A humanoid robot demonstration has sparked safety concerns after a video circulating on social media appeared to show a Unitree G1 robot accidentally kicking a young child during a public event.
The robot, which was performing a roundhouse kick while wearing a blue clown wig, struck the child in the stomach, causing the youngster to double over in pain.
The incident has reignited debate over the safe deployment of advanced humanoid robots in crowded public settings, particularly as increasingly capable machines are showcased at exhibitions and entertainment events.
Jerk clown robot brutally kicks little boy in the stomach
Last year, a viral experiment showed a humanoid robot overriding its safety restrictions and firing a BB gun at its owner during a role-play scenario.
Robot Safety Spotlight
A video circulating on social media has raised concerns about humanoid robot safety after a robot appeared to kick a child during a public demonstration in China’s Xinjiang region.
The footage shows what is believed to be a Unitree G1 humanoid robot, wearing a blue wig, performing a roundhouse kick that struck a young child standing nearby. The child was hit in the stomach and appeared to be in pain after the impact. According to reports from Chinese media, the child was not seriously injured.
The incident has renewed discussion about the risks associated with deploying advanced humanoid robots in public environments. Modern humanoid robots are capable of performing complex movements, including martial arts demonstrations, athletic maneuvers, and other dynamic actions, often under remote or autonomous control, reports Futurism.
The Xinjiang incident is not the first reported case involving a humanoid robot and a human injury. Earlier this year, another Unitree G1 robot reportedly lost its balance during a public performance in China. After falling to the ground, the robot’s uncontrolled limb movements struck a nearby man, causing a nose injury.
A viral experiment last year in the US raised concerns about AI robot safety after a humanoid robot named Max fired a BB gun at its owner during a role-play scenario. Although the robot initially refused requests to shoot, it complied after the command was framed as acting out a character. The incident highlighted how simple prompt changes can potentially bypass AI safety restrictions.
AI Liability Questions
As robots and AI systems become more capable and autonomous, the issue of accountability remains one of the biggest challenges facing the industry. When a robot causes injury, property damage, or other harm, determining responsibility is often far from straightforward. Questions arise over whether liability should rest with the software developers who designed the AI, the manufacturer that built the hardware, the operator overseeing the system, or the end user interacting with it.
The debate has become increasingly relevant as automation expands across transportation, manufacturing, healthcare, and public spaces. Similar concerns have emerged in other technology sectors. Tesla has faced scrutiny over crashes involving its Autopilot driver-assistance system, prompting discussions about the balance between software performance and human supervision. Likewise, investigations into the Boeing 737 MAX accidents highlighted how flaws in automated systems can have far-reaching safety consequences, according to experts.
Governments and regulators are still working to establish legal frameworks that address these challenges. In the United States, liability generally falls on manufacturers or operators, depending on the circumstances. Meanwhile, European policymakers are developing AI-specific regulations aimed at clarifying responsibility and strengthening public trust in emerging technologies.
While some researchers have suggested granting advanced AI systems a form of legal status, most experts argue that accountability should remain with people and organizations. To address safety concerns, robotics companies are increasingly adopting transparency measures, insurance-backed deployments, and stricter safety standards.
Area 51 Mystery Jet Caught On Thermal Camera Sparks Sixth-Gen Stealth Fighter Speculation
The military aviation and defense news blog The Aviationist has spent years tracking mysterious aircraft activity around U.S. restricted airspace. Its latest report highlights a thermal image that may reveal a previously unseen next-generation stealth fighter jet design featuring cranked-kite wings and canards near Area 51.
“Had to update this composite image with the latest mysterious aircraft. We have reported on all of them over the years, starting 12 years ago with the Amarillo and Wichita sightings, then the January 2026 image by Uncanny Expeditions, and now the most recent one by Project Fear,” The Aviationist wrote on X.
Had to update this composite image with the latest mysterious aircraft. We have reported on all of them over the years, starting 12 years ago with the Amarillo and Wichita sightings, then the January 2026 image by Uncanny Expeditions, and now the most recent one by Project Fear.… pic.twitter.com/d7AeMwI6SO
The Aviationist cited a thermal image shared by the Project Fear YouTube channel earlier this week.
