Via Middle East Eye

The US and Turkey have signed an agreement to begin cooperation on strategic civil nuclear energy development, Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar announced after leaving the White House on Thursday.

US President Donald Trump had earlier teased a “major announcement” after meeting with his Turkish counterpart. The move is a win for Ankara, given President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was not a popular figure in Washington under the previous Democratic administration. 

Two former US officials told Middle East Eye earlier this week that Trump planned to discuss nuclear power and mineral deals with Erdogan. “We have started a new process that will further deepen the deep-rooted and multidimensional partnership between Türkiye and the United States in the field of nuclear energy. With the US Secretary of State, Mr. Marco Rubio, in the presence of the leaders after the meeting, we signed the Memorandum of Understanding on Strategic Civil Nuclear Cooperation,” Bayraktar wrote on X.

“I wish that the work to be carried out within the scope of the agreement will produce mutual benefits for both countries in the coming period.”

The US ambassador to Turkey, Tom Barrack, confirmed to reporters outside the White House that “the deal is done”. But there was more than one.

Shortly after Erdogan departed the Oval Office, the US State Department announced that it had facilitated the reopening of the Iraq-Turkey pipeline to resume Kurdish oil exports to Turkey.

That flow had been suspended since March 2023 because of disagreement over whether Iraq or the Kurdistan Regional Government ought to be collecting the revenue. “We welcome the announcement that the Government of Iraq has reached agreement with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and international companies,” the statement said. 

“This agreement will strengthen the mutually beneficial economic partnership between the United States and Iraq, encourage a more stable investment environment throughout Iraq for US companies, enhance regional energy security, and reinforce Iraq’s sovereignty”. 

Friendship

When Erdogan returned to the White House for the first time since 2019 on Thursday, Trump wasted no time in doling out his praise, including a demand that Erdogan take credit for his “surrogates” who now lead a post-Assad Syria. “I have great respect for this man,” Trump told reporters. 

“When I was exiled [because] of a rigged election – he knows about rigged elections better than anybody – when I was in exile, we were still friends. That’s always a good way to test a friendship,” Trump added of his 2020 election loss.

The two leaders have a litany of global issues before them. Turkey has been playing a mediating role between Russia and Ukraine, given its strategic location on the Black Sea, and has secured prisoner swaps between them in the past. Erdogan and President Vladimir Putin regard themselves as regional partners, and Trump has recently also reinvigorated his own connection to the Russian leader, although that has been tested in recent weeks.

Within NATO, Turkey’s military is only second in size to that of the US, but it is aggressively lobbying to get F-35s, one of the world’s most elite fighter jets. It it also in talks over F-16s or, at the very least, their engines, which can only come from the US.

Erdogan told Fox News this week that he does not perceive Hamas as a terrorist organization, but as a resistance group. He also said Israel is carrying out a genocide in Gaza. The Trump administration wholly disagrees on both points. 

And in Syria, where US-backed Kurdish forces in the north are still a thorn in Turkey’s side, Erdogan’s backing of rebel forces led by now-President Ahmed al-Sharaa has reshaped the country and its trajectory, leading critics to warn Ankara may have too much control over Damascus.

“They’re your surrogates. I think you should take the credit for it,” Trump told Erdogan with dozens of reporters gathered around them in the Oval Office on Thursday. “Take the credit. For 2,000 years you’ve been trying to take over Syria,” Trump said, turning to the members of his cabinet and advisers in the room.

“He took over Syria, and he doesn’t want to take the credit… it was a victory for Turkey,” he added in the more brazen style of public diplomacy the world has come to expect from this US president. Trump said it was Erdogan – alongside the leaders of Qatar and Saudi Arabia – who asked him to lift decades-long US sanctions on Syria to allow a broken state to start anew. 

“I don’t think they couldn’t have lived with those sanctions. I took them off to give them a chance to breathe, but the president was one of the people that was responsible for that. He asked me to do it,” Trump said.

Will Todman, a senior fellow in the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), told MEE that the Trump Administration “has dedicated considerable diplomatic and political capital to the Syria issue, but it continues to signal that it will not fund Syria’s stabilization and does not want to play a large role in Syria in the longer term”.

Trump, he added, “wants regional actors, including Turkey and Arab Gulf states to fund Syria’s recovery”. But Erdogan remains nervous about clashing with Israel in Syria, Todman added, and “lacks the resources to be able to dedicate significant funds to Syria’s reconstruction and stabilization”.

When asked by a reporter how Trump feels about Erdogan’s opposing position to the US on Israel’s actions in Gaza, Trump said, “Well, I don’t know his stance. I can’t tell you about that.”

“I’ll just say that we want to get Gaza over,” he added. “I think we’re close to getting some kind of a deal done… we want to get the hostages back”. 

Prior to his US trip, Erdogan described Trump as a “valued friend”. On Thursday, in brief remarks to reporters in the Oval Office, he said the two of them have “managed to elevate the level of our relationship to a new horizon”.

