Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

Two US Navy ships transited the Taiwan Strait this week, marking the first US naval passage through the sensitive waterway under the new Trump administration, which drew a rebuke from China.

US Indo-Pacific Command said the guided-missile destroyer USS Ralph Johnson and the survey ship USNS Bowditch carried out the transit from February 10 to February 12.

While the presence of US warships in the Taiwan Strait is extremely provocative from the viewpoint of Beijing, the US always frames the transits as “routine.”

China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) said it monitored the US warships as they sailed through the Strait. “The US action sends the wrong signals and increases security risks,” the PLA’s Eastern Theater Command said.

“Troops in the theater are on high alert at all times and are resolute in defending national sovereignty and security as well as regional peace and stability,” the Chinese command added.

Justifying the transit, a spokesman for US INDOPACOM said it “occurred through a corridor in the Taiwan Strait that is beyond any coastal state’s territorial seas.”

The new Trump administration is stacked with China hawks and is expected to continue the Biden administration’s policies of building up the US military footprint in the Asia Pacific.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday that one reason why the US wants to wind down its support for the Ukraine proxy war is so more focus can be put on China, which he claimed posed a threat to the US “homeland.”

“The United States faces consequential threats to our homeland. We must, and we are focusing on the security of our own borders. We also face a peer competitor in the Communist Chinese with the capability and intent to threaten our homeland,” he had said.

Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times,

Elon Musk is partnering with the Dubai government to develop the “Dubai Loop,” an underground high-speed transportation system aimed at connecting the city’s most densely populated areas and reducing congestion.

Omar Sultan al Olama, the United Arab Emirates’s minister of state for artificial intelligence, digital economy, and remote work applications, announced the collaboration during the World Governments Summit in Dubai on Feb. 12.

Al Olama said the project will cover Dubai’s busiest areas and allow people to go from point to point seamlessly.

The Boring Company, owned by Elon Musk and headquartered in Bastrop, Texas, has created a similar underground transportation system called the Vegas Loop in Nevada, which serves the Las Vegas Convention Center.

It took two years to build and has been operational since 2021.

Musk, the world’s richest man, appeared at the Dubai summit via video link and explained that the new transportation system in the UAE would work like a “wormhole.”

“It’s going to be like a wormhole–you just wormhole from one part of the city—boom—and you’re out in another part of the city,” the Tesla and SpaceX CEO said.

“I think once people try it out, they’ll be like, ‘This is really cool.’ And it’s going to seem so obvious in retrospect, but until you actually do it, you don’t know.”

Details regarding the deal—such as how much it will cost to build or when development might begin—were sparse, but Musk said he was “looking forward” to working with the Dubai government.

Musk’s existing Vegas Loop uses Tesla Model 3 cars to shuttle passengers to four stations between the center complex and other transportation connections in the city.

The eventual plan is for the Vegas Loop to expand to 68 miles of tunnel featuring 104 stations, transporting more than 90,000 passengers per hour, according to The Boring Company’s official website.

While speaking via video at the summit in Dubai, Musk addressed safety concerns regarding the underground tunnels, telling the audience the transportation system would be safe even in the event of earthquakes or extreme weather.

“One of the safest places to be in an earthquake is an underground tunnel,” the tech mogul said. 

“Earthquakes are largely a surface phenomenon—so they’re like the waves of a surface [of an ocean]. Being in a tunnel, it’s like being in a submarine, even if there’s a storm above you, the waters are calm as a submarine.”

Musk also joked that the underground tunnels would be safe during global thermonuclear warfare.

“Of course, if there is global thermonuclear warfare, I think you’d really want some tunnels. Underground’s a good place to be in a worst-case scenario for global thermonuclear warfare,” the businessman said.

On a more everyday note, however, building such infrastructure underground is incredibly useful for alleviating traffic and congestion in cities, which is becoming a growing problem, Musk stated.

Former State Department official-turned-truthsayer Mike Benz sat down with Joe Rogan for three hours this week, where the two went down the USAID rabbit hole.

To review – over the past several weeks, Elon Musk’s team at DOGE have descended on several key levers of power within the US government – including the US Treasury, the Office of Personnel Management, and of course, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) – which was quickly revealed as a rogue, unaccountable ‘blob’ that used its vast funds not only to spread propaganda worldwide, it paid news organizations and ‘disinformation’ researchers to collude against outlets such as ZeroHedge, The Federalist, and others in order to strip us of ad revenues and damage our reputation. (Fortunately your subscriptions, and generous support of our new store, are keeping the lights on).