The Aviationist reached out to Project Fear for comment. Here’s what they said:
Here’s what I can say on it: This was an amazing capture! I met up with the team who recorded this to show them some potential spotting locations around the Area 51 perimeter after introducing them to the gear I often use for night sky monitoring – in this case thermal imaging cameras. We did not see anything particularly noteworthy that week, but a few days later, I get a call asking if I can take a look at something they’d captured on the thermal imager. As soon as they sent the footage over, I knew we were looking at something very interesting that has not been captured before.
Many theories are circulating on X about what exactly Project Fear captured on thermal imagery, including speculation that it could be tied to the U.S. Air Force’s Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program and the F-47 sixth-generation aircraft.
At the start of his second term, President Trump announced that the F-47 program would move ahead, with Boeing awarded a contract worth more than $20 billion.
Psyop? Certainly, someone wants to generate mystique around NGAD/F-47, reminding adversaries that U.S. black programs remain active.
Several FBI analysts who drafted a 2023 memo that cited Southern Poverty Law Center information to justify targeting “radical-traditionalist Catholics” as potential violent domestic extremists were fired Friday, according to their lawyer, the latest wave of terminations under the leadership of its director Kash Patel.
The fired employees included four intelligence analysts and a supervisory analyst. The FBI declined to comment.
The January 2023 intelligence product produced by analysts in the FBI’s Richmond, Virginia, field office emerged as a political flashpoint after it was issued, with Republicans in Congress repeatedly citing it as part of their broader contention that the FBI during the Biden administration was targeting conservatives.
The FBI quickly backtracked from the memo at the time, saying it had been drafted in error. Then-director Chris Wray repeatedly denied that charge and the FBI has said the document was quickly retracted and an internal review was launched. Merrick Garland, the attorney general under President Joe Biden, has said he was “appalled” by the memo.
🚨BREAKING🚨 The FBI’s controversial memo targeting Catholics was inspired by an investigation into a schizophrenic man
As Headline USA exclusively revealed in April 2024, the FBI’s troubling memo was crafted by analysts involved in an investigation into a schizophrenic man who began attending a traditional Catholic church in early 2022. That schizophrenic man, 24-year-old Xavier Lopez, was arrested in November 2022 on a slew of domestic extremism-related charges. His mental health diagnosis was revealed during criminal proceedings.
According to records from his case, Lopez was on law enforcement’s radar since September 2018, when he attempted suicide. Lopez was 18 years old at the time. The FBI opened an assessment into Lopez about a year later after he allegedly made online statements advocating civil war and the murder of politicians.
Law enforcement continued to monitor Lopez—including while he served a stint in jail for felony vandalism—into early 2022, when he began attending Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Chapel in Richmond, Virginia. Our Lady of Fatima is one of the Catholic chapel’s listed in the FBI’s memo.
Shortly after Lopez started attending Our Lady of Fatima, the FBI decided to run an informant at him inside the church.
Infiltrating a Catholic church with an informant was supposedly necessary because “the only times [Lopez] left the house alone were to attend events at [Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Chapel] and it therefore provided the only potential opportunity for [an informant] to establish regular contact with him,” a 2024 DOJ Inspector General’s report said.
The FBI insisted that the informant was only used to monitor Lopez—and wasn’t used against any of the church’s other members, according to the DOJ-IG report.
The existence of the FBI informant is not disclosed in any of Lopez’s criminal records.
Lopez was arrested in November 2022 on a slew of state charges, including prohibited paramilitary activity, soliciting someone for a terrorist act and possessing firearms as a felon.
After his arrest, an FBI analyst with knowledge of the investigation worked with another analyst to craft the FBI’s memo about Catholics.
According to the DOJ-IG report, the FBI analysts wanted help conduct outreach to faith communities, “to make them aware of what we would call warning signs to radicalization, for the protection of everybody.”
