The post Bursting the AI Bubble: The Fed Could Take Away the “Who Could Have Known?” Defense appeared first on CEPR.

 

Carell tells graduates to be kind, avoid envy and to listen to those around them.

 

The post Steve Carell, Northwestern Class of 2025 Commencement appeared first on The Big Picture.

The Replacements: How US Helps Foreign Workers Take American Jobs

Authored by Steven Edginton via RealClearInvestigations,

Mary, a veteran Silicon Valley marketer who can't find a job, considers herself a victim of an H-1B visa program run amok.

Her story, a U.S. native replaced by a foreign-born employee who is willing to work at a significantly lower wage, has become commonplace, particularly in the tech industry. Adding insult to injury, she says, her CEO, who hails from India, told her to train the man he selected to replace her before laying her off.

Despite stints at Google and Cisco and two years of job hunting, Mary can no longer compete in a job market saturated with foreign-born H-1B visa holders. "I had experience. I should have walked right into these corporate jobs, but I didn't. Why? Because Silicon Valley is flooded with people who work for two-thirds of the price, or even half price," said Mary, who asked to be identified only by her first name.

U.S. tech workers like Mary are at the center of a battle brewing in Washington, D.C., over reforming the troubled H-1B visa program, which is designed to fill highly skilled positions when qualified American workers can't be found. The controversy pits tough-on-immigration Republicans and some Democrats against the most formidable of opponents - Big Tech, the primary beneficiary of a program considered by critics to be little more than a pipeline of cheap labor.

In the last few decades, the California dream has gone global as U.S. tech firms have filled their ranks and C-suites with employees born abroad. Intel is no longer the company of its founders, Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, but of Malaysian-born Lip-Bu Tan, its CEO since March 2025. Microsoft is led by Satya Nadella; Alphabet Inc. by Sundar Pichai; Adobe by Shantanu Narayen; IBM by Arvind Krishna; YouTube by Neal Mohan; and T-Mobile US by Srinivas Gopalan - all of whom were born in India.

All told, a remarkable two-thirds of the Valley's nearly 400,000 tech jobs are now held by those born abroad, according to a 2025 report from the think tank Joint Venture Silicon Valley. Today, more tech workers were born in India (23%) and China (18%) combined than in the U.S. (34%).

Low-Cost Talent

The influx of low-cost Asian talent has clearly helped fuel profits in one of America's most influential sectors. But there is a downside to this tech boom - the sidelining of U.S. workers thanks to the H-1B visa program that's no longer working as intended. Created in 1990, the federal program has morphed into a vehicle for employers, particularly in the nation's tech centers, to recruit much cheaper foreign labor at the expense of U.S. tech workers, according to Harvard economist George J. Borjas.

While the H-1B program spans multiple industries, it's overwhelmingly concentrated in tech. Last year, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Tata Consultancy, and Google were the biggest visa users, with Amazon alone recording more than 13,000 applications. These companies find the savings from hiring foreign workers hard to resist. The job of software developer, for instance, accounts for 38% of all H-1B visa workers, according to a 2026 paper by Borjas. And these foreign software developers earn about 30% less than their U.S. counterparts, the economist estimates.

Since many of these tech jobs pay six figures, the savings quickly add up. Borjas estimates that companies, on average, save nearly $100,000 per worker over six years by hiring an H-1B worker rather than an American. The arrangement "redistributes wealth from those who compete with immigrants to those who use immigrants," Borjas wrote in 2016. That, in turn, helps account for the soaring stock prices of Big Tech since the 2008 financial crash.

False Rationale

The vaguely written H-1B law has been easy for companies to exploit. Hassan Abdullah, an immigration attorney and H-1B advocate, said the supposed congressional basis of the law - to fill highly skilled jobs with foreigners if Americans aren't available - has always been a fiction. "The regulations don't necessarily say that," said Abdullah, who helps companies get the visas. "Throughout all my years, I've never had to even consider that as a factor."

One of the most glaring weaknesses of the law, critics say, is that most companies applying for these visas are not required to demonstrate that they were unable to find qualified American workers. Only companies with more than 15% of their workforce on H-1Bs must make small efforts to recruit U.S. citizens, such as publicly announcing open positions.

Companies are required to pay foreign workers at least the "prevailing wage" for the occupation and region, a provision that should theoretically reduce the incentive to hire employees from Asia. But the process relies on self-reporting and has been easy to manipulate because salaries are calculated using broad regional averages that often fail to reflect real market wages in the technology sector.

As a result, the number of H-1B visa workers has skyrocketed. When an annual cap of 85,000 new visas is combined with renewals, 2025 was a banner year with 406,348 approved visas, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Seventy percent of those visas were issued to Indians. That compares with a total of 275,317 visa approvals in 2015.

Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt, who's part of the MAGA wing of the GOP, reacted to these numbers on X, calling the program "a national security nightmare. Enough. No more flooding the market with 400k+ H-1B visas while our people and our sovereignty gets screwed."

With criticism of the visas dovetailing with broader anti-immigration sentiments, the Trump administration has made the most serious move yet to restrict the program. Six months ago, the USCIS announced a new $100,000 fee that companies must pay per new H-1B worker living outside the U.S. While official figures have not yet been released, some immigration experts estimate that the fee may lead to a 30% to 50% decline in new visa applications.

"This is the first year we have not filed any H-1B visas for people outside the U.S. because tech companies don't want to pay the $100,000 fee," said immigration attorney Navdeep Meamber, who is based in Silicon Valley.

But companies have found a workaround. Meamber said she has seen an uptick in the number of clients filing for the visas for workers already in the U.S., particularly those such as students who transferred from other visa types to H-1Bs.

"The $100,000 fee is not reducing the numbers because foreign students, especially those who get on the Optional Practical Training program, can move into the H-1B pipeline without paying that fee," said attorney Rosemary Jenks, a campaigner for immigration reform with the Immigration Accountability Project. "So there are still plenty of H-1B visas being issued every year."

American Ingenuity

Silicon Valley wasn't always dominated by foreigners. Some claim the true birthplace of Silicon Valley can be found in a garage at 367 Addison Avenue in Palo Alto. It was there that David Packard, a native of Colorado, and Bill Hewlett of Michigan founded Hewlett-Packard in 1939. Robert Noyce, a native son of Iowa and co-inventor of the integrated circuit, critically made from silicon, gave name to the valley after the substance. With his colleague, Gordon Moore of San Francisco, they founded Intel in 1968.

Throughout the post-war years, America's booming tech industry was largely pioneered by natives. By the 1980s, however, concerns were raised about the dwindling number of young people available to fill STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) jobs in the future. Erich Bloch, director of the National Science Foundation, told the American Council on Education in 1985: "The pool of potential students from U.S. schools will become smaller. Demographic projections, of which you are all aware, show the number of 18-to-24-year-olds declining by about 20% over the next decade."

The 1990 Immigration Act, signed by George H. W. Bush, created the H-1B visa, a temporary work visa lasting a few years aimed at filling the labor shortages Bloch had warned about. Since then, as in many industries, tech firms have sometimes struggled to find employees, particularly specialized engineers, during times of rapid growth. But whether the industry faces a persistent shortage of American workers is a matter of debate among economists and labor analysts.

Major technology companies reject the criticism that the H-1B system is primarily a source of cheap labor. Executives stress that the program allows American firms to recruit engineers and researchers with advanced technical expertise in areas such as artificial intelligence, semiconductor design, and complex software development, where qualified talent can be scarce. They also contend that many H-1B workers are paid high salaries and that access to global talent helps keep American companies competitive against rivals in China and elsewhere.

Critics of the visas point to waves of layoffs, today driven by AI, accompanied by the growth in H-1Bs, as evidence that a labor shortage is nothing more than a fig leaf. Michael Capuano of the Federation for American Immigration Reform wrote in a blog post last year that "Google laid off 951 U.S. employees in 2024, but found room for 1,058 new H-1B workers. Apple laid off 735 people in 2024, but signed on 864 new H-1B employees. Microsoft laid off 3,426 workers from 2022 to 2024 and hired 3,259 new H-1Bs during that same period."

A 2023 analysis by the Economic Policy Institute similarly found that the top 30 H-1B employers hired more than 34,000 new H-1B workers in 2022 while laying off at least 85,000 employees during the same period.

In addition to cheaper talent, critics say H-1B visas also provide a captive workforce. Because employers can sponsor visa holders for permanent residency, many workers become heavily reliant on keeping their jobs in order to remain in the United States. Critics argue this dynamic discourages employees from changing companies or demanding higher wages, with some likening the system to a form of indentured servitude.

Tribalism At Play?

Critics say favoritism has also contributed to foreign dominance of the tech sector. After foreign-born employees take on leadership roles, including CEO, they sometimes attract and hire more foreigners by tapping their own professional and social networks.

Kevin Lynn, executive director of the Institute for Sound Public Policy, argues that "professionalism doesn't exist in these IT departments anymore," adding that "when you look at the hiring, it becomes very tribal; It's really India versus the rest of the world."

