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Putin: ‘Theft’ Of $300BN in Frozen Assets A ‘Price Worth Paying’ To Break West’s Grip On Global Finance

Putin: ‘Theft’ Of $300BN in Frozen Assets A ‘Price Worth Paying’ To Break West’s Grip On Global Finance

In somewhat surprising statements and what can be viewed as a very frank ‘concession’, President Vladimir Putin has said  Russia is “ready” to part with its $300 billion in frozen assets, framing it as a another way which accelerates Russia’s and its allies’ shift away from Western-dominated financial systems.

“A significant amount of Russian gold and currency assets is frozen in Western banks. They keep telling us they intend to steal our money,” Putin said before the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) summit in Minsk on Thursday.

If the West does simply take the funds in the end, it would create an “irreversible trend toward the regionalization of payment systems” – and this in the long run would benefit the global economy. “I think it is probably worth paying for,” Putin mused, while further describing the Moscow aims to strengthen its own financial settlement systems with “friendly states.”

The Central Bank of Russia, Moskva News Agency

For now, the some $300 billion in Russian Central Bank assets currently frozen (mostly in Europe) hasn’t been fully or outright appropriated permanently, but instead the plan is to fund Ukraine’s defense based on interest earned on the significant assets.

This plan is already in effect, with for example former President Biden at the tail-end of his administration having announced that it disbursed a $20 billion loan for Ukraine, to eventually be paid back using interest earned on frozen Russian Central Bank assets.

The US Treasury Secretary had said the following at the time:

“These funds — paid for by the windfall proceeds earned from Russia’s own immobilized assets — will provide Ukraine a critical infusion of support as it defends its country against an unprovoked war of aggression.”

“The $50 billion collectively being provided by the G7 through this initiative will help ensure Ukraine has the resources it needs to sustain emergency services, hospitals, and other foundations of its brave resistance,” the statement said.

The Kremlin has consistently decried this as “theft” and “simply robbery” while vowing that retaliation will soon come.

Meanwhile, some ‘respect’ still thrown Trump’s way by Putin…

President Putin fresh words suggest Moscow is resigning itself to a situation where it won’t see the funds handed back for anytime in the foreseeable future, at a moment Russia continues strengthening economic ties with BRICS countries.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/28/2025 – 08:45

German Police Raid 170 Homes Over ‘Hate Speech’, Insults To Politicians

German Police Raid 170 Homes Over ‘Hate Speech’, Insults To Politicians

Via Remix News,

On Wednesday morning at 6 a.m., a large-scale police operation was launched across Germany, targeting hundreds of individuals suspected of insulting politicians or spreading “hate and incitement” online.

The massive crackdown saw police launch morning raids against 170 individuals, which saw police seize computers, cell phones, and tablets, and conduct searches in multiple locations across the country.

The action, which was conducted by the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), uses the new Criminal Code Paragraph 188 to target individuals accused of racism and hate speech.

North Rhine-Westphalia’s Interior Minister, Herbert Reul (CDU), who has overseen a massive increase in crime in his state in recent years — including violent crimes and knife crimes committed by foreigners — celebrated the police raids.

“Digital arsonists must not be able to hide behind their cell phones or computers,” he said.

His state conducted 14 of the approximately 130 nationwide cases in a “day of action” against so-called hate postings.

In fact, even as the number of such raids has exploded in recent years, violent crime has also reached record highs in Germany, in large part due to mass immigration, which is a statistical fact. However, police resources have shifted towards targeting hate speech violations, including those complaining about rising crime in relation to mass immigration, with even politicians, such as Alternative for Germany’s (AfD) Marie-Thérèse Kaiser, being targeted in such cases.

Germany now routinely has these “days of action” against citizens who commit “violations” against new and more draconian speech laws in Germany. In some cases, a national scandal has erupted when the details of the cases became public, such as the case of a pensioner, Stefan Niehoff, having his house raided over calling former Economic Minister Robert Habeck an “idiot.”

As the details of the case show, Niehoff became a major target for speaking out against the raid, with the state eventually dropping the “idiot” charge, the one they raided his house for, and pursuing other ones. He was eventually convicted for a variety of retweets despite these retweets being explicitly anti-Nazi posts that targeted left-wing politicians.

In another case, someone criticized CDU leader Friedrich Merz as “drunken.”

It is unclear who was targeted in the latest raids and what statements they made. Most cases allegedly involve right-wing extremist statements, but a small number of cases involve extremist religious or left-wing extremist content. It should also be noted that Alternative for Germany (AfD) co-leader Alice Weidel has also filed a number of such complaints, a point she has been criticized for. However, it is unclear if anyone’s house was raided over any of her complaints. So far, there have been no reports of such raids based on any complaints Weidel has filed.

CDU Interior Minister Reul said there needs to be a clear distinction between opinion and hate speech.

“What you don’t do in the real world isn’t appropriate digitally either. It’s time for more attitude, both offline and online,” he said.

However, the federal interior ministry made a similar argument last year while conducting raids against multiple homes of Compact Magazine journalists, as well as the magazine’s publisher. The raids were followed by a ban on Compact Magazine and its erasure from the internet. A top federal court has now ruled this week that the ban was not constitutional and constituted a violation of freedom of the press in a major blow to the federal interior ministry.

These house raids are conducted with the support of various reporting centers run by left-leaning organizations. Essentially, a center reports a post, which then forwards this to the federal police for action.

Last year, there were 10,732 such cases recorded, which is quadruple the number of 2021.

As an example of the type of raids going on, last year, a 14-year-old German boy had his house raided for posting a banned hashtag on TikTok, which translated to “Everything for Germany.”

Read more here…

Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/28/2025 – 08:10

Kremlin Reacts To NATO Defense Spending Hike: ‘No Significant Effect’

Kremlin Reacts To NATO Defense Spending Hike: ‘No Significant Effect’

The Kremlin in a new Friday statement made clear that NATO’s decision to significantly boost military spending, formalized this week at the annual NATO summit in The Hague, which Trump and other leaders attended, won’t have a meaningful impact on Russia’s security.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov responded to a reporter’s question over what impact NATO’s commitment to 5% of GDP on defense over the next decade for each member state will be by saying, “I don’t think it will have any significant effect.”

“We know what goals we are pursuing; we don’t hide them, we state them openly, and they are absolutely legitimate in terms of any interpretation of the UN Charter and international law. We know by what means we will always ensure these goals,” he said.

NATO has cited the necessity of a drastic increase in spending, which notably Spain has resisted, as necessary based on the “long-term threat posed by Russia to Euro-Atlantic security.”