“There was ample information in [Lopez’s] chats and in online chatter suggesting a potential link between white supremacist ideology and an attraction to certain religious beliefs and organizations, including [Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Chapel], but that the two analysts were searching for more definite substantiation,” the DOJ-IG report said, citing interviews with the FBI analysts.
One FBI analyst told the DOJ-IG that he found it “completely incongruous” that Lopez was attempting “to find common ground or find a community with this particular faith community.” He also said that there was no evidence that Lopez was being radicalized at Lady of Fatima Catholic Chapel, because he had been on the FBI’s radar “as an unstable, dangerous individual” before “any association with any Catholic related entity whatsoever.”
Rather, the FBI expressed concerns to the DOJ-IG that Lopez may have been recruiting other Lady of Fatima members to carry out an attack.
There is nothing in the charging documents against Lopez to suggest that he was recruiting other Catholics for an attack. Rather, the available evidence suggests that Lopez was interested in Catholic church to find a girlfriend.
“One place you will find [white women] is at a traditional church … I found a girl there that checked off every box on my list, but she’s 17 and I’m 22 so that’s not happening,” he said in an August 2022 post on Gab, according to charging documents.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Department of the Treasury issued a notice on Friday, announcing their plan to issue proposed regulation concerning taxation on high compensation paid by tax-exempt organizations to employees.
The notice relates to excessive compensation and excess parachute payments, the IRS said in a June 5 statement. Parachute payments are made to key employees when they are terminated or when the business undergoes a merger or acquisition. An excess parachute payment is any such payment that exceeds three times an employee’s average annual compensation for the most recent five years.
Section 4960 of the Internal Revenue Code imposes an excise tax on any nonprofit or tax-exempt organization paying an employee more than $1 million in remuneration in a tax year or an excess parachute payment, according to the notice.
The new rule changes tax applicability regarding excessive compensation.
Prior to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, taxes on such payments were applicable to a tax-exempt organization’s five highest-compensated employees for a tax year whose compensation exceeded $1 million.
But under the new rule, the excise tax is applicable to any employee whose compensation exceeds $1 million in a tax year beginning after Dec. 31, 2025. The requirement of being among the five-highest compensated employees has been eliminated.
The rule is also applicable to any former employee who was a top-five compensated employee exceeding $1 million for any tax year between Dec. 31, 2016, and Dec. 31, 2025.
There is no change to taxation on parachute payments. Such payments will continue attracting taxes as per existing rules.
The updates also provide certain exceptions regarding people offering volunteer services to tax-exempt organizations.
IRS Chief Executive Officer Frank J. Bisignano said the latest rule “strengthens the accountability of tax-exempt organizations.” The regulation “broadens the scope of tax from a limited group of executives to potentially any highly compensated employee.”
The Treasury and the IRS are inviting public comments on the notice until Aug. 4.
The notice comes after the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) recently raised concerns about the implementation of the new regulations.
In a May 1 letter to IRS and Treasury officials, AICPA said there was a need for comprehensive guidance and transition relief given the changes made to the compensation rule.
“We respectfully urge Treasury and the IRS to prioritize the issuance of transition relief to address several immediate issues that could disrupt the operations of tax-exempt organizations,” the letter said.
“Absent timely transition relief, these issues may result in significant and unintended financial exposure for tax-exempt organizations and related entities subject to the section 4960 excise tax.”
Commenting on the latest IRS and Treasury notice, Kelsey Mayo, chief of retirement policy and regulatory affairs at the American Retirement Association (ARA), said that retirement plan professionals who work with tax-exempt employers must be aware of the notice, according to a June 5 statement from the National Association of Plan Advisors, a sister organization of the ARA.
With the changes in Section 4960, nonprofits may have to “think more carefully” regarding how they deliver benefits to their executives, Mayo said.
“Because benefits provided through a qualified retirement plan can reduce the compensation that counts toward the excise tax, advisors, TPAs, recordkeepers, and other plan professionals may have an opportunity to add value to their nonprofit clients by evaluating how their qualified plan design aligns with both their talent strategy and their excise tax exposure,” she said. TPA refers to third-party administrators who provide insurance services.
