US airlines are trading slightly higher in the early cash session after new Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoint data revealed that Sunday marked the “busiest day ever” at airports nationwide.

Traffic from Reagan National Airport is backed way up onto Rt. 1 as we are in one of the busiest periods of the busiest air travel day for Thanksgiving. I took my own reporter advice & dropped someone off at Crystal City Metro- riding one stop was his only way to make his flight. pic.twitter.com/fRwuXFVabq

— Tom Roussey (@tomroussey7news) December 1, 2024

TSA checkpoint data indicated that officers screened 3,087,393 passengers across airports, a 33% jump from the same day one year ago. 

This morning I’m at @Reagan_Airport for the last busy day of traveling as Thanksgiving weekend comes to an end. So far, no canceled or delayed flights, but the TSA line is getting steadily longer, so give yourself plenty of time to get to your gate! @wusa9 pic.twitter.com/LhA8j7YJjR

— Brianna Hamblin (@BriReports) December 2, 2024

This marks a new daily record.

More details from TSA were shared on X.

BREAKING NEWS: Yesterday, December 1st was the busiest day ever for TSA – our officers screened 3.087M individuals at airports nationwide. If you’re still traveling home from the Thanksgiving holiday, please arrive at the airport early. Contact @AskTSA with any travel questions. pic.twitter.com/lhzGYb2Gw6

— TSA (@TSA) December 2, 2024

In markets, the S&P 500 Passenger Airlines Index edged slightly higher on the news. While the index has not recovered to pre-pandemic levels, it has risen 57% year-to-date.

AAA projected that nearly 80 million Americans would travel more than 50 miles, either by road or air, ahead of last week’s Thanksgiving holiday.

Beyond soaring air travel demand, consumers also flocked to movie theaters in record numbers.

Is America truly back after the post-Covid funk?

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

Putin doesn’t hate the dollar and actually wants Russia to once again be able to use it with its partners for reasons of convenience, but it was the US that forced his country to de-dollarize and pioneer alternative financial instruments out of necessity.

Trump threatened over the weekend to impose 100% tariffs on those BRICS members that either help create a new BRICS currency or back any replacements to the dollar. This was in response to reports over the past year of Russia’s BRICS chairmanship about this group’s alleged plans. Influential members of the Alt-Media Community fueled this speculation with their wishful thinking claims, but the last BRICS Summit didn’t achieve anything of tangible significance, which was explained here.

Neither BRICS’ most passionate enthusiasts nor its most zealous critics alike can admit that no new currency is on the horizon and none of its members’ currencies will replace the dollar. While it’s true that they’re using national currencies more frequently, this was only due to the need to work around the US’ unilateral sanctions on Russia that were imposed after its special operation. Russia is still an energy and agricultural superpower so its partners couldn’t comply with them without hurting their interests too.

Putin also declared during early September’s Eastern Economic Forum that “we are not conducting a policy of de-dollarisation. We did not renounce settlements in dollars; they denied us such settlements, and we were simply forced to look for other options; this is it…Why are they acting this way? They probably expected everything to crumble here. This is why they made it impossible for us to use the US dollar.” He then added the following a month later during a meeting with BRICS journalists:

“[The US] ruined relations with Russia, constantly impose sanctions and this, eventually, negatively affects the US and the US dollar. The whole world started contemplating whether US dollars should be used since the United States, for political reasons, restricts the use of the US dollar as a universal international payment unit. Everyone started considering this, and the volume of US dollar use is slowly, in small increments dropping both in settlements and currency reserves.”

Putin elaborated even more on this subject at a press conference after that summit:

“I believe this is a terrible mistake by the US financial authorities, because the strength of the US today is built on the dollar. And yet, they are cutting off the very foundation of their own power. It seemed to me that the dollar is like a sacred cow, something that should never be disturbed. But no, they have taken it into their own hands and essentially cut off its horns, stopped taking care of it, and instead are exploiting it recklessly…We are not engaged in a battle, our proposals are not set against the dollar.”

As can be seen, Putin doesn’t hate the dollar and actually wants Russia to once again be able to use it with its partners for reasons of convenience, but it was the US that forced his country to de-dollarize and pioneer alternative financial instruments out of necessity. This is a far cry from how he’s misportrayed by friends and foes alike, each in pursuit of diametrically opposed ideological agendas, the false impression of which was responsible for Trump’s threats against BRICS after he fell for their claims.

