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China's labor market in 2026 presents Beijing with a problem it cannot solve through messaging, and the leadership's reliance on statistical concealment rather than structural reform suggests it already knows that. The headline numbers are bad enough on their own terms. Urban youth unemployment for those 16 to 24,... excluding students, climbed to 16.9 percent in March, a four-month high that reversed six months of declines the state had pointed to as evidence of stabilization. The 25-to-29 cohort hit 7.7 percent, its highest reading since March 2025. Overall urban unemployment reached 5.4 percent, a 13-month peak. A record 12.7 million university graduates, roughly half a million more than the prior year, are entering this market, into an economy whose nominal growth has been depressed by a year of falling prices and whose private sector hiring appetite has shrunk in lockstep. The official figures, in any case, understate the condition of the labor market by design. China classifies anyone working one hour per week as employed; the United States uses fifteen hours, France twenty. Peking University economist Zhang Dandan calculated in 2023 that the true youth unemployment rate, once discouraged workers who had exited the labor force were counted, was as high as 46.5 percent, more than double the official figure at the time. Nothing in the structural picture since has plausibly improved that ratio. The drivers are not cyclical. Fixed asset investment grew only 1.7 percent in the first quarter, down from 4.2 percent a year earlier. The property sector, which at its peak accounted for roughly thirty percent of economic activity, remains in a multi-year contraction that has stranded construction workers and the supply chains built around them, and with them the cohort of migrant laborers in their forties and fifties who carry no pension, no portable benefits, and no obvious second act. The major platform companies, Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, JD, have spent years trimming headcount in the aftermath of the 2020 to 2022 regulatory campaign that left private capital feeling politically exposed. Deflation, now entrenched, completes the feedback loop: weaker pricing power compresses margins, hiring slows, household precautionary saving rises, demand softens further. Each link reinforces the next, and none is the kind of problem stimulus alone can resolve. The state's response has been instructive. When the youth unemployment rate hit a record 21.3 percent in June 2023, the National Bureau of Statistics suspended publication of the series entirely. When the figures returned months later, the methodology had been quietly revised, students excluded and age brackets adjusted, in ways that produced a lower headline and broke comparability with what came before. The pattern is consistent across other indicators: where the data embarrasses the leadership, the data is changed, delayed, or removed. This is not a communications strategy in any conventional sense. It is the substitute for one. Three things follow. First, the tang ping (躺平) or "lying flat" disposition that Beijing has spent years denouncing is a rational response to a labor market in which effort and credentials no longer reliably convert into stable employment or affordable housing, and the leadership's framing of it as a cultural failure rather than a market failure tells against any near-term policy correction. Second, the credibility cost of statistical opacity compounds. Foreign investors, domestic households, and even mid-level cadres are now operating without reliable employment data in the world's second-largest economy, which raises the risk of misallocated capital and miscalibrated policy at every level of decision-making. Third, the political economy is shifting in a direction the Party has not yet acknowledged. The cohort entering the workforce in 2026 has no memory of double-digit growth and no expectation of upward mobility. Whatever social contract underwrote the reform era is being renegotiated, quietly, by people who have stopped registering as unemployed because they have stopped expecting the system to find them work. Aric Chen | Insightsshow more

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🚨 China's unemployment crisis in 2026 — by the numbers, and by the faces behind them. The CCP calls it "seasonal fluctuation." The people living it call it despair. 📊 THE OFFICIAL NUMBERS — AND WHY THEY'RE WORSE THAN THEY LOOK In March 2026, China's official youth unemployment rate (ages 16–24, excluding students) rose to 16.9% — a 4-month high, reversing six consecutive months of decline. That's nearly 1 in 6 young people with no job. But here's the catch: China counts anyone who works even ONE hour per week as "employed." The US threshold is 15 hours. France is 20 hours. By any international standard, the real number is far higher. In fact, Peking University economist Zhang Dandan calculated that China's true youth unemployment rate in early 2023 was up to 46.5% — more than double the official figure. There is no reason to believe conditions have improved since. And it's not just the young: — Ages 25–29: 7.7% unemployed (highest since March 2025) — Ages 30–59: 4.3% unemployed (rising) — Overall urban unemployment: 5.4% — a 13-month high as of March 2026 This year, 12.7 million university graduates will enter the job market — 480,000 more than last year. A record high. Into an economy that is shrinking, not growing. 👤 THE FACES BEHIND THE NUMBERS These are not statistics. These are people. A young man sits on a curb in Sichuan, crying. "I genuinely have no money left. Not a single yuan." He has been looking for work for months. He is not in any government database as "unemployed" — because he gave up registering. A migrant worker in his 40s, who spent 20 years building China's cities, returns to his village. The construction site closed. The factory moved. The restaurant shut down. He has no pension. No safety net. Nothing. A fresh graduate, armed with a degree that cost her family years of savings, applies to hundreds of positions. She receives form rejections — or silence. She moves back home. Her parents tell her to "keep trying." She stops telling them how many rejections she has collected. A street vendor in Guangzhou sets up his stall at 6am. By noon, he has sold almost nothing. Foot traffic has collapsed. Everyone around him is cutting spending. He is, technically, "self-employed" — and therefore invisible in the unemployment statistics. 🏭 WHY IS THIS HAPPENING? The CCP's answer: seasonal factors. Global headwinds. Trade friction. The reality: 1. Fixed asset investment — the engine of China's growth for decades — grew only 1.7% in Q1 2026, down from 4.2% in Q1 2025. Investment is collapsing. 2. The property sector, which once drove nearly 30% of economic activity, remains in freefall. Construction has stopped on millions of homes. The workers who built them have nowhere to go. 3. China's major tech companies — Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, JD·com — have been cutting headcount for years, under government pressure that made private enterprise feel like a liability, not an asset. 4. Foreign companies are leaving or reducing exposure. The market that once promised unlimited growth now promises unpredictability. 5. Deflation has taken hold. When prices fall, businesses earn less. When businesses earn less, they hire less — or fire more. When people fear job loss, they spend less. The cycle feeds itself. The result: a generation of educated, capable, ambitious young Chinese people — doing nothing. Not because they won't work. Because there is no work. 🔇 WHAT THE CCP DOES INSTEAD OF SOLVING IT When youth unemployment hit a record 21.3% in June 2023, the government didn't fix it. They stopped publishing the data. For months, the numbers disappeared from official releases entirely. When they returned, the methodology had been changed — students were excluded, age brackets were redefined — making direct comparisons harder and the figures look cleaner. In May 2026, authorities began officially renaming homeless people "dispersed persons" (流散人员). Not to help them. To make them statistically disappear. This is the CCP's answer to suffering: rename it. Redefine it. Delete it from the dataset. 📉 THE COST OF "LYING FLAT" A generation of Chinese youth have embraced 躺平 (tǎng píng) — "lying flat." Not as laziness. As rational surrender. Why work 996 hours (9am to 9pm, 6 days a week) for a company that will downsize you anyway? Why compete for jobs that don't exist? Why take on a mortgage for an apartment in a building that may never be completed? The state tells them to be patriotic, to sacrifice, to trust the Party's vision. They've watched that vision fail them. So they lie flat. And the CCP — which created the conditions for this — blames them for lacking ambition. ——— The people in these videos are not failures. They are not lazy. They are not "seasonal fluctuations." They are the cost of a political system that prioritizes control over people, data management over truth, and the Party's image over the lives of 1.4 billion human beings. Share this. The numbers will be deleted again. The faces should not be forgotten. Sources: China National Bureau of Statistics (April 2026) · CNA (April 21, 2026) · World Journal (April 2026) · Peking University / Zhang Dandan (2023 analysis) · Epoch Times (April 21, 2026)· Original post by Aric Chen, views are my own. #ChinaUnemployment #YouthUnemployment #ChinaEconomy #躺平 #LyingFlat #CCP #HumanRightsChina #China2026 #China #RealChina

