Submitted by Open The Books

The Pentagon has an annual budget approaching a trillion dollars ($824.5 billion in 2024). While the United States boasts the strongest military in the world, not every dollar of Pentagon spending goes towards furthering national security, and examples of waste, fraud, and abuse abound. In fact, the agency has never passed an annual financial audit. At the same time, interest payments on our national debt ($1.02 trillion annually) now exceed our annual defense budget.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced in March that the department had cancelled over $580 million worth of contracts and program spending related to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and decarbonization initiatives. Hegseth followed up in May with $5.1 billion in additional contract cuts for “ancillary things like consulting and other nonessential services,” along with more DEI-related work.

As the administration and Congress consider additional defense spending, and as Americans debate the proper use of the military, auditors must carefully review DOD grants and contracts to assure the American people that their tax dollars are being spent wisely.

Our investigators identified 20 problem areas within DOD that deserve further review and point to broader, systemic problems in Pentagon spending, auditing, and policy that are ripe for reform:

1) The “Department of Everything” culture

For decades, administrations from both political parties have diverted DOD from what Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth defines as its core “lethality mission.” In 2012, U.S. Senator Tom Coburn published a report entitled the “Department of Everything” that documented how DOD’s mission task list included not only defending the nation but running grocery stores, teaching kindergarten, brewing beer, building windmills and making beef jerky. This culture takes new forms with each administration. For instance, even if the president technically has the constitutional authority to deploy the national guard to support local police departments and immigration enforcement efforts, these activities exist in the outer penumbra of the DOD’s “lethality mission.” The mission of DOD is to deter China, not crime.

2) Overclassification

In 1997, the Moynihan Commission Report on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy declared that “secrecy is the ultimate mode of regulation … for the citizen does not even know that he or she is being regulated.” The DOD’s failure to produce auditable books due, in part, to overclassification is a permanent hidden tax increase on American families that is used to subsidize the agency’s largesse and toleration of fraud, which weakens our national security.

DOD reported $2.4 billion in confirmed fraud in fiscal year 2024, which, according to a May 2025 Government Accountability Office report, “reflects only a small fraction of DOD’s potential fraud exposure.” GAO found systemic issues with fraud reporting, including incomplete data that could not be analyzed. GAO recommended the agency implement data analytics activities and share data between military branches to catch more instances of fraudulent payments. The report states that while estimating savings benefits from such reforms is difficult to estimate, “if DOD prevented even one percent of the value of the confirmed fraud DOD previously reported, DOD could save one hundred million dollars or more over ten years.”

3) End-of-year spending sprees

A use-it-or-lose-it mindset means agencies go on spending sprees in September, at the end of the fiscal year. This is because agency heads worry that spending less than their budget allows will cause Congress to give them less money the following year. In September 2024, DOD spent $79.1 billion on contracts and grants, including $33.1 billion in the last five working days of the fiscal year. September spending included $6.1 million for raw lobster tail, $16.5 million for ribeye steak, $211.7 million on new furniture, $1.2 million on instruments, and $24.4 million on books, pamphlets, and newspapers.

For context, the $79 billion DOD spent in just one month is more than the annual defense of every country on earth except for four – USA, China, Russia and India. The $33 billion we spent in the last five days of the last fiscal year is more than the $28 billion Israel spent on defense for all of 2023.

4) “Wish list” budgeting

The Pentagon is legally required to ask for more money than the president requests, which previous Pentagon Comptrollers have said contributes to waste. The Chief of Staff of each military branch must put together an unfunded priority list, or “wish list,” for items not included in the president’s budget. In 2025, the wish list was worth $30.8 billion.

5) Zero-Star Congressional Spending Generals

The Pentagon budget included at least $22.7 billion in “Congressional Increases” in 2024. “Congressional Increases” is just another term for earmarks, but in this case congressmembers don’t have to put their name on their requests or certify that there is no conflict of interest. The public report only includes increases of $20 million or less. We conducted a Freedom of Information Act request for the others and were told that no records exist.

6) Questionable travel expenses

Four million transactions worth $1.2 billion were not reviewed for waste and fraud because the officials in charge of reviewing the payments didn’t have access to the payment system. Officials also didn’t check “at least 11,000 transactions totaling over $500,000 made at casino ATMs, a mobile applications store, or bars and nightclubs during holidays or some sporting events.”

7) Epidemic overcharges

The Pentagon is overcharged on “almost everything” it buys from outside companies – including most of the $23.5 billion of weapons sent to Ukraine since February 2022, former chief contract negotiator Shy Assad told CBS News in May 2023. Overspending doesn’t stop at big-ticket items though. Here’s just one example: the Air Force overpaid by $992,856 for 12 kinds of spare parts, including soap dispensers marked up by 7,943%.

8) COVID-19 settlements

Hundreds of millions of dollars are expected to be paid out to compensate military service members that were discharged for refusing to take the COVID vaccine. About 8,000-8,400 servicemembers refused to take the vaccine and were forced out of the military in 2021. President Trump ordered reinstatement to be made available to those servicemembers at their former rank, with full back pay, benefits, bonus payments, or other compensation. The exact figure for repayment is not yet known, but it never would have had to have been repaid if soldiers were not compelled to take the vaccine.

9) Misusing COVID funds

That’s not the end of COVID waste in the military. The Pentagon had a $1 billion fund meant to build a stockpile of medical supplies, but instead was “mostly funneled to defense contractors,” according to The Washington Post, and “used to make things such as jet engine parts, body armor and dress uniforms.” An additional $53.2 million in COVID funds was spent on unrelated items like paint, Wi-Fi, and gym equipment.