Microsoft saw the number of decisions on H-1B applications rise from 2,983 in 2014, when Nadella became CEO, to 6,258 in 2025. Google's numbers jumped from 2,309 in 2015, when Pichai took the top job, to 7,868 in 2025. During these years, these companies also grew, making it hard to know if the percentage of foreign workers increased. At IBM, H-1B decisions have remained consistent since Arvind Krishna was named the leader.

Meamber, the immigration lawyer, disputes the idea that companies run by foreign-born leaders are more likely to rely on labor from their home country. "The CEO doesn't even know who is being hired. These decisions are being made at a lower level by the HR team and by the recruiters," she said.

Stephen Vivien, an engineer, said he witnessed Indian employees help each other get hired by sharing interview questions when he worked at Google. "There were a lot of H-1B workers and they created their own little network," he said. "[When] one Indian guy would be coming up for his interview, the other Indian guys who had [already] gotten hired would call and share the questions."

In April, a New York jury found New Jersey-based Cognizant Technology Solutions liable for $8.4 million after a former executive sued the company, which was founded in India, for discrimination against non-Indian and non-South Asian workers. The executive argued he was passed over for a promotion and was later fired for raising concerns about bias against non-Indian employees.

The decision follows a separate successful lawsuit brought by three other employees against Cognizant in 2017, all similarly claiming discrimination against non-Indian workers, though the company is appealing and denies all allegations. In both lawsuits, juries found in favor of claims that Cognizant had used the H-1B program as a tool to discriminate against American workers. Since 2009, the company has received tens of thousands of H-1B visa approvals.

Reformers Vs. Big Tech

While restrictions to the program, including last year's $100,000 fee, have yet to meaningfully slow its growth, some Republicans have called to abolish it. In February, Florida representative Greg Steube introduced the EXILE Act, which would end the H-1B visa program entirely.

A proposed reform that might gain more bipartisan support targets the ineffective prevailing wage requirement that allows firms to underpay foreign workers. One idea floated by Republicans would create a minimum salary requirement for H-1B workers that's much higher than the current pay scale, thus removing the financial incentive to replace U.S.-born workers.

Ro Khanna, the Democratic congressman representing much of Silicon Valley, said on the All-In podcast last year that "there's definitely abuse [that] needs to be corrected" in the H-1B program. Khanna said a new prevailing wage standard would be a reform he could support.

But legislation that would raise labor costs would be opposed by Big Tech, armed with its war chest of money and influence in Washington. Jenks, the lawyer, said H-1B reformers face a tough fight. "The donors on this issue include all of the high-tech companies, whether it's Microsoft, Facebook, all of them," she said. "They put millions and millions of dollars every year into lobbying."

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/24/2026 - 10:30

With Commercial Real Estate Still Challenging, Lenders Offload Troubled Loans At A Loss

Authored by Mary Prenon via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

While leasing activity and vacancy trends suggest the U.S. commercial real estate market is stabilizing, office values are still well below post-pandemic peaks, recent reports show.

The San Francisco skyline on Jan. 20, 2023. Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

As owners scramble to make payments on under-occupied office buildings, many lenders are reluctant to foreclose to avoid the headache of taking ownership and reselling the properties, according to David Marino, cofounder of Hughes Marino, a San Diego-based corporate real estate advisory firm.

According to Cushman and Wakefield, a global commercial real estate services company, national office sublease inventory in the first quarter declined by 13.6 percent year over year, to 101 million square feet, while vacancy may have peaked. Sublease space peaked in January 2023, at 189 million square feet, according to the commercial real estate services firm CBRE Group.

A February report from the financial data and research company MSCI also shows that office prices are showing signs of stabilization, though they are still well below their post-COVID-19 pandemic peak. Commercial property prices rose by 0.3 percent year over year in January, but downtown office values declined by 1.3 percent, and were down by 40.2 percent from three years ago.

Massive Perks

Speaking recently with Siyamak Khorrami, host of EpochTV's "Market Insider," Marino said the commercial real estate market is still challenging, as the pandemic has made remote work a new normal. "The horses are out of the barn and never coming back," he said.

An April 1 report from job search platform FlexJobs shows that remote-job postings in the first quarter increased by 20 percent month over month, with 65 percent of positions targeting experienced workers. The platform predicts continued growth in the work model for the rest of the year.

An April 16 Bureau of Labor Statistics report shows that 22.6 percent of workers teleworked or worked from home, a measure commonly described as remote work, in March.

Marino said about 85 percent of companies in the United States have had their leases expire in the past six years and have been able to resize, leaving many office markets with 20 percent to 30 percent availability. As a result, commercial landlords have been offering potential tenants massive perks, including free rent packages.

"I just represented a client in an engineering firm for 14,000 square feet, which is basically space for about 7,065 people. And the landlord that just bought a building down the street was in escrow and wanted to win this deal," Marino said. "They gave us an eight-year lease with a year free. In other words, my client moves in at the end of this year and doesn't pay rent in all of 2027."

In addition, Marino said the landlord paid for all of the tenant improvements to remodel the space, plus a cash moving allowance.

'B' Loans

However, banks and lenders can face an even bigger problem when loans cannot be repaid. Rather than pursuing immediate foreclosure proceedings, many lenders are resorting to creative solutions that allow landlords to retain ownership of these buildings, he said.

Marino noted that there have been "hundreds and hundreds of foreclosures" throughout the country, in particular during the past three years. Typically, he said, commercial loans include a "balloon" provision, which requires repayment or refinancing within seven to 10 years, or the property must be sold.

"What's happened in the last three years is a lot of owners have hit that balloon mark and interest rates went from 3 to 6 percent, so if your occupancy goes from 90 to 60 percent, you're immediately underwater," he said. "Lenders in those situations have generally foreclosed on the properties and resold them at a big discount."

In some cases, lenders don't want to foreclose because they don't want to become landlords. As an alternative, Marino said, they may split an existing loan into two pieces. In this scenario, a lender could, for example, take a $100 million loan and set $30 million of that aside as a "'B' loan," treating it as a different loan.

"What I've seen in the last three years is the lending community getting very creative, trying to salvage what they can," he said. "The lenders don't want to foreclose on the real estate, nor do they want to put somebody into default unnecessarily."

According to Marino, some metro areas are affected more than others. In San Diego, he said, 11 high-rise office buildings have already been foreclosed or are going through a forced-sale process when the loan hit the balloon payment stage.

A couple of those buildings are being converted to residential use, which Marino describes as a "micro trend" and not a significant impact on office inventory nationwide. He noted that close to a third of quality buildings in the city have already transitioned through financial negotiations with lenders.

Downtown Los Angeles and San Francisco have also experienced their share of office building foreclosures, Marino said.

"There's still going to be more, and the developers that own these things, frankly, are handing the keys back," he said. "There [are] some really ugly tax consequences."

For example, he said, if a buyer purchased a building for $200 million with $150 million in debt and today the building is worth only $80 million, the owner would rather walk away.

"These are typically individual assets with their own individual Partnership Agreement, and they're collapsing all over the country," he said.

No Signs Of Systemic Fallout

To Khorrami's question about how this will impact banks and lenders, Marino said it would depend on the percentage of the lenders' assets allocated toward commercial real estate.

"The rollover of the debt is typically distributed over many, many years, so you don't have all these loans really expiring at the same time within one financial institution," he said. "My experience so far is that we're not going to see a collapse of the banking sector because of commercial real estate."

While the road could be bumpy, he said, it's not going to be a trigger effect like it was during the early 1990s. Many of the older vacant office buildings are being sold at land value, minus the cost of demolition to start over and convert them into residential projects.

RentCafe, a rental housing research platform owned by Yardi, estimated in a March report that about 90,300 apartment units were in the office-to-residential conversion pipeline nationwide at the beginning of this year, marking another record year for such projects.

The warehousing market, meanwhile, appears to be booming, Marino said. He noted that the rise of online shopping has created an escalating demand for huge warehousing space.

"You look at an Amazon distribution building, and some of these things are a million square feet," he said. "They're some of the biggest buildings in the country."

The issue is that construction, including land acquisition, permitting, and design, can often take up to three years, he said.

From 2020 to 2025, Marino noted, 1.2 billion square feet of warehouse buildings were being constructed across the country. In another five years, he predicts, the country could see an unprecedented amount of massive warehouse construction.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/24/2026 - 09:20

1 In 4 Cars Sold Globally Is An Electric Vehicle

Electric vehicle adoption continues to accelerate worldwide, reaching new milestones in 2025.

As Statista's Tristan Gaudiaut details below, according to the IEA Global EV Outlook 2026, published on May 20, global sales of electric cars, including plug-in hybrids, surpassed 21 million units last year, more than doubling since 2022, when annual sales first exceeded 10 million.

As the chart shows, EVs now account for roughly one in four passenger car sales globally, meaning their market share climbed to 25 percent in 2025, up from just 2 percent in 2018.

You will find more infographics at Statista

This rapid growth has been driven largely by China, which remains by far the largest market.

With more than 13 million electric vehicles sold in 2025, the country alone accounted for around 60 percent of global sales.

