It is not the first time that the venture capital guru has questioned some of the fundamentally dystopian scenarios being proposition in an AI world. 

In February, we noted that amid an armada of dystopian futurists, projecting linear thoughts into a future of ‘AI uber alles’, Marc Andreessen stands as a beacon of potential utopian light, seeing a future that looks very different and very positive for young and old alike.

In a brief few minutes, the co-founder of Netscape and VC firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) believes instead that we are living through a unique (and most incredible) time in history with the rise of AI coming right as human civilization needs it…

“we’re going to have AI and robots precisely when we actually need them [with populations shrinking] to keep the economy from actually shrinking.”

Simply put, Andreessen says that fears of AI-driven mass job loss are overly simplistic.

After decades of unusually slow technological change and low job churn, AI could restore historical productivity levels (exemplified by the period from 1870-1930), sparking opportunity, innovation, and net job growth rather than displacement. 

Declining populations and reduced immigration will make human labor increasingly valuable. AI’s timing is “miraculous”, Andreessen exclaims, preventing economic shrinkage from depopulation.

In even radical scenarios, explosive productivity leads to output gluts, collapsing prices, and massive real-wealth gains – equivalent to “giant raises” for everyone – while making safety-nets more affordable. 

Whether incremental or transformative, Andreessen sees the outcome as fundamentally positive economic news.

Of course, he does have a lot of skin in this game…

Building on that, CoinTelegraph’s Christina Comben reports that Andreessen said artificial intelligence will spark a “massive jobs boom,” dismissing fears of widespread job losses as “all fake” in a Sunday post on X.

His optimism contrasts with a March US jobs report showing unemployment holding steady at 4.3%, while the number of people unemployed for 27 weeks or more rose by 322,000 over the past year.

Andreesen shared a Business Insider report showing a sharp rise in tech job openings in 2026, with more than 67,000 software engineering roles, a twofold increase from 2023, and argued that employers had recovered from post-pandemic hiring corrections and the interest rate spike.

“The ‘AI job loss’ narratives are all fake,” he wrote.

“AI = massive ramp in productivity = massive ramp in demand = massive jobs boom. Watch.”

Andreessen is one of Silicon Valley’s most influential investors, a co-founder of Netscape and venture firm Andreessen Horowitz.

He is also a major backer of US crypto and AI companies.

Job losses in tech pile up

On the ground, the reality is somewhat different. On Feb. 26, Jack Dorsey’s Block cut 40% of its staff as the company accelerated its use of AI, including experiments with agents to take over parts of middle management.

On March 19, crypto exchange Crypto.com announced a 12% workforce reduction due to AI integrations, warning that companies “that do not make this pivot immediately will fail.”

Crypto.com cuts 12% of its staff. Source: Kris Marszalek

AI-driven pivots by companies are also impacting employment.

Oracle reportedly cut up to 30,000 jobs recently, citing “broader organizational change,” as it pushes to build AI data centers.

MARA, which has been repurposing its Bitcoin mining infrastructure for AI, has reportedly reduced its staff by 15%.

Andreessen’s comments meet with skepticism

That backdrop helps explain the online backlash Andreessen received.

“Tell that to the average lower middle class American who can’t find a job or the consumer who can’t get decent customer service,” crypto influencer WendyO replied. 

Tory Green, co-founder at io.net argued Andreessen could be proved right on net job creation, but only if AI tools are broadly accessible and not captured by a handful of platforms.

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

It’s not every day that top officials of the German Bundesbank take an explicit stance on daily politics.

Nagel’s stark warnings about Germany’s debt and the government’s creative accounting were surely met with grim recognition in Berlin’s corridors of power. Open criticism is rare there, and when it comes from credible insiders, it stings even more.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz and his Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil apparently still believe the fairy tale that debt-fueled demand policy can create economic miracles, generate growth, and deliver real prosperity. The result: a staggering debt binge that threatens to finish Germany economically.

Of course, this is a Keynesian nursery tale, endlessly repeated by politicians. With this simplified version of economics, political power is cemented – while the anonymous masses of taxpayers are left to clean up the debt disaster.

The government assumes the taxpayer backstop—and has surrounded itself with a state-friendly media sector, like a protective membrane. This behavior is conditioned.

The truth about mounting state debt, its destructive impact on private business, inflation, and the erosion of middle-class purchasing power is rarely discussed, and only in the media’s backrooms. When criticism reaches the public eye, its proponents are aggressively attacked and their valid arguments systematically sterilized.

Since January 2022, Joachim Nagel has led the Bundesbank. Recently, he warned for the first time about the unchecked growth of public debt—breaking Berlin’s long-standing elite vow of silence. Last year, he said, national debt rose by €144 billion to €2.84 trillion, pushing the debt-to-GDP ratio to 63.5 percent.

Some may recall the Maastricht limit, which capped debt at 60 percent. Those times are long gone, and the official debt numbers are, of course, grossly misleading.

For years—especially since the banking bailouts 15 years ago—the government has operated shadow budgets. Hoping the public won’t dig into fiscal details, these rarely illuminated debt channels are declared “special funds,” off the official books. Over 20 such hidden debt pots inflate actual state debt by at least €550 billion. Germany’s real debt likely sits near 80 percent of GDP and could exceed 85 percent by the end of this fiscal year.

The most infamous of these special funds originates from the debt crisis 15 years ago. The Financial Market Stabilization Fund (FMS) provided €400 billion in government guarantees and €80 billion in potential recapitalizations. Ultimately, €168 billion in guarantees and around €30 billion in direct transfers to financial institutions were used, while roughly €50 billion in debts from that era remain.

One of the largest black funds in federal history. Only Merz’s half-trillion-euro special fund will surpass this scale. Lesson learned: state financing has become an undeniable Ponzi scheme. Bond markets will ultimately dictate when the fiat money spree ends—they are the final arbiters of decades of political chaos.

Merz and his debt-hungry, insatiable finance minister are deliberately driving state spending to dizzying heights, yet must acknowledge that the heavily damaged German “economic tanker” can no longer move forward.

To buy time, the tragicomic duo plans to tighten middle-class taxes to the limit, holding taxpayers accountable for their fiscal free-for-all.

This is irresponsible, economically destructive policy unseen in Germany since WWII—the construction of a new socialism.

