Switzerland said on Jan. 5 that it has frozen all assets held in the country by deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his associates.
After Maduro’s arrest in Caracas by U.S. forces and his subsequent transfer to the United States, Swiss authorities imposed a precautionary measure designed to prevent the removal of any illegally acquired assets from the country.
The order is effective immediately and valid for four years. It is unclear how much the assets are worth.
The Swiss government said Venezuela’s situation was volatile, with a range of possible developments in the coming weeks.
Bern added that it was closely following events, urging moderation and de-escalation, and standing ready to provide its good offices to advance a peaceful outcome.
“Switzerland calls for de-escalation, restraint, and compliance with international law, including the prohibition on the use of force and the principle of respect for territorial integrity,” the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on X.
The decision is based on the Federal Act on the Freezing and the Restitution of Illicit Assets Held by Foreign Politically Exposed Persons.
It does not affect current members of the Venezuelan regime.
“Should future legal proceedings reveal that the funds were illicitly acquired, Switzerland will endeavour to ensure that they benefit the Venezuelan people,” Swiss authorities said.
This, officials say, is not an endorsement of the U.S. military operation, but a recognition of the loss of power that now allows the country to pursue legal assistance proceedings to reclaim the frozen assets.
The asset freeze is in addition to sanctions imposed against Caracas since 2018 under the Embargo Act.
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In December, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned several family members and associates of the Maduro-Flores family.
As a result, all properties and assets belonging to the designated individuals that are in the United States or controlled by U.S. persons were frozen.
“Treasury sanctioned individuals who are propping up Nicolás Maduro’s rogue narco-state. We will not allow Venezuela to continue flooding our nation with deadly drugs,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a news release.
“Maduro and his criminal accomplices threaten our hemisphere’s peace and stability. The Trump administration will continue targeting the networks that prop up his illegitimate dictatorship.”
Over the years, Washington has implemented broad sanctions on Venezuela’s central bank, the Maduro government’s access to U.S. financial markets, and state oil company PDVSA.
Others have also implemented asset freezes, sanctions, and embargoes on Venezuelan officials linked to the Maduro regime and other individuals, including the European Union, Canada, and Mexico.
While Switzerland has already imposed sanctions on Caracas, it is so far the only nation to announce the freezing of assets after Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were detained by the United States.
For years, Switzerland’s banking sector has been a key destination for political leaders and high-risk individuals to park their wealth.
It is an attractive location due to its strong banking foundation, immense wealth-management industry, and political stability.
Bern has also appeared in investigative journalism, leaks, and watchdog reports.
In 2022, for example, leaked client data from Credit Suisse spotlighted bank accounts connected to sanctioned individuals, corrupt officials, and clients engaged in illicit activities.
Swiss financial regulator FINMA launched an inquiry into the leak and compliance failures.
Much has been made over the past several days about a jarring line uttered by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani in his inaugural address last week.
“We will,” the city’s first “Democratic Socialist” mayor promised/threatened, “replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.”
Understandably—and rightly—most of the criticism of this line (and its speaker) has centered on its mortifying and inarguable whitewashing of the term “collectivism.” Collectivism—at least as it has been used for the last 150 years—refers specifically to the political manifestations of mass ideologies, mostly Marxist in origin, but including fascism and Nazism as well. Hence, its historical record is one of repeated failure and continual mass murder. In just six decades—from 1917 to 1977—collectivism in its various forms produced the deaths of upwards of a quarter of a billion civilian men, women, and children, from Russia to Germany to Cambodia. Add in the casualties of various wars, and the total is even larger and more abominable.
Given all of this, Mamdani’s use and attempted rehabilitation of the term were viewed by many observers (of all political persuasions) as either the height of ignorance or an expression of solidarity with true and profound evil.
Either way, that’s not a great look for the new, democratically elected leader of the largest city in the country and the center of global finance.
But while both traditional and social media are filled with comments on and repudiations of Mamdani’s embrace of collectivism, what concerns me more, but has drawn far less rebuke, is the false dichotomy he fabricates in articulating that embrace. Worse still, some of those who profess to oppose his ideology and the perniciousness of collectivism nonetheless accept that dichotomy, conceding his definition of the competing and conflicting visions. They thereby demonstrate both their ignorance of history and the challenges that confront civil society as it fights to prevent its destruction by Mamdani and his ilk.
To start, it is vital to note that the “individualism” that Mamdani decries is largely a mythological beast, no more real than the Scylla or Charybdis. Not only are societies today neither built around nor devoted exclusively to individuals, but they never have been. “Man is by nature a social animal,” Aristotle wrote, and “an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human… Society is something that precedes the individual.” And thus has it always been. To be clear, “rugged individualists” tend not to cluster together in groups of nearly 8.5 million just so they can be told what to do and how to live by a failed rapper who has never held a real job.
More to the point, individualism, where it does exist, is not exactly the opposite of “collectivism.” If anything, radical individualism is a precursor to collectivism, one of the many steps along the proverbial road to serfdom down which collectivism treads. In truth, man—being the social animal Aristotle identified—craves belonging. As a rule, he requires companionship and interaction. When he is deprived of them, on a societal level, by the dysfunction and haphazardness of the liberal order, he grows restless, lonely, and willing to do whatever is necessary to assimilate into whatever crowd will have him. This desire—multiplied by millions of “atomized” individuals—contains the seeds of “mass man,” of mass movements, of collective action, and, in time, of totalitarianism. As Hannah Arendt noted, “What prepares men for totalitarian domination in the non-totalitarian world is the fact that loneliness, once a borderline experience usually suffered in certain marginal social conditions like old age, has become an everyday experience of the ever-growing masses of our century.” Individualism breeds atomization, which breeds loneliness, which, in turn, leads to that which those of us not named Mamdani know as the horrors of collectivism. Collectivist totalitarianism, Arendt continued, “bases itself on loneliness, on the experience of not belonging to the world at all, which is among the most radical and desperate experiences of man.”
Unsurprisingly but still unnervingly, in the wake of Mamdani’s comments on collectivism, some observers and commentators purportedly on the political right tried to use those comments as a cudgel against others on the right, those with whom they disagree about Donald Trump and the direction of conservatism.
Cathy Young, for example, a Never-Trump conservative/libertarian who writes for Bill Kristol’s Never-Trump The Dispatch, mocked the president’s supporters, writing that “What’s amusing is that much of the MAGA and MAGA-adjacent right…will nod right along to Mamdani’s broadside against ‘the frigidity of rugged individualism.’ The only difference is they’ll use some trad euphemism for left-coded ‘collectivism.’” And just what kind of euphemism would they use? Young continued, “If you replaced ‘collectivism’ with ‘community, family, and tradition,’ much of the current right would agree.”
This is a particularly peculiar criticism of “the current right,” if for no other reason than the fact that “much of the current right” absolutely should agree with that. It is, in fact, the reason the right exists.
I’ll cut Young a little slack here, in part because she later tried to correct herself by drawing a (largely imaginary?) distinction between “voluntary” and “involuntary community,” and in part because she was raised in the Soviet Union and may not be familiar with the niceties of American conservatism. Nevertheless, it is inarguable that American conservatism is more than a little preoccupied with the notions of “community, family, and tradition.” Together, these things are, as I say, American conservatism’s raison d’être. Moreover, they are its raison d’être specifically because they constitute the alternative to collectivism. They, not the strawman of “rugged individualism,” are the opposite of Zohran Mamdani’s ideology, and one need take neither my word nor that of “the current right” as proof of this.
