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Site: Zero Hedge

Highs And Lows

2 days 14 hours ago

Author: Tyler Durden

Highs And Lows
By Elwin de Groot, head of macro strategy at Rabobank

Highs and Lows

Bond yields were up some 5 basis points globally whilst the euro made a slight reversal after having pushed for a near high of 1.15 as the ECB concluded its press conference. From a ‘low’ inspired by 50% tariffs on US steel and aluminium imports going ‘live’ earlier this week and growing concerns about the US economy and the labor market, sentiment in financial markets briefly swung back to a ‘high’ as President Donald Trump said he had a “very good phone call” with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Gains in equity markets were modest but still good enough for S&P500 to extend its rally to 20% from its 8 April low. That is, before the falling-out between Trump and Musk reached a boiling point on social media. Enough is being written about that right now, so we’ll leave you at it.

After the call with Xi, Trump said that both leaders have agreed to further talks and that there “should no longer be any questions respectively the complexity of Rare Earth products”. That’s up for various interpretations, but it suggests China has offered to speed up its process of lifting its export restrictions. Still, the Chinese readout of the call, unsurprisingly, was more nuanced and said that Xi had urged Trump to remove “negative” measures that have affected trade between the countries in recent months. The upshot, from the market’s perspective is that both sides are, at least, talking and that holds the prospect of further progress in removing some (still very high) tariffs. But, just for balance, Commerce Secretary Lutnick yesterday called for increased enforcement of US export controls on technology, warning that China was “only attacking great American companies.” If President Xi was referring to those export controls with “negative measures”, the market’s positive assessment may be, well, too high.

That further talks with the US can lead to a ‘deal’ (as Keir Starmer can confirm), a stalemate (see EU-US) or a major escalation, as Zelensky can attest, is on any global leader’s mind. Nikkei Asia reports that US negotiators Bessent, Lutnick and Greer keep Japan guessing. “At one point the three cabinet officials put the talks with the Japanese side on hold an began debating right in front of them”, a source tells the Nikkei. In that sense, German Chancellor Merz came away nicely after a 40-minute meeting in the Oval Office, as he let Trump do most of the talking. Little concrete came from that meeting, though Trump acknowledged the ramp-up in German defense spending.

Trade data are going from lows to highs as well, which in some cases makes the Covid-episode data look pale. As the Commerce Department confirmed, the US trade deficit for April shrunk by the most on record, to $61.6bn from $138.3bn in March, driven by the largest-ever decline in imports.

Frontloading in the run-up the tariffs clearly was massive and then collapsed. This also suggests that after its big negative contribution to US GDP growth in Q1 it will be a significant positive factor in Q2. Inventory effects will likely attenuate some of its effect. Bloomberg noted that a drop in imports of pharmaceuticals from Ireland was responsible for an almost $20bn swing in the deficit. The opposite (statistical) effect is thus going to be seen in Europe in Q2. Ireland yesterday reported a significant upward revision in Q1 GDP (which now points to a revision in Eurozone GDP growth to around +0.6% q/q (!) from 0.3% previously). But this will obviously turn to a significant drag in Q2 as those US trade numbers for April just signaled.

Staying in Europe, the ECB seemingly presented itself as an anchor of stability in these times of highs and lows. Lagarde’s new mantra is now “well positioned”, which could be viewed in our opinion as code language for “we’re done cutting, unless…”. This becomes even clearer when you compare it to the previous mantra Lagarde introduced in March when she called ECB policy “meaningfully less restrictive”. We had expected little to no guidance from yesterday’s policy meeting, but these new words – despite lower oil prices and a stronger euro – lead us to maintain our view that we have reached the terminal rate.

However, the ECB leaves ample room to respond if things do not work out the way they envisage. Indeed, it lowered its inflation forecast significantly with core inflation positioned around 2% for the coming years. Moreover, its new scenario analyses unveiled a dovish reaction function to a potential escalation of trade tensions. Should this happen, and paused tariffs were to be reinstated, the ECB’s economists estimate that this could lower GDP growth through 2027 by about 1% cumulatively. And, interestingly, they conclude that inflation would be somewhat lower as well: in such a scenario inflation would average 1.8% in 2027, and that includes the assumption that the EU retaliates. By contrast, our own econometric analysis indicates that European tariffs on the US would be (mildly) inflationary instead.

Lagarde did say that their modelling exercise assumed that higher tariffs could lead to lower demand for euro area exports and to countries with overcapacity rerouting their exports to the euro area thereby putting more downward pressure on inflation. However, she acknowledged that the ECB’s analysis did not include any inflationary impact from a disruption of supply chains. Although this effect, admittedly, is surrounded by even more uncertainty, we did take this into account in our own scenario analysis (which explains why we still have inflation somewhat above the ECB’s target even in 2026). And one only need to take a quick glance at container freight rates (benchmark composite by WCI up by a staggering 175% compared to last month) to understand why be believe the ECB the ECB could be under-estimating the potential highs.

Time will tell, of course. But one thing that the ECB may be right about, is the (initial) downward pressure on imported goods prices due to a diversion of trade. The European Commission yesterday published its first assessment from its trade diversion monitoring tool that was launched in April. The early warning system tracks shipments and prices of goods at a high level of detail. In the short-run lower prices may benefit European importers and thereby consumers, but if those prices are the result of overcapacity in other parts of the world (such as China) this could also undermine European producers. The South China Morning Post reported that “in the month to May 25, imports of light-emitting diodes surged 156 per cent, while their price fell 65 per cent. Shipments of industrial robots shot up by 315 per cent, paired with a 35 per cent price decline. And imports of some bars and rods made from steel alloy soared by over 1,000 per cent as their price plunged 86 per cent.”

Whilst such figures can be extremely volatile due to their level of detail, seasonal patterns etc. and make no distinction between the origin of the content, a heatmap by the Commission shows that China was a significant contributor to these changes. The FT writes that the surge in steel imports, driven by trade diversion, is setting off alarm bells in the steel sector. Forecasting the next steps by the European Commission is a rather speculative affair, but we’d not be surprised if this leads to some form of action. This year the Commission has already launched more than 10 cases against China and/or Chinese producers (based on our count of news articles on the EU’s trade defense website).

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/06/2025 - 11:25

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/highs-and-lows
Site: LES FEMMES - THE TRUTH

Of Motherhood and Spring and the Evil Lady Macbeth!

2 days 14 hours ago

Author: noreply@blogger.com (Mary Ann Kreitzer)

https://lesfemmes-thetruth.blogspot.com/2025/06/of-motherhood-and-spring-and-evil-lady.html
Site: Zero Hedge

Ukraine Scores More Hits On Airbase, Defense Factories Deep Inside Russia

2 days 14 hours ago

Author: Tyler Durden

Ukraine Scores More Hits On Airbase, Defense Factories Deep Inside Russia
Ukraine overnight targeted key Russian sites with more drone attacks, while simultaneously Russian cruise missiles were fired against Kiev and other regions of Ukraine, killing at least four and wounding twenty in the Ukrainian capital.

"Kyiv came under another attack involving drones and ballistic missiles. Rescuers are responding to the aftermath at several locations across the city," the State Emergency Service of Ukraine announced on Telegram. Russia allegedly fired over 400 projectiles into Ukraine, though most were said to be downed by air defenses. On the other side, two airbases, a fuel depot and aviation were reportedly struck deep in Russia overnight.
Aftermath of Russian air strike in Kyiv on June 6, 2025, AFP
"A successful strike was carried out on the Engels airfield in the Saratov region, a place where enemy aircraft are concentrated," Ukraine’s General Staff said in a statement, in reference to the Engels-2 base which lies roughly 500 kilometers (300 miles) east of the Ukrainian border,

Several fuel tanks at the base were set ablaze, which dramatic images appeared to show following "multiple hits" on the site, per Ukrainian military statements.

Additionally, in the Ryazan Region, Ukraine said it targeted the Dyagilevo airbase, which supports Russian missile operations. The regional governor said the incoming drones were downed by anti-air defense systems.

And in the Tambov Region, drones reportedly targeted a high-tech aviation and missile control systems plant in Michurinsk. Ukrainian sources allege the plant is a military-industrial site, producing components for Russian missile and artillery systems.
Russian military-industrial complex attacked
One Ukrainian analyst describes the Tambov plant as follows: "Through facilities like this, Russia maintains serial production of Hyacinth, Msta, Tornado, and even components for Iskander missiles."

The analyst further says "the Progress plant is one of the key enterprises in Russia’s military-industrial complex, and its destruction represents a significant blow to the country’s defense production. This involves the loss of key components that power the military's missile and artillery systems."

BREAKING:

Ukraine launches huge drone swarm attack against military targets across Russia:

- Fuel depot of the Engels Air Base hit
- Dyagilevo Air Base hit
- Military electronics plant in Tambov hit
- Bryansk Airport hit

+ Podolsk near Moscow & Crimea pic.twitter.com/bC15Tgop94
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) June 6, 2025
Clearly Russia's anti-air defense systems have been struggling to thwart these now nightly waves of drone swarms. Likely Russia will continue stepping up its major aerial assaults on Ukraine in retaliation.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/06/2025 - 11:05

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ukraine-scores-more-hits-airbase-defense-factories-deep-inside-russia
Site: LifeNews

Ted Cruz Condemns Abortion: “Every Life is Worthy of Protection”

2 days 14 hours ago

Author: Ashlynn Lemos

Texas Senator Ted Cruz is making a bold move to honor preborn babies — by officially designating June as “Life Month.”

Cruz introduced a new resolution to honor the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s monumental decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022 — a ruling that sent shockwaves across the country and empowered states to protect preborn children once again. Texas led the charge, becoming the first state to ban abortion.

Now, Cruz wants to ensure we never forget this turning point.

“Every human life is worthy of protection, and it is especially incumbent upon Americans and lawmakers to protect the most vulnerable among us,” Cruz said in a statement.

SUPPORT LIFENEWS! If you want to help fight abortion, please donate to LifeNews.com!

Momentum for this idea is growing. In the House of Representatives, Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) introduced a similar resolution and delivered a powerful call for the nation to face the reality of abortion.

“For decades abortion advocates have gone to extraordinary lengths to ignore, trivialize, and cover up the battered baby victim, fostering a culture of denial, disrespect, and bias against the unborn,” Smith said.

“This resolution designating June as Life Month highlights our moral imperative to protect innocent children’s lives from extermination. It calls our nation to reject willful blindness to the realities of abortion—brutally dismembering helpless babies with sharp knife-like curettes or poisoning babies with pills that literally starve them to death and often result in their bodies being flushed down a toilet. This resolution affirms that the cruel injustice of abortion need not be forever: instead, we must defend the unborn and show love and compassion to both mother and child through meaningful assistance and support.”

And the need for this couldn’t be clearer. In 2023 alone, Planned Parenthood committed over 402,000 abortions — its highest number ever. That’s more than 1,100 babies lost every single day. One in five people who walk into a Planned Parenthood choose abortion.

If passed, this resolution would give Americans a powerful opportunity every June to celebrate the value of every life — and remind the nation that the fight to protect the most vulnerable is far from over.

Cruz remains committed to seeing this through:
“Designating June as Life Month is a recommitment to the American principle that every life has dignity,” he emphasized once again. “I call on my colleagues in the Senate to swiftly pass this resolution.”

LifeNews Note: Ashlynn Lemos is the communications intern for Texas Right to Life.

The post Ted Cruz Condemns Abortion: “Every Life is Worthy of Protection” appeared first on LifeNews.com.

https://www.lifenews.com/2025/06/06/ted-cruz-condemns-abortion-every-life-is-worthy-of-protection/
Site: Zero Hedge

Feds Say California Bullet Train Has 'No Viable Path', Threaten To Pull $4 Billion

2 days 14 hours ago

Author: Tyler Durden

Feds Say California Bullet Train Has 'No Viable Path', Threaten To Pull $4 Billion
Authored by Chase Smith via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

California’s long-delayed high-speed rail project is in default of federal grant agreements and may soon lose more than $4 billion in funding, the U.S. Department of Transportation said on June 4.

A report released by the department accuses the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) of chronic mismanagement, unrealistic projections, and failure to meet key obligations, despite receiving billions in taxpayer money.

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) concluded that the bullet train has “no viable path” to finish the project’s first operational segment by 2033, the deadline outlined in federal agreements.

In a letter to Ian Choudri, CHSRA’s CEO, the FRA stated that the agency intends to terminate two grants totaling roughly $4 billion unless California responds with a satisfactory corrective plan. CHSRA has up to 37 days to avoid a final termination.

The letter outlines nine key findings from a 310-page compliance review, including a $7 billion funding gap, missed procurement deadlines, and what the FRA referred to as “substantially overrepresented” ridership forecasts.

The FRA letter called the rail project “a story of broken promises and of waste of Federal taxpayer dollars.” It noted that what began as a proposed 800-mile system was “first reduced to 500 miles, then became a 171-mile segment, and is now very likely ended as a 119-mile track to nowhere.”

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the report justifies reprogramming the funds to other projects.

“This report exposes a cold, hard truth: CHSRA has no viable path to complete this project on time or on budget,” Duffy said in a statement.

“CHSRA is on notice—If they can’t deliver on their end of the deal, it could soon be time for these funds to flow to other projects that can achieve President Trump’s vision of building great, big, beautiful things again. Our country deserves high-speed rail that makes us proud—not boondoggle trains to nowhere.”

The FRA report found that CHSRA has not yet laid a single mile of high-speed rail track, despite more than $6.9 billion in total federal funding since 2009. It also said that CHSRA continues to rely on unstable funding sources, such as California’s cap-and-trade auction revenues, to fill budget gaps.

According to the FRA, CHSRA has already spent about $1.6 billion on change orders over the past two years and still faces legal disputes and procurement delays and hasn’t started construction on key segments.

The state originally promised an 800-mile rail line connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles by 2020 for $33 billion. Estimates now range from $89 billion to $128 billion.

In a statement last month, CHSRA said construction is active on 119 miles in the Central Valley and has created more than 15,000 jobs. The agency also said it was making progress on a 171-mile segment from Merced to Bakersfield.

But FRA officials say even that scaled-back version may be unreachable. The agency noted that CHSRA’s internal inspector general found no credible plan to close the current $7 billion gap for the Merced-Bakersfield stretch.

A CHSRA Authority spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email that they “strongly disagree” with the FRA’s conclusions, which they said are “misguided and do not reflect the substantial progress made to deliver high-speed rail in California.”

“We remain firmly committed to completing the nation’s first true high-speed rail system connecting the major population centers in the state,” the spokesperson said. “While continued federal partnership is important to the project, the majority of our funding has been provided by the state. To that end, the Governor’s budget proposal, which is currently before the Legislature, extends at least $1 billion per year in funding for the next 20 years, providing the necessary resources to complete the project’s initial operating segment. The Authority will fully address and correct the record in our formal response to the FRA’s notice.”

