Authored by Daniel Greenfield via The Gatestone Institute,

Last year the Trump administration designated Mexico’s Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) as a terrorist group, allowing the military to carry out strikes against it and its leadership, but the massive drug cartel across the border understands the weaknesses of our system all too well.

That’s why its new leader has American citizenship.

Law enforcement, intelligence agencies and the military will have to jump through all sorts of legal hoops to spy on, target or take out Juan Carlos Valencia Gonzalez, who has a $5 million bounty on his head, but he has the best protection in the world because he was born in California.

The new cartel leader’s drug-dealing Mexican parents had a baby in America. That child became a US citizen who runs a Mexican drug cartel that the government has designated as being at war with the United States, and yet we can’t simply remove his citizenship.

And targeting the cartel boss without removing his citizenship will set off wails from Democrats and the Tucker Carlson wing of the GOP, who still whine that the United States took out Anwar Al-Awlaki, the head of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni operation, a sworn enemy of America, who happened to be born here when his father, a grad student, was in New Mexico on a Fulbright scholarship.

Americans of a century ago would have been baffled that foreign enemy leaders who happened to be born to foreign nationals in this country were somehow immune to being killed in battle or that their citizenship couldn’t be quickly and easily removed. Back then most of our modern problems were unthinkable because committing treason, aligning with any foreign government, including joining its army or voting in its elections, marrying a foreigner or just returning to your home country meant denaturalization. (As did dodging the draft or deserting from the military.)

Had the common-sense provisions of the Expatriation Act of 1907 or even the milder Nationality Act of 1940 been in force today, we wouldn’t have the farce of cartel and terrorist leaders who still hold our citizenship, active traitors with citizenship, “refugees” who spend most of their time back home or a Somali senator linked to fraud who is still voting in Minnesota elections.

Under these provisions, Bill Clinton would have lost his citizenship, and the “refugees” and “migrants” who maintain homes abroad, the women who marry foreign nationals for cash to give them citizenship, and the anchor baby would be as extinct as the dodo.

Unfortunately, a series of poorly grounded Supreme Court decisions unconstitutionally seized the powers of the executive and legislative branches to withdraw citizenship on most grounds based on a misreading of the notoriously poorly written Fourteenth Amendment.

The Warren Court’s deliberate misreading of the Fourteenth Amendment’s awkward attempt to define all black people as citizens, “all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power… are declared to be citizens,” somehow trumped the clear language of Article I, Section 8, Clause 4 that Congress has the power “to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization”. In a series of bad decisions, Supreme Court rulings argued that serving in a foreign military, desertion, marrying foreigners, and voting abroad did not merit denaturalization.

These rulings relied on now widely discredited premises, such as defining the Constitution’s “cruel and unusual punishment” term as being anything that the justices disapproved of, and “evolving standards of decency” which allowed judges to redefine the law to fit liberal mores.

These abuses of judicial activism that reached their peak during the Warren Court also gutted the constitutional powers of Congress and made denaturalization a dead letter in the law.

By the time Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez held that a Mexican born in the United States who returned to Mexico to avoid military service couldn’t be stripped of his citizenship because it violated his due process, denaturalization was a dead letter that could hardly be utilized except for naturalization fraud by immigrants who had lied about not committing war crimes abroad.

This was not strictly true because the provisions punishing treason or allegiance to an enemy power with denaturalization are theoretically still in effect, but administrations haven’t had the stomach to try them out. The Trump administration may be willing to take on “treason citizenship” and a more conservative Supreme Court may be willing to overturn Earl Warren.

Indeed, even the Fourteenth Amendment had emphasized “not subject to any foreign power”.

Both the left and the right tend to misunderstand “birthright citizenship.” The Fourteenth Amendment’s accidental introduction of the foreign concept into American law helped demolish citizenship as a meaningful participatory act rather than the involuntary one it was elsewhere.

“Birthright citizenship” is neither an immigrant ideal nor “magic dirt.” Rather it was the principle of “Jus Soli” or “Right of the Soil,” which, in British law, was limited to those “born under the obedience, power, faith, ligealty or ligeance of the King”. America’s founding principles were highly skeptical of both notions that were rooted in monarchial, rather than republican principles.