The post–World War II conservative renaissance began in 1948, with the publication of a little book titled Ideas Have Consequences by Richard Weaver. Russell Kirk, who is himself often described as the father of modern-day conservatism, called this book “the first gun fired by American conservatives in their intellectual rebellion against the ritualistic liberalism that had prevailed since 1933 and which still aspires to domination over this nation.”
Fast on the heels of Weaver’s ideas came Peter Viereck’s Conservatism Revisited (1949), Bill Buckley’s God and Man at Yale (1951), Whittaker Chambers’s Witness (1952), Kirk’s The Conservative Mind (1953), and Robert Nisbet’s The Quest for Community (also 1953). Each of these books was a warning cry that leftist collectivism, which had gathered a huge head of steam during the Roosevelt years and accelerated dramatically in the postwar period, represented a growing danger to American society. Weaver said this most directly in the opening sentence of the introduction to Ideas, where he announced quite simply, “This is another book about the dissolution of the West.”
Given this, each of these books was also “another book about the dissolution” of community, family, and tradition, as well as a plea to save what was left of these institutions as (ironically) a bulwark against collectivism.
George Nash, the author of the authoritative book The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America, described the thesis of the last of the books noted above, Robert Nisbet’s fittingly titled The Quest for Community, as follows:
The history of the West since the end of the Middle Ages was a story of the decline of intermediate associations between the individual and the state. The weakening and dissolution of such ties as family, church, guild, and neighborhood had not, as many had hoped, liberated men. Instead, it had produced alienation, isolation, spiritual desolation, and the growth of mass man. But men cannot live in Hobbesian isolation, and so, to satisfy his longings, he seeks out ersatz community—eventually finding it in the totalitarian state.
In many ways, this is the broad thesis of American conservatism. It is also the broad thesis offered by other anti-collectivists, who would undoubtedly bristle at being labeled “conservatives,” including Hannah Arendt, noted above, and the inimitable former Communist Alastair MacIntyre.
Collectivism is truly and inarguably evil. Community, in turn, stands as its rival—albeit a deteriorating rival. One needn’t be a “post-liberal” Trumper to recognize this. One need only be aware of man’s nature and his history.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.
Catherine Herridge Reveals How CBS Stonewalled Hunter Biden Laptop Story, Seized Her Files
Veteran investigative journalist Catherine Herridge has spilled the tea over her departure from CBS in 2004 – including the controversy over the Hunter Biden laptop scandal – in which she says she authenticated multiple records as early as October 2000, only to encounter internal resistance which prevented the story from being fully pursued or aired when it was ready.
Transcript:
This week on “Straight to the Point,” a personal message. In 2025, our team bet big on independent journalism. We believe that you were tired of talking points TV, you were tired of the stale predictable formats on Sunday, and that you were open to something new.
A recent Gallup poll reinforced our reporting. It found less than 30 percent of Americans are confident the media covers the news fully, accurately, and fairly. I experienced this myself as a CBS News Senior Investigative Correspondent assigned to the Hunter Biden probe.
After I left, I wanted to be transparent about the blocks I faced at CBS News. At that time, CBS News was under different management and did not comment. I think one of the obvious questions is why am I sitting here talking about my time at CBS News?
I’ve always had deep respect for my former employers, but in this case, I’ve had so many questions about my time at CBS. I’m taking a pause and a moment here to try and answer those questions. I think it’s better to hear it from me than to hear it from someone else.
I’d wanted to work at CBS News as long as I can remember. The first time I thought about CBS News was when I was an intern at ABC News in London and I was surrounded by so many experienced foreign correspondents. Some of them had been in Vietnam.
Some of them had worked at CBS News. It just seemed that CBS was a place for independent enterprise reporting. I never imagined that I’d be working at 60.
Getting a job at CBS at 55, to me, was an acknowledgment that the industry was really changing and that it was recognizing women who were deeply sourced and deeply experienced in national security. I was let go in February of 2024. We knew layoffs were coming.
I was not expecting to be laid off. I don’t think it was a function of my performance at CBS News. I’d been part of an Emmy-winning team.
I’d had multiple Emmy nominations. We’d won a top environmental prize for our reporting. I’m very proud of that reporting still.
It impacted a million veterans and expanded their benefits. That morning, there was an email, a company-wide saying, there are going to be layoffs. Literally, within maybe six or seven minutes, I had a text message, text message or email from my bureau chief, Mark Lima, saying, I need you to hop on a Zoom call.
My husband said to me, what are you doing today? I said, I think I’m getting laid off. And I got on the Zoom call, the human resources person was there, and they told me that my job was being terminated and that I was locked out of the office, locked out of my emails, and they would get my personal effects to me sometime down the road.
I felt a little numb when it happened. What was more surprising to me is that CBS News seized my reporting files. In October of 2020, I was asked by a senior CBS News executive, Ingrid Cyprian-Matthews, to get confirmed reporting about the Hunter Biden story.
So I brought to her several records where I had done due diligence. I’d done a lot of research. I was highly confident that this was confirmed reporting from the laptop.
What I can tell you is that it would have been standard practice for the investigative unit to be tasked with digging deeper into that story to develop our own reporting, and that didn’t happen. And that was disappointing to me. It was disappointing because I felt this was an opportunity for CBS News to really lead, to separate itself from the other networks.
But we missed that opportunity. That was not my call. It was frustrating for me.
I did my part. I got the records like I was asked, but a decision was made somewhere higher up within CBS just not to pursue it at that time. When I saw the 60 Minutes report with Lesley Stahl and she says to President Trump, we can’t verify it, I just felt a little sick because I knew that I had been able to authenticate, confirm a handful of documents.
And it told me there was a lot more there. And if you put a lot of reporting muscle behind it, you could verify a lot of those records. I don’t know if it was a case of the left hand in the news division not knowing what the right hand at 60 Minutes was doing.
I can’t answer that question. When Nora O’Donnell was asking then-candidate Biden about it, about the laptop and whether it was a Russian information operation, this senior executive, Ingrid Cyprian-Matthews, she writes, Nora, looking for all confirmed reporting. Do you have all your confirmed reporting on Hunter’s story in a note?
And I respond, yes. I tell her what it is. Nora, looking for all confirmed reporting.
Is there a Hunter connection to these documents? Yes, all of them in your inbox. And then I texted the documents and it was the million dollar retainer.
And it looks like some additional text messages from Hunter Biden to a family member. So when Nora O’Donnell had that question, I thought, did this information never reach her? I was asked to get confirmed reporting for her.
I don’t know what happened there. I never asked her. I didn’t feel that it was a welcome question.
There was no evidence that I had come across in October of 2020 that indicated that this was a Russian information operation. The former intelligence officials, several dozen, said in their statement that it had all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation. They kind of hedged their words, but there didn’t seem to be any evidence of that.
