The News-to-Death Ratio Strikes Again Authored by Carl Henegan and Tom Jefferson via The Brownstone Institute, There is a peculiar arithmetic that governs modern health reporting, one that has very little to do with actual risk. Hans Rosling captured it neatly during the 2009 swine flu episode, when he calculated a “news-to-death ratio” of 8,176-to-1. In other words, for every death attributed to swine flu, there were over […]

Jane Street Accused Of Using Terra Telegram Backchannel Before UST Crash Authored by Zoltan Vardai via CoinTelegraph.com, A newly unsealed court filing in the Terraform Labs bankruptcy case alleges Jane Street used a private Telegram channel with former Terraform intern Bryce Pratt to obtain nonpublic information before the collapse of TerraUSD. Pratt is currently a systems developer at Jane Street.  The channel, called […]

“Drills Are Intended To Send A Signal”: Russia Holds Massive Nuclear Drills On Land, Sea And Air Alongside Belarus Trucks carrying intercontinental ballistic missiles rumbled over forest roads, atomic-powered submarines set sail from Arctic and Pacific ports, and crews scrambled into warplanes as Russia and neighboring Belarus held the final stage of their joint nuclear drills Thursday. Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed […]

US Targets Hamas Support Networks Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is sanctioning four individuals associated with a pro-Hamas flotilla that is trying to access Gaza in support of the terrorist group, the department said in a May 19 statement. Hamas terrorists secure an area before handing over an Israeli American hostage to […]

Turkey Liquidated Almost All Of Its US Treasuries In March To Defend Crashing Lira Two months ago, at the end of March, we reported that Turkey was aggressively dumping its gold reserves in a panic scramble to obtain dollar funding, which Erdogan’s regime was using to keep the Turkish lira from crashing, and to also pay for energy imports which had suddenly soared in price as a result of the Iran war. The violent selling by […]

Is The Bond Market About To Break Washington Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance The bond market is beginning to force reality onto Washington, and it may ultimately force an end to the Iran war long before politicians or diplomats are willing to admit it. For months, investors have focused on missiles, retaliation headlines, oil chokepoints, and the possibility of a broader regional escalation from the Iran War. During the […]

Trump Posts Article Laying Out: “Here’s How To Crush Tehran In Three Moves” President Trump on Thursday posted to Truth Social a New York Post article which was first published over two weeks ago, on May 1st, with the headline “Here’s how to crush Tehran in three moves.” Trump’s new social media post, issued without additional comment, comes just after news of Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei having drawn a hard line in the […]

Iran’s Drones, Defense Base Being Restored ‘Faster Than Expected’ Amid Extended Ceasefire: US Intelligence Summary Reuters reported that Ayatollah ordered that stockpile of uranium enriched to 60% remain strictly inside Iranian territory. Some Iranian officials then denied report to Al Jazeera. WH says make a deal or else… “they can face a punishment from our military the likes of which has not been seen in modern history.” US […]

Trump EPA Targets Biden-Era Refrigerant Rules In Affordability Push Watch Live  President Trump Participates in an Announcement with the Administrator of the EPA https://t.co/lZJTv7m8HJ — The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 21, 2026 * * *  The Trump administration plans to delay compliance with Biden-era EPA regulations targeting hydrofluorocarbons later today. These regulations apply to refrigerants used in air conditioners, […]

US PMIs Lead The World As Manufacturing Tops 4-Year Highs, Services Sink Following Japan’s ugly PMIs (Services lowest since March 2025) and Europe’s disaster (weakest composite EU PMI since late 2023)… …with prices surging… All eyes are on the US ‘soft’ survey data for signs of divergence (or contagion). With US ‘hard’ data improving notably, the preliminary soft survey data for May was mixed with improved performance […]

Lilly’s Next-Gen Weight-Loss Drug Clears Trial With Near-Bariatric Surgery Results Eli Lilly reported positive Phase 3 results for its next-generation obesity drug, retatrutide, which delivered weight-loss results on par with those of bariatric surgery. In the TRIUMPH-1 trial, overweight adults, but without diabetes, achieved meaningful weight loss across all tested doses after 80 weeks: 12 mg dose: average weight loss of 70.3 […]

The Water Economics Of Data Centers Vs. Almond Farms & Golf Courses A recent Gallup poll shows that nearly 70% of Americans oppose the construction of a data center in their communities, highlighting the rise of local resistance movements against hyperscaler buildouts. This resistance is driven by concerns over skyrocketing power bills, the destruction of farmland as it is transformed into industrial-scale AI infrastructure, and […]

Walmart Tumbles On Disappointing Guidance; Warns Low-Income Consumers Drowning, High Fuel Costs Will Hit Profit Extending concerns about US consumer weakness – now that the bumper OBBBA tax refund period is over – after yesterday’s earnings by Home Depot and Target, this morning Walmart reported Q1 earnings (the last big company to report, rounding out earnings season) and warned that fuel costs are squeezing the company’s bottom […]

