Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,

Spot LNG prices for Asian buyers went up to almost $26 per million British thermal units yesterday for a 5% weekly gain following the resumption of strikes between the United States and Iran.

Spot LNG for Asia traded at $25.908 per mmBtu late on Wednesday, Bloomberg reported, citing unnamed traders, after President Donald Trump said “We took out all of the new equipment that they tried to build along the Strait of Hormuz – some defensive, some offensive … It was a very heavy attack last night, and we’re prepared to do another one any time we want.”

Prices in both Asia and Europe had jumped at the end of last week after Qatar’s state-owned firm QatarEnergy extended the force majeure on its LNG deliveries into November amid still-blocked transits through the Strait of Hormuz.

Prices in Asia were driven by South Asian buyers, including Pakistan and Bangladesh, seeking spot supply to replace term supply from Qatar that cannot leave the Persian Gulf. Per tender documents seen by Bloomberg, utilities in South Korea, India, Taiwan, and Bangladesh are looking to buy spot cargoes for October and November.

Pakistan, on the other hand, rejected an LNG offer to its last prompt tender earlier this week, as it was priced at over $27 per mmBtu, which the state-owned gas trading company considered too high a price. The cargo was offered by BP.

Recent developments in the Middle East suggest the resumption of normal LNG flows out of the Persian Gulf is nowhere in sight. In light of a seasonal pick-up in demand for gas, chances are that LNG prices will go higher still, likely pricing out some buyers. Gas prices are surging in Europe as well, making it more difficult for gas buyers there to start buying ahead of the winter season.

Authored by Michael Talbot via BondVigilantes.com,

One thousand days is a long time in politics…

When I wrote about Javier Milei’s first 100 days in office, Argentina was embarking on yet another attempt to break free from a cycle that had become painfully familiar: fiscal excess, monetary financing, inflation, capital controls and, eventually, crisis. Markets were optimistic, but they had been optimistic before. Argentina has a habit of disappointing even its most enthusiastic supporters.

At the time, Milei inherited an economy in severe distress alongside a reform agenda that many viewed as politically impossible to implement. Today, as Argentina approaches the 1,000-day mark of his presidency, investors can point to something far more tangible: results.

That does not mean the story has been flawless. Economic recovery has come with significant social costs, political controversy remains a constant feature of Milei’s presidency, and accusations surrounding the LIBRA cryptocurrency scandal have created an unwelcome distraction. Yet, taken as a whole, the last 1,000 days arguably represent one of the most successful periods of macroeconomic stabilisation Argentina has experienced in decades.

The road from crisis to reform

When Milei took office in December 2023, Argentina’s economy was under significant strain.

Argentina’s inflation surge into 2024 was largely the consequence of years of fiscal deficits financed by money printing, chronic peso depreciation, capital controls and repeated losses of confidence in economic policy. Global post-pandemic inflation and commodity shocks added to the pressure, but the underlying problem was domestic: too many pesos chasing too few goods in an economy where households had little faith in the currency.

By the time Milei took office, annual inflation had reached 211%, later peaking at almost 290%, while monthly inflation exceeded 25%.

Source: M&G, Bloomberg. 30 June 2026

Since then, inflation has fallen to around 33.5% year-on-year, driven primarily by an aggressive fiscal adjustment, the elimination of monetary financing of government spending, exchange-rate liberalisation and a broader restoration of policy discipline. While favourable factors such as stronger exports, rising energy production and statistical base effects have also helped, the scale of the disinflation suggests that most of the improvement can be attributed to Milei’s economic programme.

Argentina’s experience provides a powerful example that when inflation stems from deep structural fiscal and monetary imbalances, politically painful reform can sometimes prove more effective than gradual adjustment. The diagnosis was hardly controversial. Argentina had spent years attempting to solve fiscal problems through increasingly creative monetary solutions. The outcome was predictable.

Milei rejected gradualism entirely. Instead, he pursued one of the most aggressive fiscal consolidation programmes seen in any major economy in recent history. Subsidies were cut, public spending reduced, government departments streamlined and fiscal balance elevated to a near-sacred policy objective.