All of the records that I was working with, that I was validating, that I was doing due diligence, I didn’t see that. Everything was lining up, in fact. And what bothered me about the letter from the 50 plus former intelligence officials is it just seemed to be this very dangerous intersection between the intelligence community and the political cycle.
Because I felt that it was sort of stepping over a line and that their actions had diminished the stature of their old jobs as CIA director or as the top intelligence official, the director of national intelligence. I’d never seen anything like this before, and I don’t think we’ve seen anything like it since. I was assigned the Hunter Biden story by the very top of CBS.
George Cheeks said to me on multiple occasions that this was a story of the highest priority for the network and that it was a high priority for his boss, Shari Redstone. So I took on that assignment and I did it to the best of my ability. Cheeks said to me, we want to have accountability, speak truth to power on both sides of the aisle, and that really sit well with me.
So I went after it the way I would go after any of these investigations. It was a very hard assignment. There were corners of support in the company for it, and there were corners of support who understood the value of investigating the Hunter Biden story.
But there were some elements within CBS News that were just resistant to it. It didn’t matter what the facts of the case really were. And this bothered me as a journalist a lot.
And I wrestled with it a lot. And people might say, well, then why didn’t you leave? Why didn’t you quit?
And the answer is, I felt I had an obligation to the senior executives at CBS to carry out their directive, to do my very best to run down that story, even if there were internal blocks that I faced. We eventually broadcast a story about the Hunter Biden laptop after the midterm elections in 2022. We commissioned a forensic review.
I got a copy of the laptop data. I have it here still. I went to a lot of effort to get the cleanest copy of the laptop data, the same data that was provided to the FBI, because I didn’t want to have any professional journalistic risk for CBS News.
I wanted this to be totally locked down. When we did the story, we did it after the midterms. I argued against that because it was ready before the midterms.
And my training is that you should always do the story when it’s ready to go. You should not be dictated by the political cycle. Once we got the laptop story on the morning news, I felt that there was so much there that we could still do.
For example, in the text messages, there’s unfortunately the use of the N-word, the liberal use of the N-word. I thought this was worthy of a story, but I was told that it was not something that interested CBS News. Then I asked for a forensic review of the laptop, and we found that there were more than half a dozen emails that were likely used by Joe Biden.
I thought that was a story. But the answer that came back was, well, we need to know what the content is of the emails. But that was going to be a years-long process.
So there were a lot of reasons I was told not to do it, not to pursue it. I spent a lot of my time at CBS following the Hunter Biden story. And one of the things that really struck me is this kind of disconnect.
I didn’t understand how a senior executive like George Cheeks could tell me that this was a high priority for the network and for his boss, and yet the executives at CBS News, show producers, anchors, could refuse that. I came to the conclusion that they must have felt that they were more powerful than George Cheeks, which was astonishing to me. I’d never worked at a place where a directive from the top would be so defied.
I had conversations with some of the reporters connected to the Twitter files, and I was, in my head, thinking that there might be an opportunity to tell that story on CBS News. We had a number of topics under discussion. They didn’t go as far as we had hoped.
But at the end of the day, this opportunity to interview Elon Musk was developing. So I went to the CBS executives, and I said, this is the opportunity that we have. He’s saying, I want to do it live and on my platform.
He’s one of the most influential human beings on the planet. And the reaction from the executives was, well, we can’t do it live. And I was like, what do you mean we can’t do it live?
He’s like, well, we don’t know what he’s going to say. I was like, well, I’m thinking, isn’t that the point of journalism? You don’t know what the person’s going to say?
Well, you know, it has to be taped. We have to have the ability to edit it. It has to be on our platform.
We have to control the platform. We talked at one point about whether we could do it sort of like a simulcast between the streaming network and maybe X. But everything just got shut down.
It’s one of the biggest interviews you could ever have. I felt so ashamed, frankly, that I never went back to Elon Musk and said, listen, they want to do it, but they’ve set all these conditions on it. I couldn’t do that.
This is someone whose DNA is free speech. And how do you tell someone who’s committed to free speech that your network can only do it taped and only if they edit it and it can only be on their platform? I just I couldn’t go back to him with that.
Well, if you’re an investigator, you always look at things through an investigative lens. And when my job was terminated at CBS, I took a look into the one sheet. This is a document they give you that outlines the terms of your separation.
And I went into the the metadata. And what I saw in the metadata is that my one sheet was created on February 9th at 515 p.m. And that is a Friday. And it is one day after I covered special counsel Robert Herr’s investigation and final report into President Biden.
I reported the facts of that investigation, that it was highly critical of the president, that it described him as sort of a nice old man with a bad memory, and that he couldn’t be prosecuted for that reason, among others. So I found the timing of that pretty significant. On top of the fact that I was given an assignment that was very difficult internally, but I was fully committed to.
And I did everything I could to put CBS first on a story that was not popular among a lot of people in that network. The day my job was terminated, I sent an email to George Cheeks, who’s the head of CBS, and Wendy McMahon, she’s head of sort of CBS News and Stations. I had a relationship with both of them.
And I said, I would rather work for the months that are left on my contract for a handful of reasons. First and foremost, we had just done a story on veterans who had been denied benefits due to their toxic exposure after 9-11. And we were so close to getting benefits for these veterans.
A whistleblower had come forward. It was really finally within reach for 15,000 veterans. And the answer that came back was, if you can get that story done, Catherine, in two days, then you can do it.
Otherwise, we’re just dropping it. And I felt this was such a disservice to America’s veterans, 15,000 and their families. We had worked for four or five years on this investigation.
We’d been able to move forward legislation. And we were this close to getting benefits for them. And then the curtain was pulled down by the CBS News executives.
I was so determined not to let go of that story, that a general I know connected me with Jon Stewart. And Jon Stewart is a great human being. And he picked up the baton, and he said he would help me get it over the finish line.
And recently, we saw an expansion of the benefits for these veterans. And I feel a little choked up saying it, because it was such a victory for them. And the fact that CBS really abandoned these veterans was a tremendous disappointment to me.
When I look at the situation at CBS News and 60 Minutes and the Kamala Harris interview, to me, it just begs for transparency. My training has always been that when you sit down with a major newsmaker, you have a special responsibility. You need to be asking questions over a broad range of topics.
And then you need to release the transcript, because you hope that other news organizations pick up the headlines and run with it beyond what you put on your network broadcast. I was also taught that releasing the transcript is about accountability and transparency, and the correspondent, the producers, the editors, the crews, standing by the integrity of the final product. I think this is especially so when you have a candidate who is running to be president of the United States.
And for all of those reasons, I’ve said it’s an imperative, I’ve been very open about this, that releasing the transcript is about accountability and transparency. And there’s a precedent for doing this at CBS News. When I interviewed then President Trump at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, I advocated for, and they agreed to post the entire transcript on their website.
Same treatment for then Attorney General Bill Barr. And more recently, 60 Minutes posted the full unedited interview of their sit-down interview with Jerome Powell, the Fed chair. So there’s plenty of precedent for CBS News to release the full unedited transcripts.
And I think that given the questions about the internal edits in the Kamala Harris interview, it just makes sense to me to release them and to clear the air and to stand behind the integrity of your report. I took some time after I lost my job to educate myself about the marketplace. And I was really surprised at how much the marketplace had changed in the last five years.