🚨 China's unemployment crisis in 2026 — by the numbers, and by the faces behind them. The CCP calls it "seasonal fluctuation." The people living it call it despair. 📊 THE OFFICIAL NUMBERS — AND WHY THEY'RE WORSE THAN THEY LOOK In March 2026, China's official youth unemployment rate (ages 16–24, excluding students) rose to 16.9% — a 4-month high, reversing six consecutive months of decline. That's nearly 1 in 6 young people with no job. But here's the catch: China counts anyone who works even ONE hour per week as "employed." The US threshold is 15 hours. France is 20 hours. By any international standard, the real number is far higher. In fact, Peking University economist Zhang Dandan calculated that China's true youth unemployment rate in early 2023 was up to 46.5% — more than double the official figure. There is no reason to believe conditions have improved since. And it's not just the young: — Ages 25–29: 7.7% unemployed (highest since March 2025) — Ages 30–59: 4.3% unemployed (rising) — Overall urban unemployment: 5.4% — a 13-month high as of March 2026 This year, 12.7 million university graduates will enter the job market — 480,000 more than last year. A record high. Into an economy that is shrinking, not growing. 👤 THE FACES BEHIND THE NUMBERS These are not statistics. These are people. A young man sits on a curb in Sichuan, crying. "I genuinely have no money left. Not a single yuan." He has been looking for work for months. He is not in any government database as "unemployed" — because he gave up registering. A migrant worker in his 40s, who spent 20 years building China's cities, returns to his village. The construction site closed. The factory moved. The restaurant shut down. He has no pension. No safety net. Nothing. A fresh graduate, armed with a degree that cost her family years of savings, applies to hundreds of positions. She receives form rejections — or silence. She moves back home. Her parents tell her to "keep trying." She stops telling them how many rejections she has collected. A street vendor in Guangzhou sets up his stall at 6am. By noon, he has sold almost nothing. Foot traffic has collapsed. Everyone around him is cutting spending. He is, technically, "self-employed" — and therefore invisible in the unemployment statistics. 🏭 WHY IS THIS HAPPENING? The CCP's answer: seasonal factors. Global headwinds. Trade friction. The reality: 1. Fixed asset investment — the engine of China's growth for decades — grew only 1.7% in Q1 2026, down from 4.2% in Q1 2025. Investment is collapsing. 2. The property sector, which once drove nearly 30% of economic activity, remains in freefall. Construction has stopped on millions of homes. The workers who built them have nowhere to go. 3. China's major tech companies — Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, JD·com — have been cutting headcount for years, under government pressure that made private enterprise feel like a liability, not an asset. 4. Foreign companies are leaving or reducing exposure. The market that once promised unlimited growth now promises unpredictability. 5. Deflation has taken hold. When prices fall, businesses earn less. When businesses earn less, they hire less — or fire more. When people fear job loss, they spend less. The cycle feeds itself. The result: a generation of educated, capable, ambitious young Chinese people — doing nothing. Not because they won't work. Because there is no work. 🔇 WHAT THE CCP DOES INSTEAD OF SOLVING IT When youth unemployment hit a record 21.3% in June 2023, the government didn't fix it. They stopped publishing the data. For months, the numbers disappeared from official releases entirely. When they returned, the methodology had been changed — students were excluded, age brackets were redefined — making direct comparisons harder and the figures look cleaner. In May 2026, authorities began officially renaming homeless people "dispersed persons" (流散人员). Not to help them. To make them statistically disappear. This is the CCP's answer to suffering: rename it. Redefine it. Delete it from the dataset. 📉 THE COST OF "LYING FLAT" A generation of Chinese youth have embraced 躺平 (tǎng píng) — "lying flat." Not as laziness. As rational surrender. Why work 996 hours (9am to 9pm, 6 days a week) for a company that will downsize you anyway? Why compete for jobs that don't exist? Why take on a mortgage for an apartment in a building that may never be completed? The state tells them to be patriotic, to sacrifice, to trust the Party's vision. They've watched that vision fail them. So they lie flat. And the CCP — which created the conditions for this — blames them for lacking ambition. ——— The people in these videos are not failures. They are not lazy. They are not "seasonal fluctuations." They are the cost of a political system that prioritizes control over people, data management over truth, and the Party's image over the lives of 1.4 billion human beings. Share this. The numbers will be deleted again. The faces should not be forgotten. Sources: China National Bureau of Statistics (April 2026) · CNA (April 21, 2026) · World Journal (April 2026) · Peking University / Zhang Dandan (2023 analysis) · Epoch Times (April 21, 2026)· Original post by Aric Chen, views are my own. #ChinaUnemployment #YouthUnemployment #ChinaEconomy #躺平 #LyingFlat #CCP #HumanRightsChina #China2026 #China #RealChina

Aric Chen

53,709 views • 1 month ago

😿I didn't make this up. In June 2023, CCP authorities released data showing a record-high youth unemployment rate of 21.3%. They then suspended publication of the figure until they changed the calculation method. However, Peking University Associate Professor Zhang Dandan estimated that if the roughly 16 million young people who "lie flat," live with their parents, and are out of work were counted as unemployed, China's actual youth unemployment rate in March 2023 would reach 46.5% — far above the official 19.7%. If it was already 46.5% in 2023, what is the real figure now?

😿I didn't make this up. In June 2023, CCP authorities released data showing a record-high youth unemployment rate of 21.3%. They then suspended publication of the figure until they changed the calculation method. However, Peking University Associate Professor Zhang Dandan estimated that if the roughly 16 million young people who "lie flat," live with their parents, and are out of work were counted as unemployed, China's actual youth unemployment rate in March 2023 would reach 46.5% — far above the official 19.7%. If it was already 46.5% in 2023, what is the real figure now?

Inconvenient Truths by Jennifer Zeng

651,924 views • 7 months ago

🇺🇸 FED CHAIR JEROME POWELL: : AMERICA’S JOB MARKET IS SHRINKING FROM THE INSIDE OUT "There are 2 main factors affecting the job market right now. One is a dramatic reduction in the supply of new workers. That comes down to 2 things: declining labor force participation, which is a cyclical issue, and declining immigration, which is a major policy shift that began under the last administration and has accelerated since. So a big part of the story is really about the supply side. In addition, labor demand has declined. The unemployment rate has gone down, meaning demand for workers has fallen slightly more than supply. That’s what’s happening, it’s mostly a supply issue, driven by changes in the number of available workers." Source: Aaron Rupar

🇺🇸 FED CHAIR JEROME POWELL: : AMERICA’S JOB MARKET IS SHRINKING FROM THE INSIDE OUT "There are 2 main factors affecting the job market right now. One is a dramatic reduction in the supply of new workers. That comes down to 2 things: declining labor force participation, which is a cyclical issue, and declining immigration, which is a major policy shift that began under the last administration and has accelerated since. So a big part of the story is really about the supply side. In addition, labor demand has declined. The unemployment rate has gone down, meaning demand for workers has fallen slightly more than supply. That’s what’s happening, it’s mostly a supply issue, driven by changes in the number of available workers." Source: Aaron Rupar

Mario Nawfal

453,447 views • 8 months ago

Employment in the United States expanded by 178,000 in March and the unemployment rate fell to 4.3 percent. Economists had forecast the economy would add 59,000 workers and the unemployment rate would hold steady at 4.4 percent.

Employment in the United States expanded by 178,000 in March and the unemployment rate fell to 4.3 percent. Economists had forecast the economy would add 59,000 workers and the unemployment rate would hold steady at 4.4 percent.

Breitbart News

25,732 views • 3 months ago

🚨 Thomas Sowell debunks the Great Depression’s most entrenched myth “There’s this narrative out there that the reason we had mass unemployment in the 1930s was because the market failed. It so happens that for the 12 months following the stock market crash, we never hit double digits of unemployment.” “Unemployment peaked at 9 percent two months after the crash and started going down. The unemployment rate was down to 6.3 percent when the federal government figured it had to intervene.” “And that’s when the downward movement reversed and we never saw 6.3 percent again for the next decade. It’s clear as crystal that the disaster came after federal intervention.”

🚨 Thomas Sowell debunks the Great Depression’s most entrenched myth “There’s this narrative out there that the reason we had mass unemployment in the 1930s was because the market failed. It so happens that for the 12 months following the stock market crash, we never hit double digits of unemployment.” “Unemployment peaked at 9 percent two months after the crash and started going down. The unemployment rate was down to 6.3 percent when the federal government figured it had to intervene.” “And that’s when the downward movement reversed and we never saw 6.3 percent again for the next decade. It’s clear as crystal that the disaster came after federal intervention.”

