Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

ECB President Christine Lagarde has warned the U.S. Federal Reserve not to lose its independence to politics. A transparent maneuver, considering the ECB has long since merged with Brussels into a political entity.

In an interview with French radio station Classique, Lagarde cautioned that U.S. President Donald Trump is attempting to seize control over the Federal Reserve. She said:

“If US monetary policy were no longer independent and instead dependent on the dictates of this or that person, then I believe that the effect on the balance of the American economy could, as a result of the effects this would have around the world, be very worrying.”

Indeed, Trump (this or that person) is exerting massive pressure on the Fed. His attempt to exploit the internal scandal surrounding Fed Governor Lisa Cook to remove her via executive order and replace her with an ally is undisputed.

Cook is accused of providing false information in mortgage dealings, allegedly declaring an Atlanta condominium as her primary residence while previously claiming her Michigan home, raising the specter of mortgage fraud.

Good Cop, Bad Cop

Regardless of the outcome, this marks the latest peak in the battle between Trump and Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, whom Trump accuses of interest rate sabotage. Powell countered the massive inflation surge caused by liquidity injections during the COVID lockdowns with rapid rate hikes and has since kept U.S. rates well above other central banks. Trump, in contrast, calls for drastic rate cuts to free the frozen housing market and ease state interest burdens.

It remains unclear to what extent this public dispute between Trump and Powell follows a political script. Following a “good cop, bad cop” dynamic, both have successfully attracted investment into the U.S. through trade policy and high rates while simultaneously devaluing the dollar against other fiat currencies. Mission accomplished, for now: the deeply negative trade balance is slowly reversing, tariff revenues are rising, and U.S. industry is regaining ground.

Return to Private Money

Away from the Fed dispute, a small monetary revolution is unfolding in the U.S.: the partial return to a private banking money system. With the GENIUS Act and the rise of U.S. dollar stablecoins, the Trump administration has established the legal framework for private money creation.

Private banks will be able to issue their own stablecoins, each backed by collateral such as U.S. Treasury bonds, gold, or Bitcoin. The U.S. is moving toward a more stable, competitive monetary system that reduces leverage risk and strengthens the banking sector compared to its European counterpart.

Lagarde is not entirely wrong that Fed power may be constrained going forward. But unlike the state-centered Eurozone system, the U.S. banking sector stands to gain significant influence at the Fed’s expense.

Lagarde Has Humor

It is almost tragicomic that the ECB president warns of a loss of Fed autonomy. Since the sovereign debt crisis a decade and a half ago, the ECB has been fully merged with Brussels. Autonomy in Eurozone monetary policy is nonexistent.

During the debt crisis, the ECB intervened massively. Nominal interest rates dropped from over 4% in 2008 to as low as -0.5%, remaining in negative territory for years. Bond purchases and long-term refinancing operations ballooned to around €3 trillion – liquidity that partially displaced private credit. This is one reason the Eurozone economy has relied on credit-financed government demand to stay afloat.

With its anti-fragmentation tools, the ECB secured peripheral bonds regardless of fiscal discipline.

Crisis Never Resolved

The results of this market manipulation are evident: the Euro Club continually expanded national deficits. The disciplining effect of interest rate penalties vanished – the ECB became a state money-printing machine, political control supplanting market discipline.

The rescue operation peaked with Mario Draghi’s legendary “Whatever it takes,” signaling that the ECB would guarantee the solvency of heavily indebted member states.

Since then, the ECB has functioned as a backstop, a lender of last resort for all Eurozone countries, many of which have abandoned fiscal responsibility. Draghi’s decision stripped the bond market of its teeth, undermining its role as a control mechanism.

Nonsense “Made by ECB”

Brussels turned the ECB into a money pump for its ideological campaign against free markets and national sovereignty. From financing absurd climate projects to building a European war economy, the ECB monetizes growing debt, with the EU Commission contributing: the upcoming Brussels budget totals roughly €2 trillion, much to be financed through eurobond issuance, relying on the ECB to step in if the market hesitates.

The ECB is far from independent. Few central banks have subordinated themselves to politics as completely. The legacy of the conservative, stability-focused German Bundesbank is gone.

