid revolt.

Recall that the top 10% own the vast majority of financial assets, with the bottom 50% owning a wafer-thin 2.5% of financial assets, a 28% decline from their 3.5% share in 1990. The share owned by the top 1%, meanwhile, rose by 42% to 35.6%.

The only way to reverse the debasement death spiral is to end the economy's dependence on ever-rising debt to fund consumption and an ever-expanding money supply to inflate the asset bubbles that fuel both soaring wealth inequality and the outsized spending of the top 10%--spending that generates a lopsided illusion of "growth."

The most effective way to defend the dollar and suppress debt expansion is to influence supply and demand by jacking up Treasury yields / interest rates. Global capital will flow into US Treasury bonds to reap the higher rates while demand for new loans declines as rates rise. The federal government's borrowing costs will jump, squeezing spending while debt-based consumption falls off a cliff.

This is the recession that's necessary to clear the dependence on debt, inflation and speculative excesses, the recession that's been put off for 45 years by excessive money / debt expansion.

At the same time, the Federal Reserve lets the resulting bankruptcies and defaults reduce private-sector debt by refusing to bail out Wall Street and the "too big to fail" banks. Overleveraged banks will fail as the necessary step to re-establish some semblance of market discipline rather than backstop the biggest gamblers (i.e. Moral Hazard).

As when the Savings and Loan debacle wiped out (often fraudulent) lenders, the appropriate public agencies will liquidate assets and spread the losses borne by the public over enough time to manage the pain.

Note that federal debt (i.e. the national debt) of $38 trillion is about a third of total debt, with 2/3 being private-sector.

Recall that private-sector lenders create most of the new currency: when a bank issues a new mortgage, that origination creates new currency. When the mortgage is paid off, that currency goes to Money Heaven--the money supply declines accordingly. Paying down debt or writedowns of debt both reduce the quantity of dollars.

Concurrently, the Federal Reserve tightens liquidity / ceases creating USD out of thin air, reducing the money supply, which induces a scarcity of dollars globally as investors seeking to lock in the higher yields of Treasuries (see above) are in effect bidding for dollars, as Treasury bonds / bills / notes are denominated in US dollars.

The dollar rises due to this shift in supply and demand, and while this punishes exporters, it increases the purchasing power of the dollar for workers and employers alike. Again, any reversal / re-set will generate extreme pain, and the only management strategy with any hope of success is to distribute the pain widely enough, and fairly enough, so that no one class absorbs all the pain.

The long-avoided rebalancing of federal obligations and revenues is finally undertaken, reversing the past 50 years of policies that benefited owners of capital (the top 10%) at the expense of wage earners (the bottom 90%).

Here's an example of such a policy change: apply the 15.3% social-welfare tax paid by self-employed workers to all unearned income: capital gains, stock option compensation, etc. As with self-employed workers, income tax is on top of this 15.3% social-welfare tax.

On the expense side, ending the perverse incentives built into SickCare and the no-limits funding of all the sacred cows (Big Ag, Big Processed Food, Big Pharma, Big Defense, Big Banks, SickCare, Higher Education, etc.) would spread the pain to those elites and sectors that have enjoyed unimpaired federal largesse for decades.

As recession cuts consumption and employment, mass defaults will wipe out trillions in debt. You can't get blood from a stone, and the owners of all this debt--auto loans, student loans, credit cards, mortgages, etc.--will eat the writedowns. All the currency created by the debt issuance disappears, and the quantity of dollars in circulation plummets, reversing the debt-debasement-inflation death-spiral.

This is a chart of M2 Money Supply, which shows the expansion of the money supply in relation to the GDP generated by the money. (Note that M2 and GDP are imperfect / misleading measures, but everyone uses them anyway.)

Yes, I get it, every one of these steps is "impossible" because some entrenched concentration of wealth / power would suffer. The point here is the suffering that will be inflicted on the elites and sacred cows by the collapse of the currency will be far greater than the pain they will suffer in a re-set that actually changes the nation's course from a debt-debasement death-spiral to an economy with market discipline and a dynamic balance of social and financial interests.

As I explain in my new book Investing In Revolution, the extreme imbalances generated by the current death-spiral policies will get rebalanced one way or the other, and those influencing policy have a stark choice: leave the status quo as-is and guarantee a non-linear (i.e. uncontrolled, chaotic) collapse, or reverse course now while some control of the re-set is still available.

The end-game of debt-debasement is already visible. The only thing that's still up in the air is our response. Don't think it won't happen just because it hasn't happened yet.