Against this backdrop, the Bundesbank president urged a return to sound budget planning. Deficits must be reduced mid-term without cutting essential infrastructure. Sadly, Nagel stopped short of endorsing free-market principles outright, missing the chance to clarify that the diversion of additional debt via special funds is systemic.

Policy cannot be fiscally restrained as long as bond markets are manipulated by monetary policy. According to the ifo Institute, 95 percent of this additional debt was added to the pre-existing debt binge and diverted. Social policy with a money printer—this is how far German fiscal policy has sunk.

Those seeking the real debt picture must dig deep—including pension obligations and current retirement promises. The scale of these liabilities defies imagination.

Germany—and nearly all of the EU—is trapped in a debt spiral. Turmoil in capital markets, broad restructuring, and massive wealth and debt redistribution loom. A standalone debt haircut would be systemic death: it would shrink circulating fiat credit and trigger a deflationary shock beyond the capacity of banks to absorb—a dead-end.

When will Germany begin monetizing its treasure, its massive gold reserves? Four years ago, the government under then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz pressured the Bundesbank to sell part of its gold to fund the defense special fund.

“Top” economists at Spiegel were reportedly inflamed by this idea—in these circles, the significance of collateralized, limited-quantity assets is poorly understood, even though they may one day underpin a new monetary regime.

It is fortunate that Nagel held the firewall against political adventurers and media amateurs. The Bundesbank may one day play a decisive role in a severe currency and debt crisis.

* * * 

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

Summary: 

• Trump threatens “Iran can be taken out in one night… maybe tomorrow”; Warns ‘every bridge and power plant’ will be destroyed

• WSJ reports US military is making preparations for potential strikes on energy targets in Iran. Universities and airports are already being hit.

• A Sunday night Axios report on a US-proposed 45-day ceasefire has by Monday morning been rejected by Iran, which later on Monday issued a 10-point letter via Pakistan. 

• Israel strikes large petrochemical plant at South Pars, which is responsible for half of the country’s petrochemical production.

• Trump reaffirms Tuesday deadline before vital infrastructure gets attacked as ‘final’, calls Americans opposed to Iran war ‘foolish’ – saying it’s all about Tehran not getting a nuke.

• Israel kills experienced longtime head of IRGC intelligence; Iranian missile strike on Haifa residential complex kills 4.

With all that in mind, the odds of a ceasefire by the end of April (2026) are rising (but still low)…

*  *  *

The ‘MIT of Iran’ Hit in Airstrikes

US-Israeli strikes have been on a noticeable uptick against Iranian institutions of higher learning over the last days. This has included a large-scale aerial assault on Tehran’s Sharif University, which is often dubbed the “MIT of Iran”.

After this attack, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi threatened Iranian retaliation, warning “aggressors will see our might.” He said several other universities have also been struck over the last days. One regional report (Al Jazeera) says that at least 30 Iranian colleges and universities have suffered damage amid the ongoing attacks.

Neither the US nor Israel divulged the reasons behind attacking university campuses. Many of the students at these very campuses were involved in the January protests. The US claims to be “helping” the protesters through the Trump-ordered massive bombing campaign.

Shahid Beheshti University in northern Tehran was attacked last Friday. It issued a statement saying: “This hostile act not only targets the security of academics and the country’s scientific environment, but is also a clear attack on reason, research, and freedom of thought.”

Trump Threatens Iran’s Decimation By Midnight Tues If No Deal

Having already spoken to reporters earlier in the day (before, during, and after the Easter Egg party), discussing ceasefire proposals (‘not good enough’) and his desire to ‘take the oil’, President Trump took the lectern in the White House Briefing Room at 1pm ET to discuss the rescue of the downed airmen over the weekend.

President Trump centered his remarks on the weekend search-and-rescue operation for downed airmen, highlighting its success while condemning the leak of details surrounding the mission. “Rescue leak is a national security concern,” he said, adding that authorities “will examine media firm that reported rescue leak.” He further declared, “we have to find that leaker, that’s a sick person,” and warning of potential legal action, as he “threatens to jail journalist over leak,” before adding, “The left will love that!”

He then pivoted to a more aggressive stance on Iran, stating, “Iran can be taken out in one night, maybe tomorrow,” and doubling down with, “entire country of Iran could be taken out in one night.” He also at one point said, “we won.” Pete Hegseth then stepped in and reinforced the escalation, stating, “today will be largest volume of strikes on Iran,” and warning, “tomorrow’s strikes on Iran will be more than today.”

During the Q&A session, Trump signaled undisclosed strategy, saying, “I have the best plan of all, won’t tell you what it is,” while insisting, “we didn’t do this for regime change.” He described Iran’s leadership shift in stark terms: “new regime is smarter, sharper, less radical.”

Vital infrastructure attacks already in progress…

The US and Israel are carrying out intense bombing raids on Iran’s South Pars petrochemical complex, which accounts for 85% of the country’s production in this sector.
The damage is massive, yet the complex covers 54,000 hectares and would require many days of sustained heavy… pic.twitter.com/9CB00VZNJ3

— Patricia Marins (@pati_marins64) April 6, 2026

He also addressed the Iranian public directly, stating, “Iranians should rise up, but the consequences are great,” while claiming, “Iranians want us to keep bombing,” and adding, “Iranian people are willing to suffer for freedom.” He also emphasized that “free traffic of oil” in the Hormuz Strait “must in the Iran deal”. He has warned that “every bridge” and power plant will be decimated by midnight tomorrow night if the Iranians don’t accept a ceasefire deal.

This followed a report from The Wall Street Journal that the US military is making preparations for potential strikes on energy targets in Iran, according to multiple U.S. officials – as President Trump ratchets up his demand for Tehran to open the Strait of Hormuz – sending oil prices significantly higher…

That military planners are pulling out existing lists of potential targets to provide the president options if he decides to attack energy infrastructure (according to WSJ sources), this should not be new news for traders (but the market is so sensitive), since Trump has ramped up his threats to do just that in recent days, telling The Wall Street Journal on Sunday that he would destroy all of Iran’s power plants if the regime doesn’t agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by Tuesday evening.