The reality is that while de-dollarization trends exist and have sped up since the US’ unprecedented sanctions against Russia nearly three years ago, they’re nowhere near challenging the dollar’s dominance, and a lot of what’s already been achieved can realistically be reversed or decelerated. All that Trump has to do is lift these selfsame sanctions, though he’s unlikely to do so unilaterally, let alone all at once. He’ll want to receive something from Russia first, but Russia might not be able to provide it.

Therein lies the dilemma that Trump’s found himself in. Incipient de-dollarization trends pose a latent threat to one of the pillars upon which the US’ unipolar hegemony is maintained. It won’t materialize anytime soon, but downplaying or ignoring it could prove disastrous in the long term. At the same time, while the solution of lifting the sanctions is simple enough, it’s politically unfeasible in the current context given domestic and international pressures.

From Trump’s perspective, while the dollar would greatly benefit from this, his personal reputation and his country’s international one could be greatly harmed by the perception of them conceding to Putin’s demand for lifting the sanctions without anything in return. Likewise, the concessions that Trump might demand of him for this could be politically unfeasible for Putin, who isn’t going to pull his troops out of the entirety of the territory that Ukraine claims as its own. A compromise must therefore be reached.

One possibility is that the US lets American investor Stephen P. Lynch purchase the bankrupt Nord Stream project if it soon goes to auction in a Swiss bankruptcy proceeding, the scenario of which was recently analyzed here, which could set into motion the lifting of some US sanctions on Russia. If the US no longer threatens secondary sanctions against those that use the dollar to purchase Russian energy and returns Russia to SWIFT, then China and India would likely revert back to the status quo ante bellum.

They’re the ones that are driving global de-dollarization trends via their massive import of discounted Russian oil, which has been paid for with national currencies that are transferred outside of SWIFT, so incentivizing them to return to “business as usual” would advance American interests. Other sanctions would remain in place and only be lifted in phases per compliance with whatever ceasefire, armistice, or peace deal is ultimately agreed upon, while Russia probably will never see its seized assets again.

It’ll therefore be impossible to ever restore all the trust around the world that was lost in the dollar, thus meaning that the strategic imperative driving de-dollarization trends will remain, but Trump can still decelerate these trends through the proposed means if he has the political will. Gradually lifting some of the sanctions, first on Germany’s Russian energy imports via what might be the US-owned Nord Stream project and then on everyone’s import of Russian energy (using dollars and SWIFT), would go a long way.

If he does nothing, however, then he’ll have to face the growing challenge posed by de-dollarization trends. No BRICS currency is about to be unveiled nor will any members’ currency replace the dollar anytime soon, but the increased use of national currencies and non-SWIFT platforms for conducting trade between countries of the Global Majority will eventually create problems for the dollar. It’s therefore better for the US to rein in this trend, which it can do by lifting the main sanctions on Russia.

Absolute chaos has broken out on the left following Joe Biden’s blanket pardon of his son Hunter – which spans the period right before Hunter joined the board of Ukrainian energy giant Burisma (for $1M/year), through yesterday evening.

It was also revealed that months of denying this would happen were pure lies, as the pardon had been in the works for months.

In short, it couldn’t be any more obvious that Hunter was simply the Biden family bag-man. As X user @therealZNO notes:

In 2013-2014, the United States orchestrated a violent coup that toppled Ukraine’s democratically elected government, which led to the ousting of President Yanukovych.

Events that followed:

> April 16, 2014: VP Biden meets with Devon Archer at the White House.
> April 21, 2014: VP Biden visits Ukraine and becomes U.S. policy face.
> April 22, 2014: Archer joins Burisma’s board.
> April 28, 2014: British officials seized $23M from Burisma’s owner.
> May 12, 2014: Hunter Biden joins Burisma’s board, and both were paid millions.

In 2019, an investigation revealed that the Obama administration knew Hunter Biden’s position on Burisma’s board was problematic and interfered with U.S. policy in Ukraine.

The investigation also uncovered approved transactions involving the Obama administration which allowed a Chinese government-owned company and an investment firm with Chinese ties to acquire Henniges, a U.S. military technology firm—Bohai Harvest RST (BHR)—linked to Hunter Biden and Chris Heinz.

This is barely the tip of the iceberg.

It’s absolutely staggering the millions in taxpayer dollars sent to Ukraine because of the Biden family’s personal money laundering loyalty over his crackhead son.