The approach was described by supporters as shock therapy and by critics as economic extremism. The reality, however, lies somewhere in between.

Shock therapy is rarely popular because it forces adjustment immediately rather than deferring it into the future. It creates visible short-term pain in exchange for the possibility of long-term gain. However, where fiscal and monetary dysfunction have become deeply embedded, gradual approaches can make the road to recovery longer and more uncertain.

Markets have rewarded policy credibility

Perhaps the clearest indication of progress can be found in financial markets.

Back in March 2024, Argentine sovereign spreads remained firmly within distressed territory. Investors were willing to believe the reform story, but they wanted evidence that the government could deliver. And, looking at economic fundamentals, they have.

Source: M&G, IMF. 30 June 2026

That evidence has increasingly emerged, with all three major rating agencies upgrading Argentina’s sovereign credit profile during Milei’s presidency. Fitch upgraded Argentina to B- in May 2026, citing improved fiscal and external balances, progress on reforms and stronger prospects for reserve accumulation. S&P subsequently upgraded the country to B-, highlighting improved access to financing and reduced macroeconomic imbalances. Moody’s has similarly moved Argentina out of the highly distressed category, pointing to falling default risk and improving economic fundamentals.

Sovereign ratings influence the pool of investors able to allocate capital. Argentina remains firmly below investment grade, but moving away from the distressed end of the spectrum expands the universe of potential buyers and gradually lowers financing costs.

Spreads remain elevated relative to most emerging markets, reflecting Argentina’s history and lingering vulnerabilities. The more notable development, however, is how much this premium has narrowed. With sovereign spreads now hovering around 100bps wider than the broader single-B universe, markets appear to be assigning a significantly higher probability to continued normalisation than was the case just a few years ago.

Source: M&G, Bloomberg, JP Morgan. 30 June 2026

That represents a remarkable shift from where the country stood less than three years ago.

Investment is beginning to follow

One of Milei’s most important achievements may ultimately be the restoration of predictability.

Countries rarely grow sustainably without access to capital. Investors do not require perfection, but they do require a degree of confidence that economic policy will remain broadly consistent. For many years, Argentina offered neither.

The combination of fiscal surpluses, declining inflation and exchange-rate liberalisation has helped strengthen relationships with multilateral lenders and private investors alike. While international market access is still developing, the country’s financing options have broadened considerably compared with the near isolation that characterised previous years.

The IMF relationship has also evolved. Historically, Argentina and the IMF often appeared trapped in a cycle of support packages, missed targets and renewed crises. This period feels different. Rather than financing an unreformed economic model, the IMF has effectively become a partner in a broader stabilisation programme. Whether one agrees with every policy decision or not, this increasingly resembles a reform story rather than another rescue operation.

Economic stabilisation matters because it creates the conditions for investment. Argentina’s natural advantages have never been in doubt. The country possesses world-class agricultural exports, significant mining potential and one of the most important unconventional energy resources anywhere in the world through Vaca Muerta. The challenge has always been converting potential into realised investment.

Encouragingly, foreign direct investment has begun moving in the right direction. Energy and mining projects have attracted growing international interest, supported by regulatory reforms and greater macroeconomic stability. Rating agencies have specifically highlighted improving investment pipelines and stronger prospects for FDI inflows as part of the rationale behind recent upgrades.

This highlights an important point. Fiscal discipline alone does not create growth. Rather, it creates an environment in which private capital becomes willing to invest.

A presidency without blemishes?

None of this should be interpreted as an argument that Milei’s government has been beyond criticism.

The economic adjustment has imposed genuine hardship on many Argentinians. Real incomes initially fell sharply; poverty increased during the adjustment phase and social tensions remain elevated. Even supporters would acknowledge that the benefits have not been distributed evenly.

More recently, controversies surrounding Milei’s association with the LIBRA cryptocurrency project have raised questions around judgement and governance. While the economic reform programme and the scandal are separate issues, governance matters. Investors can overlook many things, but sustained improvements in institutional credibility require high standards of political conduct.