*  *  *

My new book Investing In Revolution is available at a 10% discount ($18 for the paperback, $24 for the hardcover and $8.95 for the ebook edition). Introduction (free)

Check out my updated Books and Films. Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com. Subscribe to my Substack for free

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/09/2026 - 13:00

NY Times Columnist Says Vance's Mother Should Have Sold Him To Feed Her Addiction

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

In an age of rage, it is often difficult to stand out in the mob as so many pander to the perpetually irate.

However, New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie has found a way to win the race to the bottom.

In a posting on Bluesky, Bouie mocked the account of the addiction of the mother of Vice President J.D. Vance, saying that she should have sold her son for drugs.

Bouie used Bluesky (the digital safe zone for the viewpoint intolerant on the left) to post one of the most reprehensible attacks on Vance. Bouie wrote that “this is a wicked man who knows he is being wicked and does it anyway.”

That is hardly notable on today’s rage scale.

However, he then decided to use the painful addiction history of Beverly Aikins against her son: “No wonder his mom tried to sell him for Percocets. [I] can’t imagine a parent who wouldn’t sell little JD for percocet if they knew he would turn out like this.’

Vance wrote a celebrated bestseller, “Hillbilly Elegy,” about his difficult childhood with a mother who became addicted to pain medication and eventually found herself stealing drugs from her patients. It was a tragic account of how addiction tore their family apart, but also a tale of redemption: “I knew that a mother could love her son despite the grip of addiction. I knew that my family loved me, even when they struggled to take care of themselves.”

In April of last year, Vance celebrated his mother’s decade of sobriety.

As I discuss in my new book “Rage and the Republic,”  a common element to past radical movements has been the dehumanization of political opponents. In calling others “Gestapo,” “fascists,” and “Nazis,” you achieve a certain license to say and do things that you would ordinarily never say or do. By stripping them of any humanity or right to empathy, you are free to discard the limitations of decency and civility.

Rage is itself a type of drug. It is addictive and, while they never admit it, they like it.

Bouie shows the lack of self-awareness in his hateful posts. It is the ultimate example of transference; a self-description ascribed to those you hate.

On his New York Times bio, Bouie insists that “I come from a left-leaning, social democratic perspective, but I strive for honesty, fairness and good faith in my writing.” He adds that “I abide by the same rigorous ethical standards as all Times journalists.”

If using Vance’s tragic childhood and his mother’s addiction is an example of the “fairness and good faith” of the New York Times, it is a chilling prospect.

In his book, Vance observes that the children of broken and impoverished homes often give up hope, as he did: “Psychologists call it “learned helplessness” when a person believes, as I did during my youth, that the choices I made had no effect on the outcomes in my life.”

He found that choices do matter in shaping your life. We all make such choices, as did Bouie in becoming another voice of rage and the New York Times in giving him a platform to amplify his views.

It is the same choice that the Times makes in barring a U.S. senator and firing editors for exposing readers to alternative viewpoints while publishing those who advocate repression or rationalize political violence.  To the obvious appeal of its readers, the paper now peddles in hate to feed a national addiction.

In the end, Vance and his mother have overcome far greater challenges than this vicious columnist or the hatefest at Bluesky. From adversity, they found a strength and a bond that has inspired many who are struggling with such addictions and poverty.

It is clear who is “wicked” in these postings. Perhaps it is even strangely edifying and self-condemning. As Victor Hugo observed, “the wicked envy and hate; it is their way of admiring.”

Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/09/2026 - 12:20

NY Times Columnist Says Vance's Mother Should Have Sold Him To Feed Her Addiction

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

In an age of rage, it is often difficult to stand out in the mob as so many pander to the perpetually irate.

However, New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie has found a way to win the race to the bottom.

In a posting on Bluesky, Bouie mocked the account of the addiction of the mother of Vice President J.D. Vance, saying that she should have sold her son for drugs.

Bouie used Bluesky (the digital safe zone for the viewpoint intolerant on the left) to post one of the most reprehensible attacks on Vance. Bouie wrote that “this is a wicked man who knows he is being wicked and does it anyway.”

That is hardly notable on today’s rage scale.

However, he then decided to use the painful addiction history of Beverly Aikins against her son: “No wonder his mom tried to sell him for Percocets. [I] can’t imagine a parent who wouldn’t sell little JD for percocet if they knew he would turn out like this.’

Vance wrote a celebrated bestseller, “Hillbilly Elegy,” about his difficult childhood with a mother who became addicted to pain medication and eventually found herself stealing drugs from her patients. It was a tragic account of how addiction tore their family apart, but also a tale of redemption: “I knew that a mother could love her son despite the grip of addiction. I knew that my family loved me, even when they struggled to take care of themselves.”