Buy Now

IRGC Intel Chief Taken Out; Israel Suffers Heavy Casualties

The head of the Intelligence Organization of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was killed in a Monday airstrike, according to confirmation in Iranian media. IRGC-linked Tasnim News Agency reported that the IRGC Public Relations Department confirmed Monday that Major General Majid Khademi was killed earlier in the day during an attack by US and Israeli forces. However, Tasnim did not disclose the location of the strike.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) earlier stated on X that Khademi was one of the IRGC’s most senior commanders with decades of experience. “Khademi worked to advance terrorist attacks worldwide, and was responsible for monitoring Iranian civilians as part of the regime’s suppression of internal protests,” it claimed.

RFE/RL reported that Khademi assumed the post last summer after Mohammad Kazemi was killed in Israeli strikes during the 12-day war. Before that, he led the Intelligence Protection Organization of the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics. Iran is now vowing to enact vengeance on Israel for his death.

Meanwhile Sunday into Monday saw significant casualties in Israel, after the IRGC claimed in a statement carried by state media that Iranian forces had targeted an oil refinery in Haifa. But instead, it appears that the missile slammed directly into a residential building, killing at least four Israelis. Search and rescue teams have spent some 18 hours pouring through the ruins of the complex, recovering two bodies early Monday after an initial two had been found. The casualties could climb amid ongoing recovery efforts. Another regional source stated that “Over 160 Israelis have been transferred to hospitals over the past 24 hours, Israel’s Health Ministry said on Monday.”

Israel is under attack. Over 15 cluster warheads hit the target.

Reportedly, in the past hours, approx 60% of Iranian missiles bypassed Israel’s air defense system.

Iron Dome is dying. pic.twitter.com/INGLWOV9Hk

— Chay Bowes (@BowesChay) April 6, 2026

Trump: Tuesday Deadline ‘Final, Won’t Change’; Americans Opposed to Iran War Are ‘Foolish’

At a White House annual Easter event, President Trump reaffirmed the Tuesday deadline is final, and further said he has seen every proposal. While he acknowledged the new 10-point Iran proposal as a “big step,” he still said it’s “not good enough; will see what happens.” According to more:

• War could end very quickly if they do the things they need to do.
• People talking for Iran are more reasonable now.
• War is about one thing, Iran cannot have nuclear weapons.
• “If I had my choice, I would take Iran’s oil”.
• If Iran does not yield, they will not have bridges or power plants.
• UK has a long way to go.

There were interesting remarks also claiming that “As of this morning 45,000 protesters have been killed” in Iran – though it’s entirely unclear an dubious as to where he got such a figure. He said that Iranians need guns and that he had sent some but a “certain group” decided to keep them.

“The Iranian people wanna hear bombs because they want to be free,” he also claimed, while First Lady Melania added that the US is fighting for the “future” of children in Iran. Another interesting moment as some corners of MAGA grow increasingly skeptical and angry over the war:

The US president is speaking to reporters at the White House. Asked what he would tell Americans who are opposed to the war, Trump replied: “They’re foolish.”

“Because the war is about one thing – Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” he said.

Iran Issues 10-Point Rejection of ‘Simple Ceasefire’

Per PressTV: “The ten-point plan rejects a simple ceasefire, stressing the need for a permanent resolution that safeguards Iran’s interests. Key demands include ending regional hostilities, ensuring safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, lifting sanctions, and rebuilding affected areas.” It’s no secret that Iran is seeking a permanent end to the war on terms that would ensure it is never attacked again.

• “According to IRNA’s foreign policy correspondent, in this response, which consists of ten paragraphs, Iran has emphasized the need for a permanent end to the war, taking into account Iran’s considerations, while rejecting a ceasefire”.
• “This answer includes a set of demands from Iran, including the end of conflicts in the region, a protocol for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, reconstruction and lifting of sanctions”.

It appears similar to the outline that Iran issued some two weeks ago. At every turn, Tehran has rejected that direct talks with Washington are even taking place. Tehran also keeps rejecting White House ceasefire overtures. And yet the same Monday little dance keeps repeating itself…

Amazingly, it seems like every Sunday night we get an Axios report that a peace deal is imminent.

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) April 6, 2026

Israel Attacks Petrochemical Plant At South Pars Gas Field

Iranian state media is reporting a Monday attack which targeted the South Pars petrochemical facility in Asaluyeh. “A few minutes ago, the sound of several explosions was heard from the South Pars Petrochemical complex in Asaluyeh,” according to the Fars report. Also Tasnim describes an attack on two utilities companies in Assaluyeh which have cut off electricity supply to petrochemical units. Later Israel claimed a second attack on another chemical plant in Iran. The same outlet revealed the following details:

• Petrochemical plants in Asaluyeh, including Jam and Damavand, were targeted.
• Mobin and Damavand companies, which supplied electricity, water, and oxygen to the Assaluyeh petrochemical plants, have been targeted.
• Pars Petrochemical is safe and has not been damaged.

Israel has announced it was behind the attack, per Washington Post. Does this violate Israel’s prior pledge to Trump to not take unilateral action against South Pars? This as the threatened major US escalation against vital energy and civilian infrastructure looms:

Israel attacked a key petrochemical plant at Iran’s massive South Pars natural gas field and killed a top Revolutionary Guard commander, putting into question the negotiations aimed at getting the U.S. and Tehran to reach a ceasefire.

Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed what he called “a powerful strike on the largest petrochemical facility in Iran” that’s responsible for half of the country’s petrochemical production. Israel’s military spokesperson, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, said there would be “no immunity” for Iran as talks progress.

The Israeli Air Force struck Iran’s largest petrochemical facility, the South Pars gas field in Asaluyeh. It has been completely destroyed. pic.twitter.com/Jh3KPDwgh2

— Israel News Pulse (@israelnewspulse) April 6, 2026

In Israel, Iranian missiles have continued to fall at steady pace, with Israel’s emergency services reporting that at least 28 impact sites in central Israel on Monday, describing that cluster munitions have resulted in damage. Ramat Gan, Bnei Brak, and Givatayim were struck, and a man in his 40s was “moderately wounded” – according to local reports.

Iran Rejects Any Ceasefire That is Temporary: ‘Normalization of War Crimes’

Iran rejected a temporary ceasefire in the US-Israeli war, stating it would give adversaries time to regroup and prepare for continued conflict; however, a foreign ministry statement did not specifically reference the 45-day proposal being reported by Axios.