Throughout over three-years of the grinding Ukraine war, Western officials have consistently sounded the alarm over an ‘expansionist’ Russia; however, it has become clear that the Kremlin does no even want to occupy Kiev or Western Ukraine – and that the top goal is solidifying hold over Russian-speaking territories of the east.

In response to this NATO assumption that Putin could breach the ‘eastern flank’ and amid expansionist aims, Russia’s RT has the following:

Moscow has repeatedly said it has no intention of attacking any NATO member states, dismissing such claims as “nonsense” and attributing them to Western officials’ attempts to justify increased military spending. 

Meanwhile, this week the European Union planned to push forward and approve it’s 18th package of anti-Moscow sanctions, but this has been postponed due to resistance from Hungary and Slovakia.

Also, President Trump has voiced his view that yet more fresh sanctions would likely not have any immediate effect and that the action would be detrimental to peace efforts.

The question of US-backed efforts to get the two warring sides to the negotiating table is very much an open one currently. Both have become even more entrenched in their unwillingness to compromise, with Zelensky having said he won’t even give up Crimea. There is not even a date for a potential next round of Istanbul talks.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/28/2025 – 07:35

The End Of Bank Branches: How Europe’s Digital Euro And Stablecoins Are Reshaping Finance

The End Of Bank Branches: How Europe’s Digital Euro And Stablecoins Are Reshaping Finance

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

The digital age is dawning. Repetitive tasks are being automated, and technologies like artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles are reshaping our daily lives—just as the financial sector is undergoing a profound digital transformation. The slow disappearance of physical bank branches is one of the clearest signs of this upheaval.

The desertion of Germany’s town centers is a symptom of this new era. High rents, shrinking consumer power, and demographic decline—especially in rural areas—collide with the shockwaves of e-commerce and a rapidly digitalizing economy. More and more of our consumer habits are migrating online, and the banking industry, long anchored by its brick-and-mortar branches, is no exception.

A Long-Term Trend

The quiet death of Germany’s bank branch networks has been underway for years—a global phenomenon driven by customers embracing online banking, decentralized access to investment portfolios, and other digital financial services. The latest data presented by Barkow Consulting on behalf of the European Central Bank (ECB) confirms this trend: in 2023 alone, German banks closed approximately 560 branches, a 2.8 percent reduction.

That may sound like a moderate consolidation—but in context, it’s part of a decades-long structural shift. Ten years ago, German banks operated more than 35,000 branches. A quarter-century ago, that number was closer to 60,000. Today, only 18,933 remain.

Deutsche Bank Leads the Way

In March, industry giant Deutsche Bank announced major job cuts during its annual press conference, citing the need to boost cost efficiency in light of ongoing sectoral changes. “We are witnessing a fundamental transformation in the German banking sector,” stated Deutsche Bank CEO Christian Sewing. His institution alone plans to eliminate roughly 2,000 jobs and close a “significant number” of branches this year.

Customer consultations, he explained, will increasingly take place via video and phone. This marks not only a cost-saving shift but also a paradigm change that threatens to erode the personal trust traditionally built in face-to-face banking relationships. The business becomes leaner and more efficient—but less personal, and perhaps less trustworthy.

Multifaceted Pressures

Commercial banks have for years operated in a complex web of pressures: technological change, the digitization of transaction processes, the rise of online banking, and above all, monetary policy. Margin pressure has forced cost-cutting across the board. One key reason for the shrinking sector is the ECB’s ultra-loose monetary policy. More than a decade of zero and negative interest rates has destroyed the traditional banking model of earning profits through interest spreads.

Savings banks, credit unions, and even large private banks found themselves unable to operate profitably under artificially distorted yield curves. Deposits no longer generated returns, while regulatory costs and penalty interest increased. The ECB’s monetary policy not only eroded customer savings but also deprived the banking sector of its essential function. The closure of branches, layoffs, and digital pivots are direct consequences of a policy that primarily served one goal: stabilizing the over-indebted public finances of much of the Eurozone.

Countries like Spain, Italy, and France, with debt-to-GDP ratios exceeding 120 percent, can no longer service their debts at market interest rates. The ECB’s continued intervention—through rate suppression and asset purchases—buys these governments time but shifts the burden onto private banks and savers.

Digital Euro and Stablecoins

Now, the next tidal wave is approaching. The rise of “stablecoins”—digital currencies pegged to fiat currencies like the U.S. dollar—heralds the next level of direct banking. Stablecoins offer fast, low-cost, round-the-clock global transactions without intermediaries like traditional banks.

As decentralized finance (DeFi) grows, traditional banks are losing their roles as payment processors and credit intermediaries. The more people embrace digital wallets and smart contracts, the less need there is for checking accounts, physical branches, or personal banking advice. Stablecoins accelerate the disconnection from traditional banking—a creeping loss of control for institutions built on an analog infrastructure ill-suited for the digital era.

The coup de grâce for bank branches may come with the introduction of the digital euro. This programmable currency, developed by the ECB on a blockchain platform, would likely turbocharge the adoption of digital wallets and decentralized financial services. The detour through commercial banks would become obsolete.

As the banking sector loses its role as intermediary, especially small-scale retail clients will be the first to switch from traditional checking accounts to central bank-backed alternatives. Branches—once pillars of customer loyalty and cash access—will become redundant. The digital euro acts as an accelerant for the already fragile infrastructure of retail banking.

We’ll have to get used to it: the local bank branch, once a staple of every high street, may soon be a relic of the past.

* * * 

Thomas Kolbe, born in 1978 in Neuss/ Germany, is a graduate economist. For over 25 years, he has worked 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.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/28/2025 – 07:00

Watch: Trump Does Victory Lap After Supreme Court Slaps Down Activist Judges In Birthright Citizenship, LGBTQ Schoolbook Cases

Watch: Trump Does Victory Lap After Supreme Court Slaps Down Activist Judges In Birthright Citizenship, LGBTQ Schoolbook Cases

Watch: 

*  *  *

Updated (1140ET): The hits keep on coming out of the Supreme Court, as a second Friday opinion just backed religious parents opposed to LGBTQ+ schoolbooks, also in a 6-3 vote along ideological lines…

The case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, challenged Montgomery County Public Schools’ refusal to notify parents or allow exemptions when LGBTQ+ content was included in early-grade curricula. The decision overturns lower court rulings and is expected to have significant implications for how public schools nationwide handle religious objections to inclusive educational materials.