In April of last year, Vance celebrated his mother’s decade of sobriety.

As I discuss in my new book “Rage and the Republic,”  a common element to past radical movements has been the dehumanization of political opponents. In calling others “Gestapo,” “fascists,” and “Nazis,” you achieve a certain license to say and do things that you would ordinarily never say or do. By stripping them of any humanity or right to empathy, you are free to discard the limitations of decency and civility.

Rage is itself a type of drug. It is addictive and, while they never admit it, they like it.

Bouie shows the lack of self-awareness in his hateful posts. It is the ultimate example of transference; a self-description ascribed to those you hate.

On his New York Times bio, Bouie insists that “I come from a left-leaning, social democratic perspective, but I strive for honesty, fairness and good faith in my writing.” He adds that “I abide by the same rigorous ethical standards as all Times journalists.”

If using Vance’s tragic childhood and his mother’s addiction is an example of the “fairness and good faith” of the New York Times, it is a chilling prospect.

In his book, Vance observes that the children of broken and impoverished homes often give up hope, as he did: “Psychologists call it “learned helplessness” when a person believes, as I did during my youth, that the choices I made had no effect on the outcomes in my life.”

He found that choices do matter in shaping your life. We all make such choices, as did Bouie in becoming another voice of rage and the New York Times in giving him a platform to amplify his views.

It is the same choice that the Times makes in barring a U.S. senator and firing editors for exposing readers to alternative viewpoints while publishing those who advocate repression or rationalize political violence.  To the obvious appeal of its readers, the paper now peddles in hate to feed a national addiction.

In the end, Vance and his mother have overcome far greater challenges than this vicious columnist or the hatefest at Bluesky. From adversity, they found a strength and a bond that has inspired many who are struggling with such addictions and poverty.

It is clear who is “wicked” in these postings. Perhaps it is even strangely edifying and self-condemning. As Victor Hugo observed, “the wicked envy and hate; it is their way of admiring.”

Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/09/2026 - 12:20

Kyndryl Collapses On Accounting Review, CFO Exit As Analysts Brand IBM-Spinoff A "Disaster"

Shares in Kyndryl, an IBM spinoff and IT infrastructure services provider, crashed on Monday after the company warned investors that it is reviewing certain accounting practices amid an inquiry from the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company also posted third-quarter results that missed Bloomberg Consensus estimates and disclosed what JPMorgan analysts described as a "surprise" departure of its CFO.

Kyndryl stock crashed as much as 57%, its biggest one-day drop on record. Shares traded at their lowest level since November 2022 after the company disclosed an SEC inquiry into certain accounting practices.

In a filing, Kyndryl said it "anticipates reporting material weaknesses in the Company's internal control over financial reporting for the period covered in the Quarterly Report, as well as for the full fiscal year ended March 31, 2025, and the first two fiscal quarters of fiscal year 2026."

This is "expected to include, but may not be limited to, the effectiveness and strength of certain functions at the Company, including with respect to controls related to information and communication and tone at the top," the filing noted.

The information technology services provider that works with hyperscalers also announced that CFO David Wysher and general counsel Edward Sebold had left the company.

On top of that, third-quarter results missed Bloomberg consensus estimates, and the company lowered its full-year outlook for both adjusted EBITDA margin and adjusted pretax profit.

Here's a snapshot of the third-quarter (courtesy of Bloomberg):

Adjusted EPS 52c vs. 51c y/y, estimate 61c (Bloomberg Consensus)

Revenue $3.86 billion, +3.1% y/y, estimate $3.89 billion

• US revenue $958 million, estimate $982.3 million
• Japan revenue $568 million, estimate $588.8 million

Adjusted Ebitda $696 million, -1.1% y/y, estimate $701.2 million

Adjusted Ebitda margin 18%, estimate 18%

Adjusted pretax profit $168 million, estimate $192.4 million

Full-Year Forecast:

• Sees adjusted Ebitda margin 17.5%, saw about 18%

• Sees adjusted pretax profit $575 million to $600 million, saw at least $725 million

Kyndryl CEO Martin Schroeter declined to comment during the earnings call:

"The fact is we just can't comment until the examination is complete. The teams are working expeditiously so we can share a remediation plan."

Kyndryl said it needs additional time to finalize its fiscal third-quarter report and noted that it is preparing a remediation plan, which will be detailed in the upcoming filing.