“We are calling for an end to the war and for preventing its recurrence,” foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said, according to Iran’s state news agency IRNA. Analysts have long understood that Tehran’s retaliation on Gulf states and Israel has been so fierce because it seeks to deter any potential future attack. Iranian leaders fear that without proper and final resolution, the country will just get attacked again, be it a year from now, or even several years down the road.

The foreign ministry also on Monday stated that Iran has prepared a response to US demands to end the war and will announce it “when necessary,” referring to the 15-point list conveyed by Washington to Tehran through Pakistan – which Baghaei reiterated is “extremely excessive and unusual and illogical.” He further reminded the world that Tehran has a “very bitter experience of negotiating with the US.” The idea of talks at this moment remain “absolutely incompatible with ultimatums, crimes, and threats to commit war crimes,” Baghaei continued.

Once again, an avalanche of headlines on ‘negotiations’ were issued hours before markets open Monday morning…

Separately, Iranian Armed Forces spokesman Ebrahim Zolfaghari stated Monday that if attacks on civilian targets continue, Iran’s retaliation will expand significantly and losses will be “several times greater,” according to Tasnim.

Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told his French counterpart on Monday related to Trump’s threats to wipe out civilian infrastructure, “This threat amounts to the normalization of war crimes and genocide.”

Fresh Axios Report of US-Proposed 45-Day Ceasefire

With a potential globally-catastrophic escalation looming on Tuesday, Middle East mediators are communicating with Iran and the United States about a proposed 45-day ceasefire, Axios reported Sunday evening. The ceasefire is being positioned as the first of a two-phased deal, with the second phase being a negotiated, permanent end to the war that Israel and the United States started with a surprise attack on Feb. 28 amid ongoing negotiations. 

The slim ray of hope comes after President Trump issued a profane, Easter Sunday threat to make life miserable for 90 million Iranians whom he just weeks ago promised to liberate:  “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell.”    

How it started vs. how it’s going. pic.twitter.com/LNgxOsF5GK

— Brandan P. Buck (@brandan_buck) April 2, 2026

In addition to vitriol, Trump’s social media posts also brought an extension of what had been a 10-day deadline for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz — a deadline that was initially set to expire on Monday evening. Now Trump says Iran has until 8pm on Tuesday. In the interim, Trump has scheduled a 1pm news conference on Monday. The described it as a press conference “with the military,” suggesting it may be focused on celebrating US Special Forces’ retrieval of a downed US Air Force weapons officer over the weekend. Held in the Oval Office, it may be open to only a small subset of the White House press corps. 

The combination of the ever-so-slightly encouraging Axios report and the Trump presser could make for the latest of many market whipsaws since the war started. Trump told Axios that there are “deep negotiations” ongoing with a “good chance” of success. On the other hand, he was quick to add that “if they don’t make a deal, I am blowing up everything over there.” Trump’s threats to lay waste to Iran’s civilian infrastructure has elicited Iranian promises to retaliate in kind across the Persian Gulf. In a video issued Sunday, Iran threatened “complete and utter annihilation” of OpenAI’s $30 billion Stargate data center in Dubai. 

Iran leveling up
They released a video of threatening to strike 1GW Stargate AI datacenter in the UAE.

The data center is hidden on Google maps they even shown that pic.twitter.com/LuOGIp3BVj

— Furkan Gözükara (@FurkanGozukara) April 3, 2026

While the precise nature of the negotiations is unclear, Axios reported that Pakistani, Egyptian and Turkish mediators are at the center of the conversations, and that there have been “text messages sent” between Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. Significantly, the outlets’ sources said mediators couldn’t foresee a full re-opening of the Strait of Hormuz until a final deal is inked. 

• The mediators want to see whether Iran could take partial step on [nuclear enrichment and Strait of Hormuz navigation] in the first phase of the deal. They are also working on steps the Trump administration could take to give Iran guarantees that the ceasefire will not be temporary and that the war will not resume.

• The Iranian officials made clear to the mediators they don’t want to be caught in a Gaza or Lebanon situation where there is a ceasefire on paper, but that the U.S. and Israel can attack again whenever they want to.  — Axios

Going into these latest conversations, the gap between US and Iranian demands was enormous. Among other things, Trump is demanding that Iran weaken the ballistic missile program it now used twice to retaliate against US-Israeli aggression, and to cease any nuclear enrichment, even though Iran is otherwise privileged to do so as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (a status Israel lacks). Iran has demanded reparations for the damage caused by Israeli and US attacks, the closure of US bases in the region, the lifting of all sanctions, and a hard-wired guarantee against more rounds of intermittent US-Israeli attacks. Regarding the latter demand, some have envisioned passage of a US law that would cut off aid to Israel if it attacks Iran again. 

Speculation that Pilot Rescue was Cover for Uranium Ground Op

Beyond the potential for escalation via attacks on civilian infrastructure, there’s also the potential for a US commitment of ground forces. Trump may feel emboldened about proposed operations to seize Kharg Island and/or strait-adjacent territory following the dramatic weekend rescue of a downed F-15E crew member — which itself brought the first known deployment of soldiers on Iranian soil. (We should note that there’s a growing number of veterans and other people — pointing to factors like the involvement of C-130 cargo craft and the location of their makeshift airfield — theorizing that the rescue was actually a failed attempt to capture Iran’s cache of 60%-enriched uranium.)

US PILOT ‘RESCUE’ OP COST:

— 2 MC-130 aircraft ($100 MILLION+ EACH) ‘intentionally DESTROYED’

— 4 MH-6 Little Bird helicopters

Iran drops NEW WRECKAGE IMAGES pic.twitter.com/TMYCEspepc

— RT (@RT_com) April 5, 2026

Meanwhile, there’s little to indicate that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is interested in deescalation.

* * * Four days left in the Spring Sale

New footage of what appears to be the highly secretive Northrop Grumman RQ-180 stealth surveillance drone has surfaced near Larisa, Greece, according to the aviation outlet The Aviationist.

The RQ-180 apparently appeared in daylight hours on approach to landing at Larisa Air Base, home to the Hellenic Air Force’s 110 Combat Wing. The footage offers one of the clearest views yet of the flying-wing spy drone and confirms it is neither the B-2 Spirit nor the B-21 Raider. 

