Links 1/7/2026

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1. The Rev Kev January 7, 2026 at 7:23 am

   “Ukraine’s allies sign declaration on troop deployment after ceasefire”

   It’s amazing how extremely bad ideas never go away but get resurrected every coupla months as if they were brand new. This one has been floating around for a year or two. Having British & French troops take up positions in the Ukraine after the war is exactly the same as stationing NATO troops in the Ukraine. And Putin has said that if the west tries to put their troops in the Ukraine, that they will be annihilated as in no ifs, buts and maybes. Those troops will die. And yet Starmer and Macron keep bringing this idea up. I suppose that they have to try to keep the war going as financially they are so far down the rabbit hole, the only way of getting their money back is to defeat Russia and that is true of most EU/NATO nations. Let me know how that works out.

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   1. DJG, Reality Czar January 7, 2026 at 8:30 am

      Rev Kev: Watch the clip of Orbán, who says roughly what you say. Noting Orbán and you: ” I suppose that they have to try to keep the war going as financially they are so far down the rabbit hole, the only way of getting their money back is to defeat Russia and that is true of most EU/NATO nations.”

      What’s important to keep in mind here is that the corrupted European elites have to keep the war going. If they acknowledge defeat, they will start losing elections (and, with any luck, their heads). The irony here in Italy — and the reason Giorgia Meloni won’t make such statements — is that Antonio Tajani, head of Forza Italia, a member of her coalition, says no troops in Ukraine. As does Matteo Salvini and much of the Lega. So I am watching how this craziness can be tempered — in a country with a Parliament that can only keep its majority through internal negotiations.

      Macron is a lame duck with his tail feathers in fire. At this point, he has everything to lose, which makes him dangerous. When Marine Le Pen becomes the voice of reason in French politics, ahhh, Mon Dieu…

      Starmer, natch, wants to keep up that long English tradition, Perfidious Albion. And as ever in England, the working class and middle class will pay for the self-absorbed madness of the useless English elites.

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      1. Polar Socialist January 7, 2026 at 9:32 am

         Not disagreeing with any of the above, but that “declaration” is even less than a letter of intent, really.

         Basically it says that if the current Ukrainian regime exists after the war, the “coalition of the willing” will start discussing about the possibility of perhaps locating some troops in Ukraine or in the bordering countries.

         It’s all about been seen “doing something” while not actually doing anything. They are still negotiating between themselves, completely ignoring that Russia will dictate the terms in the end.

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      2. Aurelien January 7, 2026 at 9:44 am

         I have been saying for the last eighteen months that there will be no deployment of European troops to Ukraine before some kind of “peace settlement,” and this has proven to be the case. The text of the Declaration (English version) at
         https://www.elysee.fr/en/emmanuel-macron/2026/01/06/robust-security-guarantees-for-a-solid-and-lasting-peace-in-ukraine
         (I can’t get it to embed properly)
         says effectively nothing abut the war in progress, or about keeping it going. It is pretty much entirely concerned with what happens after the signing of a peace treaty. It’s clear that European aspirations are now no longer for a military victory, or even a substantive continuation of the war, which is beyond their capability to influence with arms or ammunition since there are none left, but rather to keep the ball in the air, and keep political pressure on Kiev, in the hope that Moscow will finally decide that some kind of compromise peace is necessary. This isn’t much of a hope, but it’s all there is. The famous “security guarantee” as now envisaged “may include the use of military capabilities, intelligence and logistical support, diplomatic initiatives, adoption of additional sanctions (Note the “may”: nothing is actually promised.) In other words, what we did last time but less effectively. The French media is talking about a maximum of 2000 troops (presumably a regiment plus supporting units) which will be the basis of this influence to which they are aspiring.

         The subtext of the Declaration and the negotiations that led to it is about who will have influence in the post-war Ukraine, and influence will come largely through a physical presence on the ground. (The verbiage about security guarantees is just window-dressing.) More or less from the start, the French have been pushing themselves forward for this role, with one eye on the Germans and the Poles, who might be tempted to claim it for themselves. This presupposes, of course, the kind of peace settlement that is very unlikely to happen, but the Declaration is best seen as another stage in the slow process of the West coming to understand that it has lost the game and there’s nothing it can do. There will be more Declarations to come, each full of rhetoric but with increasingly less substance.

         The other point, of course, is looking ahead to the balance of power and influence in Europe after the war, and here France has for some time been signalling that it intends to take back pole position, through this and other initiatives.

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      3. .Tom January 7, 2026 at 3:57 pm

         Btw, I think that Orbán clip is from October.

         https://ca.news.yahoo.com/hungary-orb-n-claims-eu-142633753.html

         According to this, which appears to correspond to that speech in the video, he was commenting on presentations at an “informal EU summit”.

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   2. Steve H. January 7, 2026 at 9:43 am

      Yes Sir. I’m too-deep into Price’s Evolutionary Equation lately, but it says that the variance in the coalition is greater than the variance between UKR & RUS and would be doomed to fail. But I don’t think Starmer and Macron stand to personally loose money; Hail the Victorious Dead!

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      1. Michaelmas January 7, 2026 at 8:02 pm

         On the On the Scalability of Cooperative Structures: Remarks on G. A. Cohen —

         Great stuff, thanks so much for that. I missed that when you posted it back in 2023 and it fills in the last link in something I’m working.

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2. Mikerw0 January 7, 2026 at 7:35 am

   There is one significant positive to Trump that is too softened neither credited to him, commented on and, importantly, when the talking heads write/spew all their analysis ignore. Unlike traditional politicians Trump is both blatantly transparent and he does what he says he will do.

   So if he says Greenland, or anything else for that matter, will be part of the US take him on face value.

   This is not about the merits of his ideas, whether they are thought through, make sense, or reflect any plan (in other words ignore his motives). Just accept he will do them.

   Make yourself a list of the things he said he would do during the campaign. He has done them all.

   Now look at his current list. Are we getting a ballroom at the White House, will we get a triumphal arch in DC, yup, and critically he is openly telling you he will interfere in the midterms to get the result he wants. Believe him when he say things.

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   1. Acacia January 7, 2026 at 8:55 am

      Blatantly transparent, yes. However…

      Make yourself a list of the things he said he would do during the campaign. He has done them all.

      He drained the swamp when we weren’t looking?

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      1. Wukchumni January 7, 2026 at 9:38 am

         Training the swamp to be completely in lockstep with every cockamamie scheme he proposes, with absolutely not 1 iota of pushback from the underlings in high positions.

         You sometimes wonder if you’re watching a horror movie, albeit sans soundtrack.

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         1. motorslug January 7, 2026 at 2:39 pm

            You have to drain the swamp in order to scrape all the muck off the bottom to wallow in.

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      2. Jonhoops January 7, 2026 at 11:54 am

         Except releasing the Epstein files. And no, releasing them completely redacted is not releasing them.

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      3. hk January 7, 2026 at 7:39 pm

         JFK files?

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   2. Louis Fyne January 7, 2026 at 9:00 am

      to all the dolts who mocked Trump with “TACO”….. thanks.

      retard rhetoric/acts encouraged by retard rhetoric

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   3. WillyBgood January 7, 2026 at 9:50 am

      Hmm . . how about “I will end the war in 24 hours”. I could be wrong but I don’t think he did.

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   4. Lee January 7, 2026 at 10:08 am

      After Trump annexes Greenland, would a future Democrat administration, assuming there will be such a thing, then allow it to resume its former status?

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      1. Norton January 7, 2026 at 11:05 am

         Intermediate step, random judge issues ruling blocking action.
         Applicable anywhere.

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3. Wukchumni January 7, 2026 at 7:57 am

   Ugly Charts of US Auto Sales, 2025: Stellantis, Nissan Flirt with Catastrophe. GM, Ford, Honda Sales Rise but far below Peaks. Toyota & Hyundai-Kia Set Records Wolf Richter.
   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

   I buy new cars and drive them into the ground as a general rule of acquisition, and haven’t been able to kill off my 16 year old Tacoma yet, and yet I hunger for that new car smell, but am put off by prices and more complexity than anybody needs, along with jamming every option into vehicles now.

   Despite having nearly driven to the Moon in my Taco @ 234k miles, I have more confidence in it than a new Tacoma-which would be $50k out the door after taxes and whatnot.

   We have an auto row in Visalia, and the Toyota dealer is next to the Nissan dealer, and the former struggles to have 66 new vehicles on the lot, while the Nissan dealer must have 250 new cars that nobody wants, as word of their awful CVT transmissions must’ve gotten wide coverage, and nobody is buying.

   Along the lines of Aurelian’s excellent essay on entropy today, Nissan was once innovative and cutting edge, but they sat on their laurels and produced what amounts to a dogs breakfast on 4 wheels, and are doing nothing to change that as their reputation fades.

   You get the feeling that along with Stellantis vehicles, both will be gone in a few years, replaced by inevitable Chinese competition which heretofore has not been allowed entry into the USA (saw a number of Chinese electric vehicles in Mexico a fortnight ago-it felt kind of like seeing forbidden fruit) but will be, as choices dwindle.

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   1. Louis Fyne January 7, 2026 at 9:07 am

      Nissan got wrecked by western MBAs. Ghosn’s term was a “sugar rush” that masked deep structural issues.