The compliance review concluded that continued federal support would not achieve the goals of the High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail Program. The FRA said it may redirect unspent funds from the grants to other infrastructure projects and is not currently seeking repayment of the funds already used.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/06/2025 - 10:45

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/feds-say-california-bullet-train-has-no-viable-path-threaten-pull-4-billion
Site: Zero Hedge

The Day After: Trump 'Not Interested' In Talking As Musk Continues To Make Case Against BBB

2 days 15 hours ago

Author: Tyler Durden
The Day After: Trump 'Not Interested' In Talking As Musk Continues To Make Case Against BBB
After Thursday's grand meltdown between Elon Musk and President Donald Trump over the Big Beautiful Bill, it looked like things were set to simmer down - with Musk posting several things on X that suggested he was open to a path forward, while the Trump White House had scheduled a call with Musk, Politico reported.

On Friday morning, however, it was clear that Trump isn't ready to mend fences - he doesn't want to talk to Musk, and is looking to sell his Tesla - while Musk spent the morning (so far) making clear that Congress needs to fix government spending or America is going to be in a world of hurt.

"I’m not even thinking about Elon. He’s got a problem. The poor guy’s got a problem," Trump told CNN in a brief phone call. When asked if he had a call with Musk, Trump replied "No. I won’t be speaking to him for a while I guess, but I wish him well."

To recap:
- Earlier in the week, Musk came out against the 'Big Beautiful Bill' - which raises the debt ceiling by $5 trillion, and either raises the deficit by $2.4 trillion, or lowers it by $1.4 trillion - depending on who you believe, and fails to address any of the waste, fraud and abuse found by DOGE.
- Thursday morning, Trump was asked about Musk's opposition to the bill, telling reporters on Thursday that he's 'very disappointed in Elon,' and that Musk only opposes the bill because they eliminated electric vehicle tax credits from it.
- Trump then suggested he might pull government funding from Musk's companies such as SpaceX, which owns the only operational US spacecraft capable of transporting astronauts to and from the International Space Station.
"The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!" -President Donald Trump via Truth Social
- Musk went ballistic - announcing he would 'immediately' decommission the Dragon program (which he later walked back Thursday night), proposed a new political party (that's still his pinned post on X), endorsed another Trump impeachment, and said Trump is 'in the Epstein files,' which is why they haven't been released.
Peacemakers emerged - such as former State Department official Mike Benz, who defended Musk and called for the two to patch things up...

Elon Was Always The Secret Weapon Behind Trump 2.0 pic.twitter.com/ii1HBqTKza
— Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) June 6, 2025
While two attorneys associated with the Epstein case(s) flatly denied Trump had anything to do with Epstein's sex-trafficking operation.

Just confirming what we already knew. pic.twitter.com/ooZNVwHsjn
— C3 (@C_3C_3) June 6, 2025
“The only thing that I can say about President Trump is that he is the only person who, in 2009... is the only person who picked up the phone and said, let’s just talk."

"[Trump] was very helpful... and gave no indication whatsoever that he was involved in anything untoward… pic.twitter.com/u0FKJrWKej
— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) June 6, 2025
On Friday, Musk re-posted the following posts and clips making his case;

"The Federal Government today pays more in interest on the debt than we do in budget for the Department of Defense. We pay $1.2B a year in JUST interest on debt. Total government spending is about $7T. Interest payments are $1.2T. DOD is $800B a year. Total debt is $35T and it… pic.twitter.com/fPg3Xo5dkZ
— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) June 6, 2025
Jesse Watters: “The media said that Musk was the co-president… The media said Trump was doing favors for Elon Musk. Well, if you look at this big, beautiful bill, there’s no favors for Elon Musk in it at all”

pic.twitter.com/9Py3TM5Zkl
— Defiant L’s (@DefiantLs) June 5, 2025
It’s a borrowing limit. It’s not a function / it’s a rule violated by a weak Congress regularly… https://t.co/4KEkl8aIKz
— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) June 5, 2025
This is why Republicans will likely lose the House in 2026 and then Democrats will spend two years investigating and impeaching President Trump.

Trump and the Republicans in Congress need to deliver. We want budget cuts. We want agencies shut down. We don't want big govt. https://t.co/3T3uheQEyf
— Wall Street Mav (@WallStreetMav) June 5, 2025
While Trump (as noted above) isn't ready to have a phone call with Musk to hash things out.

Meanwhile, DOGE chief architect Joel Fishback slammed Musk and said he's stepping away from the effort following Musk's comments, Politico reports.

"The truth is that Elon set expectations that he relayed to the president, me, and the country that he did not come close to fulfilling. That’s disappointing, but okay," said Fishback. "What’s not okay is his baseless personal attacks against President Trump."

To be continued...
Tyler Durden Fri, 06/06/2025 - 10:25
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/day-after-trump-not-interested-talking-musk-continues-make-case-against-bbb
Site: Zero Hedge

Rate-Cut Odds Plunge After Payrolls Beat; Trump Demands "Full Point Cut" From Powell

2 days 15 hours ago

Author: Tyler Durden

Rate-Cut Odds Plunge After Payrolls Beat; Trump Demands "Full Point Cut" From Powell
A better than expected headline payrolls print has sparked a surge in stocks and bond yields this morning as the long-await (and hoped for by some) recessionary collapse in the labor market remains elusive.

Even if below the surface things are not so healthy, rate-cut expectations for 2025 have plunged to less than two total cuts (2026 expectations up marginally)...

Never one to miss an opportunity - even on a day when he should probably take a break from social media - President Trump dropped some more advice for Fed Chair Powell:

Strong unemployment, falling inflation, and no signs (except in partisan survey responses) of economic weakness from Trump's tariff-nado. One has to wonder what it is that Powell is waiting for... unlike in September of last year?

Finally, one thought - is this Trump pivoting his rage from Musk to Powell - a far easier, and less wealthy, opposition.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/06/2025 - 10:20

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/rate-cut-odds-plunge-after-payrolls-beat-trump-demands-full-point-cut-powell
Site: AsiaNews.it

Ethnic tensions rekindled as state govt suggests to arm 'indigenous' Assamese

2 days 15 hours ago

The state government wants to arm only indigenous people for self-defence. For BJP Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, such a step is justified on security grounds, while the opposition sees the attempt to provide weapons to some communities as exacerbating tensions with Bengali Muslims.

https://www.asianews.it/news-en/Ethnic-tensions-rekindled-as-state-govt-suggests-to-arm-%27indigenous%26rsquo%3B-Assamese-63242.html
Site: LifeNews

85% of Prenatal Tests are Wrong, 90% of Those Babies are Aborted

2 days 15 hours ago

Author: Ashlynn Lemos

No parent ever wants to hear these words at an ultrasound: “Your baby may not survive.”

When doctors deliver a life-limiting diagnosis for a preborn child, families are often devastated—and pressured into abortion, with little guidance on choosing Life.

Now, Texas is changing that.

In a major step toward building a more compassionate, Pro-Life culture, state lawmakers passed the Perinatal Palliative Care Act during the 2025 legislative session. Senate Bill 1233 by Senator Kelly Hancock (R–North Richland Hills) and Representative Valoree Swanson (R–Spring) ensures that families receive real information and resources—not silence or pressure.

Prenatal tests indicate possible health issues in 2–3% of pregnancies, but up to 85% of those results are false. Most parents aren’t told that—and tragically, up to 90% of these babies are aborted. Only 19% of women are informed about specialized care options. Every baby deserves dignity, no matter the diagnosis.

SUPPORT LIFENEWS! If you want to help fight abortion, please donate to LifeNews.com!

Perinatal palliative care offers compassionate support to families after a baby is diagnosed in the womb with a serious or life-threatening condition. Care begins at diagnosis and continues until the baby’s first birthday, even if the little one does not make it that long. It includes medical, emotional, spiritual, and practical support from a team of specialists, religious counselors, and community support providers. SB 1233 clarifies that this never includes acts done to cause or hasten the baby’s death.

The law does this by connecting families to nonprofits like Abel Speaks, which walks alongside them through these heartbreaking circumstances.

God created us for community—especially in our hardest moments. The Perinatal Palliative Care Act ensures every family facing a difficult diagnosis receives the guidance and resources they need to love and care for their child, no matter how short that little Life may be.

Too often, families are told abortion is the only “reasonable” response. This law changes that. Texas now affirms: every life has value, no matter how brief or fragile.

One young mother’s story illustrates why this matters.

At her 21-week ultrasound, Ava Trammell was told her baby girl was “incompatible with Life.” Doctors gave her no real options—just a suggestion to fly to Colorado for an abortion or continue the pregnancy without support.

Watch Ava’s Story here.

But, Ava chose Life.

“I know she’s not going to survive,” Ava said, “but I only have so much time with her. Why would I cut it any shorter? She’s safe in my womb… she only knows love and doesn’t know pain. Why would I give her such a painful death when she’s perfectly fine with me?”

Because of SB 1233, future mothers like Ava won’t have to face that decision alone.

This law embodies what it means to be truly Pro-Life: walking with families in both joy and sorrow. By equipping parents with life-affirming options and emotional care, Texas is saying clearly: we value every life, and we will walk with every family.

We are deeply grateful to Senator Hancock and Representative Swanson and their teams for standing up for the most vulnerable and helping families meet unimaginable challenges with dignity, compassion, and hope.

LifeNews Note: Ashlynn Lemos is the communications intern for Texas Right to Life.

The post 85% of Prenatal Tests are Wrong, 90% of Those Babies are Aborted appeared first on LifeNews.com.

https://www.lifenews.com/2025/06/06/85-of-prenatal-tests-are-wrong-90-of-those-babies-are-aborted/
Site: Ron Paul Institute for Peace And Prosperity

Merz’s Reich

2 days 15 hours ago

Author: RT

What has happened to Europe? Why is its rhetoric so bombastic and militaristic? Why are Europe’s leaders so afraid of democracy? Why is the continuation of the Ukraine war so important for them? And what does any of this have to do with so-called ‘European values’?

CrossTalking with Mats Nilsson, James Pearce, and Daniel McAdams.
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Rumble("play", {"video":"v6s71rn","div":"rumble_v6s71rn"});

https://ronpaulinstitute.org/merzs-reich/
Site: Steyn Online

Belling the Cat

2 days 15 hours ago

Programming note: Tomorrow, Saturday, please join me for another eclectic edition of my Serenade Radio weekend music show, Mark Steyn on the Town, surveying the scene from French opera to Jamaican reggae. The broadcast starts at 5pm British Summer Time

https://www.steynonline.com/15367/belling-cat
Site: Steyn Online

Vax Veil

2 days 15 hours ago

Programming note: Please join Mark tomorrow, Saturday, for his Serenade Radio weekend music show, On the Town at 5pm British Summer Time - which is 6pm in Western Europe and 12 noon North American Eastern. You can listen from almost anywhere on the

https://www.steynonline.com/15365/vax-veil
Site: Ron Paul Institute - Featured Articles

The ‘Golden Dome’ is Pure Fantasy

2 days 15 hours ago

Author: Eric Margolis

Mutzig, France – First stop on my annual visit to France’s mighty Maginot Line forts is this lovely Alsatian town. Mutzig was built by the Germans 1893-1916 to defend against enemy approaches to the important city of Strasbourg. It was – and remains – the largest modern fortress in Europe.

The vast fortress, which covers over 800 acres, was never attacked during World War I by the Germans or French. But as Europe’s first important fortress made of concrete and fully electrified, it was eagerly studied by French engineers and served as a template for the Maginot Line forts two decades later.

Both world wars showed the vulnerability of fixed fortifications. An enemy will always find a way round them or discover a fatal weakness. In regard to the 200-mile-long Maginot Line, the forts did not fail. They held out to the bitter end. The reason for France’s stunning defeat in 1940 was the failure of its field army and its blockheaded generals. Interestingly, a French parliamentary deputy with the effervescent name of Perrier precisely predicted where the Germans would break through the Ardennes Forest in 1940.

Though vulnerable, the fixed defenses of the Maginot Line were hugely popular in France and wildly overestimated because they involved huge construction projects for many of the villages and factories along France’s eastern border with Germany. Just as New Deal make-work projects boosted the United States during the Great Depression.

We see a similar mania in the response to President Donald Trump’s plan to create a national ‘golden dome’ defensive shield to protect the nation from assorted nuclear threats. In many ways, it’s a re-run of President Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars missile shield which never got off the ground but was extremely popular among the public.

Frederick the Great of Prussia noted, ‘he who defends everything, defends nothing.’ As true today as it was in the 18th century.

A national missile defense system to cover the entire nation would be impossibly expensive for a nation already deeply mired in debt. The always powerful military-industrial complex will see Trump’s golden dome fantasy as a second Christmas though the basic technology has yet to be proven.

One wonders if the proponents of this defensive system have noticed that Russia has developed ballistic missiles that can alter course, change altitudes and switch targets? Or that China has ICBM’s aboard freighters in the Pacific. What about evolving electronic countermeasures that can fry enemy communications and guidance systems?

It would be far more prudent for the US to pursue disarmament talks and effective inspection regimes with its rivals than pie in the sky defensive systems that will certainly enrich military companies but fail to protect North America. What’s more, having even a partial anti-missile system will likely make the US more aggressive and prone to wars.

Better to spend the trillions on curing cancer or blindness than on space wizardry. Alas, we have a view of what awaits us. This week, Trump banned people from 12 mostly Muslims nations and imposed restrictions on 7 nations. Good work Mr. President. You and your New York City construction buddies have now made enemies of a quarter of the world’s population.

Reprinted with permission from EricMargolis.com.

https://ronpaulinstitute.org/the-golden-dome-is-pure-fantasy/
Site: LifeNews

The Abortion Pill is So Dangerous, Thousands of Women are Going to the ER

2 days 15 hours ago

Author: Brad Mattes
New evidence shows a widescale coverup regarding the dangers of chemical abortion pills.

A new peer-reviewed study by Charlotte Lozier Institute examined nearly 29,000 visits to emergency rooms by women who within 30 days had undergone either a surgical or chemical abortion.

The research revealed widespread miscoding of these ER visits. Women who were suffering serious effects of chemical abortion were often coded as having a miscarriage.

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This in itself is not surprising but the sheer scale of deceit is stunning.
- The study revealed 79% of abortion pill ER visits were likely to be miscoded as miscarriages comparted with surgical abortions.
- Between 2016 and 2021 almost 84% of abortion pill ER visits were miscoded.
There’s more. Every case examined looked at acuity, meaning the measurement of the severity and complexity of each woman’s condition.
- The miscoded ER visits were 50% more likely to be high acuity when compared with correctly coded visits.
What accounts for this pervasive deception?

Those involved with the wholesale marketing and peddling of abortion pills, usually with no medical supervision, routinely and publicly tell women that if they require immediate medical attention to lie at the ER to cover up the abortion. Why? Because they are keenly aware of the high number of women who suffer serious and often life-threatening side effects. Making them of record is bad for business.

This duplicity runs deeper. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists actually advise medical personnel to not ask women if their urgent health condition is the result of chemical abortion. They claim this is to shield the women legally even though states protect women from prosecution.

Recent research uncovered that nearly one in 11 women who use abortion pills seek medical treatment. A frequent complication is that parts of the baby and/or placenta remain behind after a drug-induced abortion. This requires an additional abortion attempt.

Deceit in the ER impairs a doctor’s ability to fully and effectively treat her condition. Dr. James Studnicki, one of the study’s authors, called the situation “a public health crisis.”

