Huawei CEO Accuses U.S. Over Overstating Its Chipmaking Capabilities

In an interview with China’s state-run People’s Daily, Huawei’s founder, Ren Zhengfei, downplayed his company’s chip technology and accused the US of overstating its capabilities as trade talks between Washington and Beijing continue, according to FT.

Ren said Huawei’s Ascend chip, China’s main alternative to Nvidia, “still lags behind the US by one generation” and added: “The US has exaggerated Huawei’s capabilities — we’re not that strong yet.”

His comments follow Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s recent concerns about Huawei’s advances in AI chips, claiming that US export restrictions have fueled a “formidable” competitor challenging America’s AI leadership.

FT writes that trade discussions between the US and China began Monday in London, with export controls on key tech now on the table. During the first round in Geneva, these controls weren’t discussed, but Beijing’s export curbs on rare earths essential for car manufacturing have since drawn attention.

Huawei has benefited from the US ban on Nvidia chip shipments, as Chinese tech giants now buy more Ascend chips. However, most Chinese AI firms, including DeepSeek, still prefer Nvidia chips for training large language models.

Analysts and Huawei engineers have previously noted technical challenges with Ascend chips, especially in distributing workloads for AI training. On Tuesday, Ren suggested Huawei was improving, saying cluster computing could help offset performance issues: “Using clustering and stacking, our computing results are comparable to the world’s best,” he said.

Huawei’s new CloudMatrix 384 AI server aims to rival Nvidia by linking 384 AI processors with Huawei’s optical tech. Some customers are already testing the server, though challenges remain with heat and weight, said a source involved in testing. One key challenge is building “an ecosystem” of developers, since Nvidia’s Cuda software is widely preferred.

Ren said Huawei spends Rmb180bn ($25bn) annually on R&D, with Rmb60bn on basic research. He noted China’s strengths in infrastructure: “AI depends on abundant electricity and advanced network infrastructure,” he said. “China’s power generation and grid systems are world-class. Our telecoms infrastructure is the most advanced in the world.”

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/11/2025 - 19:20

Foreign Nationals Charged With Intent To Distribute $5.5 Million In Methamphetamine

Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Federal authorities in Southern California filed a complaint charging three foreign nationals with conspiring to distribute nearly four tons of methamphetamine, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a June 5 statement.

Suspected methamphetamine allegedly discovered in San Diego County, California, on June 2, 2025. Courtesy of San Diego County Sheriff’s Office

Erick Arriola, 27, from El Salvador, and Mexican nationals Baltazar Rodriguez Reyes, 49, and Eugenio Lizama, 35, were charged with possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine and conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine. They face a minimum of 10 years in prison.

According to federal prosecutors, Arriola is a felon convicted of DUI, battery of a spouse, and false imprisonment.

In the complaint, federal authorities allege that on June 2 at about 7 p.m., the men were moving bundles from a large semi-truck into two white panel vans and a white Ford F150 truck as they were parked in a parking lot on Otay Mesa Road in San Diego County, approximately three miles north of the Otay Mesa Port of Entry on the U.S.–Mexico border.

Once the loading was complete, the three defendants allegedly drove in separate directions before Border Patrol agents apprehended them. Two of the vehicles drove to a motel in San Ysidro. The third drove to a motel in Chula Vista, according to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office.

Authorities seized a total of 61 bundles of suspected methamphetamine weighing more than 7,700 pounds and valued at about $5.5 million.

Attorneys for Arriola, Reyes, and Lizama could not be reached.

The seizure is the largest so far by the new Homeland Security Task Force San Diego, which was established by President Donald Trump’s executive order signed on his first day in office.

The executive order, “Protecting The American People Against Invasion,” requires the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department to establish Homeland Security Task Forces in every state to eliminate cartels, foreign gangs, transnational criminal organizations, and drug and human trafficking.

The Homeland Security Task Force San Diego identifies and targets transnational criminal organizations involved in drug trafficking, money laundering, weapons trafficking, human trafficking and smuggling, homicide, extortion, and kidnapping.

“As a founding member of HSTF in San Diego, I’m thrilled to be working alongside our partners who have also committed resources to combatting transnational crime,” Shawn Gibson, special agent in charge for the task force, said in a statement. “Cases under the HSTF will be a priority for me and staff as we all will continue to work together to secure our border and keep our communities safe.”

The case was investigated as part of Operation Take Back America, a federal initiative by the Justice Department that will, in part, support Homeland Security Task Forces.

“The recent formation of Homeland Security Task Force San Diego is an essential step to fulfilling the promises of Operation Take Back America,” U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon said in a statement. “Our Office will fully support these enhanced law enforcement partnerships to ensure the safety of our community.”

This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Kyle Martin from the U.S. attorney’s recently created Narcoterrorism Unit.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/11/2025 - 18:55

California Public Schools Are Losing Kids While Special Interests Profit

New numbers from the California Department of Education show a continued drop in public school enrollment in the 2024–2025 school year. Despite fewer students, TK-12 education spending continues to increase, begging the question of whether taxpayers are getting value for money.

The 5.8 million students counted for the just-concluded school year represents a reduction of 31,000 from 2023–2024 and 380,000 (or 6 percent) from before the pandemic. But the drop in traditional public school enrollment is even worse than these headline numbers suggest. The totals include charter schools which added 75,000 students since the 2018–19 school year.

Netting out charters yields an enrollment drop of 8 percent, and this is despite the fact that a new grade, Transitional Kindergarten, was added during the period.

However, as Marc Joffe reports for The Epoch Times, the declining student population required much more taxpayer money. According to state budgets, total K-12 educational funding rose from $97.2 billion in 2018–19 to $133.8 billion in 2024–25. That represents a 10 percent increase even after adjusting for inflation. And that only represents operating costs. Voters approved over $40 billion in local K-12 school bonds last year as well as a state school bond which will provide matching funds for school construction.

While some capital expenditure is needed to renovate older school buildings, we should rarely need to add new buildings in this time of declining enrollment. Yet California continues to build new schools, sometimes at staggering cost. In Los Angeles County, a new 31-acre facility replacing Compton High was recently completed at a cost of $225 million to accommodate about 1,400 students. In Alameda County, Dublin Unified’s new Emerald High School is costing $374 million. Although the school has a capacity of 2,500 students, it remains to be seen how much of that capacity will be used.

To save money, districts suffering declining enrollment should consolidate low-attendance schools, but school closures often meet heavy stakeholder resistance. In the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) alone, three dozen schools saw enrollment fall below 200 between 2018–19 and 2024–25, making them good candidates for consolidation.

But when asked about school consolidation, LAUSD’s Board President said, “I’m kind of fearing talking about it, because people are just going to go berserk,” according to education news website The 74.

That’s unfortunate, because low enrollment schools cannot spread their fixed costs such as administrator salaries and utilities across a large number of students, and because they lack the critical mass to offer sports and other extracurricular activities.

California’s high education spending does not produce strong learning outcomes. Despite per pupil expenditures well above the national average, California fourth and eighth graders perform below the national average on standardized math and reading exams. Utah outperforms California on all national comparisons even though its per pupil spending is 45 percent lower, and even Mississippi, America’s poorest state, is outperforming California on some of the tests.