Thomas Sowell Daily

405,269 views • 2 months ago

Thomas Sowell on the truth about the Great Depression: “There’s this narrative out there that the reason we had mass unemployment in the 1930s was because the market failed.” “It so happens that for the 12 months following the stock market crash, we never hit double digits of unemployment. Unemployment peaked at 9 percent two months after the crash and started going down.” “The unemployment rate was down to 6.3 percent when the federal government figured it had to intervene. And that’s when the downward movement reversed and we never saw 6.3 percent again for the next decade.” “It’s clear as crystal that the disaster came after federal intervention.”

Thomas Sowell on the truth about the Great Depression: “There’s this narrative out there that the reason we had mass unemployment in the 1930s was because the market failed.” “It so happens that for the 12 months following the stock market crash, we never hit double digits of unemployment. Unemployment peaked at 9 percent two months after the crash and started going down.” “The unemployment rate was down to 6.3 percent when the federal government figured it had to intervene. And that’s when the downward movement reversed and we never saw 6.3 percent again for the next decade.” “It’s clear as crystal that the disaster came after federal intervention.”

Thomas Sowell Daily

434,913 views • 1 month ago

Between 2012 and 2024, Somali piracy was effectively neutralized, with no major attacks reported for years. But that has changed. In 2025, the waters off the Horn of Africa are once again becoming a hotspot. In 2025, Somali pirates are re-emerging, taking advantage of the chaos created by the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and the drawdown of international naval patrols. Between January and June 2025, there were at least 7 reported attacks on commercial vessels, including the hijacking of the MV Abdulla in March, whose 23 crew members were held for ransom. By mid-2025, the number of incidents had surpassed the total recorded in all of 2024, which had seen a near-complete lull. A hijacking of a fishing vessel in April 2025 further demonstrated the pirates' ability to adapt and operate. The hijackings of 2025 have driven up the cost of the "war risk" insurance premiums for vessels transiting the region, with the average premium rising to 1.2% of the vessel's hull value in April 2025. This is significantly higher than the 0.5% to 0.7% rate seen just six months earlier. The cost of ransoms has also risen, with the MV Abdulla reportedly being held for a ransom of $5 million. These numbers reflect the pirates' ability to command a premium. Somali piracy has never been a random phenomenon. It has been fueled by the collapse of the Somali state, the absence of effective governance, and the immense wealth flowing through the Gulf of Aden. The 2025 resurgence is a direct consequence of the geopolitical instability caused by the Red Sea crisis, which has allowed the pirates to exploit the chaos and the reduced naval presence. Beyond the financial cost, there is a human cost. The hijackings of 2025 have led to the detention of at least 23 crew members, and the potential for violence remains high. The Somali pirates are not just robbers; they are a symptom of a failed state and a testament to the desperation of a population that has been abandoned by its leaders. Somali piracy is not a myth. It is a real and dangerous phenomenon. But it is also a symptom of a deeper problem, a failed state, a collapsed economy, and a population that has been left with few options. The pirates are not just criminals they are the product of a society that has been destroyed by its leaders. And until Somalia is rebuilt, the piracy will continue. South Africa is not the enemy. Somalia's leaders are. And it is time the world held them accountable for the chaos they have created.

Between 2012 and 2024, Somali piracy was effectively neutralized, with no major attacks reported for years. But that has changed. In 2025, the waters off the Horn of Africa are once again becoming a hotspot. In 2025, Somali pirates are re-emerging, taking advantage of the chaos created by the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and the drawdown of international naval patrols. Between January and June 2025, there were at least 7 reported attacks on commercial vessels, including the hijacking of the MV Abdulla in March, whose 23 crew members were held for ransom. By mid-2025, the number of incidents had surpassed the total recorded in all of 2024, which had seen a near-complete lull. A hijacking of a fishing vessel in April 2025 further demonstrated the pirates' ability to adapt and operate. The hijackings of 2025 have driven up the cost of the "war risk" insurance premiums for vessels transiting the region, with the average premium rising to 1.2% of the vessel's hull value in April 2025. This is significantly higher than the 0.5% to 0.7% rate seen just six months earlier. The cost of ransoms has also risen, with the MV Abdulla reportedly being held for a ransom of $5 million. These numbers reflect the pirates' ability to command a premium. Somali piracy has never been a random phenomenon. It has been fueled by the collapse of the Somali state, the absence of effective governance, and the immense wealth flowing through the Gulf of Aden. The 2025 resurgence is a direct consequence of the geopolitical instability caused by the Red Sea crisis, which has allowed the pirates to exploit the chaos and the reduced naval presence. Beyond the financial cost, there is a human cost. The hijackings of 2025 have led to the detention of at least 23 crew members, and the potential for violence remains high. The Somali pirates are not just robbers; they are a symptom of a failed state and a testament to the desperation of a population that has been abandoned by its leaders. Somali piracy is not a myth. It is a real and dangerous phenomenon. But it is also a symptom of a deeper problem, a failed state, a collapsed economy, and a population that has been left with few options. The pirates are not just criminals they are the product of a society that has been destroyed by its leaders. And until Somalia is rebuilt, the piracy will continue. South Africa is not the enemy. Somalia's leaders are. And it is time the world held them accountable for the chaos they have created.

Musa Ronalds

212,531 views • 4 days ago

Ghana’s economy has truly found its rhythm again. Real GDP surged by 6.3 percent in the first half of 2025, up from 5.1 percent last year, powered by a revitalised agriculture sector, a booming services industry, easing inflation, and renewed business confidence across the country. Even more encouraging is the 7.8 percent growth in non-oil GDP, a clear sign that Ghana’s momentum is now being fuelled by the strength and creativity of our own domestic production. The services sector is roaring back to life, jumping 8.8 percent, with ICT skyrocketing by 17.2 percent, finance and insurance rising 9.5 percent, and education expanding 14.9 percent. Agriculture, our anchor of stability, accelerated to 6.0 percent growth, doubling last year’s pace, while cocoa made a remarkable comeback from a 21.4 percent slump to 2.8 percent growth! On the demand side, households are spending again, with consumption up 8.2 percent—proof of rising confidence. Government spending has cooled to 3.7 percent, signalling firm fiscal discipline, while exports jumped 11.5 percent on the back of gold, cocoa, and non-traditional exports. This is the kind of growth that creates jobs, lifts incomes, restores hope, and builds lasting prosperity for all.

Ghana’s economy has truly found its rhythm again. Real GDP surged by 6.3 percent in the first half of 2025, up from 5.1 percent last year, powered by a revitalised agriculture sector, a booming services industry, easing inflation, and renewed business confidence across the country. Even more encouraging is the 7.8 percent growth in non-oil GDP, a clear sign that Ghana’s momentum is now being fuelled by the strength and creativity of our own domestic production. The services sector is roaring back to life, jumping 8.8 percent, with ICT skyrocketing by 17.2 percent, finance and insurance rising 9.5 percent, and education expanding 14.9 percent. Agriculture, our anchor of stability, accelerated to 6.0 percent growth, doubling last year’s pace, while cocoa made a remarkable comeback from a 21.4 percent slump to 2.8 percent growth! On the demand side, households are spending again, with consumption up 8.2 percent—proof of rising confidence. Government spending has cooled to 3.7 percent, signalling firm fiscal discipline, while exports jumped 11.5 percent on the back of gold, cocoa, and non-traditional exports. This is the kind of growth that creates jobs, lifts incomes, restores hope, and builds lasting prosperity for all.

Cassiel Ato Forson (PhD)

21,716 views • 7 months ago

The political divide is reflected even in birth rates. Fifteen years ago, liberal and conservative women between the ages of 18 and 35 were having children at roughly the same rate. Since then, a significant gap has emerged. As of 2024, about 75 percent of liberal women in this age group are childless, compared with roughly 40 percent of conservative women. In other words, childlessness among liberal women is now nearly twice as high as it is among their conservative counterparts—a striking divergence from the pattern that prevailed just a decade and a half ago.