Monarchy made everyone born under the jurisdiction and sovereignty of the Crown into a “subject”. Allegiance to the Crown was not voluntary the way that it was in America. That was why the Founding Fathers, including Thomas Jefferson, labored to defend the right of “expatriation” which still remains the only unquestioned form of denaturalization.

The American Revolution was predicated on the idea of citizenship as a voluntary action rather than an involuntary compact created by a place of birth. The growing intrusion of “Jus Soli” began with the Fourteenth Amendment, which, rather than quickly naturalizing freed black slaves, clumsily made everyone born here and “not subject to any foreign power” citizens.

By the late 19th century, the Supreme Court had begun dismantling any meaningful limitations on citizenship, with United States v. Wong Kim Ark embracing the British notion that the sovereignty under which a child was born made him a citizen. But if sovereignty makes a child a citizen, then Anwar Al-Awlaki and Juan Carlos Valencia Gonzalez are fully American.

And that’s not only absurd; it’s national suicide.

The prototype for American citizenship is neither “Jus Soli” nor the “Sovereignty of the Crown,” but the concluding words of the Declaration of Independence, in which we “pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” A nation built on anything else is either a tyranny or an absurdity. Some on the left and the right now argue for tyranny or absurdity.

Birthright citizenship is not a liberal idea but an illiberal one. It was liberal only relative to the even more illiberal idea that citizenship came from personal allegiance to a monarch. America was based on neither tyranny nor absurdity, but a voluntary community of mutual allegiance that it is possible to join and to withdraw from, and to be tossed out of and barred from for disloyalty.

Past Supreme Court decisions reversed the tyrannical one-way allegiance of monarchy and instead replaced it with a one-way allegiance in which the state was obligated to do everything for the citizen, but nothing at all was required from the citizen. Not even allegiance. Even asking them not to run terrorist organizations and drug cartels at war with America is asking too much.

No nation can survive on such principles.

America is not a monarchy or a tyranny, and there are legitimate concerns about giving the state the easy power to strip away citizenship, but if citizenship can’t even be removed from the people who pledge allegiance to Al Qaeda and ISIS, then, to paraphrase President John F. Kennedy, what does it ask of us to do for our country, and what does it even mean beyond a set of legal complications?

The only pathway to reviving America is to make citizenship into a meaningful act of allegiance, not an accident of birth. Immigration in this regard is not the problem; immigration without allegiance is the real crisis, but so is the citizenship without allegiance of the likes of Bill Ayers of the “Weather Underground” who can trace his ancestry back to John Ayer, who came to this country from England in 1635 and was one of the original settlers of some of the Puritan towns.

America needs to exercise the traditional ability it once had to make citizenship meaningful by also making it selective, controlling immigration, ending the automatic grants of citizenship for happenstance births, and once again making citizenship conditional on ongoing allegiance.

Anything else is not citizenship; it’s a national death wish.

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

The perfect storm surrounding the global LNG supply chain, which hit a brick wall two weeks ago when Iranian attacks shuttered 17% of Qatar’s LNG output following devastating strikes on the Ras Laffan plant, the largest in the world, just went from metaphorical to literal after storm damage to Chevron’s Wheatstone gas plant in Western Australia is hampering efforts to restart operations and the facility won’t be back online fully for weeks, adding even more turmoil to the global LNG market.

As Reuters reports, tropical Cyclone Narelle was estimated to have disrupted Australian LNG facilities along the northern and western coasts, and disrupted supply equating to more than 30 million metric tons per ​year. Combined with the shock from conflict in the Middle East, ​more than a quarter of global LNG supply has been ⁠disrupted, MST Marquee analyst Saul Kavonic said on Friday.

“The Wheatstone gas facility near Onslow has had equipment damage from the severe weather, which has impacted restart activities,” Chevron said in a statement, adding that “while damage assessments ​continue at both the onshore Wheatstone plant and offshore Wheatstone Platform, it is ​likely to be a number of weeks before production returns to full rates to allow time for repairs to be safely completed.”

