CAAT Pension Plan CEO and Plan Manager Derek Dobson wrote and op-ed for TheFutureEconomy.ca, where he explores how Canada can turn retirement income into an economic engine as our workforce ages, examining the long-term benefits of modern workplace pensions that deliver lifetime income at scale:

Canada will soon join the ranks of countries like Japan, Italy, and Finland that have more than 20% of their population over the age of 65. As a “super-aged” society, we will face unique challenges and opportunities as we adapt to the largest age cohort retiring from the workforce. Now is the time to focus on modernizing retirement income to tap into new sources of economic value. 

As the CEO of one of Canada’s fastest-growing pension plans, with employers across 20 industries, I’ve been working with leaders on the strong business case to improve retirement security. Increasingly, they’re saying that efficient, risk-managed retirement programs can significantly improve attraction, retention, productivity, and employee engagement. This helps them better achieve their strategic goals, while also benefiting Canada.

Financially secure retirees, especially those with predictable lifetime income, are an economic advantage for Canada. They:

• provide a strong, stable, and predictable tax base; 
• strengthen consumer spending; and
• reduce costs and pressure on social programs. 

Yet, in Canada, too few workplaces are participating in effective retirement programs, and fewer Canadian employees are reaching retirement with financial security. The challenge here is the lack of utilization of Canada’s modern pension model. This is a missed opportunity for individuals, businesses, and Canada, and it has a significant impact on us all.

Retirement Insecurity Will Cost the Economy

Canadians across generations are worried about retirement. For employees over age 45, their ability to retire is their highest concern—outweighing managing work-life balance and personal debt. Various studies show that all generations fear running out of money in retirement, with some average savings estimates as low as $5,000. 

These aren’t just personal finance concerns; they are macroeconomic risks. Deloitte Canada estimates that nearly seven in 10 Canadians now at typical pre-retirement age (55 to 64 years old) will need to consume the bare minimum in retirement or rely heavily on government programs, such as Old Age Security (OAS) and the Canada Pension Plan/Quebec Pension Plan (which barely cover basic living expenses). That’s over two million Canadians in that cohort alone.  

Today, these safety nets come at a higher relative cost than when they were introduced over 50 years ago. OAS is not pre-funded but is paid through general tax revenue from Canada’s shrinking working-age taxpayer base. Health care costs continue to rise as Canadians live longer. Demand for long-term care options far outpaces supply. A report by the Conference Board of Canada shows the average public health care cost of a 65-year-old is 400% higher than the cost for those below age 65 and will continue to rise starkly in the mid-to-late retirement years. 

Statistics Canada projects that Canada’s senior population aged 85 and over will grow from 911,900 people in 2024 to between 3.2 and 4.1 million by 2074. Social programs will grapple with added pressure at the same time governments are reckoning with growing debts and the need to invest in long-term economic prosperity.

We can improve the outlook for future retirees by providing better retirement solutions to more employees now. Changes today can pay huge dividends in the future. 

We Save Better When We Save Together

Too many Canadians are on their own when it comes to funding their retirement, which for most will be between 20 and 30 years. We know Canadian employees want a secure retirement. The good news is that employers that are offering lifetime retirement income plans have shared that effective retirement programs can dramatically improve employee retention and engagement, which in turn drives business success. But many employers believe they can’t afford to offer what their employees want. And they can’t, if they do it alone.

Advancing collective solutions to fund retirements is the next step towards a financially independent retiree class and a healthier economy. Canada has a world-class model that can deliver valuable retirement income efficiently and at scale for the private, non-profit, and broader public sectors.

Canadians enrolled in large, well-managed pension plans benefit from pooled resources that lower investment costs, grant access to asset classes that are not readily available in the retail market, and, based on several studies, receive up to twice the income per contribution dollar compared to other retirement savings plans. 

These plans have the expertise and scale to provide valuable pensions for employees with less risk and minimal administration for employers. They are increasingly opening to employers outside their original sectors and jurisdictions. This is broadening access to efficient, pooled retirement income options that share risk and deliver the stability that individuals need. 

Alright, it's US Thanksgiving weekend, Canadians with a well-funded defined-benefit (DB) plan like the one CAAT Pension Plan offers its members have a lot to be thankful for.

But for far too many Canadians this isn't an option, they're left to their own devices and will likely outlive their savings and rely on some income supplementary programs like Old Age Security (OAS) when they grow old to help top off their meagre Canada Pension Plan benefits. 

To put this into context, let's say you retired recently and were wise enough and able to postpone your CPP/ QPP benefits till 70 to get maximum amount and were receiving OAS (that wasn’t clawed back) and were eligible for Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) based on your income, you'd be getting just shy of $3,000 a month to cover food, rent, utilities and other expenses. 

That's the maximum amount, great if you're a couple both earning it but most Canadians get nowhere near this amount, they receive far less. And when you factor in the cost of living, it's still not enough to live a decent retirement if you're a widow or divorced living on your own.

As Derek rightly notes, the problem with OAS is "it's not pre-funded but is paid through general tax revenue from Canada’s shrinking working-age taxpayer base."

That means you cannot rely on it as the government might scale it back considerably in the future depending on the country's fiscal health (even if it's political suicide). 

More worrisome, as Canadians age, health problems start mounting and they need money to pay for medication and/or assisted living facilities. 

They become a burden on the healthcare system which is already strained.

We see this being played out across hospitals all over Canada, this problem is only going to get worse as a large subset of the population ages and lives longer.

So what is the solution? Well, I've long argued we need to cover everyone in the working population to get a defined-benefit pension plan similar to the one public sector employees enjoy.

In particular, despite my conservative leanings, I strongly believe good retirement policy is good long-term economic policy.

We need to cover more Canadians who are falling between the cracks and we better get on this sooner rather than later. 

Organizations like CAAT Pension Plan, OPTrust and HOOPP are doing their part but it's not enough, a lot more needs to get done. 

The cost of inaction is devastating, it will place undue pressure on social programs and shackle future generations with a considerable debt burden.

We know what works, let's create another large pension fund modelled after CPP Investments to take care of the retirement needs of Canadians in the private sector.

Let's think big, act boldly and swiftly.

And again, I'm no bleeding heart liberal, I am coming at this problem from a very conservative point of view thinking what's in the best economic interest of the country over the long run. 

And from my vantage point, older Canadians retiring with a safe, secure, predictable income is what is in the best interest of everyone in the country.

So I join Derek Dobson and others who argue we need better retirement solutions for all Canadians. 

The longer we put this off, the worse it will be for our country.

Below, are retirement rules in Canada about to change? In this video, Canada Chronicles uncovers the truth behind the rumours: Will the retirement age rise in 2025? Could new CPP and OAS rules quietly take years off your pension?

The Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and Old Age Security (OAS) are the foundation of financial security for millions of Canadians. With speculation about Canadian retirement laws in 2025, many worry that eligibility might shift, benefits could shrink, or new tax changes could reduce what seniors receive. We’ll break down exactly what’s true, what’s myth, and what you can do to protect your income.

Also, do you have a game plan for when you should start receiving CPP or OAS payments? Here is everything you need to know about CPP, OAS, GIS, and some tips and considerations on how you can maximize these for your retirement.

What Does A Thanksgiving Dinner Cost In 2025?

Each year the American Farm Bureau Federation releases a price survey of classic items found on the Thanksgiving dinner table.

This year, as Statista's Anna Fleck reports, the average cost of feasting stands at $55.18, which is 5 percent less than last year but still constitutes a $5.75 increase from before the pandemic.

You will find more infographics at Statista

The most expensive item by far on the menu is the turkey, which this year costs an average of $21.50. This represents, however, an impressive 16.3 percent decrease from 2024 levels. While the wholesale price for fresh turkey is up from 2024, largely due to farmers still trying to rebuild turkey flocks devastated by avian influenza, grocery stores have lowered their prices with Thanksgiving deals, leading to lower retail prices for a holiday bird.

As the chart shows, where several staple ingredients have decreased somewhat, including stuffing mix (down 9 percent), dinner rolls (down 14.6 percent) and fresh cranberries (down 2.8 percent), other ingredients have risen in value since last year, such as frozen peas (up 17.2 percent), whole milk (up 16.3 percent) and whipping cream (up 3.2 percent).

2025 marks the third consecutive year that the average price of a Thanksgiving dinner in the United States has decreased. However, this does not fully offset the increases seen between 2020 and 2022, when the meal rose from an average of $46.90 to $64.05 thanks to the impacts of inflation on food prices and farmers’ costs.

The AFBF also discovered regional differences in the average cost of a Thanksgiving meal, with the most affordable prices found in the South at $50.01 and the most expensive in the West at $61.75.

The shopping list of the survey includes all ingredients and foods in quantities sufficient to serve a feast for 10. Volunteers checked prices in grocery stores in all 50 states and Puerto Rico for the Farm Bureau during the first week of November.

*  *  * 

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/27/2025 - 10:15

Here are five economic reasons to be thankful this Thanksgiving. (Hat Tip to Neil Irwin who started doing this years ago)

1) The Unemployment Rate is at 4.4%

The unemployment rate was at 4.4% in September. 
The unemployment rate is down from 14.7% in April 2020 (the highest rate since the Great Depression).

The unemployment rate is up from 3.4% in April 2023 - and that matched the lowest unemployment rate since 1969!
Even though the rate has increased recently, this is historically a low unemployment rate.

2) Low unemployment claims.

This graph shows the 4-week moving average of weekly claims since 1971.
Weekly claims were at 216,000 last week.

The dashed line on the graph is the current 4-week average.
Even though weekly claims have bounced around a little recently, the 4-week average is close to the lowest level in 50 years.

3) Mortgage Debt as a Percent of GDP has Fallen Significantly

This graph shows household mortgage debt as a percent of GDP.  
Note this graph is through Q2 2025 was impacted by the sharp decline in Q2 2020 GDP.

Mortgage debt, as a percent of GDP is at 44.6% - down from Q1 - and down from a peak of 73.3% of GDP during the housing bust.

4) Mortgage Delinquency Rate is Low

This graph, based on data from the MBA through Q3 2025, shows the percent of loans delinquent by days past due.  
Although mortgage delinquencies are up a little from Q2 2023 - the lowest level since the MBA survey started in 1979 - delinquencies are still historically very low.
Note: The sharp increase in 2020 in the 90-day bucket was due to loans in forbearance (included as delinquent but not reported to the credit bureaus).
The percent of loans in the foreclosure process are low.

5) Household Debt burdens at Low Levels (ex-pandemic)

This graph, based on data from the Federal Reserve, shows the Household Debt Service Ratio (DSR), and the DSR for mortgages (blue) and consumer debt (yellow).
The Household debt service ratio was at 11.3% in Q2 2025, slightly below the pre-pandemic level of 11.6%.
The DSR for mortgages (blue) is close to the pre-pandemic level.

Happy This data suggests aggregate household cash flow is in a solid position.

Happy Thanksgiving to All!

The Economy's In The Earliest Stages Of Pricing In The Singularity

Authored by Dr. Alex Wissner-Gross via X,

The cost of superintelligence is crashing.

Ilya Sutskever argues that algorithmically leapfrogging the frontier labs requires only ~$3 billion in pure research compute, implying the trillion-dollar clusters are mostly burning cash on inference and app bloat while the real signal remains efficient.

The models are also smarter than we know how to ask; Google discovers that merely tweaking system instructions for Gemini 3 Pro unlocks a 5% performance gain on agentic benchmarks, revealing a massive prompt overhang where capability sits dormant, waiting for the right command.

To align this latent power, Anthropic finds the best "truth serum" is simply fine-tuning the model to resist user pressure, solving sycophancy by training the AI to be stubbornly honest.

The friction of the physical world is disappearing.

The Boring Company is reportedly planning to cut tunneling costs to $3-4 million per mile, crashing the price of subterranean infrastructure by two to three orders of magnitude. Above ground, Zipline secures a $150 million contract to build an autonomous drone logistics layer for 130 million people in Africa.

Simultaneously, the Department of Energy elaborates that its newly announced "Genesis Mission" seeks to train frontier models on decades of National Lab experimental data, effectively digitizing the history of American physics.

The industrial base is being completely re-wired.

China installed 295,000 industrial robots last year, while the AgiBot A2 humanoid just set a record with a 65-mile non-stop walk.

Germany enters the chat with Agile Robots' Agile ONE, a humanoid featuring near-perfect hand dexterity.

The definition of "you" is getting granular.

The first whole-genome sequencing of individual cells reveals massive genetic mosaicism within a single human; you aren't an individual, you are a colony of diverging genomes.

But we are learning to administer the colony: CAR-T therapies are now successfully treating autoimmune diseases like lupus, and researchers have reversed aging in mouse blood stem cells by targeting lysosomal dysfunction.

Even the map of the mind is upgrading from SD to HD; a new brain atlas of mouse dendrites doubles the number of known brain regions.

The economy is in the earliest stages of pricing in the Singularity.

Anthropic estimates AI will boost US labor productivity by 1.8% annually over the next decade, doubling the recent historical run rate.