10) Golfing around the globe

While COVID money shouldn’t be used on gym equipment, it makes sense for the military to have equipment for soldiers to exercise. More controversial are the 144 golf courses worldwide owned by the DOD. It recently cost $200 million to renovate just five of them. Although the domestic courses are supposed to be funded with membership fees and other voluntary contributions, the agency has used loopholes in the past to get taxpayer dollars to fund golf course maintenance. The courses abroad have access to federal funding directly.

11) Far-left pedagogy

The Pentagon’s K-12 school system, called the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA), has a budget of $2.3 billion to educate about 67,000 military dependents located near military bases worldwide. In 2022, disturbing video footage of a DoDEA teacher conference emerged, where teachers bragged about hiding “gender” transitions from parents and discussed different ways to inject conversations about race and “privilege” into classroom discussions.

While President Trump’s executive orders on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and biological reality have forbidden DEI and gender ideology at DoDEA and other agencies, Open the Books identified millions of dollars going to DoDEA contractors trafficking in DEI.

12) No one is minding the “grant” store

While pedagogy is a major problem at DoDEA, so too are cost controls. An Inspector General report from 2021 found systemic issues with how DoDEA monitors its grants, including a finding that DoDEA did not monitor whether or not most (100 out of 139) grantees met interim goals. As a result, the report estimates DoDEA wasted up to $49.9 million from FY 2016-2020 on grantees that did not meet grant terms.

13) Collaboration with China

Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars have “contributed to China’s technological advancements and military modernization,” according to an audit from the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. One professor who received at least $7.8 million from the U.S. to research metallic hydrogen later accepted a job at the Chinese Academy of Science. He presented his research to the Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics, which designs nuclear warheads for the Chinese government. Overall, 9,000 Pentagon research projects co-authored with people affiliated with the Chinese government have been identified.

14) Forgotten IOUs

The DOD provides logistics support, supplies, and services to various international partners on a reimbursable basis. A recent DOD Inspector General report outlines how, over the past ten years, the agency provided $268.1 million in services and supplies without the necessary assurance that it would be reimbursed. The report notes that costs to international partners are not always appropriately tracked or billed.

15) Missing or abandoned equipment

The United States left over $7 billion in equipment behind during the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, including 78 aircraft, 40,000 vehicles, and 300,000 weapons. While the DOD was pilloried in the press for leaving its valuable weaponry behind, more recent reports show another $1 billion worth of weapons are not being properly tracked in Ukraine.

The audit found that $1 billion of the $1.7 billion – or 59% — of weapons provided to Ukraine as of June 2023 are “delinquent,” meaning they can’t be accounted for in inventory reports. These weapons are supposed to be tracked under a new “enhanced end-use monitoring” system. Maybe the weapons are being used properly; maybe they have been stolen. No one can be completely sure.

16) Uncontrolled contract spending

Not only does DOD have problems tracking weapons, but yet another report indicates Army contracting personnel did not manage $4.2 billion worth of cost-reimbursable contracts reviewed by the Inspector General’s office in accordance with DOD policies. These contracts are particularly ripe for abuse because contract terms, specifications, and prices are not agreed upon before the contractor undertakes the work; rather they are just reimbursed later. Eighteen of 24 contracts reviewed by the Inspector General continued to be reimbursed after the deadline for a proposal to definitize the costs had passed.

17) Mounting repair bills

A GAO report from March 2025 found the DOD had $271 billion of deferred maintenance costs, essentially the value of repairs to aging buildings. DOD accounts for three quarters of all deferred maintenance across federal agencies. Some military barracks are at risk of sewage overflow and have fire safety systems that do not function, according to the GAO. The GAO made recommendations that include working with the General Services Agency in order to dispose of underutilized spaces to discharge deferred maintenance costs.

18) Lost business for American companies?

The United States government purchases an average of $5.2 billion of military supplies from foreign countries each year, but the Pentagon and Department of Commerce “haven’t fully determined whether the agreements help or hurt U.S. industry,” according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office.

DOD has Reciprocal Defense Procurement Agreements with 28 countries. The agreements supersede the Buy American Act, which requires federal agencies to buy most supplies from U.S. manufacturers. Since 2018, the DOD “has skipped important due diligence steps for entering into and renewing” its 28 agreements, according to the GAO. Without this due diligence, it is unclear if American industry could have benefitted more from these contracts instead.

19) AI funds without a purpose

As of last year, the DOD did not know how it would use artificial intelligence in its daily operations, despite receiving $1.8 billion for that purpose in the FY 2024 budget.

According to a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the DOD ”couldn’t fully identify” exactly how it planned to use AI at the time of the report or into the future. There was no way for the DOD to know which human positions can or will be replaced with AI or to estimate how much additional funding would needed. This confusion raises questions for how funds allocated to DOD AI spending will be used going forward.

20) F-35 fighter jets

The military is projected to pay over $2 trillion to weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin for its F-35 fighter jets, the most expensive weapons program in history. F-35s were originally intended to be cheap and efficient to fit with decreasing military budgets after the Cold War. But the fighter jets are only able to perform tasks 55% of the time – not 90% as intended.

CONCLUSION

These examples go well beyond individual instance of wasteful spending decisions: They demonstrate systemic bloat at the Pentagon that requires significant improvements to processes and performance. As we continue debating ways in which we may further extend our military might, and expand the role of the military, it’s critical the Pentagon finally takes necessary steps to get current costs under control.

Billionaire Airbnb Joe Gebbia has opened up about his decision to abandon the Democrat Party and join with the Trump administration, pointing to the immigration crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border under then-President Joe Biden as the primary reason.