The case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, raised the question of whether Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) infringed upon the parents’ right under the First Amendment to exercise their religion when it included storybooks with LGBTQ+ characters in its curriculum without allowing families to opt out based on religious beliefs. The high court’s opinion will directly impact MCPS policies and is likely to have far-reaching effects on public schools nationwide. –Bethesda Magazine 

Justice Alito wrote in the ruling: “Parents challenging the Board’s introduction of the “LGBTQ+-inclusive” storybooks, along with its decision to withhold opt outs, are entitled to a preliminary injunction...Without an injunction, the parents will continue to suffer an unconstitutional burden on their religious exercise, and such a burden unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury.” (via Curits Houck). 

Earlier, the Court blocked the ability for activist judges to unilaterally block a president’s executive orders – narrowing down injunctive relief to those who filed the lawsuit, not the entire nation. 

And of course, Trump is doing a victory lap…

Bad day so far for the left…

*  *  *

The Supreme Court on Friday allowed President Trump’s executive order restricting birthright citizenship to go into effect in some areas of the country – blocking judges’ ability to halt the president’s policies nationwide.

The order, signed Trump’s first day in office, curbs birthright citizenship for children born on US soil if they don’t have at least one parent with permanent legal status – which quickly became a legal question surrounding the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause. 

The 6-3 ruling along ideological lines found that three federal district judges went too far in issuing nationwide injunctions against Trump’s order. The decision hobbles a key tool used by venue-shopping Democrats and the activist judges that have been blocking Trump’s path since January – with every court having found the legality of Trump’s EO ‘likely’ unconstitutional. 

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was specifically called out for being retarded…

That said, it doesn’t definitively resolve whether Trump’s restrictions on birthright citizenship are constitutional – a question which could end up in front of the Supremes down the road. It does, howeever, narrow the lower court rulings to only block Trump’s order as applied to the 22 Democratic-led states, expectant mothers and immigration organizations that are suing. 

Furthermore, Justices Alito and Thomas note that the Supreme Court ‘completely punted on the issue of third-party class certifications, which will be the gimmick now used to get around the universal injunction ban,” according to The Federalist‘s Sean Davis.

The cases will now return to lower courts where they will play out as Trump’s order partially goes into effect. Once the appeals courts issue their final rulings, the parties could bring the case back to the SCOTUS. 

Read the ruling below:

 

Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/28/2025 – 06:30

Pulitzer Winning Washington Post Journalist Busted For Child Porn

Pulitzer Winning Washington Post Journalist Busted For Child Porn

A Pulitzer-Prize winning Washington Post journalist was arrested and charged with possession of child porn, DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro announced Friday. 

Photo: Facebook/Tom LeGro @tom.legro

Thomas Pham LeGro, 48, was arrested on Thursday after FBI agents discovered 11 videos of child sexual abuse material on his work laptop during a raid, Pirro’s office says, adding that they also found fractured pieces of a hard drive in his hallway, and seized several electronic devices.

After examining LeGro’s work laptop, the FBI says it found a “folder that contained 11 videos depicting child sexual abuse material.”

LeGro, a veteran journalist who worked at WaPo for 18 years, made his first appearance in District Court of Washington DC on Friday, and has a detention hearing scheduled for next Wednesday, the NY Post reports. He faces a maximum of 20 years in prison if convicted.

A heavily redacted FBI affidavit against LeGro claims the reporter was linked to multiple E-Gold accounts in 2005 and 2006.  

E-Gold was a digital payment service that ceased operations after the feds accused the company in 2007 of laundering money for child pornographers.

The affidavit notes that the FBI received court approval to monitor LeGro’s internet account in May. -NY Post

LeGro worked for the Post‘s sports department between 2000-2006, left to work as a reporter and producer for “PBS NewsHour”, and then returned to WaPo in 2013. At WaPo, he was part of a team of reporters who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2017 for coverage of former Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore – who was the victim of a disinformation campaign funded by LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman.

The Post was threatened by Moore with a lawsuit after the outlet claimed that he romantically pursued a 14-year-old girl when he was in his 30s – an allegation he vehemently denied. 

According to the NY Post, LeGro has been placed on leave. 

Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/28/2025 – 00:32

US Reluctant To Drop Its “Economic Bunker Buster” On China, India, & Russia

US Reluctant To Drop Its “Economic Bunker Buster” On China, India, & Russia

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

It’s unrealistic to expect the US to maintain 500% tariffs on China and India for their purchase of Russian oil, which would also ruin its trade talks with them and derail the Ukrainian peace process…

Senator Lindsey Graham recently said that his bill to impose 500% tariffs on every country that imports Russian resources is “an economic bunker buster against China, India, and Russia”, yet for all his tough talk, the US is still reluctant to drop it. The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump Administration is “quietly pressuring” the Senate to water down the legislation by “turn[ing] the word ‘shall’ into ‘may’ wherever it appears in the bill’s text, removing the mandatory nature of the prescribed reprimands”.

Their report was lent credence by Graham himself proposing an exemption for countries that aid Ukraine, thus averting an unprecedented US-EU trade war in the event that his bill passes into law. Trump’s remark to Politico in mid-June about how “sanctions cost us a lot of money” suggests that he’s not interested in going this route, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio later telling them that sanctions could derail the Ukrainian peace process, though he also didn’t rule them out in the future.

These are sensible explanations for the US’ reluctance to drop its “economic bunker buster” on Russia but they don’t account for its reluctance to drop it on China and India, which have served as invaluable valves for Russia from the West’s sanctions pressure due to their large-scale import of its oil. Graham expects that they’ll cut off their purchases if the US threatens them with 500% tariffs but they’re unlikely to comply since they know that the US would also harm its own economy through these means.

Not only that, but the trade deal that US and China recently agreed to would be jeopardized, as would the ongoing talks with India over a similar such agreement. Trump is pleased with both and doesn’t want to rock the boat right now. While he might revert back to his previous tariff pressure if things don’t go his way, he could just unilaterally impose more tariffs against either in that scenario, and they probably wouldn’t be anywhere near the counterproductive level that Graham’s legislation demands.

Seeing as how “The US Is Once Again Trying To Subordinate India”, which is part of his administration’s efforts to reshape South Asian geopolitics, he’s more prone to imposing higher tariffs against it instead of China but it’s premature to predict that he ultimately will. In any case, the pretext probably wouldn’t be energy-related given that he just surprisingly posted that “China can continue to purchase Oil from Iran” in spite of early February’s Executive Order that explicitly aims to “drive Iran’s export of oil to zero”.

It would therefore be utterly bizarre for Trump to impose tariffs of any level on India or whoever else for purchasing Russian resources when he now no longer cares about the US’ systemic rival China purchasing oil from none other than Iran, which he just bombed, in defiance of his own decree. The aforementioned calculations make it very unlikely that Trump will drop Graham’s “bunker buster” on either of those two. If his bill enters into law, a loophole would likely be found to avoid complying with it.

