Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

The German federal government is firing its big debt cannon at the ongoing recession. So far, with zero effect. Berlin is about to learn the hard way that you cannot create prosperity with a money printer.

In March, the federal government launched its major investment offensive – starting with the first bond tranche meant to fuel the so-called “special fund” with fresh credit.

Credit Pump Running Hot

Every year, new bonds with maturities of five to thirty years are to be issued in volumes of €50 billion. With broad support from the Bundestag and Bundesrat, the government is going all in. Half a trillion euros are to be pumped into infrastructure projects over the next decade – and naturally, everything that can be booked under “climate neutrality.”

That a significant part of this credit volume will be diverted to cover gaping deficits in social funds is almost beside the point. The verdict remains unchanged: German policymakers have fully committed to a brute-force Keynesianism – maximum artificial state demand, now coupled with the ECB’s again negative real interest rates.

A textbook of the central bank era, repeatedly seen in the 20th century – always leaving the same trail: growing mountains of debt and the systematic crowding out of private investment from the capital markets.

A vacuum effect. Price guarantees, subsidies, and electricity cost allowances keep this artificial economy liquid – even attracting private capital with guaranteed returns – capital that would be far more productive elsewhere. A fatal vicious cycle.

Scarce resources are diverted into unproductive sectors of the economy. A poverty program hailed by state-aligned media, NGOs, and government economic institutes as some magical potion that is supposed to breathe new life into a bloodless economy.

Zero Growth Despite Debt Spree

In Berlin, hope was last pinned on firing the “Big Bertha” to buy some breathing room. With polling numbers for the Union and SPD plummeting, the goal was to spark a temporary boom to carry them over the finish line of the upcoming state elections. That is the real purpose of the special fund – an expensive political trick that will plunge children and grandchildren into even deeper debt.

Even the Chancellor counts among those dazzled by artificially created credit. Once a champion of a lean state, he switched immediately after taking office to full-blown state expansion.

A weather vane in Berlin, blown by Brussels, carrying the unmistakable siren song of socialism.

The creation of the special fund was, according to Merz in spring, a state-politically necessary step, marking a significant new economic policy beginning amid the debt orgy of the Federal Republic.

Classic “road construction” is meant to ignite economic growth. Stone-age economic thinking from a long-gone era, when governments could still afford such short-lived fiscal fires – though that hardly made it better socially.

For this economic acrobatics, taxpayers will bleed for decades. Irresponsible. Unethical. Inadequate economic policy.

The news from the Federal Statistical Office that growth again came to a standstill in Q3 hit even harder.

Never forget: with net new public debt at 4.7% and a state share of GDP over 50%, private business collapses in practice. That is the only way to mathematically explain a zero growth outcome.

This is the real message from Wiesbaden’s disaster report.

Offloading State Bureaucracy

In German politics, fatal economic illiteracy combines with a dangerous drive to expand the political apparatus – with every intervention in the free economy, every new debt package, every climate-policy justification. This excess shrinks Germany’s future economic potential in favor of an ever more powerful bureaucracy.

Employer president Rainer Dulger’s urgent warning should be taken seriously. He called it a “scandal for the business location,” highlighting that in the past three years alone, 325,000 new employees had to be hired just to manage growing bureaucratic demands.

Biggest cost drivers include GDPR, with its endless documentation and reporting obligations, as well as EU IT security regulations. Add the ever-expanding Supply Chain Due Diligence Act and a flood of new hospitality reporting requirements.

Politics is increasingly outsourcing its bureaucratic monsters to the private economy. A reality not reflected in GDP calculations. In truth, Germany’s state share has long exceeded 50%, possibly already 55%. The state balloons – and German productivity continues to suffer.

Like a Chain Letter

Ideological statism persists like a chain letter. Olaf Scholz’s “double whammy” ultimately became the special fund – bureaucratically less infantile in appearance but essentially the same. State bureaucracy continues to grow to centrally manage this massive debt mountain.

The drying financing channels of the green patronage economy are being flooded again with fresh money. The party goes on. A few fill their pockets while future generations pay via higher taxes and inflation. That part of the new credit is now going to the military economy shows one thing: internally, there is no longer belief that the climate economy is the saving haven.

With the military economy, an old Keynesian classic returns: production above all else – regardless of what is being produced. Even if goods and services benefit only a small, select group of economic profiteers.

China Caught in the Intervention Trap

Europeans are not alone. China, which grants the private sector broad free-market space, repeatedly resorts to Keynesian emergency measures in crises. The creation of massive real estate overcapacity is one example.

The crisis that peaked with the Evergrande collapse is far from over. Millions of apartments were built solely to artificially maintain a short-term economic fire and prevent labor market collapse after the 2008 financial shock. Today, China’s export engine, fueled by high subsidies, serves a similar function – feeding a true mercantilist machine.

Wherever one looks, German politics exists in a fatal echo chamber, where every ideological misstep amplifies itself – the rhetoric grotesquely magnified. In its seven-year planning, the EU Commission under Ursula von der Leyen inflates the central Brussels budget to about €2 trillion.

This provides fiscal cover for the EU’s debt kings. One wonders: wasn’t the EU Commission originally meant to enforce the Maastricht debt rules?

Centralizer Headquarters

In Brussels centralism, the illusion of controlling the economy thrives within a self-reinforcing bureaucratic dynamic. Every new law, every additional regulation may harm the economy, but simultaneously expands the influence of Brussels.

It was only a matter of time before the last inhibition fell and the EU Commission’s borrowing ban was circumvented. This step came with the establishment of the “NextGenerationEU” fund.

In Brussels, the motto is clear: never let a good crisis go to waste. The result is always a new agency, whose archives fill with the latest regulatory ideas of bored civil servants – always financed by new Ponzi-style debt.

Debt piles on debt in an inverted pyramid structure. It cannot end well – and it will not.