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) December 2, 2024

And while the right is saying ‘I told you so, assholes…’, the left, and never-Trump ‘conservatives’ alike, are having an internal meltdown over Hunter’s pardon. Many are opining that this sets a devastating precedent in that Trump can essentially pardon anyone he wants. Others are defending the pardon – suggesting that the incoming Trump administration would go after Hunter (You mean, for the obvious family corruption?).

Smart person texts me: “Joe Biden has just removed the issue of pardons from the political arena for the next four years and Trump probably once again can’t believe his own dumb fucking luck at this point”

Sadly, I think he’s right.

— Charlie Sykes (@SykesCharlie) December 2, 2024

Former Obama AG Eric Holder defended the pardon, suggesting that Hunter didn’t really do anything all that bad (and Mike Cernovich with a killer response).

Hunter Biden is a lawyer. He used his advanced education to create shell corps to evade reporting requirements to the IRS. That’s a sentencing enhancement. Official reports show he’d do 5-10 years. I have the receipts. https://t.co/FZbvibgpMd

— Cernovich (@Cernovich) December 2, 2024

The Never-Trump conservatives over at The Bulwark defended the pardon (while their CEO said the opposite on X).

Clown. https://t.co/BFwUhwe8eW pic.twitter.com/sbOxiZhUmc

— Carlos (@txiokatu) December 2, 2024

These people are unbelievable!

Put aside the president, the politics and the pardon, this is simply put -a father who deeply loves, cares for, and is forgiving of his son. https://t.co/2qRRtAu29V

— Aaron David Miller (@aarondmiller2) December 2, 2024

The bottom line is that Democrats have lied through the last four years with impunity (as tends to happen).

“It’s transitory inflation.”
“Afghanistan was a success.”
“The border is secure.”
“Robert Hur lied. Biden is fine.”
“Those videos are cheapfakes.”
“Biden had jetlag.”
“Biden had a cold.”
“Biden isn’t going to be replaced.”
“Biden isn’t going to pardon Hunter.” pic.twitter.com/NOrytmi6aa

— Tony Kinnett (@TheTonus) December 2, 2024

Or as X user @BucMon21 puts it, the Biden family is “Corrupt to the core.” (and that doesn’t even cover Beau Biden keeping a DuPont heir out of prison for raping his own toddler).

Corrupt to the core:https://t.co/4bBBjw4aVa pic.twitter.com/ldC4AS4yF6

— F* Your Short Memory 🏴 Anti-Cult of Absurdity (@BucMon21) June 29, 2023

And of course, The View is defending Hunter:

JUST IN: Whoopi Goldberg says what Hunter Biden did is okay because he was addicted to drugs, unlike Trump who is not a drug addict.

Remarkable.

Goldberg said people need to stop accusing Biden of lying when he said he would not be pardoning his son.

“It’s a precedent for all… pic.twitter.com/M58A1HsKLF

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) December 2, 2024

At least the Breakfast Club came correct:

Charlamagne on Joe Biden pardoning Hunter: “I just want Democrats to stop acting like they are on this moral high ground politically when they have shown us they’re not. You know, whether it’s skipping the primary process when Biden stepped down and things like Biden pardoning… pic.twitter.com/zdOY2sTKUl

— Jason Cohen 🇺🇸 (@JasonJournoDC) December 2, 2024

Extreme Virtue (signaling)

During the 2024 election the Democrats ran their campaign on two narrative pillars – First, the idea that progressives are the guardians of “democracy” in the face of some conservative conspiracy to undermine the will of the people.  Second, that they are the party with respect for the rule of law while conservatives are lawless barbarians.  Both narratives were utter nonsense and the opposite is generally true, but this kind of rhetorical spin is not really meant to convince the people that oppose Democrats. Rather, it’s meant to convince their devout electoral base and keep those lemmings in line with the message.

The claim that Democrats are the anointed purveyors of democracy has been thoroughly debunked after Donald Trump won the presidency with the electoral college and the popular vote.  In light of this fact, leftist commentators and the media have decided that the loss was not due to their own failings, but the fault of “stupid voters” that just don’t understand how important the progressive ideology is. Truly, these are the kinds of people that respect the democratic process…

The second claim, that Democrats are models of civic duty with a deep regard for the rule of law, was largely based on a Trump vs Biden legal woes comparison.  The political left argued that Joe’s handling of his son Hunter Biden’s federal charges and degenerate lifestyle was fair and just because he had not abused his position as president to get his family out of trouble.  This was specifically mentioned in reference to Trump’s intention to pardon J6 prisoners.  