As we reported last week, Chevron said earlier in the week that one of three LNG production units at its Gorgon plant was halted, as well as a platform that feeds Wheatstone, which is a two-train LNG project which produces 8.9 million tons ​a year, about 15% of which is meant to be reserved for the domestic market. On Sunday it said the 15.9 million ton Gorgon LNG export facility and domestic plant continued to operate at full rates, adding that ​all of its ​three trains returned ⁠to full production on Sunday.

The storm also hit infrastructure feeding Woodside Energy Group’s North West Shelf export plant. The company said it’s working to resume normal operations, and output continues at its Macedon and Pluto gas facilities.

Woodside also said ship loading at Pluto LNG is restarting following the reopening on Saturday of Dampier port.

Gorgon, Wheatstone and North West Shelf accounted for almost half of Australia’s exports last month, or about 8.4% of the global trade, according to researcher EnergyQuest.

Australia became the world’s second-largest LNG exporter when Qatar shut down production this month ​after Iranian airstrikes damaged its facilities. The country most impacted from the Australian outage will likely be China, which following the Qatar force majeure production halt has been forced to rely on Australian product to a far greater degree. 

A week after Russian tankers loaded with fuel for Cuba were diverted due to a months-long US oil blockade, the US Coast Guard is permitting a Russian vessel carrying an estimated 730,000 barrels of crude oil to reach Cuba, the NY Times reports, citing an official briefed on the matter.

The tanker – Anatoly Kolodkin – owned by the Russian state-controlled shipping company Sovcomflot under U.S. sanctions since 2024 – left Primorsk, Russia on march 9, and is now expected to dock at the port of Matanzas as early as Monday night or Tuesday.

This development marks a notable pause in the administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign, which has included threats to third-party nations, the escorting of at least one earlier tanker away from Cuba, and recent Treasury Department measures explicitly barring Cuba from any waivers on Russian-origin oil. Despite two U.S. Coast Guard cutters positioned in the region capable of interception, no orders were issued to stop the vessel. The Coast Guard referred questions to the White House, which did not respond.

The decision avoids an immediate and potentially thorny naval confrontation with Russia in the Caribbean, even as President Trump has publicly suggested military options toward Cuba. At a recent investment conference, Trump stated he believed he would have “the honor of taking Cuba” and added, “Cuba is next, by the way,” in reference to possible use of force after the Iran conflict. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has similarly called for new leadership in Havana, stating that “Cuba’s economy can’t change unless their system of government changes.”

NOW: Trump on Cuba: “Within a short period of time, it’s going to fail, and we will be there to help it out.” pic.twitter.com/ssPdCmDraq

— Bruce Snyder (@realBruceSnyder) March 30, 2026

Temporary Relief for a Collapsing Energy Grid

The arrival could buy Cuba at least a few weeks of breathing room before its fuel reserves are exhausted again. The island has suffered repeated nationwide blackouts – including one lasting 29 hours in March – severe gasoline and diesel shortages, paralyzed agriculture and transportation, and deteriorating medical services. Diesel, the most critical product from this crude once refined, powers trucks, tractors, and many smaller power plants; shortages have even left humanitarian aid stranded in warehouses. Meanwhile, waste has been piling up.

Energy analyst Jorge Piñón of the University of Texas told the Times that the cargo will take roughly three weeks to refine and another week to distribute nationwide. While not a permanent fix, it should help stabilize the grid, reduce blackouts, and support essential government functions, including security forces. Cuba already generates about 40% of its electricity from domestic crude and has accelerated solar installations, but the remaining capacity relies heavily on imported diesel and fuel oil. Piñón estimates the Russian oil could be consumed in under a month, with some reserved for strategic needs. “It buys them time,” he said, “but this is not a magic wand.”

Earlier attempts at relief have faltered: another Russia-origin vessel (the Sea Horse, carrying diesel) diverted and remains in Venezuelan waters without discharging its cargo. Cuba has received only minimal fuel imports in 2026 amid the tightened blockade, which intensified after the U.S.-backed change in Venezuela’s leadership.

Cuban officials, including Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío, have signaled resolve, stating the military is preparing for possible aggression while hoping it does not occur. Former Cuban diplomat Carlos Alzugaray observed that the Trump administration appears to expect the Cuban government to collapse under pressure, but Havana believes it can endure – and has been negotiating, apparently. 