Analysts at JPMorgan downgraded Kyndryl to Underweight from Overweight and slashed their price target to $16 from $40. They told clients the downgrade was due to cuts to sales and profit guidance, the CFO's surprise departure, and the delayed quarterly filing.

Bloomberg Intelligence analysts said, "Kyndryl faces secular pressure in infrastructure services and new guidance is for a revenue decline in fiscal 2026, raising doubts about the durability of its turnaround."

"KD was a disaster, with a miss-and-cut report, several mgmt. changes, and a delayed 10Q filing," Vital Knowledge analysts wrote in a note.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/09/2026 - 11:45

Kyndryl Collapses On Accounting Review, CFO Exit As Analysts Brand IBM-Spinoff A "Disaster"

Shares in Kyndryl, an IBM spinoff and IT infrastructure services provider, crashed on Monday after the company warned investors that it is reviewing certain accounting practices amid an inquiry from the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company also posted third-quarter results that missed Bloomberg Consensus estimates and disclosed what JPMorgan analysts described as a "surprise" departure of its CFO.

Kyndryl stock crashed as much as 57%, its biggest one-day drop on record. Shares traded at their lowest level since November 2022 after the company disclosed an SEC inquiry into certain accounting practices.

In a filing, Kyndryl said it "anticipates reporting material weaknesses in the Company's internal control over financial reporting for the period covered in the Quarterly Report, as well as for the full fiscal year ended March 31, 2025, and the first two fiscal quarters of fiscal year 2026."

This is "expected to include, but may not be limited to, the effectiveness and strength of certain functions at the Company, including with respect to controls related to information and communication and tone at the top," the filing noted.

The information technology services provider that works with hyperscalers also announced that CFO David Wysher and general counsel Edward Sebold had left the company.

On top of that, third-quarter results missed Bloomberg consensus estimates, and the company lowered its full-year outlook for both adjusted EBITDA margin and adjusted pretax profit.

Here's a snapshot of the third-quarter (courtesy of Bloomberg):

Adjusted EPS 52c vs. 51c y/y, estimate 61c (Bloomberg Consensus)

Revenue $3.86 billion, +3.1% y/y, estimate $3.89 billion

• US revenue $958 million, estimate $982.3 million
• Japan revenue $568 million, estimate $588.8 million

Adjusted Ebitda $696 million, -1.1% y/y, estimate $701.2 million

Adjusted Ebitda margin 18%, estimate 18%

Adjusted pretax profit $168 million, estimate $192.4 million

Full-Year Forecast:

• Sees adjusted Ebitda margin 17.5%, saw about 18%

• Sees adjusted pretax profit $575 million to $600 million, saw at least $725 million

Kyndryl CEO Martin Schroeter declined to comment during the earnings call:

"The fact is we just can't comment until the examination is complete. The teams are working expeditiously so we can share a remediation plan."

Kyndryl said it needs additional time to finalize its fiscal third-quarter report and noted that it is preparing a remediation plan, which will be detailed in the upcoming filing.

Analysts at JPMorgan downgraded Kyndryl to Underweight from Overweight and slashed their price target to $16 from $40. They told clients the downgrade was due to cuts to sales and profit guidance, the CFO's surprise departure, and the delayed quarterly filing.

Bloomberg Intelligence analysts said, "Kyndryl faces secular pressure in infrastructure services and new guidance is for a revenue decline in fiscal 2026, raising doubts about the durability of its turnaround."

"KD was a disaster, with a miss-and-cut report, several mgmt. changes, and a delayed 10Q filing," Vital Knowledge analysts wrote in a note.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/09/2026 - 11:45

Spot The Useful Idiot

Despite the ongoing partisan panic over 'Trump-driven inflation' or whatever narrative-du-jour the mainstream media chooses, inflation expectations tracked by the NY Fed survey of Consumer Expectations dropped to six-month lows. inflation expectations tracked by the NY Fed survey of Consumer Expectations

Median inflation expectations in January declined by 0.3 percentage point at the one-year-ahead horizon to 3.1% and remained steady at the three-year and five-year-ahead horizons at 3.0%.

Additionally, median inflation uncertainty - or the uncertainty expressed regarding future inflation outcomes - decreased at the one-year and three-year-ahead horizons and increased at the five-year-ahead horizon.

Over the next year consumers expect gasoline prices to rise 2.8%; food prices to rise 5.74%; medical costs to rise 9.8%; the price of a college education to rise 9.03%; rent prices to rise 6.82%

Optimism over the labor market improved modestly with median one-year-ahead earnings growth expectations increased by 0.2 percentage point to 2.7% in January, driven by those with household income under $50,000. Additionally, respondents saw a higher probabilioty of finding a job within 3 months...