Just days ago, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley published a letter on X. He had asked Dr. Marty Makary, Commissioner of the FDA to do a full review of the safety of chemical abortion pills. Dr. Makary responded that he would. This should give heartburn to the abortion industry and its supporters. For the last decade they and the former leadership of the FDA have been guilty of hiding the serious negative impact abortion pills have on women. Currently, abortionists need only report the complication of death.

The pills designed to kill preborn children can’t stand up to impartial scrutiny because at an alarming rate they are harming the health, fertility and lives of unsuspecting women. Further, there is considerable evidence these dangerous pills are used by sexual predators to cover up criminal activity.

This conspiracy has the potential to be the largest medical deception of our time with grave implications for millions of women and their babies.

LifeNews.com Note: Bradley Mattes is the President of Life Issues Institute, a national pro-life educational group.

The post The Abortion Pill is So Dangerous, Thousands of Women are Going to the ER appeared first on LifeNews.com.
https://www.lifenews.com/2025/06/06/the-abortion-pill-is-so-dangerous-thousands-of-women-are-going-to-the-er/
Site: OnePeterFive

The Crusade of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus

2 days 15 hours ago

Author: T. S. Flanders

The Crusade of Eucharistic Reparation is a lay sodality run by OnePeterFive in partnership with Benedictus and LatinMass.com (Mass of the Ages). This crusade was called by His Excellency, Bishop Athanasius Schneider in June of 2020 in response to the profanations of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament during the COVID crisis. Now he has also added the intention of the reversal of Traditionis…

Source

https://onepeterfive.com/first-friday-reminder-the-crusade-is-now/
Site: LifeNews

Arrested for Protesting Abortion, One Pro-Life Family is Fighting Back

2 days 16 hours ago

Author: Rachel Quackenbush

Zack and Lindsay Knotts have filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, following Zack’s arrest during a pro-life demonstration outside the Northeast Ohio Women’s Center on December 28, 2024.

The case stems from an incident in which Zack was arrested for using a battery-powered megaphone to share his pro-life message from a public sidewalk. According to the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), which represents him, the megaphone was quieter than surrounding traffic, while abortion clinic escorts allegedly used whistles and kazoos in an attempt to drown out Zack’s megaphone.

Despite this, the ACLJ stated, only Zack was arrested for violating a Cuyahoga Falls Ordinance which prohibits “unreasonable noise” that causes “inconvenience or annoyance to persons of ordinary sensibilities.” The ACLJ argues that the ordinance lacks clear standards and was applied selectively in this instance.

The legal team pointed out that officers who made the arrest arrived after the megaphone had already stopped working, leaving them without any direct observation of its use. Because of this, the organization argues, police had no way of assessing whether the volume exceeded any legal limits.

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In addition, the ACLJ noted that the police relied solely on the account of one witness — an off-duty, private security officer employed by the abortion center — and did not interview any others, a detail the group argues presents a conflict of interest.

ACLJ’s case also includes allegations that the Knotts couple were subjected to threats from individuals on site, including a statement directed at Zack to “suck-start a shotgun.” During a prior encounter, Zack had shared that his mother-in-law once considered abortion while pregnant with his now wife, saying that if she had gone through with it, his wife “should be dead.” According to the ACLJ, an escort responded, “We can fix that.”

The ACLJ noted that when Lindsay reported these threats to law enforcement, officers stated that the comments did not constitute a crime.

Zack’s charges were ultimately dismissed at the start of the trial, as CatholicVote previously reported. However, the ACLJ maintains that the legal action had already created a deterrent effect on the Knotts’ future speech.

“The arrest, prosecution, and ongoing threat of future enforcement have already achieved the government’s apparent goal: silencing disfavored speech,” the ACLJ wrote.

The lawsuit seeks a court declaration that the ordinance is unconstitutional, a permanent injunction against its enforcement, the return of Zack’s megaphone, and compensation for alleged violations.

LifeNews Note: Rachel Quackenbush writes for CatholicVote, where this column originally appeared.

The post Arrested for Protesting Abortion, One Pro-Life Family is Fighting Back appeared first on LifeNews.com.

https://www.lifenews.com/2025/06/06/arrested-for-protesting-abortion-one-pro-life-family-is-fighting-back/
Site: Zero Hedge

Is DEI DOA? Supreme Court Unanimously Rejects Added Burden For Whites In Discrimination Lawsuits

2 days 16 hours ago

Author: Tyler Durden

Is DEI DOA? Supreme Court Unanimously Rejects Added Burden For Whites In Discrimination Lawsuits
Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Yesterday, the Supreme Court handed down three major cases with unanimous decisions. One, Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services, raises additional questions over diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs that have been widely used in higher education and businesses. There is no reason to believe that DEI measures are DOA, but the decision is likely to accelerate challenges based reverse discrimination after the Court rejected the imposition of an added burden for members of any “majority group” including straight, white males.

The immediate question before the Court was a circuit split over the standard that applies to a member of a “majority” group who claims that he or she was treated unfairly based on majority characteristics. The Sixth Circuit, along with four other circuits, held that such litigants must shoulder additional pleading burdens under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

Many of us long argued that this long-standing rule was itself discriminatory and at odds with both constitutional and statutory authority. It was a bizarre interpretation of a law that barred employees from discriminating based on “race, color, religion, sex, and national origin.” That would ordinarily require a plaintiff to support a claim of disparate treatment by showing that she applied for a position for which she was qualified but was rejected under circumstances giving rise to an inference of unlawful discrimination. However, judges began to add their own burden of white, male or straight litigants in requiring them to show additional “background circumstances” that show the defendant is an “unusual employer” that discriminates against majority groups.

In this case, Marlean Ames, a heterosexual woman, claimed that she was demoted at the Ohio Department of Youth Services after Ginine Trim, a gay woman, replaced her supervisor. Trim hired a younger gay man allegedly based on her sexual orientation and sex. Both the district court and the Sixth Circuit dismissed the complaint because Ames failed to identify any other “background circumstances” that demonstrated her employer discriminated against heterosexual women.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote for a unanimous Supreme Court that reversed the Sixth Circuit and rejected the “additional circumstances” test as at odds with the plain text of Title VII.

“As a textual matter, Title VII’s disparate-treatment provision draws no distinctions between majority-group plaintiffs and minority-group plaintiffs. Rather, the provision makes it unlawful “to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” The “law’s focus on individuals rather than groups [is] anything but academic.” Bostock v. Clayton County (2020). By establishing the same protections for every “individual”—without regard to that individual’s membership in a minority or majority group—Congress left no room for courts to impose special requirements on majority-group plaintiffs alone.”

Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Gorsuch, filed a concurrence that chastised lower courts and “judges creating atextual legal rules and frameworks.”

The opinion has broader implications for businesses and higher education where DEI has been used to brush aside such reverse discrimination claims. Often such claims are mocked as suggesting that members of a majority group are “victims.” While not imposing this specific “add-on,” these controversies involve much of the same bias against reverse discrimination claims. Litigants complain that they often face greater demand and resistance to their claims as opposed to employees who are part of minority groups.

The Ames decision is a welcome development in bringing greater uniformity in the treatment of discrimination claims. It is also a shot across the bow of businesses and universities that have used DEI to dismiss the countervailing interests and claims of majority-group employees.

Here is the decision: Ames v. Ohio Dep’t of Youth Services

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/06/2025 - 08:40

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/dei-doa-supreme-court-unanimously-rejects-added-burden-whites-discrimination-lawsuits
Site: LifeNews

Democrat AGs Push for Abortion on Demand With No Limits

2 days 16 hours ago

Author: Dave Andrusko

Three days after FDA Commissioner Marty Makary promised to “closely monitor the post-marketing safety data on mifepristone for the medical termination of early pregnancy” and a week after National Right to Life wrote Commissioner Makary urging him to reexamine “studies not sponsored by the abortion industry,” four Democrat-led states asked the FDA to remove what pitifully weak “limitations” still exist.

The attorneys general of California, New York, Massachusetts and New Jersey filed a petition Thursday saying the “limitations” are “medically unnecessary.”

The FDA “must follow the science and lift these unnecessary barriers that put patients at risk and push providers out of care,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said Thursday, citing the abortion medication’s alleged “25-year safety record.”

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Their strategy was outlined in the always compliant and agreeable New York Times.

“The F.D.A. is required to respond to the petition within 180 days by granting or denying the request, or saying it needs more time,” according to the New York Times’s Pam Belluck. Belluck, who “covers reproductive health,” added, “it would prevent the F.D.A. from changing mifepristone regulations while the petition is pending.”

New Jersey Right to Life Executive Director Marie Tasy blasted state Attorney General Matthew Platkin.

Attorney General Platkin once again prioritizes the interests of the abortion lobby over the safety and well-being of women. The FDA’s decision to review the safety of the abortion pill comes in response to studies revealing severe adverse effects experienced by many women—including sepsis, infection, hemorrhaging, and other serious medical complications within 45 days of taking the drug. Women deserve leaders who advocate for their health and safety, not activist attorneys general who use their office to advance the agenda of the abortion industry.

NRLC writes the FDA

In its letter to Commissioner Makary, NRLC wrote that the FDA had “deregulated” mifepristone “in 2016, 2021, and 2023 so it can now be prescribed online without an in-person physical examination, shipped by mail to women’s homes or made available for pickup at local pharmacies, creating significant concerns over its safety and oversight.”

The letter cited the new study by the Ethics & Public Policy Center (EPPC) which concluded that “10.93 percent of women experienced complications,” 22 times the less-than-one-percent touted by sponsors of the abortion pill.

The letter ended

It isn’t merely that people need assurances that the FDA is ensuring that unsafe, ineffective drugs are kept off the market, but that women are entitled to know the truth about drugs the abortion industry is aggressively, and we believe dishonestly, promoting.

Both mothers and their children need to be protected from false advertising about what these drugs are and what they do. States which wish to protect those women and their unborn children from these dangerous drugs should be able to do so without having to fight the FDA’s official but erroneous assertions of the drug’s safety and efficacy.

Even with its limited reporting and a less than cooperative abortion industry, the FDA itself already knows of at least three dozen deaths and thousands of serious adverse events experienced by American women this past 25 years. Please put an end to this moral and medical travesty before more women and their innocent unborn children die or are injured.

LifeNews.com Note: Dave Andrusko is the editor of National Right to Life News and an author and editor of several books on abortion topics. He frequently writes Today’s News and Views — an online opinion column on pro-life issues.

The post Democrat AGs Push for Abortion on Demand With No Limits appeared first on LifeNews.com.

https://www.lifenews.com/2025/06/06/democrat-ags-push-for-abortion-on-demand-with-no-limits/
Site: The Josias

The Josias Podcast Episode XLIX: Pope Leo XIII and his Writings

2 days 16 hours ago

Author: J.P. Barnas
Our hosts, Fr. Jon Tveit and Amanda, are joined by Gideon Lazar for a conversation about Pope Leo XIII, his pontificate, writings, and whether there will be a Leonine revival under our newly elected pontiff, Leo XIV.

Bibliography:
- Longinqua Oceani (1895)
- The Josias Podcast, Episode VI: Ralliement
- Felix de St. Vincent, “Four Catholic Political Postures: Lessons from Leo XIII and Ralliement” (The Josias)
- The Josias Podcast, Episode XXIII: Liberty: the Highest of Natural Endowments
- Gideon Lazar, “Why I am Whitepilled by Pope Leo XIV“
- Pater Edmund, “Divisio Textus of Leo XIII’s Libertas Praestantissimum” (The Josias)
Header Image: Biagio Barzotti, Pope Leo XIII with Cardinals: Rampolla, Parochi, Bonaparte and Sacconi (c. 1890).

If you have questions or comments, please send them to editors(at)thejosias.com.

Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Many thanks to our generous supporters on Patreon, who enable us to pay for podcast hosting. If you have not yet joined them, please do so. You can set up a one-tim
https://thejosias.com/2025/06/06/the-josias-podcast-episode-xlix-pope-leo-xiii-and-his-writings/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-josias-podcast-episode-xlix-pope-leo-xiii-and-his-writings
Site: PaulCraigRoberts.org

The Ever-widening War

2 days 17 hours ago

Author: pcr3

The Ever-widening War

Paul Craig Roberts

Scott Ritter says the attack on Russia’s strategic bombers was a British operation that the CIA knew about. https://www.youtube.com/live/5p_faUdJT3w

According to the White House, Trump was not informed. As Russian war doctrine calls for a strategic response to such an attack, both British and US intelligence risked launching a nuclear attack on the country or countries that Russia decided was responsible.

In other words, security agencies, not the president or Congress can launch a nuclear war. A stop must be put to the unaccountability of “security agencies” as clearly they have an independence of action that makes us very insecure.

Putin avoided his responsibility as defined by Russian war doctrine by classifying the attacks as terrorism and not acts of war. Putin substituted pretense for reality and has accepted an attack on Russia’s triad of nuclear forces as a non-event in order to keep alive the Kremlin’s unrealistic hopes of a peace deal that could turn into a broader agreement.

The ever-widening war continues to widen. The consequence of Putin’s good will is likely to be more provocative attacks. Sooner or later Russia will have to respond or surrender.

Can Reality Any Longer Be Acknowledged?

Paul Craig Roberts

https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2025/06/05/can-reality-any-longer-be-acknowledged/

The attack on Russian strategic forces by Ukraine, with or without President Trump’s knowledge and with or without help from Washington and the British, could have been the most dangerous event in East-West relations during my lifetime. The reason is that recently revised Russian war doctrine states that an attack, even by a non-nuclear country, on the Russian strategic triad requires a strategic response. Strategic usually means nuclear or at least a disabling response.

Putin dodged the responsibility (more later), but no one knew for certain that he would. In other words, whoever is responsible for the attack on Russia’s strategic bombers subjected Ukraine, Europe, the US to the possibility of nuclear attack, depending on whom the Russians decided was responsible. This person or persons is a madman, a maniac who must be identified and removed from his position. Try to imagine how it is possible for, say Zelensky, to launch an attack that could result in nuclear war between the US and Russia. How can control over whether or not the US faces nuclear war be in the hands of Zelensky? If Zelensky is responsible, the US and NATO have a massive failure in command and control. If Trump or someone in the Trump administration gave the green light, they should be removed for committing the most potentially dangerous act during my lifetime.

The extraordinarily reckless and extremely dangerous attack on Russia’s nuclear triad is being treated by all concerned as a nothing event, a mere terrorist act, not an act of war. The fact that there is no acknowledgement in Washington, Europe, Moscow, or the media of the seriousness of an attack on Russian strategic forces, and thereby no measures put in place to prevent such dangerous acts, means either full scale, not proxy, war between Russia and the West or Russia’s surrender. Perhaps Putin would like to surrender in order to avoid nuclear war, but he won’t be permitted to surrender.

Putin took the lead in burying the seriousness of the attack on Russia’s nuclear triad. By designating the attack a “terrorist act” he evades the responsibility that Russian strategic doctrine imposes on him for a strategic response.

Nothing of consequence has happened, says the President of Russia. Amen say Washington and Europe. Therefore, whoever is responsible for the attack knows that the next attack can go further. It too will be unacknowledged as an act of war.