The aircraft has never been formally acknowledged in detail by the Pentagon, but the designation has circulated in defense reporting since at least 2013. Its core mission is to collect imagery, radar, and signals intelligence in places where a non-stealth drone, such as the Global Hawk, would be too vulnerable. 

The earliest video of the RQ-180, which could be among the first-ever glimpses of the drone, emerged in late March and was first reported by the local Greek news website OnLarissa. 

The Aviationist pointed out this latest footage only suggests that “Larissa is in fact being used as a regular forward operating location for the RQ-180.” 

Larisa Air Base has already been used for MQ-9 Reaper reconnaissance operations in the region. The base is part of the Eastern Mediterranean support network, where Reuters reported that Western militaries increased their presence last month. 

The RQ-180’s most likely role in the US-Iran conflict is reconnaissance.

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

In the media business, five months is an eternity. And it does indeed seem like an eternity has passed since Christian Kullmann, CEO of the German chemical giant Evonik, sharply criticized European climate policy at the end of October.

At the time, Kullmann gave an interview to Süddeutsche Zeitung, in which he called—if not for the outright abolition—then at least for a significant weakening of the EU-wide CO₂ emissions trading system, given the dramatic state of the economy.

Kullmann rightly pointed out that there is probably no stricter CO₂ regime anywhere in the world than in the EU. And since the climate, as we know, has no borders, he argued it makes little sense to disadvantage domestic cutting-edge technology in this way. He explicitly referred to the costly CO₂ trading system, which drained a staggering €21.4 billion from the German economy last year alone—under the banner of climate policy through this relatively new mechanism.

Five months after these remarkable statements—briefly breaking the long-standing silence of German industrial leaders—the question must be asked whether there is anywhere else in the world a comparable project to the EU’s CO₂ regime. With the United States abandoning its policy of artificial energy scarcity, its war on conventional energy production, and heavy-handed regulation of its own industrial base, the EU now stands alone in its ideological campaign against economic rationality. No one else seems willing to join the chorus of Europe’s climate apocalypticism.

This European isolationism may elsewhere be perceived as a form of late-stage counter-colonization—a return flow of capital from remorseful Europeans willing to accept self-imposed sacrifice to help other regions get back on their feet. Around the world, this selflessly naive “degrowth suicide” is welcomed, as it delivers not only so-called climate support from European funds but, more importantly, accelerated industrial investment from European companies—served on a silver platter by eco-socialist policymakers. A civilizational ingredient that, it seems, Europe itself now believes it can do without.

In China, one has learned to remain quiet when a geopolitical rival makes mistake after mistake—as is currently the case with European climate policy. Energy-intensive firms like Evonik are penalized by CO₂ pricing with an artificial competitive disadvantage. Once embedded in political and administrative structures, this amounts to a genuine stimulus program for foreign industrial locations.

At the same time, China—like the increasingly deregulated United States under President Donald Trump—is developing a powerful vacuum effect in global capital markets. The world is benefiting from German engineering and European capital.

This dynamic is particularly evident in the chemical industry. As a highly energy-intensive sector, it has suffered one of the hardest blows from European climate policy, alongside the automotive industry. Kullmann’s warning about the erosion of economic foundations was more than justified—but it came far too late and remained, for a time, a lone voice in the wilderness.

Since 2018, Germany’s chemical industry has lost roughly a quarter of its production capacity. The sector is operating at an average capacity utilization of just 70%, a level that reflects a sectoral depression not seen in Germany since the end of World War II.

Yet the worse the economic situation becomes, the more firmly German policymakers cling to their belief in the green transformation. Corporate silence is secured by a massive subsidy machine, just as the sympathetic media sector provides the shrill soundtrack to the broader economic decline.

Tactically astute from a media standpoint, Brussels—under pressure from European industry—has agreed to ease some pressure from the CO₂ cost burden. The European Commission is expected to temporarily freeze the volume of circulating certificates within the market stability reserve in order to stabilize prices.

For Evonik CEO Kullmann, the outcome presented by Brussels appears acceptable. His once sharp criticism of the CO₂ mechanism has mysteriously vanished into the media ether. The change of heart clearly follows the promise of further subsidies.

A destructive mechanism has emerged between large corporations and an eco-socialist political leadership. At the media level, corporate executives and political actors stage a kind of ping-pong game that simulates critical debate and conflicting interests at the highest levels of decision-making.

Evidently, there is no willingness to even slow down the ongoing transfer of wealth—from the productive sectors of society to politically favored extractive sectors such as the green economy—even amid prolonged economic stagnation. The economic and social consequences of this policy are, for now, being conveniently ignored in both Brussels and Berlin.

* * * 

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

Europe has been dancing on the edge of a knife, flirting with notions of war with a battle hardened Russia over the conflict in Ukraine.  As these tensions escalate, questions are being raised about the actual combat readiness and capabilities of countries that have relied on the US for their security for so long.

The primary division between the Trump Administration and NATO countries, the thing that started it all, was the initial refusal of so many of them to pay their fair share for defense.  Currently, most NATO members budget around 2% of their GDP to defense under the NATO treaty.  When asked to budget 5%, European governments became indignant, only agreeing to meet the target in a decade.

In an interesting recent admission from The Telegraph, Tom Tugendhat, a British MP and former security minister, argues that the UK simply lacks the independent military capabilities needed to pull off a rescue operation of one of their own airman similar to the recent US operation in Iran.  He says that if one of their pilots needed to be saved, they would have to ask the US to do it.  

“We do not have the platforms, the satellites, the reach or the mass. Our rescue plan, if the airman were British, would be to call the U.S.”

Tugendhat warned about the situation in Iran in March, saying he had questions as to why Prime Minister Keir Starmer failed to deploy appropriate air defense assets in the region to protect UK citizens and allies from missile and drone strikes.  Starmer is facing mounting criticism for his delay in deploying the HMS Dragon to Cyprus, following an attack on UK base RAF Akrotiri. 

Expressing his dismay at the lack of protection for British personnel, Tugendhat told GB News:

“My take is pretty simple – we may not have agreed with the initial decision to strike, that’s an American and Israeli decision…But I see absolutely no reason why we didn’t have assets in the region, why we didn’t have Type 45 destroyers in the region to protect our citizens and our allies. It’s baffling to me.”