Days after California’s primary election, the votes are still being counted, and the winners are still unknown, and no one, save for California officials, seems happy about it.
“The fact that California elections often can’t be resolved for weeks is kind of insane and not common in other electoral systems around the world,” Political data analyst Nate Silver wrote on X on Tuesday.
“Like honestly ‘it’s going to take us several weeks to tell you who won the election’ is failed state sh-t and should be much more stigmatized. The fact that it’s tolerated is bad too a textbook example of learned helplessness.“
And President Donald Trump is now demanding answers.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Thursday, targeting what he called the deliberate manipulation of California’s governor and Los Angeles mayoral races.
“There’s BIG cheating by the Dumocrats in California. Votes are all tied up,” he wrote.
“May not be in for weeks. Under investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles. Why the vote counting DELAY???”
“The Dumocrats are at it again! They are trying to STEAL THE GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA PRIMARY, AND THE MAYOR OF LOS ANGELES, PRIMARY, AWAY FROM TWO GREAT REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES.”
He then singled out mail-in ballots specifically.
“Here we go with the very late and massive numbers of MAIL IN BALLOTS.”
United States Attorney for the Central District of California, Bill Essayli, confirmed in a post on X that his office “has multiple election fraud investigations underway” in California, and is coordinating with the FBI in Los Angeles.
“California’s election system has serious structural vulnerabilities. Universal vote-by-mail with no voter ID requirements creates conditions where fraud can go undetected and unpunished, eroding public confidence,”he wrote.
In a post on Substack, Nate Silver noted that California averaged 38 percent of its votes counted after Election Day across the last five general elections. In the 2022 midterms, half of all votes were tallied post-Election Day. Silver did not spare California from the comparison its leaders apparently dread. “California likes to tout that it’s larger than many countries,” he wrote, “but most developed countries are able to wrap up nationwide elections more quickly than California can tabulate its votes. Colombia held a presidential election on Sunday, and 99.98 percent of the result was in on Monday morning. Japan also counts most of its votes overnight. And in the UK (not exactly a poster child for state capacity), you can generally expect to have calls for all 650 parliamentary seats the morning after the election.”
Silver posted a chart showing that California is the slowest state in the nation to count votes.
It’s hard to overstate how much of an outlier California is for its slow vote-counting relative to literally any other state or almost any other industrialized democracy. pic.twitter.com/KIvABnIKgn
California Secretary of State Shirley Weber offers a rather weak excuse for her state’s handling of elections.
“I know the value of being fast for some folks,” she said. “For me, accuracy is far more important.”
That line might land better if California’s sluggishness were actually producing superior accuracy.
Still, Silver’s data suggests the state’s election administration has major structural problems regardless of how long the counting takes.
The state began nudging counties toward all-mail elections in 2016, applied the model statewide during the pandemic in 2020, and finally made it permanent in 2022. Under current California law, every registered voter automatically receives a mail ballot, and any ballot postmarked by Election Day and received within a week afterward counts as valid. Each of those ballots must be individually opened, verified, and processed before it can be tabulated. The result is a counting operation that drags on for weeks while the rest of the country waits. The system California guarantees maximum delay and minimum accountability, all while breeding distrust in the system.
U.S. Attorney Essayli says his office is conducting a “comprehensive audit” of California’s voter rolls, and will “not look the other way” from fraud, and promised that his office will “investigate and prosecute.”
“Every legal vote deserves to be counted,” he said. “Every illegal vote cancels one out.”
You just knew this day would come. President Donald Trump is really sprucing up the nation’s capital ahead of the country’s celebration of its 250th anniversary. One of the signature improvements has been the restored reflecting pool that sits between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument.
As I noted on April 25, the very act of fixing this deteriorated site was universally attacked by the left, which is par for the course when it comes to leftist reaction to everything Trump does. Keep in mind, earlier reports indicated that traditional Washington had this project pegged at a cost of $300 million and years to complete. Trump got it done in months at a fraction of the cost – somewhere around $13 million when all is said and done.