Biden, they said, would never exploit the presidency to protect convicted criminals for personal gain, even if one of those criminals was his own son.  He’s just too honorable.

🔥HOLY SMOKES: @ScottJenningsKY takes a blowtorch to DNC shill who says Biden ‘wasn’t lying’ when he said he wouldn’t pardon Hunter.

This is four minutes of straight FIRE:

“It’s all a lie. It is all a grift. Every American except the most partisan, brain-rotted people are going… pic.twitter.com/WbR2kgNomn

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) December 2, 2024

Leap ahead a few months and suddenly all those same Dems are silent, or, they are defending the blanket pardon Biden just pushed forward for Hunter.  As a reminder, let’s take a look back at the self righteous Democrat finger wagging and self delusion that led up to this embarrassing moment:

The perfect montage of the media praising Joe for saying he would never pardon Hunter 😂🤣😂🤣pic.twitter.com/exw4C5cfpY

— Spitfire (@DogRightGirl) December 2, 2024

Set aside the fact that the Biden Administration actively weaponized the legal apparatus to take down a political opponent using fabricated charges – The reality that Joe Biden gave his son a pardon that reaches all the way back to 2014 indicates a personal knowledge of Hunter’s criminal dealings over the course of a decade.  Likely, this knowledge comes from Joe Biden’s involvement in those same dealings.  At the very least he used his position within government to trade for benefits and used his son as a proxy.  

If the media admits this, the last 6 years of ignoring the laptop, Russian collusion, and “10% for the big guy” that they ignored, or in Philip Bump’s case pretended to not understand, all comes crashing down.

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) December 2, 2024

It’s very hard now for Democrats to pretend like they’re the party of legal integrity.  When it comes down to progressive leaders or their family actually facing consequences for their actions, the law goes straight out the window.     

And of course, Jim Biden’s pardon is coming next:

Joe Biden’s brother Jim was entangled in the same scams that Hunter just got pardoned for. Watch for Jim’s pardon to be announcd on Jan 19, 2025 (the reason Hunter got his pardon early is that they needed to preempt Hunter’s sentencing later this month). pic.twitter.com/Yqfl9tuSBO

— Hans Mahncke (@HansMahncke) December 2, 2024

When the will of the public starts to work against the designs of the progressive establishment, they lie and they cheat, and they believe they are justified in this behavior because to cheat is a “lesser evil” compared to the rise of right wing movements.  Conservatives, in their minds, are the ultimate evil.

This is how we get fabricated scandals like Russiagate and the Steele Dossier; an accusation driven circus designed to prove Russian interference led to the surprise win by Donald Trump in the 2016 elections. 

It’s perhaps not surprising that the same cabal would use similar tactics in other key elections around the world as a means to thwart any voting majority that goes against them.  This seems to be the case in Romania where Calin Georgescu recently scored a surprise win in the first round of the presidential elections.  

The 62-year-old, referred to as an ‘obscure far-right populist’ by the establishment media, shook the country’s political landscape by clinching the most votes and advancing to the second round to face off against reformist Elena Lasconi of the progressive Save Romania Union party.  He also beat the incumbent Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu of the Social Democratic Party, leaving the ruling party for the first time in Romania’s 35-year post-communist history without a candidate in the runoff, set for Dec. 8. 

However, according to a report by Expert Forum, a Bucharest-based think tank, Georgescu’s TikTok account before last week’s vote saw an explosion of engagement, which it said appeared “sudden and artificial, similar to his polling results”.  Expert Forum is a leftist organization which works in collaboration with the European Commission, Council of Europe, World Bank and United Nations Development Programme, along with a multitude of NGOs.

Romanian officials have seized on the Expert Forum report, arguing that Georgescu “benefited from massive exposure due to preferential treatment” granted by TikTok.  They say Russian interference is behind Georgescu’s win.  In other words, they want the public to believe that an artificial TikTok following devised by the Kremlin somehow translated into a massive shift in votes against the political left in Romania. 

Georgescu is a NATO critic and has defended Vladimir Putin as “a man that loves his country”, though he holds that he is not pro-Russia.  A primary message of his campaign has been a push for peace in Ukraine and keeping Romania out of the war.