There’s just been a tremendous erosion of the audience with the network newscasts, also with cable news. And there’s just been this explosion of smaller independent newsrooms on the platforms like X, like Instagram, like YouTube. And I made a decision that I would work independently, that I would tell the stories that I couldn’t tell before.
And there’s something very freeing about that. I feel that this chapter in my career, there are a lot of stories that I want to get finished before I retire. And so I’ve made those a primary focus.
It’s a whole new way of doing business. But I come back to the idea that content is king, and that the journalism matters. And that’s my focus now, that the facts have a power all their own.
And we are taking these investigations on X, we’re doing a newsletter, the writing skills, these are muscles I haven’t used in this way for a long time. So it’s kind of exciting to do that again. And then to have that kind of direct feedback, almost like the direct consumer feedback from your audience, which I didn’t feel I had at a big corporate entity.
I grew up in corporate media. Corporate media will always have an important place at the table. There’s no question in my mind.
But what’s exciting now is that we have a diversity of voices through independent journalists like myself, and then these smaller digital newsrooms. There’s no question that X is the platform with the greatest reach. And when I say the greatest reach, it’s not just the numbers, but it’s the individuals that you can have this contact with, whether it’s people who are very senior in politics, major business leaders.
We were super thrilled when Elon Musk subscribed to our account. That was a huge compliment. So it’s not just the size of the audience, it’s the diversity of the audience, and it’s being able to reach out to a lot of different types of people, the powerful, the decision makers, but then also the everyday consumers of information.
I feel like on X, the people who are following the account are a lot more engaged in the news. They’re super consumers of information. You can’t argue with the numbers.
I had a conversation with our bureau chief in Washington, Mark Lima, and we were talking about interviews on X. And there was one in particular, I think it was like 35 or 40 million views. And he said to me, that’s not a real number.
And I said, well, neither is 4.5 on the evening news. But if I had to choose, I would take the 40 million views on X over the 4.5 million views on the evening news, because that’s where the growth is. That’s where sort of the diverse audience is.
And I feel like this is the next chapter for media. After I lost my job, and I had my file seized, I was then held in contempt of court. And I tell people that the crisis has really been transformative in many, many ways.
And free speech, the protection of confidential sources, they really are my North Star now. It was all over the media, the fact that CBS News seized my records. That is not a standard practice in this business.
Everywhere else I have left, the custom is for the reporter to take their records with them, not for the corporation to seize them. My position has always been that I was grateful for the work at CBS News. If they don’t want me to work there anymore, that is their call.
But taking my reporting records crossed a red line that should never be crossed again in the future. These files, I had calls from sources I had worked with for years, who wanted to know whether the seizure of my records by CBS News was going to put their identities in jeopardy. I wanted to tell them it was not possible, but I could no longer offer that assurance.
Nothing is more sacred than the pledge of confidentiality to your sources. I’m fighting in the courts right now for that. And I’m not here to litigate this, but I can tell you that source protection, the First Amendment, a free press, these are my North Star.
One of my concerns is that when a corporation takes your reporting records, it makes it harder for you to work in the future. And that shuts down journalism. And if you believe journalism is at the foundation of our democracy, that is a position that just cannot stand.
This may look very glossy and highly produced, but I’ve got to emphasize, this is a small ragtag team that really makes it possible every week. So thank you to everyone behind the cameras and thank you to everyone who’s handling these edits. In 2026, you can expect more of Straight to the Point with Newsmaker Interviews.
We have total respect for people who sit down with us because we take on tough topics with direct questions. Not everyone can handle it. Second, more investigations.
That’s about real people, real problems, and real accountability. Actually demanding the government institutions keep their end of the deal and that they have the back of our service members, our spies and our diplomats. And then finally, more whistleblower investigations.
Whistleblowers, they’re so special. I feel like this is the part of my work that I’m so grateful for, because they are coming forward for something bigger than themselves. And we are so grateful that they trust us here at Straight to the Point.
And we are so grateful that you have trusted us in 2025. And here’s to more in 2026. We’ll see you soon on Straight to the Point.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin claims Ethereum has “solved” one of the biggest challenges in crypto: the blockchain trilemma.
In a X post on Saturday, Buterin emphasized the potential of peer data availability sampling (PeerDAS) and Zero-Knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machines (zkEVMs), noting that these two upgrades are making Ethereum “a fundamentally new and more powerful kind of decentralized network.”
“Now, Ethereum with PeerDAS (2025) and ZK-EVMs (expect small portions of the network using it in 2026), we get: decentralized, consensus and high bandwidth,” he said, adding:
“The trilemma has been solved — not on paper, but with live running code, of which one half (data availability sampling) is *on mainnet today*, and the other half (ZK-EVMs) is *production-quality on performance today* — safety is what remains.”
PeerDAS is a scalability enhancement introduced in the Fusaka upgrade in December that enables Ethereum to handle significantly more data.
Meanwhile, zkEVMs, which have been around for a while, are virtual machines compatible with both ZK proofs and the existing Ethereum virtual machine.
The Ethereum co-founder said that zkEVMs are still in their “alpha stage,” as they are performance-ready but require additional security improvements. He has given a four-year timeline for zkEVMs to be fully utilized within Ethereum.
Buterin said that once these upgrades are fully rolled out, Ethereum’s long-running effort to balance decentralization, security and scalability will be complete
“Over the next ~4 years, expect to see the full extent of this vision roll out: * In 2026, large non-ZKEVM-dependent gas limit increases due to BALs and ePBS, and we’ll see the first opportunities to run a ZKEVM node*,” he said.
“In 2026-28, gas repricings, changes to state structure, exec payload going into blobs, and other adjustments to make higher gas limits safe * In 2027-30, large further gas limit increases, as ZKEVM becomes the primary way to validate blocks on the network,” he added.
Ethereum took 10 years to solve the trilemma
Buterin said that it has taken 10 years of solid work to get Ethereum to the level of being able to solve the trilemma, pointing to his first post on solving data-availability problems back in April 2017.
“This was a 10-year journey […] but it’s finally here,” he said.
The blockchain trilemma refers to the complexity of building a blockchain network that sufficiently achieves decentralization, security and scalability simultaneously without any one pillar hampering the other.
Generally, most blockchains are forced to prioritize one or two of these pillars, such as speed and security, in their early stages while they gradually work to balance all three.
In his post, Buterin pointed to Bitcoin as an example, noting that the network was designed to be “highly decentralized” and secure, but suffers from scalability issues.
The 24-time Grand Slam champion announced Sunday on X that he hasstepped away completely from the Professional Tennis Players Association (PTPA), saying his “values and approach are no longer aligned with the current direction of the organization.”
I am proud of the vision that Vasek and I shared when founding the PTPA, giving players a stronger, independent voice – but it has become clear that my values and approach are no longer aligned with the current direction of the organization.
The move marks a dramatic turn for Djokovic, who once stood front and center promoting the PTPA as a new force to represent pro players outside the sport’s traditional structure.
From disruptor to dissenter
Djokovic and Canadian Vasek Pospisil unveiled the idea for the PTPA at the 2020 U.S. Open, aiming to build a players’ group that could function like a union, giving athletes a powerful, unified voice in a sport where players are independent contractors and tours operate separately.