Smoke Screens and Media Spin

European monetary politicization has enabled Brussels’ socialist ecologism to entrench itself despite economic fallout. Manipulated interest rates and state guarantees have produced the largest zombie economy in the world, excepting China’s real estate sector. Scarce resources are diverted to unproductive projects, freezing the Eurozone in stagnation.

Lagarde’s Fed warnings are mere distractions. Europe faces rising sovereign debt pressures, with France on the brink of crisis. ECB tools must be ready, as no one knows when the market will issue the red card.

While the U.S. continues monetary reform, deregulates the economy, and lowers taxes, Europe remains in regulatory paralysis. The ECB perpetuates the socialist debt spiral with ever-new liquidity injections. We are witnessing a slow-motion crash as European policymakers fail to escape their self-imposed ideological trap.

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About the author: Thomas Kolbe, a graduate economist, has worked for over 25 years as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination.

Novo Nordisk shares rose in Copenhagen trading on Monday after the pharmaceutical giant reported on Sunday that its weight-loss drug Wegovy reduced the risk of heart attack, stroke, or death by 57% compared with tirzepatide, the active ingredient in Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro and Zepbound.

The new findings come from a STEER real-world study, which collected evidence from patient experiences at the European Society of Cardiology in Madrid, Spain. The study investigated the risk of major adverse cardiovascular events with Wegovy compared with tirzepatide treatment in people with overweight or obesity and cardiovascular disease. 

“Compared with tirzepatide, Wegovy showed a significant 57% greater risk reduction for heart attack, stroke and cardiovascular-related death or death from any cause, in people with overweight or obesity and CVD, who did not have any gaps in their treatment lasting more than 30 days,” Novo wrote in a press release. 

UBS analyst Tricia Wright commented on the results: 

While this was not a randomized controlled trial, Novo said the study adds to growing evidence suggesting that the heart-protective benefits seen with Wegovy are specific to its key ingredient semaglutide and therefore cannot be extended to other GLP-1 drugs, such as tirzepatide. These findings could give a lift to Novo, which has been losing US market share to Zepbound.

These findings could give a lift to Novo, which has been losing U.S. market share to Zepbound.

Novo bulls have been searching – especially Goldman analysts – for a positive news cycle for the pharma giant after shares have tumbled 70% since peaking in June 2024.

Compounding GLP-1 headwind has been a headache for the industry:

• Novo Shares Crash Most On Record After Forecast Slashed On Compounded GLP-1 Headwinds

However, Novo shares have rebounded 26% since bottoming in early August. There has been some positive news flow:

• Novo Shares Gain As Wegovy Wins FDA Approval For Liver Disease

As we’ve previously mentioned:

For Novo shares to rebound meaningfully, the company must address compounded GLP-1 knockoffs that have flooded the U.S. market, undermining demand and slowing Wegovy’s expansion. Novo noted in its earnings release earlier this month that it is “pursuing multiple strategies, including litigation, to protect patients from knockoff ‘semaglutide’ drugs.” Meanwhile, the clock is ticking for HIMS.

Novo’s decline must have been a rough ride for Goldman clients after listening to superbull analyst James Quigley. 

Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,

New figures released by Germany’s federal government have reshaped the rankings of citizen’s allowance recipients in the country, placing Mohammed and its many spelling variants at the top of the list.

A recent government response to an Alternative for Germany (AfD) inquiry originally suggested that Michael, Andreas, Thomas, and Daniel were the most frequent first names among those receiving the allowance, known locally as Bürgergeld. However, the government’s list had separated different spellings of the same name, resulting in distortions.

AfD lawmaker René Springer requested additional data that consolidated all variations of the same name.

The government’s updated response, obtained by Bild, shows that Mohammed — counted across 19 different spellings and variants such as Mohamed, Muhammad, and Mahamadou — now ranks first with 39,280 entries.

By comparison, Michael (including Michel, Mischa, and Maik) comes second with 24,660 entries, followed by Ahmad (20,660), Andreas (18,420), and Thomas (17,920). Names with fewer spelling variations, such as Andreas and Thomas, lost ground, while Ahmad, which has multiple common versions including Achmet and Amed, rose to third place.

The federal government stressed that first names cannot be used to directly determine nationality, though they undeniably serve as an indicator of native Germans and those of a migration background.