His positions include supporting Romanian farmers, reducing import dependence, and ramping up local energy and food production. He also wants to establish a “sovereign” distribution model based on participatory democracy in which “Truth, Freedom and Sovereignty are the axes of values” in Romania’s development.

Romania’s constitutional court will decide on Monday whether to annul the now controversial first round of the presidential election, held on Nov. 24. If it does, the court will almost certainly whip up public fears that the country’s widely distrusted establishment parties are trying to manipulate the electoral contest in their favor.

The decision could plunge Romania into one of its most intense crises since the fall of Communism

The prevailing narrative implicit in the interference accusations is that voters are stupid and easily influenced by social media trends that foreign governments can control.  Just as Democrats in the US wanted the public to believe that online “Russian disinformation” tricked voters into supporting Donald Trump, Romanian elites want to inject doubt into the Georgescu win. 

It’s not that the people are fed up with the corruption of the progressive status quo – Rather, the establishment argues that the populace doesn’t make their own decisions and they need protection from themselves.   

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Modernity.news,

People responded to Ferrari bragging about its commitment to ‘diversity and inclusivity’ by pointing out that the luxury car manufacturer forces customers to pass a ‘social status’ background check just to be able to buy a Ferrari.

Awkward.

In the wake of the Jaguar farce, when the heritage brand launched a new commercial featuring androgynous models, thereby alienating their core customer base, Ferrari appears to have said, “Hold my beer!”

It started with a post on X in which Ferrari boasted of its, “Commitment to equality, equity, and inclusion by endorsing the new Diversity and Inclusion Charter alongside @F1 and the @fia.”

We proudly reaffirm our commitment to equality, equity, and inclusion by endorsing the new Diversity and Inclusion Charter alongside @F1 and the @fia.
Through encouraging education, breaking biases, and ensuring transparency, we’re creating a more inclusive industry. #Ferrari

— Ferrari (@Ferrari) November 26, 2024

“Through encouraging education, breaking biases, and ensuring transparency, we’re creating a more inclusive industry,” the brand smugly asserted, before getting ratioed into oblivion.

However, that “inclusivity” doesn’t appear to extend to its own potential customers.

As Nick Sortor points out, Ferrari conducts exhaustive background checks on anyone who wants to buy one of their higher end vehicles to “ensure they fit the mold of the brand and its desired image.”

Ferrari has now gone woke, and is preaching “inclusivity.”

And nothing says “inclusivity” like requiring background checks and “social status checks” for ENTIRE FAMILIES before they’re allowed to purchase your cars.

Spare us from your hypocrisy and virtue signaling, @Ferrari. pic.twitter.com/zgYHyPz5LU

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) November 27, 2024

“Family background, social status and additional affiliations,” are also scrutinized before Ferrari will even consider taking your cash.

That doesn’t sound very inclusive!

“Nothing says “inclusivity” like requiring background checks and “social status checks” for ENTIRE FAMILIES before they’re allowed to purchase your cars,” commented Sortor.

As we previously highlighted, Jaguar’s stock price plummeted after their woke rebrand.

Expect Ferrari, in the absence of some seriously rapid back-pedaling, to face the same fate.

*  *  *

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Super Micro Computer said an external review of its business found no evidence of wrongdoing and that the company will appoint new top financial leadership.

The company is looking for a new chief financial officer, chief compliance officer and general counsel, it said in a statement Monday.

On November 5, 2024, the Company announced that the Special Committee’s investigation preliminarily found that the Audit Committee had acted independently and that there was no evidence of fraud or misconduct on the part of management or the Board of Directors.

The Special Committee’s final findings support those initial findings, and the Company is now disclosing the details of the Review, along with measures recommended by the Special Committee.

The Special Committee’s investigation was intended to assess whether the information brought to the Audit Committee’s attention by EY, and certain other matters identified during the Review, raised substantial concerns about (i) the integrity of the Company’s senior management and Audit Committee, (ii) the commitment of the Company’s senior management and Audit Committee to ensuring that the Company’s financial statements are materially accurate, (iii) the Audit Committee’s independence and ability to provide proper oversight over matters relating to financial reporting, and (iv) the tone at the top of the Company with regard to rehiring certain former employees and financial reporting.