The new organization was pitched as an alternative to the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) councils – advocating for equal representation, better pay, and greater input in decisions that affect players’ careers.
In recent months, however, tensions have emerged behind the scenes.
Djokovic said his decision stems from “ongoing concerns regarding transparency, governance, and the way my voice and image have been represented within the organisation.”
Lawsuits, splits and strategy disputes
The PTPA grabbed headlines last year when it filed a sweeping class-action lawsuit in March against tennis’ governing bodies – including the ATP, WTA, International Tennis Federation, and the sport’s integrity unit – accusing them of “systemic abuse, anti-competitive practices, and a blatant disregard for player welfare,” RTE.iereports.
Later, the four Grand Slam tournaments – the Australian Open, Roland-Garros, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open – were added as defendants, with Tennis Australia reaching a settlement.
Notably, Djokovic’s name was not on the legal filing when it went public – a sign of early distance between him and the group’s legal strategy. In March, Djokovic himself admitted he didn’t agree with parts of the lawsuit.
Reports surfaced late last year that internal disagreements intensified after the PTPA reached a separate deal with Tennis Australia — a move seen by some as undermining the unity of the lawsuit and the organization’s broader mission.
The PTPA’s official account on social media struck back at Djokovic’s departure, defending its mission and pushing back against what it called “misinformation” about the association’s work, though it did not directly single him out.
— Professional Tennis Players Association (@ptpaplayers) January 5, 2026
With more than 500 members at its peak and backing from some top players, the PTPA had been trying to shake up tennis’ longstanding power structures and push for reforms.
What’s next for Djokovic?
Djokovic said he will now focus onhis tennis, his family and contributing to the sport in ways that reflect his principles and integrity – language that suggests he’s closing the chapter on this particular fight.
The news comes just ahead of the Australian Open in January, where Djokovic is expected to compete as he chases more major titles even as this off-court drama unfolds, the Guardian reports.
Growing inequality reflects deeper physical limits on energy and resource extraction rather than purely financial or policy failures.
Rising debt and higher interest rates are emerging as binding constraints on governments, businesses, and households alike.
The 2026 downturn is likely to be uneven, with deflationary pressures, weaker oil demand, and selective regional resilience rather than a single global collapse.
Recently, many people have begun talking about the US having a k-shaped economy. In it, a handful of wealthy people are doing very well financially, while many others are falling further and further behind. I expect that the low wages of the majority of workers will soon lead to adverse impacts on businesses, governments, and international organizations. This phenomenon is likely to lead to a very uneven world economic downturn in 2026.
The world economy is subject to the laws of physics. The world economy seems to be reaching growth limits because there are too few easily extractable energy resources (as well as other resources, such as fresh water), relative to the world’s population. The Maximum Power Principle strongly suggests that even as limits are hit, the world economy cannot be expected to collapse all at once. Instead, the most efficient producers of goods and services will be able to succeed as long as resources are available, while less efficient producers will tend to fall by the wayside. Thus, the Maximum Power Principle somewhat limits the speed of the world’s economic downturn.
In this post, I will try to explain the challenges the world economy is now facing. I will also provide some thoughts on how 2026 will turn out.
[1] The k-shaped economy that the US and many other countries are experiencing is an indication that resources are, in some way, “running short.”
Humans all have similar basic needs. They need food to eat, and they need to cook at least some of this food before they eat it. They tend to need transportation services, both for themselves (to get to work) and for goods, such as the food they eat. They also need governments to keep order and to provide basic services, such as roads and schools. All these goods and services require energy of a suitable kind, such as human labor, burned biomass, or fossil fuel energy. They also require arable land, fresh water, and minerals of many kinds.
If there are not enough resources to go around, the easiest way to accomplish this is by creating a k-shaped economy. One example is with farmland. In many traditions, when a farmer dies, his oldest son inherits the farm. Younger children are then forced to find other kinds of employment, such as being a craftsman, farmer’s helper, or priest in a church. Wages for these younger children can easily fall lower than the income of their land-holding older brothers, especially if large families become common. Creating jobs that pay well for all the younger children becomes a problem.
A similar phenomenon has been happening in many Advanced Economies (US, UK, and other countries included in the OECD) in recent years. Parents are doing quite well financially, but their children often have difficulty finding jobs that pay well, even after advanced schooling. Some adult children are also left with educational debt to repay. This is a new type of k-shaped economy.
[2] The world’s current problem is an ever-rising population paired with resources that are becoming ever-more “expensive” to extract.
World population has exploded since fossil fuel consumption became abundant. This has allowed more food to be grown, inexpensive transportation of goods and people, and the development of antibiotics and other drugs.
Figure 1. Chart made by Gail Tverberg based on several population sources.
At the same time, the most accessible resources were extracted first. For example, fresh water initially came from streams, lakes, and shallow aquifers. As the population grew and industrial needs became increased, wells had to be dug deeper and aquifers began to be drained. In some places, desalination now needs to be used. Each of these advances in producing fresh water became more resource-intensive. It became increasingly difficult to gather enough fresh water using human labor alone. Instead, increasing quantities of physical materials, energy supplies, and debt were needed to make the new systems work.
The reason debt was needed to purchase capital goods, such as those required to obtain high-cost water, was because the devices purchased were expected to provide the desired output (water, in this case) for a long time in the future. Securing this future benefit required advance funding, using an approach such as debt. The sale of shares of stock, which are expected to appreciate over time and pay dividends, provides a similar benefit to debt.
A similar issue arises with the increasing extraction of minerals of many kinds, such as copper, tin, uranium, lithium, coal, and oil. Early on, extraction using manual labor and simple tools was sufficient. However, once the easiest to extract resources were removed, capital goods became necessary to make extraction efficient.
Capital goods, such as coal fired power plants, wind turbines, solar panels, and hydroelectric power plants also allowed electricity to be produced, extending the benefits of fossil fuels. Producing these capital devices requires physical materials and energy supplies, as well as debt or the sale of shares of stock for financing.
[3] A major limit on the system seems to be debt and the interest required on the debt.
In an economy, the growth of inexpensive energy supply acts very much like leavening works in making bread; it greatly helps economic growth. With the increasing use of inexpensive energy supply, vehicles can be made ever-less expensively, compared to using much hand labor for manufacturing (literally, making goods by hand). With this growing efficiency, wages rise faster than inflation. In the 1950s and 1960s, young people found that they could marry and live in nicer homes than their parents. Now, the reverse seems to be happening: many adult children are finding it difficult to keep up with the lifestyles of their parents.
Once the inexpensive-to-extract energy supply is depleted, economies tend to add an increasing amount of debt, in an attempt to pull the economy forward. It seems to me that a major limit on the system comes when an economy slows down so much that it can no longer repay its debt with interest.
Figure 2. The author’s view of the analogy of a speeding upright bicycle and a speeding economy. “Debt with its time-shifting ability helps pull the economy forward, but it only works if the economy is moving fast enough.”
Political leaders like to believe that growing debt, by itself, will pull the economy forward. In fact, this does work, for a time, as long as interest rates are falling. But falling interest rates stopped happening in 2022.