This prediction brings the analysis back around to the future of Graham’s “economic bunker buster”. Quite clearly, the Trump Administration doesn’t want him to move it through Congress so he might respect their wishes, thus leading to his bill becoming nothing but bluster. This is especially so if his team signals that it’s already found a loophole to get around it unless he changes the language as reportedly requested. China, India, and Russia therefore almost certainly have nothing to worry about.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/27/2025 – 23:25

These Are The World’s Best Restaurants

These Are The World’s Best Restaurants

This year’s edition of ‘The World’s 50 Best Restaurants‘ by publishing group William Reed Business Media was released on Thursday night. The ranking is one of the most highly anticipated events of the culinary calendar.

The so-called Oscars of gastronomy have named Maido in Lima, Peru as the top restaurant in the world. It combines Japanese techniques and Peruvian ingredients into Nikkei cuisine, in particular referencing ingredients and traditions from the Peruvian Amazon.

Maido is followed by Asador Etxebarri in Atxondo, in the Basque country (an autonomous region of Spain) and Quintonil in Mexico City. Four of the top ten restaurants this year were in Europe (two of which were in Spain, one in France and one in Denmark), Latin America also performed well with four, including the aforementioned Maido in Lima and Quintonil in Mexico City, as well as Kjolle in Lima and Don Julio in Buenos Aires, Argentina, placing in 9th and 10th rank, respectively. Asia’s top performer was Gaggan in rank 6, based in Bangkok.

Infographic: The World’s Best Restaurants in 2025 | Statista

You will find more infographics at Statista

The highest performing restaurant from the United States this year was Atomix in Manhattan’s Koreatown, which serves modern Korean dishes. It came in rank 12, following Wing in Hong Kong. Other U.S. restaurants that featured on the list of 100 included Single Thread in Healdsburg, California (rank 80), Le Bernardin (90) and César (98) in Manhattan and Atelier Crenn in San Francisco (96).

The World’s 50 Best Restaurants was first launched 23 years ago by the British magazine Restaurant Magazine as an alternative to the Michelin stars system.

The ranking has faced criticism over the years for elitism and for featuring mostly restaurants in Europe and a couple of metropolises around the world.

For example, according to Eater, an online specialist food magazine, “nearly all of the restaurants that have been ranked first are located in Europe; those that aren’t in Europe serve European-style tasting menus; and all of the restaurants except Central are helmed exclusively by men.”

It has sought to address these issues, announcing in 2019 that it would have a 50/50 gender balance on its voting academy and introducing a rule that no restaurant that has earned the top title will be eligible for voting again.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/27/2025 – 23:00

1900 Scientists Say ‘Climate Change Not Caused By CO2’ – The Real Environment Movement Was Hijacked

1900 Scientists Say ‘Climate Change Not Caused By CO2’ – The Real Environment Movement Was Hijacked

Authored by Mark Keenan via RealityBooks.com,

Millions of people worldwide are concerned about climate change and believe there is a climate emergency. For decades we have been told by the United Nations that Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from human activity are causing disastrous climate change. In 2018, a UN IPCC report even warned that ‘we have 12 years to save the Earth’, thus sending millions of people worldwide into a frenzy.

Thirty-five years ago, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the (World Meteorological Organization) WMO established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to provide scientific advice on the complex topic of climate change. The panel was asked to prepare, based on available scientific information, a report on all aspects relevant to climate change and its impacts and to formulate realistic response strategies. The first assessment report of the IPCC served as the basis for negotiating the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Governments worldwide have signed this convention, thereby, significantly impacting the lives of the people of the world.

However, many scientists dispute with the UN-promoted man-made climate change theory, and many people worldwide are confused by the subject, or are unaware of the full facts. Please allow me to provide some information you may not be aware of.

1. Very few people actually dig into the data, they simply accept the UN IPPC reports. Yet many highly respectable and distinguished scientists have done exactly that and found that the UN-promoted manmade climate change theory is seriously flawed. Are you aware that almost 2,000 of the world’s leading climate scientists and professionals in over 30 countries have signed a declaration that there is no climate emergency and have refuted the United Nations claims in relation to man-made climate change? See https://clintel.org/world-climate-declaration/

2. I have also signed this declaration. How can I make such an assertion? I have experience in the field as a former scientist at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, UK Government; and as former staff member at United Nations Environment, where I was responsible for servicing the Pollution Release and Transfer Register Protocol, a Multinational Environmental Agreement, involving the monitoring of pollutants to land, air, and water worldwide. Real pollution exists, but the problem is not CO2. Industrial globalisation has produced many substances that are registered as pollutants, including thousands of new man-made chemical compounds, toxins, nano-particles and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) that are in violation of the scientific pre-cautionary principle.

A book I published also provides ample evidence and testimony from renowned scientists that there is no ‘CO2-induced’ Climate emergency. The book titled ‘Climate CO2 Hoax – How Bankers Hijacked the Environment Movement’ is available on Amazon here

Purchase here

3. Next, I will mention the Irish Climate Science Forum (ICSF) website, a valuable resource founded by Jim O’Brien. I am grateful to the ICSF for their excellent work in highlighting the scientific flaws in the UN climate narrative. The ICSF provides a comprehensive lecture series from renowned international scientists providing much evidence, analysis, and data that contradicts the UN assertions. The lectures are available at: https://www.icsf.ie/lecture-series

The ICSF scientific view coincides with those of the Climate Intelligence (CLINTEL) foundation that operates in the fields of climate change and climate policy. CLINTEL was founded in 2019 by emeritus professor of geophysics Guus Berkhout and science journalist Marcel Crok. Based on this common conviction, 20 Irish scientists and several ICSF members have co-signed the CLINTEL World Climate Declaration “There is No Climate Emergency” (see https://clintel.org/ireland/).

4. The reality is that the climate has always been changing, the climate changes naturally and slowly in its own cycle, and CO2 emissions (and methane from livestock, such as cows) are not dominant factors in climate change. In essence, therefore, the incessant UN, government, and corporate-media-produced climate hysteria in relation to CO2 emissions (and also methane from cows) has no scientific basis. It appears to me the UN narrative is yet another example of fake science being used to drive an ulterior agenda, see also the book Godless Fake Science.

In truth I am against ‘real’ pollution, and the reality is that the CO2 component is not a pollutant. Unfortunately, many misinformed environmentalists are driving around in electric cars, the battery production for which has caused vast amounts of ‘real’ pollution via the industrial mining and processing of rare earth metals, and the consequent pollution to land, air and water systems. See also this article. Note that the UN does not focus on the thousands of real pollutants that corporate industrial globalisation creates.