Instead of helping students, California’s extra education spending seems to mostly benefit special interests such as unions, contractors, election consultants, and financial intermediaries.

While we normally hear about teacher unions, other categories of school employees have their own unions. At LAUSD, administrators, financial analysts, and even playground aides all bargain collectively and pay union dues. Unions have an incentive to maximize their membership (and thus their dues revenue), so they naturally oppose reforms that might lower headcounts or constrain employee compensation.

As a result, California’s overinvestment in school infrastructure is actively supported by a complex of service providers seeking to improve their bottom lines. Election consultants poll voters and craft ballot language to maximize the odds of school bonds. Financial advisors, bond underwriters, and construction contractors often contribute to school bond campaigns, thereby increasing their chances of getting new business.

Indeed, the California school construction industry has its own lobbying group in Sacramento, ironically named CASH, short for the Coalition for Adequate School Housing, which was involved in passing last year’s state school facilities bond measure, Proposition 2.

While unions and construction advocates couch their advocacy in terms of what’s good for pupils, the facts are clear: California is spending a lot of money to provide a middling education to a dwindling number of public school students.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/11/2025 - 18:30

House Passes Bill To Remove Noncitizen Voting In District Of Columbia

Authored by Jackson Richman via The Epoch Times,

The House of Representatives passed two bills on June 10 to repeal District of Columbia laws on policing and noncitizen voting.

The first would prohibit noncitizens from voting in local District of Columbia elections.

It passed with 266 members voting in favor of it, 148 voting against, and one member voting “present.”

The second would give Washington police officers collective bargaining rights and restore the statute of limitations for police disciplinary cases.

It passed with 235 votes in favor, 178 against, and one “present.”

Under the “home rule,” Congress has ultimate authority to review laws made by the District of Columbia’s local government.

The voting-related bill would repeal the Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2022, which allowed noncitizens to cast their ballots in local elections in the nation’s capital.

Introduced by Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas), 56 Democrats voted for it. All Republicans voted for it.

“It’s common sense: Only American citizens should be able to vote in U.S. elections!” Pfluger wrote on X.

However, Rep. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) said that the bill is misguided.

“Republicans introduced 26 bills or amendments to change local D.C. voting laws, including 14 to prohibit noncitizens from voting in D.C. or to repeal, nullify or prohibit the carrying out of the local D.C. law that allows residents who are not citizens to vote in local elections last Congress,” she said in a statement.

“Yet Republicans refuse to make the only election law change D.C. has requested: making D.C. a state so that it can hold elections for voting members of the House and Senate.”

Meanwhile, 30 Democrats voted in favor of the police bill. Four Republicans—Reps. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), Tom McClintock (R-Calif.), Scott Perry (R-Pa.), and Chip Roy (R-Texas)—voted against it.

“The Metropolitan Police Department is facing a public safety crisis brought on by reckless policies that have stripped officers of basic protections and left the force dangerously understaffed,” the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.), said in a statement. 

“This legislation helps right that wrong by giving MPD the tools and support they need to recruit, retain, and protect.

“Congress has a duty to ensure our nation’s capital is safe, and today’s vote sends a clear message: we back the badge, and we refuse to let violent crime take over D.C.”

Norton said in a statement that the bill “overrides the longstanding wishes of the D.C. police department” as “for at least a quarter century, the D.C. police department had requested increased authority to discipline officers for misconduct.”

On June 11, the House will vote on another D.C.-related bill, the District of Columbia Federal Immigration Compliance Act, which would eliminate the district’s status as a sanctuary city and therefore require it to comply with federal immigration officials when it comes to dealing with those in the United States illegally.

An exception is made for illegal immigrants who come forward as victims of, or witnesses to, criminal offenses or report someone to the Department of Homeland Security who is in the country illegally.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/11/2025 - 18:05

Zelensky's Refusal To Compromise Will Lead To More Territorial Losses: Russian Negotiator

While this should come as no surprise to observers of the Russia-Ukraine war, the Kremlin has put Kiev on notice that its continued unwillingness to compromise at the negotiating table will only lead to more and permanent territorial losses.

This was the latest warning conveyed by Russian Presidential Aide Vladimir Medinsky, who has been leading the Russian delegation in Istanbul talks.

Vladimir Medinsky, via TASS

He actually spoke to The Wall Street Journal, conveying the warning, while making clear that Russia will never relent until Putin's war aims are achieved, and defense of Russia's sovereignty and stability can be assured.

The WSJ interview began as follows:

Now, Vladimir Medinsky is drawing on his view of history again as he tries to convince Ukraine that it would be better off unwinding its integration with the West and embracing Moscow’s terms for peace.

“With Russia, it’s impossible to fight a long war,” Medinsky said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, citing Russia’s 21-year war with Sweden in the 18th century as evidence that the country prevails in protracted fights.

"We want peace," he continued. "But if Ukraine keeps being driven by the national interests of others, then we will be simply forced to respond," he added.

That's when Medinsky also "warned that a lack of compromise from Kiev would only lead to more territorial losses," WSJ wrote.

As yet, Ukraine's President Zelensky hasn't so much as offered recognition of Crimea as Russian territory, and certainly he's far away from saying the same of the annexed territories in the Donbass, where some fighting still exists.

This week it's become clear that Russian forces are advancing into Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, which is a first in the three-year-plus long war, marking a significant territorial escalation amid stalled peace talks.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the advance serves as a warning to the Zelensky government to accept "realities on the ground." Medinsky's words given to a major American publication are clearly another major warning along the same lines.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/11/2025 - 17:40

Inflation Highest In Democrat States, Lowest In Republican Deep South

For much of 2025 we have been mocking the University of Michigan survey, and especially its short and long-term inflation expectation question, for the simple reason that the divergence between republican and democrat respondents is no longer merely grotesque but is a caricature of Goebbelsian propaganda, meant to spark fear that runaway inflation is coming and crash markets (even as today's CPI showed - again - it isn't).

But maybe we were wrong all along, and Democrats - who by definition live mostly in Democratic states - are indeed experiencing higher inflation. 

According to a geographic analysis of price trends from Bloomberg, while the overall US inflation rate rose 2.4% in May from a year earlier, sharp geographic divergences remain. Indeed, bicoastal inflation in the predominantly Democratic states along the East and the West coasts of the country were generally above the US average, and far above Republicans strongholds like flyover states and the deep south.

The inflation rate in West Coast states was at 2.8% in May: in the illegal-alien bastion of Los Angeles metro area the rate was 3%, and it was even higher, at 3.8%, in San Diego. The rate fell to 3.4% in the Democratic stronghold that is New York City from 3.9% in April but is still among the highest by metro area. 

Meanwhile, in mid-Atlantic states along with New England states, inflation was at 2.8% in May. East Coast prices are being driven largely by housing and rent. Meanwhile, the lowest rate in the country - by a relatively wide margin at 1.4% - was in the West South Central region, which includes Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas. Inflation between the regions with the highest inflation is twice as high as the parts of the country with the lowest price growth, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics figures.

In other words, another fringe benefit of voting in Democrats every election is having to pay much higher prices for, well, everything. 
 