Rogan and Benz

“It must have been very exciting to have the vault opened and to get a peek into the machine, because you’ve been describing this,” Rogan told Benz – who’s spent the last several years dispensing redpills. “The last time you were on the podcast, you went into depth about usaid, and it’s very curious why they chose USAID as the first organization for DOGE to investigate.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, the joke that I tell here is, it’s like what they tell you to do your first day of prison is you go in, you walk up to the meanest, baddest SOB and you punch them right in the mouth. I mean, that’s basically what’s happened here with the White House’s first target being USAID,” Benz replied.

Benz then went into how USAID funded NGOs, along with the deep state’s global propaganda news complex via ‘Internews.’

If you have 13 minutes – watch this:

Joe Rogan and Mike Benz expose how USAID-funded NGOs—Internews, CEPPS, and EcoHealth Alliance—financed the Wuhan lab, a global propaganda network, and the online censorship of American citizens.

“You sponsored your own state censorship.”@joerogan@MikeBenzCyber pic.twitter.com/BGx6fqVKei

— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 12, 2025

How USAID Targets US Independent Media

Benz explained how USAID leaned on advertisers to boycott independent media outlets.

Benz: “For example, we just played internews and the internews CEO campaigning to governments and corporations and private sector civil society organizations around the world that they need to economically Blacklist news sites that operate on social media and those are U.S. news sites. This is the basis of lawsuits here in the US like Daily Wire and the Federalist suing the State Department. Because U.S. news sites are in these advertiser blacklists. And to that end, I want to note two things. First, if you go to my X feed and you type in the word advertiser or advertisers and if you need to, you can plug in the word USAID or CEPS in this.

And I want to show you that this is not internews gone wrong. This is not a half a billion dollar year grantee of USAID going rogue and being ideological about this. This is top down US government policy from the White House.“

…

“SEPS is a program that is basically a joint baby of USAID and the State Department and is implemented by USAID’s key operational arm, the National Endowment for Democracy. But this is a USAID program on countering disinformation. Internet censorship is what they do and we went over last time, remember we played that two minute video where they were openly saying that the plan is to get foreign governments to pass legal reform, pass laws and regulations to stop the spread of misinformation on US social media websites.”

Benz discussed how USAID has been used in the past to interfere in domestic politics – similar to how the CIA once targeted anti-Vietnam war activists in the 1960s and 1970s.

“This happened against the left, against the Democrats in the 1960s and 70s when the CIA and its sister orgs like USAID were pumping money into domestic politics to stop the anti-Vietnam War movement,” said Benz.

More on how USAID has been influencing international politics.

WOW. Mike Benz on Rogan lays out the entire USAID template that was used not just in Poland but here in the U.S.
When Poland elected a populist President that was not “Friendly to their influence”, NED began pressure to call for jailing of their political enemies AND to NOT… pic.twitter.com/SEVfaWdJlu

— Johnny St.Pete (@JohnMcCloy) February 13, 2025

Benz goes on to describe how every major institution in America, from media to universities, unions, NGOs, and even conceptions of public health, are instrumentalized by this system.

“What people are going to see on this is going to completely reorient their mental map of how they think the world works, how they think American power projects into the institutions.”

How Did We Get Here?

Benz delved into the history of how the government ‘breached the social contract’ with Americans.

Benz: You know, it was really set up in 1948 when George Kennan created this NSC 10 2, this National Security Council. We completely reoriented the structure of the American Empire in 1948, after World War II. In 1947 we passed something called the National Security Act. That’s what established the CIA. That’s what established the National Security Council, which coordinates all of our foreign, foreign facing empire management work. It renamed the Department of War to the Department of Defense so that it didn’t look like we were acquiring territory by military force which had just been banned under international law under the UN Declaration of Human Rights. So we moved from primarily kinetic warfare into what George Kennan called just two months before he created the plausible deniability doctrine that we live under. He called this organized political warfare.

…

So in 1948, when we established the secrecy doctrine, doctrine that we now live under, and all these NGOs work under this cover effectively because of their sponsoring organizations, USAID or CIA or State.

Turned On Our Own People

Benz then goes into a group called the OCCRP (Corruption Reporting Project).

Benz: “This is a group that half of its funding comes from USAID and the US State Department. OCCRP has to the USAID and the State Department have a veto right over the staff that it can hire. This is the largest consortium of investigative journalists on planet Earth. This is the group that broke the Panama Papers. They got all these hacked documents. They got special access to it. I don’t have any facts on this. I’m simply noting that it’s an oddity that a group funded by a major CIA funding conduit, usaid, while the CIA has the ability to hack any target around the world that’s authorized by the National Security Council, they’re getting these special access documents that are reportedly either hacked or leaked and they’re being sponsored by the group that’s connected to something with a hacking power.”