The political divide is reflected even in birth rates. Fifteen years ago, liberal and conservative women between the ages of 18 and 35 were having children at roughly the same rate. Since then, a significant gap has emerged. As of 2024, about 75 percent of liberal women in this age group are childless, compared with roughly 40 percent of conservative women. In other words, childlessness among liberal women is now nearly twice as high as it is among their conservative counterparts—a striking divergence from the pattern that prevailed just a decade and a half ago.

Rob Henderson

42,090 views • 4 months ago

US payrolls rose in January by the most in more than a year and the unemployment rate unexpectedly fell, suggesting the labor market continued to stabilize at the start of 2026

US payrolls rose in January by the most in more than a year and the unemployment rate unexpectedly fell, suggesting the labor market continued to stabilize at the start of 2026

Bloomberg

12,395 views • 4 months ago

Warren Buffett sat on CNBC on March 31 and did what he always does before markets break. He said nothing about a crash. He let the numbers speak. $373.3 billion in cash, the largest reserve any corporation has ever held. Thirteen consecutive quarters of net stock selling, the longest streak in Berkshire Hathaway’s history. $187 billion in net sales. And the Buffett Indicator, total US market capitalisation divided by GDP, at roughly 220 percent, exceeding the dot-com peak and any prior reading in the history of the ratio he popularised. In July 1999 at Sun Valley, Buffett told a conference of the world’s wealthiest investors that when the Indicator approaches 200 percent, “you are playing with fire.” The NASDAQ fell 78 percent over the following two years. He did not predict the crash. He described the temperature. The building burned anyway. The Indicator now exceeds 220 percent. And the fire this time is fed by one molecule: methane. The gas that generates 40 percent of US electricity, heats 47 percent of American homes, and feeds half the world through Haber-Bosch. The Hormuz crisis spiked TTF gas 75 percent and Brent crude to $107. Every S&P 500 company whose earnings depend on energy or supply chains is absorbing a war premium the Indicator has not yet priced. The 220 reading was calculated on pre-war earnings. Post-war earnings will be lower. The denominator shrinks. The ratio climbs. Buffett does not predict crashes. He has said it for six decades. “Short-term forecasts are poison.” But he positions for them with discipline no other investor has matched. He bought during the 2008 panic with “Buy American. I Am.” He warned about derivatives as “financial weapons of mass destruction” in 2002, six years before they detonated the global financial system. And on March 31, he flagged Iran’s nuclear programme as a risk to markets, the first time the Oracle of Omaha has connected a Middle Eastern war to his valuation framework in a public interview. The fire extinguisher is $373.3 billion in Treasury bills and cash equivalents. And the building is an S&P 500 where NVIDIA constitutes roughly seven percent of the index, where Oracle’s credit default swaps just exceeded 198 basis points surpassing the 2008 financial crisis peak, where OpenAI closed $122 billion at an $852 billion valuation on the same day the IRGC declared 18 American companies legitimate military targets. The AI trade that lifted the market to 220 percent on the Indicator runs on methane from a chokepoint that is 90 to 97 percent closed, helium from a Qatar facility that will take five years to rebuild, and rare earth minerals processed by the country hosting the peace negotiations. Buffett sees what the market always prices last: the gap between the story and the molecule. The story says AI will change everything. The molecule says the gas that trains the model costs 75 percent more than it did five weeks ago. The story trades at 220 percent of GDP. The molecule trades at $107 per barrel. One of them is wrong. Buffett has $373.3 billion that says he knows which one. The Oracle of Omaha and the Oracle of Hormuz have reached the same conclusion through different instruments. The fire is real. The exits are known. And the man with the extinguisher is not buying.

Warren Buffett sat on CNBC on March 31 and did what he always does before markets break. He said nothing about a crash. He let the numbers speak. $373.3 billion in cash, the largest reserve any corporation has ever held. Thirteen consecutive quarters of net stock selling, the longest streak in Berkshire Hathaway’s history. $187 billion in net sales. And the Buffett Indicator, total US market capitalisation divided by GDP, at roughly 220 percent, exceeding the dot-com peak and any prior reading in the history of the ratio he popularised. In July 1999 at Sun Valley, Buffett told a conference of the world’s wealthiest investors that when the Indicator approaches 200 percent, “you are playing with fire.” The NASDAQ fell 78 percent over the following two years. He did not predict the crash. He described the temperature. The building burned anyway. The Indicator now exceeds 220 percent. And the fire this time is fed by one molecule: methane. The gas that generates 40 percent of US electricity, heats 47 percent of American homes, and feeds half the world through Haber-Bosch. The Hormuz crisis spiked TTF gas 75 percent and Brent crude to $107. Every S&P 500 company whose earnings depend on energy or supply chains is absorbing a war premium the Indicator has not yet priced. The 220 reading was calculated on pre-war earnings. Post-war earnings will be lower. The denominator shrinks. The ratio climbs. Buffett does not predict crashes. He has said it for six decades. “Short-term forecasts are poison.” But he positions for them with discipline no other investor has matched. He bought during the 2008 panic with “Buy American. I Am.” He warned about derivatives as “financial weapons of mass destruction” in 2002, six years before they detonated the global financial system. And on March 31, he flagged Iran’s nuclear programme as a risk to markets, the first time the Oracle of Omaha has connected a Middle Eastern war to his valuation framework in a public interview. The fire extinguisher is $373.3 billion in Treasury bills and cash equivalents. And the building is an S&P 500 where NVIDIA constitutes roughly seven percent of the index, where Oracle’s credit default swaps just exceeded 198 basis points surpassing the 2008 financial crisis peak, where OpenAI closed $122 billion at an $852 billion valuation on the same day the IRGC declared 18 American companies legitimate military targets. The AI trade that lifted the market to 220 percent on the Indicator runs on methane from a chokepoint that is 90 to 97 percent closed, helium from a Qatar facility that will take five years to rebuild, and rare earth minerals processed by the country hosting the peace negotiations. Buffett sees what the market always prices last: the gap between the story and the molecule. The story says AI will change everything. The molecule says the gas that trains the model costs 75 percent more than it did five weeks ago. The story trades at 220 percent of GDP. The molecule trades at $107 per barrel. One of them is wrong. Buffett has $373.3 billion that says he knows which one. The Oracle of Omaha and the Oracle of Hormuz have reached the same conclusion through different instruments. The fire is real. The exits are known. And the man with the extinguisher is not buying.

Shanaka Anslem Perera ⚡

450,239 views • 3 months ago

The current Second Sphinx Hypothesis Location is a mirror placement to the First Sphinx...🧐🤔 The scan data has been processed through multiple AI systems including Google Gemini and Grok, which returned an 83 to 94 percent probability that the shape is a Sphinx-type monument and a 98 percent probability that the location is archaeologically significant. Proportional diagnostics found the Fibonacci sequence and the golden ratio in the facial geometry, matching the original Sphinx's canonical measurements. A 54 percent probability of a male face was returned alongside a 29 percent probability of female. The nemes headdress is visible in the scan data, and unlike the original Sphinx, which lost its serpent ornament at some point in history, the snake appears to still be attached on the second Sphinx. The proportional mismatch between head and body, one of the most discussed anomalies of the original Sphinx and a central argument in the theory that its head was recarved from something older, appears to be present in the second Sphinx as well, which either means the small-head design was intentional or that both monuments were reworked at the same time from the same original form. The Dream Stela, an inscription placed between the original Sphinx's paws during the New Kingdom, has always depicted two sphinxes facing away from each other, and archaeologists have long dismissed this as artistic rather than literal. The fact that the second Sphinx faces the opposite direction to the original gives that imagery a new weight. Excavation permission has been submitted to the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities. The location is accessible, covered only by a sand mound deposited during 1920s excavations of nearby mastabas, and no significant dig infrastructure would be required. Everything now depends on whether the Egyptian government says yes.

