Southwest Airlines Ends Open Seating, Moves To Reservation-Based System Authored by Rob Sabo via The Epoch Times, Southwest Airlines’ era of offering passengers open seating is officially ending, as the passenger carrier transitions its seating policy to a reservation-based system common with other airlines starting on Jan. 27. Southwest announced last summer that it would end its open seating policy to offer customers a wider […]

GM Shares Surge 7% After Surpassing Q4 Estimates, Raising Guidance, Planning $6B Stock Buyback General Motors exceeded Wall Street’s fourth-quarter earnings expectations and forecast another year of “strong financial performance” in 2026. While revenue fell slightly short, the company announced a 20% dividend increase and a new $6 billion stock buyback program, according to CNBC and GM. GM reported adjusted earnings per share […]

Conference Board Consumer Confidence Crashes To 12 Year Lows After Boomers and Gen X dragged The Conference Board Confidence measure down to eight month lows to end 2025, expectations were for a rebound to start 2026. But, reality was far worse with the headline plunging from 94.2 (revised up from 89.1) to 84.5 (well below the 91.0 expected) – the lowest since May 2014. The Present Situation Index – based on consumers’ […]

Trump Admin Wins Appeal Of ICE Injunction In Minnesota Authored by Jonathan Turley, In a significant victory for the Trump Administration, a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit lifted the injunction of U.S. District Judge Katherin Menendez, who prevented officers from arresting, detaining, pepper-spraying or retaliating against protesters in Minneapolis without probable cause. In her Jan. 16 […]

From Bad To Worse: UnitedHealth Posts First Annual Revenue Drop In Three Decades Things have gone from bad to worse for UnitedHealth Group since late Monday. First, the Trump administration’s plan to keep Medicare Advantage rates roughly flat next year (read the report) sent shares tumbling during the after-hours session on Monday evening. The selloff intensified in premarket trading after the 2026 outlook and quarterly earnings […]

The Grid Will Hold – Maybe – But The Bill Will Rise Authored by Terry L. Headley via RealClearEnergy, Americans are about to pay a lot more for electricity anyway — not because the grid fails, but because of how we now power it. As another deep winter cold snap presses across much of the eastern United States, grid operators are doing what they always do in these moments: watching reserve margins, issuing conservation guidance, […]

US Home Prices Surged In November As Mortgage Rates Tumble For the fourth straight month, US home prices rose on a MoM basis in November (according to the admittedly lagged and smoothed Case-Shiller data released today). The 0.47% MoM rise is the hottest since Dec 2024 Source: Bloomberg On a year-over-year basis, there is a very modest inflection higher in the price appreciation (up from +1.32% to +1.39%). “November’s results […]

Futures Rise Ahead Of Tech Earnings As Gold, Silver Resume Surge US futures are higher, led by Tech, and approaching record levels from earlier this month as geopolitical and headline risk subsides while the market focuses on looming Mag 7 earnings and Wednesday’s Fed decision is expected to be a non-event. Equities are poised for another attempt at 7k. As of 8:00am ET, S&P futures are up 0.2% and set for a fifth day of gains; […]

The Bullish And Bearish Case For 2026 Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com, The year ahead presents both a bullish and bearish case for investors. Will 2026 be another year of above-average returns, or will it be a year of disappointment? The bulls argue that the key ingredients for a sustained rally are in place. A powerful technology cycle, aggressive corporate spending, and supportive policy measures all point […]

Power Diverted From Data Centers To Households Across PJM Network Amid Historic Freeze The massive winter storm that disrupted US energy production, sparked the most flight cancellations since Covid, and paralyzed much of the eastern half of the country for days is finally over. BofA chief economist Aditya Bhave has warned that the winter blast could deliver a meaningful hit to first-quarter GDP. However, the eastern half of the US […]

De-Dollarization? Gold Over Debt – The End Of The Keynesian Paper Promise Mirage Authored by Daniel Lacalle, Despite the consensus narrative, what we are currently experiencing globally is not “de‑dollarization,” but a broad loss of confidence in developed economies’ fiat currencies and sovereign debt as a reserve asset for central banks and institutions. This fundamental loss of confidence in the solvency of developed […]

SK Hynix Soars On Microsoft Supply Deal Report; KOSPI Breaks Out, Shrugs Off Tariff Threat SK Hynix shares hit an all-time high in overnight trading in South Korea after a local media outlet reported that the semiconductor company, which specializes in memory chips, has become the sole supplier of advanced memory for Microsoft’s new artificial intelligence chip. Also overnight, despite President Trump’s tariff threat against South […]

Georgia Scrambles After Leak Reveals Rising Dependence On Russian Gas Via Eurasianet.org, Georgia’s imports of Russian gas rose sharply in 2025, with newly disclosed pricing showing higher costs than in previous years. The leak has sparked political backlash, as critics warn of renewed dependence on Gazprom and heightened risks of corruption and leverage. Authorities have launched a security investigation, framing the […]