*  *  * SUNDAY NIGHT CUTOFF IN 3, 2, 1… 

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

As Chicago and other blue cities move toward reparations for African Americans, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D, Wa.) wants reparations for illegal immigrants for the trauma caused by immigration enforcement.

At the same time, various Democrats are making clear that they want to entirely defund and eliminate Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

So, after the Biden Administration allowed in millions over an open border, Democrats would eliminate ICE and some like Jayapal would pay illegal immigrants reparations.

Rep. Jayapal declared on Friday:

“They need to be brought before us, and they need to be held account [sic] for the trauma that they have created, and we are going to have to have some form of reparation for the kids and the families that have been traumatized through all of this.”

While not calling for reparations, other democrats have picked up the theme that someone has to pay for the trauma caused by immigration enforcement.

Rep. Maxine Dexter (D, Or.) echoed the mantra of Democratic members that “The administration has terrorized our communities and mine in the Willamette Valley.”

Rep. Christian Menefee (D-TX) told constituents, “I can’t imagine seeing my kid in a jail cell just because of where he was born, just because of what language he speaks at home.”

Jayapal fought back tears in her “shadow hearing” on Friday after calling for reparations, stating, “I still cannot believe that we are doing this to our own children.”

U.S.-born President Donald Trump is the outsider, Jayapal argued:

“When the founders put into the Constitution the idea that Congress would have power, they assumed that the party that was in control of Congress would stand up to a dictatorial, authoritarian president.”

Jayapal did not mention the many American children killed by what she called “our” migrants.

The question becomes, if more groups get reparations, when does this become a form of wealth redistribution?

Indeed, according to these members, much of the country has been traumatized by the Trump Administration.

What is missing in cities like Chicago facing economic meltdowns is any notion of financial limits.

Instead, Democrats are pushing tax hikes and wealth taxes to cover bloated budgets and growing deficits.

*  *  * Pramila would HATE it if you bought this beef

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

New York City, already reeling from crime under years of radical leftist rule, now faces a proposal that sounds ripped straight from a communist energy-rationing handbook: mandatory blackouts every night.

Manhattan Assemblywoman Deborah Glick is sponsoring the “Dark Skies Protection Act,” which would require businesses and residents to turn off non-essential lighting between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. 

Critics are blasting it as a criminal’s dream come true in a city that already struggles with safety after dark.

New York City is proposing a World Economic Forum inspired law that would require a blackout to be put in place to save the energy grid.

Known as the “Dark Skies Protection Act,” it would require businesses and residents to turn off non essential lighting between 11 p.m. and 5… pic.twitter.com/cf6tFXRJvY

— Shadow of Ezra (@ShadowofEzra) March 28, 2026

The bill itself spells out its goals in the legislation: “preserve and enhance the state’s dark sky while promoting safety for people, birds and other wildlife, conserving energy and reducing our carbon footprint, and preserving the aesthetic qualities of the night sky.”

It adds: “Our ancestors were able to experience a night sky full of stars, but now 80% of Americans can no longer see the Milky Way and experience its profound beauty.”

The full pitch on light pollution reads: “Light pollution has many negative impacts, including the disruption of the natural patterns of wildlife, wasted energy and increased output of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases, interruption of human sleep and other adverse health impacts, and the loss of the aesthetic qualities and cultural significance of the night sky.”

On birds, it states: “70% of bird species migrate each year. And of those birds, 80% migrate at night, using the night sky to help them navigate to and from their breeding grounds. However, as they pass over big cities on their way, they can become disoriented by bright artificial lights, often causing them to collide with buildings or windows.”

No bright idea! Lawmaker wants to force NYC to go dark after 11 p.m. – and critics say it’s a criminal’s dream bill https://t.co/iA55mpypfo pic.twitter.com/mo3pHA9QNA

— New York Post (@nypost) March 26, 2026

That’s all well and good, but there is an ongoing rampant crime epidemic in New York City. Is the safety of birds more important in than the safety of people?

Lights used for travel would be exempt, but the bill is already drawing fire.

One observer on X put it bluntly: “Criminal gangs approve this message.”

Another wrote sarcastically: “Good then criminals can maraud the populace under cover of darkness as intended!”

“What could go wrong?” a third asked.

A fourth added: “I’m all for seeing the stars but New York is not exactly a safe place.”