Figure 3. Interest rates on 10-year Treasuries (red) and on 3-month Treasuries (blue), based on data of the Federal Reserve of St. Louis.
Of course, all the added debt contributes to the k-shaped economy. The already wealthy disproportionately benefit from debt payments. They also tend to benefit from dividends on shares of stock and from share price appreciation. The poorer people find that an increasing share of their wages goes to paying interest on debt, especially as interest rates rise.
As debt levels grow, governments eventually have a problem with repayment of debt with interest. They need to raise taxes simply to cover their rising interest payments. This is the reason why Donald Trump wants to get interest rates down. Interest payments are rising rapidly, with near-zero interest rates in the rear-view mirror (Figure 3).
[4] Added technology and economies of scale have been adding to the k-shaped economy.
Technology requires specialization. People with more training and higher skill levels tend to earn more than others. Economies of scale encourage the growth of ever-larger businesses. The people at the top of huge organizations tend to earn more than those at the bottom. Also, as international trade is added, low-wage people in the hierarchy increasingly compete for wages with workers from countries with much lower wage scales. Thus, the wages of less-skilled individuals are increasingly squeezed down.
Furthermore, both added technology and economies of scale require added debt. Again, the interest on this debt (and dividends on stock) disproportionately benefits those who are already wealthy.
[5] In a sense, artificial intelligence (AI) is simply an extension of added technology, with a huge need for electricity, water, and debt.
The hope for AI is that it will make our already k-shaped economy, a great deal more k-shaped. The hope is that AI can eliminate a significant share of jobs, with such high profits that the owners of this technology can become very rich. If it works, the wealth will be even more concentrated at the top than today.
I see the need for electricity, water, and debt as stumbling blocks for AI. I expect that, starting in 2026, the AI rapid growth spurt will seize up because it is already using more resources than are available in some areas. I expect that a significant downshift in AI will adversely affect the US stock market and the rate of growth of the US economy. My hope is that the loss of growth in the AI sphere will not, by itself, bring down the US economy–just nudge it toward recession.
[6] In 2026, with an increasingly k-shaped economy, I expect that world oil prices will drift lower than today.
“Demand” for oil really means “the quantity of oil that people, businesses, and governments around the world can afford to purchase.” As the economy becomes more k-shaped, fewer people can afford to buy vehicles of any kind. Poor people, in the lower part of the k, are hardest hit. They will tend to increasingly rely on low energy approaches, such as ride-sharing, walking, or using a bicycle. They will tend to buy fewer goods that are transported internationally. Governments, as they begin collecting less in tax revenue from the many poorer people, will be inclined to cut back their spending on new buildings and road improvements. These changes work in the direction of reducing oil demand, and thus oil prices.
It is this increasingly k-shaped economy that has been holding world oil prices down in 2025. I expect that prices will drift even lower in 2026 because of the increasingly k-shaped world economy. There aren’t enough very rich people to hold up oil and other resource demand by themselves.
Oil production will not immediately drop in response to these low prices, although it may start drifting lower in 2027. The US Energy Information Administration is forecasting that world oil production will rise by 1.1 million barrels per day in 2025 and by 1.2 million barrels per day in 2026. These amounts do not seem unreasonable based on new developments that have already started producing higher amounts of crude oil.
[7] The heavier types of oil, from which diesel and jet fuel are disproportionately made, are in short supply now. They are likely to continue to be in short supply in 2026.
World oil production has risen in recent months. When I investigated, I found that the vast majority of the recent growth seems to be in light oil. Thus, the shortfall in diesel and other heavy fuels is likely to continue as in the recent past.
Figure 4. Chart showing the level of per-capita diesel consumption, relative to the per-capita consumption in 1980. Amounts are based on Diesel/Gasoil amounts shown in the “Oil-Regional Consumption” tab of the 2025 Statistical Review of World Energy, published by the Energy Institute.
This shortage of the heavy types of oil has several impacts:
With a shortage of heavy oil, a fairly strong country, such as the US, is tempted to attack Venezuela, which has the world’s largest reserves of heavy oil.
Island nations without their own fossil fuel supplies tend to use a disproportionately large share of diesel and jet fuel, for several reasons: (1) Such islands often burn diesel fuel for electricity. This is an expensive way to make electricity; goods produced with this electricity become too expensive to export. (2) Imports and exports need to be shipped in by boat or by air, again using limited types of fuel supply. Physics tends to push these economies down by making their products expensive to sell elsewhere. Examples of islands with these problems include Cuba, Puerto Rico, Madagascar, and Sri Lanka. Such places tend to be adversely affected by shortages of heavy oil sooner than other locations.
Without enough jet fuel, long distance tourism is likely to be reduced in 2026. One issue is the lack of jet fuel for flying planes. Another issue is that an increasing share of the population will not be able to afford long-distance tourism because of the k-shaped economy.
Tariffs are a way of discouraging the shipping of goods long distance, to indirectly save on heavy oil. We should not be surprised by their increasing usage.
[8] In my view, deflation is a greater risk than inflation in 2026.
With a k-shaped economy, demand for apartments (especially smaller ones) tends to stay low. As an economy becomes increasingly k-shaped, low-paid workers tend to share an apartment with one or more friends or move in with family members to save money. In a December 23 report, Apartment Advisor writes that the US average asking rent for studio apartments fell by 2.81% in 2025 compared to 2024. The similar comparison for one-bedroom apartments showed a price drop of 1.72% in 2025. In an increasingly k-shaped economy, I would expect this trend toward lower rental prices of smaller apartments to continue and perhaps become more pronounced.
Real estate selling prices may also be an area for downward price pressure. Young people who have not built up equity through prior home ownership tend to find themselves shut out from buying homes. Also, commercial real estate of many kinds seems to be grossly oversupplied in many areas. Given this situation, downward price adjustments seem likely.
Underlying this downward pressure on prices may be some actual cuts in wages. One law firm reports that cuts in wages are becoming increasingly common, especially for employees of smaller companies.
There are precedents for deflation becoming a problem. The US had problems with deflation at the time of the Great Depression. Japan had problems with deflation after its crash in real estate prices in the 1990s, and China (with its real estate price crash) has recently been having problems with deflation.
[9] “Bread and circuses” become more important as the economy becomes more k-shaped.
Many readers have heard about bread and circuses. Before the Roman Empire collapsed, it used bread and circuses to keep its citizens from rioting from a lack of food. The way to prevent food riots is by making sure everyone has enough to eat through food distribution programs, described as “bread.” Providing circuses offers a distraction from the fact that there are not enough well-paying jobs to go around.
Today, with our increasingly k-shaped economies, leaders have figured out that meeting citizens’ basic needs is essential if unrest is to be avoided. Political leaders somehow need to provide food and healthcare to their poorer citizens. They also need to keep people distracted with entertainment. For many years, governments of Advanced Economies have been trying to provide the equivalent of bread and circuses. In the US, legislation providing Social Security for the elderly was enacted in 1935, during the Great Depression. Many other financial support programs have been added over the years. Today’s circuses today are provided through televised entertainment and video games.
A major problem is that the costs of these programs have become more expensive than tax revenue can support. This is especially true of the cost of “bread,” if its cost is defined as including healthcare and pensions for the elderly, in addition to food. Ultimately, these high-cost programs can bring an economy down. The high cost of bread and circuses is thus a second limiting factor, besides excessive interest payments on government debt, (discussed in Section [3]).