How many times can Putin pretend that attacks on Russia’s sovereignty, which is what attacks on Russia’s nuclear triad are, are mere terrorist events before he discredits himself with the Russian people?

The purpose of the recent revision of Russian strategic doctrine was to discourage or prevent attacks by Western proxies such as Ukraine on Russian strategic forces. It failed because Putin has taught the West not to take him seriously. He is ever ready to turn the other cheek. Now Putin has shown that he will not acknowledge attacks on Russian strategic forces as anything other than a terrorist event, not an act of war. So Putin has negated Russian strategic doctrine. It means nothing. Now that the West knows this, Russia can expect escalating provocations. All of Putin’s good intentions have ended in disaster, and a major war will be the consequence.

It could be that Russia is doomed. Decades of successful Western propaganda have turned most of the Russian professional and intellectual class into Atlanticist Integrationists. They think that Russia belongs as part of the West and are willing to make concessions of sovereignty to be part of the West. Clearly this point of view is strong in the Kremlin and the Russian Foreign Ministry.

The zionist American neoconservatives are very much aware of this Russian weakness, and they are adept at taking advantage of it. They don’t have to do much, because Putin does their work for them.

Putin has declared Ukraine to be conducting terrorism, not war, against Russia. Putin’s declaration also absolves Washington and Europe for any responsibility.

Here are English language Russian headlines of Putin’s hiding from reality that apparently he is unable to face up to. Or perhaps he is not yet ready, being at work constructing a powerful military that US/NATO cannot resist.

“‘Illegitimate Kiev regime’ turning into terrorist organization” – Putin

“The latest terrorist acts carried out by Ukraine in Russia are the outcome of decisions made by the Ukrainian political leadership.” Putin added that “the decisions to carry out such crimes were, of course, made in Ukraine” by the political leadership in Ukraine. In other words, Washington and Europe have no responsibility for the act of war, which is not an act of war, but merely terrorism. https://www.rt.com/russia/618651-kiev-regime-rejecting-peace/

In other words, the Kremlin has said that Washington and Europe have nothing to do with the attack on Russia’s strategic triad, and that Ukraine is merely creating terrorist incidents, not making war against Russia. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/01/31/russia-ukraine-rubio-trump/? utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=wp_opinions

I find it hard to believe that Putin is this stupid. My bet is that he is not yet ready. He keeps the minor Ukraine conflict going while he builds up to remove NATO from Russian borders.

Trump can remove the coming conflict by giving Putin the mutual security agreement Russia has been requesting for years. This would be the costless solution, but Trump is not really in power, and the power and profit of the US military/security complex needs the Russian Enemy.

So, how will a devastating war be avoided? Information such as I have just presented is banned by the official narratives. The American foreign policy community avoids it like the plague.

https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2025/06/06/the-ever-widening-war-84/
Site: PaulCraigRoberts.org

The Camp of the Saints

2 days 17 hours ago

Author: pcr3

The Camp of the Saints

Whites to become minority in UK in 40 years

The British government is destroying the British.

White people can’t afford to have children. They are taxed too heavily in order to support immigrant-invaders.

https://www.rt.com/news/618666-study-whites-to-become-minority-uk/

https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2025/06/06/the-camp-of-the-saints-13/
Site: PaulCraigRoberts.org

In Latvia if you watch Russian TV they put you in prison

2 days 17 hours ago

Author: pcr3

In Latvia if you watch Russian TV they put you in prison

https://www.rt.com/russia/618630-latvia-russian-tv-channels-arrest/

https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2025/06/06/in-latvia-if-you-watch-russian-tv-they-put-you-in-prison/
Site: PaulCraigRoberts.org

American universities accurately described

2 days 17 hours ago

Author: pcr3

https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2025/06/06/american-universities-accurately-described/
Site: AsiaNews.it

Sri Lankan research team identifies fungus that attacks rubber plants

2 days 17 hours ago

The discovery was made thanks to the work of the Rubber Research Institute of Sri Lanka (RRISL). The global problem affects plants by delaying the production of the nutrients they need, impacting latex output. With the disease, yields drop by up to 40 per cent. The problem could get worse in the future.

https://www.asianews.it/news-en/Sri-Lankan-research-team-identifies-fungus-that-attacks-rubber-plants-63239.html
Site: Zero Hedge

Trump Nominates Slew Of New Generals To Command Europe, Mideast & Africa

2 days 17 hours ago

Author: Tyler Durden

Trump Nominates Slew Of New Generals To Command Europe, Mideast & Africa
The Trump administration has just nominated a slew of new generals to head up top US military commands in the Middle East, Africa, and Europe.

Importantly, Air Force General Alex Grynkewich has been nominated as NATO’s new Supreme Allied Commander in Europe (SACEUR) and head of U.S. European Command (EUCOM).
Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, via CENTCOM
This comes amid reports that the US under the Trump administration is growing frustrated enough to 'step back' from NATO leadership, with lack of collective defense spending out of Europe.

For example, Defense News last month acknowledged, :The nomination to head European Command, which is not yet final, comes at a moment of uncertainty for America’s military commitment to Europe, potentially including cuts to U.S. forces on the continent and a lesser role in the NATO alliance."

Brussels is meanwhile pushing plans for NATO buildup plans in connection with a new spending goal, also at a moment Washington has told the UK that it should reach a target of 5% of GDP spending on defense, according to The Telegraph.

Grynkewich currently serves as Joint Staff Director for Operations and was formerly the top US Air Force commander in the Middle East, which means he oversaw the aerial response to CENTCOM's prior bombing raids against the Houthis of Yemen, as well as previously 'counter-ISIS' ops in northern Syria.

According to his official Air Force bio:

Lt. Gen. Grynkewich received his commission in 1993 after graduating from the U.S. Air Force Academy. He has served as an instructor pilot, weapons officer and operational test pilot in the F-16 Fighting Falcon and F-22 Raptor. Lt. Gen. Grynkewich has commanded at the squadron, wing and Air Expeditionary Task Force levels. His staff assignments include service at Air Combat Command, U.S. European Command, U.S. Central Command, Headquarters Air Force, and the Joint Staff. Prior to his current assignment, he served as the 9th Air Force (Air Forces Central), Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina, and the Combined Forces Air Component Commander for U.S. Central Command, Southwest Asia.

President Trump also nominated Navy Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, currently CENTCOM’s deputy commander, to lead CENTCOM. Additionally, Dagvin Anderson, director for Joint Force Development, has been tapped to lead US Africa Command (AFRICOM).

The Pentagon announces U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General Alexus Grynkewich as NATO's new Supreme Allied Commander and head of U.S. European Command. pic.twitter.com/IIofVrs7W3
— Clash Report (@clashreport) June 5, 2025
This fresh crop of commanders are likely being tapped for their loyalty to Trump's vision of 'make deals, not chaos' for the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

While there's no peace on the horizon as yet when it comes to Ukraine, Gaza, or Yemen - there's been noticeably quiet from the White House these past few days as both conflict theatres heat up. This could be a good thing, given Trump is not issuing threats, but could be patiently waiting for how Russia's retaliation on Ukraine - for example - plays out.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/06/2025 - 07:45

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/trump-nominates-slew-new-generals-command-mideast-africa-europe
Site: Zero Hedge

Futures Rise On Easing Trump-Musk Spat As Payrolls Loom

2 days 18 hours ago

Author: Tyler Durden
Futures Rise On Easing Trump-Musk Spat As Payrolls Loom
S&P 500 futures rose 0.4% as Tesla shares rebounded 4% in premarket on signs that the spat between President Donald Trump and Elon Musk is cooling. Market gains had little conviction as traders brace for Friday’s main event: a pivotal payrolls report (full preview here) that’s likely to set the direction of travel for markets. Nasdaq futures also add 0.5% even as Broadcom shares fall 3% in premarket after giving a a lackluster revenue forecast for the current quarter. European stocks are little changed. Bond yields are 1-2bp lower; the USD is higher; the yen dropped after BBG reported that Bank of Japan officials are likely to discuss slowing their pullback from buying government bonds at a policy meeting later this month. Commodities are mostly higher: Gold climbs $6 to around $3,358/oz while silver tops $36/oz. WTI falls 0.6% to $63 a barrel. Bitcoin rises 3%. Macro headlines were largely muted overnight; All eyes on NFP today.

In premarket trading, Mag7 stocks are higher, led by Tesla, whose shares are set to rebound, rising 4.9% premarket, after plunging on Thursday as the feud between Elon Musk and President Donald Trump showed signs of de-escalation (Amazon +1%, Meta +0.8%, Apple +0.6%, Alphabet +0.6%, Nvidia +0.5%, Microsoft +0.4%).
- Broadcom (AVGO) dropped 3% after the company gave a lackluster revenue forecast for the current quarter, suggesting that the AI spending frenzy isn’t as strong as some investors anticipated. Lululemon added to the gloom after its latest earnings report highlighted the risk posed by new tariffs and exacerbated concerns about slowing growth.
- Docusign (DOCU) shares are down 18% after the e-signature software company gave a second-quarter billings outlook that is weaker than expected.
- Lululemon (LULU) shares plunge 21% after the upscale athletic clothing company cut its earnings per share forecast for the full year.
Markets are still reveberating from the spat between Trump and Musk in which Trump proposed cutting off the billionaire’s government contracts. Musk, who sparked the public feud by criticizing Trump’s signature tax bill, later signaled that he’s keen to dial down the hostility. White House aides have reportedly scheduled a call with the world’s richest person for Friday in an effort to cool things down. Their public back-and-forth triggered the most spectacular real-time destruction of wealth ever, with $34 billion erased from Musk’s net worth. Tesla shares are rebounding in premarket, after tanking 14% Thursday.

“Futures are edging higher, perhaps as Musk has started to suggest on X that he would be open to a cooling-off period in his war of words with the President,” said Jim Reid, global head of macro research and thematic strategy at Deutsche Bank AG.

Moves in other asset clases were more muted as traders awaited Friday’s nonfarm payrolls report for fresh insight on how the Trump administration’s trade war is affecting the economy. Turning to today's main event, economists see payrolls rising by 125,000 after job growth in March and April exceeded projections. The unemployment rate is seen holding at 4.2%. Weak payrolls data would be bad news for markets, with a big miss potentially sending stocks down 1.5%, according to Goldman Sachs traders (full preview here). A softening labor market would support expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates at least twice this year.

“Investors are getting used to all the noise and are looking at concrete matters like the jobs report or budget,” said Mabrouk Chetouane, head of global market strategy at Natixis Investment Managers. “There is a cooling trend in the labor market, which I expect will show this afternoon. That should further reinforce our call for two or three cuts from the Fed this year.”

Meanwhile, BofA’s Michael Hartnett is warning that global stocks are close to triggering sell signals as both fund inflows and market breadth are running too hot. The strategist said inflows to stocks and high-yield bonds have totaled 0.9% of AUM in the past four weeks. The sell signal will be set off if that exceeds 1%.

European equities are little changed as investors search for fresh catalysts on trade negotiations between the US and China and look ahead to a key US jobs report. The real estate and health care sectors outperform, while consumer shares are among the biggest laggards. Among individual movers, Adidas and Puma fall after Lululemon’s disappointing quarter fueled concerns over rising competition and tariffs. Here are the biggest European movers:
- Chemring gains for an 18th straight day, rising as much as 5.1% following an upgrade to buy at Berenberg which gives the UK defense firm a clean sweep of positive analyst ratings
- Galderma shares gain as much as 3.3%, to the highest level since February after Kepler Cheuvreux initiated coverage of the Swiss pure play dermatology group with a recommendation of buy and a new street high price target.
- Demant shares jump as much as 6.7% as the stock trades for the first time since being upgraded to buy at Citi.
- Huber + Suhner shares rise as much as 4.6% after Berenberg said the Swiss electrical products manufacturer is especially well-positioned for growth as it started coverage with a buy rating.
- Canal+ rises as much as 8.1%, reaching highest since mid December, after the media and entertainment company confirmed its full-year expectations and said it has reached an agreement with France’s cinema agency to settle a tax dispute.
- Recordati shares gain as much as 3.4% to a three-month high after JPMorgan lifted its price target on the stock, saying the Italian pharmaceutical company’s growth outlook is “strong and sustainable,” even before more M&A activity.
- Norwegian salmon stocks gaining after a broad cross-party agreement to delay any sweeping changes to the licensing system for several years, according to a statement from the parties after markets closed on Thursday.
- European athleisure stocks fall as US-listed Lululemon posted a second straight disappointing quarter, fueling concerns around the impact of rising competition and new tariffs.
- Allegro shares drop after two of its major holders — investment vehicles of Cinven and Permira Holdings, sold a 5.2% stake in the company.
- PostNL falls as much as 12.5% as Kepler Cheuvreux analyst Marc Zeck downgraded his recommendation from hold to reduce.
- Dassault Systemes shares decline as much as 2.5% after the company said it aims to double its non-IFRS diluted EPS by 2029, pushing out a more ambitious 2028 goal.
- Polish banking stocks fall after Szymon Holownia, the leader of junior coalition party Polska 2050, told Polsat News that he wants to include a windfall tax on lenders into a renegotiated coalition agreement.
Earlier in the session, Asian stocks traded in a tight range as a much-anticipated call between Donald Trump and China’s Xi Jinping offered little details on how trade negotiations would progress. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index was little changed. Indian stocks rose after the central bank cut interest rates more than projected and unexpectedly reduced the cash reserve ratio for banks. Gauges in Hong Kong fell, while those in Japan rebounded. Markets in Indonesia, Philippines and South Korea were closed for holidays.

In rates, treasuries edge higher ahead of the jobs report, with US 10-year yields falling nearly 2 bps to 3.37%. Bunds outperform their US peers, pushing German 10-year borrowing costs down 5 bps to 2.54%.

In FX, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rises 0.2%. The Japanese yen and Swedish krona are the weakest G-10 currencies, falling 0.4% each. The euro dips 0.3% with little reaction seen after euro-area GDP was revised up for the first quarter. ECB policymakers largely stuck to Thursday’s messaging after they cut rates by a quarter point. USDJPY rose 0.4% to 144.08 after BBG reported that Bank of Japan officials are likely to discuss slowing their pullback from buying government bonds at a policy meeting later this month.

In commodities, gold climbs $6 to around $3,360/oz while silver tops $36/oz. WTI falls 0.6% to $63 a barrel. Bitcoin rises 3%.

Looking at today's calendar, the payrolls numbers are due at 8:30 a.m., while consumer credit data is due later in the day. The Fed’s Bowman is scheduled to give a speech on supervision and regulation.