That future is now a tradable asset: Polymarket has received CFTC approval for intermediation, officially integrating prediction markets into the regulated financial system.

The impossible is just a pricing error waiting to be corrected.

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/27/2025 - 09:40

Futures Flat With US Markets Closed For Thanksgiving

It's a quiet session, with S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures flat as US markets are closed for Thanksgiving. The largest US stock index has recovered almost all recent losses, and is back to just 1% below all time highs after four days of gains, as sentiment was boosted bets that the Fed will cut interest rates faster than previously thought (Dec rate cut odds have gone from 85% to 30% back to 85%). European and Asian benchmarks posted modest moves. The MSCI All Country World Index was little changed after trimming its drop for November to 0.4% in the prior sessions. The gauge had been down nearly 4% for the month just over a week ago. Gilts lead a selloff in European government bonds, paring gains seen in the aftermath of the autumn budget on Wednesday. UK 10-year yields rise 4 bps to 4.46%. UK stocks also lag peers, with the FTSE 100 down 0.2% as miners weigh. And the pound falls 0.1%, joining the Swiss franc at the bottom of the G-10 FX pile. The kiwi outperforms, rising 0.2% after more hawkish signals from the RBNZ governor. WTI crude futures are steady near $58.70 a barrel ahead of an OPEC+ gathering this weekend. In another sign that risk appetite is returning, Bitcoin traded above $91,000 for the first time in a week. Gold fluctuated and the dollar paused a two-day retreat. There is nothing on the US calendar.

Here are some of the more notable corporate news:

• China Vanke Co. was rejected by at least two big local banks as it tried to secure a short-term loan to quell the default fears that have fueled a plunge in its bonds this week, according to people familiar with the matter.
• Chinese sports apparel company Anta Sports Products Ltd. is among firms exploring a potential takeover of Puma SE, according to people familiar with the matter.
• JPMorgan Chase plans to build a new three-million square feet tower in London that would serve as its principal UK headquarters and could contribute about $13 billion to the local economy over six years, it said in a statement.
• A gauge of risk on Oracle Corp.’s debt reached a three-year high in November, and things are only going to get worse in 2026 unless the database giant is able to assuage investor anxiety about a massive AI spending spree, according to Morgan Stanley.
• SoftBank Group Corp.’s credit-default swaps climbed to the highest level since April, as investors turned cautious on the tech behemoth’s debt-fueled growth at a time of intensifying global competition.

Among the more notable movers on Thursday, Japanese and South Korean equities outperformed their regional peers, with tech shares leading gains in both markets. In Europe, Germany’s DAX index rose 0.3% as Puma SE jumped 13% on takeover interest from multiple bidders.

The moves in stocks signal fresh optimism after worries over stretched tech valuations hammered equities earlier in the month. They also track expectations for Fed easing, with money markets pricing in roughly an 80% chance of a quarter-point cut next month and leaning toward three more by the end of 2026. A little more than a week ago, traders were projecting three cuts in total. 

According to Mohamed El-Erian, the swing is a "remarkable move, made even more stark by the one-month view: the probability was over 90% at the end of October before collapsing and rebounding. Play-by-play Fedspeak has been a primary driver of this massive volatility.
So much for "forward policy guidance" fostering stability and predictability."

This four-day chart—yes, only four days—illustrates just how violently the market has repriced expectations for a Federal Reserve rate cut on December 10. The implied probability surged from the low 30s to over 90% just an hour ago, and currently sits at 87%.
It is a remarkable… pic.twitter.com/lVLQkTZm2Z

— Mohamed A. El-Erian (@elerianm) November 25, 2025

“We’re building up for a classic year-end rally,” said Daniel Murray, chief executive officer of EFG Asset Management Switzerland. “Our main scenario is one where actually the macro environment continues to hold up well into 2026, the corporate earnings outlook looks pretty decent and you get the added tailwind of the lagged effect of rate cuts.”

UK gilts gave back some of Wednesday’s rally that followed the Autumn budget. Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves carved out a larger fiscal buffer, which buoyed sentiment, even though the tax-raising steps required cast a shadow over the outlook for economic growth. The pound and FTSE 100 were little changed. 

“All told, we think the UK government did what it needed to do to keep UK bond markets on side,” wrote Bill Diviney, head of macro research at ABN AMRO. “While there is naturally some risk to this more backloaded fiscal consolidation round, it comes on top of an already considerable effort.”

Oil prices edged higher as investors assessed the next steps in US-led diplomatic efforts to end the war in Ukraine. Platinum touched its highest level in more than a month, supported by optimism over fresh demand after a Chinese exchange launched a new futures contract.

Top Overnight News

• US President Trump said regarding the shooting of National Guard members near the White House that the assault was an act of terror and the Department of Homeland Security is confident the suspect entered into the US from Afghanistan in 2021, while he directed the mobilisation of an additional 500 troops for Washington DC and said the US must re-examine every single alien who entered US from Afghanistan under Biden.
• The D.C. National Guard shooting suspect worked with CIA-backed military units during the U.S. war in Afghanistan, the agency said: WSJ 
• FBI probes gunman's motive in ambush shooting of Guardsmen near White House: RTRS
• Afghans say last path to safety shuts as US halts visas after DC shooting: RTRS
• Hong Kong fire: Death toll rises to 65 as blaze burns on after 24 hours: RTRS
• Trump, After Call With China’s Xi, Told Tokyo to Lower the Volume on Taiwan: WSJ
• Morgan Stanley Fined by Dutch for Dividend Tax Evasion: BBG
• France's Macron unveils voluntary military service amid 'accelerating threats': RTRS
• BOJ Dove Avoids Giving Clear Hint on Timing of Rate-Hike Move: BBG
• General sworn in as Guinea-Bissau leader in swift coup after disputed vote: RTRS
• JPMorgan to Build New London Headquarters in Canary Wharf: BBG
• Ex-TSMC Executive’s Homes Searched After Intel Dispute Deepens: BBG
• Centrist Democrat Has Just Weeks to Save ACA Subsidies: WSJ

Tariffs/Trade

• USTR extended exclusions from China section 301 tariffs related to the forced technology transfer investigation until 10th November 2026.
• US Pentagon reportedly said that Alibaba (BABA/9988 HK) should be on the list for China military ties.
• Canadian PM Carney said talks with the US on trade have not restarted yet, while he had a short conversation with US President Trump on Tuesday and plans to go to Washington next week for the World Cup draw.

Fixed Income

• 10yr UST futures were little changed with US markets closed for Thanksgiving Day and after the latest 7yr offering stateside was an overall soft auction, but was an improvement from the prior month.
• Bund futures sat above the 129.00 level but with gains capped after recent whipsawing and ahead of German GfK data.
• 10yr JGB futures edged higher but with the gains modest after reports that Japan is likely to increase issuances of 2yr and 5yr JGBs, as well as the sale of treasury bills under its revised plan, while there were plenty of comments from BoJ's Noguchi who advocated a gradual approach to hiking rates.

Commodities

• Crude futures faded some of the gains from the prior session, where price action was choppy amid Russia/Ukraine peace efforts and mixed data, while the latest EIA inventory report showed a larger-than-expected build in headline crude stocks.
• Baker Hughes Rig Count: Oil -12 at 407, Natgas +3 at 130, Total -10 at 544.
• Spot gold marginally declined after yesterday's indecision, but with downside cushioned after recent dollar weakness.
• Copper futures took a breather after recently climbing in tandem with broader risk sentiment.
• LME executive said COMEX premium over LME is likely to persist over the next 18 months, while they are focused on listing new Chinese Indonesian brands in aluminium.
• ICSG Secretary General Paul White said world copper mine production is forecast to rise by 2.3% and world refined copper output is expected to rise by 0.9% in 2026, while world apparent refined copper usage is forecast to grow by 2.1% in 2026 and the global copper market will swing to a deficit of roughly 150,000 tons in 2026.

FX

• DXY remained lacklustre after having softened heading into the Thanksgiving Day holiday and with mixed data releases from the US, where Jobless Claims fell, and Durable Goods also printed better than expected, but Chicago PMI disappointed. Meanwhile, the Fed Beige Book noted economic activity was little changed since the previous report, according to most of the twelve Federal Reserve Districts, although two Districts noted a modest decline and one reported modest growth.
• EUR/USD edged higher and breached through resistance at the 1.1600 level, as recent ECB commentary continued to suggest an unwillingness to cut rates, while the attention turns to the latest ECB minutes scheduled later.
• GBP/USD marginally extended on gains after climbing back above the 1.3200 level in the aftermath of the UK Autumn Budget.
• USD/JPY was choppy and traded both sides of the 156.00 level, while there were comments from BoJ's Noguchi, who reiterated that they will gradually adjust the degree of monetary accommodation if economic activity and prices develop in line with the bank's outlook and stated they must take a measured, step-by-step approach in adjusting policy.
• Antipodeans extended on recent advances with NZD sustaining the post-RBNZ momentum and with upside facilitated by the constructive risk tone and encouraging data releases including stronger New Zealand Retail Sales and Business Confidence, as well as better-than-expected Australian Private Capex.

DB's Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap

If you’re reading this in the US, then Happy Thanksgiving. And if you haven’t taken the Turkey out of the freezer yet… Run! US equity investors have had a fair bit to be thankful for this week with the S&P 500 (+0.69%) posting a fourth consecutive advance to close just over 1% from its record high. The S&P 500 has now recorded its biggest 4-day bounce (+4.19%) since the US-China trade truce back in May. That came as anticipation mounted about another Fed rate cut in two weeks’ time, with a further boost from solid US data. Then in Europe, there was even more relief after the UK government’s budget was received smoothly by markets, after an initial chaotic wobble due to it being leaked beforehand. 10yr gilt yields (-7.0bps) outperformed their counterparts elsewhere. So that took out another key event risk on the fiscal side, with the STOXX 600 (+1.09%) recording a strong advance of its own.

In terms of that UK budget, the market reaction was generally quite positive, as Chancellor Reeves announced an increase in the fiscal headroom that was bigger than expected. So on the current OBR forecasts, the government now has £22bn of space against its fiscal rule that the current budget should be in balance by 2029-30. Bear in mind that’s more than double the £10bn of headroom in March, and above consensus expectations for around £15bn of headroom in this budget. And in turn, that reassured investors that a further round of fiscal tightening would be less likely, as the government now had a bigger margin for error against any kind of negative shock. Similarly on the gilt remit, the Debt Management Office announced they would sell £303.7bn of gilts in this fiscal year, beneath expectations for £308.1bn. So again that was on the upside of market expectations, and helped to support gilts across the curve.

In terms of the policy measures themselves, the main headline was £26bn worth of tax rises by 2029-30, which were concentrated towards the latter part of the forecast. In economic terms, the biggest included an extension to the freeze on income tax thresholds for three years from 2028-29. In addition, they’re going to charge National Insurance (a payroll tax) on salary-sacrificed pension contributions, and there’s a 2-point tax increase on income from dividends, property and savings. As well as a mansion tax on properties above £2 million. Then there were a few spending increases as well, including the removal of the two-child limit on universal credit payments (a benefit for those on low incomes or out of work).

The UK budget deficit is expected to drop from 4.5% of GDP to 3.5% next fiscal year and to just under 2% by the end of the decade, though there will inevitably be questions on whether the backloaded tightening fully materialises. Meanwhile, our UK economist Sanjay Raja sees the cost of living measures in the budget dampening inflation by around 0.4pp, largely as expected.

With all that in hand, UK assets put in a strong performance, with the 10yr gilt yield (-7.0bps) falling back to 4.42%, whilst the 30yr yield (-11.5bps) posted its biggest daily decline since April, down to 5.20%. Similarly, sterling strengthened against the other major currencies, moving up +0.57% against the US Dollar, and +0.35% against the Euro. And then for equities it was also a strong day, with both the FTSE 100 (+0.85%) and the more domestically-focused FTSE 250 (+1.24%) posting solid gains. The only main point of concern for markets was how backloaded a lot of the fiscal tightening was, which was concentrated further out in the forecast horizon, but overall it didn’t turn into the more negative risk event that many had feared.

Outside the UK, markets generally put in a decent performance, with equities advancing on both sides of the Atlantic. For instance, the S&P 500 (+0.69%) posted another gain that left it -1.1% beneath its record high, with a strong advance for the NASDAQ (+0.82%) as well. The gains were broad-based, with over 70% of the S&P 500 higher on the day, while the Mag-7 (+0.40%) underperformed. The VIX volatility index declined by -1.37pts to a 3-week low of 17.19. Meanwhile in Europe, the STOXX 600 (+1.09%) put in a third consecutive gain, with similar advances for the DAX (+1.11%) and the CAC 40 (+0.88%). Today should be a quieter one however, as US markets are closed for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Otherwise, front-end US Treasuries were one of the few points of weakness yesterday, with the 2yr yield moving up +1.7bps on the day to 3.48%. They had traded as much as 4bps higher on the day after US labour market data surprised on the upside, with the weekly initial jobless claims falling back to 216k in the week ending November 22 (vs. 225k expected). Indeed, that’s their lowest level since April, which helped to reassure investors that the labour market had held up through the shutdown. This week coincides with payroll survey week which augurs well. The sell-off at the front-end didn’t impact December Fed cut probabilities too much with it hovering around 80% for most of the day, roughly where it started. Last Thursday it hit a low of 24.5% intra-day. That turning point is probably the main reason risk assets have rebounded so strongly.