[10] Leaders of many countries are already making plans that can be used to deal with shrinking resources per capita.
If there aren’t enough resources to go around, what can governments do to prevent riots? Two obvious choices come to mind:
(a) Tighten controls on citizens to prevent riots. China has been a leader in this area, and the UK and US seem to be trending in a similar direction. In a sense, the Covid requirements of 2020 were practice with respect to restrictions on movement.
(b) Develop a rationing system that can be used, in case of a shortfall of essential goods. Many countries are looking at central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). These are a digital form of central bank money that is widely available to the public. In the US, I expect CBDCs will be rolled out initially as a way for those who are entitled to food stamps to easily access their benefits. If these digital currencies work, CBDCs can easily be expanded into a widespread rationing system. Government leaders will then be able to decide who can afford to buy what, rather than depending on the way the k-shaped economy currently allocates buying-power.
[11] What lies ahead in 2026?
I don’t think any of us know for certain. The general direction of the world economy seems to be toward contraction, but some parts of the world economy will fare better than others.
Europe looks increasingly like it is an “also-ran” behind the US and China in the world economy. I expect its resource use will continue to shrink back in 2026, indirectly benefiting the United States and the rest of the world. I am hoping that with cutbacks in oil usage by island nations and Europe, and the resulting lower world oil prices, the United States will be able to avoid the worst of the recessionary tendencies looming in 2026.
There are some reports that AI, as it is being applied in China, is providing major success in reducing the cost of coal mining in China. If this is true, it may allow China’s economy to grow in 2026, despite downturns in many other countries.
I am fairly certain that AI, as it is being developed in the US and Europe, cannot continue its recent exponential growth trajectory, and I expect this to become obvious in the next few months. This shift seems likely to pull down US stock market indices. Here again, I am hoping that despite this issue, the US will be able to avoid the worst of the world’s recessionary tendencies.
I don’t expect a world war in 2026. For one thing, no country has adequate ammunition capability. I think civil wars and wars against nearby countries are more likely.
It is possible that the EU will collapse in 2026, leaving the individual countries on their own.
At some point in the future, I expect that the central government of the US will also collapse, in the manner of the Soviet Union in 1991. States will likely regroup and issue new local currencies; the new combined governments will likely provide much more limited benefits than the US government provides today.
Many people think that different leadership will change the current trajectory, but I am doubtful about this. Most of the world’s problems are “baked into the cake” by resource shortages and by too high a population relative to resources. Keeping immigration down is one way of trying to keep resources and population in closer balance.
All in all, I expect a very uneven world economic downturn in 2026. Economies will continue to become more k-shaped. Governments will do their best to hide problems from the public. Stock markets will likely not do well in 2026, if they can no longer count on AI for an uplift.
Thune’s Quiet Deal With Trump: Power Without The Drama
One year after taking over as Senate Majority Leader, John Thune has answered the question many skeptics were asking: could an old school , process-oriented senator function under President Donald Trump?
The answer is yes – Thune is going full send on Republican initiatives, providing Trump with an arsenal of wins to brag about as we head into midterms.
Trump of course dominates the headlines – using his bully pulpit to excoriate enemies, while steamrolling those who step out of line with ‘revised’ agenda like MTG and Thomas Massie. Apparently he’s made Foreign Intervention Great Again (with some arguing that removing Maduro denied foreign adversaries a foothold in the region).
And while mainstream MAGA twists itself into a pretzel to justify the whiplash, Thune has been quietly running the Senate the way it has long been run – using majorities, rules, and procedural control to move legislation and nominations efficiently, Punshbowl Newsreports following an interview with Thune marking his first year as GOP leader.
When Thune replaced Mitch McConnell, pundits assumed that friction with the executive branch was a foregone conclusion. Thune’s skepticism of tariffs, his attachment to Senate norms, and his discomfort with public political combat seemed ill-suited to a president who thrives on chaos as a tool to apply pressure. Instead, he’s making hay while the sun shines.
In 2025, Senate Republicans passed a sweeping tax-and-spending-cut bill, confirmed Cabinet nominees at a historic pace, and altered Senate rules to accelerate nominees stalled by Democratic obstruction. These were not concessions extracted by Trump so much as long-standing Republican priorities that moved once political obstacles were cleared.
Trump supported the outcomes. Thune managed the process.
“I feel like I’ve gotten to a point where [Trump] respects enough how I view the world and look at these issues,” Thune told Punchbowl. “And he has an understanding that I want what’s in his and our best interest. Let’s talk about the things we can do and not the things we can’t.”
The boundaries of the relationship are most visible in what Thune has refused to do. Despite pressure from Trump and his allies, he has not eliminated the filibuster or abandoned the blue-slip process for judicial nominees. Those guardrails remain intact, but they remain intact alongside rapid confirmations, large spending packages, and of course – they need Trump’s signature at the end of the day.
Rather than confronting Trump publicly when disagreements arise, Thune has chosen to raise concerns privately. He has said he prefers to “not litigate these things in public.”
Democrats argue they no longer trust Thune, accusing him of failing to push back when Trump pressures Congress on spending and funding decisions. Republicans complain that Thune is too cautious and too deferential to process. Thune’s response is essentially the same to both: public resistance is not how power operates in the current environment.
“The president has his way of doing things,” Thune said. “We’ve got to figure out how to work around that.”
Meanwhile, Thune continues to pursue bipartisan deals on housing, market structure, and permitting reform, and he has left the door open to a limited Obamacare compromise. He has acknowledged how difficult legislating has become in a polarized, election-year environment, calling these “not normal times.”
Parcl and Polymarket have partnered to launch real estate prediction markets that will settle against Parcl’s daily housing price indexes, bringing housing price data into prediction markets for the first time.
Under the partnership announced Monday, Polymarket will list and operate markets tied to movements in housing price indices, while Parcl will supply the index data used to determine market outcomes and settlement values.
Each market will link to a Parcl resolution page showing the final settlement value, historical index data and the methodology used to calculate the index, providing a standardized reference for verifying outcomes once markets close.
The initial rollout will focus on major US housing markets, with contracts structured around whether local home price indexes rise or fall over set periods, as well as threshold-based outcomes tied to published index levels.
The companies said the rollout will occur in phases, beginning with a limited set of high-liquidity US cities and expanding to additional markets and contract types over time.
Parcl, a platform founded during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic when housing markets became volatile, publishes real-time housing price indexes and analytics and operates onchain products tied to residential real estate prices, using Solana for settlement.
Parcl’s native token, PRCL, was up about 120% over the past 24 hours at time of writing, according to CoinGecko data.
Polymarket is a prediction market platform where users trade on real-world events, ranging from sports and politics to forecasts for Bitcoin’s price on a given date.
Prediction markets expand in 2025-2026
After a surge in user activity during the 2024 US presidential election, prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket became a mainstream narrative in crypto in 2025.
In September, Polymarket was reported to be weighing a US launch while seeking new funding at a valuation of up to $10 billion. The discussions followed a reported $200 million raise in June led by Founders Fund, the investment company co-founded by Peter Thiel.