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/11/2025 - 17:15

Tribalism, Neo-Feudalism And The Vise Of Technology In The Age Of Hyper-Acceleration

Authored by Mark E. Jeftovic via bombthrower.com,

“In the future there will be only one occupation: managing one’s wealth.

…and most people are going to be unemployed.”
— Mark E. Jeftovic, ‘The Great Bifurcation’

It’s been a minute since I last wrote anything here, owing to a combination of a slightly heavier than usual travel schedule, and frankly, burnout, after that last Canadian election.

I’ve truly underestimated the gullibility of the Canadian public – after being predictably on-track for a massive pendulum swing to a Conservative super-majority from 10 years of Liberal policies demolishing Canada, the entire dynamic reversed and was nullified within a few short weeks by the entire “Elbows Up” mind-fuck.

The irony behind all this is that the public largely switched their vote for the candidate Donald Trump wanted to win because of their own Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Watching it from the outside was demoralizing.

(Steve Bannon told me before the election that Trump’s “51st State” riffs were done on purpose to get the libs re-elected and Trump himself took a victory lap afterwards – Canadians were had. Why? Because the Americans want Alberta, and they think they’ll get it through de facto economic or political integration within a few years after #WEXIT happens).

We’ll see how long this administration lasts – nominally a minority, but functioning as a quasi-majority, and already introducing truly horrific legislation like Bill C-2, the Strong Borders Act – which is more of a mass surveillance and war on cash bill than anything else.

The number of Canadians who now feel politically homeless is at an all-time high. The rapidly waning productive class of society watches, unable to intervene – as insular technocrats implement overtly destructive policies (i.e 865,000 new immigrants admitted YTD into an economy that squeaked out 8,800 new jobs) and seem to be intentionally cultivating divisiveness and polarization.

Why am I surprised?

When I look back on my own writings, and my overall theory that the era of nation state primacy is coming to an end, that the single most impactful phenomenon driving the world today is the accelerating rate of change,  it was naive of me to expect anything different.

We’re moving from the top-down, centralized model of a hierarchical Industrial Age  and transitioning into an amorphous and mercurial, rapidly shifting, network topology that blurs the lines between sovereigns and systems, crowns and corporations, that serves as a super-conductor for data, information, and memetic constructs – not to mention: disinfo, bad news and mass formation psychosis.

Add to this mix, AI – the third major technological disruption of this century after the internet (decentralized non-state communications) and Bitcoin (decentralized non-state money).

Via Tamarack.ai blog

Now we have decentralized, non-state intelligence and I mean intelligence in a number of ways, including:

• access to the sum total of human knowledge, instantly and at effectively zero marginal cost.
• each individual possessing the means, motive and opportunity to create their own personal think-tanks, advisory boards and even “spycraft”-style intelligence services using osint and agentic AI that can act strategically and agentically on anybody’s behalf (servitor swarms, if you will).
• every node, device, piece of software and  network connected “thing” having the ability to access and act on information from everything else.

There’s a sub-cult of Bitcoin maxis who actually welcome outcomes like the aforementioned Canadian election because they think having nations run by the most out-of-touch, behind the curve technocrats will hasten the collapse of the fiat money era and bring about a Bitcoin Standard. They are awaiting a kind of monetary eschaton – and they are called accelerationists.

I am not an accelerationist, but you may have noticed I have been writing a lot about this but find the word itself being inadequate to the task – what’s happening now is beyond acceleration. In physics, there is a derivative order and their ascension forms a kind of kinematic spectrum:

I’ve been trying to come up with a word that captures this accelerating acceleration that’s a bit sexier than “jerk” – and this exponentially intensifying derivative expansion beyond “snap”, “crackle” and “pop” (oh those nerd physicists) – so far I can really only make something up (actually, it was the best chatGPT could think of): tachyosis (tachy- = fast, -osis = condition/process), to wit:

Tachyosis (n.)
A state of recursively compounding acceleration — where systems evolve faster than they can stabilize, perception fragments, and causality begins to blur. Considered the experiential threshold of the kinematic continuum.

“Civilizations in tachyosis cease to distinguish between signal and noise — they become pure velocity.”

This seems to fit the bill, and I like it because the word is reminiscent of “psychosis”, which is what a society undergoing this induces at a mass level.

What tachyosis does to society

While we know what happens during hyper-inflations, technological quantum leaps or breakdowns in the social contract – as separate phenomenons. If you follow Ray Dalio, he’ll tell you that the USA is following a template outlined his own research putting squarely on the path to Civil War –

“That template led me to believe that there was a high chance of a convergent breakdown of the monetary order, the domestic political order, and the international geopolitical order. Unfortunately, events are transpiring consistent with that template. “

But with all due respect to Mr. Dali, his framework only covers two of the three drivers we’re looking at here: it’s missing compounding affects of technological overclocking, and there are no history books to describe all three of these forces hitting an inflection point at the same time  and all over the world.

The Rise of Tribalism

As societal institutions break down the economy enters a state of perpetual disruption, people start forming associations with like-minded individuals and families, both in their own communities and remotely.

Tribes may overlap with geopolitical boundaries but their center of gravity is what it stands for, not the political unit they may (for a moment) intersect with.

Woke, MAGA, AnCaps, BLM, Proud Boys, MS-13, Bitcoin, and Scientology are all examples of tribes now, regardless of what they started out as. Some with more staying power than others. But they will all acquire more relevance and gravitas in their members’  lives than their nation state citizenship. Why? Because no nation state can keep up with the process of tachyosis, while tribes are informed by it.

(To that end, there’s a new tribe forming for politically homeless Canadians over at Ready.ca)

Neo-Feudalism & The Vise of Technology

By this, I mean the effect this technological hyper-acceleration is having at both ends of your own personal lifespan.

If you have kids under the age of 30, especially if they’re under the age of 20 – their path forward will be very different from all those who came before.

Put bluntly: they probably won’t have jobs, much less careers. The time for each generation accumulating their own wealth and building personal fortunes will be – for most participants – over.

Your kids, your grandchildren and beyond, (hold that thought) would do better to be raised in preparation for maintaining the wealth and managing any assets you leave to them. Anybody who doesn’t inherit anything faces a real risk of being permanently priced out of the asset acquisition game in perpetuity.

Especially if they follow the path laid out in Industrial Age textbooks: go to school, then university, then go find a job with a big company and parlay that into a series of mid-management posts that culminate in a career and a payday. Most of those positions will have been automated away and the majority of younger generations are looking at UBI and endless leisure – so long as they spend most of their time confined to a metaverse-connected pod stacked somewhere in a 15-minute city and take up as little space and oxygen in the real world as possible.

Meanwhile, if you have managed to amass assets and a non-negative net worth, be prepared to live longer – a lot longer. 150, 160 will probably be normal for anybody under 60 or so now. That’s how fast biotech – and soon nanotech – is moving.

A number of my peer group – mostly technology and business operators in their mid-50’s to late-60’s are looking to take their chips off the table, sell the businesses they founded and retire, assuming they’ll need to clear enough money to last them another 20 or 30 years.

That could be a huge mistake because there’s a real possibility they find themselves facing the prospect of heading into their 90’s and early 100’s having outlived their retirement funds.