Three Islamic names, Mohammed, Ahmad, and Ali, were included in the top 10 first names of recipients.

At the end of 2024, a total of 5.42 million people in Germany received a citizen’s allowance, including 2.82 million Germans (52 percent) and 2.6 million foreigners (48 percent).

Critics argue that these numbers understate the role of foreign-born individuals, since many migrants are now naturalized German citizens and therefore counted as “German” in the statistics. Bild also reported that nearly half of Germany’s €17.68 billion housing support budget for 2024 went to foreigners.

The debate comes as the Federal Employment Agency continues to advertise welfare benefits to migrants, with parts of its website dedicated to “people from abroad,” promising financial support to cover living expenses.

Germany’s governing CDU/CSU bloc is finally calling for stricter limits on migrant reliance on welfare. Deputy parliamentary leader Mathias Middelberg argued earlier this week that job centers need to do more to integrate Afghans and Syrians into work. “Just 100,000 more people in work instead of relying on the citizen’s allowance could, depending on wage levels, relieve the federal budget in the low single-digit billion range every year,” Middelberg said.

Government figures show that 52.8 percent of Syrians and 46.7 percent of Afghans in Germany receive a citizen’s allowance, while fewer than 40 percent in both groups are in jobs subject to social security contributions.

“We cannot accept that hundreds of thousands of young asylum seekers here in Germany are unemployed for decades,” Middelberg added.

Earlier this month, two Social Democratic Party district administrators in Thuringia also broke with their party’s national leadership by demanding that non-EU migrants, including asylum seekers and recognized refugees, should receive social benefits only as interest-free loans, repayable once they find employment.

Read more here…

In apparent retaliation for massive Israeli strikes which killed the Yemeni Houthi prime minister, Ahmed al-Rahawi, last week – who was the most senior Houthi official to have been slain in the ongoing conflict thus far, among other high ranking officials and commanders – the Houthi military has claimed responsibility for a missile attack on a tanker in the Red Sea on Sunday.

The targeted ship is Israeli-owned and Liberian-flagged, named the Scarlet Ray, according to the maritime security company Ambrey. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency, has disputed the claim, saying the missile missed the vessel.

“The crew witnessed a splash in close proximity to their vessel from an unknown projectile and heard a loud bang,” UKMTO said. It further stated that the crew are unharmed and that the ship has continued on its voyage.

On Saturday, the Houthis announced that the prime minister and other senor officials had been assassinated, in large daytime strikes on the capital. Israeli intelligence had reportedly been monitoring a top-level meeting in Sanaa in real-time.

According to a description of the attack in Israeli media:

The Iran-backed Houthi terror group said Monday that it had fired a missile at an Israeli-owned tanker in the Red Sea, days after the prime minister of Yemen’s rebel government and several other ministers were killed in an IDF strike on the capital Sanaa.

Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree claimed responsibility for the launch in a prerecorded message aired on al-Masirah, a Houthi-controlled satellite news channel. He alleged the vessel, the Liberian-flagged Scarlet Ray, had ties to Israel.

The ship’s owners, Singapore-based Eastern Pacific Shipping, could not be immediately reached. However, the maritime security firm Ambrey described the ship as fitting the Houthis’ “target profile, as the vessel is publicly Israeli owned.”

The Houthis have by and large respected the months-long US ceasefire declared by President Trump, but have said they will continue to target any Israeli-linked or Israel-bound vessel traversing the Red Sea.

As the US Navy stepped back from regional operations, Washington has pressured the Europeans to step up defense of the vital trade transit waters.

Funeral events were held Monday in Sanaa for the slain prime minster, which saw tens of thousands of Yemenis take to the streets.

UKMTO WARNING 029-25-ATTACK
31 AUG 2025 1730UTChttps://t.co/vMiU6Vsj8c#MaritimeSecurity #MarSec pic.twitter.com/bFgNpOJqSS

— UKMTO Operations Centre (@UK_MTO) August 31, 2025

One top Houthi official told the crowds, “We are facing the strongest intelligence empire in the world, the one that targeted the government – the whole Zionist entity (comprising) the US administration, the Zionist entity, the Zionist Arabs and the spies inside Yemen.”