Further out the curve, 10yr Treasuries (-0.2bps to 3.99%) were little changed. That largely matched the sovereign bond moves in Europe, with yields on 10yr bunds (-0.1bps), OATs (-1.0bps) and BTPs (-0.9bps) all posting a modest decline.

On the geopolitical side, the newsflow around Ukraine talks slowed yesterday. Some of the most notable headlines came with the Kremlin confirming that a Steven Witkoff-led US delegation is planning to visit Moscow next week and Politico reporting that Secretary of State Rubio has pushed Ukrainian and European officials to accept a peace deal before the US agrees to any security guarantees for Ukraine. Oil prices moved higher, with Brent crude up +1.04% to $63.13/bbl.

Asian equities are continuing the global recovery. Across the region, the Nikkei 225 is leading the way climbing +1.28% and driven by tech. US diplomatic initiatives aimed at mitigating elevated tensions between Tokyo and Beijing also seem to have helped. The KOSPI is up +0.73%, albeit retracing some of its initial advances after the Bank of Korea's decision to maintain its benchmark interest rate ( see below). The Shanghai Composite (+0.70%) and Hang Seng (+0.64%) are also doing well. The S&P/ASX 200 (+0.13%) is lagging its peers, amid persistent concerns that the Reserve Bank of Australia will not cut interest rates further. US equity futures are up around a tenth of a percent on what would be a quiet trading session given the holiday.

Turning to the BOK’s monetary policy decision, the central bank opted to keep its benchmark interest rate at 2.5%, marking the fourth consecutive hold. The central bank presented an optimistic economic outlook, revising its growth forecast for the current year up by 0.1 percentage point to 1% and upgrading its projection for the next year to 1.8% from 1.6%. While growth forecasts have seen a slight improvement, it notably remains below the central bank's estimated potential growth rate of 2%.

To the day ahead now, and it’s a quieter one with US markets closed for Thanksgiving. Otherwise, data releases from the Euro Area include the M3 money supply for October, and the European Commission’s economic sentiment indicator for November. From central banks, we’ll get the ECB’s account of their October decision, and hear from ECB Vice President de Guindos, the ECB’s Villeroy, and the BoE’s Greene.

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/27/2025 - 09:19

Hundreds Missing, Scores Dead In Massive Hong Kong Apartment Inferno

A terrible death toll is mounting after a cluster of high-rise Hong Kong apartment towers was engulfed in an inferno on Wednesday: At least 44 people are dead, but approximately 279 are still missing in what is already the deadliest Hong Kong building fire in more than 50 years. Accusations of gross negligence have been directed at a construction company that's been renovating the mammoth complex, and authorities have already arrested three men associated with that firm. 

TOWER TRAGEDY: At least 13 people were killed after a massive fire ripped through a Hong Kong high-rise complex.

Residents say building alarms never went off as thick smoke spread through multiple towers. pic.twitter.com/Q9lxbetcEf

— Fox News (@FoxNews) November 26, 2025

The fire at the Wang Fuk Court apartment complex in northern Hong Kong's Tai Po district broke out on Wednesday afternoon. The property boasts eight, 32-story towers comprising some 2,000 apartment units with approximately 4,800 residents. Built in the 1980s, much of the complex was clad in bamboo scaffolding and wrapped with netting, as a major exterior renovation was underway. 

Even in 2025, bamboo is commonly used in Hong Kong construction work, with workers using zip ties to lash poles together, erecting latticeworks of the cheap, fast-growing, sturdy wood for even large-scale projects. The risk has already been acknowledged -- indeed, in March, Hong Kong development authorities issued a directive mandating that at least 50% of government construction projects must employ metal scaffolding instead, in what was seen as a major step in finally weaning the industry from its centuries-long reliance on bamboo. 

Old and new: Bamboo continues to be widely used in Hong Kong's construction and renovation projects, even on modern buildings like this (via arch daily)

The fire is believed to have started on the scaffolding itself, and officials suspect that various noncompliant renovation materials facilitated the fire's extraordinarily rapid spread from building to building. Windy conditions also played a part. More than 200 fire department vehicles and another 100 ambulances were deployed to the blaze. In a troubling dimension, the complex is home to a great many elderly people. Deputy Fire Service Director Derek Armstrong Chan described the daunting challenge facing first responders: 

“Debris and scaffolding of the affected buildings (is) falling down. The temperature inside the buildings concerned is very high. It’s difficult for us to enter the building and go upstairs to conduct firefighting and rescue operations.”

A man reacts as firefighters struggle to extinguish the towering inferno behind him (Tyrone Siu / Reuters)

Even as firefighters faced the herculean challenge of simultaneously extinguishing multiple high-rise fires, authorities quickly took note of troubling observations throughout the complex, with a tower that was spared from the blaze giving them a good look at materials and methods the construction company used in the renovation project. For example, investigators say they found highly combustible Styrofoam attached to the windows on every floor near the unaffected building's elevator lobby.

The fires erupted in Wednesday afternoon, but blazed on in spectacular fashion well into the night (via NEXTA)

“We have reason to believe that those in charge of the construction company were grossly negligent,” said Eileen Chung, a senior police official, with that negligence “leading to this accident and the rapid spread of the fire and such serious casualties.” Police arrested three men between the ages of 52 and 68; two are directors of the construction company, while the third is an engineering consultant hired by the firm. The arrests come as each is officially under suspicion of manslaughter.  

New footage of the massive Hong Kong fire

Sources reveal the building was wrapped in bamboo scaffolding and flammable tarps for long term exterior repairs a process expected to last one to two years. Residents were living in poor ventilation, hidden from outside visibility,… pic.twitter.com/o4eEkhNlt9

— Surajit (@surajit_ghosh2) November 26, 2025

Early Thursday morning, with the fires under a significant degree of control after 18 hours of dangerous work by firefighters, smoke continued to rise from the charred buildings, with fires still visible in various places. Several hundred people have been evacuated. In addition to the dead and missing, at least 62 were injured, with many enduring burns and smoke inhalation. Observers dread what will result from a search of the towers' charred husks in the coming days and weeks.  

According to an official statement from the Chinese government, President Xi Jinping "extended condolences" and "urged all-out efforts to extinguish the fire and minimize casualties and losses." Beyond the human tragedy, the disaster is surely a humiliation for Xi and his government -- and we wouldn't be surprised to see more arrests, a crackdown on illegal construction materials and practices, and an accelerated elimination of Hong Kong's omnipresent bamboo scaffolding.  

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/27/2025 - 09:05

 

 

At The Money: Ben Hunt on How to Use Narrative Information  (November 26, 2025)

Do fundamentals or narratives drive market valuations? That is the question so many are wrestling with in today’s 24/7 algo-based platforms and AI-driven mediascape.

Full transcript below.

~~~

About this week’s guest:

Ben Hunt is founder of Perscient, a firm that studies how narratives and stories shape markets, investing, and social behavior through the lens of information theory, game theory, and unstructured data analysis. His work analyzes the language, story arcs, and viral spread of explanations in media

For more info, see:

Persient

Personal Bio

Website: Epsilon Theory

Masters in Business (Coming soon!)

LinkedIn

Twitter

~~~

 

Find all of the previous At the Money episodes here, and in the MiB feed on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, and Bloomberg. And find the entire musical playlist of all the songs I have used on At the Money on Spotify

 

 

 

TRANSCRIPT:

INTRO: Too much information running through my brain, Too much information driving me insane

Investors have long been taught that fundamentals drive stock prices. Revenue, growth, and profits, as Benjamin Graham taught us in the short run. The market is a voting machine, but in the long run, it’s a weighing machine.

But what if it isn’t? What if narratives are driving market valuations? I’m Barry Ritholtz, and on today’s edition of At The Money, we’re gonna discuss how to identify when market narratives overtake fundamentals.

To help us unpack all of this and what it means for your portfolio, let’s bring in Ben Hunt of Perscient. Ben’s firm studies, narratives, and the stories that shape markets investing and social behavior through the lens of information theory. So Ben, let’s start with a definition.

Barry Ritholtz: How do you define a narrative in the context of markets and investing?

Ben Hunt: Let me define it.

So it’s, it’s a simple definition. A narrative is an answer to the question why. Why did the market go up today? Why should you buy this stock? Why should you sell this stock? Why should you vote for this person? Any answer to the question, why is a narrative?

Barry Ritholtz: How do you distinguish between something like data, which I arguably comes with a storyline attached to it and just a straight up, Hey, Bitcoin is millennium or digital gold?

Ben Hunt: How do you define the difference between this, I guess this stock is cheap with a PE of nine is a narrative. Yeah. Well, why is, why is a PE of nine cheap? Or why is a PE of three cheap or 15 cheap? These are all stories, Barry. Any, any, any valuation, any multiple, any meaning that you attach to numbers?

It’s a story. It’s a, it’s a, it’s an answer to the question. Why? Why do I call it cheap? Why do I think you should buy it? Why is this interesting? Those are all why questions and the answer. Are all narratives.

Barry Ritholtz: How do you identify any particular narrative that may be driving a particular stock or asset class or the overall market? What, what tools do do you use to help discern that?

Ben Hunt: Lemme start by saying what I don’t care about. So what I don’t care about is truth or accuracy. I mean, it sounds crazy, but

Barry Ritholtz: Not at all. ’cause you’re trying to figure out what the crowd believes. Yeah. Whether it’s true or not. Well, if it affects their behavior, it matters.

Ben Hunt: I’ve given up on trying to figure out what reality is. What I’m trying to figure out is how is reality being presented? How is it being presented to us? So what I’m looking for are elements of presentation. I’m looking for word choice. I’m looking for how loud is it being presented to you, how frequently it’s being presented to you.

But most of all, I’m looking for a concept that you talk about in network math, and it’s called density. I’m looking for how the language is connected to other words. In fact, those are the, the measurements you use in network math. Those are where they, we talk about betweenness, we talk about connectedness and centrality. Those are the measurements, because I’m looking at the presentation, not at the reality.

Barry Ritholtz: So how do you measure density? You, you hinted at some of it. How loud it is, how repetitive it is. How do you tell when a specific narrative is beginning to exert influence over prices?

Ben Hunt:  Bob Schiller wrote a pretty good book, a a couple years back called “Narrative Economics,” and the takeaway from that book is that you should think about and understand narratives in exactly the same way.

You think about and you understand disease, I mean, you, you use the same measurements. You remember when we were talking about COVID, it was or R-not? How, how fast does it spread? How quickly does it spread? What is the medium in which it can spread most easily? It’s exactly the same thing here, it’s exactly the same thing.

We’re really using exactly the same math. As you would use to try to understand epidemiology and the spread of a virus. So what we’re looking at though, instead of the atmosphere or wastewater, we’re looking at the words. We’re looking at all the words that are out there in terms of text of what’s being written, what’s being said.

This is all unstructured data, and we’re looking for the presence of certain ideas, clusters of words that spread through that medium of media in exactly the same way that a virus spreads through the air or through the water. If you’re a financial advisor or you’re a market person of any sort, and somebody comes up, why’d the market go up today?

And you could say, well. There are a hundred different reasons, but basically it was just variance. You know? It’s just, it’s just, it’s just

Barry Ritholtz: A random walk. People. Hate that answer, by the way.

Ben Hunt: People hate that answer ’cause it’s a crappy story. It’s a story. It may be true, but it’s not compelling. Exactly. It’s not truthy. Right. It doesn’t, it doesn’t connect with you. It’s like, well that’s disappointing. I, I want a story so. The stories that are basically there to fill the time. Uh, and these are, these are typically examples where I call ’em descriptive narratives.

They’re, they’re answering the question why, but they’re describing why something happened.

Barry Ritholtz: Always after the fact. Never in advance.

Ben Hunt: Always after the fact. That’s exactly right, Barry. So what you’ll find is that, I don’t know, it’s earning season and who comes out first with earnings. Financials, right. Citi and Goldman Sachs, whoever, they’ll report some good earnings. The stocks will go up and afterwards, Cramer and everyone else has gotta tell you why.  And they’ll say, “Oh, I’m bullish on financials.” And they’ll give you a reason.

And the half life for that sort of narrative, it’s a week or two.

You wanna do with that? Honestly, is you wanna fade it. You wanna look for that to appear in your Bloomberg email in the morning saying, oh, market experts bullish on financials because blah, blah, blah. And when that drum beating gets pretty loud when it’s appearing in your morning email. I wanna fade it.

You don’t wanna press it, you wanna fade it because this is, this is just the, the ordinary business of Wall Street. You’ve gotta have an answer to why, it’s almost usually just variance or some combination of idiosyncratic stuff. But you’ve gotta come up with some blanket “Why?” And if that gets a lot of play, I want to go the other way.