The ideological contrast Americans are demonstrating – with massive deregulation – finds no reception in German politics, media, or philosophical debate. All focus is on the combative figure of US President Donald Trump, who thus secures America’s competitive advantage in the media spotlight for the long term.

As of December 2024, the global population has reached 8.2 billion. For the first time in history, nearly half of humanity belongs to Generation Z and Generation Alpha—the digital-native generations.

This visualization, via Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti, ranks the world’s population by generation, showing how age cohorts are distributed across the planet.

The data for this graphic comes from We Are Social, IntelPoint, and the United Nations World Population Prospects 2024. Generation Beta (born 2025–2039), representing less than 1% of the population, is not shown in the graphic because of limited data.

Gen Alpha Becomes the Largest Generation

Generation Alpha, born between 2013 and 2025, now includes roughly 2.0 billion people, or 24.4% of the world’s population. Many of them are still in primary school, but they already outnumber every other generation.

Their demographic weight will increasingly shape consumer markets, education systems, and technology trends in the coming decades. The countries driving this growth are concentrated in Africa and South Asia, where birth rates remain high.

Gen Z and Millennials Dominate the Workforce

Gen Z (ages 13–28) and Millennials (ages 29–44) together account for 44% of all people—and most of the world’s workers. Millennials alone make up 1.7 billion people.

The Aging Populations of Boomers and the Silent Generation

At the upper end of the age spectrum, Baby Boomers (ages 61–79) represent about 12.8% of the population, while those 80 or older—the Silent Generation and older cohorts—make up just 2%.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out Visualizing America’s Wealth Distribution by Generation on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The number of new vehicles sold annually in the United States is expected to hit 15.7 million units according to October estimations, industry expert Cox Automotive said in an Oct. 27 statement.

The seasonally adjusted annual rate is down from 16.4 million in September and 16.1 million a year back, said the company, attributing the slowdown to auto tariffs and the end of electric vehicle (EV) incentives.

“The new-vehicle sales pace was surprisingly strong this summer despite ongoing tariff uncertainty,” Charlie Chesbrough, senior economist at Cox, said in the statement.

“However, as more tariffed products replace non-tariffed inventory, prices are tracking higher, which should lead to slower sales through the remainder of the year. With the expiration of EV tax credits and a decline in alternative powertrain sales, the sales pace is anticipated to decrease as we move into a new season.”

Sales volume is forecast to be 1.3 million units in October, down by more than 3 percent from last year. While this figure is 2.7 percent higher than September, October had three more selling days than last month, Cox stated.

The federal government instituted 25 percent tariffs on auto imports in April, followed by 25 percent tariffs on the imports of auto parts. The rates have been adjusted for certain nations based on their negotiations with Washington.

Until Sept. 30, Americans who bought EVs could get a $7,500 tax credit. This incentive ended in line with the requirement of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law by President Donald Trump in July.

Cox stated that EV sales had accelerated after the passage of the Act, with Q3 EV sales volume hitting an all-time high.

“Sales of EVs and PHEVs are expected to collapse in October as tax credits expire,” Chesbrough said.

PHEV refers to a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle.

“In addition, market conditions for other vehicles are expected to become more challenging in future months as prices increase,” he said.

Amid slowing sales, car buyers are faced with high acquisition costs. The typical monthly payment for a new vehicle has jumped by 1.9 percent to hit $766, the highest monthly payment level in 15 months, Cox said in an Oct. 15 statement.

Meanwhile, 28.1 percent of cars traded in for new vehicles in the third quarter this year had negative equity, a situation where the car value is less than the loan amount, industry resource Edmunds said in an Oct. 15 statement.

“The sheer amount of debt consumers are carrying in their trade-ins should be a wake-up call,” Ivan Drury, Edmunds’ director of insights, said in the statement.

Auto Loan Burden

According to an Oct. 30 report by financial tech company WalletHub, the average American household owed roughly $13,800 in auto loans as of Q2 2025, just a few hundred dollars shy of the record high. The total auto loan debt has gone up to nearly $1.7 trillion.

Auto debt is rising the most in Vermont, followed by Delaware, New Mexico, Idaho, and Utah, it said. In contrast, it is rising the least in Ohio, South Dakota, Hawaii, Oregon, and Arkansas.

John Kiernan, editor at WalletHub, said that residents in some states saw average auto loan balances rise by almost 2.4 percent between Q1 and Q2, which he called “dramatic increases.”

This “suggests that people in some states are more affected by inflation in car prices or are biting off more than they can chew when it comes to loans,” he said.

Meanwhile, despite rising prices, auto demand from middle-income Americans is trending higher, according to an Oct. 16 statement from financial institution Santander US.

A survey of middle-income Americans showed that 54 percent were considering buying a vehicle in the year ahead, up from 43 percent a year back, it stated.

More than seven in 10 said they were willing to sacrifice other items in their budgets to ensure access to vehicles, which Santander said was the highest level in two years.

Ukraine has announced the closure of its embassy in Havana amid escalating diplomatic tensions, especially over the accusation that Cuba has turned a blind eye recruitment of its citizens to fight for Russia in the ongoing war.

The decision followed Ukraine’s vote against a United Nations General Assembly resolution calling for an end to the US embargo on Cuba, in a pattern which is reminiscent of Cold War-era global politics (America-aligned nations seeking to punish the 20th c. Soviet-aligned bloc).

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha has formally alleged thousands of Cubans had “signed contracts, joining the ranks of soldiers directly engaged in combat operations on Ukrainian soil.”

Kiev is essentially accusing Cuba of inaction and pro-Moscow sympathies, describing that “its unwillingness to halt the large-scale deployment of Cuban nationals in Russia’s war against Ukraine amounts to complicity in aggression.”

Ukrainian military intelligence has tallied at least 1,076 Cuban citizens fighting on the side of Russian forces, and surprisingly it claims that close to a hundred Cubans are reported missing and presumed dead.

Interestingly, Ukrainian intelligence says Russia has in some cases lured Cubans to join its military ranks by promising construction jobs online, facilitated by agents and middle-men.