However, perceptions about households’ current financial situations deteriorated with a larger share of respondents reporting that their households were worse off compared to a year ago.

The median expected growth in household income decreased by 0.1 percentage point to 2.9% in January, equaling its trailing 12-month average.

Year-ahead expectations about households’ financial situations also deteriorated with a smaller share of respondents reporting that their households expect to be better off a year from now and a larger share reporting they expect to be worse off.

Finally, spot the 'useful idiot'...

Going back to where we started above, why was it that for the entire term of President Biden, Democrats surveyed by UMich saw future inflation expectations dramatically below that of the NYFed's survey respondents...

...and yet the moment President Trump was elected, a sudden surge of hyperinflation angst smashed them in the head?

Net-net, the NYFed survey shows little to no anxiety over inflation, a rebound in job market optimism, but concerns remain over household financial conditions, particularly with regard to medical costs.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/09/2026 - 11:35

Spot The Useful Idiot

Despite the ongoing partisan panic over 'Trump-driven inflation' or whatever narrative-du-jour the mainstream media chooses, inflation expectations tracked by the NY Fed survey of Consumer Expectations dropped to six-month lows. inflation expectations tracked by the NY Fed survey of Consumer Expectations

Median inflation expectations in January declined by 0.3 percentage point at the one-year-ahead horizon to 3.1% and remained steady at the three-year and five-year-ahead horizons at 3.0%.

Additionally, median inflation uncertainty - or the uncertainty expressed regarding future inflation outcomes - decreased at the one-year and three-year-ahead horizons and increased at the five-year-ahead horizon.

Over the next year consumers expect gasoline prices to rise 2.8%; food prices to rise 5.74%; medical costs to rise 9.8%; the price of a college education to rise 9.03%; rent prices to rise 6.82%

Optimism over the labor market improved modestly with median one-year-ahead earnings growth expectations increased by 0.2 percentage point to 2.7% in January, driven by those with household income under $50,000. Additionally, respondents saw a higher probabilioty of finding a job within 3 months...

However, perceptions about households’ current financial situations deteriorated with a larger share of respondents reporting that their households were worse off compared to a year ago.

The median expected growth in household income decreased by 0.1 percentage point to 2.9% in January, equaling its trailing 12-month average.

Year-ahead expectations about households’ financial situations also deteriorated with a smaller share of respondents reporting that their households expect to be better off a year from now and a larger share reporting they expect to be worse off.

Finally, spot the 'useful idiot'...

Going back to where we started above, why was it that for the entire term of President Biden, Democrats surveyed by UMich saw future inflation expectations dramatically below that of the NYFed's survey respondents...

...and yet the moment President Trump was elected, a sudden surge of hyperinflation angst smashed them in the head?

Net-net, the NYFed survey shows little to no anxiety over inflation, a rebound in job market optimism, but concerns remain over household financial conditions, particularly with regard to medical costs.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/09/2026 - 11:35

"I Will Not Sit Idly As They Use Me As A Prop": Is Bill Clinton Moving Back Into Contempt?

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

The Clintons are again suggesting that they might not agree to a deposition after previously yielding to the threat of a contempt vote.

Hillary Clinton taunted House Oversight Chair James Comer “if you want this fight…let’s have it—in public.”

For his part, Bill Clinton seemed more conclusive on X in opposing a deposition: 

“I will not sit idly as they use me as a prop in a closed-door kangaroo court.”

The question is whether the Clintons are again gaming the system after avoiding a bipartisan vote to hold them in contempt.

As with the Hunter Biden deposition (which was also delayed by such tactics), there are various reasons for holding a closed deposition before public hearings.

• First, these depositions allow professional staff to conduct questioning in a methodical and professional manner.

  • In a public hearing, questioning is conducted by members who are often ill-equipped for substantive inquiries.

• Second, the Clintons must be asked about a range of documents and communications that contain names and privacy-protected information.

  • At a public hearing, the use of such documents would trigger redactions and interruptions.

• Third, these depositions allow for in-depth questioning on transactions and communications.

  • In a public hearing, members are confined to a five-minute rule that guarantees questioning cannot achieve much, if any, depth.

Those are all reasons the Clintons want a public hearing in which members, not staff, ask questions under tight time limits. It produces superficial examinations with little ability to pursue substantive conflicts or issues.

None of this really matters legally.

All citizens are compelled to appear at such hearings.

They may invoke the Fifth Amendment, but they must appear. Even the Clintons.