It would therefore be wrong to suggest that the last 1,000 days have been an unqualified success. Public support has proven more resilient than many expected, but the politics remain polarising and the social costs remain real.

Argentina’s history also serves as a reminder that credibility can be lost much faster than it is earned.

Breaking the cycle

Ultimately, the significance of Milei’s first 1,000 days extends beyond lower inflation, tighter fiscal policy or stronger sovereign credit ratings.

Argentina has delivered periods of improvement before, only for policy discipline to fade and old vulnerabilities to re-emerge. The country’s economic history is littered with false dawns. Understandably, many investors remain cautious about declaring victory too early.

The real test will be whether today’s gains prove durable.

What has changed, however, is that investors are no longer debating whether stabilisation is possible. Instead, they are increasingly debating how far the recovery can go. That is a very different conversation from the one that existed in late 2023.

Argentina may not yet be fully repaired. Significant economic, political and social challenges remain. However, after decades of recurring crises, policy reversals and disappointed expectations, the country appears to be moving on to a more sustainable path than many believed possible just a few years ago.

For a country that has spent much of its modern history disappointing even its most optimistic supporters, that alone represents meaningful progress.

Two months after the Supreme Court gutted President Trump’s first-day order ending automatic citizenship for children of illegal aliens and temporary visitors, a Maryland federal judge has now blocked the narrower follow-up that targeted the actual business model: birth tourism.

U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman (Biden), who already enjoined the 2025 order, issued a preliminary injunction Wednesday against the August 6 executive order titled “Ending Birth Tourism and Continuing to Protect the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.”

Boardman wrote that the new order is “almost certainly unconstitutional as applied to the certified class” because the Supreme Court in Barbara v. Trump already declared those children “citizens at birth.”

“The Supreme Court has spoken,” she said. “Barbara is the law of the land. The President must follow it.”

No executive order, she added, “can undo what the Supreme Court has done.”

The injunction covers children born after February 19, 2025 – the class Boardman certified last year – including future births. State, DHS, and Social Security are barred from denying or refusing to recognize citizenship papers for that group. Children born before that date are outside this order. Agencies can still write implementation guidance. The administration had told the court that guidance was due around September 5 and that any lawsuit was premature. Boardman was not interested.

What Trump Actually Signed.

After the June 30, 2026, 6-3 loss, the White House did not try to relitigate the entire 14th Amendment in one stroke. Instead, it tried to exploit what it called leftover exceptions: children of “alien enemies,” members of foreign terrorist organizations, people acting on behalf of foreign governments, and anyone who entered the United States in a “commercial transaction” to deliver a citizen.

Stephen Miller, at the Oval Office signing, called birth tourism “a fraud on the American system” and said the practice was “hereby banned.” Trump said citizenship had been “made into a joke” and that “wealthy people are building businesses around it.” A Birth Tourism Prevention Task Force followed. Hundreds of visas were yanked.

Boardman treated those carve-outs as a “distorted interpretation” of Barbara. The Justice Department argued the new text sat in the gaps the justices left open. She said the text was “crystal clear and ripe for challenge” and already commanded agencies to deny documents to broad categories of newborns.
This is the same court, same plaintiffs, same playbook.

CASA and the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project – the groups that won the first Maryland injunction – supplemented the old case after Boardman refused a temporary restraining order on August 28 because the complaint had not even mentioned the new order. She let them amend, set a compressed briefing schedule, and then shut the policy down for the class.

White House and DOJ had not commented as of Thursday midday. An appeal to the Fourth Circuit is the next obvious move. From there the case is built to go back to the same nine justices who already told the administration the Citizenship Clause is not a policy preference.

The Underlying Fight

The 14th Amendment grants citizenship to persons “born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” For 150 years the live question has been what “jurisdiction” means – diplomats, occupying armies, and, in the administration’s view, people who owe no allegiance and are here in violation of law or on a tourist visa to manufacture a citizen. Wong Kim Ark (1898) and now Barbara (2026) read it broadly. Justice Thomas, dissenting in June, said the majority “devalues” citizenship by treating it as a prize for “foreign birth tourists and illegal aliens.”