“We discussed so many topics, particularly the F-16 and other issues. We will deal with them… We are always ready to do whatever we need to, and to be up to our responsibilities,” Erdogan said.

It’s no secret that the former Biden administration – and the Democratic Party on the whole – wasn’t as fond of Turkey’s record on what it described as undemocratic practices and human rights violations. 

Trump: Rigged election. *points to Erdogan* He knows about rigged elections better than anybody. pic.twitter.com/aEMYYckJYp

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 25, 2025

Trump, on the other hand, has long seen Erdogan as an openly transactional partner like himself, and has often expressed admiration for leaders that embody what the Eurasia Group’s Ian Bremmer described as “the character of strongman“. Trump said of Erdogan, “Usually I don’t like opinionated people, but I always like this one. He’s a tough one, and he does an amazing job in his country.”

Teasing F-35s

Turkey had been one of the main partners in the F-35 consortium and was responsible for producing certain components. The US currently holds six F-35s in storage that were built for Turkey and fully paid for, but have been in limbo since 2019. That’s because it was expelled from a co-production program after it purchased the Russian S-400 air defense system.

“He’s built a tremendous military, a powerful military [which] uses a lot of our equipment,” Trump added. “They wanna buy F-16s and F-35s and some other things, we’re gonna talk to them about that.” 

Before the White House meeting, Turkey announced it was dropping some tariffs on US imports and leaked that it was planning to purchase hundreds of Boeing airliners and Lockheed Martin jets. “I think he’ll be successful with buying the things he’d like to buy,” Trump said, again appearing to tease a potential announcement.

“We’re going to be discussing the Patriot [missiles] system, which is the best system… We’re going to discuss the F-35,” was all Trump would give away to reporters on what the closed-door discussion would entail.

“We do a lot of business with Turkey. They build great products. They build beautiful, great products, really fantastic manufacturers, and we buy a lot from them, and they buy a lot from us”. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally lobbied US Secretary of State Marco Rubio against the sale of F-35s to Turkey earlier this year. Dozens of US lawmakers have also said they oppose the sale, partly because of Turkey’s rivalry with Greece. Greece has already signed a deal to purchase 20 F-35s and has the option to purchase 20 more. Turkey is also looking to purchase 40.

Civil terrorism is spreading like cancer across the nation, fueled by radical democrats, left-wing extremist groups, and … let’s not forget … dark-money, billionaire-funded NGOs.

Taken together, this toxic mix has brought us a bloody September with a series of shocking events: from the transgender shooter who stormed a church in Minneapolis, to the furry-loving leftist with a transgender boyfriend suspected in the political assassination of Charlie Kirk, to Wednesday’s ICE attack in Texas by a far-left radical. These incidents have finally pushed the Trump administration to get very serious about radical leftist violence at a time when the Democratic Party and its allied NGOs have normalized assassination culture by calling everyone they disagree with “fascists” and “Nazis”. 

The White House now understands that nuking USAID and issuing executive orders won’t entirely “disrupt” or “dismantle” the funding networks of radical leftist groups and rogue nonprofits. What is emerging is a fully empowered intergovernmental task force, something we pointed out was bound to form, because at the highest levels of government, war has been declared on the leftist groups (Marxists) sowing chaos and subverting the nation with one goal and one goal only: to collapse capitalism and implode the West. 

On Thursday evening, the White House released a new presidential directive called “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence” that includes a whole-of-government crackdown on domestic political violence, treating it as organized terrorism. 

“The United States requires a national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts. Through this comprehensive strategy, law enforcement will disband and uproot networks, entities, and organizations that promote organized violence, violent intimidation, conspiracies against rights, and other efforts to disrupt the functioning of a democratic society,” President Trump wrote in the directive. 

The directive states that a National Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) will be set up to “coordinate and supervise a comprehensive national strategy to investigate, prosecute, and disrupt entities and individuals engaged in acts of political violence and intimidation designed to suppress lawful political activity or obstruct the rule of law.” 

Here’s the task force’s strategy:

Investigations (led by JTTFs)

• Probe recruitment, radicalization, conspiracies against rights, and politically motivated violence.

Target:

• Funders, officers, employees aiding extremist activity.

• NGOs, foreign-linked entities violating FARA or engaging in illicit financing. Coordinate across DOJ, DHS, Treasury, and law enforcement.

Prosecution

• DOJ to prosecute all related federal crimes to fullest extent, incl.: Assaulting federal officers, conspiracy, solicitation, money laundering, terrorism financing, arson, RICO, and fraud.

• Prioritize crimes like organized doxing, swatting, rioting, looting, and intimidation.

Financial Disruption

• Treasury to trace and block funding streams via TFI office.

• IRS to ensure no tax-exempt groups finance political violence.

• Financial institutions to file Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs).

Law Enforcement Strategy

• Use organized crime disruption tactics to dismantle violent networks.