5. The conclusions of the Climate Intelligence foundation include the following

There is no climate emergency. Therefore, there is no cause for panic and alarm.

Natural as well as anthropogenic factors cause warming: The geological archive reveals that Earth’s climate has varied as long as the planet has existed, with natural cold and warm phases. The Little Ice Age ended as recently as 1850. Therefore, it is no surprise that we now are experiencing a period of warming.

Warming is far slower than predicted: The world has warmed significantly less than predicted by IPCC on the basis of modeled anthropogenic forcing. The gap between the real world and the modeled world tells us that we are far from understanding climate change.

Climate policy relies on inadequate models: Climate models have many shortcomings and are not remotely plausible as global policy tools. They blow up the effect of greenhouse gases such as CO2. In addition, they ignore the fact that enriching the atmosphere with CO2 is beneficial.

CO2 is plant food, the basis of all life on Earth: CO2 is not a pollutant. It is essential to all life on Earth. Photosynthesis is a blessing. More CO2 is beneficial for nature, greening the Earth: additional CO2 in the air has promoted growth in global plant biomass. It is also good for agriculture, increasing the yields of crops worldwide.

Global warming has not increased natural disasters: There is no statistical evidence that global warming is intensifying hurricanes, floods, droughts and suchlike natural disasters, or making them more frequent.

It also appears to me that various catastrophes attributed to “CO2-induced climate change” are nothing of the sort. I note the following articles:

Carbon Is Not the Enemy. End Chemtrails!

Problem. Reaction. Solution. Wildfires About More than CO2 Induced Climate Change?

They’re burning from the inside out.” Robert Brame on the Unusual Properties of the Pacific Palisades Fires

6. In the above book I reference the relevant work and scientific presentations of some of the world’s leading climate scientists. Let us examine some of the work and testimonies of these scientists:

“deeply flawed logic, obscured by shrewd and unrelenting propaganda, actually enabled a coalition of powerful special interests to convince nearly everyone in the world that Co2 from human industry was a dangerous plant destroying toxin. It will be remembered as the greatest mass delusion in the history of the world – that Co2 the life of plants was considered for a time to be a deadly poison.” – Professor Richard Lindzen, Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Sciences at MIT.

Dr Nils-Axel Mörner was a former Committee Chairman at the UN International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He was an expert involved in reviewing the first IPPC documents. He says the UN IPPC is misleading humanity about climate change.  He tried to warn that the IPPC were publishing lies and false information that would inevitably be discredited. In an interview, he stated: “This is the most dangerous and frightening part of it. How a lobbyist group, such as the IPPC, has been able to fool the whole world. These organised and deceitful forces are dangerous” and expressed shock “that the UN and governments would parade children around the place at UN Climate summits as propaganda props”. He states:

“solar activity is the dominant factor in climate and not Co2… something is basically sick in the blame Co2 hypothesis…  It was launched more than 100 years ago and almost immediately excellent physicists demonstrated that the hypothesis did not work.

I was the chairman of the only international committee on sea levels changes and as such a person I was elected to be the expert reviewer on the (UN IPPC) sea levels chapter. It was written by 38 persons and not a single one was a sea level specialist… I was shocked by the low quality it was like a student paper… I went through it and showed them that it was wrong and wrong and wrong…The scientific truth is on the side of the sceptics… I have thousands of high ranked scientists all over the world who agree that NO, CO2 is not the driving mechanism and that everything is exaggerated.

In the field of physics 80 to 90% of physicists know that the Co2 hypothesis is wrong… Of course, metrologists they believe in this because that is their own profession – they live on it.… I suspect that behind-the-scenes promoters… have an ulterior motive… It’s a wonderful way of controlling taxation controlling people” – Dr Nils-Axel Mörner, a former Committee Chairman at the UN IPPC, and former head of the Paleo Geo-physics and Geo-dynamics department in Stockholm

Another climate scientist with impeccable credentials that has broken rank is Dr Mototaka Nakamura. He asserts:  “Our models are mickey-mouse mockeries of the real world”. Dr Nakamura received a Doctorate of Science from MIT, and for nearly 25 years specialized in abnormal weather and climate change at prestigious institutions that included MIT, Georgia Institute of Technology, NASA, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, JAMSTEC and Duke University. Dr Nakamura explains why the data foundation underpinning global warming science is “untrustworthy” and cannot be relied on and that: “Global mean temperatures before 1980 are based on untrustworthy data”.

Professor John R. Christy, Director of Atmospheric and Earth Sciences, University of Alabama, has provided detailed analysis of climate data. I summarise the main points from his analysis below:

“The established global warming theory significantly misrepresents the impact of extra greenhouse gases; the weather that affects people the most is not becoming more extreme or more dangerous; temperatures were higher in the 1930s than today; between 1895 and 2015, 14 of the top 15 years with the highest heat records occurred before 1960; the temperatures we are experiencing now in 2021 were the same as 120 years ago…

the number of major tornadoes between 1954 and 1986 averaged 56/year, but between 1987 and 2020 the average was only 34/year; between 1895 and 2015 on average there has been no change in the number of very wet days per month, and no change in the number of very dry days per month, and the 20 driest months were before 1988. Between 1950 and 2019 the percentage of land area experiencing droughts has not increased globally – the trend is flat; the incidence of wildfires in North America between 1600 and 2000 has decreased substantially. Sea levels rose 12.5 cm per decade for 8,000 years and then it levelled off, now it rising only 2.5 cm per decade… worrying about 30 cm rise in sea level in a decade is ridiculous, in a hurricane the east coast of the U.S. gets a 20 foot rise in 6 hours, so a 30 cm rise will be easily handled!”

In a lecture titled The imaginary climate crisis – how can we change the message? Available on the Irish Climate Science Forum website, see Endnote [ii]. Richard L Lindzen, Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Sciences at MIT summarises the battle against the climate hysteria as follows:

“in the long history of the earth there has been almost no correlation between climate and co2… the paleoclimate record shows unambiguously that Co2 is not a control knob… the narrative is absurd…  it gives governments the power to control the energy sector… for about 33 years, many of us have been battling against the climate hysteria… There were more important leading people who were objecting to it, they were unfortunately older and by now most of them dead…

Elites are always searching for ways to advertise their virtue and assert their authority. They believe they are entitled to view science as a source of authority rather than a process, and they try to appropriate science, suitably and incorrectly simplified, as the basis for their movement.”