High-ranking officials slain in Israeli strike on Thursday, which was confirmed in a Houthi statement Saturday:

VIDEO | Scenes from Sanaa, Yemen, of the funeral of Yemeni Prime Minister Ahmad Ghaleb Rahwi and his fellow ministers.

Israel assassinated the PM and nearly his entire cabinet. pic.twitter.com/ojOL3WzrIA

— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) September 1, 2025

The Houthis are an Iran-aligned movement which has shown resiliency, given that for over a half-decade it was bombed by the Saudi-US-UAE coalition, largely to no effect, and now it is in a war with Israel, and has managed to effectively shut down international transit shipping through the Red Sea.

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

The most that China is expected to do is deploy peacekeepers together with other countries per a potentially forthcoming UNSC Resolution that would likely see these forces jointly patrol whatever the “Line of Contact” may be and monitor each side’s compliance with the ceasefire or peace treaty.

Axios reported that Putin “mentioned China as one of the potential guarantors” of Ukraine’s security, which was followed by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov referencing spring 2022’s draft peace treaty that included China as one alongside the other permanent UNSC members. Zelensky then told reporters that “We don’t need guarantors who don’t help Ukraine, and didn’t help Ukraine at the moment when we really needed it. We need security guarantees only from those countries that are ready to help us.”

China’s participation in this framework would be important for reasons of prestige and international law due to it respectively being an emerging superpower and a permanent UNSC member. Nevertheless, China is unlikely to play a major role in the Ukrainian endgame. For instance, it’s not going to deploy peacekeepers to the Russian side of the frontier with Ukraine to face off against Western ones on the other side, nor will it agree to impose crippling sanctions on Russia if the conflict re-erupts in the future.

The most that China is expected to do is deploy peacekeepers together with other countries per a potentially forthcoming UNSC Resolution that would likely see these forces jointly patrol whatever the “Line of Contact” may be and monitor each side’s compliance with the ceasefire or peace treaty. China has always been neutral towards conflicts in which it’s not a direct participant and therefore can’t afford to be seen as taking anyone’s side in the Ukrainian one’s endgame lest it lose its credibility with others.

In this context, its goals are to:

1) present itself as a force for peace in the largest European conflict since WWII;

2) correspondingly enhance its global prestige through participation in any potentially forthcoming UNSC-approved peacekeeping mission;

3) and reopen its overland trade with Ukraine.

To elaborate on the last point, China and Ukraine used to trade with one another via Russia, but it was obviously impossible to continue doing so since the start of the special operation 3,5 years ago.

China’s interests in resuming the use of this corridor are due to it being the quickest and cheapest route to Ukraine, while Ukraine’s are likely driven by the calculation that Russia might be reluctant to strike projects in which China has invested if the conflict ever re-erupts. The most profitable and strategic ones are probably already promised to Ukraine’s Western patrons, but Kiev might allow Chinese companies (especially state-owned ones) to purchase stakes in them as an “deterrent” to Russia per the aforesaid.

Facilitating the resumption of Chinese-Ukrainian trade is also in Russia’s interests since this assumes that Russian-Ukrainian trade would resume as well. After all, it wouldn’t make sense for the Kremlin to agree to facilitate China’s trade with Ukraine without also being allowed to trade with it too, so this arrangement could be part of a grand compromise for ending the conflict. The EU would benefit for the same reason as Ukraine, but the US might thus be wary of this quid pro quo for precisely that reason.

In any case and regardless of however Chinese-Ukrainian trade is conducted in the future, China is unlikely to play a major role in the Ukrainian endgame since neither the US nor Ukraine want it to, while talk about China taking Russia’s side in this scenario is dispelled by the reality of its neutral foreign policy. China is expected to play some role, but it’ll probably be as part of a UNSC-approved multilateral effort, not anything unilateral. That’s alright for China too since it doesn’t want to do anything major anyhow.

Authored by Jim Bovard

Canadian politicians are creating one bonfire after another of freedom and individual rights. COVID crackdowns established persecution precedents that politicians in some provinces refuse to allow to gather dust. Politicians are claiming the right to financially cripple anyone who makes a single misstep in violation of the latest idiotic decrees.