European security officials have also of late been warning of potential fraudulent actors working with Russian intelligence to recruit unsuspecting young men from the West.

The biggest number of foreign fighters on Russia’s side are believed to be North Korean – at over 10,000 since reports of the phenomenon started being made public – with possibly hundreds having died on the battlefield.

So funny how you can always identify the latest roster of most supplicant US vassal states by the UN General Assembly vote on lifting the Cuba embargo. Argentina now joins the mainstays Ukraine and Israel, along with North Macedonia, Hungary, and Paraguay (?) pic.twitter.com/s4sSloo1Wi

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) October 29, 2025

In total there could be 20,000 North Koreans currently assisting Russia’s defense sector, and most of the actual fighting men were said to be active in defending Russia’s southern borders.

Other foreign fighters are believed to be from impoverished African nations, with men lured by the promise of good pay, acting essentially as mercenaries.

Authored by Technofog via The Reactionary,

Thanks to releases by FBI Director Kash Patel and Senate Republicans (here and here and here), we are finally getting sunlight into the FBI’s overarching investigation of not only President Trump but of nearly everyone in his orbit – the investigation assigned the name “Artic Frost.”

The Artic Frost opening document, dated April 13, 2022, provides a number of potential statutory violations that justified its opening. Here is the exact text.

“By conspiring, attempting to submit, and/or submitting allegedly fraudulent elector certificates, subjects, both known and unknown, may have violated one or more of the following federal statutes of which the FBI has enforcement responsibility:

• Attempt or conspiracy to corruptly obstruct, influence, and impede the certification of the Electoral College vote (18 USC § 1512(c)(2) and (k)).

• Obstruction of certain proceedings (18 USC § 1505).

• Falsification of records (18 USC § 1519).

• Conspiracy to defraud the United States (18 USC § 371).

• Mail Fraud (18 USC § 1341).

• Seditious Conspiracy (18 USC § 2384).”

Now, that April 13, 2022 document wasn’t the original Artic Frost opening communication. Rather, from the records that have been published, the original was dated March 22, 2022. And if you look into the alleged statutory violations (which we outlined above), the March 22, 2022 document omits “Mail Fraud.” That’s an important addition for the reasons we’ve outlined below.

By the time Artic Frost commenced, a related grand jury investigation had been opened “with federal law enforcement agencies on January 31, 2022.” Those other agencies were identified as the US Postal Inspection Service and the Investigative Unit of the Office of the Inspector General for the National Archives. The subjects of Artic Frost included: Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. (and those involved in the campaign); attorney John Eastman, who helped lead some of the challenges to the 2020 election; Rudy Giuliani; and Trump advisor (and campaign attorney) Boris Epshteyn. The subjects also included the electors – 60+ persons from Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsing who were part of the election challenge efforts.

As we have known for a while, Artic Frost was expansive. Previous filings in Trump’s DC criminal case (which we discussed here) showed that discovery included hundreds of witnesses, 8.5 terabits of data, hundreds (if not thousands) hours of audio and video, and over 11.5 million pages of documents.

Now, thanks to releases from the FBI and Republicans in Congress, we have more details on the specifics of the investigation. It was sweeping, and included:

• Phone records from not only targets of the investigation – Trump, et al., but of Republican members of Congress (which we also covered).

• Search warrants for digital conduct.

• A full grand jury investigation of the alleged criminal activity.

What has been lost is also that the FBI’s Washington Field Office (WFO), back in October 2020, assessed that “the use of American Made Media Consultants (AMMC) as a clearinghouse for Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. (the Trump campaign) spending is likely vulnerable to campaign finance crimes by campaign-connected sub-vendors.”

This campaign finance investigation – which was opened by the FBI’s New York Field Office – stemmed from an AMMC member’s potential gambling activities, his efforts to allegedly evade federal $10,000 reporting requirements when cashing-in his winnings, and the alleged pay-off of a Senegalese government official. The FBI’s thought was that the party (the gambler) potentially used Trump campaign funds distributed through AMMC “for personal or unauthorized use.” It should be noted that the FBI’s October 2020 “Tactical Intelligence Report” made its assessment with “low confidence.”

In June 2022, the FBI re-assessed the financial investigation (or at least had renewed interest in the financial investigation), citing to the House January 6th Committee’s “investigation” into the Trump Campaign’s post-2020 election fundraising, which was promoted as the “Election Defense Fund.” See the FBI email below.

We mention campaign finance and the use of funds to challenge the 2020 election because of Senator Grassley’s recent release of 1700+ pages of grand jury subpoenas requesting financial records from a number of individuals and entities, including:

• Donald J. Trump for President

• Jeff Clark

• American Voting Rights Foundation (which helped fund the Arizona audit)

• Conservative Partnership Institute (which assists Republicans in training and educating staff, builds coalitions, and helps with staffing)

• A large number of vendors and contractors involved with the Trump Campaign

• Cyber Ninjas (who were involved in the Arizona election audit)

• Sidney Powell

• Individuals and attorneys who assisted with fundraising for, or distributing funds concerning, election audits.

• MyPillow

• Representation or legal fee agreements between fundraising committees and their attorneys

• Dan Scavino

• Mark Meadows

Some of these subpoenas were issued by the grand jury before Jack Smith was appointed Special Counsel. But most of them were came after Smith’s November 18, 2022 appointment – some just days after.

It’s pretty clear what happened.

By April 2022 (at the latest), the Biden DOJ wasn’t just pursuing “election interference” charges against Trump, et al. They were going after conservative fundraising and groups promoting conservative causes, as well as the individuals associated with those groups and entities.

That’s why you see mail fraud – a statute used by federal authorities to charge fundraising-related crimes – in the April 2022 Artic Frost opening communication. (We’re fairly certain they also looked at wire fraud.) And through the use of the grand jury, the Biden Administration was able to reach every single group and individual that pursued truth in the 2020 presidential election.