The current Second Sphinx Hypothesis Location is a mirror placement to the First Sphinx...🧐🤔 The scan data has been processed through multiple AI systems including Google Gemini and Grok, which returned an 83 to 94 percent probability that the shape is a Sphinx-type monument and a 98 percent probability that the location is archaeologically significant. Proportional diagnostics found the Fibonacci sequence and the golden ratio in the facial geometry, matching the original Sphinx's canonical measurements. A 54 percent probability of a male face was returned alongside a 29 percent probability of female. The nemes headdress is visible in the scan data, and unlike the original Sphinx, which lost its serpent ornament at some point in history, the snake appears to still be attached on the second Sphinx. The proportional mismatch between head and body, one of the most discussed anomalies of the original Sphinx and a central argument in the theory that its head was recarved from something older, appears to be present in the second Sphinx as well, which either means the small-head design was intentional or that both monuments were reworked at the same time from the same original form. The Dream Stela, an inscription placed between the original Sphinx's paws during the New Kingdom, has always depicted two sphinxes facing away from each other, and archaeologists have long dismissed this as artistic rather than literal. The fact that the second Sphinx faces the opposite direction to the original gives that imagery a new weight. Excavation permission has been submitted to the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities. The location is accessible, covered only by a sand mound deposited during 1920s excavations of nearby mastabas, and no significant dig infrastructure would be required. Everything now depends on whether the Egyptian government says yes.

UFO mania

12,061 views • 2 days ago

Tension and uncertainty among Russians are growing. In the spring of 2026, Russian polling agencies recorded a noticeable decline in several key indicators: approval of Putin's performance, trust in him, and the overall emotional mood. The most intriguing point was the closure of Russian Public Opinion Research Center’s (VCIOM) open trust rating: when respondents are asked to name politicians they trust without being prompted with names. In March 2026, this indicator for Putin fell to 29.5% - the lowest level since the start of the full-scale war. After that, VCIOM did not publish the figures for April and May. The gap between the open trust rating (29.5%) and the closed trust rating (72-73%) is roughly 1:2.5. It reflects the distance between Putin's actual political weight and the ritual of loyalty to the "tsar." The reason is simple: Russians do not want a loser president. Putin's ratings were sustained not simply by war, but by the prospect of a victorious war. He traded Russia's development and prosperity for greatness, but now Russians see neither greatness nor prosperity. Let’s take a closer look at what is happening within Russian society. First, most Russians continue to support the war. This is illustrated by Levada Center's May data. Support for the actions of the Russian army, which had been declining since the end of last year, suddenly rebounded by six points in May, reaching 74%. At the same time, the share of those favoring peace negotiations, which had remained at around two-thirds since December, has been slowly shrinking for three consecutive months - down seven points, to six out of ten. Meanwhile, the camp supporting the continuation of military operations has grown to 30%. The main motive among supporters of peace has not changed: "too many casualties and heavy losses." What happened? Television stopped talking about peace negotiations. As long as negotiations seemed realistic, peace appeared to be a way out. Once they collapsed, part of Russian society obediently switched back to supporting the war. This is conformism. Russians do not want peace or war - they want to be on the side of the winner. The demand for negotiations was, in fact, a demand for a victorious peace. Since no victorious peace was granted, they have taken back the war. However, there is a dangerous trap here for the Kremlin: Russians agree to war, but not to a war without victory. They agree to anything except a compromise that would be perceived as defeat. This is dangerous for the Kremlin because it calls into question the legitimacy of the entire system of power - and Putin above all - if Russian society is no longer given proof of greatness and victory. Putin is doomed to constant escalation. The situation is further complicated by public fatigue and rising anxiety among Russians. The state of the Russian economy is deteriorating, while the defense sector is no longer able to offset the decline in the civilian economy. This is especially noticeable in the regions. By the end of 2025, the deficit of consolidated regional budgets had reached a record 1.48 trillion rubles ($20.56 billion) - 3.6 times more than a year earlier. Seventy-four regions, including Moscow and the oil and gas districts, ended up in deficit. The first months of 2026 did not reverse the trend: industry is stagnating, construction is shrinking, corporate profits are falling, and debt burdens are increasing. The accompanying symptoms include a sharp rise in wage arrears, large-scale revisions of regional budgets for 2026 involving spending cuts, primarily social, as well as a hidden employment crisis - where there is no work, but employees are not laid off; instead, they are shifted to reduced working weeks and unpaid leave. Official unemployment statistics barely reflect this. Yet since December 2025, part-time employment has been rising at large and medium-sized enterprises: 4.6 million out of 33 million workers. The map of Russian society’s concerns, which the Levada Center publishes annually, looks telling in May 2026. At the top - for twenty years in a row - is rising prices: 55%. The "special military operation" and related issues worry 35%. And then comes the most interesting part - the destruction of a comfortable life and the feeling of war at home have become additional drivers of tension: fear of explosions and terrorist attacks has jumped by 8 points since November - to 27%. One in five (22%) cites internet restrictions and the blocking of social media as among the most pressing issues - on the list of problems, the digital blockade now ranks alongside poverty and lack of access to healthcare (both at 19%). The state has managed to turn a disabled messenger app into a social problem on the level of poverty. That takes some doing. Many Western observers have been inspired by rumors of elite dissatisfaction in Russia. Indeed, Moscow's economic circles have seen unusually open criticism of the government from parts of the financial elite. However, I suggest we avoid wishful thinking: no direct scenario of a political crisis emerges from this data. The most realistic scenario is the continuation of the war, coupled with a search for political doping: events that can be sold to society as victories, as proof that Russia is moving in the right direction. The problem is that the bar has risen - what would have been considered a triumph a year ago would now look like capitulation. Therefore, stronger doses of doping will be required: escalation in Ukraine aimed at maximizing destruction, a military adventure somewhere in Europe, new strikes, nuclear signaling, or provocations against the West. The ground has already been prepared: 54% of Russians believe that the war in Ukraine could escalate into an armed conflict with NATO - half the population is living in anticipation of a major war. The Kremlin’s logic is as old as time: unite through fear. Putin may also be saved by an "unexpected event" - a black swan, as has already happened when the U.S. started a war with Iran. Here, it’s not even necessary to do anything: it’s enough to interpret it skillfully. A U.S. defeat or stalemate in the war with Iran could be presented as a victory of Russia and its allies over America - because in the minds of Russians, the war with Ukraine has long been just a fragment of a larger Russian war with the West. Within this worldview, any failure by Washington automatically counts as a point for Moscow, regardless of whether it had a hand in it. There is also a third scenario - not for Putin, but against him. This is not a scenario of popular uprising, but one of self-preservation by the Russian elites. But such an option is possible only under a sharp convergence of several factors: military defeat, economic collapse, the loss of the ability to allocate resources, and the emergence of a figure or group capable of guaranteeing the elite’s security after the transition. So far, there are few such signs.