While adoption has also increased steadily in the rest of the world, with nearly 8 million units sold – largely in Europe and the United States – the data highlight China’s dominant role in shaping the global EV market.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/24/2026 - 08:45

German Taxpayers Bled Dry: Mass Migration Cost €40 Billion In 2025

Via Remix News,

Migrants cost German taxpayers — just at the federal level — €24.8 billion in 2025, according to new data in the “refugee costs report” from the German Federal Ministry of Finance. However, the true sum is much higher.

The €24.8 billion is strictly the federal bill. The actual, combined national cost of migration for Germany is that €24.8 billion plus the massive, separate billions that the individual states and municipalities had to pull from their own local tax revenues to cover their own deficits brought on by mass immigration.

Welt notes that the total figure is indeed much higher, since it does not include states and local communes, but Welt does not provide this combined data.

Nevertheless, previous years indicate that this number is at least €15 to €20 billion. That means any total figure is likely well over €40 billion, but as in previous years, it may actually go as high as €50 billion.

The total costs cover several areas, including the federal government’s contribution to the refugee and integration costs of states and municipalities. One controversial issue is exactly how much money the federal government is transferring to the states and municipalities, which they argue is not enough to cover all their costs.

Essentially, the federal government only pays out a flat rate per initial asylum application, amounting to €7,500 from the federal government, allocated via a modification in the VAT distribution. This advance payment reached €1.25 billion for 2025. Additionally, the report assumes that the federal government holds a claim for repayment from the states totaling €250 million for 2025.

However, this only covers a fraction of the cost. The states indicate that the total costs in the area of flight and migration are significantly higher than the VAT resources available to them on the basis of the flat rate.

Of course, all of these expenses only cover specific areas like housing, direct social benefits, and integration courses. The true cost is still far higher than €40 billion to €50 billion.

The costs, for instance, do not cover expenses associated with the substantial foreign prison population. They also do not cover the need for the vastly increased police forces and counter-terrorism efforts. There are also “gray areas” that lead to other hidden taxes on Germans brought on by mass immigration. For instance, mass immigration has led to vastly higher housing prices, more road traffic, crowded hospitals, and longer wait times for medical treatments.

Germans are even paying higher health insurance premiums now due to mass immigration.

The head of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds (GKV-Spitzenverband) has repeatedly criticized the federal government for creating a massive multi-billion-euro deficit that forces them to raise premiums, with the core of the complaint revolving around “non-insurance benefits.” These are social welfare benefits mandated by the government that are paid out to people who have not paid regular insurance contributions into the system. This includes long-term unemployed citizens and refugees.

When asylum seekers first arrive in Germany, they are not members of the statutory health insurance system. Under the Asylum Seekers Benefits Act, their healthcare costs are covered, with local municipalities and state social offices paying their bills. 

The financial friction begins once a migrant’s asylum application is approved, or if they have been in the country for 36 months without a final decision. At this point, they transition into the standard welfare system, known as citizen’s money.

Once on welfare, they are fully integrated into the statutory health insurance system. This is where the GKV-Spitzenverband argues the math breaks down, with the government only paying €108 per person per month for welfare recipients, the majority of which are migrants and those with a migration background, when the care actually costs between €300 and €350 a month.

This has resulted in a multi-billion euro deficit, which the insurance companies say now needs to be passed on to Germans actually paying for their health insurance.

In short, Germans are being squeezed from all sides due to mass immigration, and despite claims that foreigners would pay the pensions of Germany’s aging population, this is clearly unrealistic. Instead, Germany’s elderly may now be expected to work even longer, with a strong movement in the government to raise the retirement age to 73.

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/24/2026 - 08:10

US Approves "Homing All The Way Killer" Missile Support Sale To Ukraine

The US State Department has officially cleared a $108.1 million hardware and sustainment package to keep Ukraine's frontline air defenses online, after there's not been much in the way of big dollar headlines concerning Washington's longtime military support to Kiev of late.

The cash injection targets the maintenance and optimization of the US-designed HAWK system - which is short for the "Homing All the Way Killer" surface-to-air missile system.

Bild/Getty Images

Depending on the exact missile variant deployed, the platform handles tactical interceptions of enemy aircraft, drones, and cruise missiles at operational ranges spanning 25 to 30 miles.

The newly approved sale reportedly does not provide new systems, which would bring a much higher price tag, but is instead focused on keeping existing legacy systems operational.

The State Department's Thursday news release detailed a transaction which featured long-term systems support, including erectable mast trailers, major technical modifications, spare parts, consumables, software support, and contractor engineering services - per a media redout.

The statement sought to provide ongoing justification from the Trump admin's Ukraine policy:

"This proposed sale will support the foreign policy and national security objectives of the United States by improving the security of a partner country that is a force for political and economic stability in Europe," it said.

The Defense Security Cooperation Agency has formally notified Congress of the package, and is expected to sail through, after which the contract will be mostly fulfilled by Colorado-based defense contractor Sierra Nevada Corp.  

Ukraine originally integrated the HAWK into its arsenal at the tail end of 2022 via a $400 million security assistance package. And last year Washington authorized a foreign military sale dedicated to a HAWK Phase III upgrade and related sustainment.

Ukraine could see a new rush by Western partners to supply and update air defense systems across the war-ravaged country, given the air war is steadily escalating.

Russia earlier this month sent a record 1,500+ drones and missiles against Ukrainian cities in only a 48-hour period. This was immediately on the heels of a successful 3-day 'Victory Day' ceasefire having held, which was backed by President Trump.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/24/2026 - 07:35

UK Net Migration Decline Masks True Demographic Replacement As British Exodus Accelerates

Via Remix News,

The left-wing U.K. government has claimed it is making real progress in tackling the ongoing migration crisis enveloping Britain after official statistics published on Thursday showed that net migration had decreased to 171,000 last year. However, that figure alone doesn’t tell the whole story.

“I promised to restore control to our borders. My government is delivering,” under-pressure Prime Minister Keir Starmer wrote on X in response to the latest publication by the Office for National Statistics.

“Net migration is now at 171,000, down from a high of 944,000 under the Conservatives,” added Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, claiming the government had “restored order” after the unprecedented figures under the last Conservative administration.

Yet, a glance at the broader figures shows the reported number isn’t as impressive as the government would have you believe.

In the year ending December 2025, the total number of people immigrating to Britain stood at 813,000. For comparison, this figure is around two-thirds of the population of the U.K.’s second-largest city, Birmingham.

That figure comprises 110,000 British nationals returning to the U.K., and 76,000 EU citizens. By far the largest contingent of immigrants was from non-EU countries, accounting for 627,000 arrivals.

The 171,000 figure is also largely offset by emigration — nearly a quarter of a million (246,000) British nationals left the country, while 118,000 EU nationals and 278,000 non-EU nationals also packed their bags.

Total emigration of 642,000 was marginally down on the 680,000 recorded the previous year.

So, while the headline figure looks impressive, that is still a considerable decline in British nationals — down a net figure of 136,000 — effectively being replaced by largely non-EU immigrants. A total of 138,000 Indians, 56,000 Pakistanis, 54,000 Chinese, and 47,000 Nigerian nationals arrived.

The figures suggest that Britain remains a major destination for long-term migrants, and the scale of departures has become an increasingly important factor when reflecting on the overall migration picture.

The net figure for British nationals was the largest exodus since the 1960s.

Meanwhile, non-EU net migration to the U.K. still remains higher (by some margin) than in any other year preceding 2021.

Migration monitoring groups released statements on Thursday contesting the Labour government’s assessment that it was successfully tackling the problem.

“Our immigration system is dysfunctional,” wrote the Centre for Migration Control.

“Three quarters of a million foreign nationals still arrive every year, and one in five people living in Britain was not born here.

“Rather than heed these warning signs, Labour ministers will insist they have ‘taken back control,'” it added.

Other commentators noted that the Home Office no longer publishes the numbers of immigrants who entered the country on a visa that has since expired, and assumes they have left, leaving the figures contentious.

Reminder that net migration figures have been unreliable since the Home Office stopped publishing visa overstayer numbers in 2020

And recent falls in net migration have supposedly been driven by non-EU student/grad visa-holders, who have the strongest incentive to overstay https://t.co/Tpoi2tLphz pic.twitter.com/s1lcd6JeMD

— David Algonquin (@surplustakes) May 21, 2026

“If people’s visas expire and ONS has no record of them leaving the country, they simply assume that they have left — one reason to treat emigration and ‘net’ migration figures with care,” noted Conservative MP Neil O’Brien.

Academic Matt Goodwin, who most recently stood for the right-wing Reform U.K. party in a by-election, warned, “The British people are being demographically replaced – there is no other term for it.”

Migration Watch U.K. called the recent migration wave into Britain “one of the most rapid and drastic demographic changes, outside of war, in human history — no wonder the public are concerned!”

It further questioned why the British public should be “thankful that net migration has ‘crashed’ from the city a size of Birmingham arriving in a single year, to a city the size of Norwich.”

“Where is the infrastructure for this massive inflow of immigrants?” it asked.

