Authored by Jeff Carlson & Hans Mahncke via Truth Over News,

A few days ago, our friend Stephen McIntyre, one of the original Russiagate investigators, sent a tweet to revisit a question that many of us have pondered for years but which has never been fully resolved. As a result, we finally now have the answer. That is because, in response to McIntyre’s tweet, the key figure has come forward to confirm what many of us have suspected all along.

McIntyre’s tweet highlighted that, according to the FBI, it was Australian diplomat Alexander Downer who initiated the inception of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. However, the narratives surrounding this event differ significantly between Downer’s account in Special Counsel John Durham’s report and the FBI’s version. Downer has now stepped forward to affirm Durham’s version with a three-word tweet: “Durham is right”. This development carries substantial implications for the entire Russiagate saga, particularly regarding its fraudulent origins.

Downer’s confirmation represents a significant breakthrough in unraveling the final puzzle pieces of Russiagate, not necessarily because the information is new or surprising, but rather because it confirms that the FBI was aware from the outset that its justification for initiating the Trump-Russia investigation was phony.

The two competing versions of the Crossfire Hurricane origin story can be summarized as follows: According to the FBI, Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos met with Australia’s ambassador in London, Alexander Downer, and Downer’s assistant, Erika Thompson. During this meeting, Papadopoulos is supposed to have “suggested the Trump team had received some kind of suggestion” that Russia might assist the Trump campaign by anonymously releasing damaging information about Hillary Clinton prior to the 2016 election.

Robert Mueller went one step further, claiming that what Papadopoulos had talked about was “that the Russian government had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of emails.”

Downer’s account, as detailed in the Durham report, states, “Papadopoulos made no mention of Clinton emails, dirt or any specific approach by the Russian government to the Trump campaign team with an offer or suggestion of providing assistance. Rather, Downer’s recollection was that Papadopoulos simply stated “the Russians have information” and that was all.”

Notably, the day before Papadopoulos met with Downer and Thompson, Andrew Napolitano shared a nearly identical account on Fox News, raising the distinct possibility that Papadopoulos was simply reiterating what he had heard on TV, as opposed to any secret plot. In fact, we would argue that this is almost certainly what occurred: Papadopoulos enthusiastically repeated a story he had encountered on Fox News.

So, how did everything get blown out of proportion? This is where Downer’s confirmation of Durham’s account comes into play and why it is so important.

According to the Durham report, the FBI utilized a cherry-picked portion of a report written by Thompson regarding their meeting with Papadopoulos to justify the initiation of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation into alleged collusion between Trump and Russia. Thompson’s report, which was a standard post-meeting document, was submitted to the Australian government in Canberra shortly after Thompson and Downer met with Papadopoulos on May 10, 2016.

The snippet relied on by the FBI stated:

“[Papadopoulos] commented that the Clintons had “a lot of baggage” and suggested the Trump team had plenty of material to use in its campaign. He also suggested the Trump team had received some kind of suggestion from Russia that it could assist this process with the anonymous release of information during the campaign that would be damaging to Mrs[.] Clinton (and President Obama). It was unclear whether he or the Russians were referring to material acquired publicly of [sic] through other means. It was also unclear how Mr[.] Trump’s team reacted to the offer. We note the Trump team’s reaction could, in the end, have little bearing of [sic] what Russia decides to do, with or without Mr[.] Trump’s cooperation.”

In late July 2016, Downer gave the meeting report, which included the cherry-picked snippet, to the U.S. Embassy in London after hearing Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook on CNN assert that Russia had hacked the DNC to assist Trump. As we later found out, the so-called experts Mook supposedly relied on in making his claim were Clinton campaign operatives, such as Christopher Steele. Although Downer could not have known this, his actions in going to the U.S. Embassy with two-and-a-half-month-old meeting notes were highly unusual. Perhaps he was caught in the moment of widespread hysteria. Or perhaps he was cajoled into doing what he did. Be that as it may, to the extent that he could be criticized for acting prematurely or misunderstanding the situation, he promptly clarified the matter.

The reason for this is that after the FBI initiated its Crossfire Hurricane investigation on July 31, 2016, allegedly based on the snippet from Thompson, FBI chief investigator Peter Strzok and his associate Joe Pientka traveled to London to interview Downer and Thompson regarding their encounter with Papadopoulos. Setting aside the fact that an honest investigator would have waited to speak with the witnesses before launching a comprehensive investigation into a presidential campaign, it is what Downer conveyed to Strzok—now confirmed—that demonstrates the entire investigation was founded on a deliberate misunderstanding, in other words, a lie.

Downer told Strzok that the substance of the snippet that Thompson had drafted was “purposely vague” because “Papadopoulos left a number of things unexplained.” Downer also clarified that Papadopoulos “did not say he had direct contact with the Russians.” Downer further said that “there were reasons to be unsure about what to make of the information from Papadopoulos,” and that he “did not get the sense Papadopoulos was the middle-man to coordinate with the Russians.”

Notably, this is not what Downer later told Durham with the benefit of hindsight, it is what Downer told Strzok at the time.

Downer later informed Durham that he would have characterized the statements made by Papadopoulos differently than Thompson did in the snippet relied on by the FBI. It is unclear to what extent Downer communicated this to Strzok in August 2016, but based on the available information, it should have been evident to Strzok that the snippet should not under any circumstances have been taken at face value.