In an interview on “The Katie Miller Podcast,” Gebbia recounted how his concerns about border security in 2021 led him to seek answers on the issue from figures from the first Trump White House.

Airbnb co-founder @jgebbia reveals he left the Democrat Party over Biden’s border crisis, says he couldn’t support those letting in “criminals and dangerous people.” pic.twitter.com/cb6j6knheS

— Josh Caplan (@joshdcaplan) September 2, 2025

Dissatisfied with responses from Democrat contacts, he reached out to Jared Kushner, former senior adviser and son-in-law to President Donald Trump, for more answers. “I remember just being like, ‘Holy cow, this is crazy,’” Gebbia told Miller, wife of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. “Like, ‘This is not right, this is a real problem and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be enforcing the laws of our country and our border.’”

The answers that Gebbia got ultimately led him to reassess his entire political outlook.

“I sort of begin to look at other topics and eventually came to the point where I don’t think I can support a political party that wants to have an open border, that lets in criminals and dangerous people into our country,” the tech billionaire said. “That’s just not something I can get behind.”

Gebbia also explained how his relationship with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now Secretary of Health and Human Services, played a significant role in his decision to support Trump. “I’ve been on my journey. Everyone’s been on a journey,” Gebbia said.. “I think through, certainly Bobby Kennedy and supporting him, and I’ve been so grateful for the work that he’s doing, to be somebody who just cares so much about the health of our nation, and you know, has no ties to industry and is really just able to bust through walls and right-size the ship.”

Gebbia’s embrace of Trump led to a role in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), previously led by Elon Musk, and has since been appointed as the first Chief Design Officer for the U.S. government, tasked with overhauling federal digital services to enhance usability and efficiency.

Reflecting on his time at DOGE, Gebbia acknowledged the polarized public response, admitting that “It was just depressing for some period of time.”

“If you go back to February, when I got involved, there were a lot of people who were neutral, a lot of people who were positive, and then an equal amount of people who were just hateful,” he said. “The hate mail text messages that I got were disheartening to say the least.”

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has become the first Arab country to warn Israel over the “red line” of annexing any part of the occupied West Bank. Importantly, the UAE had also been the very first country to sign on to Trump’s Abraham Accords, making peace with Israel and normalizing relations back in 2020. It was then followed by Bahrain and Morocco.

The UAE’s foreign ministry on Wednesday warned it could pull out of the Abraham Accords, and “end the pursuit of regional integration”. Lana Nusseibeh, the foreign ministry’s Assistant Minister for Political Affairs, declared that “Annexation in the West Bank would constitute a red line for the UAE.”

“It would severely undermine the vision and spirit of the Accords, end the pursuit of regional integration, and would alter the widely-shared consensus on what the trajectory of this conflict should be – two states living side by side in peace, prosperity, and security,” the statement continued.

Certainly it would also jeopardize Washington’s hoped-for path toward Saudi-Israeli normalization, but the Gaza war has clearly put this on the back-burner, making it a prospect possibly years or decades down the line.

The UAE is responding to several new Israeli media reports saying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is mulling major ‘payback’ to those countries – especially in Europe – seeking to recognize a ‘State of Palestine’.

He will gather top ministers for a discussion on the implications of international recognition of a Palestinian state on Thursday, where they will consider extending Israeli sovereignty over at least some of the West Bank.

“Netanyahu will be joined by Defense Minister Israel Katz, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, Justice Minister Yariv Levin, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich,” local reports indicate.

Jerusalem Post describes that “Several Israeli officials previously reported that Israel is considering annexation in the West Bank as a possible response to France and other countries recognizing a Palestinian state.”

This could include recognition over all places where there are currently Jewish settlements, or areas like the Jordan Valley – which has long been sought by Israeli hardline nationalists.

Smotrich’s “annexation plan” is nothing more than a public declaration of open-air colonialism. Standing on stolen soil, he calls on Netanyahu to make a “historic decision” to impose full Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank, erasing any pretense of negotiation and codifying… pic.twitter.com/V1kBSAzHu7

— Thomas Keith (@iwasnevrhere_) September 3, 2025

Despite Gulf states like the UAE now vigorously denouncing this possible move, they’ve done little to intervene politically or economically, but have only sponsored things like airdrops (especially Jordan) and humanitarian convoys for hungry Palestinians in the besieged Gaza enclave.

Submitted by Shanmuganathan Nagasundaram,

In Greek mythology, Scylla and Charybdis are two mythical sea monsters guarding a narrow strait. Navigating the sail successfully would require not getting too close to one monster while trying to avoid the other. The job of the Federal Reserve has often been compared to (mistakenly, though) the above, wherein they have to navigate the economy on its dual mandate of maximum employment and price stability. The Phillips Curve is the most standard model that depicts this supposed inverse relationship between unemployment and price inflation.

Neo-Keynesian economics has broadened the interpretation of the Phillips curve from unemployment to include economic growth. So, the narrative is that if the economy is operating below potential in terms of GDP growth rate or employment, then the Federal Reserve would reduce the Fed Funds rate to stimulate the economy. If price inflation exceeds the 2% mandate, the Federal Reserve would raise the Fed Funds rate to dampen the price inflationary forces.

But what happens if the growth is below par or unemployment numbers are high, AND concurrently, price inflation numbers are high? Technically, the economic scenario is called “Stagflation”.

Just a year back, when Powell was quizzed about the possibilities, he quipped, “I don’t see the stag or the -flation, actually.” 

A short twelve months later, that is precisely the situation in front of Powell.

How do the Keynesians explain “Stagflation”?

They don’t; they hope that it doesn’t occur during their tenures.