The old model was (again, bluntly), “Die before your money runs out.” Now, it’s not just about planning for 30 years post-retirement. Plan for a century.

Meanwhile, you’re kids won’t have careers, neither will theirs – and you’ll still probably be around to see your great- and great-great-grandchildren be born into the same post-bifurcation world.

This is the neo-Feudal aspect. Your fortune will have to be subdivided across each generation, like the fiefdoms of yore – and the only way to keep everybody living in the real world (instead of being tucked away in those pods, being intravenously fed liquid crickets and soy protein) will be to leave them with a vastly larger fortune than the one you thought was enough to get just you through retirement.

I wish I had better news than this, because the world we’re headed into – while technologically fantastic – will also be economically bleak for too many people. It’s not fair, it’s not egalitarian and there is no stopping it – short of a Tower of Babel 2.0 type event, which will be a total buzzkill in even less preferable ways.

I’ve called this scenario “The Great Bifurcation” – where the world’s middle class disintegrates and we head into a hellscape of mind-boggling wealth disparity.

Lately I’ve come to suspect that this will play out beyond the economic sphere and also occur at the level of mental abstraction (see my earlier notes about W R Clemens) – and by this I don’t mean that the “haves” will have brain chips and poors won’t (probably the other way around, if anything) – but that the underclass will be operating at a cognitive disadvantage that resembles a different species entirely.

More on that in the next piece. Jump on The Bombthrower mailing list to catch that when it drops.

One of the things we endeavour to do here at the Bitcoin Capitalist is to help you build the generational wealth that can last the rest of your own life and setup your descendants – take a one month trial today »

Mark E. Jeftovic is the founder of Bombthrower Media and CEO of easyDNS.com, a company he co-founded in 1998 which has been operating along the lines described within these pages.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/11/2025 - 17:15

'All US Bases Within Our Reach': Iran Responds To Threats From Washington

Via The Cradle

Iran’s Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh said Wednesday that Tehran will strike US military bases in the region if nuclear talks fail and Washington decides to launch an attack on the Islamic Republic. 

"Some officials on the other side threaten conflict if negotiations don't come to fruition. If a conflict is imposed on us... all US bases are within our reach and we will boldly target them in host countries," Nasirzadeh said during a press conference, warning the US to "leave the region" in the "case of any conflict."

NurPhoto via Getty Images

"We have made very good progress in defense affairs. Our operational forces are fully equipped," the defense minister added, revealing that Iran recently tested a missile with a two-ton warhead. "[If] a conflict is imposed on us, the casualties of the other party will definitely be much heavier than ours," he went on to say.

The comments came in response to escalating threats from Washington, coinciding with increased tension in nuclear talks between Iran and the US. 

When asked at a hearing of the House of Representatives on Tuesday if Washington is prepared to “respond with overwhelming force to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran,” the chief of US Central Command (CENTCOM) said he has “provided the secretary of defense and the president a wide range of options.”

US President Donald Trump said on the same day in an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier that Iran has become “much more aggressive” in nuclear talks. “They’re just asking for things you can’t do. They don’t want to give up what they have to give up,” adding that it is “disappointing” because “the alternative is a very, very dire one.”

Trump said on Monday that he was “less confident” in the ability to reach a deal. Iran has rejected a new US proposal that would significantly constrain its ability to enrich uranium, and has said it will soon put forward a counteroffer. A new round of talks is set to take place in the coming days.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to attack Iran if the negotiations fail. Israel has also drawn up plans for an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.

In a phone call between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, the US president said he is still pushing for a deal, adding that an Israeli attack on Iran would be unhelpful and is “off limits” at the moment, according to Hebrew reports. 

However, Trump has previously signaled that Israel would play a key role in any attack in the event that nuclear negotiations fail. 

Iran’s Intelligence Ministry announced recently that it has obtained thousands of sensitive documents on Israel’s nuclear program. The chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Hossein Salami, said the intel will provide Iran with an advantage if it is forced to respond to an Israeli attack. 

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/11/2025 - 16:50

GOP Rep. Green To Resign From Congress After Helping Pass 'Big, Beautiful Bill'

Authored by Rachel Acenas via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.) on Monday announced his intent to resign from Congress before his term ends.

Green, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, revealed his plans to retire after the final vote on President Donald Trump’s massive budget package that has become known as the “big, beautiful bill.”

House Homeland Security Chair Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.) speaks about U.S.-China Relations at an event hosted by the Hudson Institute in Washington on Dec. 17, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

The Tennessee Republican originally announced his intent to resign at the end of the previous Congress, but changed his mind.

Green said that he wanted to ensure that Trump’s priorities, including the border security component of the reconciliation package, made it through Congress.

The congressman said that after he retires, he'll work in the private sector for an opportunity that was “too exciting to pass up.”

His next election would have been held in 2026.

“I am grateful to Speaker Johnson and House Leadership for placing their trust in me to chair the Committee on Homeland Security, lead the effort to impeach former Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and to pass H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act, the strongest border security legislation in history to ever pass the House,” Green said in a statement. “However, my time in Congress has come to an end.”

Trump’s mega policy bill passed the lower chamber in a narrow 215-214 vote.

The bill is now under consideration by the Senate. If the upper chamber makes any changes, the House must approve the Senate’s modified version before it goes to the president to sign into law.

Green’s delayed departure could help the GOP pass the massive budget package in the House since Republicans, with their already narrow majority, needed every vote.

There will be 219 Republicans and 212 Democrats in the House when Green’s resignation takes effect.

Green, 60, has served Congress since 2019. Border security has been a key focus of his congressional tenure.

In addition to overseeing the border security section of Trump’s bill, he also led the effort on the Homeland Security Committee to write the border security section of the Secure the Border Act.

Before leading efforts on Mayorkas’s impeachment, Green led the committee through a nearly year-long investigation into the causes, costs, and consequences of the border crisis, which resulted in a five-phase report that covered the whole investigation.

In addition to leading the Homeland Security Committee, the congressman also served as a member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

“It was the honor of a lifetime to represent the people of Tennessee in Congress,” Green said. “They asked me to deliver on the conservative values and principles we all hold dear, and I did my level best to do so.”

Green previously served as an Army surgeon and in the state Senate and is from Montgomery County. During his military service, he was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.

The congressman didn’t disclose any further details about what he will do in the private sector.

A special election will be held to replace him, but the timing of that election depends on when he leaves office. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee must call a special election within 10 days of the seat’s official vacancy.

Green’s seat is expected to stay Republican as Trump won his district by 22 points in the November 2024 presidential election.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

From NTD News

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/11/2025 - 15:00

Wisconsin Breaks From CDC, Keeps COVID-19 Vaccine Recommendation For Pregnant Women

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Wisconsin’s health department is keeping in place its recommendation that pregnant women and all children receive one of the currently available COVID-19 vaccines, diverging from guidance by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A health care worker prepares a COVID-19 vaccine in an undated file photograph. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

The Wisconsin Department of Health Services said on June 4 it is continuing to recommend COVID-19 vaccination for people aged 6 months and older.

Officials also said the state’s Medicaid would keep covering the vaccine for eligible members, including pregnant women.

“The current COVID-19 vaccine was thoroughly reviewed for safety and effectiveness and continues to be an important tool in preventing severe illness and death,” Kirsten Johnson, secretary of the department, said in a statement.