The Special Committee’s key findings are summarized as follows:

• Management and Audit Committee integrity: The evidence reviewed by the Special Committee did not raise any substantial concerns about the integrity of Supermicro’s senior management or Audit Committee, or their commitment to ensuring that the Company’s financial statements are materially accurate.

• Audit Committee independence: As to the matters investigated by the Special Committee, the Audit Committee demonstrated appropriate independence and generally provided proper oversight over matters relating to financial reporting. The Special Committee also had no reservations about the independence of the Audit Committee and each of its members.

• Appropriate tone at the top: With respect to the rehiring of former employees, the tone at the top of the Company was appropriate and fully consistent with a commitment to proper financial reporting and legal compliance.

And due to the lack of problems found, the board says no restatement of reported financials is expected.

As announced on November 18, 2024, in its compliance plan to Nasdaq, the Company believes it will be able to complete its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended June 30, 2024, and its Quarterly Report on 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended September 30, 2024 and become current with its periodic reports within the discretionary period available to the Nasdaq staff to grant.

As previously disclosed, the Company does not anticipate any restatements of its quarterly reports for the fiscal year 2024 ended June 30, 2024, or for prior fiscal years.

Specifically, with reference to Revenue recognition and sales practices

• Based on a thorough review of 52 sales transactions from April 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024, including two sales transactions specifically designated by EY, the Special Committee did not disagree with any of the Company’s revenue recognition conclusions for any quarter during this period.

• The Special Committee reviewed underlying sales transaction information (including sales orders, purchase orders, shipping documents, payment information, and the Company’s revenue recognition determinations), discussed transactions with accounting personnel, and conducted email reviews as appropriate. The sample was focused on sales that included large dollar amounts, involvement of rehires, discussions with now former auditors, customers with high sales concentrations at quarter ends, and/or changes in delivery dates.

• The Review also examined merchandise returns and warranty practices to assess if there was any pattern or practice of shipping non-working or incomplete products near quarter ends.

• Based on its investigation, the Special Committee did not disagree with the Company’s revenue recognition conclusions. Additionally, the Special Committee did not find evidence of a pattern or practice of the Company shipping incomplete products at or near quarter ends to recognize revenue.

• The evidence reviewed by the Special Committee did not give rise to any substantial concerns about the integrity of Supermicro’s senior management or Audit Committee, or their commitment to ensuring that the Company’s financial statements are materially accurate.

• The Audit Committee demonstrated appropriate independence and generally provided proper oversight over matters relating to financial reporting.

For now the market is happy about this…

Do we really trust the ‘independent’ investigation after an external auditor abandoned ship?

Among its findings, the independent Special Committee determined that the resignation of the Company’s former registered public accounting firm, Ernst & Young LLP (“EY”) and the conclusions EY stated in its resignation letter were not supported by the facts examined in the Review, the Special Committee’s interim findings reported to EY on October 2, 2024, or the Special Committee’s final findings.

Did EY just make it up?

That’s quite a dive from $122 to $17…

And, having found no evidence of misconduct, why did the company fire CFO David Weigand, and seek a chief compliance officer, chief accounting officer, and general counsel?

Back in April, when Intel stock was in freefall and yet still about 50% higher than where it is today, we said that it was time for the company’s well-meaning if absolutely clueless CEO, Pat Gelsinger, to resign.

Pat Gelsinger, it’s time pic.twitter.com/I421ZwSV9c

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 25, 2024

A few months later we followed up with an appeal that was pretty clear:

*INTEL SUSPENDING DIVIDEND STARTING 4Q 2024
*INTEL ANNOUNCES $10B COST REDUCTION PLAN

Someone. Fire. Gelsinger.

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 1, 2024

If only he had listened to us then, the once-iconic chipmaker would have been in a far better place today, and the outcome would still be the same because early on Monday Intel reported that Pat Gelsinger fired himself, when he and retired from the company and stepped down from its board of directors just as the company is in the middle of trying to execute on a turnaround plan.

Intel CFO David Zinsner and Intel Products CEO Michelle Johnston Holthaus are serving as interim co-CEOs while the board searches for Gelsinger’s replacement, the company said in a statement. Frank Yeary, independent chair of the board of Intel, will serve as interim executive chair.