Market Snapshot
- S&P 500 mini +0.5%
- Nasdaq 100 mini +0.5%
- Russell 2000 mini +0.6%
- Stoxx Europe 600 little changed
- DAX -0.2%, CAC 40 little changed
- 10-year Treasury yield -1 basis point at 4.38%
- VIX -0.3 points at 18.18
- Bloomberg Dollar Index +0.2% at 1210.26
- euro -0.3% at $1.1413
- WTI crude -0.5% at $63.03/barrel
Top Overnight News
- Elon Musk signaled he would move to cool tensions with US President Donald Trump, after differences between the two exploded Thursday into an all-out public feud.
- White House aides scheduled a call with Elon Musk today to take down the temperature after a public feud erupted with Donald Trump. Musk signaled he’s open to cooling tensions. Premarket, Tesla shares (+4.3%) pared some of yesterday’s plunge. Musk also backed off on a threat to decommission SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft. BBG
- In the midst of the trade war and administration efforts to disentangle the U.S. and Chinese economies, US pharma companies have simultaneously supercharged their interest in China-based biotechs, announcing what are likely to be the biggest deals ever for the rights to experimental medicines invented by Chinese companies. Barron’s
- The US Treasury called on the BOJ to raise rates to strengthen the yen, making a remarkable policy recommendation in its semiannual currency report. Japan’s finance ministry said it doesn’t comment on the views of a foreign government. BBG
- Expectations in the market are intensifying that the Japanese government may adjust debt issuance as soon as next month by increasing sales of shorter maturity securities and trimming offerings of longer-dated ones to prevent a further rise in yields. BBG
- The European Central Bank is approaching the end of its interest-rate cuts, according to two Governing Council members, as others declared inflation has been vanquished.
- The Reserve Bank of India cut its key policy rate on Friday by an unexpectedly sharp 50 bps to 5.5%, its lowest level in nearly three years, as tepid inflation allowed the bank to focus on spurring economic growth. Nikkei
- Iran orders thousands of tons of ballistic missile material from China as Tehran looks to rebuild its arsenal and provide more weapons to proxies in the Middle East. WSJ
- We estimate nonfarm payrolls rose by 110k in May, below consensus of 125k and the three-month average of +155k. On the positive side, big data indicators suggested a healthy pace of job creation. On the negative side, trade policy uncertainty was very high across the survey period and we expect another 10k decline in federal government payrolls from workforce reductions. GIR
- The ECB is approaching the end of its interest-rate cycle, Madis Muller said. Fellow Governing Council member Yannis Stournaras told BTV that the bank should take a break to give officials a chance to assess recent shocks. BBG
- Trump told Senate Republicans he’s open to a SALT cap below the $40,000 in the House-passed tax bill. BBG
Tariffs/Trade
- German Chancellor Merz said Europe is looking for more independence from China and tariffs are having a "terrible" impact on German automakers, while the Chancellery and White House agreed to even closer cooperation on trade talks, according to CNN. Merz also commented that US tariffs are threatening our economy and we are looking for ways to bring them down, according to a Fox News interview. German Chancellor Merz said this US admin is open for discussions, and hearing other opinions; no doubts US will stick with NATO
- Canadian PM Carney spoke with Chinese Premier Li Qiang and exchanged views on bilateral relations, while they emphasised the importance of engagement and both leaders agreed to regularise communication channels between Canada and China. Furthermore, they also discussed trade between the two nations and Carney’s office stated that both governments committed to collaborating on addressing the fentanyl crisis.
- Chinese Premier Li held talks with Canadian PM Carney, according to Xinhua; China willing to safeguard multilaterals and free trade with Canada. There is 'great potential' for cooperation between China & Canada. Both should strengthen cooperation in clean energy, climate change, and innovation.
- Japan's government said trade negotiator Akazawa met with US Commerce Secretary Lutnick and Akazawa strongly sought a review of US tariffs, while they discussed non-tariff barriers and trade expansion.
A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk

APAC stocks traded mixed following the subdued handover from the US where a stunning online bust-up between US President Trump and Elon Musk overshadowed the recent call between President Trump and Chinese President Xi in which the leaders agreed to start a new round of talks ASAP. ASX 200 saw two-way, rangebound trade as outperformance in the energy and utilities sectors was counterbalanced by losses in gold miners and the top-weighted financial industry, while a lack of pertinent data releases also contributed to the uneventful picture. Nikkei 225 gained with the index supported by recent currency weakness although further upside was capped following disappointing Household Spending data which showed a steeper-than-feared M/M decline and a surprise Y/Y contraction. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp were indecisive despite the recent phone call between US President Trump and Chinese President Xi which the White House had been touting throughout the week, while Xi reiterated calls for the US to handle the Taiwan issue with caution.

Top Asian News
- RBI cut the Repurchase Rate by 50bps to 5.50% (exp. 25bps cut) and changed its stance to neutral from accommodative, while it cut the Standing Deposit Facility Rate and Marginal Standing Facility Rate by 50bps each to 5.25% and 5.75%, respectively. RBI Governor Malhotra said growth remains lower than aspirations and it is important to stimulate growth, as well as noted that front-loading rate cuts to support growth was felt necessary. Malhotra also stated that inflation has softened significantly over the last six months and inflation is likely to undershoot the full-year target at the margin, while he noted that monetary policy has limited space left to support growth and they retained the FY26 Real GDP growth forecast at 6.5%. Furthermore, the RBI Governor announced to cut the Cash Reserve Ratio by 100bps in four equal tranches, which will release INR 2.5tln, as well as noted that they will continue to monitor and take measures as necessary and that the CRR cut is to reduce the cost of funding of banks and help accelerate policy transmission.
- PBoC set USD/CNY mid-point at 7.1845 vs exp. 7.1935 (Prev. 7.1865).
- Japan's former top FX diplomat says narrowing US-Japan rate gap will likely support the yen at around 135-140 against USD by year-end.
European bourses - Flat/lower trade across Europe following the fallout of the dramatic Trump-Musk spat, but with traders setting their sights on the US jobs report due 13:30 BST/08:30 EDT. On the week, futures of the broad Stoxx 600 and Euro Stoxx 50 indices are currently poised for a second week of gains, though not by much at this stage, and will depend on how the aforementioned data comes in. European sectors - Sectors display a mixed picture with the breadth of the market also narrow, with no real bias. Top gainers at the time of writing include Health Care (+0.6%), Energy (+0.5%), and Retail (+0.3%); losers include Basic Resources (-0.9%), Industrial Goods and Services (-0.4%), and Media (-0.3%). European movers - HSBC (+0.3%) chairman Mark Tucker will step down on September 30th. Adidas (-1.3%), JD Sports (-0.5%), and Puma (-1.6%) are all slipping after US apparel maker Lululemon (LULU) saw its shares tumble by over 20% in extended trading. Airbus (-0.9%) confirmed that it delivered 51 jets in May (-4% Y/Y),

Top European News
- UK government unveiled new concessions to private equity firms regarding its tax break crackdown in which it proposed changes to tax treatment of carried interest that will make the regime less onerous, according to FT.
- ECB's Holzmann says "I dissented" at the rate decision on Thursday (as expected)Lowering rates at a time of high savings and low investments ha no effect except a monetary effectCurrently expansive in monetary policyLagarde said we are at the end of the cycle, wanted to discuss whether that is the caseCurrent nominal neutral rate is around 3%
- ECB's Muller said ECB can be happy with inflation where it is; and he agrees with ECB President Lagarde that cycle almost finished. Hard to say what's coming next on rates.
- ECB's Villeroy said the ECB has won the battle against inflation in Europe, and we will not again see the low rates we saw a few years ago, and added that French inflation is now under control but debt remains a serious issue, "France cannot continue like this", according to Bloomberg.
- ECB's Simkus said interest rates are now at neutral; its important to keep full flexibility, according to Reuters. Stournaras said the best thing for the ECB is to wait and see, ECB rate cutting is nearly done, ECB has achieved a soft landing, and ECB may cut if the economy weakens and inflation falls. Stournaras noted of downside risks to growth, and the bank is "quite" confident in its forecasts, and said he's afraid the Dollar may lose some of its status.
- Bundesbank semi-annual report: German recovery delayed further; economy to tread water in 2025; German GDP to stagnate in 2025, grow by 0.7% in 2026. Increased defence, infrastructure spending to significantly increase growth by the end of 2027. German exports will decline significantly in 2025, increase only slightly next year.
- Italian Stats Bureau ISTAT cut Italy's 2025 GDP growth to 0.6% from 0.8% forecast in December.
- SNB noted that it does not engage in any manipulation of the CHF; does not seek to prevent adjustments in the balance of trade or to gain unfair competitive advantages for the Swiss economy. In addition, the use of FX market interventions may be necessary under certain circumstances to ensure appropriate monetary conditions. SNB monetary policy is geared towards the needs of Switzerland.
FX
- USD - USD is slightly firmer in what has ultimately been a week of losses for DXY. Attention now is firmly fixated on today's NFP report which is set to see payroll growth slow to 130k from 177k and unemployment rate hold steady @ 4.2%. As it stands, the next 25bps cut is not fully priced until September with 54bps of loosening seen by year-end. DXY is towards the top end of yesterday's 98.35-98.94 range.
- EUR - EUR is trivially softer vs. the USD after gaining yesterday on account of the ECB rate decision which saw policymakers pull the trigger on a 25bps rate cut, whilst noting that policy is "well-positioned"; suggesting that the ECB could be nearing or at the end of its cutting cycle. ECB speak this morning hasn't shifted the dial with policymakers signalling flexibility going forward, whilst acknowledging progress on inflation. EUR/USD is contained within yesterday's 1.1404-1.1495 range.
- JPY - JPY is the laggard across the majors following disappointing Household Spending data. Subsequently, USD/JPY briefly made its way back onto a 144 handle with a current session peak @ 144.13, stopping shy of the WTD high @ 144.39. On the trade front, Japan's government said trade negotiator Akazawa met with US Commerce Secretary Lutnick and Akazawa strongly sought a review of US tariffs. Elsewhere, Japan's former top FX diplomat says narrowing US-Japan rate gap will likely support the yen at around 135-140 against USD by year-end.
- GBP - GBP is softer vs. the broadly firmer USD with UK-specific newsflow on the light side ahead of next week's UK spending review. On which, UK Chancellor Reeves reaffirmed she will not have a UK budget like October's again, but can't rule out any tax changes over the next four years. For today's agenda, BoE Chief Economist Pill is due to speak @ 13:00BST, but given the subject matter of "AI and Households", it is unclear how much he will touch on monetary policy. After printing a multi-year high yesterday @ 1.3616, Cable has since retreated and moved back below the 1.3550 mark.
- Antipodeans - Antipodeans are steady vs. the USD following a light data docket and relevant newsflow overnight. Both continue to keep an eye on US-Sino relations following the Xi-Trump call yesterday given their trade exposure. However, the readout had little follow-through into either currency. AUD/USD has moved back onto a 0.64 handle and pulled back from yesterday's YTD peak @ 0.6538. NZD/USD has also retreated from yesterday's YTD high @ 0.6080 but is still holding above the 0.60 mark.
- NBP's Litwiniuk said they need to be cautious regarding the disinflation path; MPC can return to the subject of cuts in July or September; rates can still be cut by 100-125bps this year.
Treasuries
- USTs - USTs are a touch higher ahead of the US jobs report and following yesterday's ECB-led losses which outmuscled a spike higher in weekly claims metrics. As it stands, the next 25bps cut is not fully priced until September with 54bps of loosening seen by year-end. Sep'25 USTs are currently within yesterday's 110.23+ to 111.14+ range. From a yield perspective, the US curve is fractionally in bull flattening mode, whilst the 10yr yield has moved back to the 4.37% after venturing as low as 4.318% yesterday.
- Bunds - Bunds are attempting to atone for yesterday's losses which were seen in the wake of the ECB rate decision. Sep'25 Bunds have been as high as 130.72 but are still some way away from yesterday's peak @ 131.47. The 10yr yield is back below the 2.55% mark after climbing as high as 2.581% yesterday.
- Gilts - Gilts are currently being led by the upside in German paper as UK-specific newsflow remains light ahead of next week's UK spending review. Sep'25 Gilts have been as high as 92.31 but still have some ground to cover before approaching yesterday's best @ 92.63. The 10yr yield currently sits just above the 4.6% mark and within yesterday's 4.557-4.648% range.
Commodities
- Crude Futures - Subdued trade amid a firmer Dollar and overall cautious risk tone heading into the US jobs report before the weekend. Contracts saw a leg lower likely on technicals as WTI dipped under USD 63.00/bbl at the same time as Brent fell under USD 65.00/bbl, although prices thereafter stabilised. News flow has been light for the complex, with nothing major to report in geopolitics either.
- Precious Metals - Spot gold and silver are largely treading water amid a lack of catalysts during the European morning in the run-up to the US jobs report. Spot gold currently resides in a current USD 3,351.49-3,375.29/oz range, well within yesterday's USD 3,338.29-3,403.15/oz parameter.
- Base Metals - Mixed trade across base metals, in fitting with the cautious risk tone ahead of the US jobs report, with the Trump-Xi phone call doing little to keep broader prices underpinned during this session. 3M LME copper dipped back under USD 9,700/t to trade in a USD 9,659.00-9,768.00/t range at the time of writing. Dalian iron ore futures rose to a one-week peak overnight with traders citing strong Chinese demand coupled with some optimism following the Trump-Xi call, with the front-month contract ending daytime trade +0.9%.
- HSBC expects OPEC+ to accelerate supply hikes in August and September; weaker fundamentals after the summer, raise downside risks to the Bank's USD 65/bbl brent forecast from Q425.
- LME has intervened to make Mercuria roll its "huge" position in aluminium, according to Bloomberg.
- India's Mines Minister said exploring critical mineral assets in Australia, Argentina and Chile.
- EU Ags Commissioner said EU-Ukraine trade has reverted to conditions of pre-war trade deal, after the expiry of wartime exemptions; could conclude a longer-term trade arrangement by summer. New EU-Ukraine trade arrangement will be in between the quotas under pre-war trade deal and war-time exemptions
Geopolitics: Middle East
- Israel assured the US it won't strike Iran unless talks fail, according to Axios.
- Iran is said to have ordered material from China that could make hundreds of ballistic missiles, according to Wall Street Journal.
- "Lebanese Army: Israel's continued violation of the agreement may push us to freeze cooperation with the monitoring committee regarding site inspection", via Al Hadath.
Geopolitics: Ukraine
- Ukraine said Russia launched a drone and missile attack with explosions and air defence activity heard over Kyiv.
- Russian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Ryabkov said returning to the arms control agreement with the US is becoming less and less realistic amid the US' Golden Dome project.
- EU is weighing adding Russia to its money laundering 'grey list', according to FT.
- French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs hopes the European Commission will put new Russian sanctions package before the end of June, according to Reuters.
US Event Calendar
- 8:30 am: May Change in Nonfarm Payrolls, est. 126k, prior 177k
- 8:30 am: May Change in Private Payrolls, est. 120k, prior 167k
- 8:30 am: May Change in Manufact. Payrolls, est. -4.5k, prior -1k
- 8:30 am: May Unemployment Rate, est. 4.2%, prior 4.2%
- 8:30 am: May Average Hourly Earnings MoM, est. 0.3%, prior 0.2%
- 8:30 am: May Average Hourly Earnings YoY, est. 3.7%, prior 3.8%
- 3:00 pm: Apr Consumer Credit, est. 10b, prior 10.17b
Central Banks
- 10:00 am: Fed’s Bowman Gives Speech on Supervision, Regulation
DB's Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap

Markets had a volatile session yesterday, as they grappled with a barrage of news that each pushed in different directions. Those included positive US-China headlines amid a call between Trump and Xi, a hawkish ECB decision and more weak data from the US. But the most remarkable was an extraordinary war of words between Trump and Elon Musk that ultimately left risks assets losing ground. Tesla’s shares plunged by -14.26%, while the S&P 500 fell -0.53% despite earlier briefly moving into technical bull market territory as it climbed just over +20% since its recent low on April 8.