On August 5, Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston decreed a $25,000 fine for anyone walking in the woods or otherwise violating a new prohibition that covered both government and private lands. The prohibition will continue until October. Houston declared, “Most wildfires are caused by human activity, so to reduce the risk, we’re keeping people out of the woods until conditions improve. I’m asking everyone to do the right thing—don’t light that campfire, stay out of the woods and protect our people and communities.” Canadian politicians are exploiting wildfires the same way that former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau exploited COVID to lockdown the entire nation.

One critic on X/Twitter scoffed that “the province needs 10 weeks of no walking in the woods to flatten the curve”—paralleling the “two weeks to flatten the curve” crapola that initially sanctified the most onerous COVID restrictions. During the pandemic, Nova Scotia heavily fined citizens caught walking their dogs or exercising in park.

The government failed to document how the environmental peril situation this year was fundamentally different than in previous years. Author Peter Clark observed, “Fears of arson or climate hysteria appear to be behind bans on fishing & hiking in Nova Scotia’s forests. Canada’s forest fires have fallen almost half in the last 40 years & seem unrelated to weather or climate.” At the same time that Nova Scotian politicians are treating every resident and visitor like an arsonist, Canadian governments have let actual arsonists go free with legal wrist slaps.

Canadians are denouncing the new decree as “climate confinement”—an ominous development in a nation whose politicians have long swooned over the World Economic Forum. According to Travel and Tour News, “Even though the COVID-19 pandemic has officially ended, the consequences of restrictive policies are still being felt. With domestic travel restrictions now in place due to wildfire risks, many Canadians feel that their freedom to explore their country has been drastically reduced.”

“They’ve turned the great outdoors into the Forbidden Forest,” scoffed one critic. A photography website warned: “Photographing in the Woods in Nova Scotia Is Currently Illegal.” The government decrees provoked a firestorm of opposition:

“How does hiking in the woods with my dogs come across as a fire hazard?”

“Please tell me the difference between a trail and an unpaved road.”

“I’m confused. We’re banned from the woods? Half of us live in the woods.”

Nova Scotia established a snitch line so people could report neighbors or hooligans who strolled in the woods, and it quickly received thousands/tens of thousands of complaints.

Many opponents of the anti-hiking decree would support a government ban on campfires or other fires in areas at risk of wildfires. But defenders of the ban have gone stir crazy (maybe they have been inside too long?). They have claimed that “hikers could cause fires by dropping water bottles that might, in a remote theoretical scenario, focus sunlight like a magnifying glass.” Also, hiking in the woods might cause an asteroid to hit the earth, so better safe than sorry.

Canadian political mania has gone even further than in the progressive states south of the U.S.-Canadian border. Christine Van Geyn of the Canadian Constitution Foundation warns that “governments and institutions have embraced what’s been called safetyism: the belief that safety, especially from physical or emotional harm, should override all other values, including freedom, autonomy and open debate. When safety becomes the highest good, risk becomes intolerable, state control is normalized ‘for your own good,’ and dissent is cast as dangerous.”

But according to some Canadian political scorecards, the risk of wildfires apparently nullifies the risk of tyranny.  And since there will always be a risk of wildfires, tyranny will be a small price to pay for any purported risks politicians choose to suppress.

The pre-emptive repression of hikers and dog walkers is symptomatic of regimes that feel entitled to unlimited power. The same mindset is driving Canada’s persecution of the leaders of the COVID lockdown protests. According to Canada’s top prosecutors, the only thing worse than tyranny is “mischief.” And the worst possible “mischief” is objecting to tyranny.

The Canadian government is seeking an eight year prison sentence for one of the leaders of the COVID “Freedom Convoy” protest that riled Ottawa in early 2022. In April, a court ruled that Tamara Lich and Chris Barber were not guilty of obstructing police or intimidation during the demonstrations. But they were convicted of “mischief”—in part because the truckers in the forty mile convoy honked their horns to protest some of the most oppressive COVID mandates in the world.

WOAH: Nova Scotia Premier, Tim Houston, announces that citizens are now banned from entering the woods including HIKING to prevent wildfires.