The CDC in late May stopped recommending that pregnant women receive a COVID-19 vaccine. The agency also now says that healthy children should only receive one of the shots after consulting with doctors and parents.

“Their decision should be based on informed consent through the clinical judgement of their healthcare provider,” a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the CDC’s parent agency, told The Epoch Times in an email at the time.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that the previous recommendations, which said that children should receive a vaccine regardless of prior vaccination and infection, were put into place “despite the lack of any clinical data to support the repeat booster strategy in children.”

Wisconsin officials said the changes “were not made based on new data, evidence, or scientific or medical studies” and that they were keeping in place the recommendations following an independent review.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services did not return a request for comment on Wisconsin’s move.

The Wisconsin Department of Health Services did not respond when asked for evidence the vaccines prevent severe illness and death.

The current versions of the vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna, and Novavax were cleared by federal regulators in 2024 based on animal data and antibody data from humans, rather than data from human clinical trials. The CDC then issued its recommendations, which were unchanged from the advice for previous formulations.

Data from CDC systems presented to the agency’s vaccine advisers in April pegged a dose of one of the currently available vaccines as providing 21 percent to 36 percent additional protection to adults when measuring emergency department and urgent care visits, and 42 percent to 48 percent additional protection for immunocompetent adults aged 65 and up when measuring COVID-19 associated hospitalizations.

No other states appeared to react to the recent CDC updates apart from Florida, which praised the narrowed recommendations. The move “is an important advancement for parents, physicians, and children across the country,” Dr. Joseph Ladapo, Florida’s surgeon general, said in a statement. He added that “ultimately, scientific evidence dictates that the use of these products should end for all populations.”

The American Pharmacists Association said on June 9 that it was not endorsing the updated adult immunization schedule. The group said that COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy “has been proven safe and effective” and that it views pregnancy as a condition that places women at higher risk of severe COVID-19.

The group, which did not respond to a request for comment, said that it hopes future updates to the schedule are “based on scientific evidence” and that they are based on advice from the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

A subgroup of that panel said in the spring that they supported shifting the CDC’s universal recommendations for COVID-19 vaccines to a non-universal recommendation.

The panel, whose members were all later terminated by Kennedy, is scheduled to convene later in June to discuss matters including COVID-19 vaccination.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/11/2025 - 14:20

What's Brewing In Mid-Atlantic Housing Market? Canceled Listings Erupt To Five-Year High

With active listings across the Mid-Atlantic region sitting at multi-year highs, the spotlight now turns to a sharp spike in canceled home listings, potentially signaling early signs of stress beneath the surface.

According to the latest data from Bright MLS, the leading Multiple Listing Service firm in the Mid-Atlantic area, 481 listings were canceled during the week ending June 8—the highest weekly total in five years. That figure represents a 39.8% increase from the same period last year and is up 32.9% from the previous week.

"Canceled listings see a five-year record high. There were 481 canceled listings in the service area for the week, which is a 39.8% surge over last year and is up 32.9% from last week. Canceled listings were most common in the Philadelphia metro area, where canceled listings were up 60.5% compared to the same week in 2024," MLS wrote in the weekly report. 

Weekly canceled listings for MLS' coverage area. 

What's happening in Philadelphia? 

While new contracts held steady, with 6,924 signed across the region—a 2.4% increase from a year earlier—elevated mortgage rates, continued housing affordability crisis, and a potential slowdown in the economy could reflect growing uncertainty among both buyers and sellers.

Showing activity, often a leading indicator of buyer interest, has remained solid. There were 90,906 showings across the Bright MLS service area, up 2.5% from the same week in 2024, marking the third straight week of year-over-year gains. However, activity lagged in Maryland's Eastern Shore and the MD-WV Panhandle, where year-over-year showings declined.

Despite a steady pace of new contracts and showings across the region, the sudden surge in cancellations suggests sellers may be reevaluating market timing, while buyers appear increasingly cautious amid ongoing concerns over pricing and economic uncertainty.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/11/2025 - 14:00

Stellar 10Y Auction Stops Through, Sees 3rd Lowest Dealer Award On Record

After yesterday's mediocre, if solid, 3Y auction nerves were less on edge ahead of today's sale of $39BN in 10Y paper. And with good reason: moments ago the Treasury announced the result of today's benchmark auction and they were nothing short of stellar. 

The auction priced at a high-yield of 4.421%, up from May's 4.350% but down from April's "freak out" 10Y sale when the bond priced at 4.465%. The auction also stopped through the When Issued 4.428% by 0.7bps, the 4th consecutive through in a row, if more modest than last month's 1.2bps, and certainly April's 3.0bps.

The bid-to-cover was a bit on the weak side, at 2.52, down from 2.60 last month, and the lowest since February; it was also below the six-auction average of 2.59. 

The internals were solid, with Indirects almost unchanged from last month, as foreigners took down 70.6% of the auction, vs 71.2% last month. And with Directs awarded 20.5%, up from 19.9% in May and the highest since January, Dealers were left holding 9.0%, up ftactionally from 8.9% last month and the 3rd lowest on record. 

Overall, this was an impressive auction, coming at a time when the global surge in duration supply has made it very dangerous to sell debt (especially in Japan). But in the US, animals spirits are back right now, and the market is clearly buying anything and everything, which is why 10Y yields slumped to session lows, just north of 4.40% after the auction and the lowest in the past week. 

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/11/2025 - 13:23

Israel's Transfer Of Some US-Made Patriot Missiles To Ukraine Might Harm Ties With Russia

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

Israeli Ambassador to Ukraine Mikhail Brodksy said that Israel transferred US-made Patriot air defense missiles to Ukraine but was contradicted by his Foreign Ministry. They were unconvincing though so ties with Russia might be harmed after its UN envoy warned of “certain political consequences” last summer if this happened. The region has changed since then after Hezbollah chief Nasrallah was killed, Assad fled Syria, and Iran resumed nuclear talks with the US, however, so such consequences might be limited.

After all, it’s no longer realistic to countenance the scenario of Russia arming Hezbollah, finally allowing Syria to use its S-300s to defend itself from attacking Israeli jets, or providing other forms of indirect support to the Resistance in its regional proxy war with Israel that’s now practically lost. Those were always far-fetched to begin with, but now they’re less likely than ever, thus suggesting that Russia will probably just file a formal complaint and at most flirt with designating Israel as an “unfriendly country”.

Nevertheless, the second possibility can’t be taken for granted seeing as how Israel is reportedly lobbying the US to keep Russia’s bases in Syria as a counterweight of sorts against Turkiye, and the recent Trump-Bibi rift could be taken advantage of to present Putin as a more reliable partner. Moreover, Israel still doesn’t formally comply with the West’s anti-Russian sanctions, yet its leadership might finally relent if Russia officially designates them as “unfriendly”, so the Kremlin will probably tread cautiously.

The preceding insight contextualizes why Israel waited until now to finally transfer some of its US-made Patriot air defense missiles to Ukraine. Considering that the realistic range of Russia’s retaliatory options is now limited, Bibi likely calculated that the harm to bilateral ties will be manageable, ergo why Israel wouldn’t have much to lose by going through with this. As for why he did so, it might be an attempt to curry favor with US hawks, hoping that this can in turn mitigate the consequences of his rift with Trump.