But it’s not only that. The Biden Administration also targeted those groups formed after the 2020 election – such those groups who weren’t involved in “alternative electors” but who assisted and conducted audits.

The predicate for an expansive financial crimes investigation is not addressed in the Artic Frost opening communication. Nor is it addressed in Special Counsel Smith’s final report. It’s telling that a prosecutor as aggressive as Jack Smith found no financial crimes after receiving the records – an indication of just how weak the predicate was.

This wasn’t just about 2020. It was about 2024 and a plan to not only indict the former President and Republican frontrunner, but to kneecap his support and financial infrastructure.

It’s not like the FBI is immune to advancing conspiracy theories. The agency never learned its lesson from Crossfire Hurricane. In September 2022, there was this email from an agent with the Seattle Field Office that relayed “intelligence” from one of their sources regarding Ed Corrigan (bio here), the President and CEO of Conservative Partnership Institute. Corrigan is as harmless as they come – and here we have internal FBI documents discussing him being “pro-Putin and anti-Biden”, that he is engaged with Mark Meadows “in willful criminal activity”, that Corrigan has “properties at which he wants to build up infrastructure to train people for civil war”, and that Corrigan “has plans that are not good for the FBI.”

One of the key questions remaining is what the FBI did with that information – whether that source was trusted, and whether investigations were opened into Corrigan or Kushner based on that obviously false intelligence. We’ll see.

• BlackRock’s HPS Investment Partners has written off roughly $150 million after discovering allegedly falsified collateral behind loans to telecom entrepreneur Bankim Brahmbhatt.
• The financing, arranged with BNP Paribas, was backed by what turned out to be fabricated accounts receivable and forged customer emails, lawsuits show.
• Brahmbhatt’s companies – Broadband Telecom, Bridgevoice, and Carriox Capital – have filed for bankruptcy; lenders say total exposure exceeds $500 million.
• BNP Paribas took a €190 million ($220 million) provision for a “specific credit situation,” without naming the borrower.

The private-credit arm of BlackRock Inc. and other lenders are racing to recover hundreds of millions of dollars after falling victim to what they’ve described as a “breathtaking” fraud – the latest sign of weakness in an opaque corner of the U.S. debt markets.

The lenders, led by HPS Investment Partners, which BlackRock acquired earlier this year, accused businessman Bankim Brahmbhatt of fabricating invoices and accounts receivable that he used as collateral for loans totaling more than $500 million to his telecom-services firms, Broadband Telecom and Bridgevoice.  The alleged scheme is now the subject of an August lawsuit and multiple bankruptcies.

Brahmbhatt, through his attorney, has denied the fraud allegations to the Wall Street Journal. 

A Familiar Pattern of Trouble

The dispute centers on asset-based financing, a type of private credit deal where lenders extend funds secured by cash flows or receivables from the borrower’s business. The market has ballooned alongside the broader private-credit boom, now topping $1.7 trillion globally, as nonbank lenders rush to fill a void left by traditional banks.

But a series of collapses, which include the headline-grabbing bankruptcies of First Brands and Tricolor Auto Group, both accused of pledging questionable assets – has raised concerns that private lenders’ due-diligence standards are being stretched thin.

The unraveling of those companies has stoked warnings from finance industry titans including JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Jamie Dimon, who cautioned that one “cockroach” likely portends more. Private credit executives such as Blue Owl Capital Inc.’s Marc Lipschultz pushed back, saying that the firm isn’t seeing rising defaults and noting that the highest-profile issues were in lending that banks led. –Bloomberg

According to public records, Brahmbhatt founded Bankai Group in 1989 in Ahmedabad, India, initially manufacturing push-button telephones before expanding into telecom software and infrastructure. His firm later created technology subsidiary Panamax Inc. and, in 2017, launched Carriox Capital, a non-bank lender offering invoice financing and working-capital loans to telecom carriers.

HPS began financing Carriox Capital in late 2020, later expanding the facility to about $430 million by mid-2024, according to the Journal, while Bloomberg notes that HPS has “since written off its roughly $150 million exposure to zero.” 

BNP Paribas helped fund nearly half of that exposure, the people said, though the French bank has declined to comment publicly. In its most recent earnings filing, BNP disclosed a €190 million ($220 million) loan-loss provision tied to a “specific credit situation.”

The loans were held in two HPS-managed funds. A person close to BlackRock said the exposure represents a small portion of the firm’s $179 billion in assets under management and won’t materially affect fund performance.

Still, the incident underscores how even the largest asset managers are struggling to contain risks as they pour billions into direct lending.

A Trail of Fake Emails and Empty Offices

The unraveling began this summer, when an HPS employee spotted suspicious email addresses supposedly belonging to Carriox customers. The domains mimicked legitimate telecom firms but were slightly altered — a red flag suggesting someone was fabricating customer correspondence.

When confronted, Brahmbhatt assured HPS there was nothing to worry about, then abruptly stopped answering calls, people familiar with the matter said.

An HPS representative visiting the company’s Garden City, N.Y. offices found them shuttered. Neighbors said the office had appeared empty for weeks.

The lenders’ subsequent investigation, led by accounting firm CBIZ and law firm Quinn Emanuel, allegedly revealed that every customer email provided by Brahmbhatt’s companies to verify invoices over the previous two years was fake. One supposed customer, Belgium’s BICS, confirmed in writing that the invoices were “a fraud attempt.”

“Brahmbhatt created an elaborate balance sheet of assets that existed only on paper,” lawyers for the lenders wrote in their complaint.

Bankruptcy Filings and Vanishing Collateral

Brahmbhatt’s companies filed for Chapter 11 protection in August, alongside Carriox Capital II and related entities. The lenders allege that millions in pledged assets were quietly transferred to offshore accounts in India and Mauritius before the defaults.

On the same day the corporate bankruptcies were filed, Brahmbhatt himself sought personal bankruptcy protection, despite having previously provided a personal guarantee to his lenders.

HPS and its partners believe Brahmbhatt has since traveled to India, according to people briefed on the matter. His lawyer has not commented on his whereabouts.