The dramatic feud between the US President and the world’s richest man emerged after Trump said during a meeting with Germany’s chancellor Merz that he was “disappointed” and “surprised” in Musk’s recent criticism of the Republicans’ budget bill, with Musk responding on X by suggesting that Trump would have lost the election without his support. The war of words then escalated on social media, with Trump posting that “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts”, while Musk posted that Trump’s tariffs “will cause a recession in the second half of this year” and responded “yes” to a suggestion that Trump should be impeached.

Following the Trump-Musk spat, Tesla’s shares slumped -14.26%, which together with a -3.55% decline on Wednesday marked its worst two-day decline (-17.30%) since 2020. The feud also weighed on US risk assets more broadly, with the S&P 500 (-0.53%) seeing ten of its eleven sector groups move lower on the day. Meanwhile, the VIX volatility index rose +0.87pts to 18.48, having been earlier on course to fall to its lowest level since late March. The tech mood has stayed subdued overnight as Broadcom’s results delivered a lackluster revenue forecast. The chipmaker, which is now the 7th largest company in the S&P 500 and around $300bn of market cap ahead of Tesla, saw its shares slide by more than -4% after-hours. However S&P 500 (+0.25%) and NASDAQ 100 (+0.14%) futures are edging higher, perhaps as Musk has started to suggest on X that he would be open to a cooling-off period in his war of words with the President.

Earlier on in the session we had seen a clear risk-on move on both sides of the Atlantic as a surprise Trump-Xi call raised the prospect of fresh US-China talks, leading to growing optimism that trade tensions would ease. The news of a call by Chinese state media led to an immediate jump in US equity futures. Shortly after, the rally got a further boost after Trump posted that it was “a very good phone call” which “resulted in a very positive conclusion for both Countries.” In the post, it said that their respective teams would soon meet, and also that “There should no longer be any questions respecting the complexity of Rare Earth products.” So that helped to boost market optimism, particularly after Trump had posted the previous day that Xi was “VERY TOUGH, AND EXTREMELY HARD TO MAKE A DEAL WITH!!!”.

The trade headlines outweighed an initial negative reaction to the latest weekly US jobless claims, which added to fears that the US labour market was finally deteriorating after Liberation Day. Initial jobless claims (one of the most timely indicators we get) moved up to 247k in the week ending May 31 (vs. 235k expected), reaching their highest level since October. Moreover, that followed the very soft ADP report the previous day, which had private payrolls up by just +37k in May. The one caveat to the claims data is that seasonals tend to boost the number a bit at this time of the year. However it’s not the only evidence of a slightly weakening labour market. So that’s really heightened the focus on today’s jobs report for May, as any softness there would really magnify those fears. In terms of what to expect, our US economists forecast nonfarm payrolls to come in at +125k, dipping down from the +177k in March, with the unemployment rate remaining at 4.2%.

Those competing factors drove a big turnaround for US Treasuries yesterday. They initially fell back, with the 10yr yield hitting an intraday low of 4.31% just after the claims data. But the hawkish ECB decision and the Trump-Xi call led to a significant turnaround, with the 10yr yield ultimately closing up +3.7bps at 4.39%. The moves were even larger at the front-end of the curve, with the 2yr yield up +5.4bps to 3.92% as investors dialled back the likelihood of Fed rate cuts.
Meanwhile in Europe, the ECB was the biggest market driver yesterday. They cut rates by 25bps as expected, taking the deposit rate down to 2%. But significantly, President Lagarde signalled that they had “nearly concluded” the easing cycle, suggesting that policy rates weren’t likely to go much lower from here. She also signalled little urgency to cut rates, saying that the current level left them “in a good position to navigate the uncertain conditions that will be coming up.” As such, the ECB appears to be saying that it may have now reached the appropriate level of rates, a stronger message than a soft signal of a pause our European economists had expected. That said, our economists see expected soft growth in H2 and more significant disinflation than projected by the ECB as still favouring some further easing. See their full reaction here.

Lagarde’s comments immediately drove a clear market reaction, with another 25bp ECB cut now being less than fully priced, the 2yr German yield surging +7.8bps on the day and the euro itself strengthening +0.25%. Several other details also fed into the hawkish narrative, with the policy statement saying that although trade uncertainty would be a short-term drag, “rising government investment in defence and infrastructure will increasingly support growth over the medium term.” Later in the day, Bloomberg also reported that ECB officials thought a pause at the next meeting in July was the most likely scenario, with mixed views on whether another rate cut was likely after that. By the close, yields on 10yr bunds (+5.2bps), OATs (+4.7bps) and BTPs (+3.5bps) had all moved higher. Otherwise, equities ended the day higher with the STOXX 600 up +0.16%, but that was mainly thanks to the Trump-Xi call, as the index had been in negative territory after the hawkish ECB news.

In Asia markets are relatively subdued this morning. The Nikkei (+0.24%) has risen a little on weak Japanese economic data that might delay further rate hikes by the BOJ (more below). Meanwhile, the CSI (-0.12%) and the Shanghai Composite (-0.06%) are struggling to gain traction while the Hang Seng (-0.21%) and the S&P/ASX 200 (-0.19%) are seeing minor losses.

Coming back to Japan household spending (-0.1% y/y) unexpectedly fell in April, attributed to consumers curbing spending due to rising prices. This contrasted sharply with market expectations of a +1.5% gain following the previous month's +2.1% increase.

Elsewhere yesterday, data showed the US trade deficit narrowed sharply to $61.6bn in April, reflecting the impact of the new tariffs. That was the smallest monthly deficit since September 2023, and a huge decline from the prior month's $138.3bn trade deficit. Given that lower imports mechanically add to GDP, this is expected to lead to a strong bounceback in GDP for Q2 after the Q1 contraction. Indeed, the Atlanta Fed’s latest GDPNow estimate is pointing to annualised growth of +3.8% in Q2.

To the day ahead now, and the main highlight will be the US jobs report for May. Over in Europe, there’s also Euro Area retail sales for April, and German and French industrial production for April. Otherwise, central bank speakers include ECB President Lagarde, and the ECB’s Holzmann, Simkus and Centeno.
Tyler Durden Fri, 06/06/2025 - 07:26
https://www.zerohedge.com/market-recaps/futures-rise-easing-trump-musk-spat-payrolls-loom
Site: Zero Hedge

Do We Really Need Home Robots?

2 days 18 hours ago

Author: Tyler Durden

Do We Really Need Home Robots?
Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

Maybe there was a time—when I was a kid watching “The Jetsons”—when I fantasized about a walking, talking, productive robot in my house. It would do the laundry, the cooking, the cleaning, answer the door, walk the dog, dress the kids, make the bed, and so on.

Many companies, most notably Tesla, are working on this now. We see the prototypes all over social media. Artificial intelligence (AI) language models have made their speech very impressive. Their movements are looking ever more natural. They do seem to be on the way, and Elon Musk says they will be the biggest consumer product in history.

These days, I’m not so sure. In fact, the prospect seems absurd to me, destined to make our lives worse not better. Do we really need fewer routines and more excuses to sit and stare at our computers while machines do even more work for us?

Count me among the skeptics. We have been replacing household routines with machines for a century. Some have merit because the manual way is too arduous. I would rather have a vacuum cleaner than beat out rugs, even if the latter method is better in the long run. Same with dishwashers and washing machines. I get that they save time.

But there comes a point when it is all too much. The trigger for me was the “smart” lightbulb. That’s where I drew the line. I would rather stand up and turn it off and on than become nothing but a couch potato with a smartphone. There are reasons perhaps for the ability to remotely manage household temperature, but if I were building today, I would look long and hard for analog over digital thermostats.

After my decision to reject smart bulbs, I started de-digitizing my domestic space. No more home assistants. I can stand up and turn the volume on the speaker up and down with my fingers. I can look through a hole in the door to see who is there. I can walk to the car and turn it on. And so on. I also appreciate not being surrounded by tools of surveillance.

As this process unfolded, I began to realize something culturally insidious about all of these new technologies. They all teach us to regret however it is we are using our time except and to the extent we are frittering away our lives on digital devices. They teach us that everything else we are doing is a waste of time.

We are encouraged always to get things done faster and with ever less effort. Whatever we are doing is regrettable. Adopting a new tech means saving time and energy. But ask yourself: For what are we actually saving this time and energy? Very likely it is something else that you are supposed to regret.

This becomes a major attitude problem. It creates a culture of grumbling and discontent. That attitude invades our hearts and souls, so eventually the normal stream of life itself becomes nothing other than a big pain in the neck. This then fuels the consumer demand for ever more products that promise to do everything for us.

How many actual skills are we losing along the way? Plenty.

Quick story about how I had wax melted all over a linen cloth. I had no idea what to do about it. So I looked it up on Grok. The suggestion came in two parts. First, freeze the cloth and scrape off the excess with a credit card. Second, iron it with a hot iron with a brown bag or newspaper between the iron and cloth.

I did it and was utterly astounded. It worked like a dream.

I thought, “Thank goodness for AI for teaching me this amazing trick.”

But in talking with others about it, it turns out that this is not some great secret. This is how people have been removing wax from cloth for centuries.

Apparently, our grandfathers all knew this. But for me, I somehow missed out on that lesson. Now it can be part of my routines.

One wonders how much other knowledge is being lost as we turn over more and more parts of our lives to AI and robots. There is a genuine danger here of intellectual and spiritual atrophy. We should think about this carefully before we plunge full-on into a machine-run world.

Every new technology brings benefits, but also costs. Musical skill is evaporating in the home, for example, and has for decades. Most young people today have no idea how to iron. When inflation hit restaurants so hard a few years ago, many people had to learn how to cook for the first time.

Most people have no clue about how clothing comes to be washed without a machine and would not even know how to begin cleaning a pair of socks by soaking them in hot water. Instead, we think the machines do some mysterious magic inside a rumbling box.

This is not a case against streaming music or washing machines but only a heads-up that they come at the cost of our own capacity to manage our lives in their absence. We become less useful as human beings. That surely must be recognized as something to regret, even if only a bit.

We should be more aware of the way the product market thrives off feeding our disgruntlement. It’s not evil, and that’s the market at work. There’s always going to be a better mousetrap.

But we should still be aware of the effect on our lives and attitudes. There is merit and joy in simple routines such as cleaning, cooking, folding, walking the dog, standing up from time to time and doing things, and even gardening and hard work.

If we come to think of all these things as pointless expenditures of time and energy, better done by a machine, a major swath of our lives becomes nothing but drudgery.

This is all about the attitude we bring to routine tasks. If we go into them with a sense that someone or something else should be doing them, we have a downcast mind, do a sloppy job, and let our brains be invaded by all kinds of negative energy.

If you look at the same task as an opportunity to be scrupulous, to be useful, to achieve something with one’s own hands, to better our little part of the world, and to take pride in what we have done, the opposite happens. Our blues turn to joy, gradually over time.

As I’ve written, this is how farmers think. They rise early to feed the chickens, repair the fences, fix the water well, brush the horses, or whatever else, not with a sense that all of this is terrible but rather that this is how life is, its very essence. It is all about using one’s own energy to exercise some controlling and civilizing cooperative relationship with the natural world around us.

Most of us are not farmers, but we can adopt the same patience, persistence, and joy that they have, even if we are dealing with urban commutes, buying groceries, or keeping our homes and spaces clean and orderly. Or gardening. We don’t need robots for this. We can do this with our own hands.

Again, what precisely are we preparing to do with the time we supposedly save with all this automation and rushing around? If you think about it, you are probably merely doing something else that you are regretting just as much as the previous thing. Honestly, this is no way to live.

It’s all about the attitude we bring to the conduct of daily life. If we listen to the constant screams that our lives are miserable—that it is darn near slavery to fold clothes and do dishes—so we need robots to do things for us, the result will be sadness all around instead of a constant sense of achievement.

Maybe there is a role for these machines for the sick and infirm, just like autonomous driving can be a dream for those in no position to drive themselves. But as usual with new products, we have a tendency to wildly exaggerate their merits, believing that they will take away all the demons that surround us. When that doesn’t work, we turn to substances.

Buy a robot if you must, but it is just as crucial to learn and do so-called menial tasks with joy, if only to remind ourselves of the high place of the human person—ourselves—in the unfolding of our lives. Maybe we should stop spending money on toys that encourage us to believe that we are ever less useful as human beings.

Every new technology in the 21st century seems to go in the same direction: overpromised results, wild enthusiasm, roaring stock markets, release, disappointment, and finally reality. Remember the way we were all going to wear headsets and live in the Metaverse? That did not happen.

Similarly on robots for domestic use. I’m bearish. My intuition is that society has already seen peak techno-utopia and is now ready for a return to the physical world with all its beautiful routines, the mastery of which requires human hands.

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 Fri, 06/06/2025 - 07:20

https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/do-we-really-need-home-robots
Site: Mises Institute

To Veatch His Own

2 days 18 hours ago

Author: David Gordon

As a bookend to last week‘s critical article on Thomistic Aristotelianism of Alasdair MacIntyre, Dr. David Gordon in Friday Philosophy scrutinizes the libertarian-tolerant philosopher Henry B. Veatch. Dr. Gordon finds Veatch‘s arguments much more tolerable.

https://mises.org/friday-philosophy/veatch-his-own
Site: Novus Motus Liturgicus

The Holy Ghost Hole, Addendum

2 days 18 hours ago

Pfarrkirche Lunz am See: Lunz Parish Church, AustriaThere is a special joy in seeing something that one has only read about for years. I experienced this joy in Lunz am See, Austria, last week. This tiny town in Lower Austria, not far from the crystal-clear lake of Lunzersee, has a quaint parish church that was built around 1502. It is described both as a Marienkirche (a church dedicated to the Michael P. Foleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02649905848645336033noreply@blogger.com0

https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2025/05/a-history-of-popes-named-leo-part-4-st.html
Site: Zero Hedge

Japan's iSpace Spacecraft Crashes On Moon, Shares Crater Back On Earth

2 days 18 hours ago

Author: Tyler Durden

Japan's iSpace Spacecraft Crashes On Moon, Shares Crater Back On Earth
Tokyo-based ispace Inc.'s second uncrewed lunar landing attempt ended in failure on Friday, as its Resilience lander crashed during the final descent phase. The lunar mishap marks another setback for the Japanese firm.

"As of 8:00 a.m. on June 6, 2025, mission controllers have determined that it is unlikely that communication with the lander will be restored and therefore completing Success 9 is not achievable. It has been decided to conclude the mission," ispace wrote on X.

As of 8:00 a.m. on June 6, 2025, mission controllers have determined that it is unlikely that communication with the lander will be restored and therefore completing Success 9 is not achievable. It has been decided to conclude the mission.