This unnecessary zero-sum gamble didn’t reap any tangible dividends, however, as evidenced by the continued tensions in their ties. To the contrary, it revealed how desperate Bibi has become that he’d now risk harming ties with Russia with the expectation that this would then return Israel to the US’ good graces, which makes him look worse than before in the eyes of objective observers. The recent pressure has clearly clouded his thoughts otherwise he wouldn’t have done this.

Trump and his like-minded allies certainly took note of his calculations and might soon exploit them to the hilt, knowing as they do now how desperate Bibi has become and consequently sensing that they might now be able to extract more concessions from Israel than ever. This could take the form of getting Israel to agree to some level of Iranian nuclear enrichment as part of the deal that they’re negotiating with it instead of Israel unilaterally bombing Iran in the scenario that such a deal is reached.

Interestingly, while Israel’s transfer of some US-made Patriot missiles might harm ties with Russia, it might therefore worsen ties with the US even more if Trump makes politically unacceptable demands of Bibi after sensing how much weaker he’s become as a result of their recent rift. In response, Bibi will either capitulate at the expense of losing more support from his base, or he’ll defy the US at the expense of Israel’s national security if he goes through with bombing Iran but is then hung out to dry by Trump.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/11/2025 - 13:05

Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: 2nd Look at Local Housing Markets in May

A brief excerpt:

I’ve rearranged these looks at local data with closed sales first, new listings second and active inventory at the end.

I’ve also spelled Raleigh correctly!
...
In May, sales in these early reporting markets were down 3.9% YoY. Last month, in April, these same markets were down 1.8% year-over-year Not Seasonally Adjusted (NSA).

Important: There were fewer working days in May 2025 (21) as in May 2024 (22). So, the year-over-year change in the headline SA data will be higher than for the NSA data.
...
Many more local markets to come!

There is much more in the article.

Beijing Puts Six-Month Limit On Rare Earth Exports To US If Trade Talks Collapse Again

Finally some actual detail around what was actually agreed upon during yesterday's trade talks. 

With questions swirling about the fate of Chinese rare earth exports to the US under the "framework", the WSJ reports that China is putting a six-month limit on rare-earth export licenses for U.S. automakers and manufacturers, giving Beijing leverage if trade tensions flare up again while adding to uncertainty for American industry.

Chinese negotiators agreed to the temporary restorations of the licenses after the latest round of intense talks with their American counterparts in London, aimed at upholding an interim agreement forged in Geneva last month.

In exchange, the U.S. negotiators agreed to relax some recent restrictions on the sale to China of products such as jet engines and related parts, as well as ethane, a component of natural gas important in manufacturing plastics.

According to people who consult with senior Chinese officials, Beijing wants to keep its chokehold on the supply of such critical commodities as leverage for future negotiations and when, not if, trade relations turns sour again.  

During the London meetings, China agreed to approve rare-earth license applications for U.S. companies right away, pending the signoff of President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the trade framework. The earliest an application could be approved is within a week of the two leaders officially signing off on the framework originally established in meetings last month in Geneva.

The WSJ source noted that as China approves the applications, the US will start to drop its countermeasures, including export controls on the jet engines and ethane.

In other words, the US now has six months to create its own rare earths supply chain or else Beijing will be able to use this trump card during the next negotations. 

Trump said Wednesday that the deal with China to restore the trade cease-fire was done, subject to final approval from himself and the Chinese leader. “FULL MAGNETS, AND ANY NECESSARY RARE EARTHS, WILL BE SUPPLIED, UP FRONT, BY CHINA,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform, without giving additional details on the Chinese commitment.

China’s grip on rare-earth exports has become a key point of leverage for Beijing in trade negotiations with the U.S. In the wake of the trade truce in Geneva in mid-May that was expected to ease the flow, Washington accused Beijing of slow-walking export licenses. Beijing, in turn, blamed the Trump administration for undermining the Geneva agreement.

As part of the trade framework, the temporary rare-earths licenses Beijing is expected to start issuing immediately will mostly involve elements used in manufacturing electric vehicles, wind turbines, consumer electronics and military equipment.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/11/2025 - 12:36

The Weaponization Of Media Access Did Not Suddenly Start With Trump

Authored by Connor O'Keefe via The Mises Institute,

One of the reasons the American political establishment really hates it when Trump is president is that his administration has a tendency to bring out and exaggerate dynamics at play in Washington, DC that the establishment would prefer to keep hidden.

One such example is the weaponization of media access.

Right at the beginning of this term, Trump’s team shook things up by announcing that, going forward, they would control which journalists were allowed into White House press briefings and would determine where each would sit.

Establishment journalists did little to hide their displeasure as the administration brought right-wing news sites, podcasters, and influencers to briefings that had always been reserved for “respectable” outlets. They characterized it as Trump shattering a decades-long tradition of media independence to prop up media figures loyal to him.

The anger with Trump’s shake-up came to a head when the administration banned the Associated Press (AP) from White House Briefings after the news wire service refused to call the Gulf of Mexico by its new official name, the Gulf of America.

As a result of that ban, which has mostly held up in court, many are trying to portray the president’s approach to the press pool as a brand-new form of authoritarianism that Trump has only recently introduced to Washington.

But that isn’t true. Granting, controlling, and revoking access to official briefings, restricted government facilities, and the sites of government activities has been one of the political establishment’s favorite tools of media control for over a century.

An urban legend says that the White House press pool was formed one night in 1900 when President Theodore Roosevelt noticed a group of reporters struggling to find sources outside in the rain and invited them into the White House.

The story is likely not true. But still, the imagery of a president inviting struggling journalists in from a cold rainy night and giving them access to the White House is perfect symbolism for the government’s approach to the press. It appears benevolent and, on the surface, seems to embody the democratic principle of transparency. But by bringing certain journalists in, excluding others, and retaining the power to revoke access, the government gained leverage and control over much of the press.

Not all presidents shared Roosevelt’s approach to media control. Woodrow Wilson, for instance, was famously unwilling to engage directly with reporters. And when his administration needed to crack down on anti-war rhetoric to ensure enough of the public would accept the American entrance into World War I, Wilson used strong-arm tactics like intimidation, suppression, and even imprisonment against journalists and media figures who continued to oppose the war.

But as the years went on and Americans grew increasingly horrified by the naked authoritarianism overtaking Europe, a new appreciation for Roosevelt’s approach took root. Unlike the regimes in Berlin and Moscow, the American political class came to understand that the key to good media censorship does not lie in muzzling the media “watchdogs” but in transforming them into lapdogs.

So, in the 1950s, President Eisenhower formally established the White House press pool as it is known today. Because of limited space, an “independent” organization called the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) was tapped to formally choose the rotating roster of outlets and journalists that would get access to briefings.

But the independence of this process was an illusion because the White House had complete control over which outlets were eligible to be chosen by the WHCA in the first place. And they would charge participating media organizations hefty fees when traveling with the president on government aircraft. This is presented as a way to protect the taxpayer, but it just so happens to ensure that only a few very wealthy corporate media outlets have been able to accompany presidents on trips.