For BlackRock and HPS, the direct financial hit appears modest. But for the broader private-credit industry – now rivaling the leveraged-loan market in size – the reputational damage could prove more lasting.

*  *  * CLICK HERE!

Authored by Dr David Bell via DailySceptic.org,

I once worked in communities supported mainly through a form of Universal Basic Income (UBI). Most money was received from the government for no (or token) work, or from mining royalties where others worked digging on the communities’ lands. There were walls black and heaving with cockroaches while children slept with dogs on stained mattresses below, and babies covered head to toe in pustular scabies while the mother complained about a sore back.

This was not universal, but not uncommon.

Other communities that stood out as strong and healthy had people working hard for a living – particularly in roles that reflected their culture – a very different economy.

Men who once worked hard to support families lose the reason to do so when it makes no real difference, when basics of life and leisure are equally available to those who work for them and those who do nothing. It is not a political issue, just a human behavioural and psychological one. Removing the need to work and the dignity that striving and succeeding brings, especially for one’s family, leads to inaction, loss of interest in the world, a loss of role, loss of dignity and depression. This is dampened by alcohol or drugs. Wives and children suffer by being beaten up by drunk, frustrated and drug-addled men. Having two frequently drunk parents ensures children are malnourished and aimless.

This is not theoretical – it is seen all over the world where people of one culture are overrun by those of another and confined to subservience, economic and societal irrelevance, and handouts. Some people and communities break out of it, usually by finding ways to grow their local economy and achieve some form of self-governance and self-reliance. Breaking out is not common and requires an opportunity, the possibility, to do so.

Our brave new technocratic world

The road much of the ‘developed’ world is currently on is towards UBI, but without that potential for escape. I use this term ‘developed’ in a technological sense – not a human sense – as it denotes technology rather than awareness. UBI will be introduced as a panacea to the problem of artificial intelligence replacing a lot of jobs. The use of AI is increasing because it can accumulate wealth for investors more reliably than employees can. Amazon’s plans to replace humans with robots will not only mean a few hundred thousand human jobs gone at Amazon, but lots more high-street shops boarded up and their employees and owners gone. AI may be overplayed or not, but what Amazon is doing will be widely repeated.

The people out of work, by and large, will be city and town dwellers who must obtain their food from shops (or Amazon). They will need to be given money or food vouchers to do this. Governments will provide these, because they cannot afford responsibility for abject poverty on a mass scale, and many in government also mean well. People will increasingly rent their housing from Blackstone or a similar corporate entity rather than own it, further increasing their dependence. For a while, some people will play online games or draw pictures and grow token lettuces on their balconies, but knowing this is just window dressing on life. Then they will go the way of the communities at the top of this piece, taking families and communities with them.

Government UBI will happen – it already does to some extent in the widespread use of welfare payments, but the future will see it on a far, far larger scale. It will not be cash handouts but digital currency. This will be a tightly controlled version, as in a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), because the government will claim responsibility to control the money it dispenses. CBDC is essentially food vouchers, and intended to be. Your UBI will be yours as long as you use it for what the government allows, within the time it allows.

Well-meaning people are already building the social acceptability for this. Those suggesting now that a virtuous society should prevent food vouchers or unemployment benefits being used for sugar-based drinks or tobacco believe already that dependent people have lost the right to autonomy. Again, this is not at all theoretical.  It is exactly what this form of money is intended for. Most people in society will see its introduction as a good thing, as they are fine limiting the freedom of others if they beileve it serves a greater good.

Living as safe as slaves

In countries like Canada, if you protest against the government you can already lose your right to buy or sell. If you need permission to obtain the basics of life and cannot make your own choices on the pursuit of happiness, and you are punished for questioning those who restrict you, then you are in a master-slave relationship. In time, most people will become essentially a slave of the UBI provider, the government. This is the design behind UBI and CBDCs. It is why very rich people, the people who own the AI and robotics that are going to make so much human labour superfluous, see this as an excellent path.

All the above will not seem at all dystopian. Governments will control their populations as part of ‘saving the world’ and will readily convince a majority of the population that being saved is a good idea. We need governments to save us from climate catastrophe by stopping us travelling, as our children are already told. We need large corporations to save us from pandemics, including those the same corporations’ laboratories may develop. We need ever more expensive pharmaceuticals injected into us to save us from the scourge of obesity – to save us from our own inability to control our eating. We will certainly need saving from mass unemployment and the inability of a large part of the population to earn their own keep.

Saving people is, after all, the government’s job. As the last few years have shown, convincing populations to indulge in self-harm on the pretext of being saved is much easier than we thought. We will slip back into slavery, into a feudal system, because most people will choose it.

A conversation we are unlikely to have

So, we need to talk about UBI because a lot of people think it is a harbinger of a great future, but it is something else. They think people will somehow flourish when they have nothing much useful to do, when they get money for being idle and compliant and there is no compelling incentive to get out of bed in the morning. A temporary social welfare net is what society should do to protect its members and act with decency. UBI – permanent free money for the majority – is something else entirely. It will ensure that the vast majority can never break out of their lot and recover any semblance of the real economic autonomy necessary for societal flourishing.

The UBI future is simply a return to the default of human societies through the ages – feudalism – but without even the relative purpose found in walking behind a plough. Human nature leads us to want to stay on top if we are already there, or wallow in depression if there is no potential for improvement. Depression, drugs, violence, neglect – this is the UBI and CBDC future.

Over the past few hundred years many societies broke free of feudalism. This freedom has been a brief time in the sun. Accepting or rejecting Universal Basic Income as a basis for fixing the rapidly approaching decimation of useful employment will determine whether the sun keeps shining or we return to the oppressive societal default. Slavery for many will seem easier than struggling, and far safer. Once dependent, the luxury of struggling may be gone. We need a real conversation before we turn irretrievably down that road.