…

They’ve been around for almost 20 years. And they were sponsored in order to do. They do investigative hit piece journalism about corruption. And what they do is they go after all of the State Department and USAID and DOD’s opponents in the region.

Ukraine

Benz and Rogan then segued into the topic of Ukraine, where then-Vice President Joe Biden bragged to the Council on Foreign Relations about forcing them to fire prosecutor Victor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma.

Benz: “So Viktor Shokin was investigating Burisma. Joe Biden personally weaponized USAID in order to force a foreign country’s prosecutor to be fired in order to get that billion…”

Rogan: “Can I stop you for a second? What was the investigation of Burisma? What did it entail?”

Benz: “I believe it was a similar corruption probe that there was misuse of funding. Other stuff is. Is well documented in Miranda Devine’s book, the Big Guy. But if you. So if you open those four screenshots, I don’t know if you’re able to center it or zoom out a little bit … Remember when Hunter Biden’s permanent blanket pardon goes back to, it goes back to 2014. And so this directs USAID to guarantee loans. So it’s loan guarantees for every phase of development of oil and gas in Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. Now if you go to go to the next screenshot in this, this is from. This is a, you know, a foiaed or legally obtained internal document at the State Department which says despite his ruined name in Ukraine, Zlocheski is actively campaigning for. He’s been sending letters to Ambassadors Yannick, Yovanovitch and Pyatt. They note that Hunter Biden and Devon Archer are on the board. And they say even internally at State, USAID does have cooperation with Burisma. Says pre existing small scale, preexisting cooperations. They’re formally cooperating with Burisma in the region. They’re noting that. And then if you go to the next screenshot now this again is State Department email traffic that’s been unearthed. Okay, so they’re talking about doing co branding with USAID and Burisma and the public private partnership around USAID and Burisma, but then noting, quote, the very sticky wicket of the Hunter Biden connection on Burisma’s board.”

Watch the entire interview here.

*  *  *

Thank you to everyone who has subscribed or bought something from the ZeroHedge Store (our waxed canvas hats have been flying off the shelf!). With ad revenues in the toilet, we we couldn’t do it without you. 

As reported last night, Trump has officially signed an action on reciprocal tariffs, targeting all countries around the globe that have higher tariffs than the US. It appears that Trump has picked reciprocal in place of a inform tariff on all exports. That’s just the start however: what is more important is that as we cautioned earlier, the US also appears set to retaliate against Europe’s VAT buffer which could very well cripple the continent’s exporters. Trump ordered his secretary of commerce Howard Lutnick to prepare the tariffs for implementation by April 1.

This is what Trump published on his Truth Social account:

On Trade, I have decided, for purposes of Fairness, that I will charge a RECIPROCAL Tariff meaning, whatever Countries charge the United States of America, we will charge them – No more, no less!

For purposes of this United States Policy, we will consider Countries that use the VAT System, which is far more punitive than a Tariff, to be similar to that of a Tariff. Sending merchandise, product, or anything by any other name through another Country, for purposes of unfairly harming America, will not be accepted. In addition, we will make provision for subsidies provided by Countries in order to take Economic advantage of the United States. Likewise, provisions will be made for Nonmonetary Tariffs and Trade Barriers that some Countries charge in order to keep our product out of their domain or, if they do not even let U.S. businesses operate. We are able to accurately determine the cost of these Nonmonetary Trade Barriers. It is fair to all, no other Country can complain and, in some cases, if a Country feels that the United States would be getting too high a Tariff, all they have to do is reduce or terminate their Tariff against us. There are no Tariffs if you manufacture or build your product in the United States.

For many years, the U.S. has been treated unfairly by other Countries, both friend and foe. This System will immediately bring Fairness and Prosperity back into the previously complex and unfair System of Trade. America has helped many Countries throughout the years, at great financial cost. It is now time that these Countries remember this, and treat us fairly – A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD FOR AMERICAN WORKERS. I have instructed my Secretary of State, Secretary of Commerce, Secretary of the Treasury, and United States Trade Representative (USTR) to do all work necessary to deliver RECIPROCITY to our System of Trade!

Here are the details, as BBG notes, the president signed a measure directing the US Trade Representative and Commerce secretary to propose new levies on a country-by-country basis in an effort to rebalance trade relations, a sweeping process that could take weeks or months to complete, leaving doubt as to when the tarifffs would take effect.