While the report of Strzok’s meeting with Downer remains under lock and key, based on Durham’s statements, we know that, contrary to Thompson’s vague notes, Downer made it clear to Strzok that Trump’s team had not received any offers from Russia, at least not that anyone was aware of, and Papadopoulos did not claim or suggest that they had received any offers.

What is more, even if Strzok, for whatever reason, had taken Thompson’s loosely worded meeting report at face value, it clearly indicated that any information the Russians possessed might have been publicly available. In other words, based on the actual wording in the snippet that the FBI used to initiate Crossfire Hurricane, whatever Papadopoulos may have meant could have been public knowledge—such as Napolitano’s comments on Fox News. This puts to rest the FBI’s fraudulent narrative that the Papadopoulos-Downer meeting had something to do with Clinton’s emails, a claim that both men have always strenuously denied.

But it gets worse. While in London, Strzok confessed to Pientka and the FBI’s London representative that “there’s nothing to this, but we have to run it to ground.”

Then, shortly after the London trip, Pientka, who is referred to as “Supervisory Special Agent-1” in Durham’s report, had the following text exchange with the FBI’s London representative:

FBI’s Assistant Legal Attache in London: “Dude, are we telling them [British Intelligence Service-1] everything we know, or is there more to this?”

Pientka: “That’s all we have. Not holding anything back.”

FBI’s Legal Attache in London: “Damn that’s thin.”

Pientka: “I know. It sucks.”

British Intelligence officials also told the FBI’s Legal Attache in London that they “could not believe the Papadopoulos bar conversation was all there was” and suggested that the FBI should, as a first step, talk to Papadopoulos.

But Strzok had different plans. Immediately following his trip to London, during which Downer made it abundantly clear that Papadopoulos had said nothing of significant importance and that the entire matter was likely a misunderstanding, Strzok initiated full investigations into three additional members of the Trump campaign team: Carter Page, Paul Manafort, and Michael Flynn.

That Downer has now confirmed Durham’s version of events is highly significant because it proves that Strzok was fully aware that the snippet from Thompson’s report should not have been relied upon. Downer explicitly informed Strzok that the snippet was phrased loosely and that Papadopoulos had said nothing inappropriate. Downer, who witnessed the events firsthand, also disagreed with how the snippet was worded.

To summarize, FBI leadership selectively chose a vaguely worded paragraph from a meeting report to initiate an enterprise investigation into the Trump campaign regarding alleged collusion with Russia. A few days later, when Downer, the principal witness to the meeting, informed the FBI that the entire situation was essentially much ado about nothing, his statement was disregarded.

We all remember that when Strzok’s interview notes with Michael Flynn were finally released, they proved that Flynn had told the truth and that the entire case against him was fabricated. When Strzok’s interview notes with Downer are eventually released, we will discover the same: that Downer told the truth and that the initiation of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation was based on a big, fat lie.

A Personal Note: The person who prompted Alexander Downer to finally clear things up, Runyonesque, is currently facing significant medical challenges and is raising funds to cover treatment costs. If you’d like to support, please consider donating.

US equity futures declined after Thursday’s muted session on Wall Street, while markets in Europe and Asia advanced in muted holiday trading as the year draws to a close. As of 8:00am, S&P futures were down 0.3%, after ending Thursday flat, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 fell 0.2% in quiet post-holiday session as mixed jobless claims data did little to change bets on the Fed’s policy outlook. The 10-year Treasury yield hovered near a seven-month high around 4.60%, and the dollar was steady, on track for its best year since 2015. Oil reversed Thursday’s losses and was set to gain.  The macro calendar is quiet: we get the advance goods trade balance, as well as wholesale and retail inventories.

In premarket trading, Arena Group climbed 18% after the company said it was notified by NYSE American that its plan to regain compliance with continued listing standards had been accepted. SES AI soared 64% and is set to extend gains for a fifth session after shares of the EV battery maker climbed as much as 168% on Thursday.

With the economy remaining resilient, investors are concerned President-elect Donald Trump’s policies, which could include tariffs and tax cuts, will stoke price rises, forcing a more hawkish stance from the central bank.

“The most important move in this year-end is the rise of the US 10-year bond; this shows how much everybody is waiting for Trump’s inauguration and its impact on inflation,” said David Kruk, head of trading at La Financiere de L’Echiquier in Paris.

“Other than that, most of the trades are technical ones, short-covering and profit taking but there’s no big trend going on as is typical during this time of the year.”

Europe’s Stoxx index climbed 0.5% as trading resumed after a two-day break, with volumes at about 60% of the 20-day average for the time of day, and were poised for modest weekly gains. Novo Nordisk shares extended their rebound into a second session. Delivery Hero shares drop as much as 9% after Taiwan blocked the sale of its subsidiary there to Uber Technologies.

Earlier in the session, the MSCI Asia Pacific index climbed for the fifth straight day, its longest such streak since July. Shares in Tokyo jumped after the yen dropped to a five-month low of 158 per dollar in the previous session, following Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda’s comments Wednesday that avoided giving a clear signal on interest rates next month. Elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong and mainland Chinese shares fluctuated. Equities rose in Australia, with their South Korean counterparts declining as the country’s political turmoil continued.

In FX, the Bloomberg dollar index was steady, on pace for its best year since 2015.