NYS Conservative Party chairman Gerard Kassar summed it up: “I guess Glick wants to push one last ridiculous idea before she retires.”

The idiotic cherry on top of this maniac idea comes with Times Square getting spared while the rest of the city is plunged into darkness.

This isn’t environmentalism. It’s control dressed up as virtue. In a city where crime already spikes at night and leftist policies have made streets less secure, mandating a nightly blackout is an open invitation for chaos.

This is the exact kind of thing you’d expect to see in a communist hellhole, the inevitable result of that ideology—failing grids, forced darkness, and everyday people paying the price while the system pretends it’s for the greater good.

The same pattern played out in Cuba, where communist mismanagement triggered repeated total grid collapses, leaving millions without power for days and exposing the rot at the core of that system.

New Yorkers wouldn’t be getting safer skies or saved birds—they’d be experiencing rationed freedom while the real problems go unaddressed. 

This bill may not pass, but the mindset behind it reveals everything about who’s steering the ship in blue-city America.

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

As last week wore on, it felt increasingly like the market was transitioning from pricing inflation risk (from a ‘brief’ energy supply shock) to weighing a demand-shock-driven growth scare (from a longer lasting disruption) as bonds rallied in the face of higher oil and lower stocks (stagflation).

Last week saw three attempts at unilateral de-escalation (5-day delay, ‘ceasefire’ proposal, 10-day delay) met with even more supply as the apparent ‘Trump Put’ or ‘TACO’ trade is losing its power.

Simply put, as Goldman’s Shreeti Kapa noted last week, the answer to everything depends on one binary variable: the duration of the war.

That in turn depends if there will be safe transit of oil vessels through the Strait of Hormuz.

Even if the strait is opened, would we be able to restore oil flows to pre-conflict levels?

What is the guarantee for safe passage?

Can any ceasefire be trusted?

For how long would that hold?  

This weekend gave us no answers to those questions but did suggest, as Goldman’s head of equity execution, Brian Garrett, described: the situation is fluid.

• Iran says electricity facilities were attacked in Tehran

• IDF says currently striking Iran targets across Tehran

• Foreign ministers of regional countries seeking peace & offramp in Pakistan meeting on Sunday.

• Iran destroyed US AWACS jet at Saudi Airbase

• Report says Pentagon has been weeks in preparing ground operations as initial Marines arrive in region (WaPo).

Fluid indeed…

Here’s how Garrett started his “weekend” prep note: 

“the quotation marks around weekend are intentional…

…investors and traders have not had a break in months, with “Green Dot Sunday” turning from a one-off into a 2026 non-negotiable…

…the forthcoming three day “weekend” for US markets is almost unwelcome as the market holiday just means another news/headline session coupled with zero price discovery and zero liquidity.”

The feedback from various market participants suggests that Brian hit the nail on the head – headline fatigue is real.

Here’s a few things on Garrett’s radar…

1/ CTAs have sold even more global equities…

They are quickly approaching max short levels … at a minimum that pressure is abating 

2/ Main Street is finally noticing…

The texts from college friends and family members is showing some panic… “bg, what did you do to the market” 

3/ SPX Call Skew is collapsing…

The hope for a quick rebound is diminishing… this is reflected in the cost of an OTM upside strike…

4/ SPX realized correlation remains extremely low for the size of this drawdown…

Desk continues to like sector ETFs or custom basket options for those looking to express trades in convexity 

And in case you needed to hear from another ‘expert’, here’s Iran’s de factor leader offering some day-trading advice:

Iran’s defecto head now pitching premarket trades https://t.co/T6qy3fOPMW

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 29, 2026

So, Sunday night, dots are green… and oil futures open higher with WTI testing up to $103…

Up to 3-week highs…

S&P futures are down almost 1%…

The dollar is lower (against the JPY) out of the gate and Gold is up modestly, bouncing from a lower open…

How long will this opening kneejerk hold?

Finally, we given the last words before another busy (if shortened) week to Goldman’s Garrett: a silver lining?

What is good news is that prices are finally reflecting the issues at hand and the correction has at least started (h/t NDX officially -10% from the highs)… feels like we’re closer to an end than the beginning but also feels like we’re playing a game that doesn’t have “innings” in the classic sense (ie : no one can give you a timeline)… many parties need to want to de-escalate and that’s not evident (yet).