Congress could still legislate. It has not. A House Judiciary panel held a hearing on the June decision the same day Boardman ruled. That is the political track. The judicial track, for now, runs through Greenbelt, Maryland.

The injunction is temporary. The class is not. Until a higher court says otherwise, the United States remains one of the last large countries where showing up pregnant on a tourist visa is still a path to a passport – unless the parents happen to fall outside Boardman’s certified class, in which case the paperwork fight is just getting started.

Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times,

The Justice Department has added eight major grocery chains to its beef affordability investigation.

The announcement came Tuesday in a post from the department’s official X account. Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward sent the retailers the letters concerning recent increases in the retail price of beef.

The list includes Kroger, Publix, Walmart, Albertsons, Aldi, Ahold Delhaize USA, Costco, and Amazon.

The DOJ’s Antitrust Division “has expanded its investigation to include 8 of the largest grocers when it comes to beef affordability,” the post read. “Beef prices are a critical concern to Americans, and a priority for this Justice Department.”

Nothing more was released about what the letters demand or when answers are due.

The department had already been investigating the big meatpackers. Cargill, Tyson Foods, JBS, and National Beef handle roughly 85 percent of the nation’s beef processing.

President Donald Trump ordered the Justice Department to probe the packers in November 2025, pointing to possible collusion and price manipulation. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in May the department had already analyzed more than 3 million documents. Ranchers, cattlemen, producers, and processors all received calls or were interviewed.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton launched his own investigation that same month. He said Texans deserve fair prices at the store and ranchers deserve fair pay for their work.

Beef prices at the checkout have hit consumer pocketbooks. Ground beef sat near $7 a pound in the second quarter of this year. That was up about 70 percent since early 2021. Overall retail beef prices hit new records earlier in 2026.

The cattle herd itself is the smallest in decades amid drought, feed costs, and other pressures thinning the numbers. Ranchers’ cut of every retail dollar has fallen to historic lows, while the big processors posted strong profits.

Earlier this spring, the department settled with Agri Stats, a data firm that shared detailed pricing and production numbers among the big processors. Officials said the practice cut competition and helped processors identify opportunities to push prices higher on chicken, pork, and turkey.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has repeatedly pointed to the tight hold the four packers have on the market. The administration has tried other moves as well-opening more land for grazing, adjusting import quotas on lean trimmings for ground beef, and pushing programs to rebuild cattle herds nationally.

Russian President Putin is this week attending the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, where he has issued key statements and at times fielded questions from the press.

Among the most important questions asked from the press pool were on the matter of whether peace in the Ukraine conflict is still possible, given that this very week things have drastically escalated.

Among the major escalations include Zelensky’s threat to ‘close Russian skies’ through ramped-up drone and missile attacks, or in effect threatening even civilian aviation.

Somewhat surprisingly, Putin responded by saying that yes, there is still a chance for settlement in the Ukraine crisis. As a reminder, Putin has still not yet raised the operation to status of full-scale ‘war’ – instead it remains at the level of Special Military Operation.

The exchange with the press is transcribed below via state media:

Reporter: Are there any chances for a settlement of the Ukrainian conflict? In my opinion, yes, there are,” Putin said at the plenary session of the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF-2026).

Putin: First of all, it is Russia and Ukraine that should come to an agreement, the president said.

At the same time, Russia is grateful to everyone who is trying to contribute to the resolution of the conflict, the president said, adding that China is constantly focusing on resolving the conflict and believes that the problem should be solved by peaceful means.

Putin affirmed that the two sides’ intelligence services have an open line of contact. Presumably, this is how occasional prisoner swaps are conducted – which have become somewhat routine throughout the conflict, now in its fifth year.

“Indeed, contacts do exist. They continue in the current mode as well, primarily through the special services,” Putin said.

However, while outlining the chances for future peace settlement, he did acknowledge the Kiev and its Western backers are making this harder by the day:

“We have just heard about threats of attacks on civilian aircraft, which is, of course, a manifestation of state terrorism. And this complicates, of course, complicates the possibility of holding bilateral peace talks,” Putin said at the plenary session of the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF-2026), also referring to Norway’s seizure of a Russian ship.