      Stellantis and Nissan also destroyed their seed corn by ober-relying on subprime buyers to reach short-term sales targets. Chrysler (Jeep-Dodge) has the ignominy of Jeep wrecking their brand by reaching for a non-existent market of >$100,000 Jeep buyers (while abandoning the RAV 4 market) and stuffing sales channa with Dodges sold to sub-prime buyers

      The world has too many car brands. shake-out is inevitable.

      but of course, Stellantis (Chrysler) will get bailed out….too many jobs in France, Italy, Great Lakes

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   2. flora January 7, 2026 at 9:09 am

      CVT transmissions and turbo charged 4-cylinder engines replacing 6-cylinder engines? No thank you. That last change eliminated the new Tacoma from my list. sigh…. / ;)

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      1. Wukchumni January 7, 2026 at 9:17 am

         Of the say 66 new vehicles for sale on the Toyota lot, about 1/3rd of them are turbo charged 4-cylinder Tacomas in both 2wd and 4wd configuration… and for a much loved truck, this struck me as odd-that much inventory in a city of 146k.

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         1. ibaien January 7, 2026 at 12:57 pm

            i desperately miss my ’96 tacoma, even if i had to get outside and lock the hubs for 4WD. great truck, bulletproof, and there was a whole ecosystem in providence of central american owned and operated shops that basically only worked on older toyotas. can’t be surprised that the hilux with a 50cal in the bed was the weapon of choice for so many african wars…

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            1. Wukchumni January 7, 2026 at 3:14 pm

               They also don’t make manual transmissions on Tacomas anymore, and i’d never want one in a big city situation with lots and stop and go traffic, what an ordeal, one time I was driving to SD and it felt like a quite wicked car aerobics instructor was telling me, 2,461 more leg lifts-feel the burn!

               …as I put the clutch through its clutches

               But a perfect thing for me hereabouts, and an anti-theft system built in, too.

               The not quite canyon like gouge that extends for about 8 feet along the driver’s side doors when I almost missed a cement filled steel post at the gas station, might also turn off prospective thieves.

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               1. Paleobotanist January 7, 2026 at 6:03 pm

                  I lovingly nourish the rust and dents on my Taco for the same anti-theft protection reason. 230,000 km. She’s a very good girl.

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               2. ibaien January 7, 2026 at 7:11 pm

                  my 80yo parents are manual absolutists (it goes along with being 60s radicals, i think) – bought a subaru a couple years ago because it was stick. but, turns out, badly retrofitted from the automatic version and now falling to shit in front of their very eyes. very few ports left in the storm. my buddy up in seattle kept his 70s chevy pickup because he could service it himself and “no goddamn chips”. can’t fault that logic.

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4. .Tom January 7, 2026 at 8:13 am

   > The US and Venezuela have reached an agreement to export up to $2 billion worth of Venezuelan crude to US ports, President Trump said, a move that could redirect oil shipments meant for China and ease pressure on Venezuela’s sanctioned oil industry — Reuters (@Reuters) January 7, 2026

   Does that translate to: the US colony of Venezuela just nationalized China’s oil infra?

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   1. Yves Smith Post authorJanuary 7, 2026 at 8:44 am

      No, that is not what the statement says. Please re-read.

      And that is before getting to the Trump propensity to announce deals he does not have, see repeatedly in Ukraine.

      The US does not control Venezuela. And it’s China that has the production in Iraq, BTW.

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      1. .Tom January 7, 2026 at 9:14 am

         I was going off John Helmer saying on Monday in the 6th minute with Nima:

         “You’ve got no occupation with the intention to occupy the oil field concessions. and thereby you’ve got an attack on those who hold those concessions, both the Venezuelan National Oil Company. Uh the the Russians have invested about $17 billion, principally oil and gas. Uh and even more obviously the Chinese side which has invested in and has at stake here more than 70 billion dollar worth of assets.”

         Now, reading this is Reuters, I wonder where Helmer got that.

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         1. Yves Smith Post authorJanuary 7, 2026 at 9:36 am

            I don’t mean to sound harsh, but did you not read what I said? All the US has done is depose Maduro. Trump is blathering about getting $2 billion in oil SHIPMENTS. We don’t even know over what time frame. We don’t control anything. Maybe we will but all this speculation is way ahead of developments.

            Helmer also makes a point of saying he is a Russia expert and can only speak from a Russia perspective.

            Please read with greater care.

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            1. CitizenGuy January 7, 2026 at 12:51 pm

               Just further speculating, but between 30 and 50 millions barrels doesn’t seem like very much. The 2 billion dollar amount doesn’t seem very large either. Could this just be oil that’s sitting in depots and ports somewhere in Venezuela? In other words, could this be Trump claiming (prematurely, of course) that Venezueal is going to give us what it has already extracted from out of the ground?

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               1. Polar Socialist January 7, 2026 at 12:56 pm

                  I think he said up to 2 billion dollars, so anything under that is fine. Like what the US Navy and Coast Guard have already pirated.

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                  1. CitizengGuy January 7, 2026 at 1:01 pm

                     That’s exactly what I was thinking, Polar Socialist. Trump’s tweet might not be a promise about what he’s trying to get, but more of an invoice of what he’s already confiscated/stolen from the Venezuelans.

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               2. converger January 7, 2026 at 4:05 pm

                  This is oil that’s currently sitting around in storage for loading on tankers. It doesn’t touch any Russian or Chinese investments (also: given the current state of Venezuela’s oil infrastructure, I am skeptical that Russia and China put has much of their money there).

                  There’s no way to tell at this point whether Venezuela will meekly allow Trump to ship the booty to Valero heavy oil refineries in Texas and Louisiana. If they do, we are witnessing a return to the glorious days of piracy and letters of marque. Jack Sparrow would be proud.

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               3. ISL January 8, 2026 at 2:11 am

                  Parsing Trumps words can provide definitive numbers on how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Now Trump sycophant actions are different. But the words?

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      2. Earl January 7, 2026 at 9:35 am

         Regarding the history of the struggle to provide the benefits of Venezuelan oil to its people, I recommend the Wikipedia article about Venezuelan president Romulo Betancourt who is viewed as the father of Venezuelan democracy. The struggle for ensuring the Venezuelans a fair share of the profits of their oil dates from the 30s and continues today. An issue was taxation versus nationalizations. The fight for a fair share for oil profits was/is hemisphere wide. Mexico nationalized its oil industry in 1938. Then there was Huey Long’s fight with the oil companies for the people of Louisiana.

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         1. flora January 7, 2026 at 10:36 am

            ah, Huey Long, The Kingfish. FDR was apparently, according to some reports from the time (so, a grain of salt), was afraid of Long’s brand of populism gaining popularity outside of Louisiana.

            Long was assassinated in 1935.

            per wiki:
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huey_Long

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            1. JBird4049 January 7, 2026 at 1:13 pm

               As with a number of other American populists of the Twentieth Century, Huey Long suffered from lead poisoning just as it appeared that he was going to be nationally successful and not be diverted from his goals.

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            2. hk January 7, 2026 at 7:45 pm

               I always thought FDR was far more shady and sinister figure than people imagine him to be…

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5. Carolinian January 7, 2026 at 8:21 am

   Re Trump says Republicans must retain Congress or he will be impeached. Got that right! In fact he should pipe down about this because the very suggestion may lead people to vote for Dems just to make sure he is impeached. Third time’s the charm.

   And should it happen it would be much gentler treatment than his open threat to kill the new Venezuelan leader unless she does what he wants. This may be the most astonishing of his recent statements.

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   1. motorslug January 7, 2026 at 2:47 pm

      Of the multitude of issues he could be impeached for, the guarantee is it won’t be the worst ones – treason and genocide.

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   2. Lefty Godot January 7, 2026 at 4:22 pm

      I struggle to see where any possible Democrat gain in the midterms would yield the two-thirds vote in the Senate to convict Trump. Impeachment in the House without enough Senate votes to obtain a conviction is just useless political theater. Whatever else Trump does to violate the Constitution and the law, there will never be more than one or two Republican Senators that could be peeled away to vote for a conviction in any impeachment trial. This is not 1974 and these Republicans are not the same Republicans that would’ve voted to convict Nixon then. The parties are now the equivalent of rival Mafia families now, with no concern at all for the good of the nation or for their reputations with the disempowered common folk.

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   3. Caps Lock January 7, 2026 at 4:24 pm

      This may be the most astonishing of his recent statements, but is nothing compared to things that are yet to come, as the spiraling madness continues. Get your porcorn ready, because the best/worst is yet to come.

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6. .Tom January 7, 2026 at 8:23 am

   I think the “Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum addresses Trump:” tweet may be a phony.

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   1. Yves Smith Post authorJanuary 7, 2026 at 8:41 am

      aargh, will delete. She has a fresh speech which is pointed but not sassy.

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7. RookieEMT January 7, 2026 at 8:25 am

   Is there a possibility we can impeach Trump now for utterly destroying what little international credibility the US had, kidnapping a head of state, and threatening Denmark?

   Or are the Democrats are on board with this?

   As expected, the response has been pathetic. Hakeem Jeffries almost supports Trump’s actions with tepid, light critique at the most.

   To which I am happy to accuse Democrats of being fascist as well.

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   1. DJG, Reality Czar January 7, 2026 at 8:39 am

      RookieEMT: You are a reasonable person posing a reasonable question: “Is there a possibility we can impeach Trump now for utterly destroying what little international credibility the US had, kidnapping a head of state, and threatening Denmark?”

      The answer is no. Hakeem Jeffries supports the genocide in Palestine. Most of the Democrats in Congress flounce around in blue-and-yellow suits and think that the Azov Brigade is a bunch of fine, buff he-men. The U S of A had very little international credibility to destroy — so what Trump did is just icing on the cake or cosmetic-surgery miracle Kristi Noem shooting another dog — choose your metaphor. Kamala Harris is considering another run for the presidency (that should reassure you, eh).

      And yet, I’d be hesitant to characterize the self-inflicted crisis in the U S of A as fascism. What we are seeing is a collapse of moral authority of any kind. What we are seeing in the U S of A is how anytime one thinks that one has hit bottom it turns out that there are many more bottoms to fall through.