Together with the government’s seizure of the airwaves, the selective access the White House granted through the press pool gave the federal government considerable control over which newspapers and broadcasters gained prominence in the American media landscape.

But there was still room to go. During the Vietnam War, White House officials grew frustrated that American journalists were roaming the country, writing stories that contradicted what officials were saying about the progress of the war.

So in 1991, when the US again found itself in a major war, the government did the media the “favor” of granting them access to an official, government-sanctioned media center near the Iraqi border where they were fed information officials wanted the public to know. Then, occasionally, some of those journalists would get to join American troops and tour specific areas on and around the front lines.

It became clear, though, that putting strict limits on what embedded journalists could do, say, or be told was unnecessary. The thrill of getting to ride around in armored vehicles with a bunch of heavily armed guys who were both interested by and working to protect the reporters as if they were VIPs was, as Peter Van Buren put it, “seductive.”

The government discovered that granting journalists the credentials to embed with US forces was an extremely effective way to effectively control the public’s perception of the war—all while appearing to embrace radical transparency. So, the approach was used heavily in the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Sometimes, the White House has combined its pooling and embedding approach to great effect, such as in 2003 when Mike Allen—then at The Washington Post—was brought along for President George W. Bush’s secret trip to Baghdad. Or, two decades later, when Wall Street Journal reporter Sabrina Siddiqui was tapped to accompany President Biden on his secret train ride to Kyiv in early 2023.

The press dutifully wrote accounts of the trips that were more obnoxiously dramatic than anything the White House communications teams could ever get away with. But that was the point. These were publicity stunts. The journalists weren’t there to observe the trips; they were the entire point of the trips.

Today, some of the most extreme examples of weaponized access are not coming from officials in Washington but from their allies in Kyiv and Tel Aviv. The Ukrainian government has been very quick to revoke the credentials of foreign journalists when their reporting either reveals things the government wants to remain secret or debunks aspects of the regime’s official narrative. And the Israeli government has banned any foreign journalists from entering Gaza unless they’re brought in by the IDF.

So it’s ridiculous to hear the legacy media, here in the US, trying to act like Trump is breaking tradition with his use of access and accreditation to control how the media is reporting on his administration. That has been one of the hallmarks of the political establishment’s strategy for controlling the public’s understanding of current events for many decades. The only reason why they suddenly see it as a problem is because, now, they’re not the ones benefiting.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/11/2025 - 12:00

Nintendo's Switch 2 Becomes "Fastest-Selling Hardware Ever Globally" 

Goldman Sachs gaming analysts Minami Munakata and Haruki Kubota were spot on in forecasting the explosive popularity of Nintendo's newly released Switch 2, which shattered records with millions of units in sales in just four days. 

Nintendo wrote on X late Tuesday night that it sold over 3.5 million Switch 2 consoles in just four days, surpassing the original Switch's first-month sales of 2.7 million back in 2017. 

Switch 2 has become "the fastest-selling Nintendo hardware ever globally," the Japanese gaming company said. This strong sales momentum sets a strong pace toward the company's goal of 15 million units sold by March 2026. 

#NintendoSwitch2 has sold over 3.5 million units worldwide in its first four days, becoming the fastest-selling Nintendo hardware ever globally. pic.twitter.com/JNrl3Z92pv

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) June 11, 2025

"We believe sales are tracking above our shipment assumption of 3.9 mn units in the April-June 2025 quarter, and also above the initial sales pace for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 (Exhibit 1, Exhibit 3)," Munakata wrote in a note to clients earlier. 

Exhibit 1

Exhibit 3

The analysts also highlight a robust third-party game pipeline and a premium price of $79.99 for Mario Kart World as key drivers of stronger revenue... 

We focus in particular on the strong pipeline of third-party titles for the Nintendo Switch 2 (in terms of both quantity and quality), and the higher selling price for the new Mario Kart World title (US$79.99), which is above prices for previous titles in the series. We expect to see an increase in per-console revenues (from content, services, peripherals, etc.) in the transition from the Nintendo Switch to the Nintendo Switch 2, similar to that seen in the transition from the PS4 to the PS5. Our FY3/26 operating profit estimate is 15% above the Bloomberg consensus. As seen during the PS4/PS5 transition, we believe Nintendo can maintain and expand user engagement, allowing it to secure higher margins from the first year of the successor console launch compared with the previous console launch (see our report here). We make no changes to our earnings estimates or our 12-month target price of ¥14,500, and we maintain our Buy rating.

Here's the third-party game pipeline:

Nintendo shares in Tokyo have hovered near ¥12,000 over the past six weeks, with upward momentum showing signs of exhaustion.

Our reporting so far:

• Nintendo Shares Jump After Goldman Sees Switch 2 Unlocking Dormant Users

• Tariff Turmoil Delays Nintendo Switch 2 Pre-Orders; Will This Derail Goldman's Bull Call On Mario Kart-Maker

• Nintendo Switch 2 Frenzy: "Selling Out" Across US Retailers As Tariffs Won't Impact Pricing

• Goldman Thinks Nintendo's Switch 2 Will Blow Away Estimates, Sees No Supply Constraints

• "Let The Games Begin": Nintendo Switch 2 Launches With Retail Frenzy As Goldman Reaffirms Bullish Outlook

We've previously highlighted the gaming industry's long-running deflationary spiral—development costs have soared while retail prices stagnated. Now, however, an inflection point may be emerging as AAA games begin creeping toward the $100 mark.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/11/2025 - 11:40

The Cleveland Fed released the median CPI and the trimmed-mean CPI.

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, the median Consumer Price Index rose 0.2% in May. The 16% trimmed-mean Consumer Price Index increased 0.2%. "The median CPI and 16% trimmed-mean CPI are measures of core inflation calculated by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland based on data released in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) monthly CPI report".

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows the year-over-year change for these four key measures of inflation. 
On a year-over-year basis, the median CPI rose 3.5% (unchanged from 3.5% YoY in April), the trimmed-mean CPI rose 3.0% (unchanged from 3.0%), and the CPI less food and energy rose 2.8% (unchanged from 2.8%). 
Core PCE is for April was up 2.5% YoY, down from 2.7% in March.  

"Revolution", "Arbitrary Dictatorship", And CPI

By Michael Every of Rabobank

Yesterday’s UK labor market data were a clear story – and an ugly one. Yet the US NFIB survey summarized: “Although optimism recovered slightly in May, uncertainty is still high among small business owners. While the economy will continue to stumble along until the major sources of uncertainty are resolved, owners reported more positive expectations on business conditions and sales growth.” That’s still more ‘uh?’ for now.

In geopolitics, Russia warned it won’t end the Ukraine war until NATO pulls its troops out of the Baltic states. Whatever asset you look at, take a step back and think about that for a moment. 

Is that a bluff – how can you know? Does it mean the EU surrendering those states back to Russian influence – and where afterwards? That’s the end of the EU as we know it, let alone the version that breezily states it wants to expand to Moldova, next to a Russian client state, and Georgia, next to Russia itself. Or it implies a permanent state of EU-Russia hostility --the latter not with “an economy the size of Italy”, but a war economy with a purchasing power parity of $7 trillion and a world of physical resources-- with profound implications for both sides socio-politically, economically, and financially. 