Gelsinger’s departure is hitting at a tumultuous time for the US chipmaker. Once the industry leader in computer processors, the company is now working to preserve cash to fund a turnaround plan — one Gelsinger called the “most audacious rebuilding plan” in corporate history. The company has fallen out of investor favor amid a shift in the semiconductor industry toward artificial intelligence hardware. Companies are spending on computers built around accelerator chips for AI, an area where Intel’s offerings have barely made a dent.

“We know that we have much more work to do at the company and are committed to restoring investor confidence,” Yeary said.

“As a board, we know first and foremost that we must put our product group at the center of all we do. Our customers demand this from us, and we will deliver for them.”

It would have delivered for them long ago by firing Gelsinger, as the spike in the stock this morning makes abundantly clear.

And now just find a willing buyer since the stock is trading at a 50% discount just to the SOTP liquidation value of the foundries.

Authored by Brayden Lindrea via CoinTelegraph.com,

Elon Musk filed another motion to block ChatGPT-creator OpenAI from converting to a for-profit enterprise, while also alleging that it has been engaging in anti-competitive practices.

Musk accused OpenAI, its CEO Sam Altman, president Greg Brockman and stakeholder Microsoft of violating terms of Musk’s “foundational contributions to the charity,” according to his motion for a preliminary injunction filed on Nov. 30.

Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 and was an early board member until he left the company in 2018. 

He has since launched xAI — the firm behind AI chatbot Grok — which he said is falling victim to OpenAI’s anti-competitive practices.

“OpenAI’s path from a non-profit to for-profit behemoth is replete with per se anticompetitive practices, flagrant breaches of its charitable mission, and rampant self-dealing,” Musk’s lawyers wrote.

Extract from Elon Musk’s motion in the US District Court Northern District of California. Source: CourtListener

Through a “series of exclusive arrangements” with Microsoft, the two companies have engaged in “predatory practices,” enabling them to seize control of almost 70% of the generative AI market, lawyers for Musk said, adding:

“Microsoft and OpenAI now seek to cement this dominance by cutting off competitors’ access to investment capital, while continuing to benefit from years’ worth of shared competitively sensitive information during generative AI’s formative years.”

Allowing this to continue will hurt xAI and the public, which has become increasingly concerned about “rushed” and “unsafe” AI products, they added.

California law allows a nonprofit to convert to a for-profit stock corporation, but not to a limited liability company.

OpenAI said it remains nonprofit at its core but has established a for-profit subsidiary capable of issuing equity to raise capital and hire world-class talent. Still, those tasks would be administered at the direction of the nonprofit. 

An injunction to preserve what is left of OpenAI’s nonprofit character is the only “appropriate remedy,” Musk’s lawyers said.

“No objective observer can look at OpenAI today and say it bears any resemblance whatsoever to what it promised to be. Enough is enough.”

Source: Elon Musk

An OpenAI spokesperson slammed Musk’s latest attempt in a note to Cointelegraph:

“Elon’s fourth attempt, which again recycles the same baseless complaints, continues to be utterly without merit.”

In March, OpenAI leaked emails from Musk in 2015 showing support for the firm to find over $1 billion in funding to compete with the likes of Google and Facebook (now Meta).

OpenAI claimed Musk was harassing the firm in a related October filing.

“Since launching a competing artificial intelligence company, xAI, Musk has been trying to leverage the judicial system for an edge. The effort should fail; Musk’s complaint does not state a claim and should be dismissed,” OpenAI added.

In June, Musk threatened to ban Apple devices at his companies when Apple touted integrating OpenAI’s ChatGPT into its iPhone, iPad and Mac operating systems. Later, Apple launched Apple Intelligence on Oct. 28.

During the pandemic a record number of Americans turned entrepreneurs – sending new business applications to soaring heights.

But everyone knows running a business is difficult, and now there’s some new data to validate the sentiment.

This chart, via Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao, tracks the survival rate of all private American companies born in 2013, categorized by industry.

Figures for this chart are rounded and sourced from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), published 2024.

How Hard is it to Run a Business in America?

Unsurprisingly survival rates for new businesses depend on the industry they’re operating in.

From the data, Agriculture and Forestry businesses born in 2013 were the most resilient over the last decade. More than half were still in operation by 2023.

Note: Only select years shown and industry labels lightly modified, both for readability.

In stark contrast, only one-fourth of Mining, Oil & Gas firms survived in the same time period.

Interestingly both industries are some of the largest subsidy receivers from the government. Estimates put federal agricultural support at $30 billion annually—heavily subsidizing five major crops: corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, and rice.