      Time to mix up a Sazerac cocktail, I’d say. Use rye whiskey…

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      1. RookieEMT January 7, 2026 at 8:49 am

         As a side note, I really shouldn’t be complaining as a socialist if Trump takes Greenland and destroys NATO. It will set off horrific consequences impossible to predict, but destroying one of socialism’s greatest enemies would be pretty satisfying.

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         1. gf January 7, 2026 at 12:31 pm

            It will not destroy NATO.
            That myth needs to be killed dead.
            The Europeans will cave if required, but it will not even be required Trump is not
            anti NATO. Nothing could be further from the truth. He is an Imperialist to the core.
            GL is already occupied as are Italy, Germany, UK, Poland, Romania, Greece, others.

            I mean seriously?

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   2. Screwball January 7, 2026 at 10:47 am

      The democrats are too busy organizing candlelight vigils, and it shouldn’t have been lost on any of them what our foreign policy might look like with war monger and swamp creature Rubio as SoS. Yet he was voted in 99-0. Add in the Adelson’s $$$ and ties to Bibi and nobody should be surprised where we are.

      Besides, set aside the normal opposition BS, is any of these people not on board with the imperialism we have witnessed since…at least the PNAC crew. This is what we do, before Trump we had better liars.

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   3. .Tom January 7, 2026 at 11:00 am

      The concept of international credibility is interesting. On Saturday the president set out his policy towards Venezuela and generalized it to the rest of the world, in essence it was: the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. What has been the response? afaict from reading the news:

      – In allied nations the response has ranged from explicit acquiescence to implicit acquiescence (e.g. evasion) with some token hand wringing about international law.
      – In non-allied, non-peer nations there has been some protest.
      – The non-ally peers Russia and China — I don’t really know how to interpret them but what does the position and statements of evil dictatorships matter to international credibility?

      Here in the USA, the Venezuela stuff is consistent with a long history of bipartisan support for such action and policy. The only differences now that I see are 1) it’s a bit harder for the opposition to declare loyal bipartisan support for this particular war president, 2) Trump is too honest in saying that might makes right, i.e. he doesn’t care to dress it up in the usual humanist justifications. I don’t think either difference is big enough to motivate Dems to really pull the biggest constitutional levels available to them in an action against him.

      Now that the president of the US has declared its intent to have Greenland, one way or another, either the non-peer allies start acting (not talking, acting) like they have some independent agency or they acquiesce and lose their own international credibility to the USA.

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8. upstater January 7, 2026 at 8:27 am

   Micron’s industrial waste: Costs soar for treatment plant as critics point to little environmental review – syracuse.com

   Micron is going to produce tens of millions of gallons of industrial waste at its chip fab. And much of the waste chemicals are proprietary trade secrets. Micron itself doesn’t know the composition of these chemicals.

   What? No problem, dump into Lake Ontario it is big, just don’t eat the fish . There remain restrictions on game fish from pollution from industrial plants closed decades ago.

   The public was told the treatment plant was going to cost $500M, now up to $2.4B, and construction hasn’t even begun. The public pays, while Micron’s profits go to share buybacks. Anything wrong with that picture? Hey, we need those chips for AI!

   Meanwhile the 60 yo Onondaga county’s 48″ water main serving the eastern towns has a major leak that will require “many weeks” to fix. It is concrete and supposedly had a 50 year design life. Industrial and commercial restrictions are in place and outlying suburbs could go dry.

   Who’s gonna pay?

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   1. Acacia January 7, 2026 at 9:00 am

      Even if the money is found for this, how can anybody build a treatment plant if the waste to process is a proprietary trade secret?

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9. nap January 7, 2026 at 8:28 am

   Amid all the conflicting information being published and broadcast about Venezuela, this account by the economist Michael Roberts seems useful:

   The gains for the working class achieved under Chavez in the 2000s were only possible because oil prices reached their zenith. But then, commodity prices, including oil, dropped. That more or less coincided with Chavez’s death. The Maduro government lost the support of its working-class base as hyperinflation destroyed living standards. The Maduro government increasingly relied not on the support of the working-class but on the armed forces, which had special privileges. The military could buy in exclusive markets (for example, on military bases), had privileged access to loans and purchases of cars and apartments and received substantial salary increases. They also exploited exchange controls and subsidies, for example, selling cheap gasoline purchased in neighbouring countries with huge profits.

   The tragedy of Venezuela is that everything depended on the oil price; there was little or no development of the non-oil sectors, which anyway were in the hands of private companies. There was no independent national plan of investment controlled by the state. Given US sanctions on top of that and the continual subversion of the government, the Chavista revolution’s days were numbered.

   It’s a lesson for all of Latin America. The de-industrialisation of the sub-continent since the 1980s and increasing reliance on commodity exports subject all these economies to the volatile swings of commodity prices (agricultural, metals and oil). That makes it impossible for any independent economic policy, given the weakness of domestic capitalists and economies under the shadow of American imperialism.

   https://braveneweurope.com/michael-roberts-venezuela-and-oil

   (His blog is no longer available at its usual WordPress site – it appears to have been suspended)

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   1. flora January 7, 2026 at 8:39 am

      No mention of the US imposing sanctions on Venezuela beginning in 2005? Driving up prices for the working class (and everyone else) in Venezuela?

      https://govfacts.org/policy-security/economic-statecraft/economic-sanctions/venezuela-oil-embargo-how-us-sanctions-work-and-what-they-mean-for-gas-prices/

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   2. Polar Socialist January 7, 2026 at 10:52 am

      Did he mention any of the sanctions USA, UK or EU have put on Venezuela? Venezuelan economy has been trying to diverse from oil for a long time, but the sanctions are not helping.

      Nor is the baggage from the previous class-society – the people with wealth are not keen on investing in “Bolivarian” terms, as they prefer the USA to bomb the poor and bring back the class-society (see: Machado, Maria). At the same time developing the government owned enterprises is complicated by Venezuela desperately also seeking foreign investment.

      The economy is still growing annually unlike any of the EU members. Although official inflation figures have not been published for a long, long time.

      A “banana republic” under heavy sanctions and internally torn could do much worse, I think.

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      1. Wukchumni January 7, 2026 at 11:01 am

         Maybe think of Trump as an ‘Anchurian Candidate’

         Big fan of O. Henry, and Anchuria was the fictional country where the term ‘Banana Republic’ comes from~

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         1. Wukchumni January 7, 2026 at 11:13 am

            Here, read all about it~

            Cabbages and Kings 1904

            https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2777/pg2777-images.html

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         2. Maxwell Johnston January 7, 2026 at 12:00 pm

            I too like O. Henry’s short stories, though Somerset Maugham’s remain my favorites.

            For the sake of good order: the term ‘banana republic’ no longer necessarily implies poorly governed Latin American jungle dictatorships, as the following list shows (even Ecuador barely squeaks into fifth place, and the Chinese are everywhere these days):

            https://uk.atlasbig.com/countries-by-banana-production

            Perhaps the term ‘Trumpian Republic’ will eventually take its place.

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            1. Wukchumni January 7, 2026 at 12:02 pm

               I tried to enjoy Guy de Maupassant, but it just didn’t take.

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   3. Yves Smith Post authorJanuary 7, 2026 at 12:25 pm

      We just had a long post analyzing Africa, where its most industrialized countries now have manufacturing as a % of GDP lower now than in 1980. Like Venezeula, they are significantly in the commodity extraction business. The causes are neoliberalism (as in ending tariffs and protection) and China overproduction. So no evil dictator yet the same outcomes.

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   4. Darthbobber January 7, 2026 at 1:55 pm

      Like much “analysis” of Venezuela lately, Roberts’s assertions are accompanied neither by quantification nor citations.

      More like a hot take with no sign of serious study of the specifics.

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      1. np January 7, 2026 at 2:24 pm

         Flora/PS – To be fair, the Roberts article does refer to sanctions in the second paragraph quoted (“Given US sanctions on top of that…”). Also, the article itself is about Venezuela’s oil, rather than a more ambitious attempt to describe the country’s recent history.

         Darthbobber – if you click on the link provided, you’ll find data on Venezuela’s oil industry (the subject of the article) and Roberts’ estimate of Venezuelan capitalism’s rate of profit over the past 60 years.

         Reply ↓
         1. Darthbobber January 7, 2026 at 9:38 pm

            I saw that, but in addition to the lack of a source for that graph of the rate of profit for non-energy intensive capitalist firms (and whence reliable data on that)? he takes no note of the communes, which have moved a large share of food and some other production out of the capitalist frame altogether. Which is part of the reason why most of the gains for the poorest have been sustained even in the teeth of the embargo, the oil collapse, and the outright theft of the nation’s gold reserves.

            Reply ↓
10. flora January 7, 2026 at 8:31 am

    In other news: Missouri passes the new k-12 instruction bill. Less digital learning and homework, more paper and pencil and paper textbooks. One of the reasons for the bill reported in the tv news but not directly noted in this last month’s report is the increased retention of information in children who do school work with paper and pen/pencil vs children who do school work on a computer or digital tablet.

    Computers out, cursive in: Missouri lawmaker proposes bill to cut screen time, return to paper

    https://www.kctv5.com/2025/12/08/computers-out-cursive-missouri-lawmaker-proposes-bill-cut-screen-time-return-paper/

    Reply ↓
    1. curlydan January 7, 2026 at 10:18 am

       As I read it, the bill is a proposal which no doubt gives electronic education companies and related digital mavens plenty of time to knock this bill off any perch it might be resting upon. More pens and pencils would be nice, though.

       Reply ↓
       1. Wukchumni January 7, 2026 at 10:23 am

          Wouldn’t you really have to eliminate computers at home as well, in order to make education what it once was before the turn of the century?