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/24/2026 - 07:00

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

• The Global Fertility Crisis Is Worse Than You Probably Think: Everybody knows about the decline in birthrates. Fewer people understand why—or just how significantly it could transform society in the next few decades. (Derek Thompson)

• The Feed Is Fake: That “viral” song, movie, meme, influencer, and celebrity drama was probably the product of a stealth marketing campaign. Joe Lim estimates that 90 percent of what you see on the internet is advertising in disguise, and he should know. For three years, Lim ran a company called Floodify, which at its peak operated 65,000 dummy social-media accounts used to drum up attention on behalf of paying clients. On a typical day, he says, Floodify posted 50,000 videos across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and X, all of them designed to pass for the unscripted output of ordinary users. Vulture on the slow realization that the algorithmic feed isn’t curating reality so much as constructing one. A useful frame the next time a “viral moment” looks too clean. (Vulture) see also It Sure Seems Like These Instagram Ads Want You to Do Cocaine: Meta’s ad algorithm apparently decided some Wired writers needed paraphernalia tips. A funny-disturbing reminder of how thin the line is between targeted advertising and being nudged toward narcotics. From designer straws to magnet-sealed leather pouches, the platform is awash in products seemingly built for coke—despite Meta’s policies on drug paraphernalia. (Wired)

• Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence: Both the general public and academic communities have raised concerns about sycophancy, the phenomenon of artificial intelligence (AI) excessively agreeing with or flattering users. Yet, beyond isolated media reports of severe consequences, like reinforcing delusions, little is known about the extent of sycophancy or how it affects people who use AI. Here we show the pervasiveness and harmful impacts of sycophancy when people seek advice from AI. Our findings highlight the necessity of explicitly addressing this incentive structure to mitigate the widespread risks of AI sycophancy. Models tuned to be relentlessly agreeable measurably reduce users’ willingness to take socially helpful action — and increase emotional reliance on the bot. (Arxiv)

• Your Mattress Got Worse on Purpose: The practice has a name. Mattress retailers call it the “name game,” and it exists to deliberately confuse buyers. The manufacturer makes one mattress, then ships it to ten different retailers with a different cover and a different model name on each. The world’s largest mattress maker now owns America’s largest mattress retailer. The FTC tried to stop them and lost. A funny, angry tour through the enshittification of the mattress business — private equity, foam compression, fake reviews, and the bed-in-a-box pivot to “premium.” You will recognize every move from other industries. (Worse On Purpose)

• Megatrends: AI vs the decade’s structural headwinds: Deutsche Bank research note arguing the productivity dividend from AI may not be large enough or arrive fast enough to offset demographic, fiscal, and geopolitical drags: “Our new AI-powered megatrend model shows that the world faces severe headwinds from several overlapping megatrends that, post-WWII, has only been seen during the 1970s oil crises and the onset of the 2008 financial crisis. In this piece, we explain our new megatrend model and how it uses AI analysis to quantify qualitative signals, filters our proprietary human-created data from dbDataInsights, and layers it all beside traditional data series. In all, we take almost 100 data points and track how each of the six global megatrends have waxed and waned quarterly over the last 70 years. In particular, we focus on the impact of these trends on GDP growth, equity markets and other key economic outcomes. We then use our model to estimate how the most important megatrends will develop over the rest of the decade.” Sober and worth your time. (Deutsche Bank Research Institute)

• Report: Chief Justice John Roberts’ Wife Made Over $10 Million As “Legal Consultant” The disclosure-versus-recusal gap at the Court keeps widening: Jane Roberts, the wife of Chief Justice John Roberts, made more than $10 million in commissions over an eight-year stretch where she matched top lawyers with elite law firms—including some that had cases before the Supreme Court—according to documents obtained by Insider, as concerns grow about justices possibly having unreported conflicts of interest. (Forbes)

• The Election Deniers Are Winning: The universe of people pressing debunked theories is so broad that it’s a feature of the system. On the now-mainstreamed 2020 denialism in elected office: Parikh is just one of many election deniers who were long relegated to the fringe and are now—with Trump back in office and still not over his electoral defeat six years ago—embedded inside the government. system. Whether ‘winning’ is the right word depends on the time horizon; the trend is unmistakable. The universe of people pressing debunked theories is so broad that it’s a feature of the system. (The Atlantic) see also MAGA Isn’t Broken. This Is What It Was Built to Do.: A pointed counter to the “victims of propaganda” framing — argues the movement is functioning exactly as designed. The internal left-of-center debate on how to think about MAGA voters keeps getting sharper. The most dangerous thing about MAGA is that they mean it. (The Rational League)

• A Different Kind of Fading President: Joe Biden became quieter, while Donald Trump grows even louder. (The Atlantic)

• Why Have Immigration Agents Detained This American Citizen Three Times? ProPublica on a US citizen detained three times by ICE while the agency keeps insisting it doesn’t do that. Read it for the specifics, not the slogans. Leonardo Garcia Venegas, a U.S. citizen whose prior detentions went viral, was recently detained for a third time — and shackled. “I just want to live in peace,” he says. (ProPublica)

• Rupert Murdoch’s High-Stakes Blitz Against the NFL: Murdoch is making a play for live sports rights to keep Fox relevant in the streaming era. Old media still has a few cards to play. Fox founder lobbies Trump to preserve air rights for broadcasters as powerful streamers encroach on their turf (Wall Street Journal)

Video of the day: The Philosophy of a Hitman: Why We’re Obsessed With Cinematic Assassins

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Vimal Kapur, CEO and Chairman of DJIA component Honeywell International. The firm is in the midst of dividing into three companies: Honeywell Automation, Honeywell Aerospace, and Solstice Advanced Materials. The firm has fully integrated AI as the intelligence layer in all of its automation processes and products.

 

China’s electricity generation increased by almost 500 terawatt-hours (TWh). Thjat’s a Germany-sized electricity grid last year

Source: Our World In Data

 

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

Free Speech Shouldn't Be Just For The Party In The White House

Authored by Charles Sauer via RealClearMarkets,

One of the most important Executive Orders signed by President Trump on his first day in office was Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship. As the title suggests, the order forbids any U.S. Government employee from taking any actions that violate the First Amendment rights of any American citizen. The Executive Order is intended to protect against future encroachments on the right to free speech like those that occurred under the Biden Administration.

During the Biden years, government officials routinely pressured social media companies to silence Americans for questioning the official response to COVID-19. For example, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said that, unless social media companies "voluntarily" removed posts containing "misinformation," the Administration would apply "appropriate legal and regulatory measures." Other members of the Administration sent messages to social media executives, addressing them as if they were poorly performing White House interns. At least one Biden staffer, Deputy Assistant to the President Rob Flaherty, even dropped an F-bomb in an email to Meta, parent company of Facebook and Instagram, inquiring why a post he "requested" be taken down was still up.

In March of this year, the Justice Department signed a consent decree with Louisiana and Mississippi settling a lawsuit brought by the states on behalf of their citizens whose First Amendment rights were violated by the Biden Administration's censorship. The settlement forbids the Surgeon General, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency from threatening social media companies for refusing to remove or limit the viewership of "content containing protected free speech." Unfortunately, some members of the Trump Administration seem to have not read this Executive Order.

For example, Federal Trade Commission Chair Andrew Ferguson, while a vast improvement over his predecessor Lina Khan, thinks the FTC should use its power to punish woke corporations for engaging in First Amendment-protected activity. The FTC recently settled a case, along with eight states, brought against major advertising companies. The suit alleged that the companies worked with progressive media watchdog groups, such as NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index, in order to limit the placement of ads on conservative sites. The ad agencies' defense was to claim that they were protecting brand safety.

Brand safety refers to advertising placement agencies avoiding sites with controversial political opinions or objectionable content. One problem with the FTC's case is that being concerned with brand safety makes valid business sense. A business whose customers largely come from a demographic that tends to support progressive politics will not want to advertise on pro-MAGA websites for fear of alienating its existing customers. Similarly, a brand whose customers are mostly conservative will not want to advertise on AOC 2028. The main problem with the FTC case is that organizing boycotts of a business because of the business's political activities is a First Amendment-protected activity.

Boycotts have a long and distinguished history. They were instrumental in the civil rights, labor, and other progressive movements. Boycotts have been used by conservatives, most notably by social conservatives, to pressure advertisers to stop running ads on programs that offended them. Organizers of these boycotts worked with conservative media watchdogs like the Media Research Center. Now, thanks to the precedent set by Andrew Ferguson, the next Democrat FTC Chair could target the Media Research Center and their allies for conspiring to restrain trade by organizing boycotts.

Chair Ferguson also wrote to (then) Apple CEO Tim Cook warning him that Apple could face a federal investigation for "unfair or deceptive or practices." The deception in question is the claim that Apple's news aggregation site is ideologically neutral, when in fact it promotes stories from left-wing sources while ignoring stories from conservative sources. Even if this were true, Apple has a First Amendment right to choose what news sources to feature in its news aggregator. If consumers are dissatisfied with Apple's selection, they are free to use one of the many conservative news outlets on the internet.