He blasted the Western allies’ silence concerning these instances of ‘international terrorism’ – also after this summer Ukrainian drones have attacked even Russian online retail warehouses and hubs (belonging to Wildberries in particular).

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday there was a chance of reaching an agreement to end the war in Ukraine, while Kyiv said it expected a “new dynamic” in peace efforts. —Reuters

Putin on Ukraine:

We’ve now heard about threats of attacks on civilian aircraft. This is, of course, a manifestation of state terrorism.

And this certainly complicates the possibilities of holding bilateral peace talks. pic.twitter.com/xqFfR5PFN2

— Clash Report (@clashreport) September 3, 2026

Zelensky has openly stated he wants to make it hard for Russian society to even function, explaining that the country should feel just as much pain – if not more – than what Ukrainian citizens are suffering. He further wants the Kremlin to feel enough pressure that it will come to the negotiating table, hat in hand. But at this point the warring sides seem more hardened in their demands than ever.

OpenAI President Greg Brockman said Thursday that he believes the company has reached artificial general intelligence, and that its latest model, GPT-6 Astra, marks the beginning of the so-called “AGI era,” according to Axios.

Speaking to reporters, Brockman called Astra a “generational leap” and said it could eventually be viewed as the moment AGI arrived. “I think it might be about this model,” he said when asked whether Astra meets that definition.

While there is no agreed-upon test for AGI, and Brockman said that he will leave the final judgment to users, he ended the call with reporters by saying, “Welcome to the AGI era.”

Brockman’s comments raise the stakes for a model OpenAI is positioning as a step beyond chatbots toward systems that can carry out complex professional work with less human direction. Astra is OpenAI’s first model designated as reaching a “critical” cybersecurity threshold under the company’s preparedness framework. The company earlier delayed the release to add safety testing after concluding the model could hit that threshold.

2/6 Created an underwater exploration game in one /goal prompt, all the 3D elements and sounds were made from scratch. pic.twitter.com/mTRTbjYAR7

— Pietro Schirano (@skirano) September 3, 2026

The designation means Astra can find previously unknown software vulnerabilities and build working exploits against hardened systems without being told where to look. OpenAI says the version available through standard access will refuse advanced cyber work, including exploit discovery, with broader access reserved for vetted defenders.

Axios reports:

GPT-6 Astra will first be available to a limited set of organizations in OpenAI’s Daybreak Access program and will be available “in the coming days” for ChatGPT Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise customers and API developers.

“We will need to strengthen our ability to monitor these models either via extending chain-of-thought monitoring, integrating other ideas like activation monitoring, or finding more specific ways to get the models to be more verbose in their chain of thought,” OpenAI chief scientist Jakub Pachocki said during the briefing with reporters.

Brockman’s AGI remarks come a day after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang struck a similar tone about the current state of AI.

$NVDA CEO @JensenHuang told Commerce Secretary @howardlutnick at the G20 @g20org today that we are practically at AGI. I think he is right about the direction. Credit to @howardlutnick. Howard has put Commerce at the center of the AI build, and he has treated this as industrial… pic.twitter.com/6RTO0iOQmu

— Patrick F. Feeley (@PFFeeley) September 2, 2026

In a fireside chat Wednesday with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick at the G20 Innovation Ministerial in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Huang said systems would “achieve essentially what people call AGI” in the next couple of years, and that “we’re practically there today.” Whether that milestone “means a lot or it doesn’t mean anything” is a separate question, the Nvidia chief continued.

“Suppose, several hundred years ago, humans, in order to have a more civil society, manufactured one of the most important things in the world, which is called education intelligence. Through universities and schools we manufacture intelligence and we manufacture stability at scale,” he added. “Without it, how would we have civilization? And so now we’re creating the digital version of that. We’re manufacturing now intelligence digitally at scale so that even countries and people who don’t have access to the highest levels of education now have the benefits of the highest levels of education. Okay? And so that’s the simplest way of thinking about what is happening right now.”