“I’ve decided, for purposes of fairness, that I will charge a reciprocal tariff, meaning whatever countries charge the United States of America,” Trump said in the Oval Office with Howard Lutnick standing by his side. “In almost all cases, they’re charging us vastly more than we charge them but those days are over.”

President @realDonaldTrump announces RECIPROCAL TARRIFFS! 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/3gdw11RkC6

— Margo Martin (@MargoMartin47) February 13, 2025

Fresh import taxes would be customized for each country, and will be meant to offset not just their own tariffs on US goods but also non-tariff barriers the nations impose in the form of unfair subsidies, regulations, value-added taxes, exchange rates and other factors that act to limit US trade, said an official, who briefed reporters before the announcement.

The VAT response is notable because as we noted last night, the tariff differential for the EU, for example, with and without VAT is massive and rises from just 2% (without VAT) to a whopping 18% with! And judging by Trump’s comments, which said that the EU is “absolutely brutal” on trade, the inclusion of VAT is precisely meant to punish Europe.

As we discussed in greater depth last night, the chart below shows the amount that each country’s VAT exceeds the US sales tax. And so, if indeed Trump imposes a reciprocal tariff policy also accounted for foreign VATs, it could add another 10% to the average US effective tariff rate.

Needless to say, that could be catastrophic to exporters, and Deutsche Bank’s George Saravelos agrees writing that if reciprocal tariffs are applied on a VAT basis, “European countries would be much higher on the list of impacted countries given high consumption taxes.” Like Goldman, the DB strategist notes that the overall US tariff rate would increase by more than 10% (figures below).

Reciprocal tariffs amount to Trump’s broadest action to address US trade deficits and what he characterizes as unfair treatment of American exports around the globe. Trump has already imposed 10% tariffs on Chinese goods and plans to slap 25% duties on all US steel and aluminum imports next month.

There’s more: Trump told reporters that he would enact import taxes on cars, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals in addition to the reciprocal tariffs.

The text of Trump’s directive on tariffs was not immediately provided by the White House. Trump cited barriers in the EU, including a VAT, as an example of what the US is looking to respond to, while the official said Trump has also singled out Japan and South Korea as nations that he believes are taking advantage of the US, and thus could be targeted in his latest push.

The president said that he is hoping to have a discussion with other nations about how existing policies have created an imbalanced trade environment, the official said. And he’s more than happy to lower tariffs if countries want to pare their levies or remove other trade barriers, the official added.

Reciprocal tariffs are expected to hit hard in less-developed economies where average duties on US products are higher, according to Bloomberg Economics. It differs from a universal levy on all imports, as Trump proposed during the 2024 presidential campaign. The official said Trump could divert back to a global tariff strategy later on.

Trump announced his move just hours before he was set to host Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose country stands to be affected by reciprocal tariffs more than many other major trading partners. Trump has repeatedly criticized India’s its high tariff barriers.

According to Bloomberg, “Trump’s brinkmanship has injected uncertainty into the global economy, with businesses and consumers waiting to see how Trump proceeds on decision that could disrupt the US’s trade relationships with the rest of the world.” According to others, Trump is merely responding to a world where all countries have higher tariffs than the US!

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has exposed what appears to be a massive Biden-Harris administration and NGO money laundering scheme, with upwards of $20 billion of taxpayer funds “tossed” into shady non-profits with “reduced oversight” under the guise of climate change. One Democratic EPA official described the laundering scheme as “throwing gold bars off the Titanic” in December. Zeldin confirmed that the $20 billion will be clawed back.

In a video posted to X on Wednesday night, Zeldin told taxpayers that his team at the EPA had found the $20 billion “parked at an outside financial institution,” calling the “scheme: the first of its kind – in EPA history.” 

“This $20 billion was awarded to just eight entities – responsible for doling out your money to NGOs and others with far less transparency,” the EPA official said. 

Zeldin noted, “$7 billion was sent to one entity – called the Climate United Fund.” 

A public forensics analysis of the Climate United Fund comes up with this…

The EPA head asked if any former Biden-Harris administration staffers are now working at these NGOs. 

As for the bank where the $20 billion of taxpayer funds were dumped, he said there was “no wrongdoing by the bank.” But he noted, “The financial agreement with the bank must be terminated, and all the funds must returned.” 

Zeldin did not mention the bank by name. However, the Washington Post noted:

Citi had an agreement with the Biden administration to oversee the release of $20 billion under the program to nonprofit groups and states, according to publicly available documents.