There’s another type of narrative though, where I want to press it. That’s what we call prescriptive narratives. It’s not saying, “Oh, the Fed is dovish.” It’s saying, you know, Muhammad Elarian will come out, or, uh, I don’t know. Trump will come out and say, “The Fed should be dovish.”

You see the difference? It’s not, it’s not describing what’s already happened. It’s trying to. Lay the framework for what should happen.

Barry Ritholtz: So let’s delve into that. What sort of tools are you using to identify these narratives? Be they descriptive or prescriptive? How, how much lead time do you get, uh, to analyze, you know, this giant corpus of noise and commentary and data that is produced every single day?

Ben Hunt: This is what good traders, honestly  and investors have always done. They’ve, they’ve, they’ve always made these sort of assessments of the news and the stories that are happening. So this, what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to externalize what good traders, and I’ll call it short-term investors, have always done, they’ve always internalized this so.

Anybody can do this. You start looking for the words that are trying to prescribe versus describe, uh, that’ll you, you can, you can pick this up in whatever you do. What we are able to do though today is because there’s now big data is because there’s big compute, is we can read everything. Humans we’re all limited in what we can read, what we can pay attention to in our little corner of the world.

What’s possible today is to read everything and to analyze exactly this sort of word choice.

Barry Ritholtz: What sort of output do you get from your “Big Compute” that’s scraping everything sifting through all the language; does it identify specific words? Does it identify themes? I’m assuming artificial intelligence and big data analytics is a key part of this. What does the output look like to you?

Ben Hunt: Well, lemme start with where it starts, because it’s not that the output comes from what you. Put into it and what you wanna put into it, and this has to be human generated, are, well, what are the ideas, what are the narratives that I care about?

Here’s why that’s important: Let’s say you’re a value investor, you’ve got a vision, you know, you’ve got a view on a stock and like all value investors, you think the market has not recognized the story about this stock that I think is really important.

So what you’re looking for is not, how loud is that story right now? That story is dormant. You’re looking for that story to start being told. So you can’t start this from asking AI, “Hey, AI, what are the prominent stories right now?” Because it can only tell you what’s being spread right then and there.

The way to really make money with narratives, is to say what narrative is dormant today, I wanna see when it starts to get discovered.

Its that discovery phase when the market quote unquote, wakes up to a story that you’ve been looking for the market to wake up to. That’s how I find you can most reliably make money from narrative investing.

Barry Ritholtz: I get the sense we’re still in the early days of narrative investing as a key strategy, at least in terms of using AI and big data. What do you see developing in this space? What’s the narrative about narrative investing?

Ben Hunt: This is an old idea. So if you, if you go back and kinda look at your Wall Street history, or if you talk to kind of traitors today, what they’re always looking at is the news that comes along and they’re trying to say, Hey, do I fade that? You know, is that story worn out? Is it, is, is that, is it topping over or does this story have legs?

Is this the start of, its spread like a virus? It’s an old idea, what’s possible today is to quantify it. What’s possible today is to externalize what good traders have internalized in the past. It’s not that it’s, inventing cold fusion or really doing anything that’s new in the world. What it is able to do is to make that sort of analysis, to look at not what reality is, but how reality is being presented and make it available over a much wider scope, not over just that little area that the Good Trader really knows a lot about and make it available over a lot more publications and things that are being written because humans can’t read everything really.

I think it’s a way of, I hate to call it democratizing investing. I really hate that idea. But it really is a notion of creating a new instrument so every investor can understand, well, what are the stories that are being told about the world today?

Barry Ritholtz: To wrap up, technology has enabled us to read much more than we were capable of reading as individuals. In fact, the machines can read everything and we can use those machines to identify dormant narratives that might lead to increases in either a particular stock or asset class or market. Fair statement?

Ben Hunt: Very fair. What you’re looking for is what’s new, what’s changed, because when the narrative changes, that changes behavior.

Barry Ritholtz: Fascinating stuff. I’m Barry Ritholtz. This is Bloomberg’s At the Money.

 

OUTRO:

Too much information running through my brain
Too much information driving me insane
Too much information running through my brain
Too much information driving me insane

~~~

Find our entire music playlist for At the Money on Spotify.

 

The post At The Money: How to Use Narrative Information appeared first on The Big Picture.

We Must Resist The Rise Of A Global Censorship Regime

Authored by Kristen Waggoner via The Epoch Times,

The ordeal of Finnish Parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen, who just stood trial a third time - after being acquitted twice - for a 2019 tweet in which she simply shared a Scripture verse and her faith-based views on marriage and sexuality, is a warning to all who value the right to speak freely across the world.

When governments claim the power to police opinions, even peaceful expressions of faith can be dragged through the courts.

And now this promises to be a much more pervasive reality in Europe as a result of the 2022 Digital Services Act (DSA). Ahead of the European Union’s review of the DSA, 113 international experts committed to free speech wrote to the European Commission highlighting the law’s incompatibility with free expression, citing the possibility of worldwide takedown orders. Räsänen was a signatory to the letter, alongside a former vice president of Yahoo Europe, a former U.S. senator, and politicians, academics, lawyers, and journalists from around the globe.

The DSA gives the E.U. authority to enforce moderation of “illegal content” on platforms and search engines with over 45 million monthly users. It enables bureaucrats to control online speech at scale under the guise of “safety” and “protecting democracy.”

However, E.U. member states may have different definitions of illegal content. Thus, under the law, anything deemed illegal under the speech laws of any one E.U. member state could potentially be removed across all of Europe. That means the harshest censorship laws in Europe could soon govern the entire continent, and possibly the internet worldwide. And if platforms fail to comply, they face billions in fines, thus providing clear incentive to censor and none to promote free speech.

Late last month, the E.U. announced that Meta and TikTok will face fines of up to 6 percent of their global sales for accusations of violating the DSA on matters related to transparency. But the well-founded fear is that this law—which grants sweeping authority to European regulators to control online speech across such platforms—including X, YouTube, and Facebook—will enable the kind of censorship endured by Räsänen on a global scale.

Further, citizens in countries outside of the E.U., like the United States, are at risk of facing new levels of censorship, because the DSA applies to large online digital platforms and search engines accessed within the E.U. but that have a global presence. It explicitly states its extraterritorial applicability as it covers platforms used by people “that have their place of establishment or are located in the Union, irrespective of where the providers of those intermediary services [the platforms] have their place of establishment.”

Platforms are incentivized to adapt their international content moderation policies to E.U. censorship. If those platforms deem something “illegal” under E.U. rules, that content may be banned everywhere, even in countries with strong free speech protections.

U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. Andrew Puzder warned recently that the DSA threatens to censor American speech online. His warning came just after an admission from Google that Europe’s online censorship laws target American companies.

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee issued a report in July explaining that the DSA “may limit or restrict Americans’ constitutionally protected speech in the United States. Companies that censor an insufficient amount of ‘misleading or deceptive’ speech—as defined by EU bureaucrats—face fines ... which would amount to billions of dollars for many American companies. Furthermore, because many social media platforms generally maintain one set of content moderation policies that they apply globally, restrictive censorship laws like the DSA may set de facto global censorship standards.”

Päivi Räsänen of the Christian Democrats campaigns ahead of parliamentary elections in Helsinki, Finland, on April 18, 2015. Lehtikuva/Roni Rekomaa/AFP via Getty Images

French Member of the European Parliament Virginie Joron concurs: “The French digital regulator ARCOM told me they believe the DSA allows them to censor any post anywhere in the world using the DSA. That means even an American citizen posting in Alabama could potentially have their online post taken down, even if the publication would be legal in the U.S.,” she said in a statement.

The DSA creates a censorship industrial complex consisting of an expansive web of outsourced content flaggers, national coordinators, monitoring reporters, and other authorities, with the European Commission at its head. It’s a business model dependent on finding content to censor and inconsistent with the standards of the rule of law. The threat the DSA poses to free speech is real. Resisting it is key to ensuring that its impact is blunted.

Brussels bureaucrats must not be allowed to position themselves as the world’s speech police. For the freedom of all people, we must resist the rise of a global censorship regime so that what happened to Räsänen doesn’t become the new online norm.

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

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/27/2025 - 08:30

Tether's 116-Ton Gold Hoard Rivals Reserves Of Korea And Hungary: Jefferies

Authored by Amin Haqshanas via CoinTelegraph.com,

Stablecoin issuer Tether holds 116 tons of physical gold, placing it on par with central banks such as those in South Korea, Hungary and Greece.

Tether is “the largest holder of gold outside central banks,” Jefferies wrote in a recent analysis, per a report by the Financial Times. The investment bank added that Tether’s growing appetite for gold may be playing a larger role in the metal’s recent surge than previously assumed.

According to Jefferies, Tether’s gold purchases last quarter accounted for nearly 2% of total global gold demand and almost 12% of central bank purchases. The company said that Tether’s aggressive accumulation over the past two months “is likely to have tightened supply in the short term and influenced sentiment,” potentially driving speculative inflows into gold markets.

Investors cited by Jefferies said Tether aims to acquire another 100 tons of gold in 2025. With the company reportedly on track for $15 billion in profit this year, the target appears well within reach, according to the report.

Tether doubles down on gold strategy

Tether has also spent more than $300 million this year buying stakes in precious-metal producers. In June, it acquired a 32% stake in Canada’s public gold royalty firm Elemental Altus Royalties.

In September, the FT reported that Tether is exploring investments across the gold supply chain, including mining, refining, trading and royalty companies, as part of a broader push to diversify its reserves.

Tether also issues Tether Gold (XAUt), its gold-backed token launched in 2020 and advertised as being supported by bullion stored in a Swiss vault. Blockchain data shows XAUt issuance has doubled over the past six months, with Tether adding 275,000 ounces (about $1.1 billion) since August.

Tether Gold has a market cap of $2.1 billion. Source: Tether Gold

Jefferies said Tether is betting that tokenized gold will finally find traction. Physical gold is cumbersome for retail investors, futures carry roll costs and gold ETFs charge relatively high fees. Tether argues that tokenization solves these frictions.

Tether increasingly resembles a central bank

As Cointelegraph reported, Tether’s day-to-day operations mirror several core functions traditionally associated with central banks. It mints and redeems USDt directly for verified customers, effectively expanding or contracting supply through its primary market pipeline.

It also manages a large reserve portfolio dominated by short-duration US Treasurys, along with gold and Bitcoin. The company generates central bank–like income by earning interest on those Treasurys while issuing a non-interest-bearing token.

Beyond that, Tether employs policy-style tools, such as freezing addresses at the request of law enforcement and phasing out blockchains to reduce risk.

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/27/2025 - 07:20

US Adoptions From Abroad Are Declining

The number of children adopted from abroad is declining in the United States, according to data from the U.S. Department of State.

As Statista's Anna Fleck details below, while more than 12,700 children were adopted internationally in 2009, that figure has dropped to under 1,200 in 2024.

You will find more infographics at Statista

This is due to several reasons.

For example, although the U.S. signed the Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption in 1994, it wasn’t until 2008 that it came fully into effect there. Designed to ensure more ethical intercountry adoptions and to prevent the abduction, sale of, or trafficking in children, the Convention requires proof that each given child has been deemed eligible for adoption by the child's country of origin and that due consideration has been given to finding an adoption placement for the child in its country of origin.

Each adoption agency must also be accredited or approved on a Federal level.

According to Adoption.com, while the Hague Convention is beneficial it has also led to increased waiting times and fees, with many poorer countries unable to meet standards.

Looking more closely at country specific examples, Guatemala is frequently held up as an example of what can go wrong when adoptions are commercialized and ethics disregarded, with stories of corruption and of children being kidnapped to then be adopted. These findings led Guatemala to placing a moratorium on new intercountry adoptions in 2008 until a Hague-compliant adoption process could be created and implemented. Until that point, Guatemala had been the only country worldwide to allow fully privatized adoptions, and in 2008 accounted for the second largest group of international adoptees after China.

In the last two and a half decades, more children from China have been coming to the U.S. as adoptees. Between 1999 and 2023, they numbered almost 83,000 compared with 46,000 from Russia, 30,000 from Guatemala, 21,500 adoptees from South Korea, 16,000 from Ethiopia and 12,000 from Ukraine. China stopped international adoptions during the pandemic, resuming the practice again in 2023, when 16 children were adopted in the U.S. This figure is expected to remain low, however, following an announcement from Beijing that the country will no longer be facilitating intercountry adoptions unless to blood relatives. The move takes place in a country experiencing a shrinking and aging population with a falling birth rate. Last fiscal year, a total of 24 children were adopted from China. Meanwhile, 74 children were adopted from Taiwan, which is the fourth highest number in 2024, trailing only after India (202), Colombia (200) and Bulgaria (79).

International politics also play a role in the global flows of adoption. This is the case with Russia, which banned adoptions by U.S. parents in 2012 in retaliation to the U.S.’ Magnitsky Act, which had sanctioned Russian officials and nationals for human rights abuses. As the following chart shows, where 1,588 Russian children were adopted in 2009, this fell to 0 in 2015, with no children having been adopted from the country since.

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/27/2025 - 06:45

FBI Seizes $13-Million Mercedes Unicorn From Olympian Snowboarder Turned 'Cocaine Kingpin'

Submitted by The Bureau's Sam Cooper,

In the aftermath of their second Ryan Wedding indictment bombshell, the FBI's Los Angeles field office dropped one of the most surreal photos of the Giant Slalom case this week: a silver, open-top Mercedes-Benz CLK-GTR roadster — valued at roughly US$13 million — parked under fluorescent lights in a federal impound warehouse.

Agents say the 2002 Mercedes CLK-GTR was seized from the organization of Ryan James Wedding, the former Canadian Olympic snowboarder now on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list.

Other stunning details in the new indictment — which alleges that a Canadian lawyer advised Wedding to kill a federal witness, whom The Bureau has identified as a convicted fentanyl trafficker from Montreal who ran a cartel network whose "sole purpose" was exporting narcotics including MDMA from Canada to the United States — include claims that Wedding is allegedly protected by a Mexican businessman with ties to senior Mexican government officials.

As one of The Bureau's U.S. sources put it, that allegation suggests the Mexican businessman is viewed as a more important Sinaloa Cartel boss than Wedding himself.

As for the Mercedes, online records show it is one of only six CLK-GTR roadsters ever built worldwide, making it one of the rarest and most valuable cars the U.S. government has ever confiscated.

The car itself is a relic from the wildest corner of 1990s motorsport.

Mercedes and AMG created the CLK-GTR for the FIA GT1 series — essentially a Le Mans race car thinly disguised as a road car.

The road-legal "Straßenversion" models were hand-assembled at AMG's facility in Affalterbach, Germany, in the late 1990s, with a small batch of six roofless roadsters completed from 2002 onward. Under the carbon-fiber skin sits a 6.9-liter V-12 making around 600 horsepower, good for 0–100 km/h in about 3.8 seconds and a top speed of roughly 200 mph.

When new, the CLK-GTR was listed by Guinness World Records as the most expensive production car on sale, at about US$1.5 million; recent auction results put similar roadsters around US$10.2 million, with pre-sale estimates up to US$13 million.

For U.S. authorities, this is evidence. The U.S. Treasury Department, which has now sanctioned Wedding and a string of associates, says he "has laundered his illicit profits through an extensive transatlantic network of businesses and associates, channeling drug proceeds into luxury assets such as cars and motorcycles that are concealed around the world." Treasury identifies two key money men behind that network: Toronto jeweller Rolan Sokolovski and former Italian special forces member Gianluca Tiepolo.

Sokolovski, Treasury says, handled the books for Wedding's organization and washed its funds through his Toronto jewelry company, 2351885 Ontario Inc., which trades as Diamond Tsar, while also moving millions in drug proceeds via cryptocurrency to mask the origin of the money.

Tiepolo allegedly "worked closely with Sokolovski to procure and manage Wedding's physical assets, including high-end vehicles," and held "millions of dollars in Wedding's property under his own name to conceal these assets from authorities."

Tiepolo owns Italian and U.K. firms — Stile Italiano S.R.L. and TMR Ltd. — that trade in luxury motorcycles and cars, and he founded Windrose Tactical, a training outfit that has hosted Wedding's alleged hitmen.

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/27/2025 - 06:45

My morning LGA-ORD/turkey day reads:

• This Year’s Thanksgiving Surprise: Half of the Guests Are Stoned: What started as a secret trip to smoke pot before dinner has mushroomed into a full-blown commercial holiday. Behold the ‘cousin walk.’ (Wall Street Journal)

• Crypto Crash Ruins Thanksgiving for Retail Traders Once Again Bitcoin enthusiasts are bracing for some awkward questions this holiday season. (Bloomberg)

• What Is Deinfluencing? Unpacking TikTok’s Unlikeliest Shopping Trend: Over this past year, however, more and more people began to think twice before buying what influencers were selling. Just note the hashtag #Deinfluencing, which now has over a billion views on TikTok. The user-led intervention, which sees an army of self-described deinfluencers discouraging their audiences from buying into overhyped stuff, represents a notable departure from the usual calls to “swipe up” and “buy now.” (Vogue)

• AI Slop Recipes Are Taking Over the Internet — And Thanksgiving Dinner: Food bloggers see traffic dip as home cooks turn to AI, inspired by impossible pictures. (Bloomberg free)

• Grim retail sales data fuels concerns about health of US economy: Consumer confidence drops to second-lowest level since pandemic as inflation lingers. (Financial Times) see also Late Car Payments Are Piling Up at Record Levels as More Drivers Face Delinquency: A record share of subprime borrowers are delinquent on car payments, according to new data from Fitch Ratings in a series that dates back to the ’90s. (Money)

• Streamflation intensifies as Netflix, Disney+, and others continue raising prices; Streaming costs keep climbing as platforms chase profit. The economics of streaming are shifting from expansion to monetization. Nearly every major platform – from Netflix to HBO Max and Apple TV – has raised its prices over the past year, marking one of the sharpest rounds of increases since the subscription model upended cable television. (Techspot)

• Brain has five ‘eras’, scientists say – with adult mode not starting until early 30s” Study suggests human brain development has four pivotal ‘turning points’ at around the ages of nine, 32, 66 and 83. (The Guardian)

• They retired from the government. Now they’re back, protecting forests Trump abandoned. Since the start of the year, the Forest Service has lost nearly 6,000 staffers through firings, resignations and retirements encouraged by the Trump administration, according to internal figures obtained by The Washington Post. By summer, some of the agency’s regions were missing three-quarters of their trail and recreation staff — and some forests and districts had none at all. (Washington Post)

• The COVID political backlash disappeared: Turns out the pandemic didn’t break the Democratic Party. (The Argument)

• Hollywood Is Reeling—and These Movies Have Never Been So Popular: The PG rating has become the king of the box office. The entertainment business now relies on kids dragging their parents to theaters. (Wall Street Journal)