          That’s not gonna happen~

          Reply ↓
    2. Milton January 7, 2026 at 3:31 pm

       Like it. Now do voting.

       Reply ↓
11. Wukchumni January 7, 2026 at 8:44 am

    LA Infernos ignited a year ago today-and what a difference now, as a wildfire would be highly unlikely with as much rain as SoCal has gotten early this winter.

    Hollywood was floundering, but the Pacific Palisades wipeout was the coup d’gras, in that it took out not just the talent’s haunts, but everybody behind the action, in that PP was the toniest of tony places on the westside to live, and here we are a year later, and scant rebuilding has taken place, a whole dozen homes completely rebuilt, boy howdy!

    Lotsa yard sales though…

    Investors Snap Up Nearly Half of Vacant Lots in Fire-Damaged Palisades and Malibu

    https://smmirror.com/2026/01/investors-snap-up-nearly-half-of-vacant-lots-in-fire-damaged-palisades-and-malibu/

    Ever ‘snap up’ something?

    Reply ↓
    1. Carolinian January 7, 2026 at 9:23 am

       Tis a pity. Meanwhile the movie biz is soaring near my former home Atlanta. Even some Marvel super hero films have been made there.

       https://discoveratlanta.com/stories/film-studios-in-and-around-atlanta/

       Gwinnett Disneyland next?

       Reply ↓
    2. ibaien January 7, 2026 at 11:11 am

       my wife and i walked the other week from the getty villa (what a stately pleasure-dome!) down the PCH into santa monica. still feels like “fallout” – burned-out cars, ash, precious little redevelopment. and the water’s still suffused with tesla juice; i’m happy surfing down here in SD but wouldn’t paddle out up there.

       i don’t think the palisades are coming back.

       Reply ↓
       1. juno mas January 7, 2026 at 9:54 pm

          It appears to me that some of the refugees of PP have relocated up the coast to Santa Barbara (Montecito). The wild-eyed maneuvering around the Hot Springs Road roundabout (traffic circle) suggests lots of newcomers.

          Reply ↓
12. David M. January 7, 2026 at 8:45 am

    We may need to specify further about the Trump 2.0 designation above: we’ve finally entered the (terminal) stage of “Autocratic Asphyxiation.”

    Reply ↓
    1. Wukchumni January 7, 2026 at 11:04 am

       Auto-Neurotic-Asphyxiation

       Reply ↓
13. Chris N January 7, 2026 at 9:07 am

    “Here’s everything Elon Musk promised in 2025 – and failed to deliver”

    Here’s a lovely website dedicated to tracking Elon’s failures, hypocrisies, and other incoherence claims: https://elonmusk.today I anticipate more of his recent claims, including Mars by 2026, will make it on the website once their deadlines pass without anything close to resembling promise on them.

    Reply ↓
    1. Acacia January 7, 2026 at 9:14 am

       Ya know, I actually wouldn’t mind seeing Elon himself on Mars this year. Via live Mars-cam, etc.

       The voyage would be so exciting and risky… I mean, he might never make it back to Earth,* right?

       * Note use of B. Bunny “Flatbush” accent.

       Reply ↓
       1. flora January 7, 2026 at 10:51 am

          This article is very funny if you’ve read Douglas Adams sci-fi “Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe” series of books.

          Do panic: Elon Musk’s obsession with The Hitchhiker’s Guide
          Douglas Adams’s sci-fi satire on bureaucracy is inspiring Musk’s assault on government. He should have read it more carefully

          https://observer.co.uk/news/international/article/how-the-hitchhikers-guide-inspired-elon-musk

          There’s a part in one of the books where a govt has plans to gather the people considered important and send them to Mars, if I remember correctly. The regular, unimportant people on Earth cheered the idea. / ;)

          Reply ↓
14. Carolinian January 7, 2026 at 9:12 am

    Re cars–my newish but getting older Hyundai has buttons or knobs for every function. I have no idea about more recent Hyundai/Kia which have also adopted a bizarre version of the aggressive folded paper styling now used by Toyota and Honda.

    But I like my car a lot and it’s hardly surprising that Hyundai/Kia has now passed Honda on Wolf’s top seller rundown. It could be that Asia has now taken up the USA’s former “genius for the practical” given that there’s nothing practical about those hulking Ford and GM trucks unless you are a construction worker or need to pull a giant house trailer (also not practical).

    Meanwhile the notion of operating a car from a touchscreen makes no sense at all in my view. Given what these things cost surely it’s not simply so the manufacturer can save money on buttons.

    Reply ↓
    1. Pearl Rangefinder January 7, 2026 at 2:54 pm

       Ahh, if it was only just the touchscreen! It’s also definitely not just a “cost” thing, often (most?) times it’s manufacturers chasing trends. Sometimes really stupid and outright dangerous trends. Exhibit “A” is the latest craze in auto design, Tesla-style electronic retractable door handles. The kind that sit flush in the door and have to be popped out in order to open the door. Since Tesla started doing them this way, many other automakers copied them in making electronic flush door handles as well, with the supposed reason being that electronic flush door handles reduce drag and therefore increase range on electric vehicles. Which strictly being true (it will reduce drag by 0.00001% or something infinitesimal), is beside the point when those same manufacturers go and stick ludicrously large 21″ wheels on the car completely negating any range advantage whatsoever of going with flush door handles.

       The problem with this design is that the door handles are completely electronically actuated (ie: there is no physically connected latch mechanism between the handle and the door latch) and in the event of a power loss the passengers are trapped in the vehicle. Literally cannot open the door(!!!). There have been at least 15 deaths associated with these crappy door handle designs in Teslas: (Dec 26 2025) At Least 15 People Have Died in Tesla Crashes Due to Faulty Electric Doors

       Trapped after impact

       A new Bloomberg investigation has cast a harsh spotlight on one of Tesla’s most controversial design choices: electronically operated door releases. According to the report, at least 15 people have died in Tesla crashes since 2012 after doors failed to open following an impact, in some cases trapping occupants inside vehicles that caught fire.

       A years-long pattern comes into focus
       Bloomberg’s analysis builds on years of owner complaints and safety concerns surrounding Tesla’s flush, electrically powered door handles.

       And this absolute sh*t design spread all over the world, including (but certainly not only!) Chinese car makers who started putting them on their cars as well, with the same problems. It has become such an issue that China has outright banned them in new vehicles going forward: (Dec 26 2025) China Bans Retractable EV Door Handles Over Safety Concerns

       China will ban retractable car handles beginning Jan. 1, 2027, amid growing safety concerns that electrically powered designs can prevent passengers from escaping or being rescued after mishaps. The ban appeared in a draft of new Automotive Door Handle Safety Requirements issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Dec. 16.

       Under the proposed rules, vehicles weighing less than 3.5 tons must be equipped with interior and exterior car door handles that include a mechanical emergency opening function. The requirement is intended to ensure doors can be opened during power failures or after collisions.

       The draft also specifies standards for door handle release and power-off mechanisms, as well as handle placement and safety markings. The rules are part of a broader package of seven proposed automotive safety regulations. Online reaction in China has been largely supportive, with many users on social media backing stricter safety requirements for vehicle design.
       …
       …
       Public concern intensified after a fatal car crash on Oct. 13 in Chengdu, capital of the southwestern Sichuan province, where the doors of a vehicle reportedly could not be opened to allow access to the victims. A similar crash in the eastern city of Tongling also resulted in three deaths.

       This POS design is actually MORE expensive than the traditional mechanical door latches, AND have a much higher failure rate! (Sept 5th 2025) China’s auto regulators eye ban on retractable door handles, report says

       Cost and reliability: Electronic door handles are reportedly three times more expensive than mechanical ones, yet suffer from an eight-fold higher failure rate. This contributes to increased repair costs for NEVs, with one leading new energy brand reporting that door handle failures account for 12% of all vehicle repair cases, often requiring costly full assembly replacements.

       Reply ↓
15. Frank Dean January 7, 2026 at 9:15 am

    Why not quote from the actual paper re: MS and spare us from exaggerated claims?

    Multiple sclerosis and gut microbiota: Lachnospiraceae from the ileum of MS twins trigger MS-like disease in germfree transgenic mice—An unbiased functional study

    Significance
    We developed a strategy to identify gut bacteria functionally linked to the development of multiple sclerosis (MS). To minimize confounders, we analyzed microbiota composition in a large cohort of monozygotic twins discordant for MS and identified over 50 differently abundant taxa. We then sampled microbiota from the ileum of selected twins, and, in order to functionally characterize them, we introduced them into germfree TCR-transgenic mice prone to develop MS-like disease upon bacterial colonization. We found that MS-derived ileal microbiota induced disease at higher rates than analogous material from healthy twin donors. Our results implicate two Lachnospiraceae members, namely Eisenbergiella tayi and Lachnoclostridium, as likely responsible for an increased incidence of disease.

    Abstract
    We developed a two-tiered strategy aiming to identify gut bacteria functionally linked to the development of multiple sclerosis (MS). First, we compared gut microbial profiles in a cohort of 81 monozygotic twins discordant for MS. This approach allowed to minimize confounding effects by genetic and early environmental factors and identified over 50 differently abundant taxa with the majority of increased taxa within the Firmicutes. These included taxa previously described to be associated with MS (Anaerotruncus colihominis and Eisenbergiella tayi), along with newly identified taxa, such as Copromonas and Acutalibacter. Second, we interrogated the intestinal habitat and functional impact of individual taxa on the development of MS-like disease. In an exploratory approach, we enteroscopically sampled microbiota from different gut segments of selected twin pairs and compared their compositional profiles. To assess their functional potential, samples were orally transferred into germfree transgenic mice prone to develop spontaneous MS-like experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) upon bacterial colonization. We found that MS-derived ileal microbiota induced EAE at substantially higher rates than analogous material from healthy twin donors. Furthermore, female mice were more susceptible to disease development than males. The likely active organisms were identified as Eisenbergiella tayi and Lachnoclostridium, members of the Lachnospiraceae family. Our results identify potentially disease-facilitating bacteria sampled from the ileum of MS affected twins. The experimental strategy may pave the way to functionally understand the role of gut microbiota in initiation of MS.