Chair Ferguson and government officials like Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Brendon Carr are not just violating the First Amendment - they are violating President Trump's executive order on free speech. Unfortunately, the President's commitment to free speech is also less than consistent. President Trump and his appointees must stop violating the First Amendment - otherwise America will become a country in which free speech only exists for those who won the last election.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/23/2026 - 23:20

Gunman Dead, Bystander Wounded After Large Shootout With Secret Service Near White House, Trump Safe

After a very busy day in Washington and at the White House, given the Saturday flurry of diplomatic activity over the announcement of a tentative Iran peace deal, but which is still awaiting word and some details from Tehran, a deadly shooting erupted just outside the White House, resulting in a massive security and response and presence.

President Trump was at the White House when at around 6pm ET the Secret Service responded in a hail of gunfire as 21-year-old Maryland man Nasire Best opened fire at 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW near the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

via Reuters

The president is safe, and the emergency has been declared over.

Somewhere between approximately 15 to 30 gunshots were fired, according to CBS News, which spoke to local law enforcement. President Trump was at the White House during the incident, "but was not impacted," the Secret Service spokesperson later announced.

A bystander was wounded, and the suspect was hit by by Secret Service officers upon returning fire. The gunman was wounded and taken to the hospital, where he later died. 

I was in the middle of taping on my iPhone for a social video from the White House North Lawn when we heard the shots. It sounded like dozens of gunshots. We were told to sprint to the press briefing room where we are holding now. pic.twitter.com/iqdQwh4soq

— Selina Wang (@selinawangtv) May 23, 2026

CBS reports upon the suspect's name being identified that "According to the source, Best had a previous run-in with Secret Service in July 2025 in which he tried to gain entry to the White House and was arrested and sent to a psychiatric ward for mental health issues."

A complete White House lockdown as since been lifted. According to more emerging details:

The Secret Service confirmed a couple of hours after the shooting that the man had died after exchanging fire with its agents.

The man had approached a White House security checkpoint and pulled a gun from his bag before opening fire, according to the Secret Service. Law enforcement shot back and wounded the man, who was taken to the hospital where he died. 

Fox reporting that an innocent bystander was hit when a gunman and Secret Service exchanged gunfire near the White House. Condition unknown. pic.twitter.com/mFKad4aZWg

— Acyn (@Acyn) May 23, 2026

As for the wounded bystander, the victim's information has not been released, and his condition not immediately known - after being rushed to the hospital.

New footage of the shooting near the White House pic.twitter.com/aTDtFD2onU

— Faytuks Network (@FaytuksNetwork) May 23, 2026

Per CBS, Senate Majority Leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson both praised the rapid response of the Secret Service as the shooting unfolded

In a post on X, Thune declared he is "grateful for the Secret Service and the agents' decisive actions to protect President Trump and everyone at and around the White House this evening."

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/23/2026 - 22:13

Dozens Of Nations Scramble For World Bank Financing Amid Iran War Global Shock

Via The Cradle

Twenty-seven countries have moved to activate emergency World Bank financing mechanisms since the US-Israeli war on Iran began in late February, Reuters reported Friday.

Three nations have already received approval for fast-tracked funding, while the other 24 are in the process of completing administrative procedures. 

Kenya and Iraq have publicly confirmed they are seeking emergency World Bank assistance, with Nairobi facing surging domestic fuel prices and Baghdad grappling with severely diminished oil revenues due to disruptions in maritime exports.

Getty Image

The 27 nations are drawn from a pool of 101 countries with access to pre-arranged contingent financing, including 54 that are enrolled in the World Bank's Rapid Response Option, a mechanism that allows sovereign borrowers to immediately redirect up to 10 percent of their undisbursed project balances.

World Bank President Ajay Banga has outlined a three-tier funding structure. Between $20 billion and $25 billion is available immediately through existing crisis instruments, rising to $60 billion within six months if the bank reorients parts of its broader portfolio, with longer-term structural changes capable of pushing the total to around $100 billion. 

Activity at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), by contrast, has been minimal. 

Despite Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva anticipating that up to a dozen nations would seek between $20 billion and $50 billion in emergency assistance, sources told Reuters that very few formal requests have been filed, with countries in a "wait-and-see mode.”

The IMF previously warned that the US-Israeli war on Iran has significantly worsened the global economic outlook by disrupting energy markets, raising inflation, and weakening growth prospects worldwide.

It said the war had reduced expected global growth from 3.4 percent to 3.1 percent, significantly worsened inflation, and posed major risks of further deterioration in energy supply routes.

From world markets still feeling the sting of the Iran war, to a host of central banks bracing for their next moves, these are the stories to watch in business and finance in the coming week https://t.co/xIhHy1MlEI pic.twitter.com/oqpUcNcUx9

— Reuters (@Reuters) May 22, 2026

The IMF added that prolonged fighting could deepen regional economic damage, potentially push the global economy toward recession-level growth, heighten uncertainty in financial markets, and accelerate broader geopolitical and economic instability.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/23/2026 - 22:10

Ferrari Fever Hits Samsung, SK Hynix Workers As AI Memory Boom Mints New Wealth

The global memory boom, with Samsung at the epicenter of the production ecosystem, appears to be generating a sudden wealth effect among some employees, with local media reporting that newly enriched chip workers are now panic-buying luxury sports cars. 

A short clip from MBC News, the news division of Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation and one of South Korea's top national TV and radio broadcasters, featured at least one exotic car dealership reporting a sharp uptick in Samsung Electronics and Hynix employees seeking to buy high-end sports cars.

"We've been getting dozens of phone calls every day for the past month. The customers coming in are mostly employees from Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. There have been a lot more people coming to look at cars priced over 100 million won (~$73,000 USD)," a MBC reporter could be heard saying in the news segment.

Just in: Employees at high-end and supercar dealerships in Korea say their showrooms are packed with Samsung and SK hynix employees. pic.twitter.com/LuCxWj3cpS

— Jukan (@jukan05) May 22, 2026

Google Search trends confirm a recent spike in internet searches for "Ferrari dealer" as Samsung and SK Hynix have become the world's most important memory companies.

Shares of Samsung and SK Hynix have gone absolutely parabolic ...

... as well as KOSPI.

Meanwhile...

• Korean Bubble Mania: Retail Investors Max Out On Margin Debt, Choose To "Risk Complete Collapse" Than Miss Stock Rally

We suspect the exotic-car buying spree will accelerate once Samsung and its largest union reach a new labor deal. Voting begins Saturday. Coverage here.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/23/2026 - 21:35

State-Sponsored Suicide Authored by MN Gordon via dollarcollapse.com

"A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within."

- Will and Ariel Durant, The Story Of Civilization

Enemy Within

How does a superpower die?

Does it come from the blinding kill shot of a hypersonic missile streaking through the sky? Or, perhaps, a rogue cyberattack that mortally destroys the national power grid?

Will the end of America come with foreign tanks rolling through New York or a massive, coordinated amphibious attack on Los Angeles?

These dramatic scenarios make for captivating conjecture. But they're highly unlikely. If you look at the autopsy reports of the world's greatest empires, the ultimate cause of death is rarely a sudden, overwhelming external blow.

Long before the barbarians breached the gates of Rome, the Roman denarius had been systematically devalued into a glorified copper token to fund a bloated bureaucracy. This was characterized by widespread domestic corruption and endless military expansion.

So, too, long before the British Empire reluctantly packed up its global flags, it realized the staggering cost of multiple wars had left it financially bankrupt, structurally hollowed out, and entirely dependent on American loans.

Great civilizations don't usually get slaughtered by their rivals. They commit slow, sophisticated, economically optimized suicide.

As we move through 2026, the United States is following a well-worn, dangerous path. But it's traversing it at a speed and scale that would leave ancient Rome in the dust.

The reality that no politician will publicly admit is that America's out-of-control federal spending and its monstrous, multi-trillion-dollar financial system are doing far more structural damage to the country's long-term survival than any foreign adversary ever could.

By burying the nation in unpayable debt, Congress is willingly destroying America from the inside. Hence, the greatest threat to our future lies not across the ocean, but directly within our own borders.

Act Of War

Let's talk about the ghastly numbers. They're often ignored by the general population because our brains are hardwired to glaze over when we start talking about trillions. Here we'll break them down for you.

Right now, the official U.S. national debt has blown past $39 trillion. To put that into perspective, if you spent one dollar every single second, it would take you about 32,000 years to spend $1 trillion. America owes 39 of those.

But the real issue isn't just the total balance on Washington's credit card. It's the cost of keeping the account active. The yield on a 30-year Treasury bond recently climbed above 5 percent for the first time in nearly 20 years. Yet today's balance is much larger than it was 20 years ago. When you owe $39 trillion, even a tiny uptick in interest rates transforms your budget into an insurmountable nightmare.

America is currently burning through roughly $3 billion every single day just to pay the interest on its existing debt.