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Wilhelm Schmid, CEO of famed watchmaker A. Lange & Söhne, the Glashütte, German watchmaker, recorded live at the Audrain Newport Concours d’Elegance.

 

As Holidays Approach, There’s Little Cheer for Consumers

Source: Bloomberg

 

Sign up for our reads-only mailing list here.

 

The post 10 Thanksgiving Day Reads appeared first on The Big Picture.

Where Do You Find The Most AI Leaders In Europe?

Corporate spending on AI is surging. So, our friends at The Big Search asked themselves a practical question: who is actually building and deploying AI inside Europe’s major consumer goods, retail and digital marketplace companies? For this analysis they identified 471 individuals, who have proven themselves as AI trailblazers.

As Statista's Mathias Brandt details below, collectively, these AI leaders represent the new generation of executives: technically skilled, commercially oriented and visibly engaged in the broader ecosystem through teaching, speaking and thought leadership on emerging AI trends like GenAI, LLMOps and ethical AI.

Across Europe, truly T-shaped AI leaders remain rare. Germany, however, has emerged as one of the strongest hubs for such talent as the Statista map shows, followed by Great Britain and the Netherlands.

You will find more infographics at Statista

As Europe’s largest retail market and a top-two e-commerce economy, Germany naturally sustains some of the continent’s most advanced in-house machine learning teams.

Berlin, in particular, concentrates on high-impact players such as Zalando, Delivery Hero, HelloFresh and OTTO Group. They’re all running mature ML platforms focused on personalization, pricing, demand forecasting and monetization.

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/27/2025 - 05:35

Revisiting Rush Limbaugh's True Story Of Thanksgiving - Now More Relevant Than Ever

The late radio host Rush Limbaugh used his 2010 Thanksgiving broadcast to remind listeners of the true story of Thanksgiving.

It's a lesson that feels especially relevant today, as the Democratic Party is being swallowed whole by radical left-wingers in the Democratic Socialists of America movement, who seek to undermine the nation from within (in what we've coined "Invisible Insurrection") and push the country into a socialist hellhole and eventually communism.

In less than 36 days, Zohran Mamdani will become the next mayor of New York City, ushering in a radical strain of the Democratic Party that blends Marxism and Islamism - a combination that does not align with Western values.

More broadly, the rudderless Democratic Party has been hijacked by radical DSA, who prioritize Marxist ideology and illegal aliens over capitalism and native-born Americans.

It's a deeply troubling trajectory for the party of unhinged purple-haired liberal-educated people that refuses to learn from history as it aims to push policies that undermine private property, restrict freedoms, and expand state-run economics and central planning - models that have epically failed around the world.

Just look at the catastrophic collapses of Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, and countless others, and these collapses have led to death and mass starvation. Yet, America's liberal college industrial complex continues to brainwash kids into a flawed way of toxic thinking. 

Back to Limbaugh's 2010 Thanksgiving broadcast. In short, he says the traditional Thanksgiving narrative celebrates cooperation and Native-American generosity. However, the early years of Plymouth Colony underscore how incentives, property rights, and institutional design shaped survival and laid the groundwork for the later celebration in the American founding.

Pilgrims tried socialism when they first landed—no private property, everything held in common. They nearly starved to death. Bradford’s introduction of capitalism and property rights saved the colony.

Ethnic and religious homogeneity didn’t save them. Freedom and ownership did. pic.twitter.com/RvoDwWOjuk

— Joel Berry (@JoelWBerry) August 4, 2025

In other words, the Plymouth Colony tried the communal property system and miserably failed. Once private-property incentives were unlocked, they enabled productivity, self-sufficiency, and flourishing in a free society. 

Perhaps Limbaugh's Plymouth Colony story should serve as yet another reminder to Democrats who refuse to learn from history simply because they've persuaded themselves that this time will be different. 

The Pilgrims tried socialism.

It nearly killed the colony

When Bradford restored private property, abundance returned.

Socialism fails because it denies human nature and God’s design. @RHelfenbein pic.twitter.com/hiFq3KNFYB

— Standing for Freedom Center (@freedomcenterlu) November 25, 2025

It would be a great story to tell the unhinged, triple-vaxxed liberal aunt at Thanksgiving.

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/27/2025 - 04:00

Alzheimer's Disease: The Most Common Neurodegenerative Disease - Here Are The Causes

Authored by Mercura Wang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive neurological disorder that gradually destroys memory, thinking skills, and the ability to perform everyday tasks. As the single most common neurodegenerative disease, it affects more than 6 million Americans—most of them age 65 or older. The disease is irreversible and fatal.

It often begins subtly—years before it’s diagnosed—showing up as everyday lapses that are easy to brush off.

Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock What Are the Early Signs and Symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease?

Alzheimer’s symptoms develop differently depending on when the disease begins.

There are generally two types: early-onset Alzheimer’s, which develops before age 65, and late-onset Alzheimer’s, which occurs afterward.

Early-onset Alzheimer’s accounts for about 5 percent to 6 percent of cases, often has a stronger genetic link, progresses more quickly, and may start with problems in thinking, language, or vision rather than memory alone, making it harder to diagnose initially.

Late-onset Alzheimer’s, which starts after age 65, typically begins with gradual memory loss and progresses slowly through predictable stages.

The following five stages describe the progression of late-onset Alzheimer’s, the most common form of the disease.

1. Asymptomatic Stage

Biological changes characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease are present long before cognitive or behavioral symptoms appear. This stage may last for years or even up to two decades.

2. Early Stage

Early-stage Alzheimer’s disease is characterized by mild symptoms that may resemble normal aging difficulties. People at this stage are typically aware of their condition and remain largely independent, able to drive, work, and engage in daily activities with minimal assistance.

Common warning signs include:

• Frequently misplacing items and being unable to retrace steps
• Confusion about time, dates, or familiar places
• Difficulty with planning or organizing
• Trouble learning new information or maintaining focus
• New challenges in finding the right words in conversation or writing
• Difficulty interpreting visual information
• Personality or emotional changes

3. Middle/Moderate Stage

This stage is marked by more noticeable symptoms. Memory and cognitive abilities continue to decline, and people often require greater supervision and assistance with everyday activities, although some mental clarity remains. This stage can persist for many years.

Common symptoms include:

• Difficulty performing daily activities, including dressing, driving, reading, or writing
• Trouble remembering recent events or important personal experiences
• Confused speech or incorrect word use
• False beliefs or hallucinations
• Mood changes, including depression, agitation, or aggressive behavior
• Withdrawal from social interactions
• Repetitive or compulsive actions
• Sleep disturbances
• Impaired spatial awareness

4. Severe/Late Stage

This stage is characterized by profound cognitive and physical impairment, requiring constant assistance with daily activities.

Common symptoms include:

• Severe memory loss, including the inability to recognize family members or familiar faces
• Loss of the ability to communicate
• Loss of bladder and bowel control
• Difficulty swallowing
• Progressive weakness and reduced mobility
• Potentially violent behavior
• Unintentional weight loss
• Recurrent infections
• Episodes of delirium

5. End-of-Life Stage

During this stage, the person is in the final months of Alzheimer’s disease and loses all functional independence. Cognitive decline is severe, requiring round-the-clock care, with a focus on palliative support and maintaining comfort and quality of life. Ultimately, the condition can lead to coma and death, often as a result of infections or organ failure.

Signs of Rapid Decline in Alzheimer’s Disease

Rapidly progressive Alzheimer’s disease is a recognized clinical subtype of Alzheimer’s distinguished by unusually fast cognitive deterioration and a markedly shorter survival. It often advances over months to a few years, with people showing steep declines in global cognition and daily functioning.

What Causes Alzheimer’s Disease?

Alzheimer’s is a complex condition resulting from multiple interacting processes in the brain. Its causes have always been considered a set of hypotheses.

A common hypothesis is that the disease involves abnormal accumulations of two proteins: amyloid and tau. Amyloid forms sticky plaques around brain cells. These plaques keep neurons from communicating, while tau forms tangles inside brain cells, blocking nutrient transport.

These protein abnormalities disrupt cell signaling, are toxic, and eventually lead to neuron death. As neurons die, brain regions shrink, with memory-related areas often affected first.

However, this hypothesis—the most well-known one—has also been implicated in research fraud and study manipulation.

In recent years, scientists have come up with many new theories:

• Neuroinflammation: In Alzheimer’s disease, brain immune cells (microglia) can become overactive, triggering chronic inflammation that damages neurons and promotes the spread of toxic proteins.
• Mitochondrial Dysfunction: Mitochondria fail to produce enough adenosine triphosphate or ATP, the cell’s energy fuel, while releasing harmful molecules that damage neurons.
• Glucose Hypometabolism: The brain becomes resistant to insulin and can’t use glucose properly—sometimes called “Type 3 diabetes“—which disrupts cell signaling and promotes toxic protein buildup.
• Gut-Brain Microbiota Axis: An unhealthy gut microbiome can trigger body-wide inflammation that reaches the brain, damages the protective blood-brain barrier, and contributes to neurodegeneration.
• Metal Imbalances: Abnormal accumulation or deficiency of metals such as copper, iron, or zinc can promote oxidative stress, protein misfolding, and neurotoxicity.
• Excess Glutamate: Overactivation of glutamate receptors (excitotoxicity) can lead to sodium and calcium overload and neuronal death, particularly in memory-related brain regions such as the hippocampus.
• Cholinergic Neuron Damage: Damage to cholinergic neurons, which produce acetylcholine—a neurotransmitter essential for memory and attention–can contribute to early cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s disease.
• Oxidative Stress: The brain’s high oxygen use and mitochondrial activity increase exposure to reactive oxygen species (ROS). In Alzheimer’s disease, excessive ROS and impaired antioxidant defenses cause lipid, protein, and DNA damage, while amyloid beta both accumulates and further promotes oxidative stress.
• Blood-Brain-Barrier Disruption: Cerebral amyloid angiopathy, a vascular pathology linked to Alzheimer’s disease, involves the deposition of amyloid-beta in the walls of small cerebral blood vessels. This impairs blood flow, disrupts blood-brain barrier integrity, and promotes neuroinflammation.
• Pathological Proteins: Misfolded amyloid-beta and over-phosphorylated tau accumulate to form plaques and tangles that disrupt synaptic function, neuronal transport, and overall brain network stability.
• Brain Structure Changes: Progressive loss of brain tissue—especially in the hippocampus and cortex—reflects widespread neuron death and worsening symptoms.

Risk Factors

Age is the strongest risk factor, with the chance of developing Alzheimer’s roughly doubling every five years after age 65. Age-related brain changes—such as shrinkage, inflammation, blood vessel damage, and impaired cellular energy—can harm neurons and disrupt the function of other brain cells. Women have a slightly higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease than men, possibly because women tend to live longer.

The risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease is approximately two times higher for black and Latino populations than for white populations.

Lifestyle and Environmental Factors

Lifestyle habits and environmental exposures play an important role in brain health and may influence the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

• Social Isolation: Social isolation increases the risk of dementia by up to 60 percent.
• Lack of Mental Stimulation: Low cognitive activity can accelerate mental decline, whereas mentally stimulating work is associated with a lower risk of developing dementia later in life.
• Chronic Stress: Chronic stress leads to prolonged elevated cortisol levels. High cortisol can damage the hippocampus, impair neuronal plasticity, promote neuroinflammation, and accelerate amyloid beta and tau pathology.
• Lack of Sleep: Poor or insufficient sleep may contribute to protein buildup. Most people benefit from six to eight hours of uninterrupted sleep each night.
• Unhealthy Diet: Diets high in processed foods, sugar, and unhealthy fats may raise the risk of Alzheimer’s disease by contributing to cardiovascular problems, reduced blood flow to the brain, and neuroinflammation.
• Lack of Exercise: Regular physical activity supports heart health, blood flow, and oxygen delivery to the brain, which helps maintain cognitive function.
• Excess Belly Fat: Excess abdominal fat, particularly visceral fat, promotes chronic inflammation, insulin resistance, vascular dysfunction, hormonal imbalances, and oxidative stress—all of which contribute to brain atrophy and cognitive decline.
• Nutritional Deficiencies: Lack of certain micronutrients—such as manganese, selenium, copper, and zinc, and vitamins A, B, C, D, and E—may increase Alzheimer’s risk. People with Alzheimer’s disease have also been found to have lower brain levels of lutein, zeaxanthin, and lycopene.
• Exposure to Pollutants: Higher exposure to fine particulate air pollution (PM2.5) is linked to more severe Alzheimer’s-related brain changes and greater dementia severity because these tiny particles can travel into the bloodstream and the brain, where they trigger chronic inflammation and oxidative stress.
• Exposure to Environmental Toxins: A 2020 review found that infections caused by viruses, bacteria, or fungi can trigger inflammation, which may gradually shrink brain tissue and contribute to Alzheimer’s disease.
• Nighttime Light Exposure: Greater exposure to outdoor light at night is linked to a higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease, especially in people under 65, because it disturbs the body’s natural circadian rhythm, increases inflammation, and weakens disease resistance.
• Smoking: Smoking damages blood vessels and reduces blood flow to the brain, with studies suggesting a 30 percent to 50 percent increased risk of dementia. Quitting smoking, even later in life, can lower this risk.

Genetics

Both types of Alzheimer’s disease have significant genetic components, although they are driven by different underlying causes, ranging from direct gene mutations to a complex mix of genetic and environmental risk factors.

• PSEN1 or PSEN2 Genes: Early-onset Alzheimer’s can sometimes be inherited, known as familial Alzheimer’s disease, caused by mutations in the APP, PSEN1, or PSEN2 genes. These mutations lead to the overproduction of amyloid beta, which accumulates into amyloid plaques in the brain.
• APOE Gene: The APOE gene is a well-known risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer’s. A 2024 study found that people with two APOE4 genes almost always showed Alzheimer’s-related brain changes by age 55, and most developed abnormal amyloid levels by age 65.

Medical Conditions and Intervention

Certain medical conditions and the ways they are managed can affect cognitive health and may contribute to Alzheimer’s disease risk.

• Certain Conditions: Diabetes, hearing loss, brain injury, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and certain infections may increase Alzheimer’s risk.
• Certain Medications: Examples include zolpidem (for insomnia) and benzodiazepines (for anxiety), as they can impair cognitive function, leading to memory loss, reduced verbal memory, and slowed processing speed.

How Is Alzheimer’s Disease Diagnosed?

There is no single test for diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease. Specialists diagnose it with about 95 percent accuracy by ruling out other conditions. Confirmation is only possible after death through autopsy. Comprehensive evaluations—including medical history, neurological exams, and other diagnostic procedures—are essential.

Assessment Methods

Several tools and evaluations help doctors assess memory, thinking, and overall brain function when diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease.

Physical and Neurological Exams

They check overall function, muscle tone, strength, vision, and hearing.

Cognitive Assessments

Brief mental status exams to evaluate memory, thinking, and concentration by using short, structured tasks that measure cognitive skills.

• Mini-Mental State Examination: Uses tasks such as identifying dates, naming objects, following simple commands, and recalling short lists
• Mini-Cog: Uses a three-word recall test and a clock-drawing exercise to assess memory and executive function
• Montreal Cognitive Assessment: Uses tasks that assess attention, memory, language, visuospatial skills, and executive function to provide a more sensitive, broad evaluation

Brain Imaging

Brain imaging tests create detailed pictures of brain structure and activity to identify changes associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