“Communism Is A Sh*tty Deal”: Cuba’s Power Grid Descends Further Into Blackout Nightmare   Cuba is facing a severe and worsening energy crisis driven by a tightening U.S. blockade, part of President Trump’s gunboat diplomacy across the Caribbean region, as reported Sunday, with conditions now deteriorating further as the island’s power grid appears to be imploding under strain, resulting in blackouts lasting up to 20 hours per […]

How German Media Cast Trump As Evil, And Davos Elites As Moral Saviors Submitted by Thomas Kolbe Donald Trump’s appearance at the World Economic Forum was portrayed by the German media as the very embodiment of evil against the pristine white backdrop of Davos’ snow. To cast politicians like von der Leyen, Merz, and Macron as the “good” counterparts only exposes this media spectacle for what it is: farce. A love-hate […]

NATO Secretary General Admits EU Incapable Of Defense Without US Help The globalist frenzy of the Davos Summit is subsiding and the geopolitical world is left to ponder (and question) some of the more “optimistic” comments made by world leaders.  One such claim was made by Finnish President Alexander Stubb, who argued that Europe ‘unequivocally’ has the ability to defend itself without US support.    The claim coincided with […]

Shakespeare Was A Black Jewish Woman – Claims Feminist Historian Authored by ‘Sallust’ via DailySceptic.org, Let it alone, thou fool; it is but trash. The Tempest IV.1 One of the positive sides to radical feminist historical scholarship is the opportunity to learn about revelations that might otherwise have gone unnoticed. The latest is that William Shakespeare was a “black Jewish woman” according to a new book covered in […]

IDF Recovers Final Slain Hostage From Gaza, All 251 Returned To Israel Israel is calling it “painful moment of closure” – as the Israeli military (IDF) has confirmed the return of the final captive’s remains from Gaza. “There are officially no more hostages in captivity in Gaza,” the IDF announced on X Monday. Finally, all of the 251 people taken during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel have been returned, whether […]

EU’s Digital Networks Act: Infrastructure Push Or Another Regulatory Straitjacket? Submitted By Thomas Kolbe The European Commission has presented the final draft of the Digital Networks Act. The legislation is intended to establish an EU-wide framework for investments in broadband expansion and telecommunications infrastructure. Whether this approach will succeed in mobilizing private capital on a larger scale, however, remains […]

The “BRICS Naval Drill” That Wasn’t Authored by Andrew Korybko, South Africa allowed this false perception to spread as a symbolic act of defiance against Trump given his hatred of BRICS, whose members and partners were invited to this drill, and to signal to the domestic audience that their country has friends across the world amidst its tensions with the US. Most folks have probably heard about the “BRICS naval drill” that […]

New Woke Star Trek “Starfleet Academy” Series Is An Embarrassing Critical Failure The charm of Star Trek as a concept is that the franchise offers a relatively positive vision of humanity’s future rather than the predictable doomsday scenarios that have saturated television for decades.  Setting aside the show’s strange ties to the RAND Corporation and Gene Rodenberry’s pandering to the United Nations, Star Trek essentially […]

What Broke Trade Was The Fiat Dollar Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times, The postwar trading order is taking on an entirely new shape. We can put brackets around the old one, like a tombstone: 1944–2025. Having known some of the economists and statesmen who put together the old order, I’m in a position to explain what they had in mind and also what went wrong with it. What will replace it is still very much in […]

Watch: Massive “Beast” Oil Rig Tips Over On Alaska’s North Slope A large mobile drilling rig known as “The Beast” tipped over Friday afternoon while being transported along a gravel road on Alaska’s North Slope, prompting an emergency response from local and company officials, according to Yahoo.  The incident happened around 4:45 p.m. and involved the Doyon 26 rig, which was operating for ConocoPhillips. In a joint […]

“Sleep Tight, America. We Got This”: NatGas And Coal Power Plants Prevented Grid Collapse During Historic Winter Blast Submitted by Criterion Research President James Bevan,  Winter Storm Fern’s Arctic blast from January 21-26 provided clear data on generation dispatch patterns during extreme cold weather events. The storm stressed multiple U.S. power grids, such as PJM and ERCOT and demonstrated the operational characteristics […]

Winter Storm Fern To Lower Q1 GDP By 0.5% To 1.5% Winter storm Fern is mostly over, its resulting damage, however, will linger for a long time. To assess the economic impact of the brutal winter storm, BofA chief economist Aditya Bhave looked back at Winter Storm Viola, which hit the US in February 2021. Both storms put roughly half the country under a winter weather advisory. Consumer spending fell by 0.9% m/m in February 2021, […]