“CO2…  it’s not a pollutant… it’s the product of all plant respiration, it is essential for plant life and photosynthesis…  if you ever wanted a leverage point to control everything from exhalation to driving, this would be a dream. So it has a kind of fundamental attractiveness to bureaucratic mentality.” – Prof. Richard Lindzen, Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Sciences at MIT

Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, and President of Greenpeace in Canada for seven years, states:

“the whole climate crisis is not only fake news its fake science… of course climate change is real it’s been happening since the beginning of time, but it’s not dangerous and it’s not caused by people… climate change is a perfectly natural phenomenon and this modern warming period actually began about 300 years ago when the little ice age began to come to an end. There is nothing to be afraid of and all they are doing is instilling fear. Most of the scientists who are saying it’s a crisis are on perpetual government grants.

I was one of the (Greenpeace) founders… by the mid-80s… we were hijacked by the extreme left who basically took Greenpeace from a science-based organisation to an organisation based on sensationalism, misinformation and fear… you don’t have a plan to feed 8 billion people without fossils fuels or get the food into the cities…” – Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace

Professor William Happer, Princeton University, Former Director of Science at the US Department of Energy, is also a strong voice against the myth of man-made global warming. He states: “More CO2 benefits the Earth”.

7. The UN IPCC cherry picks data, uses flawed modelling and scenarios not remotely related to the real world

The UN climate crisis predictions are not based on physical evidence, rather they are based on complex computer modelling. One has to decode and analyse the modelling process to ascertain whether or not the models are valid and accurate or whether they have obvious flaws. The vast majority of scientists, economists, politicians and the general public have simply assumed that the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) models are accurate. Very few people have the time or skills to analyse these models, not to mention actually dispute them. Nonetheless, there were many senior and highly distinguished scientists that did exactly that – they claimed the UN narrative was incorrect and that there was no climate emergency. Their voices have been drowned out by a vast money-driven political and media establishment of the globalised ‘system’. The vitally important work of some of these renowned scientists is referenced in the above book.

“The computer models are making systematic dramatic errors… they are all parametrised… fudged…  the models really don’t work” – Patrick J. Michaels, Director, Cato Institute Center for the Study of Science

Dr Roger Pielke Jr, University of Colorado, has conducted a detailed scientific review and analysis of the UN IPCC AR6 report, see Endnote [iii].  He describes that in relation to climate modelling, the IPCC detached the models from socio-economic plausibility. In creating the models, instead of first completing integrative assessment models (IAMs), the IPCC skipped this essential step and jumped straight to radiative forcing scenarios and thus these scenarios are not based on competed IAMs. This led much of climate modelling down the wrong track. I quote points from Dr Pielke’s analysis as follows:

“The four IPCC scenarios came from a large family of models so instead of splitting modelling from socio-economic assumptions the models already had the assumptions faked and baked in to them, because they had to have those assumptions to produce the required radiative forcing (to produce a desired climate ‘crisis scenario’ outcome).

In another fateful decision the 4 representative concentration pathways (RCPs) came from 4 different IAMs, which was a huge mistake.  These models are completely unrelated to each other, but the impression has been given that they are of a common set, only differing in their radiative forcing, this was a huge mistake. Furthermore, no-one has responsibility for determining whether these scenarios are plausible. The climate community decided which scenario to prioritise and they chose the two most implausible scenarios! There are thousands of climate assumptions, but only 8 to 12 of them are available currently for climate research. The IPCC report even states that “no likelihood is attached to the scenarios in this report”. The likelihood is considered low they admit – This is an incredible admission by the IPCC.

These extreme unlikely scenarios dominate the literature and the IPCC report; therefore, the IPCC report is biased. Bottom line is that there is massive confusion. The IPCCs’ Richard Moss warned that RCP 8.5 was not to be used as a reference for the other RCPs, but 5,800 scientific papers worldwide misuse it like that… The whole process is seriously flawed… Nothing close to the real world is represented by the IPCC scenarios. Climate science has a huge problem! The IPCC currently uses RCP 8.5 as the ‘business as usual’ scenario, but RCP 8.5 is wild fantasy land and not remotely related to current reality at all… climate science has a scientific integrity crisis.” – Dr Roger Pielke Jr, University of Colorado

8. Financialization of the entire world economy is now based on a life-killing ‘net-zero’ greenhouse gas emissions strategy.

The UN Agenda 2030 plan and the Paris Agreement goal to reduce CO2 emissions by 7% per annum until 2030 is in effect a plan that would seemingly disable the current fossil-fuel-based mechanisms of the industrial economy for the food, energy and goods that enable human life and survival. Yet the narrative is quite hypocritical as the production of green energy infrastructure, and mining of rare earth metals for batteries for electric vehicles, is, and will most likely continue to be, very fossil-fuel intensive. Globalisation resulted in much of humanity becoming largely dependent on the trans-national industrial economy rather than on traditional more self-sufficient local/regional economies. Therefore, one has to ask where is this all going to lead if the plug is truly pulled on fossil fuels? Almost all of us are seemingly locked into, and have become dependent upon, the current economic paradigm of globalisation. A system rigged by debt-money created from nothing; created and controlled by private mega-banks and behind the scenes money-masters; and which can induce boom, bust, bailout scenarios that detrimentally effect the populace.

It should be noted that for decades, these same political, government, and corporate powers have rampantly promoted corporate economic globalization and fossil fuel dependency. Whilst, at the same time actively hindering the funding, creation, or government support of, more self-sufficient local communities/regions, and local co-operatives. Most of the world population thus became reliant on the globalized fossil-fuel driven system. I explore this topic in the books Demonic Economics and the Tricks of the Bankers and Transcending the Climate Change Deception Toward Real Sustainability

Purchase here

Zero carbon emissions, in essence, means pulling the plug on current systems of industrial agriculture, transport, goods production, electricity production, etc. This could have terrible consequences, particularly in locations and countries, that are currently unable to produce much food. In Ireland, the deluded greens in government had planned to close the coal-fired power station Moneypoint, in the name of reducing CO2 emissions. However, as the price of electricity increased and the dawn of so-called ‘green energy’ began to evaporate like the Irish morning mist, the government scrapped this plan in 2022, instead deciding to convert the station to an oil-burning facility. The Irish Times newspaper reported:

“With growing concerns over security of the energy supply in the State, the Government is not in a position to decommission Moneypoint as a fuel-burning station in the near future. It was confirmed by the Irish Government in 2022 that Moneypoint will convert to oil generation from 2023.” 

The so-called ‘green economy’ (for it is not environmentally friendly in reality) and UN Agenda 2030 are resulting in increased energy poverty and decreased energy independence for the masses, while also developing trillions of dollars for the behind-the-scenes mega-banks. “Stop burning coal and wood logs that causes climate change don’t ya know” my deluded neighbour informed me last year, having threw out her wood burning stove and installed solar panels. Then a typical winter storm in Ireland last month left many thousands of people without electricity or heating for almost a week, shivering and wishing for a wood burning stove, while their solar panels produced little electricity in winter.