However, the Clintons have spent a lifetime gaming the system, avoiding accountability for alleged crimes, including (in the case of Bill Clinton) federal perjury.

This is vintage Clinton.

After a bipartisan vote in committee to hold them in contempt, they took a 180-degree turn and agreed to the depositions. The final vote was then cancelled.

Once cancelled, Bill Clinton is again suggesting that he will “not sit idly by” for such a deposition.

It is not clear what that means. He will sit for this deposition or be held in contempt like any other citizen.

The declaration could mean anything from laying the groundwork for invoking the Fifth Amendment to another act of defiance of the subpoena. He could be planning to refuse to answer certain questions in a combative approach to the deposition. However, that could still result in a contempt sanction.

Notably, the Clintons have long been able to control the conditions of their questioning. Even with the Independent Counsel, Clinton was able to secure concessions on time and questions. He still tripped the wire and committed perjury, according to a federal court.

This is a rare occasion where they will not dictate such conditions. That raises the intriguing possibility that Bill Clinton could set a precedent by invoking the Fifth Amendment. Otherwise, he may not be idle, but he will be present.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/09/2026 - 11:25

China Tells Banks To Limit Exposure To US Treasuries, But To Some This Is "Hardly An Issue At All"

Treasury yields hit session highs shortly after midnight ET, when Bloomberg reported that Chinese regulators had advised financial institutions to rein in their holdings of US Treasuries, citing concerns over concentration risks and market volatility.

Citing anonymous "people familiar with the matter" Bloonberg added that officials urged banks to limit purchases of US government bonds and instructed those with high exposure to pare down their positions. The directive doesn’t apply to China’s state holdings of US Treasuries.

Communicated verbally to some of the nation’s biggest banks in recent weeks, the guidance reflects growing wariness among officials that large holdings of US government debt may expose banks to sharp swing . The worries echo those made by governments and fund managers elsewhere amid a brewing debate over the safe haven status of US debt and the appeal of the dollar.

The move, which otherwise would have been seen as a clear escalation in the US-China trade war, was framed around "diversifying market risk" rather than anything to do with geopolitical maneuvering or a fundamental loss of confidence in US creditworthiness, the sources said, adding that officials didn’t given any specific target on size or timing. While significant tensions remain between Beijing and Washington, relations have steadied in the wake of a trade truce last year.

Treasuries slipped on the news, with yields edging higher across maturities in Asian afternoon trading. The dollar weakened slightly against major peers.

According to data from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, Chinese banks held about $298 billion worth of dollar-denominated bonds as of September, It’s unclear how much of those were Treasuries.

Largely dismissing the report, Westpac's Martin Whetton said that China’s holdings of US Treasuries peaked in 2017, and what’s left is small relative to the size of the overall market.Now at $682 billion, China’s holdings represent “hardly an issue at all,” says Martin Whetton, head of financial markets strategy.

“If you include Belgium and Luxembourg, which can be proxies for some of their holdings, you’d barely make it over $750 billion”, which actually is completely incorrect since Belgium alone holds $481 billion in TSYs, as shown below.

A lot of US debt will be held by China’s official institutions and is likely short-dated for liquidity reasons, Whetton said. “So what is left for the banks is small, and China doesn’t exactly set the Treasury market on fire at the monthly auctions”

Donald Trump, who held a phone call with Xi Jinping last week, plans to meet the Chinese leader at a presidential summit in Beijing as soon as April. The regulatory guidance to Chinese banks on Treasuries came before last week’s call, the people said.

China’s warning comes as global investors question Washington’s fiscal discipline. Concerns have mounted regarding Trump’s commitment to a strong dollar and the continued independence of the Federal Reserve. Last month, Deutsche Bank's FX analyst George Saravelos warned that money managers in Europe could choose to trim their holdings in response to Trump’s threats on tariffs and the proposed acquisition of Greenland, a call which sparked an international scandal with Deutsche Bank washing its hands off his comments. 

Still, Scott Bessent said last week that “despite the popular narrative,” the Treasuries market last year delivered its best performance since 2020 and saw record foreign demand at auctions.

For context, foreign holdings of US Treasuries rose to a record $9.4 trillion in November, more than $500 billion higher than a year earlier, according to the latest official data.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/09/2026 - 10:55

The Arms Race In The Indo-Pacific Is Just Getting Started As Participants Pick Sides

By Benjamin Picton, senior market strategist at Rabobank

US stocks rallied hard on Friday and the VIX index had its biggest one-day fall since April of last year. The rally broke three-straight days of losses where crypto was dumped and two-year Treasury bonds had tightened 19bps. Yields on two-year US treasuries rose almost 5bps on Friday to 3.50% in the broader risk-on rally.