In November, Kalshi was reported to have raised $1 billion, valuing the company at roughly $11 billion, with Sequoia Capital and CapitalG leading the round. The raise followed a $300 million funding round in October.
Trump Flips, Has More Info: Ukraine Didn’t Target Putin Residence With Drones
President Trump has now made clear that he has reversed his position on the alleged Ukrainian massive drone attack on Russian President Putin’s residence last week.
Trump explained to reporters that he’s now been given a chance to be presented with more information, based on intelligence briefings and other undisclosed data which has come to light. He says Ukraine was not responsible, after previously seeming to agree with Kremlin allegations, which Trump had earlier called “deeply concerning”.
The US President explained American officials had determined that Ukraine did not do it. According to his newest remarks:
Trump said that “something happened nearby” Putin’s residence but that Americans officials didn’t find the Russian president’s residence was targeted.
“I don’t believe that strike happened,” Trump told reporters as he traveled back to Washington on Sunday after spending two weeks at his home in Florida. “We don’t believe that happened, now that we’ve been able to check.”
On December 29 Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Ukraine launched multiple drones toward Putin’s official residence in the northwestern Novgorod region, describing that the drone wave was in the dozens, but that Russian air defenses intercepted all them.
The timing was further interesting given that just the day prior Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Florida to meet Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate to take up the issue of the stalled 20-point peace plan.
As for this week, the whole world is talking about Trump’s removal of Venezuelan President Maduro by military force, which likely also had elements of a coup from within, based on Venezuelan officials cooperating with the CIA and US military.
This Latin American intervention against a Putin ally is likely to further complicate talks to achieve Ukraine peace.
The Kremlin has already blasted the blatant ‘double standard’ – given Washington has spent years berating Moscow for the Ukraine ‘special military operation – yet now effortlessly invades a country in its own backyard.
Now, after the US intervention against Venezuela, Putin will see less incentive in making any kind of peace deal which falls anything short of Russia’s complete and maximalist demands.
China could also get more aggressive in its anti-Washington rhetoric, as its citizens have been loudly highlighting American hypocrisy on the Taiwan issue.
On New Year’s Day, Zohran Mamdani was sworn in as mayor of the financial capital of the world, with his hand on a copy of the Koran, and in his inauguration speech, he proclaimed:
“I was elected as a democratic socialist and I will govern as a democratic socialist.”
As a guy who normally tunes out political speeches (to this day, I haven’t a single speech by Trump, Trudeau, let alone Carney or Biden), this one got my attention to the point where I downloaded the transcript and read the entire thing.
It gave me some serious Pol Pot “This is Year Zero” vibes…
“Beginning today, we will govern expansively and audaciously… to those who say the era of Big Government is over, hear me when I say this: no longer will city hall hesitate to use its power to improve New Yorker’s lives.”
“We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.”
…and the crowds, no doubt cheered.
A few years ago, before the pandemic, I re-released a version of the public domain work: Pictures of The Socialistic Future, from my foreword:
This remarkable little novella posits a fictional socialist sweep into power in Germany towards the end of the 19th century, anticipating the Bolshevik and Marxist revolutions of the subsequent decades. It follows the arc of a family as narrated by its patriarch as he initially enthuses over the socialist ascension to the seat of government.
Quickly, however, he progresses through various stages of disenfranchisement that inevitably ensue: first tempering his expectations, then ratcheting them downward, followed by grappling with cognitive dissonance brought about by the internal contradictions of the new system. When those conflicts are inescapable, he finally spirals into angst and despair as he comes to fully comprehend the horrors of socialism.
I released that around the same time we did the audiobook version of Dr. Kristian Niemietz’s “Socialism, The Failed Idea That Never Dies“, which has obviously not been read by many New Yorkers.
The historical pattern with all collectivist experiments is: honeymoon, underperformance, disenfranchisement, collapse.
NYC has entered the honeymoon phase, Mandami will be celebrated by Western, liberal intellectuals as a trailblazer and and bulwark against “Trumpism”, he plans to release inmates from jails, freeze rents, launch government run grocery stores and eliminate fares for public transit.
It remains to be seen what kind of radical reforms a mayor can make in one American city – where property rights could (theoretically) still be upheld at higher levels, and where those with much to lose have the ability to flee.
Over the weekend, a useful contrast emerged: Venezuela already ran this experiment. After their honeymoon came repeated hyperinflations, food shortages so extreme people were eating zoo animals, and Chávez’s successor turned the place into a dictatorial narco-state.
The nightmare finally ended when Maduro was removed by the U.S. military in a one-shot operation on January 3rd.
“Collectivism” means: the end of economic reality
In Eugen Richter’s parable – which invariably replays in every collectivist adventure, the first order of business is not “compassion.” It’s confiscation.
Mamdani’s platform specifies a new flat 2% income tax on all New Yorkers earning more than a million annually and boosts the corporate tax rate from 7.5% to 11.5%. My prediction is that after six to twelve months of policy failure, he’ll follow that up with a wealth tax. Bet on it.
Mamdani frames collectivism as “warmth,” but the actual content of his program is an expanding universe of guarantee: universal child care, rent freezes, “fast and free” buses, baby baskets. etc.
As a Canadian who’s lived my whole life under the yoke of “free health care,” I know how it actually collectivism works: anything the government gives everyone “for free” comes at a cost. And when it’s imposed through a state monopoly, that cost tends to exceed the returns, by a wide margin. (Which is why Canadians routinely die on waiting lists, or while sitting in the ER waiting for treatment.)
I’m frequently saying “Incentives are everything“, this is what collectivists don’t get…
The economic reality is that when you turn City Hall (or any government) into the allocation engine for entitlements, you turn erstwhile productive citizens into a doom loop of dependancy. Nobody in a collectivist paradise wants use their excess productive capacity only to have it redistributed to everybody else, so they simply won’t produce at anything above subsistence levels. There’s no point in doing so.
At the municipal level what we can expect then, this:
Rent freezes = housing shortages
Saving for an investment property is one of the more accessible avenues for improving one’s lot in life. When governments freeze rents, it squeezes out the small “mom-and-pop” landlord from being able to hold a cashflowing property, they get squeezed out. Developers won’t build or invest, because there’s no point if they can’t sell any units, and there’s no point investing in new units if you can’t at least break even operating them.
The result: fewer homes get built.
City run grocery stores = food shortages
We don’t need to look at Venezuela to see what happens here, this is already being tried in America and it’s a shit-show: empty shelves, rotting food, it’s almost as if when you try to force goods and services to price below their market clearing rates, the system simply breaks down as producers withhold their remaining labour and capital from a money-losing exercise.
Taxing the “wealthy” = capital flight
We’re already seeing the wealthy pull up stakes and leave – the highest earners did so even before the election, and after Mamdani secured victory, the next level: middle and higher-income earners, headed for the exits (most popular destination: Florida).
There is now an influx among low income earners – (defined as “under $200K annually!) headed to NYC, perhaps lured by the promise of free stuff, streets paved with gold, and a collectivist utopia.
We’ll see how long New York’s honeymoon phase with collectivism lasts.
What we’ll inevitably see play out instead is not theory, it’s been borne out in every collectivist experiment over the 20th and 21st centuries.