With just two months left until Warren Buffett, 95, departs as CEO of the iconic conglomerate he made into one of the world’s largest investment companies over the past 60 years, earlier today Berkshire reported in its latest 10Q filings that its cash pile soared to a new all time high of $381.7 billion in the third quarter, an increase of $37.6 billion for the quarter, which translate to $420 million per day, and $17 million per hour.

At the same time operating earnings jumped 34% to $13.5 billion from $10.1 billion, as the firm’s insurance underwriting profit more than tripled in the third quarter boosted by lower insurance losses, offsetting declines in the Insurance-investment income and Berkshire’s Energy company.

The $13.49 billion quarterly operating profit, or $9,376 per Class A share, grew from $10.09 billion a year earlier. Currency fluctuations accounted for more than two-fifths of the increase.

While results benefited in part from an absence of major catastrophes such as hurricanes, Berkshire auto insurer Geico’s pretax underwriting profit fell 13% amid higher claims and a 40% increase in underwriting costs, which the firm said is due to “increased policy acquisition-related expenses” i.e., advertising, to acquire new policies in a period of soaring insurance costs. Additionally, insurance will likely face headwinds as falling interest rates reduce income from Berkshire’s cash holdings, which also occurred in the third quarter.

Meanwhile, Berkshire’s utilities business, which runs PacifiCorp, MidAmerican and NV Energy, posted a 9% decline in operating earnings, to $1.5 billion over the period, and reflected legal bills from wildfires, and higher costs from natural gas pipelines and Northern Powergrid in Britain. Berkshire is still evaluating how U.S. President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed in July might affect the viability of its renewable energy projects.

One especially sore point was Pilot, which posted a $17 million loss in the third quarter. Berkshire said the decline is driven by lower wholesale fuel and retail margins, as well as higher expenses. “The Pilot business is not really doing very well,” Shanahan said. “I’m interested to see what the plan might be to turn that around.”

On the positive side, the BNSF railroad boosted operating earnings rose 6% to $1.4 billion, on lower fuel costs and “improved employee productivity” while revenue from the transportation of agricultural and energy products grew, driven in part by slightly higher grain exports.

Berkshire’s $30.8 billion of net income, or $21,413 per Class A share, rose from $26.25 billion a year earlier. Net results include gains and losses on stocks Berkshire is not selling. This adds volatility, and Buffett believes such results are useless in understanding his company.

Also of note: revenue for Berkshire, which is seen by many as a mini model of the broader US economy due to its extensive diversification, grew just 2%, slower than the overall U.S. economy’s growth rate. 

Economic uncertainty and waning consumer confidence have been drags, Berkshire said, stalling sales growth at the Clayton Homes homebuilder and reducing revenue from Duracell batteries, Fruit of the Loom apparel and Squishmallows toymaker Jazwares.

“Berkshire, which is often considered a microcosm of the U.S. economy, isn’t even keeping up,” said Cathy Seifert, a CFRA Research analyst with a “hold” rating on Berkshire. “Investors will struggle to find a catalyst for this stock.”

Turning to the company’s investment activities, for the 12th straight quarter, Berkshire sold more stocks than it bought for its $283.2 billion equity portfolio…

… whose largest holdings are Apple, American Express and Bank of America.

In fact, at $13.7BN in sales in Q3, this was the most aggressive purging of risk since the same quarter in 2024. 

“There isn’t much opportunity in Buffett’s eyes right now,” said Jim Shanahan, an analyst for Edward Jones.

For Berkshire’s bulls this may be vexing, since earlier this year, Buffett appeared to be back on the hunt for deals, with the acquisition of a $1.6 billion stake in UnitedHealth Group and a $9.7 billion deal to buy OxyChem last month. But the famed billionaire remained on the sidelines in the third quarter. Berkshire Hathaway offloaded $6.1 billion of shares during the period. 

Also notable: after a burst of stock buybacks in the aftermath of the covid crash, Berkshire has not repurchased any of its own stock since Q2 2024…

…. which may explain why Berkshire’s stock price has significantly lagged the broader market, and is now trading where it was last August 

“I think that sends a very powerful message to shareholders,” said Cathy Seifert, an analyst at CFRA Research. “If they’re not buying back their shares, why should you?”

And since Berkshire isn’t buying either others shares, or its own, it had to park all this record cash somewhere; and once again it did so by buying a record $183 billion (net) in treasuries in the quarter, bringing total purchases during the past 12 months to a record $540 billion. 

Berkshire’s massive holdings of T-Bills is also why the firm’s net investment income declined 13% to $3.2 billion amid lower short-term interest rates.

As previously reported, Buffett, 95, is set to end his six-decade tenure as chief executive at the end of the year. Vice Chairman Greg Abel, 63, will succeed the legendary investor, though Buffett will remain chairman. Abel is known as a more hands-on manager than Buffett.

It is unclear what he will do with Berkshire’s record cash, with options including paying the $1.03 trillion conglomerate’s first dividend since 1967. Berkshire is planning to use $9.7 billion of cash to buy Occidental Petroleum’s chemicals business, a transaction announced on October 2. James Shanahan, an Edward Jones analyst who upgraded his Berkshire rating to “buy” in September, said the company’s resistance to spending more cash during this year’s market rally has been disappointing.

“If you feel like stocks are expensive, including your own shares, you’re eventually going to be right, but you can be wrong for a long time, and that’s what happened here,” he said.

And indeed, it’s not just Berkshire that has not been buying back its own stock: investors have voted their apprehension about Berkshire’s outlook and pending management change by selling its stock. Since Buffett announced on May 3 he would step down, Berkshire’s stock price has fallen 12%, and trailed the S&P by 32%. For all of 2025, Berkshire is 11% points behind the index.

“Impatient investors feel an urgent need for Berkshire to deploy its cash, and have been casting their nets elsewhere,” said Tom Russo, a partner at Gardner Russo & Quinn in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which invests $10 billion.