Prime Minister Takaichi has won a landslide victory in Japan’s general election over the weekend. Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party now has a two-thirds supermajority in the lower house of the Diet, granting it the power to override the upper house.

The Nikkei is up 4.7% today and 12.9% YTD, trailing only the KOSPI among major Asian indices. Asian equity markets are mostly outperforming counterparts in Europe and the United States this year. The so-called ‘Takaichi-trade’ has seen Japanese equities well bid in reaction to Takaichi’s predilection for looser fiscal settings, greater investments in technology and defence, and pressure on the Bank of Japan not to raise interest rates too quickly.

Despite this cocktail of accommodative policy, USDJPY is dealing a little softer as Finance Minister Katayama indicated that she had been in close contact with US Treasury Secretary Bessent regarding stabilisation of the exchange rate. Katayama also said that she is prepared to take measures to stabilize markets today if necessary. 10-year JGBs are underperforming, with yields up 4.9bps on the day and the 2s10s curve steepening ~3bps.

Beyond the immediate implications for JGBs, the Japanese Yen and – by extension – the Yen carry trade, this is a momentous development geopolitically. Takaichi is a China hawk who sparked something of a diplomatic crisis late last year when she suggested that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan could be considered existential for Japan. That would be sufficient to justify intervention by the Japanese self-defence force under the country’s pacifist constitution – a point that was not lost on Chinese diplomats, who reacted furiously to the implication that Japan could resist efforts to reunify Taiwan with the mainland.

According to the Financial Times, Takaichi has signaled that she is ready to test her mandate by pursuing changes to Japan’s constitution. If successful, that could see Japan re-arming more rapidly and moving to acquire offensive capabilities that have heretofore remained restricted. This would suit the strategic aims of the Trump administration – who were supportive of Takaichi in her re-election bid – but is certain to further inflame the diplomatic row with China and also runs the risk of stoking tensions with other countries who retain misgivings over the behavior of Imperial Japan during and prior to World War Two.

In short, the arms race in the Indo-Pacific may just be getting started as third parties begin to pick sides in the contest between the United States and China, and also take steps to hedge against each other.

To underline this point, Indonesia and Australia have just signed a common security pact. This might ordinarily be considered an unremarkable development, except it marks something of a shift in Indonesia’s traditional non-aligned policy toward a more integrated defence posture and comes in the context of friction between Indonesia and China over territorial claims in the South China Sea.

The new agreement is particularly interesting because it is made with a Western country with whom Indonesia has not always seen eye-to-eye. Though it falls short of a mutual-defence pact, the agreement will see a significant step-up in military cooperation that highlights the strategic re-evaluation that is underway across the Indo-Pacific.

For its part, Australia has been busily upgrading its diplomatic and security ties in the region for several years now. Major agreements have recently been signed with Papua New Guinea, Fiji, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Timor-Leste, while the AUKUS pact with the United States and the UK will soon see the Henderson shipyard in Western Australia used for maintenance and sustainment of nuclear submarines. Australia has also recently signed a deal to purchase eleven upgraded Mogami-class general purpose frigates from Japan – marking Japan’s first major defence export contract and a deepening of military ties between the two nations.

Needless to say, these agreements are implicitly understood as an effort to hedge against a more assertive China. This thinking is clear in the economic sphere also, as the Financial Review today reports that Australia has been quietly increasing tariffs on Chinese steel imports to protect what remains of its own domestic industry even as hopes for the conclusion of a long-awaited trade deal with the EU are rising. The pattern of freer trade for friends and restricted trade elsewhere is a template that is now being repeated globally as the world coalesces into interest blocs with geopolitical hedgerows erected in between. Those hedgerows are not impermeable, but they are growing denser over time.

Finally, while Takaichi’s political star is rising in the east another appears to be setting in the west. British Prime Minister Starmer is scheduled to address the nation today as speculation increases that he will soon be forced out of Number 10 Downing Street. Starmer’s Chief of Staff recently resigned over his role in recommending the appointment of Lord Mandelson as ambassador to the United States, despite his known links to Jeffrey Epstein. 

The decision by his most senior advisor to fall on his sword may buy Starmer some time, but signs of widespread discontent on the backbench compounded by diabolically bad poll results are creating the impression that his days are numbered.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/09/2026 - 10:40

The Arms Race In The Indo-Pacific Is Just Getting Started As Participants Pick Sides

By Benjamin Picton, senior market strategist at Rabobank

US stocks rallied hard on Friday and the VIX index had its biggest one-day fall since April of last year. The rally broke three-straight days of losses where crypto was dumped and two-year Treasury bonds had tightened 19bps. Yields on two-year US treasuries rose almost 5bps on Friday to 3.50% in the broader risk-on rally.