Beyond their heavy reliance on the US and Europe’s lack of military spending, Europe is facing a crisis of public confidence. European military readiness has been exposed in the past few years as severely lacking, and a core problem these governments refuse to address is the fact that most young men simply don’t want to fight for them.  In other words, in a voluntary system the governments and the countries in question need to hold similar values to the men they want to send into battle. 

With far-left progressive elements holding power across Europe, this is simply not the case.  So, their only option is to force a draft. 

Several senior UK officials and MPs have publicly entertained or discussed the possibility of forced conscription (a military draft) as something that the government might implement in the event of a major war.  UK military recruitment is far below requirements with the Army and Royal Navy consistently hitting only 60% of their personnel goals. 

Dr. Mike Martin, a Liberal Democrat MP and former British Army officer, stated in March 2025 that if the UK became involved in a general war with Russia, “we’ll be conscripting the population – there’s no question about that.” He described it as something Britain “must be prepared” for, given the significant risk of wider conflict.  Notions of an incoming draft have been a major topic in the British media for the past couple years. 

The suspicion is that the establishment is acclimating the public to the idea over time, getting them ready to accept it as inevitable.  

Germany is creating the framework for a draft right now.  As of January 1, 2026, German men aged 17 to 45 must obtain “permission” from a Bundeswehr Career Center before traveling abroad for more than three months.  They witnessed what happened in Ukraine at the start of the war with Russia; millions of young men fled the country to avoid conscription.  Germany is establishing loss prevention, clearly planning for a near term clash with the Russians. 

One strange narrative that has been circulating on social media is the argument among Europeans that the US “wasted” millions of dollars in military equipment in their successful mission to rescue “just one” wounded airman.  The operation included special forces landing two MC-130s on a makeshift landing strip right under the nose of the IRGC and securing the area for the extraction of the stranded airman.  The planes became stuck in the sand and had to be destroyed to prevent them falling into the hands of the Iranians.  

It’s highly revealing that this sacrifice of equipment for the sake of saving a lost soldier is confusing to many Europeans.  It shows that they can’t comprehend the idea of a government that would actually care enough to save them rather than throw them to the wolves.  In other words, there is no loyalty on either side of the equation and Europe’s weaknesses go well beyond the political.  

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

On both sides of the Franco-German border, the same problem persists: overburdened and reform-averse politicians struggle against a rapidly accelerating debt spiral. Their preferred tool: higher levies.

Last week, France’s Finance Minister Roland Lescure reported a revision of the projected budget deficit for the current year.

Initial estimates for 2026 had suggested a deficit well above five percent. Yet numerous fiscal measures brought last year’s deficit down to 5.1%. For 2026, the Finance Ministry expects it to stabilize at around five percent—provided the ongoing energy crisis and the war in Iran do not cast a lasting shadow over the year, and the economy does not abruptly collapse.

With total public debt at roughly 115% of GDP, France cannot possibly meet the Maastricht criteria under this level of new borrowing.

Do restrictive fiscal rules, such as the increasingly fading Maastricht criteria, even matter anymore in the Eurozone? It’s a rhetorical question: public spending dynamics are no longer controllable. One could also say: EU nations have entered a phase of fiscal fatalism.

After a 4% increase in government spending in 2024, outlays rose again last year, this time by 2.5%. The state apparatus continues to expand, regardless of the dramatic debt levels, pushing the public-sector share of GDP to 57%.

Similar to Germany, this figure does not account for the bureaucratic overhead borne by the private sector on behalf of the increasingly feudal state. Hundreds of thousands of private-sector jobs exist solely to fulfill government reporting and compliance obligations.

Massive Tax Hikes

Meanwhile, the French government remains stuck in its involuntary role as a reform-incapable instrument of the crumbling status quo. Parliament’s majority arithmetic leaves it paralyzed. A reform process to shrink the welfare state, reduce the massive bureaucracy, and achieve sustainable budget management is now completely out of reach for Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s minority government.

Every administration supported by President Emmanuel Macron functions as a placeholder, interchangeable and powerless in a parliamentary arithmetic deadlock. Macron, facing dramatically poor approval ratings as a sort of “president without a people,” knows the fragility of France’s public finances and can at least rely on one thing: a broad political alliance capable of delivering temporary relief through tax hikes.

In Paris, as in much of the EU, policymakers are staunch etatists—staunchly loyal to the state and simultaneously hungry for power—making a large government apparatus serve their interests.

Over the past two years, France has cranked up the tax screws: a minimum rate for top incomes above €250,000, an increase in property wealth taxes, and a rise in corporate taxes for larger firms, yielding up to €6 billion in additional annual revenue.

New levies on higher dividend payouts and large corporate stock buybacks have been introduced. A Tobin-style financial transaction tax is planned to hit wealthy shareholders. Energy and environmental levies have also risen. As with tobacco and alcohol, the message is clear: “We tax luxury and the rich.”

This creates the impression of socially just taxation, while distracting from the fundamental problem: the expanding state, a European disease driving the continent into turbulence.

Where the Journey Leads

France illustrates both the mechanics and potential timeline of the emerging national debt crisis. Through intensive public-relations work and the backing of state-aligned media, politicians cultivate the impression of massive social imbalances. Punchline: societal decay and poverty, up to the misery of public finances, are the undeniable result of capitalist plunder.

The only functioning corrective to this systemic injustice comes from the benevolent, balancing state, stepping in to deliver fiscal transfers and enforce a form of justice.

In the sticky rhetoric of “justice,” the government conceals its complete failure—whether in border policy, over-bureaucratization, or the naive belief in a centrally planned economy. The result is a lifeless economy, which in France fares no better than in Germany. Only in energy has the importance of nuclear power been recognized—a wise choice, securing significant advantages for French industry.

Fiscal policy in Paris and Berlin now moves hand in hand toward the fiscal inferno. Berlin delayed necessary action by two years, but 2026 promises to be a year of major shocks. Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government is expected to raise both inheritance tax and the top income tax rate.

Options on the tax roulette wheel include a two-percentage-point hike in VAT and the end of spousal income splitting—measures particularly cherished by the political left in its ongoing attack on the remnants of the bourgeois family sphere.

The CDU’s participation in this scheme, leveling itself with other socialist parties in the Bundestag, reveals the intellectual and ethical erosion of a party led to the threshold of socialism by Angela Merkel and now finally pushed over by Friedrich Merz.