    Reply ↓
    1. WillyBgood January 7, 2026 at 10:02 am

       Yes, I did a double take and immediately went to sources. Tweets like these raise hackles.

       Reply ↓
    2. Yves Smith Post authorJanuary 7, 2026 at 12:36 pm

       Because this is a finance and economics blog, not a health blog, and I put up 70 links plus three other posts. .Tom identified another problematic tweet above but was not a jerk about it.

       If you are going to bitch like that, I’ll stop providing any health news.

       Reply ↓
       1. Steve H. January 7, 2026 at 4:21 pm

          The hell. The Covid news here has kept people alive. Can’t let a korinthenkacker rack up a mortality rate.

          Reply ↓
       2. J. January 7, 2026 at 7:51 pm

          Please don’t stop posting health news!

          This is an interesting tidbit, because not too long ago some pretty good evidence came out for Epstein-Barr virus (mononucleosis) being an MS trigger.

          https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35025605/

          > Risk of MS increased 32-fold after infection with EBV but was not increased after infection with other viruses

          One school of thought is that MS results from the immune system trying to attack a pathogen but accidentally attacking the nervous system instead, because the pathogen has a feature that resembles something on the host’s nervous system (molecular mimicry). I wonder if these bacteria and EBV are using similar motifs/epitopes.

          Reply ↓
    3. gf January 7, 2026 at 12:41 pm

       I think gut bacteria mirrors the health of the individual not the reverse.

       They have cause and effect reversed.

       But hey we need to sell drugs, right.

       Reply ↓
       1. Hickory January 7, 2026 at 2:56 pm

          and not implicate the industrial toxins that so richly profit a few people while poisoning many

          Reply ↓
16. vidimi January 7, 2026 at 9:16 am

    Some jumbled thoughts:

    For someone living near the heart of EU warmongering in France, the scariest prospect is of a hot war with Russia. We have been on a seemingly inevitable path towards it for at least the last nearly four years and every day steps are taken further along that path.

    One thing that can potentially throw a wrench in that is Trump taking Greenland by force and the effective dissolution of NATO thereafter. This is where I think Aurélien is mistaken in his comments about NATO this week: it’s not a brake but an enabler of offensive posturing by member states. Of course, it’s far from certain that even a dissolution of NATO could prevent a hot war as the humiliated EU might look to extract revenge on a country they still foolishly regard as weaker, so war unfortunately looks very likely. Nevertheless, Trump taking Greenland would make a mockery of the idea that Europe cares about Ukrainian territorial sovereignty and provide the best chance of preventing an escalation to the war so I welcome it.

    Regarding the break-up of NATO, it looks like it has been in EU thinking at least for a while if prior talk of an EU army is any indication. Getting this online won’t happen overnight but we are moving in that direction.

    Regarding a war with Russia, I don’t know where the battlefield would be, whether it would move east of Ukraine or be contained there, but I do know that the number one security threat for China, even more than the US putting nukes in Taiwan, would be the balkanisation and fall of Russia to the West (and thus potentially nukes on China’s border and severance from Russian energy and other resources). Their security depends totally on Russia remaining a reliable partner. At which point would China be forced to enter to protect their ally and to what extent?

    The West is more fractured and more desperate than ever but that also makes it more dangerous. Time and again, opponents fall because they underestimate the depravity the West will go to in order to achieve its aims. It will be only a matter of time before Iran will fall because they keep waiting for an Israeli-American offensive to react to. It’s hard to win a chess game if you are constantly only responding to your opponents attacks. You can only hope for a draw if the opponent runs out of moves. It’s something China should ponder as well.

    Reply ↓
    1. Michaelmas January 7, 2026 at 10:00 am

       vidimi: It’s something China should ponder as well.

       To the contrary, China is playing five moves and years ahead of the West, as with the RE debacle (debacle for the US and wherever else of the West chooses to participate in truculence towards China).

       It’s just that they’re smart enough not to advertise their moves till the pieces are all in place and it’s time to play them. Even the RE situation gives them much more ammunition to bring to bear that they haven’t yet: all the US and European elites’ dream of defense spending can be shut down by Beijing, though the risk for China there is that they create a situation as with Japan after the US cut off oil, so they’ll proceed on a case-by-case basis for now.

       Reply ↓
       1. vidimi January 7, 2026 at 10:24 am

          maybe, but we’ll see how much China thought to secure its 70B investment in Venezuela. More and more commentators are convinced there was a deal between Rodrigues and Trump with a minority maintaining that such claims are CIA propaganda designed to delegitimise the Chavistas. To be continued. Russia was so far the only one to show any proactivity with Putin wisely saying that if you know you have to fight, you might as well land the first blow. Iran definitely doesn’t get it and I am not sure China does.

          Reply ↓
          1. Michaelmas January 7, 2026 at 11:19 am

             vidimi: Iran definitely doesn’t get it and I am not sure China does.

             China gets it —

             From Thoughts on The Imminent Western Silver Insolvency – Craig Tinsdale
             
             https://substack.com/@ctindale/note/c-193673806

             .’…The irony deepens when we consider the US chosen instrument of deterrence. The Pentagon has bet the farm on the “Hellscape” strategy. This is a plan to flood the Taiwan Strait with thousands of autonomous drones to deny the PLA access.

             ‘It is a clever plan with a fatal flaw. Every one of those drones is a flying circuit board requiring 5N (99.999%) purity silver paste. The West consumes 13,000 tonnes of silver for industrial use annually, yet we have offshored the capacity to produce the ultra-high purity powder and paste required for advanced electronics.

             ‘China produces over 80% of the solar and semiconductor supply chain materials.

             ‘We are attempting to build a robotic kill chain using a metal that must be refined and chemically processed by the adversary……
             .
             …But the adversary is not playing our game. The “Silent Siege” is already underway. The hoarding of 700 million tonnes of grain and the export restrictions on antimony (a munitions primer) These are the actions of a fortress preparing for a siege.’

             Reply ↓
             1. Wukchumni January 7, 2026 at 11:30 am

                Once again I can’t stress how 1-monetary-sided the Chinese were in regards to silver being the precious metal of choice for an awful long time, and everything happening in China seems to point to going back to the future, and why not embrace silver again in a big way, and by the way, this is what we did in 1949, restriking 1934 dated Chinese Silver Dollars~

                In 1949, three U.S. mints restruck a total of 30 million “Junk Dollars” dated Year 23. Several varieties are known. Most carry the same value, with the exception of the six ropes variety listed below.

                https://www.ngccoin.com/price-guide/world/china-republic-of-dollar-y-345-221933-231934-cuid-1068483-duid-1297395

                Reply ↓
    2. vidimi January 7, 2026 at 11:19 am

       It occurs to me that a hot NATO war against Russia can start before NATO has a chance to dissolve. Purported drone attacks against Putin’s Valdai residence ; Russian retaliation against US assets in Ukraine ; US re-retaliation on Russian-flagged oil tankers ; Russia flying plane after plane of citizens and embassy staff out of Israel…we’re in an overly-dynamic situation.

       Reply ↓
       1. mrsyk January 7, 2026 at 11:27 am

          Mildly put. There’s a feeling I can’t shake that things are about to blow.

          Reply ↓
17. Martin Oline January 7, 2026 at 9:35 am

    Thank you Yves for including the link to the Daniel Davis / Deep Dive clip. It was very interesting as he usually has a unique perspective (Col. Douglas Macgregor being another). It is valuable to get information from retired officers who are not sitting on the boards of defense contractors.
    Long ago when, I was much younger, I remember reading Aristotle’s analysis of government. He thought democracy was a bad government (poor people held sway) but it was better than the other two options, oligarchy and tyranny. At that time of my life I thought that can’t be the only options. Now that I am older I think he may have been right. It seems that the government in the United States has been controlled by oligarchic forces since the 1890’s. Witness the political influence of the trusts and the corruption of the large cities. This was only interrupted for a short time by the depression of the ’30’s and Roosevelt administration preventing complete political collapse. Even then, the oligarchs conspired to orchestrate a coup. See Smedley Butler’s “Wall Street Putsch” affair.
    It is the current fashion to invoke Hitler in politics, but that is so 20th Century. It is apparent that we have regressed to tyranny with the madness and unpredictability of the Trump administration. The Roman Senate had what they thought was a cure for that in March, but it ushered in the reign of despots. I hope we as a nation are able to avoid such a fate, but I will likely not live to see it.

    Reply ↓
    1. Michaelmas January 7, 2026 at 11:29 am

       Martin Oline: It seems that the government in the United States has been controlled by oligarchic forces since the 1890’s.

       What? Do you seriously imagine the likes of Washington and Jefferson weren’t oligarchs?

       Washington was among the richest men in the country. Granted, most of his wealth was tied up in land and enslaved people, not cash or commercial enterprises, thus his post Revolutionary War career in real-estate fraud.

       The US has been controlled by oligarchic forces for most of its history.

       Reply ↓
    2. Hickory January 7, 2026 at 3:29 pm

       the US has been an oligarchy for its entire history. Any society where a few people impose laws and choose how to enforce them, and the rest submissively obey is a dictatorship, a there are sadly many flavors. Some dictators let people have meaningless elections and pretend that the wage slaves are in charge. But there are nations where people are or were actually free – the traditional Cherokee, Ashaninka, and Jenu Kurubu to name a few. They can show us what it would take to live in an actually free society where integrity and generosity are normal, and corruption isn’t allowed.