• Mandate interrogation of suspects about organizational and funding ties.

Designations

• DOJ empowered to recommend designating groups as domestic terrorist organizations under 18 U.S.C. 2331(5).

National Priority

• DOJ and DHS to designate domestic terrorism as a national priority area with funding and grants to support law enforcement.

What the Trump administration is up against, as explained by civil terrorism expert Jason Curtis Anderson, is the alarming rise in far-left militancy as “nihilistic accelerationism,” only suggesting that “Far-left extremism extends far beyond groups like Antifa. There is an entire revolutionary (marxist) ecosystem of interconnected entities: billion-dollar progressive NGOs, anarchist networks, political organizations such as the DSA, foreign influence operations like the Singham network, gaming platforms, Discord servers and reddit threads, the dark web, and even civil-rights organizations staffed with “movement lawyers” fully dedicated to waging war against the West until it collapses.”

The NGO world is absolutely terrified. Their ability to sow chaos, subvert the nation, and attempt a collapse of capitalism for a socialist reconstruction is being disrupted. The only problem is that their woke warriors – like the one we saw earlier this week at the ICE facility in Texas – will only become even more activated by the “fascist” and “Nazi” rhetoric pumped out by Democratic Party leaders, suggesting the violence is far from over.

Related:

• DoJ To Investigate Soros Foundation

• The Protest-Industrial-Complex Isn’t Peaceful, It’s “Civil Terrorism” …

• “Planning War Against Fascists” – Socialist Rifle Association Boasts 10,000 Members

• Dems’ NGO Empire Cracks: First Gates Foundation Dumps Arabella Network, Then The Atlantic Forced To Admit Left-Wing Terror

Accountability is coming.

Update:

Shortly after the New York Times debuted its piece, “Justice Dept. Official Pushes Prosecutors to Investigate George Soros’s Foundation,” Open Society Foundations (OSF) published a statement on X, and the best their PR team could write in response is this:

The Open Society Foundations unequivocally condemn terrorism and do not fund terrorism. Our activities are peaceful and lawful, and our grantees are expected to abide by human rights principles and comply with the law.

These accusations are politically motivated attacks on civil society, meant to silence speech the administration disagrees with and undermine the First Amendment right to free speech. When power is abused to take away the rights of some people, it puts the rights of all people at risk.

Our work in the United States is dedicated to strengthening democracy and upholding constitutional freedoms. We stand by the work we do to improve lives in the United States and across the world.

NYT’s report on Thursday afternoon cited Capital Research Center’s report that connected the most crucial dots, finding that OSF “poured over $80 million into groups tied to terrorism or extremist violence.”

Separate from NYT’s story, and the actual report written by CRC’s Ryan Mauro. He responded to OSF’s statement on X, saying, “That’s the best you could say about my nearly 100 pages of evidence that triggered the Trump Administration’s investigation? Your rebuttal is just, “Nah,  we don’t do that?”

That’s the best you could say about my nearly 100 pages of evidence that triggered the Trump Administration’s investigation?

Your rebuttal is just, “Nah, we don’t do that?”https://t.co/r6SozL5pkc

— Ryan Mauro (@ryanmauro) September 25, 2025

Here is Mauro’s full report:

The report is damning and hardly surprising for readers. Radical left violence is spiraling out of control.

*   *   * 

The news cycle for dark-money, billionaire-funded NGOs is about to get optically displeasing for the Democratic Party and its elitist donor class, who have bankrolled what we consider the “protest-industrial complex.” 

For years, these leftist billionaire-backed nonprofits have waged an all-out war against President Trump and his MAGA base, funding and facilitating nonstop leftist “color revolution” operations, propping up extremist movements, indoctrinating kids with toxic woke ideology and turning them into revolutionaries, and amplifying a decade of dangerous rhetoric that smeared MAGA as “fascists” and “Nazis.” These leftist, or Marxists, also fueled nation-killing agendas like DEI and criminal and social-justice reforms, which have proven disastrous for the longevity of the country. 

A new report from The New York Times shows the Trump administration is preparing to investigate dark-money-funded NGOs that operate in the shadows, with the ultimate goal of not only destroying President Trump and MAGA, but also driving capitalism to collapse and ensuring the nation as we know it today no longer exists in the next decade. 

NYT said a senior Justice Department official directed at least six U.S. attorneys’ offices to prepare investigative plans targeting the Open Society Foundations (OSF), bankrolled by radical leftist billionaire Democratic donor George Soros – now his leftist son, Alex, runs operations. 

NYT’s report comes after the Capital Research Center, a think tank that tracks foundations, charities, and other nonprofits, released a report last week detailing an explosive revelation: OSF “gave $80 million to pro-terror groups.” 