The yen rebounded slightly Friday, after Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato said the government will take appropriate steps against excessive movements in the foreign exchange market. Data released Friday also showed inflation in Tokyo accelerated for a second month, with retail sales also beating estimates. Bank of Japan board members held mixed views when they discussed the timing of an interest-rate hike at last week’s meeting, according to minutes released on Friday.  A summary of opinions from the central bank’s December meeting showed mixed views among its board members on the timing of another rate hike partly due to uncertainties over the US economy. USD/JPY traded 0.2% lower at 157.75, having fallen as low as 157.51 in Asian trade; the pound drifted higher against the dollar while the euro held its ground at $1.0421.

In rates, treasuries are under pressure as US trading gets under way, trailing steeper declines for European bond markets, many of which are reopening after a two-day holiday. US yields remain inside ranges from Thursday, the 10-year Treasury yield rising 3bps to 4.61%, near the May high of 4.64% hit on Thursday. Traders are betting that the Fed will deliver less than two rate cuts by end-2025. 5- to 30-year yields have risen more than 15bp since Dec. 17, the day before the Fed, while cutting interest rates for the third straight time, signaled a slower pace for future moves. Bloomberg Treasury Index lost 1.7% this month through Thursday, paring its YTD gain to less than 0.5%; index may benefit next week from month-end rebalancing that will extend its duration by an estimated 0.07 year

In commodity markets, iron ore sank to the lowest in more than five weeks, falling below $100 a ton, as poor industrial profits in China highlighted the nation’s economic weakness. Oil gained while gold was steady.

Bitcoin edged higher after the cryptocurrency’s rally showed signs of fizzling Thursday.

The US economic data calendar includes November advance goods trade balance and November preliminary wholesale inventories at 8:30am. Fed speaker slate is blank until Jan. 3.

Market Snapshot

• S&P 500 futures down 0.4% to 6,073.75
• STOXX Europe 600 up 0.3% to 505.34
• MXAP up 0.4% to 182.70
• MXAPJ down 0.2% to 573.66
• Nikkei up 1.8% to 40,281.16
• Topix up 1.3% to 2,801.68
• Hang Seng Index little changed at 20,090.46
• Shanghai Composite little changed at 3,400.14
• Sensex up 0.3% to 78,727.26
• Australia S&P/ASX 200 up 0.5% to 8,261.80
• Kospi down 1.0% to 2,404.77
• German 10Y yield up 6 bps at 2.39%
• Euro little changed at $1.0412
• Brent Futures up 0.2% to $73.42/bbl
• Gold spot down 0.3% to $2,625.09
• US Dollar Index little changed at 108.17

Top Overnight News

• The Bank of Japan signaled that a rate hike next month still remains on the table even as cautious views among the majority swayed the stand-pat decision at a policy meeting last week.
• German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier dissolved parliament and set the country’s snap election for Feb. 23, formally endorsing a timetable proposed by Chancellor Olaf Scholz after he pulled the plug on his ruling coalition last month.
• A Bitcoin rally is fizzling in the final days of a record-breaking year for the digital asset, as investors assess the remaining impetus from President-elect Donald Trump’s embrace of the cryptocurrency sector.

Authored by Molly Slag via American Thinker,

The most remarkable feature of the UFO swarm that began November 18 over New Jersey and then expanded in short order to infest New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Oregon, Minnesota, California, Texas (and where else?), with an average of 92 sightings per night, and that continues wholly unabated through the present day, is its persistence. The swarm persists unabated, the public demand that the government explain persists unabated, and the government stonewall of the public demand persists unabated. This persistence reveals how ineptly the government reads the public mood.

The great lesson of COVID—well known to all the unwashed who lived through it—is that the government and all its acolytes and running dogs, including, among others, the media, Big Science, and Big Pharma, are liars who care not a whit about the rest of us. The very reason we elected Donald Trump for the third time is that we believe he cares.

Do they think we slept through COVID? Do they think we were fooled by it? Do they think we missed its message?

We, the unwashed, must understand there are only three options for the government stonewall. The government is duplicitous, incompetent, or genuinely blindsided.

Moreover, there are only five plausible sources for this UFO swarm: The swarm originates in either the USA, Private Enterprise, China, Russia, or ET. These five swarm source options above are not mutually exclusive. For example, the swarm might originate in a collaboration between China and Russia or China and ET.

When the truth is finally learned, it might be illuminating, disappointing, or frightening.

Trump says the government must disclose what’s going on or “shoot them down.” Chris Christie says continued stonewalling will create vigilantes. Trump seems to think that the government knows all about this and is choosing to conceal the relevant information, which means this is all a demonstration of something. For whatever reason, the stonewall continues.

But now, at long last, there is a development that offers some light on the situation. The Daily Mail has reported that “An interactive map has revealed a disturbing pattern in drone sightings across the US.”

The “disturbing pattern” is that the unexplained UFO swarm “has targeted America’s military bases worldwide since October, beginning with a swarm over Langley Air Force Base in Virginia.”

So, the swarm has focused on US military bases! Many people have surmised this all along, and it now appears they were correct.

From all this, we can conclude, not with mathematical certainty, but with considerable probability:

1. Neither the US nor private enterprise is the source.

2. The US military knows what is going on.

3. The military has informed the White House of what is going on.

4. The White House judges that the public should not be told.

The question then is, “Why?”

The inquiring mind can freely roam over numerous conjectures answering to “why”, but the single most probable is that the government fears being exposed as impotent to deal with the swarm.