Effective Aug 5. violators can be fined $25,000.https://t.co/LBFIz0JPxC pic.twitter.com/kyrB6T6b7U

— Drea Humphrey (@DreaHumphrey) August 6, 2025

After Trudeau dictated that all truck drivers who cross the U.S. border must get COVID vaccines, a protest quickly snowballed and landed in Canada’s capital. Trudeau responded by invoking the Emergencies Act, effectively dropping a legal nuclear bomb on his opponents. Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland announced that the government was “broadening the scope of Canada’s…terrorist-financing rules so that they cover Crowd Funding Platforms and the payment service providers they use.” The Trudeau government did not formally redefine horn honking as a terrorist offense but that didn’t impede their crackdown. Banks were authorized to freeze the personal accounts of anyone suspected of donating to the truckers. No court order was necessary to strip suspected COVID dissidents of their property. The government conscripted towing companies to cart away the trucks of the protestors.

Actually, the COVID vaccines were catastrophically failing to prevent infections at the same time Trudeau dropped an iron fist on anti-vax protestors. Almost 90% of Canadian adults had been vaccinated by the start of 2022 but COVID cases were soaring, setting records almost every week. Even though he was vaxxed and boosted, Trudeau himself came down with COVID during the trucker protest.

In January 2024, a Canadian federal judge ruled that Trudeau’s use of the Emergencies Act had been unreasonable, illegal, and unconstitutional. Trudeau’s regulations “criminalized the attendance of every single person at those protests regardless of their actions.”  The judge slammed “the absence of any objective standard” for freezing bank accounts. There was no “threat to the security of Canada” – regardless of Trudeau’s panic about so many Canadians scoffing at his decrees and his majesty. But the court decision provided no relief for any of the victims whose bank accounts were unjustifiably seized or whose freedom and privacy was shredded.

Unless it is overturned, the Nova Scotia ban on hiking, photographing, and dog walking will set a precedent that will ravage far more Canadian freedom. Such policies will create a toxic legal precedents that could prove far more disruptive in this nation than the occasional smoke from Canadian wildfires.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the Financial Times that European nations are developing detailed plans to potentially send troops to Ukraine as part of a future peace agreement, despite it being obvious to all the world that Moscow would never agree to this as a basis of peace or ceasefire.

Hawkish European leaders continue to claim they have support from President Donald Trump for pursuing such a plan, which would see a joint multinational force of troops from various European armies, backed by a US security guarantee. “President Trump made it very clear that the US would be part of the security backstop,” von der Leyen said.

“Security guarantees are paramount and absolutely crucial,” she described of the European consensus. “We have a clear road map and we had an agreement in the White House… and this work is going forward very well.”

She had also said that “President Trump reassured us that there will be [an] American presence as part of the backstop. That was very clear and repeatedly affirmed.”

Indeed Trump had declared immediately after hosting European leaders at the White House last month, “We’re willing to help, especially from the air – because no one has what we have.”

However, there still appears to be some distance between Washington and European expectations, with one senior official recently explaining to Axios, “Europe can’t drag out this war with unreasonable expectations and expect the US. to foot the bill. If Europe chooses to escalate, that’s their decision – but they risk turning a potential win into a loss.”

Von der Leyen admitted there’s a long road ahead in terms of organizing a joint commitment for a multinational ‘peacekeeping’ force for Ukraine.

“Of course, it always needs the political decision of the respective country, because deploying troops is one of the most important sovereign decisions of a nation,” she said, adding that “the sense of urgency is very high . . . it’s moving forward. It’s really taking shape.”

Her words were issued during a tour of European countries which lie close to Russia, which the Kremlin is sure to see as provocative in its own right – given for example she was at a military base in Estonia, and at one point was along the Poland-Belarus border, and in Bulgaria, and toured arms depots and factories in ‘NATO’s eastern flank’.

📍Sopot, Bulgaria, VMZ ammunition factory.

Shells are produced here in large quantities.

Not only for Europe’s stockpile but also for Ukraine’s defence.

1/3 of the weapons delivered to Ukraine at the start of the war came from Bulgaria.

Thank you for your support to Ukraine’s… pic.twitter.com/Fj9JbcpbPv

— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) August 31, 2025

She called for greater EU investment in drones and missile defense, as well as cyber warfare, and even space tech. “The role of the commission is paramount in enabling the member states to finance a surge in defense.” She added: “The character of warfare has completely changed,” she added, citing the need for EU militaries to invest in drones, air and missile defense, space and cyber capabilities.”