Zeldin said the next step is to send the investigation to the Office of the Inspector General for review and to the Justice Department. 

“The days of irresponsibly shoveling boatloads of cash to far-left activist groups in the name of environmental justice and climate equity are over,” the official emphasized, adding, “The American public deserves a more transparent and accountable government than what transpired these past four years.”

Zeldin’s full video: 

🚨The Biden EPA tossed $20 billion of “gold bars off the Titanic”.

BIG UPDATE! We found the gold bars and they are now being recovered for you, the hardworking American taxpayer.

Here are more of the details: pic.twitter.com/DM4C0TQcpj

— Lee Zeldin (@epaleezeldin) February 13, 2025

Zeldin cited a Project Veritas report from early Decemeber that described Biden’s EPA official talking with an undercover reporter about “We’re Throwing Gold Bars off the Titanic” as an “insurance policy against Trump winning” that will be plowed into NGOs. 

BREAKING: @EPA Advisor Admits ‘Insurance Policy’ Against Trump is Funneling Billions to Climate Organizations, “We’re Throwing Gold Bars off the Titanic”

“It was an insurance policy against Trump winning.”

“Get the money out as fast as possible before they [Trump… pic.twitter.com/eaAihuNvAh

— Project Veritas (@Project_Veritas) December 3, 2024

X users responded to Zeldin’s video with disgust – many want accountability: 

Those actions by the outgoing administration are a misappropriation of tax dollars and are fully illegal. Those that took part in this deliberate waste MUST be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

— Daniel Harris (@DanielLHarrisUS) February 13, 2025

Just having the money returned isn’t nearly enough. People definitely need to go to jail for this.

— Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) February 13, 2025

How unsurprising to find the Biden administration trying to secretly funnel money to the secretive and shadowy world of NGOs.

— Biff Gruffly (@BitingNews) February 13, 2025

You found some of the money, but they still need to be held accountable for nearly distributing it fraudulently.
Americans want to know how so much taxpayer money was misused in the past. Who benefited? Who got rich?

— Riley (@riley1999) February 13, 2025

https://t.co/oYxVUdBkR4 https://t.co/6CLKpFSvQL

— The Cocaína (@MrNukemCocaine) February 13, 2025

Meanwhile, Google search terms in the DC swamp suggest panic has begun:

DC Internet Searches For “Criminal Defense Lawyer” & “RICO Law” Erupt As DOGE Drains Swamp https://t.co/4ytzi4YcgV

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) February 13, 2025

X user DataRepublican identified seven NGOs, partially funded by American taxpayers, that appear to be key players within the so-called Deep State Uniparty.

DC Swamp Uniparty “Unmasked” As These Seven NGOs https://t.co/bkM73WORX5

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) February 12, 2025

Let’s see what DOGE says about this latest money laundering scheme by corrupt globalist Democrats squandering taxpayer funds.  

Via SchiffGold.com,

Earlier this week, Peter Schiff went live on X Spaces to discuss both Bitcoin and gold’s recent price action and interact with his followers in a Q&A. He dissects the current state of the global economy, lambasts retail investors and Wall Street, and paints a dire picture of fiscal mismanagement. 

Peter argues that retail investors and Wall Street are consistently off the mark, with the latter systematically underpricing the value of gold stocks:

It’s very rare that retail investors are right about anything. Since they’ve never been this wrong about gold, then gold is probably on the verge of its biggest rally. The reason that gold’s gone up, despite the fact that the public is dumping whatever they have, is because the central banks are gobbling it up. The central banks aren’t buying silver. The central banks aren’t buying gold stocks. … All the Wall Street firms, when they rate these gold stocks, they assume the price of gold is going to be much lower in the future than it is now. They have no confidence in this rally. That’s why they don’t want to buy gold stocks because they expect the price of gold to fall, even though it’s going to continue to rise. 

Addressing the state of monetary policy in America, Peter argues that the Fed will soon be impotent against a combination of inflation and economic stagnation:

Another big thing I think is happening is I don’t think people are looking at the stagflation problem that’s starting to evolve in the United States. In real terms, stagflation is already here in the United States, but it’s all over the world. That’s why I pointed this out. That’s why Powell says the Fed has no plans for stagflation, and they’re just going to hope we don’t have it. That’s why in their stress tests, they don’t even stress test for stagflation because they know every major bank would fail. Stagflation is basically like kryptonite to Superman as far as the Fed is concerned. That’s exactly what we already have, and it’s going to get worse.