Paul Volcker was the last Fed Chairman who had to handle a similar situation, and even he would not want to step into the shoes of Powell today. The condition is much worse on a logarithmic scale. The solution though remains the same: dramatically hike interest rates. However, it cannot be implemented today, as it would collapse the system due to the substantial debt.

But let us step back a bit and examine the entire hypothesis of this employment-price inflation tradeoff.

At the outset, followers of Austrian Economics would know that this Phillips Curve and what it represents is almost as mythical as the sea monsters. It is the combination of Cantillon effects and the misrepresentation of price inflation that creates this illusion of trade-offs between employment and price stability.

Examining the US price Index from the year 1800 to 1913 reveals a period of continuously falling prices. The price index was down by more than 40% by 1913, as compared to the starting year 1800. By some estimates, this fall in prices was even higher as the product basket was continuously becoming better and not even strictly comparable. Most major innovations we can think of – telephones, automobiles, airplanes, computers, mass production, modern medicine, military hardware, etc – happened during this period. The transition of the US from an erstwhile colony of the British Empire to the dominant superpower also occurred in this period. If falling prices had caused the Great Depression of 1929 to 1946, as is popularly believed, or as the Phillips curve implies, the entire 19th century (1801-1900) should have been an extended depression. Instead, what we actually witnessed was a boom of unparalleled proportions in modern history, except for what has happened in China starting in 1990 to date.

How does one reconcile the Phillips Curve, and indeed, Keynesian Economics, with the above? One simply cannot. So, what does all this have to do with today?

A note on the current stage, i.e., “The Oncoming Inflationary Bust,” would be in order before proceeding. The US Government has incurred unprecedented debt and liabilities since the 2008 GFC. The National debt is at $37 trillion and growing at $3+ trillion per year, while the unfunded liabilities are an additional $200+ trillion. If the Federal government were to pay its entire income towards servicing this debt (ignoring the interest part), it would take nearly 50 years to extinguish this debt. A sovereign credit rating of anything other than JUNK would be outright disregard for the fundamentals. The only way this debt is going to be resolved would be through a hyperinflationary meltdown of the economy. Barring a Milei-style presidency, that is the most probable outcome.

However, the mainstream media narrative even today is that Trump wants to lower interest rates to achieve even higher growth rates, from already what is the “best performing economy ever”. On the other hand, Powell intends to hold the rates steady to protect the purchasing power of the US Dollar. The economic truth is that both narratives are flawed.

• Even a 0% rate today cannot prevent a bust of the financial systems that is floating on a sea of asset bubbles – an AI bubble that dwarfs the NASDAQ 2000 bubble; a housing bubble that is far bigger than the 2008 housing bubble; and a US bond bubble that is bigger than these two bubbles combined. The bust at this point is inevitable and imminent – the timeframes would be a few months and not a few years.

• The current rate of 4.25% to 4.5% is way too low to contain price inflation meaningfully. The National debt is increasing at an even higher pace than before, and monetary inflation is a natural outcome, indicating that the rates are very accommodative.

Why Rate Cuts are Imminent

Whether Trump is aware of the above is debatable, but unquestionably, Powell understands the deep crisis the US Economy and the US Dollar face in the months ahead. The Fed even telegraphed the oncoming crisis in one of its own publications.

For more than 50 months in a row, the core inflation rate – the Fed’s preferred measure – has been above the target 2%. The June 2025 number was 2.82% and under normal conditions, the US Fed would have aggressively hiked the rates. The only reason why they do not do so is “Fiscal Dominance”.

What is Fiscal Dominance? It is easy to understand through the actual scenario in front of the Trump administration today. The expected National Debt by the end of FY2026 would be $40+ trillion. A 5% rate on the National rate would imply an interest outgo of more than $2 trillion, and this would be more than 40% of the expected Federal income of nearly $5 trillion. The above 5% rate would be a very low figure by historical standards, and it’s only in the post-2008 GFC that this would be considered high.

This would mean that nearly 40% of the Federal Income goes towards servicing the interest if the interest rate were just 5%. A couple of years down the line, and even without a major crisis, we could be looking at close to 50%. Given that any crisis would be a double-whammy, i.e., the Federal revenue will decline dramatically and the debt will skyrocket, this 50% is almost guaranteed under Trump 2.0.

This is Fiscal Dominance, and is the primary reason why Trump wants a reduction of 300 bps in the Fed Funds rate and why Powell will agree at least to a limited extent. Actually, “is agreeing” is a better way to look at it, as the price inflation is well above the Fed mandate for more than four years now, and Powell, despite a series of hikes, is nowhere close to meeting the target.

The National Debt on ARMS

It is now almost sure that the 10-year and 30-year treasuries will diverge from the direction of the Fed Funds rate. So even if Powell indulges in 2 or 3 cuts during the rest of 2025, the direction of the long-term treasuries is unlikely to reverse and will continue to move higher. The Trump administration seems to understand this all too well. As Treasury Secretary Bessent suggested, the plan seems to involve placing the National Debt on floating rates, with the “hope” that the US Fed will not have to contend with price inflation over the next three years under Trump 2.0.

But what in effect they are doing is the equivalent of putting the National Debt on an Adjustable Rate Mortgage System (ARMS). This would effectively remove the legs from which a significant uptick in price inflation can be handled.

Despite the seeming differences, both Trump and Powell are working towards destroying the US Dollar, with Trump decidedly at a more frenzied pace than would otherwise be the case. With Trump upping the ante and threatening to fire a voting member, Ms. Lisa Cook (who, not coincidentally, is opposed to a reduction in rates at this juncture), it would not be entirely surprising if the Fed pretends to oppose the cutting of rates at a pace that would be acceptable to Trump. Trump, who can never back out of a challenge, would stage a coup of the US Fed by stealth, and the supposed independence would then appear to be compromised.