But Germany didn’t get the memo, with its defense minister Boris Pistorius questioning on Monday, “Those are things that you don’t discuss before you sit down at the negotiating table with many parties that have a say in the matter.”

“I would know better than to comment or confirm such considerations in any way, apart from the fact that the European Union has no mandate or competency whatsoever when it comes to positioning troops,” Pistorius followed with.

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

In the labored daze of AI hype and GDP “growth,” few seem to notice the workforce is tired of being exploited as an uncomplaining resource.

“Great Powers” claim their greatness on prestige technologies and military force, but how do they measure up if we change the metrics to how they treat their workforces. How great are they then? China and the U.S. claim the mantles of “Great Powers” but if we look at how well they treat their workforces, both rate poorly.

What matters in assessing the workforce isn’t just wages; what matters is the entire quality of life. In this regard, childcare matters, because 1) without children, the “Great Power” has no future, and 2) the lives and budgets of workers with children revolve around the ease or difficulty of caring for their children. The “Great Power” state can either do a lot, do a little, or do nothing to help working parents.

Now that China’s birthrate is plummeting, the state has launched a few modest initiatives to help parents with the high costs of raising children. If we consider the cost of childcare to per capita GDP, the cost of childcare and education in China is high. It’s also absurdly burdensome in the U.S., which has also left childcare expenses up the parents and market forces, which unsurprisingly have pushed the costs of having a child and childcare to the stratosphere.

China’s total fertility rate was 1.1 children per woman in 2024, far below the replacement level of 2.1 children needed to sustain a stable population. America’s rate is around 1.6, also below replacement.

Compared to nations that pay for three years of childcare leave so at least one parent can care for the child at home to age 3, the “Great Powers” aren’t even close to “great.” Abysmal is a better description.

Let’s consider another metric: how well do the “Great Powers” treat their small-scale farmers and the people who raise their food? Once again, both “Great Powers” rate poorly. While the financial media focuses breathless attention on AI and measures of consumption, few pundits bother looking at how well the “Great Powers” treat their small-scale farmers and ag workforce. Pensions for low-earning family farmers? Not “great” by any measure.

After all, who needs children or food when you have AI data centers and robots delivering ultra-processed snacks? In both self-proclaimed “Great Powers,” the workforce is viewed as 1) a resource to be exploited (China’s infamous “996,” the grind of 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week, and America’s equally infamous “on call all weekend if the Boss texts you”), or 2) as consumers driving economic “growth” by purchasing more ultra-processed snacks and commoditized experiences.

If life is so great for the “Great Power” workforces, then where did laying flat, let it rot, the garbage time of history and the Five No’s come from? The Five No’s: no house, no car, no extraneous consumption, no marriage and no children.

Laying flat (tang ping): rejection of the hyper-competitive rat race and diminishing returns for punishing workloads, the desire for a simpler, more satisfying and enjoyable life; disillusionment with the fast-receding “China Dream / American Dream,” and the realization that the promise that material abundance would make everyone blissfully happy is false, as manic consumerism doesn’t generate fulfillment, meaning, purpose or happiness.

Let it rot (bai lan) summarizes the realization that the present era is the garbage time of history, and the appropriate response is to “actively embrace a deteriorating situation, rather than trying to turn it around.”

The entire AI story boils down to reaping billions in profits by replacing the human workforce en masse, another manifestation of exploitation and disregard. The workforce’s “job” is to generate and consume declining-quality products and services to generate “growth” and profits, a resource to be exploited that is more or less divided into debt-serfs (bottom 80%) and tax donkeys (top 10%), with the remaining 10% luxuriating in an illusory “middle class” featuring both debt and taxes.

In both “Great Powers,” the billionaire and political classes are doing great, the workforce, not so much, as market forces have jacked up the cost of living and the gains of their labor are siphoned off and sluiced into state excess and capital gains, 90% of which are collected by the ownership / shareholder class.

This chart tells the story of the past 50 years: labor’s share of the national income has declined, to the benefit of the top few. The garbage time of history, indeed.

In the labored daze of AI hype and GDP “growth,” few seem to notice the workforce is tired of being exploited as an uncomplaining resource. Since outright revolt is quickly crushed by state force, the only option is opting out, via financial nihilism, laying flat, the five No’s or let it rot, all expressions of the abandonment of false promises and diminishing returns on following orders.