9. Central bankers are entirely funding / controlling the advancement of the worldwide climate change ‘project’

The decision to drastically reduce CO2, one of the most essential compounds to sustain all life, is no co-incidence. It should be noted that it is the world’s central bankers that are behind this decision and are entirely funding and controlling the advancement of the worldwide project of ‘combatting man-made climate-change’.

This project involves an attempt to de-carbonise the activities of the entire world population. In December 2015, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) created the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure (TCFD), which represents $118 trillion of assets globally. In essence this means that the financialization of the entire world economy is based on meeting nonsensical aims such as “net-zero greenhouse gas emissions”. The TCFD includes key people from the world’s mega-banks and asset management companies, including JP Morgan Chase; BlackRock; Barclays Bank; HSBC; China’s ICBC bank; Tata Steel, ENI oil, Dow Chemical, and more.

The fact that the world’s largest banks and asset management corporations, including BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, the UN, the World Bank, the Bank of England and other central banks of the BIS, have all linked to push a vague, mathematically nonsensical ‘green’ economy, is no coincidence. There is another agenda at play that has nothing to do with environmentalism. When the world largest banks, corporations, and institutions, all align to push a climate change agenda that has zero evidence, one can see there is another major agenda going on behind the scenes. This agenda tries to convince the common people of the world to make huge sacrifices under the emotive guise of “saving our planet.”. While all the time the corporations and banks make vast profits, and political institutions implement worldwide technocratic control systems under the banner of combatting, and adapting to, so-called man-made climate change.

“The links between the world’s largest financial groups, central banks and global corporations to the current push for a radical climate strategy to abandon the fossil fuel economy in favor of a vague, unexplained Green economy, it seems, is less about genuine concern to make our planet a clean and healthy environment to live. Rather it is an agenda, intimately tied to the UN Agenda 2030 for “sustainable” economy, and to developing literally trillions of dollars in new wealth for the global banks and financial giants who constitute the real powers that be… “ – F. William Engdahl, strategic risk consultant and lecturer

Back in 2010, the head of Working Group 3 of the UN IPCC, Dr Otmar Edenhofer, told an interviewer, “…one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore.”

To better perceive what is ‘behind the curtain’ of the climate hoax and the UN/WEF agenda it also helps to examine what has happened in the decades beforehand. It is important to perceive the implications of the worldwide fractional-reserve debt-money banking scam and the subtle system of debt-slavery that has existed for decades.  If you look at the World Bank website you will see that virtually every nation on Earth is in vast debt. In debt to who you may ask? The answer is to privately owned mega-banks. See also the book Demonic Economics and the Tricks of the Bankers.

Purchase here

For many decades the so-called banking and corporate elites have had full control of the source of money creation and its allocation, via the debt-money system, and have therefore, by default, been able to fund, and increasingly control and manipulate the entire world spectrum of industry, media, government, education, ideological supremacy and war to their own design, agenda and benefit. Mayer Amschel Rothschild (banker) is widely reported to have said:

 “Give me control of a nation’s money supply and I care not who makes its laws.”

10. Central bankers hijacked the real environmental movement in 1992 creating the fake climate change agenda

Psychopaths can utilise any ideology and, change it from within to something that may eventually be entirely different to its original purpose.  Meanwhile, the original followers and advocates continue to pursue what they believe is the original ideology, but gradually become mere pawns in the agenda of a self-serving elite. Unfortunately, over the past decades, this is exactly what has happened in the environmental movement.

Whistleblower George Hunt served as an official host at a key environmental meeting in Denver, Colorado in 1987, and states that David Rockefeller; Baron Edmund De Rothschild; US Secretary of State Baker; Maurice Strong, a UN official and an employee of the Rockefeller and Rothschild trusts; EPA administrator William Ruccleshaus; UN Secretary General in Geneva MacNeill, along with World Bank and IMF officials were at this meeting. Hunt was surprised to see all these rich elite bankers at the meeting and questioned what they were doing there at an environmental congress.

In a video recording available here Hunt later provided important evidence from the documents of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 3-14 June 1992. This conference was the well-known UN ’92 Earth Summit and was run by UNCED. According to Hunt, via the Earth summit, the UN was setting a net, an agenda, to place the power over the Earth and its peoples into their own hands. The world private banking cartel are the same ultra-rich banking families that had been instrumental in the setting up of the World Bank, the UN, and other international institutions, after WW2. Their political cohorts included Stalin (the leader of a brutal communist regime in the USSR that committed genocide of millions of people), UK Prime minister Churchill, and US President Roosevelt. Hunt refers to these banking families and their financial and international institutional networks as:

“The same world order that tricked third world countries to borrow funds and rack up enormous debts… and purposely creating war and debt to bring societies into their control. The world order crowd are not a nice group of people…”– George Hunt, Whistleblower speaking about the UN Earth summit of 1992

As a consequence of the UN Earth Summit, it appears the genuine environment movement that actually cared about real pollution to land, air and water, was politically hi-jacked by powerful political and financial interests with a different agenda. Maurice Strong, a UN official and an employee of the Rockefeller and Rothschild trusts, had convened the first UNCED congress in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1972. Then, 20 years later he was the convenor and secretary general of UNCED. Hunt also provided video evidence from the Fourth UNCED World Congress meeting in 1987 of an international investment banker, stating that:

“I suggest therefore that this be sold not through a democratic process that would take too long and require far too much funds to educate the cannon-fodder, unfortunately, which populates the Earth. We have to take almost an elitist program…”

Thus, the decrees leading to the 1992 UN Earth summit were dictated without debate or opportunity for dissent and would supersede national laws. According to Hunt, the decrees were dictated into existence by the banker Edmund de Rothschild, who got these major decrees into the ’92 UN resolutions without debate or challenge. Hunt asserts that he was denied the opportunity to openly challenge Rothschild’s remarks by the meeting Chairman; and that the Rothschild bank of Geneva is the nucleus of the World Conservation bank and the wealthy elite are integrated into the bank via the Rothschilds private offering of shares.

11. Despite the deceptive and fake environmental facade, it has adopted, the vast institutional entity of the UN has fully endorsed environmentally destructive industrial globalisation for the past 70 years.

The UN climate change, sustainable development and green economy policies over the past 30 years are little more than worldwide marketing tricks that have tragically brainwashed two generations of young people who do not understand what the UN actually is, and who is it is really designed to serve.