Looking ahead – What this means for different Asset Classes.

More of what has been happening since 2022, and at an accelerated pace as well. I had outlined the impact of the fiscal and monetary policies in my book, and that is summarized below.

Trump is unwittingly setting himself up to be the fall guy for what has essentially been the blunders of the US Federal Reserve.

It would be uncharacteristic of the Fed not to utilize the opportunity and pass the buck, as it has almost always done.

What about the supposed critical issue of the Fed’s Independence?

Truth to be told, the independence of the Free World’s monetary system was eliminated in 1913 with the formation of the Federal Reserve.

The Independence of the Fed was effectively abolished in 1971 when Nixon closed the Gold Window.

What Trump is doing today is just putting the final nail in the coffin of the US Dollar.

Shanmuganathan Nagasundaram is an Austrian/Libertarian Economist based in India. His latest book is ‘RIP USD: 1971 – 202X …and the Way Forward’

Authored by T.J. Muscaro via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Florida’s surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, announced on Sept. 3 that he was working to eliminate all vaccine mandates from state law.

“The Florida Department of Health, in partnership with the governor, is going to be working to end all vaccine mandates in Florida law,” he said at a press conference. “All of them.”

“Every last one is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery,” Ladapo said.

“Who am I, as a government, or anyone else, or who am I as a man standing here now to tell you what you should put in your body? Who am I to tell you what your child should put in their body?

“I don’t have that right. Your body is a gift from God. What you put into your body is because of your relationship with your Body and your God.”

The surgeon general reiterated that neither he nor the government had the right to force vaccines upon people and urged those listening to take that power away from the government and make their own informed decisions.

He then said that the Florida Department of Health was able to start the process by striking down rules established by his predecessors that mandated several vaccines, and then his department would work with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state’s lawmakers to eliminate the rest of the mandates.

“We need to end it,” he said. ”It’s the right thing to do, and it’ll be wonderful for Florida to be the first state to do it.”

Ladapo made his announcement as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced the creation of the state’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission and Medical Freedom Protections.

The commission will be chaired by his wife, Casey DeSantis.

Many were shocked (again) after the latest CPI and PPI data confirmed that the experts were once again dead wrong, and instead of the widely expected inflation tsunami, Trump’s tariffs have so far sparked only sporadic disinflation, which will only become more acute as the home prices slide accelerates. And yet, anyone who read our Beige Book analysis from April (not to mention our accurate prediction from last June that “The Experts Are All Wrong About Inflation Under A Trump Presidency“) would have known just that: as we laid out, “Beige Book Finds Inflation Mentions Tumble To 3 Year Low” which was the clearest indication that despite the prevailing narrative, rising prices is simply not a thing businesses across the US are worried about. We got further confirmation of this last month, when the latest Beige Book found no runaway inflation (again) but instead that sentiment in the economy splitting along party lines.

Fast forward to today when the latest, September, Beige Book was released, and it revealed that 8 of the 12 Fed districts reported “little or no change in economic activity since the prior Beige Book period” when as we reported then “economic activity increased slightly from late May through early July” , while four Districts reported “modest growth.” And yes, there were no regions reporting a slowdown, hardly the apocalypse so many liberals have been expecting. This is also a solid improvement from the May period, when the Beige Book found that half of Districts reported at least slight declines in activity.

The Beige Book noted that across districts, “contacts reported flat to declining consumer spending because, for many households, wages were failing to keep up with rising prices” and “contacts frequently cited economic uncertainty and tariffs as negative factors. New York reported that “consumers were being squeezed by rising costs of insurance, utilities, and other expenses.” Maybe New Yorkers should look for other cities in which to live then?

The Fed’s contacts also observed the following responses to the consumer pullback: retail and hospitality sectors offered deals and promotions to help price-sensitive consumers stretch their dollars, supporting steady demand from domestic leisure tourists but not offsetting falling demand from international visitors.

The auto sector noted flat to slightly higher sales, while consumer demand increased for parts and services to repair older vehicles. Manufacturing firms reported shifting to local supply chains where feasible and often using automation to cut costs.

Curiously, the Beige Book made its first mention of AI, saying that “the push to deploy AI partly explains the surge of data center construction—a rare strength in commercial real estate noted by the Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Chicago Districts. Atlanta and Kansas City reported that data centers had increased energy demand in their Districts.” Notably, it has also sent electricity prices soaring.

In one year, this will be the most popular chart on this site pic.twitter.com/h93gWXMoNL

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 11, 2025

Overall, sentiment was mixed among the Districts. Most firms either reported little to no change in optimism or expressed differing expectations about the direction of change from their contacts.

Focusing on labor markets, the Beige book reported the following:

• Eleven Districts described little or no net change in overall employment levels, while one District described a modest decline.
• Seven Districts noted that firms were hesitant to hire workers because of weaker demand or uncertainty.
• Moreover, contacts in two Districts reported an increase in layoffs, while contacts in multiple Districts reported reducing headcounts through attrition—encouraged, at times, by return-to-office policies and facilitated by greater automation, including new AI tools.
• Most Districts mentioned an increase in the number of people looking for jobs.

Notably, half of the Districts noted that contacts reported a reduction in the availability of immigrant labor, with New York, Richmond, St. Louis, and San Francisco highlighting its impact on the construction industry. And clearly tied to that, half of the Districts described modest growth in wages, while most of the others reported moderate growth. 