• CT Scan: Creates cross-sectional images of the brain
• MRI Scan: Generates detailed images to reveal brain shrinkage
• PET Scan: Visualizes brain activity and detects molecular changes, including brain metabolism, protein deposits, inflammation, and chemical activity

Laboratory Tests

Laboratory tests analyze bodily fluids to detect biomarkers and rule out other conditions that can resemble Alzheimer’s disease.

• Lumbar Puncture (Spinal Tap): Collects cerebrospinal fluid to assess protein levels
• Blood Tests: Measure proteins and biomarkers linked to brain changes, including early Alzheimer’s pathology
• Urinalysis: Checks for infections or other abnormalities

What Are the Treatments for Alzheimer’s Disease?

There is no cure for Alzheimer’s disease, so treatment focuses on slowing its progression, managing symptoms, and adapting the home environment to simplify daily activities.

1. Medicines

Medications for Alzheimer’s disease aim to reduce beta-amyloid protein levels in the brain and help manage behavioral issues, although their overall benefits may be modest, and some drugs remain controversial regarding safety and effectiveness. Doctors typically begin Alzheimer’s treatment with low doses and gradually increase them based on tolerance.

Medications for Mild to Moderate Alzheimer’s Disease

Medicines used in the early stages of Alzheimer’s aim to support memory, thinking, and daily functioning.

• Cholinesterase Inhibitors: These medicines may help manage cognitive and behavioral symptoms by preventing the breakdown of acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter that supports communication between neurons, although their effectiveness declines as the disease progresses. Examples include galantamine, rivastigmine, benzgalantamine, and donepezil.
• Immunotherapy Drugs: These medicines target beta-amyloid to reduce brain plaques and have been shown in early-stage patients to slow cognitive decline and lower amyloid levels. Examples include lecanemab and donanemab.

Medications for Moderate to Advanced Alzheimer’s Disease

Medicines used in the later stages of Alzheimer’s focus on easing symptoms and supporting quality of life.

• Memantine: This medicine can help reduce symptoms and allow people to maintain certain daily functions, such as using the bathroom independently, for longer. It regulates glutamate, which in excess can damage brain cells, and can be combined with cholinesterase inhibitors for added benefit.
• Brexpiprazole: This atypical antipsychotic is approved to manage agitation associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

Medications to Use With Caution

The following medications should be used only after a doctor reviews their risks and side effects, when safer nondrug options have been ineffective, and with careful monitoring by both the person with Alzheimer’s and their caregivers.

• Sleep Aids: These medicines should generally be avoided, as they can increase confusion and the risk of falls.
• Anti-Anxiety Medications: Some medicines, such as benzodiazepines, can cause drowsiness, dizziness, falls, and increased confusion.
• Anticonvulsants: These medicines can cause drowsiness, dizziness, mood changes, and confusion.
• Antipsychotics: These medicines are prescribed to treat hallucinations, delusions, paranoia, agitation, and aggression, but may have serious side effects, including an increased risk of death in some older people with dementia.

2. Cognitive Therapies

Cognitive therapies involve structured activities and strategies designed to stimulate thinking, memory, and problem-solving, while supporting daily functioning and emotional well-being.

• Cognitive Stimulation Therapy: This therapy involves engaging in activities to improve memory, language, and problem-solving skills, often in a group setting that also encourages social interaction.
• Cognitive Rehabilitation: A specialist and a support person work together to develop strategies for managing daily tasks, aiming to use healthy brain functions to support weaker areas, and to provide a sense of accomplishment.
• Reminiscence and Life Story Work: These therapies focus on long-term memories, skills, and positive experiences to boost mood and well-being. Reminiscence uses prompts such as photos or music to recall the past, while life story work creates a personal record of someone’s life.

3. Neuroprotective Herbs

Certain herbs show potential for supporting brain health and may help reduce processes linked to Alzheimer’s disease.

• Ashwagandha: The extract withaferin A may help reduce the buildup of harmful brain proteins and lower inflammation and oxidative stress. A randomized controlled trial of 40 adults with mild cognitive impairment used 250 milligrams of ashwagandha extract per day for 60 days and reported improvements in memory and attention.
• Turmeric: Turmeric contains curcumin, a natural compound with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties that support brain health. Research suggests it may help slow Alzheimer’s progression by reducing brain plaques and preventing the buildup of harmful beta-amyloid proteins.
• Sage: Sage extract may help support mood, cognition, and cholinergic function. One study tested a fixed dose of sage extract (60 drops/day) for four months in people with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease and found it effective.

4. Acupuncture

Acupuncture may help support brain function in Alzheimer’s disease at both molecular and systemic levels by improving symptoms and the brain’s microenvironment, especially when applied early. Research suggests it works through multiple pathways, including reducing beta-amyloid deposits, improving tau protein changes, and easing neuroinflammation.

A 2019 meta-analysis of 13 studies found that acupuncture can improve memory and cognitive function in Alzheimer’s disease, and in many cases, it has been more effective than conventional Western medicines, with fewer adverse effects. Despite its potential, acupuncture is not yet widely used in clinical Alzheimer’s treatment.

5. Apitherapy

Honey bee products may help support brain health in Alzheimer’s disease.

Royal jelly, a creamy substance produced by worker bees and fed to queen bees, has shown promising neuroprotective and memory-boosting effects in multiple preclinical studies by helping brain cells survive, reducing inflammation and oxidative stress, improving energy regulation, and limiting damage from harmful proteins such as amyloid-beta.

6. Emerging Treatments 

Researchers are exploring new treatments that may slow Alzheimer’s disease by targeting underlying biological changes.

• Lithium Treatment: A study published in August found that lithium levels in the brain’s prefrontal cortex—important for memory and decision-making—dropped by more than half in people with Alzheimer’s disease. A meta-analysis found that lithium treatment may help slow cognitive decline and support thinking and memory in people with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease.
• Sodium Benzoate Treatment: This common food preservative has shown potential benefits for Alzheimer’s disease by supporting cognitive function. It appears to enhance brain cell communication by preserving D-serine, a chemical messenger needed for learning and memory, and may also reduce oxidative stress, which contributes to Alzheimer’s progression.

What Are the Natural and Lifestyle Approaches to Alzheimer’s Disease?

Managing Alzheimer’s disease relies on regular social engagement, physical exercise, proper nutrition, consistent health care, and a calm, structured environment.

1. Games

Using play as an intervention strategy for people with dementia provides notable cognitive, emotional, and social benefits. A 2022 study found that caregivers observed improvements in energy levels, mood, communication, and connection through customized play activities.

2. Music

A 2023 systematic review of eight studies found that music therapy improves cognitive function in people with Alzheimer’s disease, with particularly strong effects seen in active music interventions where people participate in music-making. These findings support music therapy as a promising complementary approach. A study published in July also found that exposure to Mozart’s K.448 rhythm improved cognitive function in mice.

3. Dance

A 2019 review of 12 studies found that dancing can improve physical, cognitive function, and psychological well-being in people with Alzheimer’s disease. Most studies showed that dance either enhanced or slowed the decline in quality of life for both patients and caregivers.

4. Brain-Boosting Foods and Diets

Eating brain-supportive foods may help protect memory and overall brain health. Whole grains and legumes provide steady energy for neurons. Fruits such as berries, grapes, watermelon, and avocados supply antioxidants, resveratrol, and lycopene that protect against memory loss. Dark leafy greens and beets support circulation and reduce inflammation, while seafood and shellfish provide omega-3s and vitamin B-12 for cognitive function.

Nuts and olive oil offer healthy fats that support vascular health. Seeds such as pumpkin, sunflower, and sesame are rich in vitamin E and other key nutrients essential for brain health.

Sesame seeds, in particular, contain tyrosine, which boosts dopamine production, as well as zinc, vitamin B6, and magnesium—nutrients that help keep the brain sharp and alert.

The specific diets that people with Alzheimer’s disease may benefit from include:

• Mediterranean Diet: This diet emphasizes vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, nuts, olive oil, and frequent fish intake while limiting red meat and processed foods. It may help slow Alzheimer’s progression.
• MIND Diet: This diet combines elements of the Mediterranean and DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diets and emphasizes green leafy vegetables, berries, whole grains, beans, nuts, fish, and olive oil, while limiting red meat, sweets, cheese, butter, and fried foods.

5. Nutritional Supplements

Some vitamins and minerals may help support brain health and address deficiencies linked to cognitive decline.

• Selenium: Research shows that people with Alzheimer’s disease have lower levels of selenium in their blood compared to healthy older people.
• Zinc: Early clinical trials suggest that zinc therapy may help people with Alzheimer’s disease by lowering harmful copper levels and possibly improving cognition.
• B Vitamins: A 2022 meta-analysis of 95 studies found that vitamin B supplementation may help slow the rate of cognitive decline.

6. Aerobic and Resistance Exercises

Regular physical activity—such as walking, gardening, cooking, or playing sports—can help slow cognitive decline and may delay the progression of dementia.

Combining aerobic and strength exercises with everyday activities such as walking, dancing, and gardening supports brain health and general well-being. Try to aim for at least 30 minutes of activity, five days a week, to boost circulation and brain health.

7. Sufficient Sleep

Deep, restorative non-REM slow-wave sleep helps protect the brain against beta-amyloid. Research shows a strong connection between Alzheimer’s progression and the circadian system—the body’s internal clock that controls sleep, wakefulness, and other daily cycles. The circadian system regulates the activity of about half of the 82 genes associated with Alzheimer’s risk.

8. Meditation

Meditation may support brain health and could help prevent or even reverse cognitive decline. Research shows that people who meditate experience less hippocampal atrophy—a reduction in the size of the hippocampus, which controls memory formation, learning, and spatial navigation—and report less isolation and loneliness, which are linked to higher Alzheimer’s risk. Meditation may also improve sleep, lower blood pressure, and reduce cardiovascular disease risk, further supporting overall brain and body health.

9. Aromatherapy

Aromatherapy, which uses plant-based essential oils through inhalation or skin application, may help improve thinking and memory in people with Alzheimer’s disease, as essential oils possess neuroprotective and antiaging properties.

Several recommended essential oils include:

• Lavender: Calms mood and may reduce depression, anger, and irritability
• Lemon Balm: Eases anxiety and insomnia, and may support memory
• Ylang-Ylang: Helps relieve depression and may improve sleep
• Bergamot: Reduces anxiety, agitation, and stress, and may support sleep

10. Other Considerations

Although not treatments, these approaches play a vital role in supporting the well-being of people with Alzheimer’s disease.

• Safety and Supportive Measures: The environment should be bright, cheerful, and secure, with moderate stimulation such as a quiet TV or radio to avoid overwhelming the person. Maintaining structure and routine for daily tasks such as eating, bathing, and sleeping helps with orientation, provides a sense of stability, and can improve sleep. Regularly scheduled activities, both physical and mental, support independence and engagement, and can be simplified into smaller steps as dementia progresses.
• Long-Term Care: Specialized long-term care facilities provide trained staff, structured routines, meaningful activities, and safety features.

The progression of Alzheimer’s disease is unpredictable. On average, patients live about seven years after diagnosis, although the disease course can vary widely, lasting anywhere from one to 25 years. Most people who lose the ability to walk survive no longer than six months, but life expectancy differs from person to person.

Read the rest here...

Tyler Durden Wed, 11/26/2025 - 22:15

Domestic Military Manufacturing Is Essential For National Security

Authored by Scott Vadnais via RealClearDefense,

For nearly a century, America’s military strength has come largely through self-reliance. We not only made the ships, airplanes and tanks, our country supplied the parts and materials for these complex systems. But a lot has changed in recent times.

Unfortunately, our military has increasingly relied on sourcing parts globally -- including from possibly unreliable places like China. It’s a disastrous side effect of globalization.

For example, while modern jet engines may typically include between 30,000 and 50,000 parts, ensuring they are “China-free” has proven to be incredibly difficult. We’ve already seen deliveries of F-35s delayed over this issue, revealing that supply chain risk and delays remain in the post-COVID era. For instance, in 2022, a magnet in the turbomachine used in engine start-up was discovered to contain a China-produced alloy of cobalt and samarium – figuratively becoming a “non-starter” for using the jets.

Moreover, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report this past July entitled, “Defense Industrial Base: Actions Needed to Address Risks Posed by Dependence on Foreign Suppliers” which pretty much summed it up.

While America has inadvertently offered an Achilles Heel to potential foes, the Chinese are using the global wealth transfer to invest in its defense manufacturing base. Largely relying on intellectual property theft, also known as stealing, China is focusing on stealth design, advanced jet engines, and artificial intelligence, thereby altering the playing field.

As China has risen, America’s manufacturing sector has steadily declined, losing millions of jobs and share of global output.

China has allocated vast resources towards subsidizing and onshoring manufacturing and development of “indigenous” advanced propulsion systems, and are catching up to our military engines – challenging air superiority.

This is why appropriate investment by Congress in the Next Generation Adaptive Propulsion (NGAP) systems is essential to maintaining America’s technological and military lead.

While the U.S. Air Force has made significant investments in funding for NGAP development, it comes after stagnation in military propulsion.

In President Trump’s FY26 Budget proposal, NGAP was funded at roughly $330 million, representing a 23% decrease in funding from the previous year. Underfunding engine development puts the program at risk of significant schedule delays and cost increases. These facts lay the groundwork for a serious debate in both chambers of Congress as they look to fund our current and future military needs.

While U.S. companies are working on a prototype that will improve performance, increase range, and fuel efficiency of fighter jets, it can only grow at the pace of investment.

NGAP is designed to power the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) platform, America’s first sixth generation fighter, (now designated as the F-47). Its combination of stealth, speed and maneuverability would probably seem like science fiction to military pilots a century ago. NGAD is designed to work with unmanned Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) for air dominance. Unmanned CCA’s, perhaps the world’s most advanced drones, will fly alongside manned NGAD as a so-called “loyal wingman” and can be configured for a wide variety of missions.

While the F-47 is not expected to enter service until the 2030s, unfortunately for America, China has already introduced not one, but two flying sixth generation fighters on the same day last year. Little is known about the capabilities of the two models, but the fact that China has developed and flown two advanced fighter designs before the F-47 even put a rivet to metal should be incredibly concerning for all Americans.

For the U.S. to counter this challenge, a robust, resilient domestic manufacturing base in high-tech industries is essential. This requires not only investing in advanced manufacturing facilities but also revitalizing workforce training programs, increasing R&D funding, and fostering innovation ecosystems in key technological areas.

Though China is among our top trading partners, it’s also paradoxically among our top threats. It strongly supports North Korea, an existential threat to our allies South Korea and Japan. Meanwhile, we generously support Taiwan, which it sees as a renegade province worthy of invasion at any time. Our heavy reliance on China trade, combined with adversarial alliances is not only unwise, but also a recipe for catastrophe. Therefore, we must divorce China from our military manufacturing and supply system entirely. Either that or simply abandon our Pacific allies and do a “180” in foreign policy – a major defeat of American power.