FBI Charges Assistant US Attorney For Stealing Smith Report Docs In Trump ‘Witch Hunt’ Case Authored by Jonathan Turley, Former Justice Department prosecutor Carmen Mercedes Lineberger has been indicted for allegedly removing confidential Justice Department material and then concealing her efforts. Lineberger is accused of secretly transferring Jack Smith’s final report and hiding the material under files labeled “chocolate […]

Renter Nation Returns? Multi-Family Unit Starts & Permits Soar In April On the back of a small uptick in homebuilder confidence (though still languishing)… …Building Permits jumped notably (+5.8% MoM vs +2.5% exp) in preliminary April data (while Housing Starts dipped 2.8% MoM, though less than the 5.2% MoM decline expected)… The pace of starts and permits on a SAAR basis has remained flat for four years… […]

Foreign Treasury Selling Is Getting Serious Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance We already knew that the bond market was starting to call bullshit on America’s fiscal and monetary policy. Now we know that foreign governments are dumping U.S. Treasuries, and China is leading the way…even while President Trump pals around with President Xi Jinping. According to CNBC, foreign holdings of U.S. government debt fell sharply in […]

Jobless Claims Refuse To Show Any Signs Of AI Jobpocalypse The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits for the first time fell to 209k last week (below expectations), continuing to show absolutely on signs of any labor market stress… Source: Bloomberg That is basically unchanged since 2021. Continuing jobless claims ticked up modestly but remains below 1.8 million Americans (just off two year lows)… Source: […]

Watch: Vance Urges UK Patriots To Defend Their Culture Against Starmer Mass Migration Betrayal Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news, US Vice President JD Vance has sent a direct message of support to Britons standing up for their culture, telling attendees of the Unite the Kingdom rally to push forward despite Keir Starmer’s attempts to silence opposition to mass migration. The rally, held this past weekend in London […]

Quantum Stocks Erupt As U.S. Gov’t Awards $2 Billion, Takes Equity Stakes IBM and small-cap quantum names, including IonQ, D-Wave Quantum, Rigetti Computing, Infleqtion, and other peers, are surging in New York premarket trading after a Wall Street Journal report said the Trump administration is preparing to award $2 billion in CHIPS Act grants to nine quantum-computing companies. IBM is set to receive half of the $2 billion […]

Futures Slump, Ignoring Korean Euphoria, After Iran Rejects Trump Enriched Uranium Demands A steady rebound in US equities driven by peak insanity in Korea (where the two chip stocks that account for most of the market surged and sent the Kospi soaring more than 8% overnight) faded after a report that Iran’s Supreme Leader issued a directive that the country’s near-weapons-grade uranium must remain in the country, rejecting […]

Kremlin Blasts ‘Borderline Crazy’ Threat From Baltic NATO State Russia has express outrage and condemnation of what it has on Wednesday denounced as a “borderline crazy threat” from NATO member Lithuania. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys in an interview this week with Neue Zurcher Zeitung provocatively stated that NATO is capable of destroying all Russian bases located in Kaliningrad if necessary. via MSC “We have to […]

KOSPI, Samsung Soar After 11th-Hour Union Deal Averts Chip Strike; Workers Eye $340k Bonuses South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI jumped overnight after Samsung Electronics reached a tentative wage-and-bonus agreement with its main labor union, neutralizing the immediate risk of a paralyzing strike at the world’s largest memory-chip producer. The wage-and-bonus deal removes a major supply-chain threat in an already tight memory market, […]

Residents Of UK Town Forced To Form ‘Vigilante’ Security Team To Protect Women And Kids From Migrants Authored by Steve Watson via modernity.news, Residents of a quiet East Sussex town have been left with no choice but to patrol their own streets after the leftist Labour government dumped hundreds of unvetted male migrants into a former army camp on their doorstep. Crowborough, a small community of around 20,000 people, is now […]

SpaceX Files For Nasdaq IPO Under Symbol SPCX Update (1650ET): As expected, SpaceX filed its S1. The stock is expected to list on Nasdaq and Nasdaq Texas under the ticker “SPCX.” No specific share count, price range, or total offering size is finalized yet (placeholders are used). But, with expectations of a $1.5 trillion market cap, that means SPCX will trade at a 77x LTM Revenue multiple! Mission and Overview SpaceX’s […]

The Growing Burden Of Old-Age Dependency Many countries around the world are facing a rapidly rising old-age dependency ratio, according to projections published in the UN’s World Population Prospects 2024. As Statista’s Anna Fleck details below, this indicator measures the number of people aged 65 and older relative to the working-age population (between 15 and 64 years old). South Korea is expected to experience a […]