Let’s take a step back to understand that cracks were already rapidly forming across the NGO world shortly after the Trump administration nuked the United States Agency for International Development. Then came domestic terrorist operations by far-left groups that burned Tesla showrooms and vehicles nationwide. At the time, we focused on the Gates Foundation that funded the Arabella network that plowed millions into ‘No Kings’ protests (read report). These protests ultimately failed but were color revolution-style operations aimed at influencing public opinion polls and promoting regime change in Washington. This is the same bullshit strategy U.S. intelligence agencies use overseas. 

💰 $114.8 Million Dark Money Infusion: The Arabella Advisors network has funneled at least $114.8 million to “No Kings” protest organizers and affiliates
according to most recent (’19-’23) financial disclosures analyzed by GAI. pic.twitter.com/qWHyuAa7Tg

— Seamus Bruner (@seamusbruner) June 13, 2025

More context here:

• Dark-Money Network Funneled Millions Into ‘No Kings’ Nationwide Color Revolution Operation

Then came revelations late in the summer, via a NYT report, that the Gates Foundation had severed ties with the Arabella dark-money network. And for good reason: the foundation likely realized that money funneled into the Arabella network would only strengthen Trump’s push to launch investigations into the NGO world (deep state/parallel government). And that’s precisely what might have happened.

Late summer arrived when Trump, out of the blue, began blasting Soros on Truth Social: he “should be charged with RICO because they support violent protests.” Trump was likely referring to anti-ICE and Tesla takedown protests earlier in the year. 

• Trump Calls For RICO Charges Against Soros Over Violent Protest Support; Gates Foundation Abruptly Severs Ties With Rogue Arabella Advisors

Shortly after, a series of leftist violence erupted – from the transgender shooter who stormed a church in Minneapolis, to the leftist with a transgender boyfriend suspected in the Kirk political assassination, to Wednesday’s ICE attack in Texas by a far-left radical, which merely activated the Trump administration into launching war against the radical left that has been fueling this chaos and the rise in far-left militancy for years, something even the The Atlantic admitted this week as major problem. 

• Dems’ NGO Empire Cracks: First Gates Foundation Dumps Arabella Network, Then The Atlantic Forced To Admit Left-Wing Terror

This rise in far-left militancy prompted the White House to go on the offensive… 

• Senior Trump Official Declares War On Far-Left NGOs Sowing Chaos Nationwide

• White House Plans Security Boost On Civil Terrorism Fears As FBI Investigates Revolutionary Leftist Groups In Kirk Assassination

The investigations won’t stop with Soros.

• FBI’s ‘Armed Queers’ Probe Just The Start – Lawmakers Urge Treasury To Freeze China-Linked Billionaire’s NGO Empire

• Communist Billionaire Accused Of Funding Anti-ICE Riots Mysteriously Vanishes

• Antifa Designated ‘Domestic Terror Group’ As White House Declares War On Radical Leftist Groups

Even before this madness, we noted:

• America Has A “Transtifa” Problem

• The Protest-Industrial-Complex Isn’t Peaceful, It’s “Civil Terrorism”

Civil terrorism expert Jason Curtis Anderson describes the rise in far militancy as “nihilistic accelerationism” suggesting that “Far-left extremism extends far beyond groups like Antifa. There is an entire revolutionary (marxist) ecosystem of interconnected entities: billion-dollar progressive NGOs, anarchist networks, political organizations such as the DSA, foreign influence operations like the Singham network, gaming platforms, Discord servers and reddit threads, the dark web, and even civil-rights organizations staffed with “movement lawyers” fully dedicated to waging war against the West until it collapses.”

Marxist-aligned groups operating across America to subvert the nation and collapse capitalism are already “planning war against fascists.” 

• “Planning War Against Fascists” – Socialist Rifle Association Boasts 10,000 Members

And guess who created a target profile on the so-called “fascists”?

Where did Charlie Kirk’s murderer learn to call conservatives “fascists”?

“Do you think Donald Trump is a fascist?”

Kamala Harris: “Yes, I do. YES, I DO!” pic.twitter.com/RxDjgOYjKY

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 12, 2025

All coordinated. 

Here is the roadmap to Charlie Kirk’s assassination… pic.twitter.com/S4JPbPiFy8

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) September 12, 2025

The Democratic Party is following a playbook straight out of the Communist Party.

A trip down memory lane. 

As always, the same old communist strategy. pic.twitter.com/ZcUGoU0kBi

— G£411B€R (@glauberrss) September 12, 2025

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is moving full steam ahead to neutralize radical leftists and their NGOs that sow chaos – a crackdown that will extend well beyond Soros and likely include Roy Singham in China, as well as PFLP, Samidoun, and leftist American dynasty families and their nonprofits. Americans remember who funded the BLM riots that destroyed their businesses and cities. Accountability is coming. 

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in workplaces is resulting in lower productivity due to employees using them to create substandard output, according to a Sept. 22 analysis published in the Harvard Business Review.

“A confusing contradiction is unfolding in companies embracing generative AI tools: while workers are largely following mandates to embrace the technology, few are seeing it create real value,” the report said.