Think about that for a second. Before a single pothole is filled, before a single soldier is paid, before a single school lunch is funded, or a Medicare claim is processed, $3 billion dollars vanishes into thin air every 24 hours. It doesn't buy new equipment, it doesn't rebuild infrastructure, and it doesn't help struggling families. It's purely the cost of treading water.

Instead of investing in the future, we're paying for the profligacy of the past.

If a foreign nation managed to sabotage the U.S. economy so severely that it drained $3 billion a day out of the federal Treasury, it would be viewed as an act of war. We would mobilize the military.

Yet, because this bleeding is caused by our own fiscal policy, we pretend it isn't happening and go back to scrolling on our phones.

Vicious Doom Loop

The entire American lifestyle - and by extension, the global economy - is built on the singular, fragile assumption that the rest of the world will always want to buy American debt. For decades, this was a safe bet. Treasuries were considered risk free in terms of default.

The U.S. dollar, while under threat of the U.S. government's making, remains king of the global financial system - for now. When global chaos hits, investors run to U.S. Treasuries like a safe harbor in a storm. This exorbitant privilege allowed Washington to spend money it didn't have without facing immediate consequences.

But that privilege resulted in a dangerous lack of discipline and created a catastrophic level of arrogance. Politicians on both sides of the aisle began treating the national debt like a meaningless artifact. To Congress, and as elaborated by the late Dick Cheney, "deficits don't matter."

Unfortunately, the mathematics of debt do matter. And right now, the system is locked into a vicious, mechanical doom loop. Here's how it works...

Every month, while you pay your bills, live within your means, and balance your personal finance books, the Treasury issues mountains of new debt just to pay off the old debt that's maturing. All the while, it's borrowing more to cover current overspending. Yet, because the market is getting flooded with U.S. bonds, investors are demanding higher yields.

Higher yields mean refinancing becomes more expensive. More expensive refinancing creates even larger deficits. Larger deficits require issuing even more bonds.

The financial system is, in effect, cannibalizing itself to stay alive. No enemy army could design a more effective trap to paralyze the American financial system.

When an enemy attacks, the damage is obvious. Buildings fall, smoke rises, and the country rallies together. But when financial decay sets in the destruction is deceptive. For many people, the cause is unclear.

Inside Job

Over the decades, American leaders assumed the world had no choice but to use the dollar. Where else were they going to go?

But our adversaries and allies alike have watched this fiscal train wreck unfold and are methodically diversifying their reserves. They realize that a superpower running a $39 trillion deficit is a precarious foundation for the global economy.

Central banks around the world have accelerated their gold purchases to historic levels. Countries like China have been systematically reducing their holdings of long-term U.S. Treasuries.

It's not a sudden boycott of the dollar. Rather, it's a slow calculated diversification. As the rest of the world lightens up on their purchases of U.S. debt, the Federal Reserve becomes the buyer of last resort. That means creating credit out of thin air to buy U.S. Treasuries. This is a formula for runaway inflation. The type that has destroyed countless currencies throughout history.

To be clear, Fed asset purchases have been occurring for much of the 21st century. So, too, have U.S. government policies of dollar debasement. This sophisticated state-sponsored suicide takes place in ongoing Congressional hearings, mundane Treasury auctions, continuous debt ceiling increases, pretend government shutdowns, and carefully scripted statements by the Fed using concocted syntaxes that are designed to keep people from panicking.

As America closes in on its 250-year anniversary it's being drained of its capital. The government continues to borrow tomorrow's prosperity to pay for today's political promises. All the while, the people watch the infrastructure of the nation's cities crumble as $3 billion a day is directed to service interest payments. The currency buys less and less every year, forcing citizens onto an endless economic hamster wheel.

Alas, it hasn't taken an enemy to destroy America. Our politicians have already done the job for them.

Sincerely,

MN Gordon
for Economic Prism

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/23/2026 - 21:00

Another Detransitioner Wins A Huge Settlement

A woman who underwent a double mastectomy after identifying as "nonbinary" has reportedly secured a confidential $3.5 million settlement after suing the mental health professionals who approved her for the life-altering procedure. Camille Kiefel, 36, alleged in a malpractice lawsuit that two Oregon therapists signed off on the surgery after only brief telemedicine consultations, despite a documented history of mental health issues. The settlement was reached just days before the case was set to go to trial. 

The case is already fueling renewed scrutiny of how quickly some medical providers have approved irreversible gender procedures for vulnerable patients struggling with serious mental health issues.

The settlement comes after another detransitioner, Fox Varian, won a $2 million judgment back in February against the providers who referred her for a double mastectomy at age 16. Soon after the settlement was announced, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons announced its position on gender transition surgeries for minors, concluding “there is insufficient evidence demonstrating a favorable risk-benefit ratio for the pathway of gender-related endocrine and surgical interventions in children and adolescents.” According to reporter Benjamin Ryan, at least 30 detransitioners have sued healthcare providers in the past four years.

Kiefel’s complaint, filed in 2022, named licensed clinical social worker Amy Ruff and licensed professional counselor Mara Burmeister, along with their respective employers, Brave Space and the Quest Center for Integrative Health. According to the suit, it took only two telemedicine Zoom sessions, each lasting about an hour or less, for Kiefel to get approval for the surgery.

Kiefel's history at the time of those consultations showed obvious signs of mental health issues that should have been taken into account, but clearly were not. She had a documented record of trauma, depression, ADHD, and suicidal ideation. Her path toward identifying as "nonbinary" began even earlier.

She has described a childhood incident in which her best friend was sexually assaulted when both girls were in the fifth grade. "I started dressing more masculine after that," she recalled. "I just wanted to protect myself." In college, a women's studies course introduced her to the concept of being nonbinary, and she came to believe adopting that identity could explain the gender-related distress she had carried since childhood.

Despite the approval of the mental health professionals, the surgery did not resolve her gender dysphoria, and within two years, she detransitioned. 

In the interim, she developed vertigo, tinnitus, and Raynaud's syndrome, a condition that causes extremities to go numb and cold. She eventually began working with a naturopath and exploring the relationship between gut health and mental wellbeing. Once she addressed her physical health through nutrition, she says both her mental and physical condition improved substantially. 

That improvement is what forced the harder question.

"So while I'm addressing all my physical health issues, I start to question whether or not the surgery was helpful for me," she told Fox News Digital. "And then about a year and a half later, I de-transitioned."

 "I didn't want what happened to me to happen to other vulnerable girls and women," she said. 

Her lawsuit alleged professional malpractice, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and fraud, each rooted in the same core allegation: that she was neither properly evaluated nor genuinely informed before she consented to an irreversible procedure. "And I wasn't given true informed consent. And that's something that everyone deserves to have for any medical procedure," she said.

Kiefel says she reached out to gender medicine organizations in hopes of creating dialogue around how vulnerable patients are screened and counseled. Those efforts went nowhere. "So for many, I think for a lot of this is going to be the lawsuits that are actually going to create change," she said. Given that Brave Space, one of the named defendants, has since shut down permanently, the courts may be the only venue left with any real leverage.

Despite detransitioning, her body will never be the same. “And it is difficult because there's like little reminders like, I'll be looking in a mirror after taking a shower and those ugly scars are still there," she said. "Dresses don't fit me the same way ... I'd like to have kids, but I would never be able to nurse them, and I'll never have that connection with them, and then they won't get the benefits of breast milk. So it's been difficult."

Despite the physical and emotional scars caused by her transition, by her own account, Kiefel is now the most mentally stable she has ever been. 

Cases like this are likely to reshape gender medicine for years to come, as doctors, therapists, and hospitals face growing legal and financial pressure over how quickly irreversible procedures were approved for vulnerable patients. The era of rubber-stamping gender interventions after cursory evaluations appears to be coming to an end, with malpractice lawsuits succeeding where internal oversight and medical institutions failed.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/23/2026 - 20:25

Building American Cities That Would Make The Founding Fathers Proud

Authored by Charles Ma via RealClearPolicy,

American cities need bold renewal. What we need is a "MadeCity" vision - a vision for intentionally crafting or "making" cities that emphasize the enduring higher order potential within people.

Beginning to plan and build such cities as part of America's upcoming 250th anniversary is a fitting way to extend John Winthrop's vision for America as a "City on a Hill." A MadeCity is a living monument to faith, freedom, and entrepreneurship - the very ideals that turned a collection of colonies into the greatest nation on earth.

Washington, D.C., our nation's capital, is the ideal place to begin. Transforming the District into a true MadeCity would restore Americans' faith in their country and give the world a renewed beacon of hope. It would remind citizens of the Founders' deep faith and worship that sustained them through the Revolution and the creation of a new republic. The arts would play a central role, turning our capital into a place of inspiration and reverence rather than just a sterile bureaucracy. Venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, and families would drive the transformation, proving that America is not destined to be a nation of elites and dependents, but of creators and builders with shared vision and purpose.

As Proverbs reminds us, "Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint." Today, too many Americans feel hopeless, taught to rely on government instead of cultivating motivated citizenship. Proper education can change that. We must teach young people the truth: America is the greatest nation on earth - a superpower of liberty, economic freedom, and human flourishing. Our most valuable currency is not dollars but our youth, talent, and leadership.