       Reply ↓
       1. Michaelmas January 7, 2026 at 8:18 pm

          the traditional Cherokee, Ashaninka, and Jenu Kurubu

          … were primarily hunter-gatherer societies, were they not? Not ‘civilizations’ built on heirarchy and inequality where elites required massed humans — produced via the transition to agriculture and human domestication — to produce surpluses for the elites.
          
          Evolution of cooperation on large networks with community structures

          Reply ↓
18. The Rev Kev January 7, 2026 at 9:37 am

    “Rubio Tells Lawmakers Trump Aims to Buy Greenland, Downplays Military Action”

    On Alex Christoforou’s latest video, he had a tweet showing from a Danish guy. This guy was saying that it would be a great idea to sell Greenland to Trump for a few tens of billions of dollars as they have the money to develop the place. And this grovelling would earn the respect of Trump and would keep him in the European alliances. Oh yeah, and then Denmark could take that money and give it to Zelenski.

    Reply ↓
    1. OnceWere January 7, 2026 at 10:51 am

       One would hope that, if ten of billions of dollars are on the table, it would be paid to the inhabitants of Greenland and not the government of Denmark. Not that I’d advise the Greenlanders to sell out for a few tens of billions. If I were them I’d want at least a trillion deposited in a fully Greenlander-controlled sovereign wealth fund. After all, it will never be cheap to finance a somewhat first-world standard of living in the high arctic. Nor could you, as a Greenlander, trust a US promise of long-term financial support.

       Reply ↓
    2. scott s. January 7, 2026 at 3:31 pm

       The Virgin Islands only cost us $25 million. Trump needs to hone his negotiation skills.

       Reply ↓
       1. hk January 7, 2026 at 7:48 pm

          Also, purchased from Denmark. We’d been dealing with them a lot, haven’t we? (Danish Virgin Islands, Iceland, now Greenland?)

          Reply ↓
19. The Rev Kev January 7, 2026 at 9:56 am

    “Did Russia Just Send a Message to Donald Trump? Who Ratted out Maduro?”

    Absolutely the Russians were sending Trump a message by going after American owned facilities. There is not much doubt that Trump tried to kill Putin at the beginning of the year through a Ukrainian drone attack. The result would have been a hard-righter who would take the gloves off and destroy the Ukraine asap but did the Trump White House think so far ahead? The guys at The Duran were saying that there was two phone calls to Putin with one with the results of talking to the Ukrainians and the second with the Europeans with the later letting Trump believe that he was waiting at Valdai waiting. But Putin wasn’t actually at Valdai and only led Trump to believe so. It may have been a test by Putin of Trump to see how stupid he was as well as how duplicitous. And of course he failed-

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTClM5sRywM (27: 38 mins)

    Reply ↓
    1. Rooster Morkrum January 7, 2026 at 11:11 am

       Larry Johnson must be confused. Odesa was last struck on Christmas, Dec 25, and on Dec 12 before that. “Olimpex Coup Int.” are stevedores with the grainery. “Olympex” is a reference to a terminal capable of bulk loading. US capital didn’t invest in Olympex, it was awarded, by judgment in UK arbitration, ownership of the holding company [Madison Pacific v Groza and Naumenko] on January 6, 2025. Those two goofballs sold off grain collateral, defaulting on a loan back in 2021, and latter convicted of embezzlement because there’s a war on.

       Hitting empty grain silos is the best outcome for incoming fire. The city is dense and literally everything else is harder to replace, like the stadium nextdoor. Russia should be hitting the container gimbels, for which demand perennially outstrips supply, but I don’t think Russia is using munitions that are accurate enough in Ukraine, outside of an offensive. Too late in the season for an offensive, hearts won’t be into it.

       Also, mushroom cloud? Unless it was ammonium nitrate and fuel oil, that’s not how munitions cooks off. Mushroom cloud = trust us, bragh.

       The lights did just go out again in Moscow, so political opinion for retaliation outpaces reality. The national press office is re-reporting events to make it appear as if Putin is getting in his licks, but Putin doesn’t have an encore in his pocket. That was it. That pressure campaign was his FSB flexing.

       Reply ↓
       1. skippy January 7, 2026 at 2:35 pm

          You still have the U.S. owned sunflower oil facility being hit, closed the town due to oil flowing through it.

          Reply ↓
          1. ChrisFromGA January 7, 2026 at 4:27 pm

             I am amazed that any US company would maintain operations in Ukraine. It’s a war zone. If publicly held, that would constitute a clear violation of the board’s fiduciary duty to preserve shareholder value. If private, perhaps there is more wriggle room, but having your capex and inventory get incinerated in the blink of an eye tends to leave a mark.

             I can speculate that perhaps the US State Department. encouraged companies to FAFO.

             Reply ↓
             1. Polar Socialist January 7, 2026 at 4:34 pm

                Cargill, Dupont and Monsanto own about 40% of Ukrainian arable lands.

                Which is why “The West” has gone trough so much trouble to get the grain out of Ukraine via Odessa.

                Reply ↓
       2. Caps Lock January 7, 2026 at 4:49 pm

          Lots of stuff piled up here, in order to mask innacuracies. I’ll give it a more-confused-than-Larry-Johnson rating. Better luck next time.

          Reply ↓
20. sarmaT January 7, 2026 at 10:15 am

    Russia Sends Submarine to Escort Tanker the U.S. Tried to Seize Off Venezuela Wall Street Journal. Suddenly it is depicted as a rusting, empty tanker.

    Russia has sent a submarine and other naval assets to escort an empty, rusting oil tanker that has become a new flashpoint in U.S.-Russia relations, according to a U.S. official.

    The main feature of a submarine is stealth. I wonder the U.S. official got notified by Russians about the position of their submarine, or by the US top secret submarine detection system. :)

    Reply ↓
    1. mrsyk January 7, 2026 at 11:12 am

       US seizes the oil tanker Marinera, formerly the Bella 1. Blowback seems inevitable.

       Britain helps US seize Russian oil tanker — follow live, The Times.

       Additionally, a second “Venezuela linked” tanker was seized in a separate operation.

       Reply ↓
       1. Wukchumni January 7, 2026 at 11:17 am

          Cargo Marinera?

          Reply ↓
          1. mrsyk January 7, 2026 at 11:53 am

             It was that or Her Majesty’s Puttanesca.

             Reply ↓
             1. Wukchumni January 7, 2026 at 12:11 pm

                HAL dente?

                Reply ↓
             2. sarmaT January 7, 2026 at 12:18 pm

                Putinesque?

                Reply ↓
       2. illicit January 7, 2026 at 11:45 am

          I wonder what happened to the Red October escorting it.

          Reply ↓
          1. mrsyk January 7, 2026 at 12:23 pm

             That sub may not have reached it yet. I see CBS quoting “two officials”,

             we’d rather seize it than sink it.

             That seems rather inflammatory.

             Reply ↓
          2. Polar Socialist January 7, 2026 at 12:26 pm

             Maybe WSJ just made it up? So far Russians have only confirmed that the ship was sailing under Russian flag and that contact with it was lost.

             It’s easier to win imaginary stand-offs, just as it’s easier to win imaginary wars.

             Reply ↓
21. William Beyer January 7, 2026 at 10:24 am

    I’m loving it!

    Danny Davis compares Trump to Hitler, and the eventsinukraine.substack calling him “the fuhrer of the fourth reich.”

    I’ll be using the latter tag from now on.

    Reply ↓
22. LawnDart January 7, 2026 at 10:57 am

    Re; Supremes/How Bribery Became Legal

    Good lord… I had quit following the James Snyder case after he left office. I got to experience his 2015 re-election run for Mayor first-hand as a paid “researcher” for the D-side, his opposition.

    Portage, Indiana has location, location, location, right along the 90/94 corridor and just a little across state lines from Chicagoland. I had moved there for a while in the early 2000s when I was working for the State of Illinois as an agent– no, actually fled there after stepping on toes and experiencing a lot of heat as a result: my thinking was that if trouble followed me across state-lines, that’d bring in the feds… but that’s another story.

    Yeah, when I moved back to Portage in 2015, Snyder was already under federal investigation, and that made an already dirty, dirty campaign much more interesting. A lot of outside money was being poured into the race, some of it funded through Crossroads PAC (ring any bells?). I was the guy who scrutinized Snyder’s Campaign Finance Reports (CFRs), and while the original CFRs themselves raised a lot of questions, Snyder was forced to submit amended CFRs after the feds made their presence known, and that’s where the real fun began– when you got to compare discrepancies between these financial reports.

    Now I doubt anyone here has heard of Portage, Indiana, but (like many places) the mayor’s office is worth multi-millions to those who control it: politics is still a dirty streetfight, even when the feds are watching (although an agent did identify himself and did jump in while I was physically intervening in what later appeared to be a staged physical altercation… that “researcher” thing, yeah, well… there’s the books and there’s reality).

    Snyder had portrayed himself as a red-meat, god-fearing republican family-man, so it was surprising to see in the CFRs that a very vocally-liberal lesbian couple had contributed thousands of dollars to his campaign. When asked about this, it came as a surprise to them too. Other donors experienced similar shock. But I had a hell of a time with Crossroads PAC (I actually reached out to Chris Hedges on this, as Crossroads is tied to the dominionist movement (who are also Christian evangelical Israeli-firsters), and something he knows as well as any outsider can)– and a lot of the money to Snyder came via the fronts of law firms, and those for all practical purposes these are impenetrable (attorney/client stuff, I presume).