He recounts the origins of the Fed’s 2% inflation target. Even with the Fed failing to keep inflation below 2%, the target was contrived from the beginning:

When they’re talking about inflation of 2 percent, they’re not talking about inflation, they’re talking about prices. They’re talking about prices going up by 2 percent a year. Inflation is the rate at which the money supply is expanding. … To say that there’s some kind of ideal rate at which prices should rise every year is complete folly. It’s nonsense. It was just made up by central bankers. The only time they started talking about a 2 percent target was when they were below it. No central banks were talking about getting it down to 2 percent when it was 3 or 4 or 5. They only invented this concept when they were able to report inflation rates below 2 percent. The only reason they could report rates that low was because the governments were lying about it. They had these rigged indexes that purported to measure in prices and it was all rigged. 

Foreseeing turbulence in the futures markets, Peter predicts that deliveries will increase with silver as they have with gold this month:

I’ve been saying for years that I thought that eventually, you were going to see the long positions on futures exchanges delivered, that there’s going to be big buyers that are going to go into the COMEX or the London Metal Exchange, they’re going to buy these futures, and then they’re going to take delivery of the 100-ounce bars of gold, and that that’s going to ultimately blow up the market because they’re going to run out of metal. They’re going to have to rush to buy more, and the prices are just going to go through the roof. I think that that will happen with silver, too, that they’ll try to take delivery of these contracts.

Later in the space, Peter explains why Bitcoin needs to crash. Like a recession, it’s an unfortunate but necessary economic correction:

Bitcoin crashing would be a very good thing. And it’s not that, look, I’m going to be happy that people are losing money. I actually feel very badly that a lot of people are going to lose money, that it’s unfortunate, that people are going to lose money because they were misled. They got suckered into the mania. So I’m not happy that people are going to lose money, but the sooner people stop putting money into this Ponzi scheme, the better. I mean, it’s a major distraction. It’s a major misallocation of capital and resources and labor. I think the whole crypto industry is doing tremendous damage to the global economy and now to the US economy in particular. 

Be sure to check out more of Peter’s analysis  on the latest episode of the Peter Schiff Show.

About a month after Blue Origin successfully launched its long-delayed flagship rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, the Jeff Bezos-backed rocket company reportedly prepares for its first round of layoffs. The move comes as Elon Musk’s SpaceX continues dominating the commercial space industry, raising questions about how far Blue Origin has fallen behind in the global space race. 

Bloomberg reports that Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp held an all-hands employee meeting on Thursday morning to address new cost-cutting measures, including terminating about 10% of the workforce. The report was based on insiders at the meeting. 

According to Bloomberg, Blue Origin has about 14,000 employees on payroll across its headquarters in Seattle and operation sites in Florida, Texas, and Alabama. The 10% cut would equate to about 1,400 employees and focus on “thinning out layers” of management.

On Jan. 16, Blue Origin’s New Glenn launched from Cape Canaveral, placing the company’s Blue Ring Pathfinder test satellite into orbit. 

pic.twitter.com/kIEqPxxwa7

— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) January 16, 2025

However, the rocket’s reusable first-stage booster failed to land on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean, something SpaceX’s reusable booster rockets do weekly, blasting Starlink satellites into orbit. 

Last August, Bloomberg noted that testing included a “factory mishap that damaged a portion of a future New Glenn rocket,” adding the rocket company has “grappled with development delays, a sluggish corporate culture and explosive setbacks.” 

Bezos and Musk have had a rocket-size competition. Who has the bigger rocket?

As previously noted, SpaceX leads the global rocket race, launching 86% of all upmass to space in the third quarter of 2024. Also, SpaceX’s Starlink is dominating the global space internet race. 

By Michael Every of Rabobank

The US CPI print for January was red hot at 0.5% m-o-m headline and 0.4% core, with the former rising to 3.0% y-o-y and the latter to 3.3%. Even if due to things like eggs it leaves egg on the face of the “Rate cuts!” crowd forced to crowd the next Fed into end- 2025. Worse, as yields jumped and Fed Chair Powell huffed and puffed in Congress, President Trump demanded lower US rates and said they would sit alongside higher US tariffs, making clear economic statecraft is in and economic policy is out.

However, that was far less important than the ice-cold realpolitik served up next. US Defence Secretary Hegseth announced the US, while backing NATO, was pivoting to Asia and Europe must defend itself better by spending 5% of GDP on it, not 2%. That’s been rumored for a while and most of Europe has treated it as a joke, not a reality. Nobody is laughing now.