This current globalised system involves the promotion of beliefs and fake science that claim to be unchallengeable truths, but are, in fact, ideologies in which evidence is manipulated, twisted, and distorted to prove the ‘governing idea’, and thus promote its worldwide dissemination. They start with the conclusion they want and then wrench and manipulate what scant evidence they can to fit that conclusion. Man-made climate change due to anthropogenic carbon emission is a major example of this.

Institutions, including the UN, the World Economic Forum (WEF), and the World Health Organisation (WHO), are privately-motivated unelected unaccountable organisations controlled by the source of debt-money creation, i.e., the world private-banking cartel; and are just clever marketing tools and political mechanisms for implementing and maintaining a corrupt worldwide system, under the clever guise of ‘fixing the problems of the world’

These powerful special interests have been promoting certain ‘ideologies’ for decades to advance their corporate and political aims. The word “sustainable” was hijacked decades ago, and it is now deceptively used to advance the agendas of globalist mega-corporate interests who couldn’t care less about the environment. The aim is to catapult humanity into the arms of UN Agenda 2030 and the WEF ‘reset’ plan, which are clever marketing plans entirely designed by the so-called elite mega-corporate interests of the WEF Davos group.

12. Furthermore, the current green energy/renewable technologies being promoted by the UN and WEF, are not a viable solution for the world’s energy supply. Although these technologies have some limited viability in certain locations and scenarios, the fact remains that the Energy Returned on Energy Invested is much too low – in essence the entire process is mathematically flawed. This is evidenced by the work of scientists, including Professor David MacKay (1967 – 2016), former Regius Professor of Engineering at Cambridge University, and former Chief Scientific Advisor at the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change.

Summary

In summary, CO2 reduction is the main focus of the UN-promoted climate-change-hysteria that has been rampant among the world’s population. However, the proclaimed climate crisis exists in computer models only.  The cult of ‘manmade climate change’ is a media and UN politically-promoted ‘ideology’, that is used for a wider political and corporate agenda. Manmade climate change is not based in fact, and has hijacked real environmental concerns.

Due to incessant UN, government, and corporate-promoted climate change propaganda, many people are, thus, in a media-induced state of confusion, and, thus, blindly assume their pre-determined role in society under this ‘dictatorship of words’ without even being aware of it. The unpalatable reality is that people’s access to energy and resources is being intentionally reduced via bogus climate change policies, inflation, ongoing geo-political theatre and intentionally instigated war.

We cannot understand how to create a truly resilient society unless we correctly perceive the current society we live in and how it came to exist. Unless we recognize the untruths of the current paradigm, even if it is not ‘politically correct’ to do so, then we will not be able to make the correct adjustments to our communities and local/regional networks, or create a truly resilient thriving society. In this spirit of truth, new networks are emerging worldwide.      

Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/27/2025 – 22:35

Prediction Consensus: 2025 Midyear Update

Prediction Consensus: 2025 Midyear Update

Each year, our editorial team at Visual Capitalist sifts through hundreds of reports and articles to put together our Prediction Consensus, an aggregation of everything that experts predict for the year ahead.

Almost halfway through 2025 now, it’s time to see how these predictions are holding up. From Trump’s friendships and feuds to geopolitical uncertainty and market volatility, many expert predictions have already come true.

Along with the update of our Prediction Consensus bingo card above, this article dives into the most notable developments with visuals breaking them down.

Presidential Predictions and D.O.G.E. Cuts

While Trump has been fairly unpredictable during the first six months of his presidential term, many experts read him right when it came to his relationship with Elon Musk and Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell.

Even without any significant economic problems in the U.S., the president has been relentless in his demands for Powell to cut rates, already giving him the nickname of “Too Late” Jerome Powell.

Rather than blaming Powell for an economic downturn which hasn’t manifested yet, the focus has been on the interest payments of U.S. short-term debt, which would indeed fall if rates were cut.

These cuts are even more needed for the budget considering D.O.G.E.’s inability to cut spending, along with the lack of spending restraint in Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill”, which is estimated to add $2.4 trillion to the federal deficit between 2025 and 2034.

Looking at Elon Musk’s goals for D.O.G.E.’s spending cuts, we can see just how little the organization managed to cut in comparison to the projected 2025 fiscal year spending of $7 trillion.

D.O.G.E.’s inability to make headway in cutting spending, along with Tesla suffering from Musk’s political involvement, led to Musk departing from the administration on May 30th.

Just a few days later, Musk posted on X his dissatisfaction with Trump’s bill, calling it a “disgusting abomination”, and following up with posts alleging Trump’s involvement with Jeffrey Epstein. Trump’s retaliation came in the form of threats of revoking federal contracts and calling Musk mentally unstable.

However, by the following week, Musk had apologized and expressed regret for his statements, with Trump ultimately saying he had “no hard feelings” about the matter.

Europe Shines Brighter Than the “Not so Magnificent Seven”

When it comes to the markets, while experts predicted European equities’ returns to improve, they probably didn’t expect to see them outperform quite this much as quickly as they did.

In the first two months of 2025 alone, Germany’s DAX 40 index rose 13.2%, Italy’s Milano Italia Borsa by 12.5%, and the UK’s FTSE 100 by 7.8%.

Europe’s equity indices have been among the best performing of 2025 so far, greatly outpacing both U.S. large cap and small cap indices.

Amidst U.S. equity underperformance has been the mixed returns of the Magnificent Seven stocks, with significant divergences across the seven tech companies.

Apple and Tesla have suffered the most in 2025 so far. Musk’s political involvement has only hurt Tesla’s brand with non-Republicans and those outside of America, meanwhile, tariffs along with a late and poorly executed AI rollout have dragged on Apple’s returns.

For Alphabet, Google’s large capital expenditures on AI infrastructure are being seen as a drag on free cash flow which may not pay off. This hit to margins is coupled with revenue concerns from declining search usage due to ChatGPT’s rising popularity and the lack of a clear monetization plan for Gemini and Google’s other AI features.

If we look at Nvidia’s yearly returns since 2019 in the chart below, we can see that keeping up with the stellar triple-digit returns of 2023 and 2024 was a near impossible task for 2025.

While Nvidia’s growth has normalized from the breakneck pace of prior years, the company retains dominant market share when it comes to chip design. Along with this, the emergence of AI reasoning models and the development of agents have only increased the forecasts of token throughput and compute required.

This article is an excerpt from the latest VC+ Special Dispatch. Join VC+ to access the full version, packed with more expert predictions and exclusive visuals. And for a limited time, get VC+ for life with a one-time payment. Hurry—offer ends in a few days.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/27/2025 – 22:10