    Outside money definately has its hands in local politics in order to guide office holders in directions that will benefit outside interests– and those elected officials are reduced to little more than meat-puppets for “the Man.” And now the Supreme Court has given its endorsement to this practice…

    This used to be illegal…

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    1. Chris N January 7, 2026 at 12:16 pm

       Snyder had portrayed himself as a red-meat, god-fearing republican family-man, so it was surprising to see in the CFRs that a very vocally-liberal lesbian couple had contributed thousands of dollars to his campaign. When asked about this, it came as a surprise to them too. Other donors experienced similar shock.

       Am I correct in understanding that someone/some-org had managed to set up strawman donations for Snyder? Basically using stolen PII to mask those donations as individual contributions from people other than his supporters to mask fund origins and bypass campaign finance limits. I know with credit card based donations this is a lot harder to pull off, but I wouldn’t be surprised if unscrupulous people faked the provenance of cash based donations raised from cash based laundering operations with this method.

       No wonder there’s been no movement on fixing identity theft and related crimes in this country. With DOGE hoovering data from last year this makes everything worse.

       What’s the common refrain? “Every accusation is a confession…”

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       1. LawnDart January 7, 2026 at 3:46 pm

          Am I correct in understanding that someone/some-org had managed to set up strawman donations for Snyder?

          Yes, and they were being smartasses about it, choosing at least some of the unwitting donors quite deliberately, for fun it seems.

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       2. scott s. January 7, 2026 at 4:18 pm

          You only need name, address and occupation for individual contributions over $100 so you don’t really need to steal PII.

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          1. LawnDart January 8, 2026 at 12:10 am

             Yep.

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    2. Velma January 7, 2026 at 1:42 pm

       PG&E’s $21 million in donations to Newsom AFTER his appointees to the California Public Utilities Commission allowed them to double rates are “tips.

       Thanks for the clarification.

       “Nearly 182,000 households served by PG&E who fell behind had their electricity cut off for nonpayment in 2023, almost a quarter of which were never reconnected.”

       https://www.turn.org/turn-newsroom/residents-are-feeling-the-pain-of-record-pge-bills-but-there-may-be-more-hikes-on-the-way

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       1. juno mas January 7, 2026 at 4:13 pm

          These folks should purchase solar PV stand alone systems and be done with PGE.

          See: http://www.land2plan.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/PV-House.pdf

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          1. Henry Moon Pie January 7, 2026 at 5:17 pm

             That looks very cool, but I note the 4kw propane generator. I know PVs and batteries are much more efficient now, but I’ll bet two things are still really tough to power at the household level: large electric motors like you’d find in refrigerators and washing machines; and electric heating devices like stoves or hot water heaters. There are good replacements with propane refrigerators, stoves and water eaters.

             When we lived with PVs in New Mexico in the 80s, we used a little propane refrigerator and instantaneous hot water heater we scavenged out of a pick-up camper, and we had a washing machine and a freezer in an adobe shed down close to the road to which we ran an electric line. But we still had a small gas generator at the house. Even in New Mexico, there are stretches of cloudy weather.

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23. Maxwell Johnston January 7, 2026 at 11:32 am

    View from Moscow: Europe and Russia have reached a point of clarity, and it is bleak —

    I agree fully. And watching the latest events unfolding in the north Atlantic, I now anticipate RU-USA relations worsening too. Quickly. Sharply.

    But clarity (however unpleasant) is preferable to wishful thinking and false hope. Perhaps the leadership in Beijing and Delhi and (looking at you, VVP) Moscow will finally start to understand what the new reality of the 21st century is, and act accordingly. At a certain point, the diplomats step aside and the generals take over. We might be nearing that point faster than I anticipated.

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    1. Wukchumni January 7, 2026 at 11:41 am

       Timing is about right in that the Spanish Civil War lasted 3 years and was a testing ground for mo better military gear, just as the past 3 years in Ukraine have been a similar proving ground, and the prelims really didn’t matter all that much in the scheme of things in the run-up compared to the really big show soon to come.

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24. pjay January 7, 2026 at 11:39 am

    – ‘Finland’s preschool classrooms lead the fight against Russia’ – Associated Press (Micael T)

    “I don’t think we envisioned that the world would look like this,” Finnish Education Minister Anders Adlercreutz said. “That we would be bombarded with disinformation, that our institutions are challenged — our democracy really challenged — through disinformation.”

    “It already is much harder in the information space to spot what’s real and what’s not real,” Martha Turnbull, director of hybrid influence at the Helsinki-based European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, said.

    I applaud Yves for her masterful juxtaposition of articles, as is often the case in Links. After reading this laugh-out-loud celebration of Maoist indoctrination of preschoolers — sorry, I mean teaching them to recognize “fake news” put out by dastardly Rooskie propagandists — I immediately went to the piece by Kit Klarenberg on ‘Britain’s Secret Role in Yugoslavia’s Destruction.’ If the director of that NATO propaganda Centre wanted to examine “hybrid threats,” she could do worse than study the tools used in the dismantling of Yugoslavia and the complete distortion of this process in the Western media. Just think what the propagandists behind that famous fake picture of the skeletal “Serbian concentration camp” victim behind the barbed wire could have done with the tools of AI! (If you don’t know what I’m referring to then chances are you think the Tiannanmen “tank man” was also real.)

    I strongly recommend Klarenberg’s article. Yugoslavia was the beginning of the process that has culminated in the Ukraine, the disintegration of Europe, and the threat of WWIII.

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    1. Kypck January 7, 2026 at 5:05 pm

       Well, it wasn’t supposed to be the disintegration of Europe, but Russia. Everyone was aboard because it was going so well. Until recently, that is.

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    2. Polar Socialist January 7, 2026 at 5:13 pm

       Oh, the best part is that Finland is heavily censoring the Russian news/information sites even if it’s clearly against the Finnish constitution and the European Declaration of Human Rights.

       It’s really, really hard to come across any kind of Russian information in the Finnish “information space”, be it dis-, mis- or regular information.

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       1. Robert Gray January 8, 2026 at 7:15 am

          Except, of course, for YLE [the Finnish national broadcasting service] Новости [news in Russian], where one gets the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. /sarc

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25. Jason Boxman January 7, 2026 at 11:57 am

    I dunno, I find GPs pretty useless trying to get some anxiety meds in the midst of my tragedy. They love to push pills that aren’t helpful to me, I guess. Out here it’s a multi-month waitlist to even be a new patient somewhere. And my current GP thought I was on the floor crying the day we were gonna turn dad off thought I was playing for sympathy to get high, finally saying he didn’t think I was “faking it”.

    Thanks bro.

    That only got me Lunesta.

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    1. mrsyk January 7, 2026 at 12:12 pm

       Sorry you lost your dad. I can’t imagine what making that decision was like.

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       1. Jason Boxman January 7, 2026 at 2:16 pm

          Thanks for your kind words.

          We were blessed and cursed. He almost certainly died at the scene, but with modern medical technology, they were able to revive his body. So the decisions we had to make were irrelevant, and I think it causes moral injury, to have to make some decisions that would be life altering, if there had been any chance that he’d survived, and at the time there was some small possibility that his brain was intact, as there’s no way to know for sure immediately.

          50 years ago he would just have been gone.

          The car that he tapped in stop and go traffic on the highway, the owner is considering suing for damages, the insurance company tells us. We also got additional details about his last moments. Not a death I would wish for. He almost certainly died in terror. He was clearly in respirator distress when he tried to exit his truck, and an off duty paramedic came to assist.

          I kind of figured those last moments would have been brutal. It isn’t like you don’t know you’re having a cardiac incident when it is this serious.

          And he was socially murdered. That’s difficult to live with as well.

          I’m collecting the license registration from the cars, and he always kept up with it. In each car the latest plate registration is exactly where you’d expect it to be, with the owners manual in those little flaps that are generally there.

          He was a better man than most of our so-called elite, that’s for sure. Another victim of stochastic eugenics.

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          1. Jonathan Holland Becnel January 7, 2026 at 9:44 pm

             His name is Robert Paulson.*

             *inserts your dads name

             🪦 to a legend 🫡

             Long May Your Dad Protect The NC Commentariat

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26. gf January 7, 2026 at 12:06 pm

    “Israel issues tender to build over 3,400 settler homes in occupied East Jerusalem”

    If there is a net migration of Jews out of Israel what is the purpose of more settler homes?

    Have the estimates of emigration been overstated?

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    1. OnceWere January 7, 2026 at 1:31 pm

       Does it matter how many Israelis leave ? It’s not going to make those who remain any less keen to take Palestinian land.

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27. XXYY January 7, 2026 at 12:43 pm

    Big Oil doesn’t share Trump’s dream of making Venezuelan oil great again CNN

    NC posted a Twitter thread the other day by an oil industry analyst who did some back of the envelope calculations on the cost and timeline of actually setting up the extraction and transportation of Venezuelan crude. I can’t seem to find it right now, but the bottom line was it would cost about one and a half trillion dollars and one or two decades to carry out. Aside from a lot of direct oil extraction infrastructure, it also included more general things like improving that power system in Venezuela, creating cities where foreign oil experts would want to live and work (!), build roads and rail to support the industry, and basically reworking much of the country. It was quite educational and a real eye-opener. (There was also a tremendous amount of work outside Venezuela building industry capacity capable of taking Venezuela’s heavy crude.)

    Perhaps NC can find this and post it again since everybody should read it.

    It’s clear that “getting the oil from country x” amounts to a lot more than just drilling some holes in the ground in country x. Now that the world is embarked on a global CO2 reduction program and demand for crude oil is leveling off, it’s not obvious that long-term oil extraction fiasco’s are in anyone’s interest.