Not when Hegseth added Ukraine won’t enter NATO or recover its lost territory, and no US troops will be in the no-man’s land guarding it from Russia, only Europeans, who will not be covered by NATO’s Article 5 mutual defence pact. Moreover, Europe will pay most to rearm and rebuild Ukraine, while the US gets access to its rare earth and mineral rights for any aid provided to Kyiv. Some still might have seen this all as a joke.

Until President Trump started ceasefire talks with President Putin, with no European representation, suggesting a possible rapprochement: @vtchakarova asks what if Trump agrees to join China’s Xi and attend May’s 80th anniversary of its WW2 victory in Red Square?

Europe’s response via the “Weimar+” group was: “We are ready to enhance our support for Ukraine. We are committed to its independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russia’s war of aggression. We share the goal to keep supporting Ukraine until a just, comprehensive, and lasting peace is reached. A peace that guarantees the interest of Ukraine and our own. We are looking forward to discussing the way ahead together with our American allies. Our shared objectives should be to put Ukraine in a position of strength. Ukraine and Europe must be part of any negotiations. Ukraine should be provided with strong security guarantees. A just and lasting peace in Ukraine is a necessary condition for a strong transatlantic security. We recall that the security of the European continent is our common responsibility. We are therefore working together to strengthen our collective defence capabilities.”

However, let’s be equally clear: this group’s unfortunate title is historically confrontational; its pledges are *highly* aspirational, as Europe has not been invited to attend peace talks, cannot force admittance, and is talking about pushing Russia out of occupied territories without US help; and it must be transformational if the stated goals are going to be achieved.

We are talking Covid-era fiscal deficits for decades if Europe (already flirting with an energy price cap) and the UK (close to selling off two naval vessels to Brazil and returning the key Chagos islands to Mauritius) stop LARPing and truly rearm and rebuild Ukraine. That also means guns-not-butter choices given Russia is spending $462bn on defence on a PPP basis, more than Europe combined, and its war political economy won’t shift back to “because markets” and “Rate cuts!” when it just delivered this victory. Such wishful thinking is almost entirely European.

If Europe opts not to rearm nor arm Ukraine and tries to talk markets, rate cuts, and butter, Moscow will happily agree – but it will want a weaker, divided, energy-dependent, Finlandized Europe. Which some critics would allege is already mirrored from the US side.

For Europe, the ice-cold realpolitik logic is that for many years it likely plays second fiddle to the US tune; or Russia’s; or both; or it has to change its political-economy music entirely. But talk is cheap, and war and preventing war isn’t; and freedom isn’t free, and neither is it free trade or free money, even if there are potential upsides here, for example see our recent paper on the positive long-run productivity benefits of higher military R&D spending, which Europe could do with. Markets are not yet grasping the scale of these shocks, which is perhaps understandable. But when they do, they will move.

Similarly, in Canada, Liberal Party leadership candidate Carney has pledged to use the government’s emergency powers to “accelerate the projects that we need.” Like spending 5% of GDP on defence?

Meanwhile, in the Middle East, far closer to the EU than the US, Israel is reportedly considering strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites later in the year, news that comes days ahead of a deadline that may see it restart its war with Hamas.

And Asia has to start thinking about the consequences of the US pivoting in that direction. What does that mean for US ally defence spending? Does Japan have to think about a 5% of GDP figure in short order too? What about Australia and New Zealand? Has Hegseth learned the names of any ASEAN members yet? The fiscal, rates, FX, and real economy implications are again enormous – and that’s before we get to the geopolitical tensions inherent in this strategy, which should be clear. The Trump – Modi meeting we are about to see is also of great importance in this and other regards.

Do recall that we had months ago dubbed 2025 as ‘The Year of Living Dangerously’!

On which note, today we may also get US reciprocal tariffs announced. On that, Yannis Varoufakis talks of ‘Donald Trump’s economic masterplan: He is plotting an anti-Nixon shock’, which doesn’t refer to his latest pivot to Moscow to try to isolate Beijing, but underlines a hypothesis I’ve been floating for some time: the US wants to retain global dollar hegemony while NOT running a large structural trade deficit.

There may be some odd cause-and-effect thinking on rates and FX ordering in his article, but that central point is key, and again has tectonic significance for markets – who again don’t yet see it for the most part. Indeed, most economists will tell you this cannot be done when economic history, and Yannis, show mercantilism can get you there quite easily – just not in a way that markets or trading partners will like.