From general political-ideological mismanagement emerges a crisis-management strategy. Germany and France offer clues about fiscal trajectories in the coming years.

In short: the state will feed off the shrinking economic substance, masking its failures with higher levies while postponing necessary reforms.

This has immediate consequences for capital markets. If the sell-off of European sovereign bonds continues, the European Central Bank will have to intervene to prevent the public debt Ponzi scheme from collapsing.

This trend is highly inflationary and accelerates the process of social and economic erosion. Those capable of cutting the Gordian knot of Europe’s complex fiscal entanglement remain, for now, on the sidelines.

* * * 

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

Authored by Charles Davis via The Epoch Times,

On a Tuesday night in a dorm room, a student opens TikTok for a “five-minute break.”

The first clip is a montage of rubble and sirens.

The second is a professor-style explainer, neatly captioned, delivering a single moral conclusion.

The third is a shaky phone video of a confrontation on another campus—shouts, police lights, a crowd surging like weather.

The student doesn’t search for any of it.

They don’t even follow the accounts.

The feed arrives already confident about what matters.

This is the political technology of our moment: the system that decides—thousands of times a day—what you see next.

The Influence Stack

For most of the past century, influence meant broadcasting. You bought a newspaper, aired a radio spot, printed leaflets, argued in the town square. Feedback was slow, indirect, and expensive.

Today, influence runs on a different stack. It is microtargeting—figuring out which slice of the population to target. It is recommender distribution—determining what to place in front of the target group and in what sequence. It is measurement of effects—watch time, rewatches, scroll-hesitation, comments, shares. And it is iteration—rapidly adjusting what works and discarding what doesn’t.

Once those pieces lock together, persuasion stops looking like a party debate. It takes on the appearance of a thermostat: sense the room, nudge the temperature, sense again.

Microtargeting Didn’t Begin With TikTok

Microtargeting is older than the smartphone feed. 

Campaigns have long merged voter files with consumer and demographic data, then tailored appeals to specific segments. What changed, especially by the early 2010s, was tempo: the ability to see what’s working while the moment is still unfolding.

The Obama campaign’s 2012 digital operation offers a useful bridge between the older world and the current one. Their teams watched web behavior in near real time and used it for rapid response. During a presidential debate, when then-Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said “binders full of women,” the campaign immediately bought search ads keyed to the phrase and linked to a fact sheet; the campaign’s digital lead described an “immediate uptick in both traffic and engagement” from users searching that term.

That isn’t TikTok. It’s still the open web—search, ads, landing pages. But the shift shows a new logic: observe behavior as it happens, then redirect attention before the story cools. Strike while the iron is hot.

Algorithmic platforms industrialize that loop. Microtargeting is not about “who gets which mailer.” It becomes a live system, stitched to distribution and feedback. Different demographics can be shown targeted versions of the same reality, and the system learns—at scale—how each group responds.

And “response” doesn’t require explicit agreement. It can be attention, arousal, and volatility: two extra seconds of watch time, a rewatch, a comment typed in anger and posted, a share to a group chat.

Ranking Systems Don’t Just Reflect Preference. They Shape It.

We don’t have to guess whether ranking changes what people see. Researchers have tested it inside platforms.

A large-scale study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) drew on a “massive-scale randomized experiment” on X, then known as Twitter, that assigned a randomized control group—nearly two million daily active accounts—to a reverse-chronological feed “free of algorithmic personalization,” precisely so the effects of ranking could be measured. The authors reported measurable differences in “algorithmic amplification” across political actors in multiple countries.

That’s the key: ranking is an intervention. When a system orders content, it decides what becomes salient, what feels common to particular groups, what appears urgent, and what fades. Political power can emerge even when nobody writes a manifesto inside the company. The feed trains the user. It is an environment, and environments shape behavior.

This is also why the public debate so often misses the point.

People argue as if the only question is whether a platform “censors” a viewpoint or “pushes propaganda.” Those concerns matter. They just sit on top of a deeper mechanism: the simple act of ranking, repeated billions of times, changes what societies talk about.

Measurement: The Hidden Power Is the Dashboard

The influence stack is powered by dashboards.

A broadcaster might learn weeks later whether a message landed. A platform learns in minutes whether a clip increased retention among 19-year-olds in a specific place, at a given hour, after a strategically set sequence of prior videos.

This creates a persuasion capability that older institutions weren’t built to match: rapid experimentation on human attention. Content becomes a hypothesis. The audience becomes a living lab. The system keeps what works.

Universities update policy once a semester. Newsrooms adjust framing over days. Legislatures move over months. The feed scope and focus can pivot before lunch.

Why Anger Wins Inside the Loop

A hard truth about the influence stack is that not all emotions travel equally well through it. High-arousal emotions move faster because they prompt action.

In a landmark study of sharing, Jonah Berger and Katherine Milkman found that virality is linked to physiological arousal: content that evokes high-arousal emotions, including anger and anxiety, is more likely to spread than content that evokes low-arousal emotions like sadness.

Politics adds another accelerant: moral emotion. A PNAS study analyzing large datasets of social media debate found that moral-emotional language increases diffusion; in their sample, each additional moral-emotional word in a message was associated with a substantial increase in sharing.

And anger has particular advantages in networked environments. A computational analysis of Weibo found anger to be more “contagious” than joy and more able to travel along weaker social ties—meaning it can move beyond a tight-knit group and spill into wider communities.

Put those together and the targeting logic becomes almost mechanical. Anger keeps people watching. It increases the odds they’ll share. It tends to bridge out of local clusters into broader networks. In an engagement-optimized system, anger is not just a feeling. It’s a distribution advantage.

Iteration: How Talking Points Come Back as Optimized Themes

And then there is the old broadcast trick—the repeated phrase, the tagline, the talking point—reappearing in new clothes.

In television news, theming worked because repetition makes ideas feel common. In the influence stack, the system tests variations. It monitors the retention curve, watches share velocity and comment intensity. The phrases that survive are the ones that travel and harden into slogans that feel “everywhere,” because the platform has learned exactly where “everywhere” is.

This is how a moral frame becomes a transport mechanism. A short phrase is easy to caption, easy to hashtag, easy to stitch and remix. It is also easy for the system to recognize and route toward audiences that have historically responded to that emotional key.