Ride-hailing giant Uber is reportedly aligning with drivers’ unions in several cities to slow robotaxi deployments and promote regulations requiring “hybrid networks” that combine autonomous vehicles with human drivers, according to the Financial Times.

The unholy alliance is taking shape in states and cities including New Jersey and Washington, DC, where Uber and organized labor are pushing back against the rapid expansion of autonomous taxi services.

In New Jersey, Uber lobbyists proposed requiring any platform offering robotaxi services to ensure that human drivers provide at least 85% of rides during a three-year pilot program. The ride-hailing company, led by CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, has also joined unions in opposing autonomous vehicle legislation in Washington, claiming that the proposed permitting regime could lock out smaller competitors and platforms such as Uber.

Uber is pitching its effort to slow the rollout of fully autonomous taxis amid mounting competitive pressure from Alphabet-owned Waymo and Tesla’s emerging Cybercab. Such regulations, enacted on a city-by-city basis, could eventually create significant obstacles for competing services from Waymo, Tesla, and others that operate without human drivers.

Mandating hybrid networks could preserve Uber’s existing dominance and protect its human-driver network while allowing only a limited share of autonomous vehicles. In other words, Uber’s newfound concern for labor may have less to do with protecting drivers than with protecting its market share.

The FT noted that Uber remains “behind its arch-rival Waymo” in autonomous driving technology, suggesting that hybrid-network mandates may be designed to protect its market share while the company advances its own robotaxi technology. It would be a great example of weaponizing regulation to slow the competition. 

Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

Before I get into today’s idea, let me remind readers that I believe there is a very real chance that the AI boom could be coming to an end later this year and into early next year.

I detailed my thoughts on why the AI boom could end in an article called “The Real AI Crash Will Start This Year” that I published two weeks ago. I supplemented this piece with another article last week called “8 Sharp Bear Cases You Must Read Today”, which explores almost all of the possible reasons I can think of to be bearish on the stock market today.

I suggest reading both of these pieces carefully and keeping in mind that today’s article is a very first look into a sector that may or may not ever catch on in the US and will likely be highly dependent on AI’s continued expansion as a catalyst to flourish.

Having said that, if you’re still bullish on the AI build out and the market at this point, there’s an emerging theme that may be under-noticed and worth a look.

The theme is geothermal energy, and specifically the possibility that next-generation geothermal becomes part of the solution to America’s rapidly growing AI power needs. AI power needs drove my nuclear thesis last year as nuclear stocks outperformed the market in 2025 and helped my 25 Stocks I’m Watching For 2025 beat the S&P by more than +50%.

And while I am still bullish on nuclear, as I wrote about at the beginning of this year, geothermal energy is now on my radar as well…not to replace nuclear, but to supplement it potentially. And more importantly, as a potential “story” theme heading into next year.

This thesis is still very early and speculative, and there is a very real chance it never develops into anything meaningful. I’m not screaming to go out and buy anything right now. But there are enough pieces starting to come together that I think it’s worth understanding the theme now and keeping an eye on it.

First, a little background. Geothermal is essentially power generated using heat stored beneath the Earth’s surface. In a conventional geothermal plant, developers drill into naturally occurring underground reservoirs of hot water or steam and use that heat to generate electricity. The technology itself isn’t new. The U.S. has been producing geothermal electricity for decades and has several gigawatts of generating capacity today, but despite that history, geothermal still represents less than 1% of U.S. electricity generation.

The biggest problem has always been geography. Traditional geothermal works best in places where you happen to have the right combination of underground heat, water and permeable rock relatively close together. That has historically restricted development to certain parts of the western U.S. and other geologically favorable areas around the world.

What has changed is the emergence of enhanced geothermal systems, or EGS. Rather than waiting for nature to provide the perfect underground reservoir, EGS attempts to engineer one. Developers drill deep into hot rock and use techniques borrowed heavily from the oil and gas industry, including horizontal drilling and hydraulic stimulation, to create pathways through which water can circulate, absorb heat and return to the surface. Think of it, very roughly, as applying some of the technologies that transformed U.S. shale production to geothermal energy.