After Donald Trump’s overwhelming election victory in November the nation is adjusting to the reality that the mass immigration policies of the political left are about to be reversed.  Not just ended, but turned back.  This means mass deportations of millions of illegals and far more scrutiny on existing temporary visa programs.  The logistics of such an unprecedented effort require intensive planning and a lot of debate.    

There is a contingent of MAGA that wants a total shutdown of migrant activity and a moratorium on work visas.  For how long?  No one seems to know, exactly, but it’s a scorched earth response to the Biden Administration’s excessive abuses of H-1B programs (and similar labor programs) to sneak millions of third world migrants into the country and label them “legal”.     

Biden’s free pass for Haitians and Venezuelan’s, for example, was introduced at a time when the border crisis was hitting the mainstream media feeds and the public realized how bad the situation actually was.  Biden and the Democrats offered Haitians and others temporary work visas and created a loophole, allowing the visas to be extended for years.  In other words, Biden tried to reduce the number of border encounters by offering millions of illegals a backdoor into the US through work programs.    

The third worlders still get into the country and Biden can claim illegal immigration is going down.  The longer migrants are able to stay in the US on visas, the easier it is for them to get permanent residency.  This is called “Labor Certification” and it’s the first step towards a Green Card.  Because of the many loopholes associated with visa programs, Americans are now highly suspicious of any migration to “fill holes in the labor pool”.     

On the other side, some in MAGA want to end illegal immigration while increasing legal immigration of skilled workers.  In other words, attract the best and brightest from around the globe and bring them here so that our competitors don’t get them first.   

The threat of a complete shut down of all immigration, including skilled workers, has the tech industry concerned.  Elon Musk chimed in on the H-1B issue recently and called for more foreign engineers to be allowed work status in the US.  Some people agree, while many others are in an uproar, calling Musk a “traitor”.   

There is a permanent shortage of excellent engineering talent. It is the fundamental limiting factor in Silicon Valley.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 25, 2024

No, we need more like double that number yesterday!

The number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low.

Think of this like a pro sports team: if you want your TEAM to win the championship, you need to recruit top talent wherever…

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 25, 2024

To be fair to Musk, he would know better than most what the deficiencies are in the STEM labor market in America given his industry focus.  The fact is, not all immigration is bad immigration and going scorched earth on work visas might be a net negative to the US in the short term (perhaps even the long term).  It should be noted that a lot of skilled immigrants come from Europe, Australia, the UK, Canada and other western nations, not just places like India or China.

Others argue that America is not a sports team or a company, it’s a home.  People believe the system is inviting foreign workers into the US without giving a fair shot to native born Americans.  The question is, do such American STEM workers exist in numbers large enough to fill industry needs?  And, if not, what’s the solution? 

Vivek Ramaswamy has chimed in on the issue via X, suggesting that there isn’t an intelligence deficiency in the US, there’s an educational and institutional deficiency:  

“The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over “native” Americans isn’t because of an innate American IQ deficit (a lazy & wrong explanation). A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture.  

Tough questions demand tough answers & if we’re really serious about fixing the problem, we have to confront the TRUTH:  Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG.  A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.” 

This is essentially the same argument that conservatives have been making for many years; the decline in the American educational system, especially in STEM fields, is legendary at this point, along with the overall decline in culture.   

Vivek might be a little behind the times on the issue – Even athletic excellence in the US is no longer culturally venerated.  The problem is mediocrity in every area of life.  The most popular career choice for Gen Z is to become a “YouTube star”.  No kid wants to be an astronaut anymore.  There are some very smart people out there on YouTube, but no society can survive on a labor force full of wannabe “influencers”.

That said, US trust in the immigration system has been broken and even Vivek is receiving considerable blowback for his defense of H-1B visas.  A common counter to Vivek’s position is the claim that much of the “skilled labor” coming from countries like India is actually mediocre labor that does the job (barely) for cheaper wages while replacing better qualified Americans.  Whether or not this is true on a wider scale needs to be investigated. 

As usual, whenever there is a divisive issue causing internal conflict and debate among conservative groups there are doom mongers that dance around the edges and act as if the entire movement is suddenly fracturing.  Conservatives have never agreed on solutions – This is normal.  They are not a hive mind like the political left, which is a good thing.  Such debates are a sign of a healthy political process.     

What we really have here is an artificially created either/or scenario; skilled labor shortages should be treated as a “why not do both” scenario.   

First and foremost, Americans want actual proof of these labor shortages.  They’ve heard stories for years but the proof is less accessible.  What if tech companies and others in need of STEM labor were to engage the public in a large scale national labor fair?  It sounds cheesy, but consider for a moment that the vast majority of companies today handle all their hiring through online cattle markets that often give job seekers the runaround.   

There is almost zero human interaction and no confirmation that a job was ever filled.  There are companies that post fake job listings to make it appear as though they are growing, to make existing employees feel as though they can be replaced and to make existing employees think their extreme work load will soon be alleviated by new talent.  This practice has stunted the stats on the labor market.     

Nationwide job fairs require money to set up and companies have to put people on standby to talk to prospective employees.  There is energy and a sense of urgency involved.  If skilled labor is truly hard to find, then Elon Musk and other industry leaders should have no problem putting some capital into a physical and interactive job fair – A national search for American talent in STEM in which workers talk to employers face-to-face instead of being filtered by websites and algorithms.   