The analysis, conducted by researchers from Stanford Social Media Lab and behavioral research lab BetterUp, identified a possible reason why this was happening.

Employees were using the AI tools to create “low-effort, passable looking work” that ended up generating more work for other employees.

Researchers term such content “workslop” defined as “AI generated work content that masquerades as good work, but lacks the substance to meaningfully advance a given task.”

The “insidious effect” of workslop is that the receiver of such content is burdened with interpreting, correcting, and redoing the work, according to the report.

In a survey of 1,150 U.S.-based full-time employees conducted by researchers, 40 percent said they had received inferior quality work in the past month.

“The phenomenon occurs mostly between peers (40 percent), but workslop is also sent to managers by direct reports (18 percent),” it said.

“Sixteen percent of the time workslop flows down the ladder, from managers to their teams, or even from higher up than that. Workslop occurs across industries, but we found that professional services and technology are disproportionately impacted.”

Employees in the survey said they had to spend one hour and 56 minutes on average to deal with a single instance of workslop.

Researchers calculated that unsatisfactory work results in an “invisible tax” of $186 per month, which for an organization with 10,000 workers translates into more than $9 million in lost productivity annually, it said.

“When we asked participants in our study how it feels to receive workslop, 53 percent report being annoyed, 38 percent confused, and 22 percent offended,” the report states.

“Approximately half of the people we surveyed viewed colleagues who sent workslop as less creative, capable, and reliable than they did before receiving the output. Forty-two percent saw them as less trustworthy, and 37 percent saw that colleague as less intelligent.”

While Stanford Social Media Lab and BetterUp research show that AI is negatively affecting productivity, a Sept. 8 report by Penn Wharton projects artificial intelligence to boost productivity and GDP by 1.5 percent by 2035, rising to 3.7 percent by 2075.

“AI’s boost to annual productivity growth is strongest in the early 2030s but eventually fades, with a permanent effect of less than 0.04 percentage points due to sectoral shifts,” Penn Wharton said in the report.

The top occupations exposed to AI automation were identified to be office and administrative support, business and finance operations, computer and mathematical, and sales and related jobs.

In contrast, occupations least exposed to AI automation were building and grounds cleaning and maintenance operations; construction and extraction sectors; farming, fishing, and forestry jobs; and installation, maintenance, and repair works.

Sophie, a robot using artificial intelligence from Hanson Robotics, shares a high five with a visitor during the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva, on July 8, 2025. Valentin Flauraud/AFP via Getty Images

In an Aug. 13 report, Goldman Sachs said that AI-related innovation could displace 6–7 percent of America’s workforce if the technology is adopted widely.

Goldman sees such an impact as “transitory,” since jobs created via such technologies are expected to employ people in other roles.

“Despite concerns about widespread job losses, AI adoption is expected to have only a modest and relatively temporary impact on employment levels,” the report said. “Goldman Sachs Research estimates that unemployment will increase by half a percentage point during the AI transition period as displaced workers seek new positions.”

An Aug. 26 research paper from Stanford University estimated that early-career employees, those in the age group of 22–25, faced a disproportionate threat of job loss from widespread generative AI adoption.

These workers have experienced a 13 percent relative decline in employment in most occupations exposed to AI, the authors wrote.

“In contrast, employment for workers in less exposed fields and more experienced workers in the same occupations has remained stable or continued to grow,” it said.

A report from Anthropic reveals AI to possess a more deceptive attitude when it faced scenarios where the tech was assigned to be updated to the latest version or when the AI’s assigned goal conflicted with the company’s changing direction.

After a modest increase two months ago, and a steady print in July, analysts expected headline PCE to be steady at +2.6% YoY in August and Core PCE – the Fed’s favorite indicator – to also be unchanged at 2.9% YoY… and the numbers all came in right in line with expectations.

Indeed, “as expected” is the them of this morning’s data with headline and Core PCE both matching expectations and staying in the same range they have been in for two years… not exactly the Trump Tariff terror future that every “respected” economist predicted.

• PCE 0.3% MoM, Exp. 0.3%, in line
• PCE 2.7% YoY, Exp. 2.7%, in line
   
• PCE Core 0.2% MoM, Exp. 0.2%, in line
• PCE Core 2.9% YoY, Exp. 2.9%, in line

On an annual basis headline PCE was flat at 2.741%, while core PCE actually dipped modestly to 2.905 in August.

All those expecting a bounce in Durable Goods inflation will have to wait another month: in August it actually declined again, as did Nondurable Goods, while Services costs increased the most.

Headline PCE rose 0.2% MoM (as expected) and +2.6% YoY (as expected)…

Core PCE rose 0.3% MoM (as expected) and +2.9% YoY (as expected)…

For the second month in a row, Financial Services costs (i.e., soaring stock market and associated services) dominated SuperCore prices (and certainly have nothing to do with tariffs at all). Food services and transportation costs also boosted Supercore.