Here’s the trades Garrett likes:

• Continue to think receiver (or just simply lower yield) trades make sense

• Long emerging market equities that benefit from higher commodity prices

• Short credit (only asset yet to flinch)

• SPX ratio call spreads, long the 2-3x (pitched last week, still like it and we got traction)

• Long gold (this one is gaining followership)

And don’t forget: buy the Monday/Tuesday…

…sell the Thursday/Friday (or Weds/Thurs this week?)

Professional subscribers can read Brian Garrett’s full “Weekend Prep” note here at our new Marketdesk.ai portal

Earlier this month, Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier Parish, Louisiana, faced an unprecedented threat from sophisticated drone swarms. These drones, operating in waves of 12 to 15 units each, loitered over the base for approximately four hours daily, disrupting critical operations and forcing the Air Force to halt activities and shelter personnel. 

This marked the first time a U.S. air base was temporarily taken out of operation in wartime, a scenario that had never occurred even during World War II.

“Barksdale is the headquarters of the Air Force’s Global Strike Command, which is responsible for the nation’s nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles and strategic bomber forces, including B2, B1, and B52 aircraft,” explains The National Interest. “The base is home to the 2nd Bomb Wing B52s and is the central hub of communications and logistical support for coordinating and directing those forces.”

It’s hard to overstate just how alarming this is. Potentially hostile drones were able to operate over a critical military installation for days with what looks like total impunity. And making matters worse, the disruption caused by the drone swarms impacted B-52H aircraft launches for Operation Epic Fury against Iran, delaying critical missions and potentially compromising the effectiveness of the operation.

According to a report from Asia Times, “the drones that operated over Barksdale were far more sophisticated than anything seen in Ukraine, where drones are used heavily, and well beyond Iranian capabilities.”

The drone waves lasted around four hours each day, an extraordinarily long loiter time for a drone. It is not known if the drones were fixed wing or quadcopter types, or how they were powered (liquid fuel or electrical). Each wave consisted of 12 to 15 drones, and the drones flew with their lights on, intentionally making them visible.

Barksdale AFB does not have air defenses, nor does it have fighter jets that can take down drones.

The airbase does have some electronic countermeasures that were designed to disable GPS and the datalinks between the drones and their remote operators. The electronic countermeasures failed to work.

In fact, their ability to resist broad-spectrum jamming and operate using non-commercial signal characteristics made them particularly challenging to detect and neutralize. The drones also employed varied ingress and egress routes and dispersed patterns, complicating efforts to trace their origins.

Despite the base’s electronic countermeasures designed to disable GPS and datalinks, they failed to disable the sophisticated drones. 

At the very least, the incident exposed a major gap in U.S. air defenses, especially at bases like Barksdale that don’t have systems in place to stop this kind of threat. Even more concerning, these drones could potentially carry heavy weapons or conduct surveillance over sensitive nuclear facilities—raising serious national security alarms. 

It’s not known where the drones came from, but China is believed to be a likely source, given the drones’ advanced capabilities, which appear to outmatch much of the U.S. arsenal. The activity could be retaliation for the 2023 shootdown of Chinese spy balloons, which Joe Biden delayed until after they had already surveilled multiple U.S. military sites. The operation’s persistence and precision point to trained operators who likely smuggled the equipment into the country.

This incident makes one thing clear: it’s time for a serious reassessment of domestic air defense, especially as drones become a growing threat. The problem is, the United States is still years away from having effective domestic counter-drone capabilities.

Authored by via Paul Mueller via the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER),

President Trump’s conflicts with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and with Board of Governors member Lisa Cook have obscured real shortcomings at the Federal Reserve and brought little useful change. These conflicts tend to focus on whether the Fed’s target interest rate is too high or too low. Meanwhile, institutional problems at the Fed have been largely overlooked.

But there is an opportunity here with Trump’s nominee for Fed chair, Kevin Warsh. His first task will be navigating a hostile Senate. But should he be confirmed, Warsh’s time would be best spent cleaning up the Federal Reserve system: its personnel, spending, and data.