Perhaps most significantly, the pool is stunningly beautiful. The navy blue that Trump chose as the base color for the pool’s sealant adds to the richness of the entire look of it. Knowing that the people who repaired the pool sealed all of the leaks and addressed infrastructure problems provides reassurance that, with some basic routine maintenance, this iconic landmark will shine for years to come.
The water is ON, the Reflecting Pool is reflecting, and D.C. is looking better than ever.
In the process, Trump is making leftists cry. Not tears of joy: tears of regret that they have to admit they actually like it.
A Democrat in DC says she hates she’s forced to admit the Reflecting Pool now looks good.
“I thought it was a stupid idea to paint the Reflecting Pool, but it looks really good. It makes the reflection look extraordinarily prominent in a way it did not before, and I hate that.” pic.twitter.com/yVTHm4rHUh
— Right Angle News Network (@Rightanglenews) June 5, 2026
You may remember that when the project was first launched, leftists came up with every excuse in the book as to why it was a dumb idea. The blue color was a problem, with leftists turning to AI to come up with gaudy swimming pool blue renditions of the project, and then reacting negatively to their own fake imagery. They were still using their AI pics up until the water was turned on.
As the project proceeded and it appeared the final product might actually be tasteful, leftists then started to complain about the cost. That’s right: Something they were willing to spend $300 million on over a period of years under a Democrat administration now costs too much at $13 million over a couple of months.
@POTUS originally estimated the repair & painting of the Reflecting Pool would cost roughly $1.8 million. Federal contract records indicate that the Department of the Interior ultimately paid $13.1 million, putting the project nearly $11.3 million OVER THE INITIAL ESTIMATE. https://t.co/dirx70hRI2
The same leftists who want to give millions of illegals free housing, free food, free health insurance, thanks to you, the taxpayer, all of a sudden care about a project that wouldn’t be necessary if the Obama administration didn’t already screw it up. Barack Obama spent $34 million over a couple of years on this, and it was a mess in the end.
🚨 NEVER FORGET: Obama spent $34 MILLION of your tax dollars renovating the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
In a “feel-good Friday” Truth Social post, the president kind of punctuated the whole event in Trump style.
🚨 NOW: President Trump NUKES FROM ORBIT the Washington Post for lying about the Lincoln Reflecting Pool renovations
“The Great Reflecting Pool, that stretches between The Lincoln Memorial and The Washington Monument, just opened to “rave reviews” but, maliciously or not, some… pic.twitter.com/SWjYK5sUku
What’s the moral of this story? The left will never be happy about anything, but on the rare chance you catch them liking something that Trump did, it will most certainly bring them to tears.
President Donald Trump told reporters on June 5 that his administration is exploring the possibility of the United States acquiring a public stake in artificial intelligence (AI) companies.
Trump made the comment in response to a question about a recent News of the United States report, which suggested that unnamed senior U.S. officials had discussed with major AI firms the possibility of the federal government holding some shares in their companies.
“There’s so much money that is so big that there are concepts where pieces could be given to the American public, where the American public essentially becomes a partner with the companies,” Trump said aboard Air Force One.
“I have spoken to all of [the AI companies]. There’s something very interesting about it, where it almost becomes a partnership with the American public, and we’ll look into that,” he said.
Trump said he and his team have a meeting scheduled in the “very near future” with major AI firms to discuss this possible venture.
“We’re talking about it, where the American people can benefit from the success of AI, and by doing that, they can like it better,” Trump explained.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) penned an op-ed in The New York Times on Monday titled “A.I. Is a Public Resource. You Should Own Half of It,” where he announced he would soon introduce congressional legislation to give the American public a direct ownership stake in the largest AI companies in the United States.
“It would create a sovereign wealth fund through a one-time 50 percent tax—not on the profits of OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, and other companies, but paid with something far more valuable than that: the stock,” Sanders wrote in the piece.
He said the legislation, which he plans to call the American A.I. Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, would give the American public a direct role in determining the future of AI while also guaranteeing that the trillions generated by the industry are “used to improve the lives of all of us—not simply to make the richest people in the world even richer.”