While prices are rising but in their recent normal range, income and spending both came in a fraction hotter than expected, up 0.4% MoM (above exp. 0.3%) and 0.6% MoM (above exp. 0.5%) respectively…

The historical change in personal income and spending in nominal dollars is shown below. The Covid breach is still brutally clear. 

On the income side, there was more good news: after outpacing the private sector for nearly three years, wage growth of private workers (5.0% YoY) is once again rising faster than government workers. In fact, government worker wage growth of 4.2% was the lowest since August 2021.

With spending growth outpacing income, it naturally meant that consumer had to dig into their savings, and sure enough the personal savings rate dropped to a new 2025 low of 4.6% from 4.8%, which in turns follows the comprehensive data revision published yesterday, and which lifted the savings rate by about 1% across the board historically (the various data revisions are shown below).

Yet while it dipped, it is isn’t exactly screaming that the US consumer is struggling with a savings rate at 4.6% of disposable personal income.

The Baby Boomer generation is arguably the richest in history, averaging $1 million in wealth per person in America.

Thanks to decades of strong economic growth and falling interest rates, America’s Boomer generation holds more than half of all of the country’s wealth. Notably, they make up only a fifth of the population.

This chart, via Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld, shows U.S. household wealth distribution by generation, using data from the UBS Global Wealth Report 2025.

Breaking Down Wealth Distribution by Generation in 2025

Below, we show the distribution of assets owned, net of mortgage debt in 2025:

In 2025, Americans hold a combined $163.1 trillion in wealth, with Baby Boomers accounting for $83.3 trillion.

For Boomers, the largest share comes from financial assets (29.3%), followed by real estate net of debt (23.3%). Today, the youngest Boomers are turning 60 or 61, with the generation approaching peak wealth accumulation as they exit the workforce.

Generation X—now ages 45 to 60—holds $42.6 trillion, roughly half the wealth of Boomers. This gap reflects slower income growth compounded by weaker stock market performance in the years following the dot-com bust.

Importantly, these years overlapped with Gen X’s prime earning period. In comparison, Boomers benefited from a fourfold surge in financial markets during their 30s, accelerating their wealth growth.

For Millennials and Gen Z—those born after 1981—total wealth stands at $17.1 trillion. Interestingly, private business assets (10.8%) makes up a bigger part of their wealth than other generations, suggesting an entrepreneurial edge relative to older generations today.

To learn more about this topic, check out this graphic on global population projections by generation in 2035.

Authored by Guy Birchall via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Apple urged the European Union on Sept. 24 to revise the bloc’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), saying the legislation is hindering its ability to serve customers.

The company stated that users in the EU are experiencing delays in new features and facing increased privacy and security risks as a result of the legislation.

“It’s been more than a year since the Digital Markets Act was implemented,” Apple said in a statement. “Over that time, it’s become clear that the DMA is leading to a worse experience for Apple users in the EU.

“It’s exposing them to new risks, and disrupting the simple, seamless way their Apple products work together. And as new technologies come out, our European users’ Apple products will only fall further behind.”

Apple submitted its comments as the European Commission reviews the law, the first time the DMA has been assessed for its effectiveness. The commission, which acts as the 27-nation bloc’s executive branch, invited stakeholder feedback until Sept. 24 to help with the assessment.

According to the EU, the DMA is focused on regulating the gatekeeping power of the largest digital companies and ensuring fair and open digital markets, whether they are established within or outside the EU.

Companies can be fined by up to 10 percent of their annual worldwide revenue

for a first offense and up to 20 percent for repeat violations.

Apple called on the commission to reassess how the law was affecting EU citizens who use the company’s devices and services, saying it will continue to work to bring new features to market while still meeting the legal requirements placed upon it.

Among the issues the tech giant based in Cupertino, California, said the DMA had thrown up was the forced postponement of several features within the bloc, including iPhone mirroring to Mac and live translation with AirPods.

Apple also said location-based features in Apple Maps had to be delayed in the EU because the DMA requires certain features to work with non-Apple products and third-party developers before they are put on the market.

The company stated that it has still not found a way to comply with the act’s requirements without compromising user data, and that its proposed safeguards had been rejected by the commission.

“It’s become clear that we can’t solve every problem the DMA creates,” Apple stated. “Over time, it’s become clear that the DMA isn’t helping markets. It’s making it harder to do business in Europe.”

In June, Apple changed rules and fees in its EU App Store to comply with the bloc’s antitrust order, which requires large tech companies to open up their platforms to competitors.

Apple said this has led to a “riskier, less intuitive” experience for users and has introduced new threats such as scams and malware.

The company also said it has led to pornography apps appearing on the App Store, something Apple had previously banned.

Apple’s submission to the commission came the same day that the U.S. ambassador to the EU, Andrew Puzder, also criticized both the DMA and its sister legislation, the Digital Services Act, in comments to The Epoch Times.