As for prices, it should come as no surprise by now that the runaway inflation everyone was expecting just isn’t there. Here is Beige book confirmation

• Ten districts characterized price growth as moderate or modest. The other two Districts described strong input price growth that outpaced moderate or modest selling price growth.
• Nearly all districts noted tariff-related price increases, with contacts from many Districts reporting that tariffs were especially impactful on the prices of inputs.
• Contacts in multiple Districts also reported rising prices for insurance, utilities, and technology services.  
• While some firms reported passing through their entire cost increases to customers, some firms in nearly all Districts described at least some hesitancy in raising prices, citing customer price sensitivity, lack of pricing power, and fear of losing business.

The best part: tariff deflation: “In some cases, as highlighted by Cleveland and Minneapolis, firms reported being under pressure to lower prices because of competition, despite facing increased input costs.“

In short, for yet another month, the sky is not falling.

Here is a snapshot of highlights by Fed District:

• Boston: Economic activity expanded slightly overall, but consumer spending was flat. Employment was down slightly, while wages and prices increased modestly. Home sales increased moderately from a year earlier. The outlook remained cautiously optimistic on balance, although tariff-related uncertainty dimmed the outlook for consumer spending.
• New York: Economic activity declined slightly as tariff-related uncertainty continued to weigh on businesses. Employment in the region was mostly unchanged, and wage growth remained modest. Selling prices rose at a moderate pace, marking some acceleration since the previous reporting period, and input prices rose strongly.
• Philadelphia: Business activity increased modestly in the current Beige Book period. Employment levels held steady, and wages rose at modest pre-pandemic rates. Firm prices rose moderately, straining budgets for many households and small businesses, and inflation expectations are higher still. In addition, tariffs and federal budget cuts are expected to add additional stress. Still, expectations for future growth broadened among most firms.
• Cleveland: Fourth District business activity increased slightly in recent weeks, and contacts expected activity to rise modestly in the months ahead. Manufacturers reported flat demand because of uncertainty, and retailers said sales were flat because of affordability concerns. Contacts said cost growth remained robust, while their selling prices increased modestly.
• Richmond: The regional economy grew modestly in recent weeks. Consumer spending drove the overall growth as activity in non-consumer facing sectors of the economy were flat to down slightly. In particular, manufacturing activity was down modestly this cycle. Employment levels were largely unchanged, and wage growth remained moderate. Price growth remained moderate, overall, despite some pickup in price growth in the services sector.
• Atlanta: The Sixth District economy declined slightly. Employment remained steady, and wage pressures moderated. Prices rose moderately. Consumer spending slowed, leisure travel fell, and business travel was flat. Home sales rose slightly; commercial real estate weakened. Transportation and manufacturing declined modestly. Lending at District banks increased. Energy activity rose.
• Chicago: Economic activity in the Seventh District increased modestly. Consumer spending increased moderately; manufacturing activity increased modestly; employment and business spending increased slightly; nonbusiness contacts saw no change in activity; and construction and real estate activity declined slightly. Prices rose moderately, wages rose modestly, and financial conditions loosened slightly. Prospects for 2025 farm income were unchanged.
• St. Louis: Economic activity and employment levels have remained unchanged while wages and prices have increased at a faster pace in the recent past. Contacts continue to express a high degree of uncertainty and concern about the impact of immigration policies on labor supply; they expect prices to accelerate over the next year due to tariffs. The outlook remains slightly pessimistic, but deterioration has subsided.
• Minneapolis: District economic activity contracted slightly. Employment fell as labor demand softened. Wage pressures were moderate, and prices ticked up modestly. Consumer spending fell as price sensitivity rose. Manufacturing also fell, with wide variation among contacts. Commercial and residential construction improved slightly, and home sales rose slightly. Agricultural conditions remained weak given poor commodity prices and despite good crop conditions.
• Kansas City: Economic activity was generally flat across the District. Employment declined modestly, and wage pressures remained subdued, although growth in non-wage benefit expenses caused total labor costs to rise. Input price growth was broad-based and contributed to moderate growth in selling prices, declines in profit margins, and expectations of sustained price pressures.
• Dallas: Economic activity in the Eleventh District economy rose modestly, buoyed by a pickup in nonfinancial services and manufacturing activity. Loan demand grew, but the housing market remained weak. Employment was flat and staffing firms noted slow hiring activity. Price pressures persisted, particularly in the manufacturing sector. Outlooks improved but there was widespread trepidation regarding shifting trade policy, high interest rates, and more restrictive immigration policy.
• San Francisco: Economic activity edged down slightly. Employment levels were down slightly. Wages grew somewhat, and prices rose modestly. Conditions in agriculture, retail trade, and consumer and business services sectors eased slightly. Manufacturing activity declined modestly. Conditions in residential and commercial real estate were largely unchanged, and lending activity was stable.

And finally, confirming that contrary to conventional wisdom the economic picture appears to have improved notably April, the latest Beige Book found that despite media narratives to the contrary, mentions of inflation remained near a 4 year lows, at just 8 in September, and up from the cycle low of 5 in July (effectively before the Biden inflationary explosion period) while mentions of “slow” tumbled from a two year high of 56 in July to just 34, indicating that according to the Fed respondents, neither inflation nor an economic are major concerns any more. 

All of which suggests that the US economy – while hardly on fire as it was during the hyperinflationary period of Biden’s admin – continues to chug along and is hardly collapsing as so many Trump foes would like to see; and it certainly is not seeing prices explode higher.

Authored by Shaaran Lakshminarayanan via CoinTelegraph.com,

DeFi gold products are fundamentally broken. 

Despite Tether Gold having more than $800 million locked in tokenized gold with Paxos Gold sitting on almost as much, yields average under 1% while traditional finance generates 3%-5% on the same asset. The supposed innovation of blockchain technology somehow made gold less profitable.