It might even be prudent to make such labor searches a requirement for large companies before they’re allowed to bring over migrant workers through visa programs.

If the shortage is real then it will be obvious from the lack of participation on the side of job seekers or the lack of qualifications in their resumes.  Then, those within MAGA that oppose migrant visas will have to admit that the demand is legitimate and that the only option, in the short term, is to bring in foreign labor.   

In the long term, the national education system needs to be completely overhauled and a focus on practical skills and advanced STEM has to be championed.  Incentives to lure Americans back into science and engineering fields may be necessary.  The US can do both:  Cut immigration down to only the best and brightest, or down to labor pools with proven shortages, while also encouraging native-born American interest in such fields and creating a domestic pool of skilled assets.

Three weeks ago the diamond industry, one of the world’s most conservative and boring, was shocked by news that diamond giant De Beers (which accounts for 30% of global diamond production market share) was forced into a rare 10-15% price cut, taking wholesale diamond prices a stunning 40% lower in the past 2 years. That was the first major price cut since the start of the year and a “historically large reduction”, according to Bloomberg.

Unfortunately, it is going from bad to worse for the diamond price setter, which in an attempt to keep demand artificially high has throttled supply, and the FT reported that De Beers has amassed its largest diamond stockpile since the 2008 financial crisis.

The company, which dominates the $80 billion diamond jewelry industry, has seen inventory levels hover around $2 billion throughout 2024.

The slump in demand has been attributed to weak sales in China, growing competition from lab-grown alternatives, and the lingering impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, which disrupted global marriage rates.

“It’s been a bad year for rough diamond sales,” CEO Al Cook said.

To mitigate the downturn, De Beers has cut production by around 20% compared to last year and reduced prices at its most recent auction of rough diamonds. These auctions involve selling uncut stones to a select group of certified buyers, known as sightholders, who are pivotal players in the diamond trade.

Still, even after the steep cut in prices, the company’s stones are still more expensive than the going rate in the secondary market. The company also removed some of the flexibility it had offered at previous sales, according to Bloomberg.

Revenue for De Beers fell to $2.2 billion in the first half of 2024, down from $2.8 billion in the same period of 2023. The decline comes as De Beers prepares to be spun off by its parent company, Anglo American, which promised to divest the diamond producer following a thwarted takeover bid by BHP. Anglo American CEO Duncan Wanblad has warned that the weak market complicates potential sale or public offering plans.

In response to market pressures, primarily the result of explosive sales from cheap lab-grown diamonds, De Beers launched a marketing campaign in October highlighting the unique appeal of natural diamonds. Cook outlined plans for the company to invest in advertising and retail, expanding its network of global stores from 40 to 100.

Competition from lab-grown diamonds, which cost a fraction of natural stones, has intensified, particularly in the US, the world’s largest diamond market. However, Cook expressed optimism for a global recovery in 2024, citing recent credit card data showing increased US purchases of jewelry and watches in October and November.

Industry analyst Paul Zimnisky projected a 6% rise in global diamond jewelry sales to $84 billion in 2025, offering hope for an eventual market rebound.

Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,

• Oil prices in 2024 were heavily influenced by Chinese demand and Middle East tensions, while US shale producers consolidated and remained cautious about production growth.

• Natural gas demand surged due to increased electricity consumption, driven by Big Tech’s AI pursuits, leading to a more optimistic outlook for the gas market.

• Nuclear energy gained traction as a reliable and emissions-free source of electricity, with a focus on small modular reactors as a potential solution to lengthy construction times.

It has been an eventful year for world energy: oil supply jump scares in the Middle East, a surge in electricity demand, and a nuclear renaissance were all among the hallmarks of 2024, along with a pickup in natural gas demand. All of these trends appear set to continue into 2025, along with increasingly severe challenges on the path of the energy transition.

In oil, 2024 was an interesting year, with OPEC and the International Energy Agency vastly differing in their forecasts about demand for the commodity that underpins the global economy. Other analysts also disagreed, leaving traders stuck between actual fundamentals and predictions based on unproved assumptions, such as the adoption rate of electric cars, which has been weakening everywhere except in China.

Speaking of demand and China, the latter was the key driver of oil prices this year. Almost every report on oil price changes featured the phrase “concern about Chinese demand” in its lede—unless it featured the latest from the Middle East, the supply-side driver of oil prices for the year. Chinese demand growth this year apparently underwhelmed, disappointing traders who expected it to continue growing at double-digit percentage figures forever.

What’s more, several stimulus packages announced by the government in Beijing did not immediately lead to a surge in oil demand, which contributed to the oil price depression. Even the latest import figures, which suggested oil imports are picking up after several weak months, did not change market sentiment, as the full-year average rate of import is set to be lower than the average for 2023.

While traders watched China for red flags in demand, the war between Israel and Hamas expanded to the point where Israel and Iran exchanged direct strikes, temporarily reigniting fears of an oil supply disruption. However, both decided not to push it eventually, and those fears dissipated, to be replaced once again by “concern about Chinese demand,” even as some analysts warned that oil demand is being mispriced due to the work of trading algorithms and that a correction was looking over the oil market.