We can and should bring more domestic manufacturing back to the U.S. through smarter policies and programs. We must strengthen investment to ensure potential adversaries do not gain a military and technological edge. Congress and President Trump ought to insist upon it.

Tyler Durden Wed, 11/26/2025 - 21:35

Taiwan Boosts Defense Budget To $40BN As President Lai Lashes Out At Beijing

Taiwan on Wednesday announced a highly significant increase to a $40 billion defense budget, which it says is necessary in response to growing Chinese military pressure and harassment.

Significantly it comes as nearby US-ally Japan is locked in a diplomatic battle with Beijing over Tokyo's increasingly vocal pro-Taiwan independence stance. China has condemned the growing 'militarism' of Japan regarding Taiwan's status.

Anadolu/Getty Images

The historic increase in the 2026–2033 defense spending plan, projected to cover the next eight years, was framed by President Lai Ching-te said as necessary to defending the island's security as a "non-negotiable".

Lai directly addressed Beijing, emphasizing that the issue is not ideological but rooted in rejecting the characterization of Taiwan as "China’s Taiwan."

Lai further cited Chinese PLA military activities, intensified propaganda operations, and increased espionage and infiltration within and around Taiwan.

The statement reasserted that Beijing’s "one country, two systems" proposal is completely unacceptable to Taiwanese society.

As previously noted, the timing also overlapped with a dispute between China and Japan after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said Japan would likely intervene militarily if China attacked Taiwan.

Beijing responded with economic retaliation and expressed anger after Japan prepared to deploy a missile system on Yonaguni Island, some 70 miles from Taiwan.

Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi, who visited the island, said the deployment preparations were moving ahead steadily. This was seen as an ultra-provocative move by Chinese officials.

China's foreign ministry has grown more and more vocal regarding Japan's staunch pro-independence stance...

This year marks the 80th anniversary of China’s recovery of Taiwan. Japan must never forget that Taiwan is China’s Taiwan.

Taiwan is none of Japan’s business. If Japan creates trouble on Taiwan, Japan will not get away with it. pic.twitter.com/3YZUeac5wg

— Mao Ning 毛宁 (@SpoxCHN_MaoNing) November 20, 2025

Likely China can't help but think that there is a US or Western hidden hand behind Japan's new boldness, especially given Tokyo has so far not backed down despite threatened measures by its top trading partner China, based on total trade value.

Tyler Durden Wed, 11/26/2025 - 21:00

"Access To Power" Has Become "Access To Energy"

By Ben Hertz-Shargel of Woods Mackenzie

As industry concerns over an AI bubble mount, the scale of data center ambitions continue to grow. As of mid-October, the US data center pipeline reached 245 GW of planned capacity, driven by a handful of enormous, speculative projects. These projects, and the renewable deals hyperscalers are signing, skew heavily toward Texas. More than a quarter of pipeline capacity targets the state, whose pipeline nearly doubled from 35 GW in Q1 to 67 GW in Q3. 

Data Center Alley gives way to Data Center Prairie  

It is conventional wisdom that for data center developers, ‘access to power’ has become the mantra. That is, the importance of fiber proximity to end customers and other data centers has been superseded by the imperative to secure power from utilities. The giga-scale campuses that have been announced this year, sited in Pennsylvania, Wyoming, and particularly West and North Texas, signal yet another pivot in strategy. Developers have increasingly given up confidence that utilities can meet their power and timeline demand and instead seek to build their own generation based on local natural resources. 

Most frequently this resource is natural gas, with a particular focus on the Permian in Texas. Pacifico Energy’s 5-GW GW Ranch, poolside’s 2-GW Project Horizon, and FO Permian’s 5-GW campus in Midland County are examples. The gas network in the US is at capacity, and building new gas generation far from supply means paying for and - perhaps more importantly for developers - waiting for new pipeline capacity. 

In some cases, it should be noted, campuses are being leveraged for their scale and solar or wind resource, such as Tract’s data center parks in Nevada and Utah, and Quantica’s Big Sky Digital Infrastructure campus in Montana. While more headlines have made about the potential for batteries to make data centers flexible assets, we’ve found that batteries are being planned much more commonly to balance renewables at large campuses and to add needed fast-ramping capacity to onsite gas. 

Distorting the capital landscape 

These mega campuses not only reflect a new siting strategy: they distort the capital landscape. The 2% of projects over US$17 billion represent 42% of overall capital deployment, with the 60% of projects below US$1 billion contributing only 8%. With questions already intensifying regarding froth in project investment and company valuations, these projects promise to drive even more froth. 

The two highest-cost projects, Project Jupiter in New Mexico (US$160 billion) and Project Kestrel in Missouri (US$100 billion), are an order of magnitude more expensive than the campuses being developed by companies like Meta and Microsoft, without appreciable increase in IT infrastructure. They are notably being funded through novel financial engineering: Their developers will be both the payers and payees of industrial revenue bonds (IRBs) issued by the local government, a contrivance that enables tax benefits. 

Betting big on onsite generation 

The new energy-chasing campuses are committing to onsite generation in a way that developers have been hesitant to in the past. Hyperscalers have been very clear that they prefer grid power, which requires less operating risk, shorter contract commitments, and no exposure to scope 1 emissions. Developer commitment to onsite generation reflects a bet either that hyperscalers urgency to deploy will overcome their concerns, or that the developer will be able to sell to a new generation of hyperscalers with greater risk tolerance and less concern for sustainability. 

The net result is that while the number of projects in the pipeline with onsite generation has increased only to 10%, these projects represent a whopping 34% of pipeline capacity.

Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of sites are in Texas, and the technology is gas turbines. 

This trend could have significant implications for both energy affordability and reliability. Whether on- or off-grid, projects with utility-scale gas generation will increase gas burns, competing with LNG exports and raising the long-term price of natural gas. This will drive up both gas and electricity bills across the country. To the extent to which turbine-based projects are off-grid, utilities will have an even harder time obtaining turbines given production limitations. That could pose reliability challenges for on-grid load growth, including electrification. 

Whether or not a bubble bursts, these affordability and reliability challenges are likely to provoke state intervention to protect customers. As that begins happens, all bets are off. 

Tyler Durden Wed, 11/26/2025 - 20:35

Thanksgiving Is Now One Of America's Most Dangerous Holidays, New Analysis Shows

Insuranceopedia reviewed national datasets from the NSC, FEMA, NFPA, NHTSA, and the CDC to analyze accident trends surrounding Thanksgiving. The results show that Thanksgiving surpasses Christmas, Memorial Day, and even the Fourth of July in several key danger categories.

• Thanksgiving is the most dangerous U.S. holiday for fires, with a 388% spike in home fires.

• Thanksgiving week car crashes killed 2,525 people from 2020–2024, more than any other major holiday.

• 40% of all injuries on Thanksgiving Day come from structural fires.

“Most people think of Thanksgiving as a low-risk holiday, but the data paints the opposite picture," Says Max Coupland, CEO of Insuranceopedia.

 "Between rushed travel, long cooking hours, and unfamiliar foods around curious pets, it’s a perfect storm for accidents. Our goal is to help families stay safe and avoid the kinds of claims we see spike every November.”

1. Thanksgiving Driving Is Deadlier Than Any Other Major Holiday

Thanksgiving travel may feel routine, but the numbers tell a different story:

• 2,525 people were killed in car crashes over Thanksgiving week from 2020–2024 — higher than Christmas, Labor Day, July 4th, and Memorial Day. (Source: National Safety Council)

• 36% of all Thanksgiving week traffic fatalities involve a drunk driver. (Source: NHTSA)

• 8% of all annual car accident injuries occur during Thanksgiving week alone. (Source: National Safety Council)

Experts say the deadly combination of alcohol, rushed travel, and congested roads makes Thanksgiving week uniquely hazardous.

Driving Safety Tips For Thanksgiving

• Give yourself extra time so you don’t feel pressured to speed.

• Stay overnight or limit alcohol consumption.

• Avoid distractions and focus fully on the road.

• When possible, avoid peak travel times during the most dangerous days of Thanksgiving week.

2. Thanksgiving Is the No. 1 Day of the Year for House Fires

Thanksgiving isn’t just the biggest cooking day of the year — it’s also the most dangerous.

• Thanksgiving Day sees an average of 1,500 reported fires — 388% higher than the daily average. (Source: NFPA)

• 1,446 home cooking fires were reported on Thanksgiving Day 2023 alone. (Source: NFPA)

• 40% of all Thanksgiving Day injuries come from structural fires. (Source: FEMA USFA)

• Residential fires on Thanksgiving cause five deaths each year on average. (Source: FEMA USFA)

• Most incidents happen between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m., during meal prep. (Source: FEMA USFA)

The #1 cause of fires on Thanksgiving? Unattended cooking.

Fire Safety Tips For Thanksgiving

• Stay in the kitchen while cooking, especially when frying or simmering.

• Keep kids and pets away from hot surfaces and kitchen tools.

• Test smoke alarms before starting holiday meal prep.

• Keep floors clear to avoid dangerous slips while handling hot items.

• Ensure cords from appliances aren’t dangling or accessible to children or pets.

3. A Hidden Danger: Food Poisoning from Mishandled Turkey

Foodborne illness spikes every Thanksgiving, and improper turkey preparation is a major culprit.

• 78% of people rinse their raw turkey, spreading bacteria around their sink and countertops. (Source: CDC)

• Even after cleaning, 14% still have lingering contamination in or around the sink. (Source: CDC)

Food Safety Tips For Thanksgiving

• Thaw the turkey far enough in advance and cook thoroughly.

• Refrigerate leftovers within 2 hours.

• Cut large portions into smaller pieces so they cool safely.

• Eat leftovers within 3–4 days, or freeze them.

• Always reheat leftovers to 165°F (74°C).

"Thanksgiving should be a time for connection, not catastrophe." Says Max Coupland.

 "A few simple precautions can prevent the kinds of accidents that turn a celebration into an insurance claim. The goal isn’t to scare people, it’s to help families enjoy the holiday safely and avoid unnecessary risks.”

Tyler Durden Wed, 11/26/2025 - 20:10

Did Rubio 'Neo-Con' Trump's Ukraine Peace Plan?

Authored by Daniel McAdams, Executive Director of the Ron Paul Institute,

Lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas; lie down with neocons, you wake up with wars.
–Me

So goes President Trump’s 28 point peace plan to end the Russia/Ukraine war. Revealed at the end of last week, the plan initially received a cautious but cautiously optimistic reception in Moscow.

It was hardly a dramatic tilt toward the Russian position. Many of the plan’s points ranged from the implausible to the bizarre. For example the idea that President Trump would be crowned some sort of “peace czar” overseeing the deal, and that Russia would agree to use its seized assets to rebuild Ukraine. Then there is the one that Russia should accept a demilitarized “buffer” zone taking up a good chunk of Donetsk (which itself would be “de facto” part of Russia but not de jure – and thereby subject to the vicissitudes of Western electoral politics). And of course there was the part where the US would share the “profits” from Russia’s paid reconstruction of Ukraine.

Very Trumpian, very weird.

Nevertheless the flawed plan (in terms of Russian acceptance) dropped like an atom bomb on the US neocons and their European counterparts. Trump’s peace plan was “entirely dictated by Putin,” the UK Independent breathlessly tells us. Yes, that is how propagandistic the western mainstream media really is. And suddenly we are back to Russiagate and accusations the Trump is acting as Putin’s puppet – or at least stenographer.

At the political level, EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas pretty well summed up the level of delusion among the European elite: “We have not heard of any concessions from Russia. If Russia really wanted peace, it could have agreed to an unconditional ceasefire a long time ago.’”

Yes, Kaja “Sun Tzu” Kallas. Military history teaches us that every army making rapid gains on the battlefield periodically pauses to make concessions to the losing side. Otherwise it wouldn’t be fair and not everyone would get a trophy.

President Trump’s demand that Ukraine’s acting president, Zelensky, accept the terms by Thanksgiving or face a cut-off in US military and intelligence assistance put the Europeans and US hawks in panic mode. It appeared Trump was finally tired of playing Hamlet after the framework he presented in Alaska in August was agreed upon by Russia and then abandoned by Trump himself after receiving an earful from said Europeans and US neocons.

This time, by golly, Trump was finally going to step up and end a conflict nearly a year after he promised to end it 24 hours.

And then Rubio walked in.

The one lesson Trump 2.0 did not learn from Trump 1.0 is that the personnel is the policy, particularly with a president who appears uninterested in details and disengaged from complex processes. Trump 1.0 was dragged down by neocon albatrosses John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, among others.

Even a Col. Douglas Macgregor brought in in the 4th quarter at the two minute warning to throw a “Hail Mary” pass to get us out of Afghanistan was tackled behind the line of scrimmage by Robert O’Brien, Trump’s final National Security Advisor and neocon dead-ender.

Neocons are wreckers. That’s the one thing they are good at.

The inclusion of new blood in the person of Vice President Vance ally, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll – who supplanted terminally clueless Trump envoy Keith Kellogg – offered the promise that finally the realist faction in the shadows of the Trump Administration would have their shot.

Then the rug was pulled. Again.

Rubio jetted off to Geneva to help lick the wounds of the European “leaders” who are dedicated to fighting the Russians down to the last Ukrainian.

Politico lets us in on what happened next, in a piece titled, “Rubio changes the tack of Trump’s Ukraine negotiations after week of chaos.”

Before Rubio showed up in Switzerland, it largely felt like Vice President JD Vance, via his close friend Driscoll, was leading the process. By the end of the weekend, Rubio had taken the reins because the conversations became more flexible, the official said.

“Flexibility” means that we are back to square one, with a reversion to the Kellogg/Euro view that the side winning a war should unilaterally freeze military operations in favor of the losing side.

Politico continued:

Rubio’s participation in the talks produced much more American flexibility, the four people familiar with the discussions said. Rubio told reporters on Sunday night that the aim is simply to finalize discussions ‘as soon as possible,’ rather than by Thanksgiving.

That loss of momentum and destruction of the sense of urgency means we have returned to the endless bickering of the eternally deluded voices who even in the face of rapid recent Russian advances believe that Ukraine is winning – or could win with a few hundred billion more dollars – the war against Russia.

Never mind the golden toilets. Suddenly that’s out of the news.

At the end of the day, all the drama changes little. As President Putin himself said while meeting with his own national security council (h/t MoA):

Either Kiev’s leadership lacks objective reporting about the developments on the front, or, even if they receive such information, they are unable to assess it objectively. If Kiev refuses to discuss President Trump’s proposals and declines to engage in dialogue, then both they and their European instigators must understand that what happened in Kupyansk will inevitably occur in other key areas of the front. Perhaps not as quickly as we would prefer, but inevitably.

And overall, this development suits us, as it leads to achieving the goals of the special military operation by force, through armed confrontation.

In other words, Russia is happy to achieve its objectives through negotiation, which would save lives and infrastructure especially in Ukraine. But it is also willing to continue its accelerating push to achieve those objectives militarily. And no fever dreams of war with Russia from the likes of former NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen is going to change that.

Marco Rubio is a pretty bad Kissinger, and Kissinger was bad enough. At some point – and that point may have now passed – the Russians are going to rightly conclude that they have no negotiating partner in a US still dominated by people like the former Senator from Florida whose first love is regime change in Venezuela and Cuba.

Whatever the case, Trump should be pretty miffed that Marco threw a spanner in what would have been a world record, unprecedented, universally-praised, like-nothing-the-world-has-ever-seen, solving of NINE wars in just his first year in office!

Tyler Durden Wed, 11/26/2025 - 19:45