It’s disappointing that DeFi promised to democratize sophisticated financial strategies, but when it comes to gold, we have watered-down products that underperform investment approaches that are a century old.

Token printing masquerades as innovation

Most DeFi gold protocols don’t generate real yield — they print tokens. Many gold-linked DeFi tokens have dangled double-digit “emission” yields to attract deposits. Those juicy annual percentage rates (APYs) rely on printing new tokens rather than generating new income, so when the token price drops or the emissions stop, yields often crash to nothing. 

The protocol wasn’t creating value but redistributing existing value through inflation, a classic Ponzi structure disguised as innovation.

This pattern repeats across gold DeFi, with protocols launching unsustainable emission rewards to attract total value locked (TVL), then watching yields crater when reality sets in. Token emissions create an illusion of productivity while destroying long-term value by diluting existing holders when protocols can’t generate real returns.

Forced complexity destroys returns

Gold investors want gold exposure. DeFi forces them into volatile asset pairs and liquidity pools that guarantee suboptimal outcomes. During gold rallies, liquidity providers suffer impermanent loss as their gold gets automatically sold for stablecoins, missing the upside they invested in gold to capture.

These LP structures are also capital inefficient, forcing half of an investor’s funds into low-yield stablecoins instead of gold exposure. The risk-reward calculation becomes absurd. Investors accept impermanent loss risk and reduced gold exposure for yields barely exceeding what they could earn holding stablecoins directly.

Missing the real opportunity

DeFi protocols lack the infrastructure to replicate traditional finance’s strategies at scale. Gold futures often trade at premiums to spot prices, especially in contango markets. Sophisticated traders can capture this spread by holding physical gold and shorting futures contracts, precisely what DeFi should excel at automating.

The result: Institutional players continue earning attractive returns on gold while DeFi investors get stuck with inflationary rewards and forced complexity. Real money stays in traditional finance while DeFi fights over scraps.

The path forward

New protocols finally address these fundamental flaws through market-neutral arbitrage strategies instead of token printing. Because of this shift, they generate real yield by capturing contango spreads.

Investors can get pure gold exposure with institutional-grade returns. This approach democratizes strategies that previously required $5 million minimums and direct institutional relationships, making hedge fund opportunities accessible with just $1,000 and a wallet.

Keeping it simple

The best DeFi products eliminate unnecessary complexity, giving gold investors exposure without forced diversification. Single-sided staking preserves investment thesis while generating yield through arbitrage strategies. 

This explains why tokenized gold underperforms decades-old physical gold strategies. The industry prioritized rapid deployment over sustainable economics, TVL growth over actual returns.

Market consequences

The gold DeFi failure reflects broader issues with how we think about yield generation. Too many protocols prioritize TVL growth over sustainable economics and optimize for launch metrics instead of long-term value creation. 

Real solutions require infrastructure investment in proper derivatives trading capabilities, risk management systems and institutional-grade execution. That’s a lot harder than launching another liquidity mining program.

The market is maturing, however, as investors increasingly recognize the difference between real yield and token emissions, demanding actual value creation over higher APY numbers.

The adoption catalyst

The next wave of DeFi adoption will come from real yield, not speculation, as traditional finance faces increasing regulatory pressure and institutional investors seek alternatives that deliver comparable returns with better transparency. Gold represents the perfect testing ground with its well-understood asset class, documented arbitrage opportunities, and proven demand for yield.

The question isn’t whether gold DeFi will work. It’s which protocols will finally deliver on the original promise with existing technology, proven strategies, and a ready market.

The gold rush continues, but this time it just might strike gold.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

Just weeks after Donald Trump Jr. invested in Polymarket and joined the advisory board, the crypto-based prediction markets platform – that rose to prominence during the 2024 presidential election – has reportedly been cleared to enter the United States.

“Polymarket is the largest prediction market in the world, and the U.S. needs access to this important platform,” said Donald Trump Jr in mid-August

 “Polymarket cuts through media spin and so-called ‘expert’ opinion by letting people bet on what they actually believe will happen in the world… bringing truth and transparency to everyone – including the U.S.”

And now, according to a post on X by Polymarket CEO Shane Coplan, “Polymarket has been given the green light to go live in the USA by the CFTC“

“Credit to the Commission and Staff for their impressive work.

This process has been accomplished in record timing.

Stay tuned”

As The Block reports, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Division of Market Oversight and the Division of Clearing and Risk said Wednesday they have taken a no-action position regarding swap data reporting and recordkeeping regulations for event contracts in response to a request from QCX, a designated contract market, and QC Clearing, a derivatives clearing organization.

The no-action letter applies in “narrow circumstances”, the statement said, and is comparable to no-action letters issued for other similarly situated designated contract markets and derivatives clearing organizations.

After a federal investigation was dropped earlier this summer, Polymarket said in July it planned to re-enter the U.S. with the acquisition of derivatives exchange QCEX.

“The divisions will not recommend the CFTC initiate an enforcement action against either entity or their participants for failure to comply with certain swap-related recordkeeping requirements and for failure to report to swap data repositories data associated with binary option transactions and variable payout contract transactions executed on or subject to the rules of QCX LLC and cleared through QC Clearing LLC, subject to the terms of the no-action letter,” the statement said.

The number of new markets on Polymarket surged in July, with over 11,500 markets representing a 44% month-over-month increase…

…although a far cry from their January peak. But maybe now that Americans don’t need VPNs to access it, things will change.

Additionally, in June, Elon Musk’s X said it was “joining forces” with the prediction platform, and accessibility to the US market directly will surely build that conduit.