“The way the law is written, it looks facially neutral because it says it applies to companies with over a certain level of revenue,“ Puzder said. ”But the reality is that those are primarily American companies, and so the regulations hit American companies hard.

“When a company like Facebook or Twitter or X has to change its algorithm, and that algorithm might impact the free speech rights of Americans, that’s something that we really can’t tolerate. I know [U.S. President Donald Trump] is not going to allow a foreign government to restrict the free speech rights of American citizens in ways that even our own government couldn’t restrict them.”

Earlier in September, Trump threatened to initiate a trade investigation to “nullify” fines imposed by the EU against U.S. tech giants, including Apple and Google.

He said the trade bloc was “effectively taking money that would otherwise go to American investments and jobs.”

The Epoch Times contacted the European Commission for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.

Kevin Stocklin contributed to this report.

Amid all the threats and counterthreats related to warnings NATO is prepared to shoot down Russian aircraft this week, Germany has in a major policy U-turn called for the European Union to use frozen Russian assets to help fund Ukraine’s defense.

Berlin’s stance the whole time Europe has tried to gain consensus on this issue was marked by prior reluctance, but German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in a newly published op-ed for the Financial Times said the bloc needs to urgently establish a legal framework through which to unlock the assets, calling it essential to “systematically and massively raise the costs of Russia’s aggression.”

He laid out his plea for the loan to be directed toward military aid, with procurement decisions made jointly by EU member states and Ukraine, based on utilizing the €194 billion in frozen Russian assets held at Euroclear, Belgium’s central securities depository.

The fact that Germany as Europe’s largest economy is now on board is likely to both vigorously renew the debate and give fresh momentum to the hawks. Recall that a big European holdout remains France and President Emmanuel Macron, who said in Sunday interview with CBS News that confiscating frozen Russian assets would constitute a violation of international law. 

Macron, already facing a political crisis at home, tried put a lid on these discussions. “You cannot seize these assets from the (Russian) Central Bank even in such a situation. And I think it’s a matter of credibility, and it’s very important that our countries remain… and do respect the international laws,” he said.

And so this has left European governments and G7 allies exploring ways to generate revenue from these immobilized funds without outright seizing them, which would have legal and political ramifications, as well as ‘blowback’ as much of the globe’s trust in Western institutions would further erode.

The Kremlin has already long warned that any such use of its frozen assets “will not go unanswered”. But this is not scaring Merz away, who newly argues that Europe must demonstrate “greater staying power” in the war in order to force the Kremlin to the negotiating table while giving Kiev more leverage.

Merz wrote that “This must not hold us back” in reference to the lingering legal hurdles, urging the EU to consider “circumventing these problems.”

“I am advocating the mobilization of financial resources on a scale that will secure Ukraine’s military resilience for several years,” he spelled out. He outlined the following plan:

The German chancellor is now seeking to use $160 billion in a loan for Kyiv. The sum would be made available to Ukraine as an interest-free loan that would be “repaid once Russia has compensated Ukraine for the damage” the war has caused.

…Under Merz’ proposal, Ukraine would only be allowed to use the funds for the procurement of weapons, and not for budgetary purposes.

The payments to Kyiv would be made in instalments and EU states, in conjunction with Ukraine, would then determine “which material is procured.” Merz added that he felt this mechanism would also help to “strengthen and expand” Europe’s own defense industry.

In essence it would involve taking billions of euros of Russian state cash held in Belgium, transferring it to Ukraine, and then replacing the drawdown with EU-backed bonds.

BREAKING:

Danish media reveals that a Russian Navy Ropucha-class landing ship, Aleksandr Shabalin has been spotted by helicopter ~12 km off southern Langeland/Lolland in Denmark with its AIS transponder switched off.

It has been loitering there for days during Denmark’s drone… pic.twitter.com/IH6MWAoIv9

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) September 25, 2025

One diplomat has described the idea as “legally creative” as replacing the taken funds with IOUs would beat accusations of illegally confiscating property of the Russian state.

Authored by Gregg Roman via The Epoch Times,

At the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Tianjin, China, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian shook hands, announcing a strategic drift with operational consequences that Washington and NATO can no longer ignore.

The SCO is a bloc built by Beijing and Moscow to counter Western power. Iran has been a full member since 2023. Turkey, a NATO ally, attended as a dialogue partner and lent the alliance’s credibility to a forum designed to oppose the United States.

The implications are concrete. Political theater at the SCO translates into permissive space for logistics, finance, and technology flows that erode sanctions and complicate allied coordination. Ankara’s engagement offers Tehran diplomatic oxygen, potential economic channels, and a path to normalize cooperation.

The operational question is not Ankara’s rhetoric but what capabilities and relationships this forum enables. If Turkish ministries, state‑owned enterprises, or defense companies use SCO mechanisms to expand contact with Russian and Iranian counterparts, the result will be stress on export controls, financial compliance, and intelligence deconfliction.