When asked on Friday if he found it odd that he and Sanders were seemingly on the same page about the proposal, Trump said that the two “have certain things that aren’t that far apart” regarding economic policy.
“People are surprised, but if you’ll take a look, many of the people who voted for Bernie Sanders … they went to me,” Trump said, referring to some of the voters who backed him in the 2016 presidential election after previously supporting Sanders in the Democratic primary that year.
Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday asking AI companies to voluntarily submit their frontier models for government review 30 days before a full public release.
In a post on X hours after the order was announced, Sanders said it was “good news” that Trump had “finally acknowledged AI poses a real threat” after the president had previously criticized efforts to tighten regulation of the AI industry.
“The bad news? His executive order is voluntary and does almost nothing to protect Americans,“ Sanders wrote. “Congress MUST act.”
Second Flesh-Eating Screwworm Case Raises Beef Supply Fears As Goldman Warns Outbreak “Could Be Disruptive”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) confirmed a second New World screwworm (NWS) case in a one-month-old calf in Zavala County, Texas, roughly 5.6 miles from the first confirmed detection.
For now, both cases remain inside what the USDA calls an “established movement control zone and enhanced sterile insect dispersal area.” This suggests the outbreak is still contained within the USDA’s active response perimeter. Nearby suspect cattle tests have been negative so far, limiting signs of broader spread at this point.
USDA confirmed the second NWS case late Friday. The agency reported the first case on Thursday (read the report).
USDA has confirmed a second detection of New World Screwworm in a one-month-old calf in Zavala County, Texas — approximately 5.6 miles from the first case.
With our partners in Texas, we are responding with speed and strength.
— New World Screwworm Rapid Response (@Screwworm_RR) June 5, 2026
The detection of NWS in the U.S. – once eradicated in the U.S. in the 1960s – has seen an ongoing resurgence across Panama, Central America, a, nd Mexico. NWS burrows into living flesh, causing serious livestock damage and economic losses. This biological threat to the U.S. cattle herd comes as the nation’s herd level is already at a 75-year low, beef prices are at record highs, and meatpackers are under pressure from fewer and more expensive animals.
Cattle futures at record highs.
Goldman analyst Thiago Bortoluci lays out the implications if NWS spreads across the US beef industry:
In our view, the potential spread of NWS into Texas could be disruptive: the state holds the largest cattle herd in the country (12.1M head, 14% of the U.S. total), ranks among the top regions for feeder cattle (15%) and cattle on feed (22%), and is one of the most relevant sources of cattle shipped across state lines.
Should the Texas case be confirmed, we would expect:
Further pressure on the U.S. cattle herd, extending what has already been a multi-year downcycle, with elevated cattle costs further squeezing packers’ profitability. Potentially weaker consumer demand for beef, ahead of the seasonally high grilling season and the upcoming FIFA World Cup. Some short-term demand substitution effect toward chicken.
Read-across to our coverage JBS currently operates one plant in Texas, but we believe the negative externalities could extend into nearby states and potentially also impact MBRF’s National Beef operations (especially Liberal and Dodge City), given inter-state cattle trade. We estimate that each -50bp change in U.S. beef profitability would translate into a -3% impact on MBRF’s and JBS’s consolidated forward EBITDA.
On the flip side, the scenario could potentially be supportive for South American beef exporters given good cattle availability and no evidence of NWS in the continent till now. If this trend were to persist, Minerva would be the clearest beneficiary across our coverage, as exports to the U.S. account for 11% of its total sales.
Base case: heightened NWS biosecurity surveillance across Texas and tighter cattle movement controls, not mass culling
By 1PM Friday, the Nasdaq was already down roughly 3.3%, and suddenly the same crowd that spent the last few months explaining why valuations don’t matter is asking what is happening.
Bitcoin has also been taken behind the woodshed, crashing to around $60,000. Depending on where you’re measuring from, that’s a brutal decline in a remarkably short period of time. It’s down about 42% over the last twelve months. And it’s becoming clear that bitcoin bulls all have breaking points.