While traders worried about demand in China, the oil industry in the United States was busy consolidating. The merger and acquisition spree that began last year continued this year, with several billion-dollar deals in the shale patch, leading Enverus to suggest that 2024 could surpass 2023 in terms of total deal value. In the third quarter of the year, however, the pace of M&A dealmaking slowed down as buyers basically started running out of targets.

Speaking of the shale patch, it was a key talking point for oil price forecasters this year, as usual, but with a twist. Following Donald Trump’s landslide victory in the November elections, a lot of oil market forecasters expected the U.S. oil industry to double down on production growth. It did not take long for the industry itself to dispel the illusion. None other than Exxon’s CEO said there would be no “Drill, baby, drill” unless international oil prices justified such a strategy.

Exxon, along with Chevron, meanwhile, ventured into a new business segment: power generation. Another defining trend of 2024 is that demand for natural gas is soaring as the demand for electricity soars on the proliferation of data centers as Big Tech pursues its artificial intelligence ambitions. Indeed, earlier in the year, the surge in demand for electricity caught power utilities unaware—and that surge will intensify in the coming years. This is where natural gas suppliers come in, and this is why the prospects for natural gas for the medium term are a lot brighter than those for crude oil. This is also why there is talk about a nuclear renaissance.

Wind and solar, the twin pillars of the energy transition, have not been doing very well lately. New additions are slowing down because developers are struggling to absorb higher costs and lower subsidies, and they are also struggling with increasingly frequent negative electricity prices resulting from overproduction during periods of strong sunshine or wind.

Some governments, like the one in the UK, are stepping up their transition efforts with higher subsidies that will be passed on to consumers—a risky move for people who came into power promising to lower bills. Others are staying put because the subsidy money is running out. Yet ambitions for low-carbon electricity are very much alive, which is where nuclear comes in.

Offering the best of both worlds, namely baseload electricity and no emissions, nuclear is drawing well deserved attention. There is, however, a problem with it, and that problem is that it takes years to build a conventional nuclear power plant. This is why small modular nuclear reactors made headlines this year as a faster alternative to those conventional plants, and they will probably continue making headlines until they are proven a viable alternative of the large facilities. For now, however, it’s conventional nuclear on the table and plans are already being drawn for gigawatts of new capacity.

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu, shows the top 20 countries according to average (mean) wealth and median wealth, using data sourced from the UBS Global Wealth Report 2024.

Comparing countries by these two different metrics reveals insights into wealth distribution and inequality.

Average vs. Median Wealth: What’s the Difference?

Average wealth is the total wealth of a country’s people divided by the size of its population. Also known as a mean average, this measurement can be skewed by extremely high values such as the presence of billionaires.

Median wealth represents the middle value of wealth, when everyone’s wealth is arranged in order. This measurement is less affected by massive outliers.

Data and Key Takeaways

The numbers we used to create this graphic are listed in the table below.

One outlier from this graphic is the U.S., which ranks highly in average wealth but much lower in terms of median wealth.

The country has an average wealth of $565,000 per person (4th highest), yet a median wealth of $112,000 per person (14th highest).

This suggests that a large amount of wealth is concentrated among a small group of individuals (who pull up the mean average), and that the majority of the population actually has much less.

Countries that rank highly in both metrics, such as Luxembourg or Denmark, likely have a more even wealth distribution.

If you enjoyed this post, check out this graphic showing how global wealth has changed since 2000.

Authored by Timofey Bordachev via vz.ru,

Only a few years ago, most of Western Europe seemed like a fortress of stability in international politics. With robust economies, solid social systems, and the grand edifice of “European integration,” it gave an impression of permanence, impervious even to major geopolitical upheavals.

Now, however, it has become an inexhaustible source of peculiar headlines and confusion.

We see endless talk of sending “European peacekeepers” to Ukraine, drawn-out dramas over forming a government in France, or pre-election storms in a teacup in Germany. There are attempts to meddle in the Middle East, and above all, a deluge of irresponsible, often meaningless statements from Western European politicians. For outsiders, these developments provoke a mix of bemusement and concern.

In Russia, the Western side of our shared continent’s apparent decline is met with suspicion but also a certain sadness. For centuries, Western Europe has been both an existential threat and a source of inspiration for Russia. Peter the Great famously reformed the country to borrow the best from European thoughts and culture. In the 20th century, the Soviet Union, despite great sacrifices, secured victory over Nazi Germany during World War II. And for many Russians, Western Europe has long been an “Eden,” offering respite from what were often harsh realities back home.

But a Western Europe that is economically unstable, politically chaotic, and intellectually stagnant is no longer the same as what once inspired reforms or envy. It’s no longer a place Russia can look to as a neighbor worth emulating or even fearing.

How the rest of the world sees ‘Europe’

For most of the world, Western Europe’s problems provoke only curiosity. Major powers like China and India are happy to trade with its various countries and benefit from its technology and investment. But if Western Europe were to disappear from the global stage tomorrow, it wouldn’t disrupt their plans for the future. These nations are vast civilizations in their own right, historically shaped far more by internal dynamics than by European influence.

Meanwhile, African and Arab nations still view Western Europe through the lens of colonialism. For them, its decline is of material interest but little emotional consequence. Türkiye sees European countries as prey, aging and weakened rivals. Even the United States, a supposed ally, approaches the continent’s crises with a businesslike detachment, focused solely on how to maximize its own interests at Europe’s expense.

Why is this happening to Europe?