Prime Minister Takaichi has won a landslide victory in Japan’s general election over the weekend. Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party now has a two-thirds supermajority in the lower house of the Diet, granting it the power to override the upper house.

The Nikkei is up 4.7% today and 12.9% YTD, trailing only the KOSPI among major Asian indices. Asian equity markets are mostly outperforming counterparts in Europe and the United States this year. The so-called ‘Takaichi-trade’ has seen Japanese equities well bid in reaction to Takaichi’s predilection for looser fiscal settings, greater investments in technology and defence, and pressure on the Bank of Japan not to raise interest rates too quickly.

Despite this cocktail of accommodative policy, USDJPY is dealing a little softer as Finance Minister Katayama indicated that she had been in close contact with US Treasury Secretary Bessent regarding stabilisation of the exchange rate. Katayama also said that she is prepared to take measures to stabilize markets today if necessary. 10-year JGBs are underperforming, with yields up 4.9bps on the day and the 2s10s curve steepening ~3bps.

Beyond the immediate implications for JGBs, the Japanese Yen and – by extension – the Yen carry trade, this is a momentous development geopolitically. Takaichi is a China hawk who sparked something of a diplomatic crisis late last year when she suggested that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan could be considered existential for Japan. That would be sufficient to justify intervention by the Japanese self-defence force under the country’s pacifist constitution – a point that was not lost on Chinese diplomats, who reacted furiously to the implication that Japan could resist efforts to reunify Taiwan with the mainland.

According to the Financial Times, Takaichi has signaled that she is ready to test her mandate by pursuing changes to Japan’s constitution. If successful, that could see Japan re-arming more rapidly and moving to acquire offensive capabilities that have heretofore remained restricted. This would suit the strategic aims of the Trump administration – who were supportive of Takaichi in her re-election bid – but is certain to further inflame the diplomatic row with China and also runs the risk of stoking tensions with other countries who retain misgivings over the behavior of Imperial Japan during and prior to World War Two.

In short, the arms race in the Indo-Pacific may just be getting started as third parties begin to pick sides in the contest between the United States and China, and also take steps to hedge against each other.

To underline this point, Indonesia and Australia have just signed a common security pact. This might ordinarily be considered an unremarkable development, except it marks something of a shift in Indonesia’s traditional non-aligned policy toward a more integrated defence posture and comes in the context of friction between Indonesia and China over territorial claims in the South China Sea.

The new agreement is particularly interesting because it is made with a Western country with whom Indonesia has not always seen eye-to-eye. Though it falls short of a mutual-defence pact, the agreement will see a significant step-up in military cooperation that highlights the strategic re-evaluation that is underway across the Indo-Pacific.

For its part, Australia has been busily upgrading its diplomatic and security ties in the region for several years now. Major agreements have recently been signed with Papua New Guinea, Fiji, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Timor-Leste, while the AUKUS pact with the United States and the UK will soon see the Henderson shipyard in Western Australia used for maintenance and sustainment of nuclear submarines. Australia has also recently signed a deal to purchase eleven upgraded Mogami-class general purpose frigates from Japan – marking Japan’s first major defence export contract and a deepening of military ties between the two nations.

Needless to say, these agreements are implicitly understood as an effort to hedge against a more assertive China. This thinking is clear in the economic sphere also, as the Financial Review today reports that Australia has been quietly increasing tariffs on Chinese steel imports to protect what remains of its own domestic industry even as hopes for the conclusion of a long-awaited trade deal with the EU are rising. The pattern of freer trade for friends and restricted trade elsewhere is a template that is now being repeated globally as the world coalesces into interest blocs with geopolitical hedgerows erected in between. Those hedgerows are not impermeable, but they are growing denser over time.

Finally, while Takaichi’s political star is rising in the east another appears to be setting in the west. British Prime Minister Starmer is scheduled to address the nation today as speculation increases that he will soon be forced out of Number 10 Downing Street. Starmer’s Chief of Staff recently resigned over his role in recommending the appointment of Lord Mandelson as ambassador to the United States, despite his known links to Jeffrey Epstein. 

The decision by his most senior advisor to fall on his sword may buy Starmer some time, but signs of widespread discontent on the backbench compounded by diabolically bad poll results are creating the impression that his days are numbered.

Tyler Durden Mon, 02/09/2026 - 10:40