None of this is easy. Drilling several kilometers underground is expensive, the geology can be unpredictable, and developers have to prove these reservoirs can maintain sufficient temperatures and flow rates for years. There are also questions around water loss, drilling costs, induced seismic activity and whether the economics ultimately work at commercial scale. It is entirely possible that some of these problems prove harder or more expensive to solve than proponents currently expect.

But if they can be solved, the potential is significant because enhanced geothermal could remove one of the biggest historical limitations on geothermal power: location. Instead of needing a naturally occurring geothermal reservoir, developers could potentially build plants across much larger portions of the country wherever sufficiently hot rock can be reached economically.

That is where this starts becoming particularly interesting in the context of AI. One of the biggest constraints facing the AI buildout increasingly isn’t just chips. It’s electricity. AI data centers require enormous amounts of reliable power, and developers need sources capable of operating essentially around the clock.

Geothermal has some attractive characteristics for that purpose because it’s renewable, which can appease the clean energy and climate change lot should it return after midterms in 2028, and unlike solar and wind, it doesn’t depend on whether the sun is shining or the wind is blowing.

If AI data centers continue proliferating across the U.S., the industry is going to need huge amounts of additional electricity. Utilities and technology companies are already looking at virtually every possible source of dependable generation, and geothermal could eventually become one piece of that puzzle. 

For more on what specifically caught my attention on geothermal energy, and the pure play stocks that I think would benefit if geothermal becomes popular, you can read my full analysis here.

President Trump took to Truth Social on Thursday to rage against US media coverage of the Iran war (not for the first time), following Treasury Scott Bessent giving similar scathing remarks earlier this week.

Trump particularly singled out recent and ongoing reports of US missile and interceptor shortages, which he has slammed as false. He called out the “treasonous SCUM” in the media for issuing supposedly inaccurate reports on “our Military Operation in Iran” – claiming that the US has “virtually unlimited amounts of Mid to High Grade Ammunition”.

But also notably, and in a seeming implicit contradiction, he said the USA is not at the moment “selling them to others” but is producing and stockpiling at “levels never seen before.” This is amid an ongoing scramble for Europe to find an avenue to transfer more Patriots to Ukraine, as Zelensky is essentially betting for more missiles.

Trump once again further blamed the prior Biden administration for handing “hundreds of Billions of Dollars” to Ukraine and NATO “free of charge” in connection with the war with Russia.

From think tanks to NY Times to Wall Street Journal to independent media, pundits, journalists and officials have been raising the alarm on the issue.

This also comes after Trump told journalists in the Oval Office on Monday that the “older stuff” can always be used, when he was pressed over whether the United States is running out of standoff munitions:

Q: Several military leaders have reportedly told Hegseth that a prolonged, large-scale operation in Iran weakens our ability to confront threats elsewhere, including the homeland. Have you heard that?

TRUMP: We’re very respected. Nobody else would be crazy enough to do it… We have unlimited amounts of… older stuff.

And then on Wednesday in formal remarks Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent blasted the media for its recent coverage. He went so far as to scold the media for being the best allies that the Iranians have. Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth has over the past months made similar remarks, invoking themes of ‘treason’.

“One of the best allies that the Iranians have on this is the media because the media immediately publishes all the lies that they say,” Bessent had proclaimed at the G20 meeting in Asheville. 

“Everyone in this audience and every news outlet should be ashamed for publishing that, taking a lying regime at face value,” Bessent added.

Bessent on Iran:

One of the best allies Iran has is the media.

The media immediately publishes all the lies that Iran says.

There are no mines in the strait. Two ships did not hit mines. pic.twitter.com/SdhyOOye1B

— Clash Report (@clashreport) September 1, 2026

Bessent has given other statements this week advancing Bush-style “you are either with us or against us” talking points related to the Iran war.

The Iran war this week reached the six-month mark, after White House officials initially repeatedly sought to ‘assure’ Americans it would be a four to six week operation.

All the way back in May, Trump rebuked a well-known NY Times reporter for a line of questioning that the president framed as “treasonous” coverage of the “victory” accomplished by the United States.