The Federal Reserve System employs 24,000 people. The Board of Governors has about 3,000 employees, while the 12 district banks employ the remaining 21,000. That figure includes 800 to 1,000 professional economists. While the Fed has recently announced plans to reduce its workforce by 10 percent, that would still leave it with more than 21,000 employees. But why shouldn’t the Fed cut headcount by 20 percent to 30 percent, or even more?

Does the Fed really need that many employees? After all, this isn’t the 1960s or 1970s when many things had to be done by hand. Not only have there been significant technological improvements and greater automation over the past 50 years, the development of artificial intelligence will also accelerate this trend. As such, the new Fed chair should reevaluate whether the Fed needs so many employees.

Besides being wasteful, the high number of economists employed by the Fed has likely influenced the profession to unduly favor the status quo. Those who criticize the Fed or question whether it should even exist find themselves in the wilderness of monetary economics. Employing fewer economists will reduce the Federal Reserve’s gravitational pull on the economics profession.

Along with reducing headcount through reorganization and consolidation, the Federal Reserve is ripe for an audit of its spending. Ron Paul popularized the idea of auditing the Fed in 2008. The Federal Reserve is unique in that it can literally create money, and in that it sets its budget independent of Congress. What would you expect the budget trend to be for a fully self-funding organization that can print money? If you said up and to the right, collect your prize.

The budget of the Board of Governors of the Fed has grown more consistently than the Federal budget for decades. In fact, why would any office or department at the Fed ever voluntarily reduce its spending? As such, we don’t see examples of significant retrenchment or budget cuts across the Board of Governors.

District banks, on the other hand, operate with private-sector participation through their member-bank stockholders, yet they still suffer from bureaucratic bloat because of limited market competition.

By restructuring staff, streamlining operations, and auditing Fed spending, the new Fed chair can couch all of this change in terms of modernizing the institution. The Fed has largely failed to keep abreast of technological change when it comes to data, metrics, and execution. It still relies heavily on surveys and anecdotal conversations when it has access to millions of data points, nearly in real-time.

Consider the following key indicators that the Fed officials rely on:

They measure their key inflation target using the personal consumption expenditures price index, as well as the consumer price index and the producer price index. Yet these numbers come out only once a month. Rather than calling on business leaders to get a read on economic conditions, they could use real-time measures from sources such as the Adobe Digital Price Index or Truflation that use millions of transactions to assess economic activity.

Similarly, most of the key indicators that the Fed uses for assessing the strength of the labor market (the unemployment rate, nonfarm payrolls, labor force participation rate, and various measures of underemployment) tend to be released monthly as well.

The important measure of economic growth, the gross domestic product (GDP), comes out only quarterly—although there are frequent estimates. Furthermore, the measures of GDP tend to be revised often, too. The Atlanta Fed produces a “GDPNow” number—but it also relies primarily on estimates rather than real-time data. Indicators such as industrial production, retail sales, and business investment are not much better.

One area in which the Fed does make use of real-time data is in financial market conditions. Interest rates (e.g., federal funds rate, Treasury yields), credit spreads, and asset prices change in real time and can be used to assess financial stability and the effectiveness of monetary policy.

In addition to the delays, most of these core metrics, particularly GDP and the unemployment rate, are lagging indicators. They reflect past economic performance rather than provide real-time insights into current or future trends. In a rapidly evolving global economy, relying heavily on backward-looking data can lead to policy decisions that address emerging challenges too slowly or exacerbate existing ones.

The Federal Open Market Committee’s framework often emphasizes aggregate demand management, assuming that inflation is primarily a demand-side phenomenon. But recent economic shocks (supply chain disruptions, energy price spikes) highlight the critical role of supply-side factors. Over-reliance on demand-side metrics can lead to inappropriate policy responses.

In fact, many economists argue that the Fed should be less reactive in general. Economist Milton Friedman noted that there were “long and variable lags” between the implementation of monetary policy and its effects. Following predictable monetary rules will likely generate more stability and more growth in the long run.

Monetary policy (in terms of target interest rates) matters, but so does operational efficiency, utilization of technology, and access to good information. Institutional reform may also help the Fed rebuild public trust by reassuring people that its decisions reflect reality today rather than reality months ago—or not at all. Cleaning up the Federal Reserve will be a monumental task, but it will also be a legacy. Let’s hope that Warsh is up for the challenge.