Put all this together and red-hot US CPI is playing second fiddle: it’s ice-cold realpolitik which is the real story.

Under the Biden-Harris administration, a December version of the US State Department’s procurement forecast for the 2025 budget included a line item for $400 million worth of “Armored Teslas.” The inclusion sparked criticism from MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, who cited it as an example of Elon Musk’s self-dealings. Musk, however, stated that he had no prior knowledge of the armored Teslas, and hours after the report, the line item was revised by the Trump administration.

EV blog Electrek first broke the story about the State Department’s future procurement plans of “Armored Teslas.” The big misconception by far-left corporate media and Democrats is that this was approved under the Biden Administration – not the Trump administration. 

“But worry not; it was approved under the Biden Administration, so Elon Musk’s DOGE will undoubtedly eliminate this waste. Right?” Electrek noted. 

Hours later, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow launched a misinformation and disinformation campaign about “Armored Teslas” and Musk’s alleged “self-dealings” while in Washington, DC. 

“Yet she conveniently left out that the procurement list was revised in Dec 2024, when Biden was President. The Tesla line item was last modified on December 13, 2024,” Tesla investor Sawyer Merritt said. 

Musk commented on Merritt’s post, asking why Maddow had to lie. 

Hey @maddow, why the lie? https://t.co/gUZax7mvef

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 13, 2025

By late Wednesday, Merritt noted that the Trump administration had “edited the public procurement forecast document tonight, and it now no longer says the word Tesla.” 

UPDATE: The U.S. Government has edited the public procurement forecast document tonight and it now no longer says the word Tesla. Instead, it now says “Armored Electric Vehicles.”

The contract amount is still listed as being for $400 million. Other details are the same. https://t.co/72Yksr7Xu8 pic.twitter.com/FoQDay8cn8

— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) February 13, 2025

Musk also noted: “I’m pretty sure Tesla isn’t getting $400M. No one mentioned it to me, at least.” 

Was this line item just a leftover surprise from the corrupt Biden-Harris regime to sabotage (in terms of optics in headlines) Musk and DOGE?

Or maybe there are armored Teslas … Defense Firm Unveils Cybertruck For Special Forces, Able To Survive “IEDs”… 

. . . 

Authored by Brayden Lindrea via CoinTelegraph.com,

Investment bank Goldman Sachs increased its spot Ether exchange-traded fund (ETF) holdings by 2,000% in the fourth quarter of 2024, along with boosting its Bitcoin ETF stash to over $1.5 billion.

Goldman upped its Ether ETF exposure from $22 million to $476 million, split almost evenly between BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust (ETHA) and the Fidelity Ethereum Fund (FETH), along with $6.3 million into the Grayscale Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHE), according to the company’s Feb. 11 Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Goldman also upped its Bitcoin ETF holdings by 114% to $1.52 billion. It purchased nearly $1.28 billion worth of shares in the iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) — a 177% increase from Q3 — along with $288 million worth of shares in the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC).

Goldman reported in Q4 that it owned $234.7 million worth of Fidelity’s Ether ETF. Source: SEC

The document — which investment managers holding over $100 million worth of securities must file each quarter — shows Goldman also owns $3.6 million worth of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC).

The increased exposure factored in rising market prices for BTC and ETH, which increased 41% and 26.3% from the beginning to the end of the fourth quarter, CoinGecko data shows.

Goldman also appeared to close its positions in Bitcoin ETFs from Bitwise and WisdomTree, along with joint offerings from Invesco and Galaxy, as well as ARK and 21Shares.

The larger positions build further on Goldman Sachs’ first entry into the spot crypto ETF market in the second quarter of 2024, where it disclosed purchasing $418 million worth of Bitcoin ETFs.

Goldman’s recent purchase of Bitcoin and Ether ETFs highlights the growing trend of institutional crypto adoption on Wall Street, fueled by an increasingly favorable regulatory environment.

The investment bank is also considering launching its own crypto platform for partners to trade financial instruments on blockchain rails, Bloomberg reported in November.

Goldman has, however, been criticizing Bitcoin and the broader industry since 2020, saying that crypto isn’t an asset class and that it is “not a suitable investment” for its clients.

A similar opinion was voiced by Goldman Private Wealth Management chief investment officer Sharmin Mossavar-Rahmani last April, around the time Goldman purchased its first stash of Bitcoin ETFs.

“We do not think it is an investment asset class,” Mossavar-Rahmani said at the time, comparing the recent crypto enthusiasm to the tulip mania of the 1600s. “We’re not believers in crypto.”