Tension and uncertainty among Russians are growing. In the spring of 2026, Russian polling agencies recorded a noticeable decline in several key indicators: approval of Putin's performance, trust in him, and the overall emotional mood. The most intriguing point was the closure of Russian Public Opinion Research Center’s (VCIOM) open trust rating: when respondents are asked to name politicians they trust without being prompted with names. In March 2026, this indicator for Putin fell to 29.5% - the lowest level since the start of the full-scale war. After that, VCIOM did not publish the figures for April and May. The gap between the open trust rating (29.5%) and the closed trust rating (72-73%) is roughly 1:2.5. It reflects the distance between Putin's actual political weight and the ritual of loyalty to the "tsar." The reason is simple: Russians do not want a loser president. Putin's ratings were sustained not simply by war, but by the prospect of a victorious war. He traded Russia's development and prosperity for greatness, but now Russians see neither greatness nor prosperity. Let’s take a closer look at what is happening within Russian society. First, most Russians continue to support the war. This is illustrated by Levada Center's May data. Support for the actions of the Russian army, which had been declining since the end of last year, suddenly rebounded by six points in May, reaching 74%. At the same time, the share of those favoring peace negotiations, which had remained at around two-thirds since December, has been slowly shrinking for three consecutive months - down seven points, to six out of ten. Meanwhile, the camp supporting the continuation of military operations has grown to 30%. The main motive among supporters of peace has not changed: "too many casualties and heavy losses." What happened? Television stopped talking about peace negotiations. As long as negotiations seemed realistic, peace appeared to be a way out. Once they collapsed, part of Russian society obediently switched back to supporting the war. This is conformism. Russians do not want peace or war - they want to be on the side of the winner. The demand for negotiations was, in fact, a demand for a victorious peace. Since no victorious peace was granted, they have taken back the war. However, there is a dangerous trap here for the Kremlin: Russians agree to war, but not to a war without victory. They agree to anything except a compromise that would be perceived as defeat. This is dangerous for the Kremlin because it calls into question the legitimacy of the entire system of power - and Putin above all - if Russian society is no longer given proof of greatness and victory. Putin is doomed to constant escalation. The situation is further complicated by public fatigue and rising anxiety among Russians. The state of the Russian economy is deteriorating, while the defense sector is no longer able to offset the decline in the civilian economy. This is especially noticeable in the regions. By the end of 2025, the deficit of consolidated regional budgets had reached a record 1.48 trillion rubles ($20.56 billion) - 3.6 times more than a year earlier. Seventy-four regions, including Moscow and the oil and gas districts, ended up in deficit. The first months of 2026 did not reverse the trend: industry is stagnating, construction is shrinking, corporate profits are falling, and debt burdens are increasing. The accompanying symptoms include a sharp rise in wage arrears, large-scale revisions of regional budgets for 2026 involving spending cuts, primarily social, as well as a hidden employment crisis - where there is no work, but employees are not laid off; instead, they are shifted to reduced working weeks and unpaid leave. Official unemployment statistics barely reflect this. Yet since December 2025, part-time employment has been rising at large and medium-sized enterprises: 4.6 million out of 33 million workers. The map of Russian society’s concerns, which the Levada Center publishes annually, looks telling in May 2026. At the top - for twenty years in a row - is rising prices: 55%. The "special military operation" and related issues worry 35%. And then comes the most interesting part - the destruction of a comfortable life and the feeling of war at home have become additional drivers of tension: fear of explosions and terrorist attacks has jumped by 8 points since November - to 27%. One in five (22%) cites internet restrictions and the blocking of social media as among the most pressing issues - on the list of problems, the digital blockade now ranks alongside poverty and lack of access to healthcare (both at 19%). The state has managed to turn a disabled messenger app into a social problem on the level of poverty. That takes some doing. Many Western observers have been inspired by rumors of elite dissatisfaction in Russia. Indeed, Moscow's economic circles have seen unusually open criticism of the government from parts of the financial elite. However, I suggest we avoid wishful thinking: no direct scenario of a political crisis emerges from this data. The most realistic scenario is the continuation of the war, coupled with a search for political doping: events that can be sold to society as victories, as proof that Russia is moving in the right direction. The problem is that the bar has risen - what would have been considered a triumph a year ago would now look like capitulation. Therefore, stronger doses of doping will be required: escalation in Ukraine aimed at maximizing destruction, a military adventure somewhere in Europe, new strikes, nuclear signaling, or provocations against the West. The ground has already been prepared: 54% of Russians believe that the war in Ukraine could escalate into an armed conflict with NATO - half the population is living in anticipation of a major war. The Kremlin’s logic is as old as time: unite through fear. Putin may also be saved by an "unexpected event" - a black swan, as has already happened when the U.S. started a war with Iran. Here, it’s not even necessary to do anything: it’s enough to interpret it skillfully. A U.S. defeat or stalemate in the war with Iran could be presented as a victory of Russia and its allies over America - because in the minds of Russians, the war with Ukraine has long been just a fragment of a larger Russian war with the West. Within this worldview, any failure by Washington automatically counts as a point for Moscow, regardless of whether it had a hand in it. There is also a third scenario - not for Putin, but against him. This is not a scenario of popular uprising, but one of self-preservation by the Russian elites. But such an option is possible only under a sharp convergence of several factors: military defeat, economic collapse, the loss of the ability to allocate resources, and the emergence of a figure or group capable of guaranteeing the elite’s security after the transition. So far, there are few such signs.

Anton Gerashchenko

36,205 views • 26 days ago

In a video that has since gone viral, Zimbabwe’s Minister of Youth, Tino Machakaire, is seen seated in a luxury vehicle, smiling and waving as a crowd of young people surrounds him. The minister’s demeanor, one of a celebrity enjoying adulation, stands in stark and grotesque contrast to the reality of those mobbing his car: they are the faces of Zimbabwe’s staggering 98% youth unemployment rate. Rather than a moment of pride, the footage serves as a damning expose. It highlights a profound disconnect, showing a government official seemingly reveling in the attention of the very demographic his office has catastrophically failed, instead of displaying the shame and urgency the crisis demands. This incident is more than a mere public relations blunder; it is a metaphor for the failure of the ZANU-PF government. The scene encapsulates a leadership that is insulated, complacent, and utterly out of touch with the daily despair of a generation. While ministers cruise in comfort, millions of educated, energetic young Zimbabweans are left with no future, no hope, and no productive outlet for their ambitions. Such a profound abdication of duty, where the plight of youth is treated as a photo opportunity rather than a national emergency, underscores why many citizens are concluding that the current system is beyond repair. The growing sentiment on the street, echoed in the reaction to this video, is that tinkering at the edges is futile—what Zimbabwe needs is a fundamental revolution in its governance and priorities to avert a complete social collapse.

In a video that has since gone viral, Zimbabwe’s Minister of Youth, Tino Machakaire, is seen seated in a luxury vehicle, smiling and waving as a crowd of young people surrounds him. The minister’s demeanor, one of a celebrity enjoying adulation, stands in stark and grotesque contrast to the reality of those mobbing his car: they are the faces of Zimbabwe’s staggering 98% youth unemployment rate. Rather than a moment of pride, the footage serves as a damning expose. It highlights a profound disconnect, showing a government official seemingly reveling in the attention of the very demographic his office has catastrophically failed, instead of displaying the shame and urgency the crisis demands. This incident is more than a mere public relations blunder; it is a metaphor for the failure of the ZANU-PF government. The scene encapsulates a leadership that is insulated, complacent, and utterly out of touch with the daily despair of a generation. While ministers cruise in comfort, millions of educated, energetic young Zimbabweans are left with no future, no hope, and no productive outlet for their ambitions. Such a profound abdication of duty, where the plight of youth is treated as a photo opportunity rather than a national emergency, underscores why many citizens are concluding that the current system is beyond repair. The growing sentiment on the street, echoed in the reaction to this video, is that tinkering at the edges is futile—what Zimbabwe needs is a fundamental revolution in its governance and priorities to avert a complete social collapse.

Simba_oneblow

17,588 views • 5 months ago

I fully agree with former President Thabo Mbeki that the problem of high levels of unemployment cannot be solely attributed to undocumented (illegal) immigrants; fortunately, there is no one who has made such a claim. That is not even a claim made by the leaders of the protest actions, if we closely and carefully listen to them. What they are claiming is that uncontrolled and illegal migration makes it difficult for South African job seekers. This claim is factually correct. I respectfully disagree with the former President that illegal migration has nothing to do with unemployment. It is a fact that undocumented immgrants are a source of cheap and unprotected labour, what is called unregulated employment. It is also a fact, that this source of employment directly results in labour market distortions and displacement of South African job seekers. It is also a fact that the most affected job seekers by the labour market displacement are the low-skilled and unskilled workers. Unemployed population in South Africa consists of a mix of skills; which can be broken down into three main categories. The first is HIGHLY SKILLED & GRADUATES UNEMPLOYMENT, this is unemployed graduates who struggle to find entry-level positions that require prior experience. The second is SEMI-SKILLED UNEMPLOYMENT, these are job seekers that have completed secondary education (matric) or specialised vocational training, but their qualifications often do not align with the specific technical trades or digital roles that employers are actively seeking. The third is LOW-SKILLED AND UNSKILLED UNEMPLOYMENT, which constitues a large portion of the unemployed workforce and has low levels of formal education, and are at a severe disadvantage in a modernising economy that increasingly requires advanced or technical capabilities. One does not have to be a rocket scientist to know that the low-skilled and un-skilled category of the unemployed is severely displaced by a labour market that is open to undocumented immigrants. I have elaborated on this matter in an article that I published on my social media platforms. To access that article, log in👇🏿