Via The Cradle

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has detected uranium traces in Syria during inspections of a site Israel destroyed in 2007, according to a confidential report circulated to member states this week.

The samples, taken last year from one of three unnamed sites “allegedly functionally related” to Deir Ezzor, contained a large quantity of natural uranium particles, the report seen by Reuters said. 

It explained that the particles were of anthropogenic origin, meaning, though not enriched, they had undergone chemical processing.

The report said Syrian authorities told inspectors they had “no information that might explain the presence of such uranium particles,” while confirming that the current government granted the IAEA renewed access to the site in June to collect further samples.

IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi met Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa the same month. The report states that “Syria agreed to cooperate with the Agency, through full transparency, to address Syria’s past nuclear activities.”

Grossi asked for Syrian help to return to Deir Ezzor “in the next few months” to review documentation and interview those linked to earlier projects.

The nuclear watchdog said it intends to proceed with visits to Deir Ezzor and will evaluate results from other environmental samples. 

“Once this process has been completed and the results evaluated, there will be an opportunity to clarify and resolve the outstanding safeguards issues related to Syria’s past nuclear activities and to bring the matter to a close,” the report noted.

The government of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad had maintained that the Deir Ezzor site was a conventional military base. 

However, in 2011, the agency concluded the structure was “very likely” an undeclared reactor that Damascus should have declared.

The IAEA’s report comes amid wider concerns over Israel’s use of uranium-based weapons in other West Asian theaters. Scientific studies have documented abnormal uranium residues across West Asia in the aftermath of US and Israeli bombardments. 

Measurements by Green Audit in Fallujah, Lebanon, and Gaza revealed isotope ratios inconsistent with those of natural uranium. These findings were later confirmed by independent laboratories in Europe and the UK. 

Tests detected enriched uranium in soil, bomb craters, air filter dust, and biological samples. In 2021, a study published in Nature reported a marked rise in uranium enrichment levels in Gaza’s environment since 2008.

Researchers concluded that enriched uranium, a substance that does not occur in nature, must have originated from weapons deployed by the US in Iraq and Israel in Lebanon and Gaza.

Some sources are alleging the detected uranium particles are due to a prior secretive nuclear program under the Assad government…

The IAEA found processed uranium particles at a Syrian site bombed by Israel in 2007, contradicting Assad’s claim it was only a military base. Syria’s new leadership has allowed further tests, and IAEA chief Rafael Grossi is pushing for deeper investigations to uncover the truth… pic.twitter.com/L8IbW4GWMI

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) September 2, 2025

Further reports reinforce these findings. In October 2024, Lebanese health official Raif Reda said Israel bombed Beirut’s southern suburbs with uranium-based munitions and urged that samples be sent to the UN for investigation. 

Lebanese outlets noted the use of BLU-109 missiles, whose casings could contain depleted uranium. In June 2025, Fars News Agency reported that Israeli bombs dropped on Iran during the 12-day war left debris showing preliminary signs of depleted uranium. 

In Gaza, a UN Human Rights Commission report documented Israeli strikes with GBU-31, GBU-32, and GBU-39 bombs between 9 October and 2 December 2023 against residential buildings, a school, refugee camps, and a market – guided munitions that can be manufactured with depleted uranium casings.

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

Canned talk show host Stephen Colbert’s leftist audience proved how demented and sick they are by loudly booing when Colbert addressed stupid online rumours of President Trump’s demise and lamented that the President “is very much alive.”

Colbert stated “It’s great to be back with all of you. We were on vacation for three weeks, but I want you to know I take this job seriously, and while we were gone, I still closely followed all the news that was on any cocktail napkin.”

“When I came back in the office, I was shocked to learn that this weekend, the biggest story was, ‘Frenzied social media rumors speculating whether Donald Trump had died,’” The Late Show host continued, prompting the lunatics in the audience to cheer.

Colbert has to rein in his audience after they start booing news that Trump is still alive: “No! We like our presidents alive.” pic.twitter.com/ICyhzLOIc3

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) September 3, 2025

“For the record, Donald Trump is very much alive,” Colbert announced, sending the twisted audience into loud boos.

“No, we like our presidents a lot,” Colbert responded, adding, “Donald Trump is very much alive, and this whole crazy rumour started simply because Trump has zero events on his schedule Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday.”

The host then did a ‘comedy’ bit that wasn’t at all funny as usual.

“And one of the only signs that he might still be around was ‘music in the Rose Garden, which the White House confirmed was the president’s music, which I gotta say, is not the strongest proof of life,” Colbert further blathered.

Colbert then mimicked a White House staffer, stating “Yes, nurse, I do see that flatline, but the patient is clearly alive, because his iPhone is playing ‘Papa Loves Mambo.’”

HA HA HA. Sooooo hilarious.

Exhibit #2,567,432 on why he’s being canceled. It’s a shame it’s a prolonged cancel…

— ThinkingWTH? (@Nanwonderswhy) September 3, 2025

I know two wrongs do not make a right, yet when a political person on the left dies, dont expect kind words from the right. These people are insufferable.

— john williams (@bugeaterboy) September 3, 2025

How he hasn’t been outright FIRED is baffling @paramountnet @CBS

— Katarina🇮🇹🇺🇸 (@KitKat_212121) September 3, 2025

As we highlighted yesterday, Vice Presidential loser Tim Walz appeared excited at the prospect of Trump being ill or dying, telling a crowd “You get up in the morning – the last few days, you woke up thinking there might be news! Just saying…There WILL be news, some time!” 

Walz’s remarks prompted CNN’s Scott Jennings to go nuclear on the Democratic Governor, labelling him a “complete piece of shit.”

*  *  *

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