It’s tempting to blame Western Europe’s odd behavior on the degeneration of its elites. After decades under US patronage, its leaders have lost the ability to think critically or strategically. The end of the Cold War allowed them to govern without serious competition, leading to complacency and mediocrity. Many of the brightest minds went into business, leaving politics to those less capable. As a result, Western European foreign policy departments now resemble provincial bureaucracies, out of touch with global realities.

The expansion of the EU in the early 2000s, which brought in several small former Eastern European nations, only exacerbated this problem. Their provincial outlook often dominates discussions, reducing complex issues to simplistic, parochial concerns. Today, Western Europe’s politicians are adept at convincing the world – and perhaps even themselves – of their own incompetence.

But the root of the problem runs deeper. Western Europe faces a growing contradiction: its political insignificance clashes with its still-considerable material wealth and intellectual legacy. For centuries, its countries have accumulated vast resources and developed unparalleled intellectual traditions. Yet its strategic irrelevance renders these assets useless. Even France’s nuclear arsenal, once a symbol of power, now garners little respect on the world stage.

Germany, the EU’s economic powerhouse, exemplifies this impotence. Despite its wealth, it has failed to translate economic strength into political influence, even over its own affairs. The destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline in 2022, allegedly at the hands of its American allies, symbolizes the bloc’s inability to defend its interests or hold its partners accountable.

The United Kingdom, often touted as Western Europe’s most active foreign policy player, plays this role largely under American patronage. Brexit, for all its drama, did little to change this dynamic.

A century of decline

More than 100 years after the First World War dismantled Europe’s empires, the continent finds itself with resources it can no longer wield. The EU’s most recent foreign policy “victory” — the difficult absorption of impoverished Moldova — highlights its limitations. Meanwhile, Georgia, with its defiant government, remains beyond Brussels’ grasp. Even in the Balkans, the EU’s influence is limited to countries subdued by NATO and completely encircled by the US-led geopolitical order.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of modern Western Europe is its lack of reflection. Even the continent’s intellectual elite seems to live behind a wall of denial, detached from reality. This attitude extends to domestic politics, where the rise of non-mainstream parties is dismissed as voters “choosing the wrong way.” In foreign policy, its leaders continue to act as though their opinions still shape global politics, despite clear evidence to the contrary.

The EU states march on, oblivious to their diminishing power and the shifting global environment. In theory, such persistence might seem admirable. But world politics is not a Glass Bead Game, as Hermann Hesse would have put it, and clinging to outdated behaviors will only hasten Western Europe’s decline. At some point, even its vast material and intellectual wealth will no longer be enough to sustain it.

What comes next?

For Russia, Western Europe’s intellectual and moral stagnation presents both challenges and questions. Historically, the EU was a neighbor that inspired reforms and shaped foreign policy strategies. But how does one engage with a declining power that refuses to acknowledge its own fall? And if the bloc is no longer a meaningful counterpart, who will become Russia’s new “unifying other”?

These are questions Russia must answer as it navigates a world where Western Europe’s influence continues to wane. Whatever the answer, it’s clear that its era of dominance is over. Its decline is undeniable – even if Western Europeans themselves refuse to see it.

*  *  *

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

“The youngest political party in British politics has just overtaken the oldest political party in the world.”

That is the shocking, but true, statement issued by Nigel Farage (on X) as a digital counter on the Reform website showed its membership tally before lunchtime on Boxing Day ticking past the 131,680 figure declared by the Tories during their leadership election earlier this year.

Farage went to describe this as a “historic moment”:

“Reform U.K. are now the real opposition.”

He also shared a video of him celebrating the news at a Boxing Day hunt yesterday morning.

This is an historic moment.

The youngest political party in British politics has just overtaken the oldest political party in the world.

Reform UK are now the real opposition. pic.twitter.com/t8SOHThxp3

— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) December 26, 2024

As The Daily Mail reports, the result comes off the back of a successful year for Reform with the party claiming five seats in the General Election in July, including Mr. Farage taking Clacton.

The party also finished in second place in a whopping 98 seats and played a key role in splitting the Conservative vote.

Responding to the surge in membership numbers, Party chairman Zia Yusuf said:

“History has been made today, as the centuries-long stranglehold on the centre-right of British politics by the Tories has finally been broken.

“Nigel Farage will be the next prime minister, and will return Britain to greatness.”

There were 131,680 Conservative members eligible to vote during the party’s leadership election to replace Rishi Sunak in autumn.

The figure, revealed as Kemi Badenoch was announced leader on November 2nd, was the lowest Tory level on record and a drop from the 2022 leadership contest when there were around 172,000 members.

Merry Christmas @KemiBadenoch. pic.twitter.com/XtuHgwhQ4W

— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) December 26, 2024

A Conservative Party spokesman said:

“Reform has delivered a Labour Government that has cruelly cut winter fuel winter payments for 10 million pensioners, put the future of family farming and food security at risk, and launched a devastating raid on jobs which will leave working people paying the price.

“A vote for Reform this coming May is a vote for a Labour council – only the Conservatives can stop this.”

Reform’s overtake of the Conservative Party’s membership numbers comes amid claims that Elon Musk is poised to donate $100 million to the party.

Mr Farage revealed that “money was discussed” in his meeting with Mr Musk, telling The Times: “We are in negotiations about whether he can help. He is fully behind this.”