“Given that there is currently no… pic.twitter.com/IoRUfggoiQ
— ispace (@ispace_inc) June 6, 2025
The mission, which was positioned as a pivotal moment for Japan's entry into lunar exploration and a cornerstone for its commercial space ambitions, has sidelined moon missions from the company for now. The loss follows a failed 2023 mission due to a software error.

Meanwhile, Texas-based rivals Intuitive Machines Inc. and Firefly Aerospace Inc. have already achieved lunar landings. Firefly became the first private company to successfully land a functioning spacecraft on the moon in March, while Intuitive Machines managed a hard touchdown—but its lander lost functionality just hours later.

Ispace provided color on the sequence of events that led to the failed landing:

ispace engineers at the HAKUTO-R Mission Control Center in Nihonbashi, Tokyo, transmitted commands to execute the landing sequence at 3:13 a.m. on June 6, 2025. The RESILIENCE lander then began the descent phase. The lander descended from an altitude of approximately 100 km to approximately 20 km, and then successfully fired its main engine as planned to begin deceleration. While the lander's attitude was confirmed to be nearly vertical, telemetry was lost thereafter, and no data indicating a successful landing was received, even after the scheduled landing time had passed.

Based on the currently available data, the Mission Control Center has been able to confirm the following: The laser rangefinder used to measure the distance to the lunar surface experienced delays in obtaining valid measurement values. As a result, the lander was unable to decelerate sufficiently to reach the required speed for the planned lunar landing. Based on these circumstances, it is currently assumed that the lander likely performed a hard landing on the lunar surface.

After communication with the lander was lost, a command was sent to reboot the lander, but communication was unable to be re-established.

In markets, iSpace shares in Tokyo crashed on Friday, closing down nearly 29%... What goes up must come down.

Earlier, Ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada held a news conference following news of the failed landing attempt. He compared iSpace to SpaceX: "SpaceX has also failed several times, but now SpaceX occupies the launching market."

Ispace CFO Jumpei Nozaki recently told CNN that the company has already secured funds for a third attempt at landing a craft on the lunar surface.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/06/2025 - 06:55

https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/japans-ispace-crashes-moon-shares-crater-back-earth
Site: Zero Hedge

Doug Casey On Silver: Money, Markets, & The Metal's Role In The Coming Chaos

2 days 18 hours ago

Author: Tyler Durden

Doug Casey On Silver: Money, Markets, & The Metal's Role In The Coming Chaos
Via InternationalMan.com,

International Man: What is it about silver that makes it viable as a monetary metal—that is, something people actually use to store and exchange value?

Doug Casey: Let’s look at the definition of what makes a good money. There are basically six characteristics. A good money has to be durable, divisible, convenient, consistent, have use value, and some limit on supply. Using those six key characteristics, gold ranks first, silver second, and copper third. That’s why those three metals have been preferred money throughout history. They were superior to seashells, salt, cows, paper, and other commodities. In today’s world it makes sense to bring Bitcoin, which also satisfies those six characteristics into the mix.

So, to answer the question: Silver has always been a monetary metal, and it likely always will be.

International Man: Do you think gold functions better as money than silver—and if so, why? If not, why not?

Doug Casey: Gold is much scarcer than silver. It has an extremely high unit value. And its value relative to silver has increased throughout history. In the days of Ancient Egypt, gold traded at only three times the value of silver. In Rome, at the time of Caesar, the gold aureus was worth about 12 times more than the silver denarius. The US initially fixed the value of gold against silver at 17.5 to 1. Incidentally, fixing the value of any commodities—which fluctuate widely for many reasons—is always a bad idea. As of now, the ratio is about 100 to 1. The increase in gold’s value relative to silver is a trend that, with fits and starts, has been in motion for over 3,000 years.

It’s important to have an adequate quantity of money available for use in commerce. This was a problem in the early days of the US, when there was neither enough gold nor silver in circulation. Of course, the terms “adequate” and “enough” are rather arbitrary. That’s one reason why money itself should be strictly a function of the free market, not government. If there’s not “enough” gold or silver, more will be mined at a profit. When there’s too much, mining becomes unprofitable, and stops. Unlike government money, free market money is self-regulating.

Out of maybe 7 billion ounces of gold that have ever been mined, almost all is stored in vaults, safe deposit boxes, or worn as jewelry. Most is owned by governments and their central banks. It doesn’t circulate in any meaningful way.

Governments—including the US government—used to hold large amounts of silver in storage too. But now none do.

International Man: The long-term trend has been for silver to be demonetized and increasingly treated as an industrial metal. Do you see that continuing, and what are the implications?

Doug Casey: Let’s look at silver as an element. In the past, it was only used as jewelry. But out of the 92 elements, it’s the most reflective and the most conductive of both heat and electricity. There’s every reason to believe that silver is going to gain many more industrial uses over time because of these properties. It’s a high-tech metal.

A great deal of silver used to be consumed in photography and X-rays, until a generation ago, but it’s hardly used there at all anymore. Digital photography has nearly replaced it.

About 850 million ounces of silver are mined every year, and about another 150 million ounces are recycled. The available supply of bullion, therefore, is about a billion ounces—versus about 100 million ounces of gold. That’s roughly a ten-to-one ratio on the supply side, although most of the silver is “consumed,” whereas almost all the gold is added to inventory. Since 2019, silver has been in deficit. Roughly 150 million ounces a year have been taken from various stockpiles. That explains why its price has risen to a new base level in the $30 to $35 range, and done better than gold, percentage-wise.

And while we’re talking about silver’s unique qualities, it’s worth mentioning that gold also has unique metallic properties. It’s the most non-reactive of all metals; gold doesn’t oxidize. It’s the most ductile, meaning it can be drawn into the thinnest wire of any metal. It’s the most malleable, meaning it can be beaten into the thinnest sheet of all metals.

When people talk about gold and silver, they often treat them as if they were one metal. While they do share a lot of characteristics, they each have unique qualities. You’ll notice that, on the Periodic Table of Elements, copper (with 29 protons) is at the top of the file, above silver (with 47), and gold (79). The three metals are closely related atomically, as well as by their traditional use as money.

International Man: During times of monetary chaos and runaway inflation, people tend to rush into traditional forms of money—assets that hold value better than rapidly depreciating government paper.

Silver often sees a surge in demand during these moments, despite its limited monetary role today.

Do you see something like that happening again?

Doug Casey: I don’t think there’s any doubt that we’re heading into a massive monetary crisis. The dollar is going to lose value at an accelerating rate because of the US government’s profligate spending policies.

DOGE, which was an excellent idea, has failed; the deficits are going to rise from $2 trillion to $3 trillion. And when the economy takes a downward turn, the government’s tax revenues will fall, even while its obligations rise. I expect that within the next five years, we’ll see $5 to $6 trillion annual deficits.

That’s why bonds are in a world of trouble, for reasons we’ve discussed in the past. The stock market is grossly overpriced. Real estate is also in bubble territory, with large carrying costs aggravating the problem. The average guy is likely to rediscover gold, and especially silver.

International Man: Where do you see silver prices heading, and what do you think are the best ways to speculate on a rise?

Doug Casey: Both gold and silver are in major bull markets. Silver is the poor man’s gold. The average guy, who can’t lay his hands on $500 cash if he needs it, really can’t afford gold. But when he gets scared enough about what’s going on, silver will still be relatively affordable. The average guy will start accumulating silver as a place to hide.

I’ve accumulated silver for many years, just like gold. I’ve only bought it, never sold it. The problem with silver is that its unit value is so low, you’d need a vault like Uncle Scrooge to store a substantial amount. That’s not true with gold.

That said, everybody should have 100 ounces of silver coins. If you can, set aside a few thousand ounces as a savings vehicle. If the US government succeeds in destroying the dollar, many people are likely to prefer being paid, and buying and selling, with gold and silver coins. They’ll want something real and tangible, not a digital abstraction, or pieces of paper.

It really doesn’t matter how high the price of silver goes from a supply point of view. That’s because almost all new silver is a byproduct of mining other metals—gold, copper, lead, and zinc. To major mining companies, silver is only a nice bonus. Even at $100 it won’t have a material effect on their production plans.

Years ago, there was a Spokane Stock Exchange. It closed in 1991. Most people are unaware the US used to have a number of regional stock exchanges—Denver for oil, Salt Lake for uranium, and so forth. Scores of small silver stocks were traded in Spokane. From about 1960 to 1970, those little penny stocks went up by orders of magnitude. The boom was chronicled in a book called “Small Fortunes in Penny Gold Stocks.” The best one was Coeur d’Alene Mines, which went from 2 cents to $20. That kind of thing could happen again.

There are a few pure publicly traded silver companies now, and they’re generally very small-cap stocks. Institutions don’t own them, and few care about them. However, I think we’re going to see $100 or $200 silver in the next few years, and these stocks should catch fire. There used to be a whole class of investment advisors who published newsletters and made a living beating the drum about silver. They no longer exist. That tells me that silver is under-owned, nobody cares about it, and it’s going higher.

I consider silver stocks a superb speculation.

* * *

Doug Casey’s analysis lays bare the forces reshaping our financial future—and why silver may once again emerge as the “people’s money” during times of crisis. In a must-watch video, Doug pulls back the curtain on what the mainstream media won’t tell you about precious metals. Click here to watch it now.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/06/2025 - 06:30

https://www.zerohedge.com/precious-metals/doug-casey-silver-money-markets-metals-role-coming-chaos
Site: Catholic Conclave

Woman attempts the impossible. Episcopal ordination.

2 days 19 hours ago

"The Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests (ARCWP) and the Christian community 'Home Novo' invite everyone to the ordination of Christina Moreira Vázquez as bishop." This is the wording of the invitation currently being circulated, announcing a unique event (at least in Spain): the ordination of a woman as bishop.The association, to which Moreira belongs as a priest, has already ordained Catholic Conclavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06227218883606585321noreply@blogger.com0

http://cathcon.blogspot.com/2025/06/archbishop-paglia-interviewed-apologist.html
Site: AsiaNews.it

Unpaid Eid salaries and bonuses casts shadows on Dhaka's textile industry

2 days 19 hours ago

While the Muslim world celebrates the holiday, thousands of workers in Bangladesh are waiting for back pay from April. After Beijing, Dhaka is the world's second largest producer, employing 4.4 million workers, 60% of whom are women. Management continues to fail to meet its obligations.The frustration of the unions: 'Every year it's the same scenario. How can we celebrate with our families'

https://www.asianews.it/news-en/Unpaid-Eid-salaries-and-bonuses-casts-shadows-on-Dhaka%27s-textile-industry-63240.html
Site: AsiaNews.it

1.5 million Thais used drugs in 2024

2 days 19 hours ago

Data from a new national survey shows the growth in methamphetamine use. This phenomenon no longer affects only the northern areas traditionally close to production sites in Myanmar. As many as 300,000 people have needed medical treatment for drug addiction-related problems.

https://www.asianews.it/news-en/1.5-million-Thais-used-drugs-in-2024-63238.html
Site: Mises Institute

Musk v. Trump, Trump v. Courts, and Palantir v. Us

2 days 19 hours ago

Author: Tho Bishop, Connor O'Keeffe, Ryan McMaken

On this episode of Power and Market, the group discusses the fallout from Musk's fight with Trump, recent reporting on Palantir contracts, and how the courts are not interested in protecting rights.

https://mises.org/podcasts/power-and-market/musk-v-trump-trump-v-courts-and-palantir-v-us
Site: Crisis Magazine

He Who Wrestles With God in Public: Jordan Peterson Versus Himself

2 days 20 hours ago

Author: Scott Ventureyra

Jordan Peterson’s recent appearance on Jubilee’s viral YouTube debate wasn’t just another skirmish in the culture war between belief and unbelief. It revealed something deeper and more unsettling: the ongoing drama of a man caught between archetype and Incarnation, between myth and metaphysical truth. The event was less about the 20 atheists who challenged him and more about the unresolved…

Source

https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/he-who-wrestles-with-god-in-public-jordan-peterson-versus-himself
Site: AsiaNews.it

The Russification of Culture in Crimea

2 days 20 hours ago

A traditionally multicultural land, the peninsula seized by Moscow from Kiev in 2014 is now seeing everything that is not Russian systematically targeted. Although even the Moscow-linked authorities recognise three 'state languages' on paper - Russian, Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar - education in native languages has almost completely disappeared from schools.

https://www.asianews.it/news-en/The-Russification-of-Culture-in-Crimea-63236.html
Site: Crisis Magazine

Leonard Leo: Hero of the Faith and of the Republic

2 days 20 hours ago

Author: Austin Ruse

Sitting on Leonard Leo’s always immaculate desk—because he does not allow a piece of paper to linger more than once before handling—sits a bent, titanium rod. It reminds him of what a bad day is really like. The rod had been inserted into his daughter Margaret’s back, along her spine, to keep her spine from bending even more than what spina bifida had already caused. Her spine bent the rod…

Source

https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/leonard-leo-hero-of-the-faith-and-of-the-republic
Site: Zero Hedge

Narcotics Dark Web Donation Scandal Weakens Czech Ruling Party

2 days 20 hours ago

Author: Tyler Durden

Narcotics Dark Web Donation Scandal Weakens Czech Ruling Party
Authored by Bart Marcois via American Greatness,

Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala built his political brand on being the ethical alternative to his populist rival, Andrej Babiš.

His supporters in Prague call him “Mr. Clean”—the pro-EU, pro-NATO leader who would restore moral authority to Czech politics after years of scandal. But he just destroyed that carefully crafted image with his tepid response to a drug money scandal.

When Your Justice Minister Takes Drug Money

The scandal reads like a dark comedy of political incompetence. Justice Minister Pavel Blažek was forced to resign after revelations that his ministry had accepted and sold 480 Bitcoin worth $45 million from Tomáš Jiříkovský—a name that should have set off every alarm bell in the Justice Ministry.

Jiříkovský wasn’t just any donor—he was the mastermind behind Sheep Marketplace and Nucleus, notorious cryptocurrency platforms where users bought illegal drugs, weapons, and other contraband. The platforms were shut down in 2016, and Jiříkovský was imprisoned for drug trafficking and weapons possession. Following his release, he apparently decided to donate his fortune to the very ministry responsible for locking him up.

The sheer audacity is breathtaking. In March 2025, Jiříkovský’s lawyer approached Blažek and offered one-third of the criminal’s Bitcoin stash as a “donation” to help digitize the justice system and combat drug use in prisons. The irony was apparently lost on everyone involved, and nobody knows where the rest of the money went.

Fiala’s Loyalty Problem

What makes this scandal particularly damaging for Fiala isn’t just the spectacular failure of due diligence—it’s how he responded when the story broke. Rather than immediately distancing himself, Fiala rushed to defend Blažek, insisting his justice minister “acted in good faith” and calling his eventual resignation a “responsible step.”

This wasn’t Fiala’s first time defending the indefensible regarding Blažek. Last year, coalition partners called for Blažek’s dismissal after he met with Russian agent of influence Martin Nejedlý, yet Fiala stood by him.

The situation is further complicated by revelations involving Fiala’s own circle. As one senior retired DEA special agent bluntly put it, “These darknet marketplaces have long been hubs for laundering money tied to Russian organized crime and intelligence services. Anyone connected with these funds should be immediately arrested, and their assets frozen without hesitation.”