Russo has owned Berkshire stock since 1982 and said Berkshire remains “extremely well-positioned” for the long term. “Berkshire isn’t going to deploy capital that won’t increase intrinsic value on a per share basis,” he said. “Knowing that guides Berkshire means investors won’t have to second-guess it.”

The conglomerate owns close to 200 businesses that also include chemical and industrial companies, and familiar consumer brands such as Dairy Queen and See’s Candies. As noted yesterday, many US businesses which rely on the strength of the consumer has been hammered in recent weeks because while the AI trade continue to soar, the US consumer has hit a brick wall and even Goldman Sachs is warning that the deterioration in K-Shaped economy is starting to spread from the lower income class to America’s otherwise unstoppable middle class. 

Berkshire has not made a huge acquisition since paying $32.1 billion for aerospace parts maker Precision Castparts in 2016, a deal which ended up being a disaster. 

“Abel has a tremendous opportunity,” Shanahan said. “He has a lot of available cash and by all accounts he is an excellent operator, so he may want to deploy capital in Berkshire’s operating businesses to improve their performance.”

Still, despite the earnings gains and massive cash pile, the firm’s tepid revenue growth in the period is not going to help investor sentiment, according to CFRA’s Seifert.

“I’m struggling to find a catalyst” for an increase in the stock price, she said.

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

There is another bizarre filing from Mark Elias, the controversial Democratic lawyer who helped to secretly fund the infamous Steele Dossier. In a new filing, Elias is challenging the district in New York City with the lone Republican member as violating the state voting rights act. Elias is effectively arguing that voting Republican is evidence of racism.

In the petition, voters bring a New York Voting Rights Act challenge, arguing that the Eleventh District “provides Black and Latino Staten Islanders “less opportunity than other members of the electorate to elect a representative of their choice and influence elections in New York’s 11th Congressional District (“CD-11”), in violation of the prohibition against racial vote dilution in Article III, Section 4(c)(1) of the New York Constitution.”

The filing occurs after New York moved to further gerrymander the state, aiming to eliminate more Republican members of Congress. Across the country, Democrats have pushed for such gerrymandering, but in New York, the efforts are particularly extreme.

Trump received 45 percent of the vote. Republicans are confined to a small handful of districts. It is still too much for Elias.

Elias has not only been sanctioned in past litigation, but past courts have also criticized his group. In Maryland,  Elias filed in support of an abusive gerrymandering of the election districts that a court found violated not only Maryland law but the state constitution’s equal protection, free speech, and free elections clauses. The court found that the map pushed by Elias “subverts the will of those governed.”

It was Elias who made the key funding available to Fusion GPS, which in turn enlisted Steele to produce his now discredited dossier on Trump and his campaign.

During the campaign, reporters did ask about the possible connection to the campaign, but Clinton campaign officials denied any involvement. Weeks after the election, journalists discovered that the Clinton campaign hid payments for the Steele dossier as “legal fees” among the $5.6 million paid to Perkins Coie.

New York Times reporter Ken Vogel said at the time that Elias denied involvement in the anti-Trump dossier. When Vogel tried to report the story, he said, Elias “pushed back vigorously, saying ‘You (or your sources) are wrong.’” Times reporter Maggie Haberman declared, “Folks involved in funding this lied about it, and with sanctimony, for a year.”

It was not just reporters who inquired about the Clinton campaign’s role in the Steele dossier. John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, was questioned by Congress and categorically denied any contractual agreement with Fusion GPS. Sitting beside him was Elias, who reportedly said nothing to correct the misleading information given to Congress.

Back to the latest Elias filing. There is a pending case before the Supreme Court in Louisiana v. Callais that could curtail or end the use of race to set voting districts to favor black voters under the federal Voting Rights Act.

However, this is a novel claim that, even a gerrymandering state striving to reduce Republican members, a district is racist because it favors the election of a Republican  Thus, as Professor Josh Blackman noted “in a district where Democratic voters cannot elect a Democrat, they can bring a VRA claim, even in an overwhelmingly democratic state where there is not even a scintilla of evidence of racial discrimination.” However, the opposite is not true. In a red state with overwhelming Republican majorities, a district that effectively bars the election of a Republican could not be grounds for a VRA claim.

The filing proclaims that the heavily Democratic gerrymandered state shows that “New York has become a national leader in protecting voting rights.” It emphasizes that the state goes further than the federal VRA:

“the NY VRA does not require the plaintiff to show that a district could have been drawn that would have a majority of residents of a single protected class. A plaintiff need only show that the current district map is responsible for the protected class’s lack of electoral influence based on the existence of racially polarized voting or the totality of the circumstances.”

The filing makes clear that Black and Latino voters support democrats and thus a Republican member favoring the GOP dilutes their votes:

“Black and Latino voters on Staten Island are politically cohesive and consistently and overwhelmingly support the same candidates, which the rest of the electorate consistently opposes. At the same time, the white majority on Staten Island overwhelmingly supports the same candidates and votes as a bloc to usually defeat Black and Latino voters’ candidates of choice.”

In other words (with translation):

“Black and Latino voters on Staten Island are politically cohesive and consistently and overwhelmingly support [Democrats], which the rest of the [District] opposes. At the same time, the white majority on Staten Island overwhelmingly supports [Republicans] and votes as a bloc to usually defeat Black and Latino voters’ [Democratic] candidates of choice.”

So, even in a state that has artificially reduced Republican members and is claimed as a model of districting to enhance minority voters, any district that favors Republicans is still evidence of racist discrimination in voting. Presumably, the only way to truly guarantee the protection of minority voters in New York City is the effective elimination of any Republican member.

A new bombshell report by Americans for Public Trust (APT), based on IRS Form 990s and media reports, reveals that five foreign “charities” have funneled nearly $2 billion into American leftist nonprofits, injecting what can only be described as a far-left extremist European policy agenda and toxic social-engineering campaigns into U.S. institutions like cancer. The report alleges that these foreign influence operations, exploiting the dark webs of the NGO world, also bankroll part of the protest industrial complex that has waged an ongoing color-revolution-style operation against President Trump, his supporters, and seeks to dismantle the Make America Great Again movement.