The Founders - Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, and George Washington - were men of faith who thought and built on a grand scale. They were entrepreneurs and visionaries as much as statesmen. Franklin revolutionized printing and invention. Washington built a thriving business at Mount Vernon. They and countless others created vibrant cities - New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore - and inspired the rise of Chicago, Los Angeles, and beyond. Their greatest fear was that future generations would fail to keep the republic they sacrificed to establish. Franklin's warning rings loud today: "A republic, if you can keep it."

Yet too often our current leaders and builders operate with short-term, accountant-style thinking - applying band-aids when visionary, long-term transformation is required. Mayors and politicians focus on the next election cycle instead of monuments that will stand for centuries. We went to the Moon with courage and faith. Reaching Mars - and rebuilding our cities - demands the same spirit.

Government has an important constitutional role, but it cannot replace the human drive to create. Our $39 trillion national debt is sustainable only because the world retains confidence in America's future growth and productivity. That confidence must be earned, not assumed. True wealth is not created by trading stocks or relying on today's tech giants alone. It is built by bold minds who invent, manufacture, and construct - the same spirit that produced the iPhone, the assembly line, and the great American cities of the past.

Post-World War II Europe offers a powerful lesson. Nations rebuilt with purpose, drawing on faith and resolve to rise from ruins. America, never defeated, has even greater potential. Washington, D.C., is perfectly positioned to lead a new revolution in urban building - one grounded in faith-based entrepreneurship that honors the "Great Experiment" our Founders began.

We are a nation born in courage, not caution. Our builders must stop fearing failure and start believing again in the possibility of creating the next great American cities. Families need inspiration. Communities need purpose. The next generation needs to see living proof that the American Dream is alive and being built - not managed or regulated into mediocrity.

MadeCities are the answer. They are places where we create the conscious arrangements that make living irresistible and remarkably fruitful, where a quantum currency is realized through specified complexity and manifold beauty. Just as living organisms thrive as the result of the intelligent design and coordination of their many diverse parts, MadeCities promote human flourishing as a consequence of the integrated design of their different essential elements and institutions, whether residential, recreational, commercial, cultural, legal or religious. Indeed, a living and thriving city depends on the intelligent design and planning of its founders inspired by the Way, Truth, and Life of God the Creator.

Here is a bold framework: "How might we create cities that grow in the favor of both God and Man?" A living city where we as citizens are living stones, feeding on living waters, responding to a living God. This is what made America unstoppable and MadeCity's core Movement.

Ryan Higgins, a descendant of one of the founding families in the U.S. said the following about our nation's amazing history: "In 1623, my 13th great grandfather fled a tyrannical government and risked life and limb to come to the New World because he knew the recipe to human flourishing could not be found in a King. As a man of deep faith, Richard Higgins knew the only Hope worth fighting for was a civilization rooted in God, with a heavy emphasis on family and community. Made City is taking that same mindset into 2026 and beyond" and "our current concrete jungles across the US have lost hope, creativity and community. The result is clear to see; isolation, record levels of depression, anxiety and mental health issues." Higgins is correct to point out that what we have been doing for decades is not working.

Washington DC is the place to start. I hope to play a role in continuing America's tradition of faith-driven entrepreneurship and in helping build the next City on a Hill. America cannot remain the land of the free unless it is also the home of the brave, the innovative and the bold.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/23/2026 - 19:50

"I Think It Will Reduce Our Jobs": Jamie Dimon Predicts AI-Driven Workforce Shift At JPMorgan

Artificial intelligence is set to significantly alter hiring patterns at JPMorgan Chase & Co., according to CEO Jamie Dimon, who said the bank expects to recruit more AI-focused talent while reducing reliance on some conventional banking roles over time, according to Bloomberg.

During a Bloomberg Television interview at the firm’s China Summit in Shanghai, Dimon acknowledged the long-term impact AI is likely to have on employment across the industry. “I think it will reduce our jobs down the road,” he said. “There will be all different types of jobs, and I think we will be hiring more AI people and fewer bankers in certain categories, and it will make them more productive.”

The shift reflects a broader transformation underway on Wall Street, where major banks are accelerating investments in automation and generative AI to streamline operations and improve efficiency. Executives across the sector have increasingly spoken about the technology’s ability to replace repetitive work while reshaping how financial institutions operate.

Bloomberg writes that unlike some peers who have framed the transition more bluntly, Dimon emphasized that workforce reductions could largely happen gradually through attrition rather than mass layoffs. JPMorgan, which sees roughly 25,000 to 30,000 employees leave annually, has enough turnover to retrain or reposition workers as roles evolve, he said.

He also argued that AI’s impact will not be limited to eliminating jobs. New positions are expected to emerge, particularly in areas tied to client relationships and revenue generation, even as some support and operational functions become more automated.

Dimon’s remarks followed controversial comments from Standard Chartered CEO Bill Winters, who recently said the bank was replacing “lower-value human capital” with technology as part of a plan to cut thousands of support positions. Goldman Sachs President John Waldron has likewise described traditional back-office work as a “human assembly line” susceptible to automation, while HSBC CEO Georges Elhedery warned this week that AI would “destroy” certain jobs even as it creates others.

Addressing the backlash surrounding Winters’ comments, Dimon defended the executive while acknowledging the wording had landed poorly. “It was an inartful way to say something,” he said. “I think it will be old jobs. If back-office jobs disappear, we need more front office jobs to cover more clients.”

Research from consulting firms and banks suggests the disruption could be substantial. McKinsey estimates that nearly a third of work hours in finance and insurance may eventually be automated, while Citigroup has projected that more than half of banking jobs face a high likelihood of either replacement or augmentation through AI technologies.

Still, Dimon cautioned against allowing the transition to move too quickly without considering the broader consequences. “I think it’s incumbent upon us, society, to think through if it happens too fast,” he said.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/23/2026 - 19:15

What 'Compassion' Isn't

Authored by Laura Hollis via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

One of the most frustrating aspects of contemporary conversations about politics and public policy is how often the deleterious effects of terrible programs - local, state and federal - are brushed aside with distracting and even deceitful claims that the intentions behind the policies were "compassionate." This is an utterly wrongheaded analysis for many reasons. Laws, public policies, and government programs should be evaluated by their results, not by the state of mind of their advocates or sponsors.

Nathan Dumlao/Unsplash.com

The weaponization of compassion has launched a de facto competition of who can be thought to be the most "compassionate" or, at least, not thought to be uncompassionate. The result of this arms race has been chaos, destruction, and depravity.

It's easy to lose sight of just how often this pernicious dynamic takes place, so it's worthwhile to point out a few of the disastrous policies that were promoted, and in some cases continue to be promoted, as being "compassionate" and to call them out for the societally corrosive lies they are.

1. It wasn't "compassionate" to close our mental hospitals. The impulse was understandable; plenty of those facilities were substandard. But the results were catastrophic. Until fairly recently in this country's history, the "homeless" population consisted largely of small numbers of unattached males who drifted from place to place seeking work. But since the 1980s, the homeless population of the United States has exploded. Nearly three-quarters of a million people are homeless, and the number jumped 18 percent from 2023 to 2024. California has 187,000 of the country's homeless; more than 70,000 are in Los Angeles County alone.

2. It isn't "compassionate," nor is it respect for "individual autonomy" or "dignity," to leave the homeless to live as they do. Homeless encampments are hotbeds of filth, including human urine and feces, crime and diseases like leptospirosis, typhus, hepatitis, tuberculosis, and even plague. Across the country, cities are dealing with the economic impact of shuttered stores and declining downtowns attributable to the presence of ever-growing numbers of homeless.

3. It isn't "compassionate" to hand out needles or create places where addicts can use drugs. Leaving aside what should be an obvious argument that we shouldn't be encouraging, much less facilitating, the use of dangerous drugs, two-thirds of America's homeless have a diagnosed mental health illness. A third have a serious substance abuse problem. Approximately half suffer with both. Open-air drug use exacerbates those problems and creates others.

4. It isn't "compassionate," or "equitable," for that matter, to eliminate teaching math, giving grades, standardized tests, advanced academic programs for gifted students or graduation requirements, or to lower entrance qualifications for college and graduate school. It punishes high-achieving students and sends the message to lower-performing students that they aren't capable of meeting basic standards. That, then, undermines public confidence in the graduates of our high schools, colleges, and professional schools.

5. It wasn't "compassionate" to stop enforcing our immigration laws.

6. It isn't "compassionate" to allow violent criminals back on the streets.

7. It isn't "compassionate" to subject children and teenagers with gender dysphoria, and other emotional disorders, to permanent alteration of their bodies with medical and surgical interventions before they are old enough to understand the implications of those decisions.

None of these decisions have had beneficial impacts on their intended populations. Worse still, they are all deeply destructive to other individuals, groups, and society at large. Everyone affected should be able to protest the consequences of these failed policies without getting smeared with the false accusation that they "lack compassion."