Authored by Ryan Morgan via The Epoch Times,

Iran has agreed to allow 20 Pakistani-flagged ships to pass through the Strait of Hormuz unharmed, Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar announced on March 28.

Dar presented the announcement as a sign of good faith from Tehran, as Iranian forces continue to threaten commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has actively targeted shipping in the region as part of its retaliation for U.S. and Israeli attacks on the leadership and military of the Islamic regime for its nuclear program, which have continued since Feb. 28.

“I am pleased to share a great news that the Government of Iran has agreed to allow 20 more ships under the Pakistani flag to pass through the Strait of Hormuz,” Dar said in an X post on Saturday.

The Pakistani foreign minister said two ships will be permitted to leave through the narrow maritime passage daily.

Oil tanker carrying Saudi crude to Pakistan.

Map frm @Kpler pic.twitter.com/qSUSTca7k1

— Anas Alhajji (@anasalhajji) March 29, 2026

In recent days, the Pakistani government has stepped forward as a potential intermediary for communications and further peace talks between Washington and Tehran.

Dar said Tehran’s decision to allow these 20 ships through the Strait of Hormuz marks “a meaningful step toward peace and will strengthen our collective efforts in that direction.”

The move came two days after President Donald Trump announced that Iran had let 10 oil tankers through the key Middle East waterway.

“Dialogue, diplomacy, and such confidence-building measures are the only way forward,” Dar wrote on X.

Trump has recently cited progress in negotiations with Tehran to end the war, but Iranian officials have downplayed the significance of the communications.

In a statement shared by Iranian state media, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran had received messages from Washington by way of intermediaries but said, “this is not considered a negotiation.”

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian spoke by phone with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Saturday. According to the Pakistani prime minister’s office, Pezeshkian said trust is needed in order to advance talks with Washington.

During a cabinet meeting earlier this week, Trump said that Iranian officials have, in private, been far more adamant about negotiating an end to the ongoing conflict.

“They say, ‘Oh, we’re not talking’ … They are begging to work out a deal,” Trump said.

Last week, Trump threatened to destroy Iranian energy sites if the Strait of Hormuz was not fully reopened to shipping within 48 hours.

In response, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps threatened to completely close down access to the Strait of Hormuz and target energy facilities in Middle Eastern countries that host U.S. forces, along with other critical infrastructure like water desalination plants.

Trump has since postponed his strike deadline to April 6.

Gamers, already upset over rising memory, CPU, and GPU prices, woke up to more bad news this morning. This time, Sony posted a new entry on the PlayStation Blog announcing price hikes for the PS5, PS5 Pro, and PlayStation Portal, blaming “continued pressures in the global economic landscape.”

“We know that price changes impact our community, and after careful evaluation, we found this was a necessary step to ensure we can continue delivering innovative, high-quality gaming experiences to players worldwide,” Isabelle Tomatis, Vice President of Global Marketing at Sony Interactive Entertainment, said in the blog post.

In the U.S., that means the base PlayStation 5 (disc version) will see its recommended retail price rise from around $499 to $649, an increase of about $150.

What Sony meant by “continued pressures in the global economic landscape” to justify the console price hike was not defined. There was also no mention of whether the memory shortage influenced the price increase.

Backlash on X was instant:

Hot take but I think things should get cheaper the more old that they are, crazy idea!

— Synth Potato🥔 (@SynthPotato) March 27, 2026

My PS5 is now worth $200 more than when I bought it. That’s nuts.

— Wesley ✨ (@wesleytypes) March 27, 2026

Wow… at this point it’s easier to just build a full PC than buy this piece of hardware. pic.twitter.com/e9DBAGWnaP

— Mike (@mikeindiee) March 27, 2026

Not fucking really pic.twitter.com/1PUNlEiwOz

— Gavin Roberts (@GavinLee5001) March 27, 2026

We told readers in late January: “If you want to buy any consumer goods, PCs, or smartphones … do it now, as it is for sure all the prices will be increased. Take an average PC, for example. The ratio of memory chips in the BoM [bill of materials] cost has increased from some 15% to almost 40%.”

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