APT’s 31-page analysis (first revealed on Fox News), backed by grant records, shows that while foreign nationals can’t directly donate to U.S. political candidates, there is an alarming interconnected web of transatlantic funding networks into the NGO world where foreign billionaires bankroll American far-left nonprofits to unleash all sorts of activist campaigns. This unchecked foreign philanthropy risks undermining U.S. sovereignty, and according to APT Executive Director Caitlin Sutherland, who told Fox News, “foreign money is coming in, and it’s trying to erode our democracy.”

Here are the five foreign funders outlined in the report:  

1. Quadrature Climate Foundation (UK) – $530 million

2. KR Foundation (Denmark) – $36 million

3. Oak Foundation (Switzerland) – $750 million

4. Laudes Foundation (Switzerland) – $20 million

5. Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (UK) – $553 million

The key findings are shocking:

Quadrature Climate Foundation (QCF): Founded in 2019 by hedge-fund billionaires Greg Skinner and Suneil Setiya. Has given roughly $530 million to 41 U.S. groups, including ClimateWorks Foundation ($147 M), Growald Climate Fund ($80 M), Grantham Foundation ($80 M), Windward Fund ($49 M), and Sunrise Project ($36 M). QCF also funds controversial solar-geoengineering research and “climate litigation and regulation advocacy.”

KR Foundation: Danish climate charity tied to the Carlsberg family. Has provided $36 million to 53 U.S. groups backing climate litigation, ESG advocacy, and fossil-fuel divestment. Major recipients include Center for International Environmental Law ($1.4 M), Conservation Law Foundation ($0.4 M), Oil Change International ($2.2 M), and Fossil Free Media ($1 M). It even funded The Associated Press ($300 K) for climate-related programming.

Oak Foundation: Swiss-based trust founded by British billionaire Alan Parker. Gave >$750 million to 152 U.S. groups advancing “climate justice” and lawsuits against fossil-fuel firms.

Key recipients include:

• Environmental Law Institute ($650 K, creator of the Climate Judiciary Project)

• Community Change ($1.6 M, linked to Free DC protests)

• Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors ($108 M)

• New Venture Fund ($67 M)

• NRDC ($6.5 M)

• Tides Center ($8.2 M)

Laudes Foundation: Established in 2020 by the secretive Brenninkmeijer family (C&A clothing empire). Has sent $20 million to 17 U.S. groups promoting ESG disclosure, “climate-friendly diets,” and equity mandates. Largest grants: Pulitzer Center ($3.7 M) for climate-justice reporting, Ceres ($1.7 M), Community Initiatives ($1 M), and World Resources Institute ($2.8 M).

Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF): Run by British hedge-fund billionaire Sir Christopher Hohn. Sent $553 million to 39 U.S. entities before pledging in late 2025 to halt U.S. funding after APT’s exposure.

Key recipients include:

• Energy Foundation China ($70 M) — under House investigation for links to former CCP officials

• Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development ($25 M)

• Environmental Defense Fund ($17 M)

• Sunrise Project ($36 M)

ATP points out that these funding flows exploit gaps in U.S. oversight laws, which prohibit foreign election donations but allow influence through 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) organizations. Through the nonprofit world, foreign billionaires can conduct foreign influence operations through leftist nonprofits, including funding protest industrial complex against Trump, get-out-the-vote drives, anti-Trump ads, lobbying, and whatever else.

Sutherland said, “There’s not a question about where it’s going and where it is coming from. We know that it’s foreign money coming into our U.S. policy fights, climate litigation, research, protests, lobbying, you name it“. 

Besides funding anti-Trump protests, Sutherland warned about one very alarming use of the dark European money that flowed from the Oak Foundation into a group called Community Change. “They are the front group that has led the charge against Trump’s crackdown on crime. So again, we’re seeing where foreign money coming in to protest, litigation, training is ending up,” she noted. 

“It seems clear to me that this foreign money is coming into the United States because they want to implement their extremist European vision for America,” Sutherland concluded. “And it seems to me that when you take a look at the money, they just want to have a more extreme United States that is radicalized and further left than what we want.”

The pattern of foreign foundations exporting nation-destroying far-left policies into the U.S., funding protests (and possibly even riots), and working to dismantle President Trump’s agenda, chosen by the American people, serves as an urgent wake-up call for Republicans about the unchecked flow of foreign philanthropy pouring billions into the dark NGO world.

APT is urging policymakers to fix this absolute mess by:

• Close FARA loopholes;

• Require foreign-funded nonprofits to disclose sources;

• Consider banning foreign financing of politically active 501(c)(4)s;

• Investigate whether foreign charities violated U.S. law through advocacy or litigation.

What’s clear is that it’s not just European billionaires exploiting America’s NGO network … it’s happening from around the world, from Latin American Marxists to Communist China. It’s as if globalists and the Democratic Party are weaponizing nonprofits in a coordinated effort to undermine President Trump’s agenda, with the ultimate goal of regime change.

Remember this…

📊We traced $294,487,641 to the official No Kings 2.0 partners & organizers…all funneled through the same “Riot Inc.” dark-money networks:
💰 Arabella network $79.7M+
💰 Soros network $72.1M+
💰 Ford network $51.7M+
💰Tides $45.5M+
💰 Rockefeller $28.6M+
💰 Buffett $16.6M+ pic.twitter.com/b6zFla79UP

— Seamus Bruner (@seamusbruner) October 16, 2025

What’s clear is that the Trump administration should pivot from Antifa focus to now cleaning up the NGO world – and we’ll make it easy for those White House staffers (see the tweet above) and also there’s a foreign influence angle. On the other side of the world, there’s Neville Roy Singham’s NGO network, and perhaps Rubio at State would be interested in investigating Marxist foreign influence operations originating from Latin America as well.  

* * * 

Full Report:

So much for these protests being “organic” …