Bad Political Timing

The timing couldn’t be worse for Fiala. With parliamentary elections scheduled for October, his center-right coalition is already trailing former Prime Minister Andrej Babiš’s populist ANO party by a comfortable 12 points. Fiala’s government has suffered some of the lowest approval ratings in a decade, largely because of economic pressures and a series of smaller scandals.

Now, Babiš—whom Fiala has spent years attacking for his own ethical lapses—has been handed the perfect ammunition. The government of the man who positioned himself as the ethical alternative has just been caught accepting millions from dark web drug dealers. The attack ads practically write themselves.

How Did This Happen?

The most damning aspect isn’t the donation itself—it’s the complete breakdown of basic governmental safeguards. How does a Justice Ministry staffed with prosecutors and investigators accept $45 million without conducting elementary background checks?

Intriguingly, Fiala established the office of National Security Advisor to get better security advice. He appointed self-styled hawk Tomas Pojar to that position, who in turn hired the former director of military intelligence, Jan Beroun, as his staffer. Was the failure of his national security team incompetence, or were they part of the attempted cover-up?

Their past associations cast further shadows over this scandal. Pojar was previously exposed for collaborating with Chinese intelligence officials during a trip to Beijing. Beroun was highly decorated by former President Miloš Zeman, a known ally of Vladimir Putin. Both are political allies of Blazek.

The connecting threads of this web seem to be Martin Nejedlý, a self-admitted agent of influence for Vladimir Putin. Even Tomáš Jiříkovský’s attorney, who negotiated the deal with Blazek, is an associate of Mr. Nejedly. Nejedly’s relationships with Czech political elites raise profound questions about the integrity of the Czech government’s stance on Russia. Mr. Nejedly has many friends in the Fiala cabinet.

Fiala now admits the state may have been “abused to launder criminal proceeds” and promises to convene the National Security Council to investigate. But the activities of the National Security Council are coordinated by Pojar, Blazek’s ally.

What’s Next?

With elections just months away, this scandal may have sealed Fiala’s fate. Czech voters, already frustrated by economic hardship and governmental incompetence, now have a vivid example of leadership failure: a justice minister who let his government launder drug money.

Babiš, despite his own troubles, now has a compelling narrative: the establishment lectures on ethics while covertly accepting money from criminals. It’s a narrative that resonates easily and may propel him back to power.

Ultimately, the dark web donation scandal will likely be remembered as the moment Fiala’s “Mr. Clean” image died—not through his opponents’ efforts but through his own profound failure to meet the ethical standards he set for others. In politics, there’s nothing more dangerous than hypocrisy. And this hypocrisy raises questions about Fiala’s Russian associations. If Mr. Clean isn’t so clean, maybe he isn’t so anti-Putin either.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/06/2025 - 05:00

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/narcotics-dark-web-donation-scandal-weakens-czech-ruling-party
Site: Zero Hedge

These Are The 20 Worst College Degrees For Finding A Job

2 days 21 hours ago

Author: Tyler Durden

These Are The 20 Worst College Degrees For Finding A Job
As students weigh their post-secondary options, job prospects remain a key consideration.

Visual Capitalist's Bruno Venditti reports that new data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, current as of May 2025, highlights which college degrees have the highest unemployment rates in the U.S. workforce.

For income, mid-career is defined as ages 35 to 45.

Anthropology Tops the List

At the top of the list is anthropology. Anthropology majors face an unemployment rate of 9.4%, the highest among the 20 fields analyzed.

Fine arts and sociology follow closely, with unemployment rates of 7.0% and 6.7%, respectively. These degrees tend to offer mid-career salaries around $70,000, placing them on the lower end of the earnings spectrum.

Interestingly, some of the highest-paying degrees also have relatively high unemployment rates.

For instance, computer engineering majors earn a median of $122,000 mid-career, but face a 7.5% unemployment rate. Physics ($100,000) and computer science ($115,000) also show above-average jobless rates, at 7.8% and 6.1%, respectively.

Meanwhile, several liberal arts degrees continue to show a mismatch between pay and employment. English language, history, and liberal arts majors typically earn between $70,000 and $77,000 mid-career, with unemployment rates ranging from 4.6% to 5.3%.

Communications and journalism degrees, which offer earnings closer to $85,000, show slightly lower unemployment levels, around 4.4% to 4.5%.

Other fields such as economics, political science, and international affairs offer stronger income potential—often exceeding $90,000 mid-career—but still face moderate unemployment rates, generally between 4.7% and 5.5%.

While salary remains a strong indicator of economic outcomes, these findings underscore that a higher paycheck doesn’t always guarantee job security.

As the labor market continues to evolve, prospective students may want to weigh both earning potential and employability in their education decisions.

If you enjoyed this graphic, check out this map on Voronoi about the income needed to buy a home in every U.S. state.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/06/2025 - 04:15

https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/these-are-20-worst-college-degrees-finding-job
Site: Zero Hedge

Sweden Urged To Halt International Adoptions After Decades Of Child Trafficking Uncovered

2 days 21 hours ago

Author: Tyler Durden

Sweden Urged To Halt International Adoptions After Decades Of Child Trafficking Uncovered
Authored by Owen Evans via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A Swedish government commission has recommended halting all international adoptions after an investigation found that decades of illegal adoptions amounted to child trafficking involving state authorities and adoption agencies.
Children at Wang Jiayu Orphanage in Anhui Province, China, on July 9, 2006. China Photos/Getty Images
At a news conference in Stockholm, Swedish Social Services Minister Camilla Waltersson Gronvall told the Swedish language Epoch Times on June 2: “[There are] appalling cases of deficient background information, and even children simply being stolen from their parents.

“There has been an unreasonable level of trust in the governments of the countries of origin for the children adopted to Sweden.”

According to Human Rights Watch, roughly 60,000 people have been adopted into Sweden. It started with children from South Korea in the 1950s, and then began to include children from China, Chile, Ethiopia, India, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, peaking in the mid-1970s to 1980s. By the early 2000s, the numbers began to steadily decline.

Amid growing concerns that adopted children may have been taken from their biological parents illegally, the commission found confirmed cases of child trafficking spanning every decade from the 1970s to the 2000s.

Head of the inquiry Anna Singer, professor of civil law, told The Epoch Times that this practice is “winding down by itself.”

“Last year, 54 children were adopted to Sweden [from abroad]. ... Many countries have ceased putting children up for intercountry adoption,” she said.

“Adoption agencies are not a sustainable solution for meeting the needs of these children. It’s better to try to improve conditions in their countries of origin. Intercountry adoption may have worked to slow down such efforts.”

China in the Spotlight

The final two-volume report released on June 2, the result of a probe that started in 2021, states that Swedish adoption organizations “have taken great risks by operating in China, which has been a closed country with very limited opportunities for transparency throughout the period.”

It states that all children adopted from China were described as abandoned and lacked any background history, making it difficult, or impossible, to assess whether the adoptions were in the children’s best interests.

“Chinese authorities have confirmed that four adoptions to Sweden were linked to the systematic child trafficking in Hunan [Province] that was exposed in 2005,“ the report reads. ”However, it cannot be ruled out that more Swedish adoptions are affected by the child trafficking in China.”

Financial incentives were created, as orphanages in China were compensated with $3,000 to $5,000 per child placed for international adoption. The Swedish supervisory authority found that the orphanages were dependent on these fees.

In total, almost 4,300 adoptions from China have been carried out to date, making China the fourth-largest country of origin for adoptions to Sweden in terms of total numbers.

Most adoptions occurred during the period 2000 to 2010, when more than 3,200 children were adopted from China to Sweden.

China is one of the few countries that approved adoption of young children to single adoptive parents.

The report also states that Swedish adoption companies failed to ensure that children were made available for adoption through proper channels or that the process was in the children’s best interests.

In many cases, signed documentation from biological parents was missing, even when those parents were known. Files also often lacked critical details needed for adoptees to understand their origins.

“Ultimately, it is the Swedish State that has failed to protect the rights of children in intercountry adoption activities,“ the report reads. ”This means that the State must take responsibility for what has happened and take measures to ensure that it does not happen again.”

It recommends an official apology to adopted people and their families as well as financial aid to help those who have been adopted to travel to their country of origin.

The Netherlands said in December 2024 that it would phase out international adoptions over the next six years, after an official 2021 report found that children had been stolen or bought from their birth parents in cases going back to the 1960s.

Switzerland said in January that it also plans to end international adoptions, amid similar concerns of abuse.

Roger Sahlstrom and Reuters contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/06/2025 - 03:30

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/sweden-urged-halt-international-adoptions-after-decades-child-trafficking-uncovered
Site: Mises Institute

A Different Perspective on Costa Rica’s Traffic Disaster

2 days 22 hours ago

Author: Franco Guevara

Traffic jams are so frequent that many Costa Ricans have adjusted their routines to deal with this phenomenon, treating it like a chronic illness.

https://mises.org/power-market/different-perspective-costa-ricas-traffic-disaster
Site: Mises Institute

What Science Can’t Decide for You: Masks, Data, and Individual Liberty

2 days 22 hours ago

Modern neoclassical economics is based upon the physical sciences, which Austrian economists recognize is an inappropriate way to explain economic phenomena. Ludwig von Mises recognized this fraudulence, calling it “scientism.”

https://mises.org/mises-wire/what-science-cant-decide-you-masks-data-and-individual-liberty
Site: Zero Hedge

Germany Considers Implementing Retirement Accounts For Kids As Young As 6 Years Old

2 days 22 hours ago

Author: Tyler Durden

Germany Considers Implementing Retirement Accounts For Kids As Young As 6 Years Old
Because what six-year-old doesn’t want to start planning for retirement?

Germany’s government is floating an “early start pension” for kids aged 6 to 18, according to Fortune.

Instead of relying on your own paycheck (which, at 6, probably isn't that robust), the government would pony up 10 euros ($11) a month per child. Over 12 years, that’s a whopping 1,440 euros—plus whatever compounding interest the Tooth Fairy manages to generate.

Once they hit 18, these kids can add their own cash and get tax-free gains—but no withdrawals until they’re 67. Because nothing says “carpe diem” like waiting six decades to cash in.

Fortune writes that this is all part of Germany’s plan to reform pensions, bolster private saving, and generally get people thinking about the unaffordable retirements that plague modern life. With people living longer and working well past 65, retirement is looking less like a golden sunset and more like a second job. The share of Americans over 65 who are still working has doubled since the 1980s—because that beach house just won’t buy itself.

Financial gurus like Suze Orman say Gen Z could retire millionaires if they start investing early enough. She crunches the numbers: just $100 a month at 12% growth could net them over a million bucks by 65. Now imagine starting at age 6 instead of 26—who knows, maybe they’ll be sipping umbrella drinks while their parents are still on the clock.

That is, if a million bucks even buys you a coffee in America decades from now...

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/06/2025 - 02:45

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/germany-considers-implementing-retirement-accounts-kids-young-6-years-old
Site: Novus Ordo Watch

Taylor Marshall’s About-Face on Robert Prevost: From Worst-Choice Candidate to Hope for the Church?

2 days 23 hours ago

Author: admin

Marshall quickly deleted pre-conclave episode critical of Leo XIV…

Taylor Marshall’s About-Face on Robert Prevost:
From Worst-Choice Candidate to Hope for the Church?

Imagine you’re a ‘trusted Catholic influencer’ with a huge following and you publish a video about who in your opinion would be among the worst possible candidates for Pope.

For Dr. Taylor Marshall that distinction belonged to ‘Cardinal’ Pietro Parolin, but since his chances had tanked in the days just before the 2025 conclave due to alleged involvement in a financial scandal, among other things, Marshall wasn’t terribly worried about him anymore. The next in line for worst candidate in his estimation was — wait for it — ‘Cardinal’ Robert Francis Prevost.… READ MORE

https://novusordowatch.org/2025/06/taylor-marshall-about-face-on-prevost/
Site: Novus Ordo Wire – Novus Ordo Watch

Taylor Marshall’s About-Face on Robert Prevost: From Worst-Choice Candidate to Hope for the Church?

2 days 23 hours ago

Author: admin

Marshall quickly deleted pre-conclave episode critical of Leo XIV…

Taylor Marshall’s About-Face on Robert Prevost:
From Worst-Choice Candidate to Hope for the Church?

Imagine you’re a ‘trusted Catholic influencer’ with a huge following and you publish a video about who in your opinion would be among the worst possible candidates for Pope.

For Dr. Taylor Marshall that distinction belonged to ‘Cardinal’ Pietro Parolin, but since his chances had tanked in the days just before the 2025 conclave due to alleged involvement in a financial scandal, among other things, Marshall wasn’t terribly worried about him anymore. The next in line for worst candidate in his estimation was — wait for it — ‘Cardinal’ Robert Francis Prevost.… READ MORE

https://novusordowatch.org/2025/06/taylor-marshall-about-face-on-prevost/
Site: The Unz Review

Uzbekistan Builds Where the West Withdrew, by James Durso

3 days 1 hour ago

Author: James Durso

Uzbekistan champions "Stability Through Connectivity" by engaging pragmatically with Taliban-led Afghanistan to boost trade, manage water resources, and reduce regional tensions. Key infrastructure projects like the Trans-Afghan railway, Surkhan–Pol-e-Khumri power line, and Termez Free Economic Zone aim to link Central and South Asia. Tashkent seeks geopolitical balance, positioning itself as a bridge between East and...

https://www.unz.com/article/uzbekistan-builds-where-the-west-withdrew/
Site: The Unz Review

Remember the USS Liberty, by Laurent Guyénot

3 days 1 hour ago

Author: Laurent Guyénot

The attack on the USS Liberty on June 8, 1967 was a false flag attack by the Israeli Air Force and Navy, meant to be blamed on Egypt, in order to draw the U.S. into bombing Egypt, and possibly to start WWIII. To succeed, the operation needed the unarmed NSA ship to be sinked with...

https://www.unz.com/article/remember-the-uss-liberty/
Site: The Unz Review

Oligarchy of the Unfit: Governance in the United Kingdom and the Downfall of Corbyn, by Britannicus

3 days 1 hour ago

Author: Britannicus

The UK has a severe structural crisis in leadership: each of the two main parties have defects that do not usually occur in tandem, but, when combined, are highly destructive. Each is oligarchic, not democratic. But, in contrast to most oligarchic regimes, each lacks the benefit of stability usually associated with oligarchic regimes — in...

https://www.unz.com/article/oligarchy-of-the-unfit-governance-in-the-united-kingdom-and-the-downfall-of-corbyn/
Site: The Unz Review

Trump Should Have Just Done Whatever Elon Wanted, by Andrew Anglin

3 days 1 hour ago

Author: Andrew Anglin

Elon controls Twitter. Trump can either have him killed, or… I don’t really know what other options he has. Trump cannot really function if Twitter is weaponized against him, and Elon absolutely will do that. I think “Trump was doing Epstein island” is probably bullshit (maybe it isn’t, I don’t know), but it doesn’t matter...

https://www.unz.com/aanglin/trump-should-have-just-done-whatever-elon-wanted/

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