Meanwhile, the American energy sector receives about $20 billion a year, 80% of which goes to oil and gas.

It is possible that differences in ownership structure and business size are contributing to wildly different survival rates. For example, 97% of all U.S. farms are still family-owned and 88% of them are “small farms” which may need less capital investment than an oil & gas business.

One trend that is industry-agnostic is that the first year proved the most brutal for all businesses formed in 2013, with a 20 percentage point decline in survivors. As time passed, the declines continued at a slower rate.

Finally, the BLS found that for all private businesses incorporated in 2013, just over one-third (34.7%) were still functioning in 2023.

Businesses in farming and agriculture have some of the most positive public perception ratings in the U.S. Check out America’s Views on U.S. Industries, by creator Chartr.

Via SchiffGold.com,

On Saturday, Peter took to his podcast to cover last week’s economic news and political events. In this episode, he discusses rumors of large downward revisions in jobs numbers, the issues with and irony of a state Bitcoin reserve,  and the striking resemblance between the government’s spending situation and a Ponzi scheme.

Peter addresses the possibility that very large downward revisions in jobs numbers are going to be announced. Now that the election is over, there’s no need for government statisticians to manipulate the numbers:

On Wednesday of this week, the Department of Labor announced that it’s very close to another major downward revision in the non-farm payroll numbers. This will affect the numbers from June 2023 up until June 2024. An entire year’s worth of jobs reports is about to get significantly revised lower. … [The government] is now going to say, ‘Oops, we’re sorry, they weren’t created at all.’ …  I specifically said it would happen after the election, when there was no longer a reason to sugarcoat these numbers.

If this really is the case, there could be major ramifications in foreign exchange and the gold markets, which responded throughout the year to the relatively optimistic labor statistics:

It’s most likely that if you reduce any given month by about 100,000 jobs, you’re going to end up turning a job number that was a beat because it was above estimates into a miss because it was below estimates. So it means all of the headlines were wrong. The market reaction was wrong. If the dollar rallied, if gold sold off, if the market rallied based on a beat, it wasn’t a beat. It was a miss.

Peter turns to increased optimism about the creation of a government Bitcoin reserve. He points out the irony in this situation:

If they do that, it’s great for the people who own Bitcoin, who can sell their Bitcoin to the unwilling U.S. taxpayer who is being forced to buy Bitcoin at gunpoint. Because that’s the coercive power of the state, which is the ultimate irony, right? Because Bitcoin was supposed to be anti-government. It was a way to circumvent government, to get out of fiat currencies. This is a decentralized thing. It’s away from government. It’s voluntary. It’s the free market. But its salvation now is the government. It’s the government buying Bitcoin that everybody is now counting on to make the price go up.

With companies like Microstrategy and Mara Holdings dumping billions into Bitcoin, Peter worries that we’re foolishly misallocating capital in what amounts to a Bitcoin bubble.

But if capital is going into these ridiculous money-losing businesses that are just gambling on Bitcoin, where is it coming out of? We don’t have an unlimited supply of investment capital, right? So any capital that is directed to Bitcoin, blockchain, crypto, is capital that can’t go someplace else. It can’t go someplace where it’s actually needed to produce real goods, real things. Instead, it’s being squandered.

Peter speculates on what Treasury Secretary nominee Scott Bessent will do if confirmed by the Senate:

I know that Scott Bessent has reiterated his belief that the U.S. dollar should stay as the reserve currency. And of course, he’s not going to say the opposite. I mean, it’d be ridiculous to say the opposite. But I think the markets are probably going to take that to mean, ‘Oh, well, I guess we’re going to have the strong dollar policy, return to the strong dollar policy.’ But we never really had a strong dollar policy.

Peter wraps up by comparing the way the government uses debt and spending to a Ponzi scheme. The only difference? The government doesn’t try to hide it:

Every time that we get to the debt ceiling, what does the government say? If we don’t raise the debt ceiling, we’re going to default. If we can’t borrow more money, we’re not going to pay back any of the money we already owe. Well, that is an admission that you’re running a Ponzi scheme. You’re telling everybody that it’s a Ponzi scheme. I mean, Bernie Madoff would never do that. It’s Ponzi 101. You got to keep that quiet.

For more analysis of the week’s events, check out Friday’s episode of the SchiffGold Gold Wrap Podcast.