Another reason to eliminate "compassion" as a basis for public policy, which we're seeing daily with painful clarity, is that these policies end up being vehicles for massive fraud. Anyone can set up a 501c3 nonprofit, claim to be working for a charitable purpose, and deceive donors into giving money that does little but line the CEOs' pockets. And when government grants are involved, there is little oversight, take Minnesota, for example, and more incentive for grift, bribery, and payback in the form of pouring money into the campaign coffers of politicians who hold the grants' pursestrings. What we end up with is a situation where neither the nonprofits nor the politicians have an incentive to solve the underlying problems, since they're getting rich from their continued existence.

Why has the United States become a nation where "compassion" trumps all other considerations?

Scholars like Helen Andrews argue that the emphasis on "compassion" over logic and methodical analysis is a function of what she calls "the great feminization." Women, Andrews claims, are hardwired to be maternal, and thus more likely to be persuaded by something that tugs at their empathy than by that which appeals to their reason.

I'm not so sure. First, women have functioning brains, and they are certainly intellectually capable of dispassionate analysis. Second, an awful lot of men seem to be just as hornswoggled by appeals to their "compassion" as are misguided women. And third, I don't understand how it is "feminine" or "maternal" to witness the collapse of huge sections of our cities into third-world slums; or to know that drugs are pouring into the country, children are being trafficked for sex, and young women are being raped and murdered because the borders are unenforced; or to see people stabbed to death on public transportation, pushed in front of trains or run down by crazed lunatics at Christmas parades because criminals aren't incarcerated; or to watch as multiple generations of disadvantaged minorities struggle because of schools with weak disciplinary and academic standards; or to want children and emotionally troubled teens to be chemically castrated or surgically sterilized before they're old enough to drive a car, drink a beer, or understand the concepts of sexual satisfaction, fathering, giving birth to or nursing a child, none of which they will experience if they are "transitioned."

None of this is "compassionate." It's objectively irrational. It's wantonly destructive. It is the deliberate disregard of monumental, systemic, catastrophic failure, the evidence of which is irrefutable. There's something seriously wrong with anyone who continues to defend these policies and programs, and I'm not persuaded that it's a matter of chromosomal biology or evolution.

I don't profess to have a complete solution. But a good start would be to demand meaningful metrics when we discuss proposed and existing policies and programs. What matters isn't "compassion"; it's consequences.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/23/2026 - 16:20

AI Content Is Swamping The Internet: How It Impacts Critical Thinking

Authored by Autumn Spredemann via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A never-ending flood of content generated by artificial intelligence is reshaping the internet and the way people engage with information faster than ever.

Illustration by The Epoch Times, Freepik

From news summaries to social media posts to academic research, the sheer volume of machine-assisted materials has been correlated with a spike in "cognitive offloading" - a phenomenon in which people outsource critical thinking and verification to automated systems.

A 2025 analysis of how AI tools affect cognitive offloading showed a "significant negative correlation" between frequent use of AI tools and the ability to think critically in people across age groups and educational backgrounds. The researchers at the SBS Swiss Business School found that younger age groups exhibited a higher amount of dependence on AI models and lower critical thinking scores.

What's more troubling is a Pangram/YouGov study in May that found only 55 percent of participants, all of whom were Gen Zers aged 18 to 28, were able to identify fake or misleading AI-generated material. That number is lower in older age groups, which means half or fewer of adults over the age of 28 were confident in their ability to spot AI content online.

"AI-generated posts and comments can distort public perception, especially when volume is mistaken for credibility," Javi Pérez, an editor of AI-assisted consumer education websites, told The Epoch Times.

"If a user sees dozens of similar posts about a product, trend, political claim, health issue, or financial topic, they may assume there is broad agreement."

'Confident Sameness'

Pérez said consumers need to beware as AI content increases the volume of what he called "confident sameness" online.

"Many articles and posts now repeat similar structures, similar advice, and similar phrasing. For casual readers, this can create the impression that a topic has more consensus or certainty than it really does, because they keep seeing the same ideas repeated across many sources," Pérez said.

"The risk is that people stop knowing which content has been checked. In fields like finance, health, law, education, or news, readers need to know whether claims were reviewed against primary sources, updated recently, and edited by someone accountable."

AI strategy consultant Armand Cucciniello III told The Epoch Times that AI-generated content is changing not only how we consume information, but also how quickly we process and trust it.

"We're moving from deliberate reading toward rapid skimming of polished summaries, commentary, short-form videos, and AI-assisted content designed for speed and engagement," he said.

As someone who has worked in the "U.S. national security landscape," Cucciniello said one of his biggest concerns is that AI systems "can unintentionally amplify large volumes of inaccurate or deliberately manipulated content simply through repetition and scale."

He also believes the high volume of AI-generated content is creating real pressure on public trust.

"When readers encounter nearly identical phrasing or interpretations across multiple sources, it's natural to question whether the information was independently reported or simply repackaged," he said.

Carl Stroud, a public relations expert and chief storyteller at the Smoking Gun Agency, has also witnessed AI content take a toll on the public.

"The fundamental audience need has not changed: People want to trust what they are reading," Stroud told The Epoch Times. "What has changed is how much harder that judgment has become.

"AI-generated content, aggregation, and low-quality slop have made the information environment noisier, flatter, and more confusing, so audiences are now trying to work out whether they are reading original reporting, rehashed content, or something that should never have been published in the first place."

Beyond social media and academia, few industries have been hit as hard with AI-generated misinformation as the news. Stroud, who has spent two decades within UK media circles, editing, and journalism, said he's seeing the AI content churn create fatigue among readers searching for accurate information.

"Fatigue is dangerous because when people feel overwhelmed, they either disengage or become easier to mislead," he said.

Losing Touch

Ashutosh Khulbe, founder of RawPickAI, tests AI tools for a living - about three to four new ones every week.

"What I notice most in my corner of the internet is that everything sounds the same now. Like, eerily the same," he told The Epoch Times. "I'd guess 70 to 80 [percent] of 'best AI tools' articles are AI-generated at this point.

"It creates this weird feedback loop where AI writes reviews based on what other AI already wrote, readers assume there's a consensus, and the actual experience of using these tools gets buried."

He said he tested one writing tool that had hundreds of positive reviews online yet was unusable at the free tier. "You couldn't even finish a paragraph before hitting the limit. But good luck finding that info in a Google search," he said.

Khulbe is especially bothered by the way information distortion is affecting the public.

"AI content skews relentlessly positive because it's trained on marketing pages and affiliate reviews. Nobody's training models on 'I tried this for two weeks, and it sucked.' So the negative signal just disappears from the internet," he said.

The effects of the AI content boom can now be seen in what some are calling "AI psychosis," or a disconnect from reality. While not a clinical diagnosis, the term has become a popular catch-all phrase to describe when AI reinforces an unusual, fixed, or even delusional perception of something in the real world.

People with mental health conditions could be predisposed to developing "AI psychosis," but it's also not limited to that population, according to Dr. Ragy Girgis, professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute.

"The phenomenon of AI psychosis is quantitatively new and could be very dangerous, but qualitatively it's very similar to what's been happening for decades now since the advent of the internet," Girgis said during an interview with the National Academy of Medicine in March.

This photo illustration shows a person holding two mobile phones displaying viral AI-generated videos of students and an elderly woman sharing views on the impeachment of Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte in Hong Kong on June 20, 2025. Days after the Philippine Senate declined to launch the impeachment trial, the two videos arguing for and against the move went viral. Yan Zhao/AFP via Getty Images Tyler Durden Sat, 05/23/2026 - 15:10

Nvidia CEO Urges Super Micro To "Enhance Compliance" Amid AI Chip-Smuggling Probe

In a rare public comment that Nvidia is growing more sensitive to downstream risk, CEO Jensen Huang was quoted by Bloomberg News as saying Super Micro Computer must strengthen internal compliance controls after Taiwanese authorities detained three people accused of smuggling banned AI chips to China.  

"Ultimately, Super Micro has to run its own company," Huang told reporters on Saturday in response to the chip smuggling scheme. "I hope that they will enhance and improve their regulation compliance and avoid that from happening in the future."

The U.S.-based server and data-center hardware company primarily builds high-performance servers, storage systems, networking gear, and complete AI/data-center racks for various customers, but most importantly for those working on edge computing and artificial intelligence workloads.

Huang said Nvidia is "rigorously" explaining the complex regulatory environment to all its partners to avert further downstream diversion risk.

Huang's comments stem from federal prosecutors charging the co-founder of Super Micro and two associates with participating in a scheme to divert roughly $2.5 billion in Nvidia AI accelerators to China.

How the Alleged Scheme Worked:

• The group used a company in Southeast Asia as a front buyer to place huge orders with a California-based U.S. manufacturer.
• Once the servers arrived in Southeast Asia, they were quickly repackaged and secretly shipped to customers in China through a network of brokers.

Related:

• $92 Million In Banned AI Chips Went From Super Micro To Little-Known Chinese Tech Company

Our view is that Huang's comments suggest he is trying to insulate Nvidia from a widening chip-smuggling investigation while preserving access to highly scrutinized international markets.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/23/2026 - 13:25