I fully agree with former President Thabo Mbeki that the problem of high levels of unemployment cannot be solely attributed to undocumented (illegal) immigrants; fortunately, there is no one who has made such a claim. That is not even a claim made by the leaders of the protest actions, if we closely and carefully listen to them. What they are claiming is that uncontrolled and illegal migration makes it difficult for South African job seekers. This claim is factually correct. I respectfully disagree with the former President that illegal migration has nothing to do with unemployment. It is a fact that undocumented immgrants are a source of cheap and unprotected labour, what is called unregulated employment. It is also a fact, that this source of employment directly results in labour market distortions and displacement of South African job seekers. It is also a fact that the most affected job seekers by the labour market displacement are the low-skilled and unskilled workers. Unemployed population in South Africa consists of a mix of skills; which can be broken down into three main categories. The first is HIGHLY SKILLED & GRADUATES UNEMPLOYMENT, this is unemployed graduates who struggle to find entry-level positions that require prior experience. The second is SEMI-SKILLED UNEMPLOYMENT, these are job seekers that have completed secondary education (matric) or specialised vocational training, but their qualifications often do not align with the specific technical trades or digital roles that employers are actively seeking. The third is LOW-SKILLED AND UNSKILLED UNEMPLOYMENT, which constitues a large portion of the unemployed workforce and has low levels of formal education, and are at a severe disadvantage in a modernising economy that increasingly requires advanced or technical capabilities. One does not have to be a rocket scientist to know that the low-skilled and un-skilled category of the unemployed is severely displaced by a labour market that is open to undocumented immigrants. I have elaborated on this matter in an article that I published on my social media platforms. To access that article, log in👇🏿

Dr. Zamani Saul

68,015 views • 1 month ago

Qullamaggie’s 100 Year Market Study Takeaways: "So out of the 102 years, there were 56 down quarters excluding sideways and excluding bars that went up - so 14 percent of the time market went lower over the past 102 years. That means the market has gone up or sideways 86% percent of the time, and I did a more recent study of Nasdaq from the 1970s and marked periods good for swing trading and periods tough for swing trading. It’s not an exact science but my conclusion was 62 percent of the time Nasdaq has been in a favorable condition, 62 percent means up and 38 percent of the time it's been going down or sideways over the past 40 years. The average bull run lasted 9.4 months and the average unfavorable period lasted for 7.2 months and we are like six months in a very good period and the median good period lasts for only seven months. So if someone tells you the market only goes up or if someone on Twitter tells you market only stocks only go up it’s not really true stocks go up and down.”

Qullamaggie’s 100 Year Market Study Takeaways: "So out of the 102 years, there were 56 down quarters excluding sideways and excluding bars that went up - so 14 percent of the time market went lower over the past 102 years. That means the market has gone up or sideways 86% percent of the time, and I did a more recent study of Nasdaq from the 1970s and marked periods good for swing trading and periods tough for swing trading. It’s not an exact science but my conclusion was 62 percent of the time Nasdaq has been in a favorable condition, 62 percent means up and 38 percent of the time it's been going down or sideways over the past 40 years. The average bull run lasted 9.4 months and the average unfavorable period lasted for 7.2 months and we are like six months in a very good period and the median good period lasts for only seven months. So if someone tells you the market only goes up or if someone on Twitter tells you market only stocks only go up it’s not really true stocks go up and down.”

Lone

24,096 views • 1 year ago

Ambassador Chas Freeman: Israel Is Worse Than Nazis It’s very clear what Israel wants. It’s made no secret that it wants to depopulate Gaza by whatever means it can, by starving people into leaving, expelling them, or killing them all. And there’s no question that it meets the definition of genocide. They have the intent to destroy an entire people. They have the ability and they are, in fact, carrying out an operation intended to do so. I think it’s also quite clear why Hamas did what it did. This was in the nature of a jailbreak from the world’s largest concentration camp. And having been treated like animals they behaved like animals. What they did was horrifying, it was inexcusable, but it was understandable. The Israeli reaction has been vastly disproportionate and that is Israel’s custom. It tries to react disproportionately in order to intimidate and deter anyone from attacking it. That is not new but what is new are the genocidal statements and proposed emptying of Gaza. 60% of the buildings in Northern Gaza have been destroyed and we know that over 12,000 Palestinians have been murdered by one means or another. Israel has destroyed most of the hospitals in Gaza. It now seems to be working on the schools. So it is totally ruthless and the whole thing is particularly macabre because it is such a vivid reminder of the Warsaw Ghetto, a very parallel situation in which driven beyond any ability to tolerate what was being done to them, the Jewish inhabitants of the Warsaw Ghetto rose against Nazi Germany and the Nazis exterminated them all and leveled the ghetto. One would think that the survivors of that Holocaust and the larger Holocaust in Europe would not wish to repeat a holocaust against another people but evidently, that is expecting too much of human nature. It now appears that much of the killing at the music festival was actually done by Israeli forces who fired indiscriminately at both the Hamas warriors and the milling crowds at the festival. Similarly, some of the major damage in the kibbutzim and the murders of the settlers there were done not by Hamas but by Israeli forces firing tank bullets into houses and hellfire missiles into cars and so forth. So this was a dreadful beginning to what has turned out to be an absolutely nauseating months and a half of slaughter, not finished. The United States has the ability to stop this by halting armed supplies to Israel but does not do that, opposes a ceasefire in support of Mr. Netanyahu’s revenge against the Palestinians, and Mr. Netanyahu, I would remind you, is on record many years ago as expressing hope for a war in which Israel could expel all the Arabs in its midst and seems to be taking advantage of this to do that hoping, I suppose, that his reputation which has been greatly damaged by charges of corruption and by his suspension of judicial independence in Israel, can somehow be redeemed by this act of revenge. Where we are is a very bad place. What Israel is reporting is extraordinarily crude propaganda, some of it obviously, utterly false, and they’ve been caught. Even some of the mainstream media are beginning to report that the Israeli Defense Forces are lying about a huge number of things. Younger people, generally in the West, certainly in my own country the United States, are far more inclined to be sympathetic to the Palestinians than they ever were before. It’s not that they dislike Israelis but now confronted with with graphic images of horror, the murder of 12,000 [Palestinians], they’re not dispassionate. Not only are they demonstrating in all of the world’s capitals for a ceasefire which their governments declined to support for the most part, but social media is now overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian as opposed to pro-Israeli. But I think the Palestinians, generally, have been motivated to remind the world that they exist. That their problems can’t be set aside. The Israeli government, with the connivance of the Biden Administration, and before that the Trump Administration, was making an effort to set the Palestinian issue aside in order to produce Arab-Israeli normalization. And the Palestinians set out with this raid into Israel to demonstrate that that is impossible, that the only way that you can have peace in Palestine is with a two-state solution. And oddly enough, although Hamas, of course, started as a movement funded in part by the Israelis — Mr. Netanyahu has openly admitted that he corroborated with Qatar to fund Hamas in Gaza in order to divide the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza — I think Hamas seized the moment to provoke Israel into doing exactly what Israel has predictively done in order to make it clear to the world that you have to have a two-state solution which had become a talking point. There was no reality to it at all. There had been no peace process for twenty-some years. Now there must be. People have recognized that the one-state solution — which many favored, meaning a purely democratic one-man-one-vote arrangement in Palestine in which inevitably the Jewish population given its higher level of culture, civilization, and finance, would have called most of the shots — is off the table. After all the hatred that has been demonstrated on both sides, coexistence in one state is obviously impossible in Palestine. Two states, however, would give the Palestinians a stake in peace. They have no stake in peace at the moment. They’re like a rabbit being swallowed by some kind of boa constrictor. As time goes on they go farther and farther down the throat of the snake and they’re crying out, and they were doing so at a pitch that, apparently, no one internationally could hear. And now their cause has been dramatized. We can’t have a resolution of what is going on now that takes the form of another expulsion of Palestinians, more tolerance of massacres, the condoning of genocide... and I think those in the West, including President Biden, who has been prepared to give Israel a pass on these issues, are beginning to pay heavily in terms of their political prestige in their domestic politics. Settler colonialism invariably leads to some attempt at genocide. That was the case in the United States, Canada, and Australia. It wasn’t the case in New Zealand because the Māori were too tough. It wasn’t the case in South Africa because the Zulus, and other South African blacks, were too tough. It wasn’t the case in Kenya because, eventually, black Kenyans rose up in the Mau Mau movement, which was itself a horror, but it did result in a separation from the colonial rule of the British. The same thing could happen. Now the difficulty of all this is obvious in terms of the fact that you’ve got an Israeli cabinet that is the most determined, genocidal cabinet the world has ever seen, and I don’t excuse the Nazi cabinets from that comparison. The overt statements of genocidal intent are unmistakable. There’s no effort, as the Germans did make, to conceal what is in store for the Palestinians. There’s no fake camp for Jews like the one the Nazis set up to bring the Swiss Red Cross in to show how wonderful they were treating the people they had taken away from their homes. No effort whatsoever of that sort, just bombing and strafing and murder on the ground. Israel appears to be paying quite a heavy price for that in terms of combat losses, but, of course, is not reporting accurately what is happening.