Authored by Bernard Hudson via The American Mind,

The radical racial ideology has infiltrated the Agency…

Under the best of circumstances, it is difficult for any intelligence service to collect, analyze, and produce actionable, predictive data for a nation’s leadership. This task is made considerably harder when lockstep adherence to a fringe political ideology is imposed upon the workforce tasked with carrying out this challenging mission.

Unfortunately, this is the situation the Central Intelligence Agency and other agencies of the U.S. Intelligence Community are in: to America’s detriment, their leadership enthusiastically imposed Diversity, Equity and Inclusion ideology upon their employees.

To underscore how deeply DEI has metastasized inside the host, in a recent enlightening and publicly available statement, the CIA’s Chief DEI officer said there are three criteria by which an intelligence officer can be promoted at America’s most important foreign intelligence service. Only one of them is related to mission impact.

The others are a rather vague “corporate mindset”—and DEI.

Of the three, adherence to the cant of DEI is the most important; those who do not vocally and unreservedly support it are denied promotions and meaningful assignments. Like rallies held by authoritarian regimes, you do not want to be the first to stop clapping at the approved, serial pronouncements.

It’s ironic that a CIA created to oppose the Soviet Union would embrace the ideological straitjacket that is DEI, an enterprise that uncomfortably mirrors the USSR’s political commissars. Guardians of the party’s orthodoxy, the commissars were coequal with the leadership inside the government agencies where they were assigned, holding considerable sway over who was promoted and who got what assignments. While they were successful for some time in keeping the ruling clique in power, their endless purity tests and unreviewable power helped breed endemic cynicism among the government workers who had to play along to keep their jobs. It accelerated the systemic, institutional incompetence that plagued the Soviet Union to the end of its unlamented run.

Since DEI, the uniquely American take on the USSR’s commissar system, has been imposed on the Intelligence Community, there has been sufficient time to evaluate its impact on its mission, which is the only metric by which any intelligence service’s value should be measured. Using that standard, there are three conclusions we can draw about the effect DEI has had—and none of them are positive.

First, DEI does not fill a gap in the law; it is a quota system masquerading as equal opportunity. It is important to recall that the DEI enterprise has been imposed upon a federal workforce that already operated under long-existing regulations which mandate fair treatment of all employees. The modern U.S. Intelligence Community had successfully built an environment where anyone could succeed, provided they were willing to work hard and make sacrifices, two concepts one almost never hears uttered by DEI’s most vocal proponents.

As it has come to be practiced, one of DEI’s major outputs has been to combine the outside consultant’s mania for numbers with the fervor of heresy-seeking.

At every administrative level, the modern IC seeks to know and document the race, sexual orientation, county of national origin, disability, and age of anyone seeking promotion or a new assignment. This information is apparently formally incorporated into every Human Resources panel, which has determinative power over the vast majority of assignments and promotions. Findings which do not match the vague and ever-changing standards are almost certainly identified as requiring remedy. (Of course, vague and unreviewable standards are the hallmark of how DEI is practiced within the federal government.) The remedy frequently imposed involves adjusting the recommendations of promotion and assignments panels to make them compliant with the current orthodoxy. This means that assignments, promotions, and opportunities will go to individuals less qualified than other candidates in order to serve the alleged greater good.

Second, as it is driven by a core belief that much within institutions is oppressive and unfair, DEI fuels an institutionally distracting grievance culture. Because it seeks to measure personnel outcomes based more on fringe identity politics than on mission impact, it provides a ready-made tool for anyone to challenge a strictly merit-based promotion and assignments system. Anyone who has served at a senior level in the federal government understands (even if they will not publicly speak of it) that there is a wide disparity between the top performers in their workforce and the bottom quintile.

Because DEI prioritizes identity, including self-identity, over mission impact, it has tended to encourage a culture where the least capable workers demand the most of the senior management’s time and attention. Rather than focus on supporting the top performing employees who drive outsized gains in every human institution (including federal agencies), senior managers must constantly navigate an ever-growing number of grievance claims—many of dubious validity and any of which, if mishandled, could harm or derail that senior official’s career.

This creates a peculiar work environment, where the senior-most managers are increasingly evaluated more through the lens of how their less capable and more aggrieved employees view them, rather than by the mission value those senior managers bring to the challenging task of understanding and clandestinely confronting America’s adversaries.

Finally, DEI is a thought-and-sentiment-monitoring mechanism, allowing a fraction of the IC’s non-operational and non-analytical workforce to reach into any level of an organization and assess the personnel and operations of that office against DEI’s blurry and ever-changing goals. Combined with the grievance-seeking culture which is always DEI’s fellow traveler, it creates an informant culture which seeks out alleged non-compliance at every level of an organization with a zeal that would impress the early Soviet Union’s counter-intelligence apparatus.

It is almost certainly less career threatening in the modern CIA to dispute findings related to the plans and intentions of America’s key foreign adversaries than it is to show anything less than full support for the DEI apparatus. No doubt or heresy will go unnoticed or unaddressed. It is not unreasonable to assume that, for senior managers, many types of mission failure would probably be more survivable than being assessed as unsupportive of DEI.

The tragedy is that the CIA, and the broader IC, have incredible capabilities, but none of those are enhanced by the dangerous, fringe orthodoxy that is the modern DEI machine. Abolishing that apparatus will improve the only metric that should matter when evaluating an intelligence service: how well it collects and produces foreign intelligence and how effectively it gives America’s enemies pause.