“I had a total military victory. But the fake news, guys like you, write incorrectly. You’re a fake guy. We had a total military victory. I actually think it’s sort of treasonous what you write. You should be ashamed of yourself. I actually think it’s treason,” Trump had told David Sanger at the time aboard Air Force One.

Authored by Bill Bonner via DailyReckoning.com,

We begin this week’s perambulations with a stroll into the future.

So far…the Bubble in the US is broader than any in history. It has been inflating everything it touched for the last 30 years.

All bubbles pop, of course. How they pop is the confusing whirlwind we enter today.

But don’t worry. Even in the worst crash, real wealth doesn’t disappear, it just changes hands. When the stock market goes down, those with stocks have less paper wealth…and less of a claim on real wealth. They are ‘poorer.’ That leaves those without stocks relatively richer. They have a bigger claim on the real goods and services the economy produces.

The feds and their elite cronies have a good racket going…diddling markets so as to shift more and more wealth away from the public and towards themselves. They own most of the capital assets…and they control the US budget. Pressuring interest rates lower, and backing up the stock market with bailouts and ‘put’ options…they’ve gotten richer and richer. As we saw last week, at today’s prices the stockholding class can theoretically buy twice the GDP…and have $10 trillion left over.

It wasn’t capitalism that made them so rich; it was a corrupt money system. And if the dogs of capitalism were unleashed, they’d have their fake money fortunes for dinner. Interest rates would be set by honest savers and borrowers — not by Fed policy decisions. Prices would be determined by buyers and sellers; the budget would be balanced; the debt would be cleaned up; the troops would come home; inflation would disappear; and the Baltimore O’s would win the World Series.

But of course, we’re dreaming.

Sticking to the real world…

Our high confidence guess is that the bubble will deflate. Everything will fall in price. Then, the feds will panic. They will do ‘whatever it takes’ to stop markets from doing their work — with more fake money, lower interest rates, yield curve control, quantitative easing. And probably some tricks we haven’t heard of yet.

After an initial sell-off, gold will go up. It will sniff out what is coming — more inflation. Other real asset prices too — from hot dogs to hotels — will get a whiff of the coming price hikes. Consumer prices will rise as ‘inflation expectations’ increase.

The feds really only have one tool — fake money. In a crisis, they will produce more of it…a lot more. And, in addition to the quantity of money coming into the economy, there’s another key inflation variable: the velocity of money. A dollar spent two times in a year is counted twice.

When people think the feds are going to print money, the dollar becomes a hot potato. They aim to get rid of it as soon as possible. Sales go up in the short run. In the longer run, the economy is destroyed.

And here’s an important addendum. We say ‘inflate or die.’ But those are just policy choices. In the long run, you can inflate all you want. The bubble will still die — a later, more gruesome death.

In the fight between markets on one side…and politicians, grifters, fixers and central planners on the other…markets always win, eventually. They win by deflation.

Even in an inflationary blow off — with prices soaring — real prices fall. Consumer prices rise, in nominal currency. But gold — real money — typically rises even more…so that in gold terms, real things actually become cheaper. Prices deflate in real terms.

Observers in Germany’s record-setting hyperinflation remarked that foreigners were able to use dollars — then, backed by gold — to buy things at absurdly low prices. By November, 1923, a dollar was equal to 4.2 trillion marks. This made American visitors trillionaires (in marks) allowing them to buy whole houses for the price of a magazine subscription. In real terms, prices had deflated down to almost nothing.

We witnessed it, ourselves, in Argentina. In pesos, consumer prices more than doubled every twelve months…but dollars (even with a dodgy dollar) made them cheaper than ever. We would go to a restaurant, for example, and feel guilty about paying so little for such a good meal.

The same phenomenon is already taking place in America, too. Housing has gotten much more expensive, right? And the stock market is much higher too, right? But looked at in terms of gold, stocks are less than half of what they were worth in 1999…and the Case-Shiller Home Price Index, expressed in gold, shows house prices down about 80% over the last quarter century.

The Case Shiller Home Price Index, in gold terms, has fallen around 80% in the last 25 years.

In real terms, all bubbles deflate…but you need real money to see it.