And I don’t want to sound like a d*ck, but frankly, none of this — the market tanking, or how it’s happening — is really surprising.
I’ve written for years that I think crypto is the tip of the risk-on spear. It tends to be the first asset class investors pile into when liquidity is abundant, speculation is rampant, and everyone is convinced they’re smarter than the market. It’s also frequently the first thing to crack when risk appetite begins to fade. So I’m not terribly surprised that after bitcoin started crashing (it’s down 16% in the last 5 days) that the rest of the market is following suit.
Friendly reminder for those who think this is a “crash” that in 2023, barely 3 years ago, the NASDAQ was more than -59% lower from here.
The current Shiller CAPE ratio sits at 42.7x, a level that should make investors uncomfortable. Historically, the CAPE has averaged just 17.38x, with a median reading of 16.09x, meaning today’s valuation is more than double what investors have typically paid for earnings over the last century.
Even more striking, the market is now approaching the most expensive levels ever recorded. The all-time high was 44.19x at the peak of the dot-com bubble in December 1999, a period not exactly remembered for rational pricing or stellar forward returns.
In other words, despite today’s selloff, stocks remain priced near some of the richest valuations in modern financial history. A 3% decline may feel dramatic on social media, but it barely registers as a scratch when viewed against the backdrop of historically extreme valuations.
The Buffett Indicator isn’t offering much comfort either. The total value of the U.S. stock market currently stands at roughly $75.4 trillion versus annualized GDP of approximately $31.8 trillion. That places the Buffett Indicator at 237%.
Historically, levels this elevated have been associated with investors discovering, sometimes painfully, that valuation eventually matters. Others, who aren’t in on the Fed-created “good macro news is bad news for markets because rate cuts are less likely” logic—a totally backwards, Jedi-mind-f*ck-deluxe recalibration of economic reality—don’t even seem to consider valuation.
And the uncomfortable reality is that many other investors are still operating under the assumption that the Federal Reserve will ride in on a white horse if markets get into trouble.
That assumption may be outdated. As I’ve written about, it appears the Fed has a problem. Inflation remains stubbornly elevated. Policymakers know financial conditions are tight enough to hurt growth but not loose enough to declare victory on prices. Cutting aggressively risks reigniting inflation pressures. Staying restrictive risks slowing the economy further. In short, the Fed is stuck.
For most of the last fifteen years, every meaningful market decline came with an expectation that central bankers would eventually step in with lower rates, more liquidity, or some variation of monetary painkillers. Today, that safety net looks considerably thinner.
The market may desperately want a rescue eventually, and inflation may not allow one. That creates a setup investors haven’t had to navigate in a long time.
Adding to the risk is the increasingly fragile nature of this rally.
At the same time, leverage and margin debt has expanded throughout the system, and options-driven flows have become an increasingly important source of market support. Dealer gamma effects can suppress volatility on the way up, creating the illusion of stability.
The problem is that the same mechanics can work in reverse.
When positioning begins to unwind, liquidity can disappear quickly. Dealers hedge. Leverage gets reduced. Momentum traders head for the exits. What looked like a calm staircase higher suddenly resembles an elevator ride lower. And that is usually accompanied by television personalities assuring viewers that everything is perfectly healthy.
None of this means we’re headed for a crash. It does mean investors should be careful about assuming every decline is automatically a gift.
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I also continued my coverage of SpaceX, a company that increasingly looks like a proxy for br
That mindset worked exceptionally well when valuations were lower, liquidity was abundant, and the Fed was eager to rescue markets at the first sign of distress.
Those conditions do not exist today. A 3% selloff is not a valuation reset. Bitcoin falling is not necessarily an isolated event. And a market priced near historic extremes with a Fed constrained by inflation is not the same environment investors enjoyed during most of the post-2008 era.
The market has temporarily remembered gravity exists. The question now is whether investors will remember it too. If they do, hold on to your nuts, cause I feel like it won’t take much for us to be on the verge of a leverage fueled sell-off that could reinvent our idea of “sharp correction” faster than you can say “subprime is contained”.