Ambassador Chas Freeman: Israel Is Worse Than Nazis It’s very clear what Israel wants. It’s made no secret that it wants to depopulate Gaza by whatever means it can, by starving people into leaving, expelling them, or killing them all. And there’s no question that it meets the definition of genocide. They have the intent to destroy an entire people. They have the ability and they are, in fact, carrying out an operation intended to do so. I think it’s also quite clear why Hamas did what it did. This was in the nature of a jailbreak from the world’s largest concentration camp. And having been treated like animals they behaved like animals. What they did was horrifying, it was inexcusable, but it was understandable. The Israeli reaction has been vastly disproportionate and that is Israel’s custom. It tries to react disproportionately in order to intimidate and deter anyone from attacking it. That is not new but what is new are the genocidal statements and proposed emptying of Gaza. 60% of the buildings in Northern Gaza have been destroyed and we know that over 12,000 Palestinians have been murdered by one means or another. Israel has destroyed most of the hospitals in Gaza. It now seems to be working on the schools. So it is totally ruthless and the whole thing is particularly macabre because it is such a vivid reminder of the Warsaw Ghetto, a very parallel situation in which driven beyond any ability to tolerate what was being done to them, the Jewish inhabitants of the Warsaw Ghetto rose against Nazi Germany and the Nazis exterminated them all and leveled the ghetto. One would think that the survivors of that Holocaust and the larger Holocaust in Europe would not wish to repeat a holocaust against another people but evidently, that is expecting too much of human nature. It now appears that much of the killing at the music festival was actually done by Israeli forces who fired indiscriminately at both the Hamas warriors and the milling crowds at the festival. Similarly, some of the major damage in the kibbutzim and the murders of the settlers there were done not by Hamas but by Israeli forces firing tank bullets into houses and hellfire missiles into cars and so forth. So this was a dreadful beginning to what has turned out to be an absolutely nauseating months and a half of slaughter, not finished. The United States has the ability to stop this by halting armed supplies to Israel but does not do that, opposes a ceasefire in support of Mr. Netanyahu’s revenge against the Palestinians, and Mr. Netanyahu, I would remind you, is on record many years ago as expressing hope for a war in which Israel could expel all the Arabs in its midst and seems to be taking advantage of this to do that hoping, I suppose, that his reputation which has been greatly damaged by charges of corruption and by his suspension of judicial independence in Israel, can somehow be redeemed by this act of revenge. Where we are is a very bad place. What Israel is reporting is extraordinarily crude propaganda, some of it obviously, utterly false, and they’ve been caught. Even some of the mainstream media are beginning to report that the Israeli Defense Forces are lying about a huge number of things. Younger people, generally in the West, certainly in my own country the United States, are far more inclined to be sympathetic to the Palestinians than they ever were before. It’s not that they dislike Israelis but now confronted with with graphic images of horror, the murder of 12,000 [Palestinians], they’re not dispassionate. Not only are they demonstrating in all of the world’s capitals for a ceasefire which their governments declined to support for the most part, but social media is now overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian as opposed to pro-Israeli. But I think the Palestinians, generally, have been motivated to remind the world that they exist. That their problems can’t be set aside. The Israeli government, with the connivance of the Biden Administration, and before that the Trump Administration, was making an effort to set the Palestinian issue aside in order to produce Arab-Israeli normalization. And the Palestinians set out with this raid into Israel to demonstrate that that is impossible, that the only way that you can have peace in Palestine is with a two-state solution. And oddly enough, although Hamas, of course, started as a movement funded in part by the Israelis — Mr. Netanyahu has openly admitted that he corroborated with Qatar to fund Hamas in Gaza in order to divide the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza — I think Hamas seized the moment to provoke Israel into doing exactly what Israel has predictively done in order to make it clear to the world that you have to have a two-state solution which had become a talking point. There was no reality to it at all. There had been no peace process for twenty-some years. Now there must be. People have recognized that the one-state solution — which many favored, meaning a purely democratic one-man-one-vote arrangement in Palestine in which inevitably the Jewish population given its higher level of culture, civilization, and finance, would have called most of the shots — is off the table. After all the hatred that has been demonstrated on both sides, coexistence in one state is obviously impossible in Palestine. Two states, however, would give the Palestinians a stake in peace. They have no stake in peace at the moment. They’re like a rabbit being swallowed by some kind of boa constrictor. As time goes on they go farther and farther down the throat of the snake and they’re crying out, and they were doing so at a pitch that, apparently, no one internationally could hear. And now their cause has been dramatized. We can’t have a resolution of what is going on now that takes the form of another expulsion of Palestinians, more tolerance of massacres, the condoning of genocide... and I think those in the West, including President Biden, who has been prepared to give Israel a pass on these issues, are beginning to pay heavily in terms of their political prestige in their domestic politics. Settler colonialism invariably leads to some attempt at genocide. That was the case in the United States, Canada, and Australia. It wasn’t the case in New Zealand because the Māori were too tough. It wasn’t the case in South Africa because the Zulus, and other South African blacks, were too tough. It wasn’t the case in Kenya because, eventually, black Kenyans rose up in the Mau Mau movement, which was itself a horror, but it did result in a separation from the colonial rule of the British. The same thing could happen. Now the difficulty of all this is obvious in terms of the fact that you’ve got an Israeli cabinet that is the most determined, genocidal cabinet the world has ever seen, and I don’t excuse the Nazi cabinets from that comparison. The overt statements of genocidal intent are unmistakable. There’s no effort, as the Germans did make, to conceal what is in store for the Palestinians. There’s no fake camp for Jews like the one the Nazis set up to bring the Swiss Red Cross in to show how wonderful they were treating the people they had taken away from their homes. No effort whatsoever of that sort, just bombing and strafing and murder on the ground. Israel appears to be paying quite a heavy price for that in terms of combat losses, but, of course, is not reporting accurately what is happening.

🅰pocalypsis 🅰pocalypseos 🇷🇺 🇨🇳 🅉

22,308 views • 2 years ago

The dust is settling and the data is showing the election was decided by the confluence of four factors: 1. Inflation: not unemployment, the stock market or GDP; the cost of a hamburger and fries being 2-3x the price it was four years ago is what matters. 2. Peak Wokeness: as demonstrated by this advertisement, which people are claiming was the most effective of the cycle (and that has $100m+ in ad spend behind it) 3. Young men deciding to vote 4. Podcasts Rank them, debate them… and what is missing?

The dust is settling and the data is showing the election was decided by the confluence of four factors: 1. Inflation: not unemployment, the stock market or GDP; the cost of a hamburger and fries being 2-3x the price it was four years ago is what matters. 2. Peak Wokeness: as demonstrated by this advertisement, which people are claiming was the most effective of the cycle (and that has $100m+ in ad spend behind it) 3. Young men deciding to vote 4. Podcasts Rank them, debate them… and what is missing?

@jason

585,648 views • 1 year ago