    Reply ↓
    1. Yves Smith Post authorJanuary 7, 2026 at 1:06 pm

       It was a tweet at the end of my Monday post on the economics of the Venezuela oil scheme.

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    2. Kouros January 7, 2026 at 4:55 pm

       https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-424-the-world-of-risk-the

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    3. AG January 7, 2026 at 7:36 pm

       That Chinese analyst I posted recently pointed out that Venezuelan oil industry would need a lot of investment. And Mark Sleboda with Danny Haiphong on the 4th confirmed that with the remark: how should it be different with all the sanctions obstructing a modernization of facilities.

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    4. Acacia January 7, 2026 at 9:15 pm

       I believe this is the X thread you may be thinking of:

       https://x.com/ShaleTier7/status/2007936384448024898

       Michael Spyker

       I have spent a lot of time talking shit at people with opinions on Venezuela’s oil production potential, and how it’s going to “RePLaCe CanADa”. So here’s my contribution — how I see the cost of replacing Canadian crude with Venezuelan heavy.

       I think it’s a nearly $1 trillion bill to get that done. I’m not sure who has a spare $1 trillion in their jeans.

       […]

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28. MicaT January 7, 2026 at 12:56 pm

    Well the US just seized a Russian tanker according to the NYT

    This isn’t going to be good

    Reply ↓
    1. scott s. January 7, 2026 at 4:28 pm

       Well, it attempted to switch to Russian flag registry while in transit. The US position will be that the ship was not sailing under a proper flag.

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    2. Kouros January 7, 2026 at 6:06 pm

       Oh, well. US has seized Russian diplomatic properties in the US and is not willing tto give them back. A ship that just painted the Russian flag is nothing. Now, if that ship had some missiles on board…

       Reply ↓
       1. juno mas January 7, 2026 at 9:02 pm

          A few of the non-MSM commentators on the Web think the ’empty’ tanker has $2B in Venezuelan gold stowed in the hold. Maybe those Atlantic manuevers are for real and it is headed to Russia for safekeeping.

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29. Wukchumni January 7, 2026 at 1:58 pm

    This land was your land, and this land is now my land
    From Point Barrow to Tierra del Fuego
    From the Marianas to the Icelandic Gulf Stream waters
    This land was made for me and not you, see here!

    As I went stalking those oil tankers
    And I went above the law, an endless piracy
    I saw below me that Greenland for the taking
    This land wasn’t made for you, but for me

    I roamed and rambled and I followed my goosesteps
    To the sparkling sounds of much discontent
    All around me my voice was a-sounding
    This land wasn’t made for you, but for me

    There was a big high UN wall there that tried to stop me
    Sign was painted, said, “Private Property”
    But on the back side, it didn’t say nothing
    This land wasn’t made for you, but for me

    When the sum comes shining, then the money was rolling
    And the oil confiscating and the war clouds rolling
    A voice come chanting as the fog was lifting
    This land wasn’t made for you, but for me

    This land was your land, and this land is now my land
    From Point Barrow to Tierra del Fuego
    From the Marianas to the Icelandic Gulf Stream waters
    This land was made for me and not you, see here!

    This Land is Your Land, by Woody Guthrie

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AePCvFrggZM&list=RDAePCvFrggZM

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30. Rick January 7, 2026 at 2:34 pm

    On the GP/PCP question, not sure what is referenced about the importance of these providers. I believe I’m in the minority in saying I have a great deal of respect for my primary care physician. He has demonstrated a good feel for what needs intervention and what doesn’t, the latter being particularly important to me. Having the clinic guarantee next day appointment for an urgent matter is really great (I’ve used this once and it was most helpful). This is an independent clinic with one MD, two NPs and a small support staff.

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31. Wukchumni January 7, 2026 at 2:42 pm

    Its all so perfect the Bizarro World parallels between mutual collapses of the USSR and USA

    Yeltsin was a raging drunk who gave away the spoils, while our Teetotalitarian leader is content to do the same sober.

    Going through the D.T.’s~

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32. juno mas January 7, 2026 at 4:07 pm

    RE: Who has the oil

    This is another article that overstates the US ‘independence’ regarding ‘petroleum’. The US produces 10MB/Day of refined petroleum (gasoline, nat gas, diesel) but it consumes approximately twice that per day. The US cannot extract enough crude oil (fracking) to produce all the refined petroleum it uses and exports for profit, so it imports crude from Canada, Mexico, and Saudia Arabia at ratio of 40%. This is not independence; and likely why Grump wants to annex our northern neighbor.

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33. Steve H. January 7, 2026 at 4:39 pm

    A zeitgeist note: The Corporation for Public Broadcasting dissolved itself this week. This is a collapse of a complex structure.

    I tuned in to NPR early news yesterday. What struck me was the brightness and freedom in the voices of the newscasters. Clearly there’s a lot we don’t know, speculation can include relief, validation, confidence… It wouldn’t surprise me if a Democratic-affiliated sponsor has offered to bankroll it. Whatever it was, it was not what I expected.

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34. Tom Stone January 7, 2026 at 5:35 pm

    This year’s SOTU is going to be deranged, but hilarious.
    Will there be more mentions of America’s “New Golden Age” or “America is greater than it ever has been”?
    I hope Nat has a full HazMat suit…

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35. alrhundi January 7, 2026 at 5:38 pm

    Things are not looking good right now.

    Needs to be confirmed but: “The Russian army is urgently evacuating the staff of the Russian embassy along with their families in Israel and returning them to Russia. This is the third flight by Russia in the past 24 hours to evacuate its embassy in Israel.

    There are some news that Russia has been informed of apparently.”

    https://xcancel.com/DailyIranNews/status/2008865020277346687

    And

    https://xcancel.com/RussCan91/status/2008462072171081946

    Also:

    “A Suspected IDF insider account having a 100% win rate with only 4 bets on polymarket and all 4 bets on Israeli military operations, has made a bet that Iran will be attacked by Israel by January 31st.”

    https://xcancel.com/MonitorX99800/status/2008850157698424974

    Also:

    Iran defensive NOTAM

    https://xcancel.com/ibrahimtmajed/status/2008936438742827016?s=20

    ———

    Would it make sense the quick action in Venezuela was to secure oil transport due to the Strait of Hormuz closing after a new attack on Iran?

    Reply ↓
    1. Polar Socialist January 7, 2026 at 5:48 pm

       Around 20 million barrels pass trough Hormuz daily, while Venezuela can produce currently around 800,000 barrels per day. So no, it wouldn’t make much sense. But then, what does in these days.

       I’d pay attention to the fact that Russia has been arming Iran for many months now, and it seems they have set no restraints on Iran if and when Trumpanyahu decides to re-engage.

       What is one empty tanker (that made fun of US navy for weeks) somewhere in the North Atlantic, when you’re winning in Ukraine, Middle East/West Asia, Latin America and UN?

       Reply ↓
    2. AG January 7, 2026 at 7:16 pm

       Thanks
       Can someone in the know weigh in in how far this is truly unusual?

       Reply ↓
36. AG January 7, 2026 at 7:15 pm

    Without trivializing Venezuela:

    We should keep in mind what level of atrocity and crime Iraq (and Afghanistan) were. Especially former since there the whole US Army invaded a country based on blatant lies and proven ones well before the act.
    (Afghanistan was a lie too but there the UN offered cover which did not change the raw facts beyond interpretation and deal-making.)

    And that led to not 80 killed but probably 1million+ directly and indirectly.
    It´s kinda interesting that this time there is no old vs. new Europe.

    So I am pretty sure if the US were to go into full war mode against Iran, the reactions would be much more divided including much more favourable ones.

    Like the old saying, you kill a few you go to jail.
    You kill millions you enter the history books.

    Again: This is not a commentary on Venezuela but on the elites of the West.

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37. Michaelmas January 7, 2026 at 8:39 pm

    Just in at the FT —
    
    White House moves to ban institutional investors from buying single-family homes: Change would hit buyout groups such as Blackstone and Cerberus that have amassed large residential portfolios

    https://www.ft.com/content/70ad697f-f970-41ea-8527-274d4f4915a8

    No archived link yet. Here are the top grafs —

    President Donald Trump has said he wants to ban big investors from buying single-family homes in the US, posing a challenge to private capital groups that invest heavily in real estate.

    “I am immediately taking steps to ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes, and I will be calling on Congress to codify it. People live in homes, not corporations,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Wednesday.

    His move could affect private equity groups such as Blackstone and Cerberus that have amassed large residential portfolios.

    Blackstone shares fell 5.6 per cent on Wednesday. Invitation Homes, a specialist investor in single-family homes formerly owned by Blackstone, declined 6 per cent after dropping as much as 9 per cent following Trump’s post.

    Builders FirstSource, which supplies building products, fell 5.6 per cent, while American Homes 4 Rent, a real estate investment trust, lost 4.3 per cent.

    Home affordability has become an increasingly important issue for the White House amid a wider cost-of-living crisis. The median age of first-time home buyers had risen to an all-time high of 40, the National Association of Realtors said late last year.

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38. KD January 8, 2026 at 6:04 am

    Daniel Davis very brave. He explicitly compared Trump to Hitler, see starting at 29:00.

    The Trump = Hitler thing never resonated with me. On the other hand, there is a pretty strong overlap with Napoleon with respect to grandiose gestures of supreme vanity, and the same kind of soap opera dynamic with advisors who were all generally family and/or boot-licking loyalists, but whose appetite for corruption generally overtook any competence they might of had for their official roles. Trump and Napoleon had the same level of thirst for land and respect for the sovereignty of other powers.

    [DIs-analogy: Napoleon was a competent general usually, and Trump is a reality TV star who doesn’t seem to have much life experience beyond securing permits in NYC and operating “modeling agencies.”]

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