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Iran has again accused the US of breaking the ceasefire, with the Foreign Ministry on Saturday stating the US “not only lacks the will to reduce tensions and return to the path of stability, but with its adventurist actions, it seriously endangers the security of the region.”
The ministry on X denounced fresh US attacks its coastal radar and surveillance facilities in Sirik region and on Qeshm Island – saying this breached the ceasefire. The ministry “strongly calls on the countries of the region to observe the principle of good neighborliness and adhere to the fundamental principle of international law of refraining from allowing aggressors to use their territory and facilities to plan and carry out aggressive actions against the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
It seems clear that for each US action, Iran is seeking to establish deterrence, and so is not hesitating to fire or inflict some kind of ‘cost’ either on US bases or the Gulf allies hosting them.
More Pakistani efforts to forge together agreement to get US-Iran back to the formal negotiating table:
Pakistan’s Interior Minister @MohsinnaqviC42 has just departed from Lahore for Tehran where he will meet Iranian Leadership and deliver important messages as part of Pakistan’s Mediation efforts between the US and Iran — This is Naqvi’s third standalone visit to Tehran and 4th… https://t.co/mmaVRrU2aX
Salvo of Ballistic Missiles Fired on Kuwait, Bahrain
Soon after the initial drone shootdown engagement (below), it became apparent that anti-air defense systems were active over Kuwait, as its armed forces warned the public that explosions were the result of inbound projectile intercepts. While there were no reports of damage, the ground result is still anything but clear or certain (based on past instances of the US and Gulf allies concealing or downplaying damage or casualties).
Within hours after this initial exchange of fire, Iran followed up with more ballistic missiles on nearby Bahrain and Kuwait – as ‘punishment’ for the countries hosting US forces and American bases.
Bloombergreports that “Six ballistic missiles fired at Bahrain and Kuwait were intercepted and another failed to reach its intended target, hours after four drones headed to the Strait of Hormuz were shot down, Centcom said.” It notes that the “US military struck Iranian coastal surveillance radar sites in Goruk and on Qeshm Island in return.”
It Started With Iranian Drone Shootdowns
More details have come to light of the latest overnight flare-up in fighting between US and Iranian forces in and around the Strait of Hormuz and Persian Gulf.
The Friday night and overnight clashes started when the US military reportedly intercepted and shot down at least four Iranian one-way attack drones. According to US Central Command (CENTCOM), the incoming unmanned aerial vehicles were heading directly toward the Strait of Hormuz and posed an “imminent threat to maritime traffic.”
Following the drone shootdowns, American forces immediately launched retaliatory strikes against key military targets inside Iranian territory. CENTCOM further detailed that American assets hit Iranian coastal surveillance radar sites located in Goruk, a city in the Hormozgan province, as well as on Qeshm Island, a strategically vital Iranian outpost in the mouth of the strait.
Each Exchange Another Escalation Toward Full-Scale War
One thing is clear: these ‘limited’ escalations are becoming more regular, and even almost nightly at this point, raising the stakes and possibility of a more full-on, dangerous renewed war.
Every exchange like this could mean a return to full-scale war, and that’s what’s going to happen eventually unless Trump just pulls out, which I don’t think he’s gonna do. https://t.co/PFUiLoXktm
It has also become increasingly evident and acknowledged that the ceasefire has allowed Iran to reconstitute much of its missile and drone capabilities, and underground launch tunnels are being dug out with heavy equipment.
President Trump himself has recently admitted this state of things, amid the extended ceasefire:
US President Donald Trump, who has insisted for months that Iran was near its breaking point, conceded Friday that the country retains some missile and drone capacity. In an interview with NBC News, he said about 21-22% of Tehran’s missile arsenal remains.
“It’s a lot of missiles, but it’s not what it was when we first attacked,” he told the television network during a visit to Wisconsin. Earlier Friday, he told reporters the US is “having great success with Iran,” and “they’re in no position to have a nuclear weapon.”
Sunday will mark 100 days since the start of Operation Epic Fury. Trump and US officials had touted only a ‘short’ conflict, and seemed to have been betting on the government being toppled.