The Verification Problem

A second political fact of the influence stack is that outsiders struggle to verify what’s happening in real time.

Platforms point to transparency and researcher access. While those programs are meaningful; sometimes they lag the speed of events. The influence stack’s advantage is velocity in a world of slow oversight. When you can’t see the full system—distribution weights, downranking rules, recommendation pathways, enforcement decisions—you can’t reliably separate organic waves from algorithmically amplified waves, or evaluate whether interventions were neutral or asymmetrical.

What This Series Will Do

Over the next installments, we’ll walk up the stack.

We’ll examine emotion recognition and why even flawed affect inference can be dangerous when institutions treat outputs as truth. We’ll look at China’s operational model—identity resolution plus sensor coverage plus data fusion—and why architecture matters more than any single sensor. We’ll treat TikTok as a distribution layer where iteration is fast and verification is hard. Then we’ll apply the framework to a test case Americans lived through: the surge of campus protest dynamics during the Gaza war, what we can measure, and what we cannot responsibly claim.

The point isn’t to reduce genuine political conviction to “the algorithm did it.” People protest for real reasons. Institutions fail for real reasons. But in a world where attention is programmable, it becomes reckless to pretend the feed is only entertainment.

The influence stack doesn’t replace politics. It changes the temperature at which politics happens.

And once you see it, the question stops being whether a single video “caused” anything.

The question becomes: who controls the thermostat—and who gets to audit it?

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

Authored by Bojan Stojovski via Interesting Engineering,

A new handheld coil gun developed in China is designed for discreet, non-lethal use, including law enforcement operations, state broadcaster CCTV reported. Capable of firing between 1,000 and 2,000 rounds per minute, the weapon can penetrate wooden boards from distances of several dozen yards. Its adjustable power settings allow it to incapacitate rather than kill when set lower.

The compact electromagnetic launcher features a 12-inch barrel and is light enough to be comfortably held and operated with one hand, allowing for greater mobility and ease of use in tight or urban environments where traditional firearms or larger coil guns would be cumbersome.

Equipped with a laser pointer for improved accuracy, the device – also called a Gauss gun – uses electromagnetic coils to accelerate metal projectiles at high speeds, miniaturizing technology previously limited to larger military systems.

Merging stealth and increased destructive power

The latest Chinese handheld coil gun offers a stealthy alternative to traditional firearms, producing no muzzle flash or smoke, minimal noise, and no ejected shell casings. These features make it particularly suited for covert operations, according to Chinese media. 

The showcased model represents an upgrade from last year’s test version, featuring a slightly longer barrel and the ability to fire larger, heavier projectiles. While its rate of fire is somewhat slower, the weapon delivers significantly greater kinetic energy and destructive force, increasing its impact per shot, the South China Morning Post reported.

The weapon is equipped with an electronic display that provides real-time information on battery life, ammunition count, and firing modes. Operators can adjust the electric current to control output power, allowing them to vary projectile speed depending on the target’s distance and situational conditions.

This feature enables the coil gun to deliver precise, controlled force, allowing operators to tailor each shot to the situation. By adjusting power and projectile speed, the weapon can incapacitate or deter targets effectively while significantly reducing the risk of fatal injury, making it suitable for law enforcement, crowd control, or other scenarios where non-lethal force is preferred.

Portable coil gun could supplement traditional firearms 

The coil gun’s design places a detachable magazine behind its centrally positioned grip, allowing the electromagnetic coils to run the full length of the chassis. This layout maximizes projectile acceleration while keeping the weapon compact and easy to handle. 

Currently, the portable device is intended mainly for specialised non-lethal scenarios, limited by battery output. However, as battery technology advances, the weapon could see broader applications, potentially supplementing or even replacing traditional firearms in certain combat situations, offering a new form of precision, low-visibility firepower on the battlefield.

China has been advancing larger-scale electromagnetic weaponry as well. In 2023, the PLA Naval University of Engineering reportedly tested what is believed to be the world’s most powerful coil gun, capable of launching a 273-pound projectile at speeds reaching 435 miles per hour. 

Beijing is also advancing railgun technology, a type of electromagnetic weapon that propels projectiles along a pair of parallel rails at extreme speeds, while promising higher velocity and longer range than conventional guns, potentially transforming naval and land-based combat. 

By Charles Kennedy of Oilprice.com

The premiums for U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude have soared in the spot market to a record high of between $30 and $40 per barrel above key regional benchmarks as Asia and Europe scramble for supply amid the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

WTI Midland is being offered for July delivery in north Asia at premiums of between $30 and $40 per barrel, depending on the benchmark against which they are marked, trading sources told Reuters on Monday.

“Asian refiners, shut out of Middle Eastern supply, are bidding aggressively for ​every available Atlantic Basin barrel,” said Paola Rodriguez-Masiu, chief oil analyst at Rystad Energy, in a note dated April 3.

With most of the Middle Eastern supply still trapped at Hormuz and all Gulf producers slashing upstream production in response to the closed Strait, competition for barrels from other producers has become fierce and has pushed premiums higher and higher.

WTI Midland is offered to North Asia at a premium of $34 per barrel over the Dubai benchmark, a trader told Reuters. Another trade source said there are also offers of WTI Midland priced $30 per barrel above Dated Brent. There have been offers at nearly $40 a barrel above ICE Brent for August delivery, additional sources told Reuters.

The offers for spot WTI Midland have jumped in recent days from around $20 per barrel premium for cargoes sold at the end of March.

U.S. crude has become prized oil supply in the absence of free flows from the Middle East. As a result, the price of the WTI Crude futures benchmark soared past Brent Crude futures at the end of last week.

WTI Crude rarely trades at a premium to Brent. Brent crude reflects seaborne crude and typically leads during global supply shocks, while WTI crude is usually discounted.

As Julianne Geiger noted, part of the move is technical: WTI’s front-month contract reflects May delivery, while Brent has already rolled to June, skewing the headline spread.

Month-matched spread…

But the deeper driver is extreme prompt pressure – WTI backwardation has surged to record levels – signaling immediate demand for secure, deliverable barrels.

With rising uncertainty around global shipping routes, WTI has effectively gained a “security premium,” narrowing and even reversing its usual discount to Brent.

The current inversion points to a breakdown in normal pricing signals tied to physical flows.