*  *  *

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Drones have quickly become all the rage among military leaders and Silicon Valley investors, but new weaponry could threaten the nascent technology’s swift rise.

Last Tuesday, defense contractor Epirus quietly tested its latest electromagnetic weapon, Leonidas, against a swarm of 49 quadcopters, neutralizing them in seconds at Camp Atterbury, Indiana, according to Axios, the only news outlet invited to the groundbreaking test. Numerous U.S. military services and foreign allies, including Indo-Pacific partners, witnessed the event. In an interview with Axios, Epirus CEO Andy Lowery hailed the “forcefield system” as a “singularity event.”

The test by Epirus comes as the U.S. military is aggressively advancing its drone capabilities to maintain air superiority in an era of rapidly evolving unmanned systems, spurred by lessons from conflicts like Ukraine’s use of commercial drones against Russia. The Pentagon’s recent policy shift, announced in July by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, reclassifies small drones (Group 1 and 2, under 55 pounds) as consumables akin to ammunition, empowering lower-level commanders to procure and deploy them swiftly, bypassing cumbersome bureaucratic processes. The move, which is part of Hegseth’s “Unleashing U.S. Military Drone Dominance” directive, mandates that every U.S. military squad, prioritizing Indo-Pacific units, integrate U.S.-made drones by 2026.

WATCH: @SecDef Pete Hegseth signs a memo – delivered by drone – to fast-track production and deployment pic.twitter.com/LHgP60BNA5

— FOX & Friends (@foxandfriends) July 11, 2025

Namely, Hegseth’s policy aims to accelerate acquisition through colonel- and captain-led procurement, AI-driven “Blue List” component sourcing, and dedicated drone testing ranges by 2027.

However, the success of systems like Leonidas signals that as the U.S. scales its drone arsenal, it must also prepare for advanced countermeasures that could undermine the effectiveness of these low-cost, agile systems, forcing a strategic balance between offensive drone capabilities against adversaries such as China.

H/T CAPITAL

Authored by Dave DeCamp via Antiwar.com,

Russia and China strongly condemned the deployment of the Typhon, which would have been banned by the now-defunct INF Treaty…

The US Army announced on Friday that it will be deploying the controversial Typhon missile system to Japan for drills in September, a move strongly condemned by Russia and China.

The Typhon, also known as Mid-Range Capability, is a land-based missile launcher that can fire nuclear-capable Tomahawk missiles, which have a range exceeding 1,000 miles, and SM-6 missiles, which can hit targets up to 290 miles away. The missile system would have been banned under the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, a treaty with Russia that the US withdrew from in 2019.

According to Stars and Stripes, the Typhon is being deployed to a US Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, about 25 miles southeast of Hiroshima, which puts mainland China and parts of eastern Russia in range if the system is armed with Typhons.

A US Army Mid-Range Capability System, also known as a Typhon, fires a Standard Missile-6 at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico on November 8, 2024 (US Army photo via DVIDS)

The drills for which the Typhon is being deployed will be held from September 11 to September 25, but that doesn’t mean the missile system will return to the US at the conclusion of the exercises. A Typhon that the US deployed to the Philippines for drills in April 2024 remains in the country to this day, and there is talk of the US potentially sending another one.

“China always opposes the United States deploying the Typhon Mid-Range Capability missile system in Asian countries,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said on Friday in response to the news about the Typhon deployment to Japan.

“We urge Japan to take a hard look at its history of aggression, follow the path of peaceful development, act prudently in military and security areas, and refrain from further losing the trust of its Asian neighbours and the international community,” Guo added.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Moscow viewed the deployment as “another destabilising step as part of Washington’s course toward ramping up the potential of ground-based shorter and intermediate-range missiles.”

She added that deploying Typhons “in regions near Russia poses a direct strategic threat to Russia” and noted Japan’s “accelerated militarization” in cooperation with the US.

Russia recently announced that it is no longer bound by a self-imposed moratorium on the deployment of missile systems that were previously banned by the INF Treaty.

The US has previously deployed a Typhon system to Denmark for drills and plans a long-term deployment of a Typhon or another system with a similar range in Germany by 2026