Now think about what that implies for your asset again.

The US reportedly told Israel to end the Gaza war so it can try to get an Iran deal. Meanwhile, Israel attacked the Houthis by sea for the first time, seen as a warmup for Iran; and the head of US Central Command told the House Armed Services Committee he’d presented Defence Secretary Hegseth and President Trump with a "broad range of options" for military action against Iran if negotiations fail. So, keep an eye on those negotiations!

The US Ambassador to Israel stated the White House doesn’t fully back a Palestinian state under current circumstances: “Unless there are some significant things that happen that change the culture,” which are unlikely to occur “in our lifetime,” then “there’s no room for it.” Moreover, he added a Palestinian state doesn’t need to be in the West Bank/Gaza and could be created by taking territory from another country. This is as EU states such as Spain, Ireland, and France are pushing in the opposite direction, opening another transatlantic rift. It’s also as the UK, Canada, Australia, NZ, and Norway sanctioned two far-right Israeli government ministers, one of whom (the finance minister) responded by paralysing the Palestinian economy by freezing links between its banks and Israel’s.

In Asia, senior staff in the last Taiwanese administration were arrested for spying for China; and Pakistan accused India of manipulating the flow of the Indus River to disrupt its food security, against the backdrop of a potentially wobbly military ceasefire.

In geoeconomics, a federal appellate court ruled Trump’s IEEPA tariffs could continue as a full appeal will be heard at another court on July 31. US-India trade talks are reportedly going well; and the US and China agreed a “framework” to roll back recent export controls, so each side gets the key inputs recently cut off by the other - but that’s a pinkie swear not an FTA. 

Summing things up, the Financial Times op-ed from Martin Wolf talks of ‘An ever-riskier world economy’ as “Trump’s tariff war brings with it unpredictability and a consequent loss of confidence.” Fair enough. 

Yet, in recent FT fashion, it then argues the US is in the early stages of a “revolution” aimed at changing it into an “arbitrary dictatorship”, following yesterday’s op-ed from Edward Luce that the US is falling into “authoritarianism.” That will be seen as a pinkie paper swear by some. It certainly has far more significant implications than are being priced in by markets if it’s true; and for FT intellectual credibility if it isn’t.

The EU (again) proposed lowering the Russian oil price cap from $60 to $45, banning the use of the Nord Stream pipelines, and cutting another 22 Russian banks from SWIFT, demanding “an end to the war” – which Russia just made clear requires entirely different EU actions. 

Europe also placed 62.4% tariffs on Chinese plywood – which is what cynics see its flat-pack plans for strategic autonomy and replacing the US as home to reverse assets and the reserve FX are made of.

As the potential sale of ports at either side of the Panama Canal and a slew of others to a consortium led by ocean carrier MSC sees concerns it may end de facto neutral treatment for all cargo, the Federal Maritime Commission was warned by the Seafarers International Union of the risks of the growing “dark fleet” registering and flagging outside regulatory oversight. In short, the ‘level playing field’ assumption in global trade is seeing larger and larger potholes ahead.

In politics, Poland’s PM is expected to win his no confidence vote but still won’t be able to govern with the new president in place; and as France saw another teacher murdered by a pupil, and Austria a school shooting that killed 10, the government is to ban social media for under-15s.

And as riots continue in LA and a curfew is to be imposed in parts of it, a Wall Street Journal op-ed runs: ‘Tom Cotton: Send in the Troops, for Real’ arguing, “When local police can’t restore order, the federal government has a duty to do so with a show of force.” That echoes his June 2020 op-ed in the New York Times that led to a staff revolt and a political hoo-ha. Today’s call isn’t getting much attention, especially in markets. Which, to be fair, aren’t paying attention to the riots either: as Bloomberg ‘sagely’ noted yesterday, ‘these kinds of things don’t have an impact on stocks (or bonds or FX)’. 

Unless, of course, they aren’t noise against the backdrop of a globalized world order predicated on free trade and “because markets” but are a symptom of larger breakdowns and structural changes that shatter that order, and the markets based on it. 

However, you’d need to look at far more than a Bloomberg screen in an air-conditioned, first-world city-centre office to know which way those fat tail risks really lie; but that takes up valuable time in which one could be counting beans or shouting “Rate Cuts!”

On which note, Treasury Secretary Bessent was just named by Bloomberg as a likely candidate for Fed Chair. 

First, that’s a year before it’s even vacant, which is not how things used to work and suggests the risks of a Shadow Fed Chair emerging, with a remains-to-be-seen effect on markets. Second, it would be a successive switch from Treasury to Fed when we are constantly told these are sacrosanct positions which must co-ordinate but always remain fiercely independent of each other (“because markets”). Can even Bloomberg-screen readers spot a pattern there? 

However, the Bessent story has since been shot down by the White House. Yet names like former Fed member Warsh --who’s given some jaw-dropping comments on central banking of late-- and Director of the National Economic Council Hassett -- who’d meet the Trump insider loyalty test-- haven’t been.

But, relax: everything is as it ever was and ever will be, everywhere. 

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/11/2025 - 11:20

Canadian Unemployment Rate Has Now Hit 7%

Canada’s unemployment rate rose to 7% in May — its highest in over eight years, excluding the pandemic — with just 8,800 jobs added, according to the Financial Post..

Full-time employment increased by 58,000, offset by a decline in part-time work. Private sector jobs grew by 61,000, while public sector employment fell by 21,000 due to fewer temporary hires after April’s federal election.

The Financial Post writes that manufacturing lost 12,200 jobs last month, contributing to a four-month decline of 55,000. Transportation and warehousing also shed 15,000 positions. Employment grew in wholesale and retail trade, utilities, finance, and real estate but dropped in manufacturing, public administration, and accommodation and food services.

Economists say the rise in unemployment is partly due to U.S. tariffs dampening hiring, with trade-sensitive regions like Windsor (10.8% jobless rate) and Oshawa (9.1%) hit hardest. Indeed Canada noted job postings have remained steady since February but are lower in trade-impacted areas.

“The impact of tariffs shows up in the industry pattern and regional unemployment pattern,” said Leslie Preston, senior economist at Toronto-Dominion Bank. “The manufacturing sector was down 12,200, as was transportation and warehousing (-15,000).”

Preston said manufacturing has lost a total of 55,000 jobs over the past four months.

Youth unemployment reached 20.1%, reflecting the start of the summer job market. The employment rate held steady at 60.8%, with total hours worked unchanged from April but up 0.9% from a year ago. Average hourly wages rose 3.4% year-over-year.

Bank of Canada policymakers are closely watching these developments, holding rates at 2.75% last week amid inflation concerns. In a note, Andrew Grantham, senior economist with the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, said: “We expect that the gradual rise in joblessness will continue into the second half of the year, with positive developments regarding U.S. tariffs and some further interest rate cuts from the Bank of Canada required to help stabilize conditions before year-end and bring a reduction in the unemployment rate again in 2026.”

Still, economists said the larger trend of the rising unemployment rate could mean further rate cuts by the Bank of Canada during the second half of this year, with the jobless rate expected to peak above seven percent.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/11/2025 - 11:00