Defenders will call the maneuver pragmatic nonalignment. They will argue that Turkey balances among centers of power to maximize leverage. That case ignores scale and direction. When a NATO ally lends political cover to a bloc positioned against the United States, and does so alongside a U.S.-designated state sponsor of terrorism, the cost is not theoretical. It appears in blurred compliance lines, contested technology transfer, and allied planning that must discount Turkish reliability at the margin. The problem is not Turkey’s desire for autonomy; it is the friction imposed on collective defense when autonomy is performed on stages designed by Beijing and Moscow.

Washington should move from unease to policy. The U.S. State Department should formally request that Ankara explain the commitments it has made or intends to make under SCO auspices, including any participation in security or law enforcement coordination with Moscow or Tehran. That record matters because allied planners need to know whether Turkey is volunteering to sit in rooms where Western adversaries shape counter‑U.S. strategy. The U.S. Congress should open a review of security and financial assistance to Turkey and condition future support on verifiable alignment with NATO’s posture, including tighter oversight of export‑controlled technology, defense industrial cooperation, and access to U.S. financing.

NATO must also conduct an urgent compartmentalization assessment. The SCO signal requires a tighter calibration of who accesses what and when. Planning for air and missile defense, maritime posture in the Eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea, and joint intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance should be stress‑tested against scenarios in which Turkish equities diverge from allied priorities. That is prudence, not provocation. If not, the alliance will have built guardrails to protect sources, methods, and warfighting coherence.

This is a moment to speak to Turkish interests. The United States should make clear that the benefits Ankara seeks—modernization of its air fleet, deeper industrial collaboration, privileged intelligence and training pipelines—depend on choices that reinforce, not erode, the coalition deterring Russia and constraining Iran. Strategic ambiguity may serve domestic politics in Ankara, but it is incompatible with alliance systems that depend on trust. The price of trying to arbitrate between blocs is that both will question reliability; the side that runs the institutions you need will act on that doubt.

None of this requires hostility toward Turkey or indifference to its legitimate security concerns. It requires clarity about the consequences of choices. Ankara sits at the hinge of Europe, the Middle East, and the Caucasus, and wants room to maneuver. But depth is not neutrality. When that maneuver space is used to legitimize forums that consolidate the power of Russia, China, and Iran, the maneuver becomes a vector for adversaries. The result is not leverage for Turkey; it is leverage for those who prefer a divided alliance.

The handshake in Tianjin is therefore a decision trigger. Washington and NATO do not need to overreact, but they do need to decide whether to treat this as business as usual or as a signal that Turkey’s calculus is shifting in ways that require a reassessment of the security relationship. Contingency planning should begin: alternative basing and logistics routes for critical missions, tighter technology sharing, and a framework for reconstituting cooperation if Ankara chooses to reaffirm its commitments. If, instead, Ankara deepens its ties to the SCO’s orbit, the alliance should be ready to operate with a Turkey that is formally in NATO but functionally semi-aligned with a rival bloc. Designing for that possibility today will protect allied deterrence tomorrow.

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

Porsche AG shares fell almost 10% last week—the steepest drop since its 2022 debut—after the carmaker scaled back its electric-vehicle ambitions. The stock is down nearly 30% this year and will fall out of Germany’s benchmark DAX index. Parent company Volkswagen also slid 8.4%, its sharpest drop in more than two years, according to Bloomberg.

The 911 maker scrapped plans for a battery-powered luxury SUV and will instead expand its lineup of combustion-engine and hybrid cars. The shift triggered a €1.8 billion hit to operating profit, Porsche’s fourth profit warning this year, and pushed both Porsche and VW to cut their earnings outlooks. VW also flagged a €3 billion impairment tied to the move, lowering its forecast for operating return on sales to just 2% to 3%, down from as much as 5%.

Bloomberg writes that auto buyers “are putting little value on luxury electric cars,” said Matthias Schmidt, an independent analyst near Hamburg. “Porsche has now realized this and is jumping back into high-margin combustion-engine models.”

The setback underscores the wider struggles of Germany’s auto sector. Porsche faces weak demand in China, where local champion BYD dominates EVs, and has been hit hard by U.S. tariffs in its largest market. Luxury spending is muted, and analysts say Porsche has disappointed investors since its blockbuster listing. “Porsche has now been disappointing investors for over two years,” Citi’s Harald Hendrikse wrote. “It is hard to conclude that these disappointments have now completed.”

Volkswagen, once an EV frontrunner, is also scaling back battery plans and restructuring to cut costs. While VW outsold Tesla, Stellantis and BYD in Europe this year with several affordable EVs, its premium brands—Audi, Bentley, Lamborghini and Ducati—have weakened, with shipments falling across major markets.

Porsche has already replaced executives, scrapped its in-house battery program, and announced job cuts to reduce costs. But the crisis is fueling calls for CEO Oliver Blume—who leads both Porsche and VW—to step aside from running Porsche so a new leader can attempt a turnaround.