Erika Mann

[Erika Mann @erikammann]

Not the U.S. was the problem but rather a weak and geopolitically naive European Union and, European Member States, that enjoyed seeing Germany to begin to falter.

[Mark @Mark4XX]

THE REAL REASON EUROPE IS DEINDUSTRIALIZING

Everyone argues about German green targets and the nuclear phase-out. Almost nobody starts with the missing fuel. Nord Stream 1 and 2 were built for 110 billion cubic meters a year. That is about 1,200 terawatt-hours of heat, or roughly 600 TWh of electricity. Call it 80 nuclear plants. No industrial economy absorbs that loss and stays the same.

THE ENERGY THAT VANISHED
➡️ Combined design capacity of Nord Stream 1 and 2 was 110 bcm a year.
➡️ That is ~1,200 TWh thermal and ~600 TWh electric.
➡️ 600 TWh is France’s nuclear fleet plus about twenty more reactors.
➡️ After the pipelines were destroyed, that firm energy base was gone.

40 GAS PLANTS SHORT BY 2030
➡️Germany's coal-exit law demanded a mid-August report on whether the power system still works without coal. That report never came. The reason is not a paperwork delay.
➡️Officials already know the replacement gas plants are not secured, prices will rise.
➡️ The grid agency and the ministry already admit the gap: 40 gas plants missing by 2030, 70 by 2035.

THE KILL SWITCH: BERLIN'S BACKUP PLAN IS CUTTING FACTORIES
➡️ The quiet backup is not new baseload. It is a platform to order factories down when the grid is about to fail.
➡️ Plants above roughly 8 GWh a year must register. In a November wind drought they lose power, without compensation.
➡️ Homes stay on. Industry takes the cut.

THE BOTTOM LINE
Green slogans and the nuclear exit are the debate. The arithmetic is the cause. Europe lost an energy base the size of 80 reactors, then kept dismantling what was left.
Eighty missing plants do not lie.
A rich industrial country that plans to shut its factories when the wind stops is sending one signal to the world: do not build here.

[Erika Mann @erikammann]

Absolutely correct.

[Rafik Smati @RafikSmati]

Un exemple édifiant de l'impuissance européenne.

En 2024, Mario Draghi publiait probablement le meilleur diagnostic jamais écrit sur le décrochage économique et technologique de l'Europe. Énergie trop chère. Retard dans les technologies de rupture. Marchés de capitaux fragmentés. Entreprises qui peinent à grandir. Investissement insuffisant. Et des clés pour un sursaut, dont 800 milliards d'euros supplémentaires par an.

Deux ans plus tard, presque rien n'a bougé. Alors Draghi s'allie avec le patron de Stripe, Patrick Collison, pour créer un think tank privé et forcer l'Union à appliquer son propre rapport. Un comble !

Quand l'un des hommes les plus emblématiques de l'histoire de l'UE doit monter une structure parallèle pour être entendu, le problème n'est plus économique. Il est politique.

L'Europe ne souffre plus d'un déficit de diagnostic. Elle souffre d'un déficit d'exécution et de vitesse.

Le monde a changé de tempo. L'IA, la robotique, l'énergie, l'espace et les biotechnologies redessinent en quelques mois les rapports de puissance. Dans ce monde-là, deux ans sont une éternité.

L'Europe a les talents, les capitaux, les scientifiques et les entrepreneurs pour redevenir un continent qui compte. Elle sait même désormais ce qu'elle doit faire.

Il ne lui manque plus qu'une chose : décider et agir à la vitesse du monde.

[Erika Mann @erikammann]

Now that’s a really interesting offer!

[Ambassador Bill White @BillWhiteUSA]

I like Maxime Prevot a lot.

I just saved Belgium from a complete global media meltdown and well deserved spanking by @elonmusk and everyone by resolving the UGHENT Cofnas matter - quite quickly.

We are offering Belgium over €10,000,000,000.00 (that’s 10 BILLION with a B) in financing for new Westinghouse Nuclear power plants to help Belgium reduce energy costs, get off Russian gas and provide the great Belgian businesses with the energy that they need to grow Belgium‘s GDP.

I am offering Global Entry to every Belgian citizen that can qualify which means they will never ever ever have to wait in an immigration line again when they travel to the United States.

Everyone in Belgium will be so grateful to President Trump.

How about THANK YOU AMBASSADOR?

Belgians can simply register, pay the fee and then be permitted to go through directly to pick up their bags and not wait two or three hours that Belgians are now waiting now in America.

I have offered this with President Trump’s and Secretary Rubio and HLS approval to the Belgian government.

I am waiting for their answer.

Do Belgians want to wait in LONG lines anymore when coming to America ?

THESE are the things that I want to meet and discuss with the Belgian government.

We want to help our beautiful amazing new Belgian friends avoid long lines when they travel to America. We want them to enjoy our beautiful country and do business there.

This meeting Monday is a complete and total waste of time. That said I like Maxime Prevot and look forward to seeing him.

For the record.

I never called Frank Vanden….. a loser.

He is not a loser.

If you want to ask me what I think of him ask me privately I’ll tell you. I think you know.

No one called him a loser.

The only thing I did was repost on MY PERSONAL SM (which is not anyone’s business) that someone else asked “Who is the biggest loser in Belgium?…..

Now I am now curious what people think.

The result of my poll was wild.

386 direct messages from Belgian citizens - and counting.

Would you like to know who the 386 Belgian citizens think is a loser ?

[Erika Mann @erikammann]

Secretary Bessent reached cult status. He ‘is simply the best’!

[Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent @SecScottBessent]

In her latest sciolistic letter to me, @SenWarren made it clear that she knows even less about foreign exchange markets than she does about banking.

What is equally shocking, but not surprising: not a single member of the media mob has a rudimentary-enough level of financial market literacy to spot her remedial error.

To reiterate: under @POTUS, the United States delivers for America’s trusted partners.

For a fuller explanation, I recommend Senator Warren take any entry level course in international finance for her and her staff, or I can personally give her a tutorial on Foreign Exchange for Dummies. Although I am not holding my breath, I hope her next letter will demonstrate that she has learned the difference between a currency purchase and a swap or a loan.

[Erika Mann @erikammann]

The operations continues …

[Open Source Intel @Osint613]

CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper: U.S. forces have cleared Iranian naval mines from the Strait of Hormuz.

[Eric Daugherty @EricLDaugh]

🚨 JUST IN: X has just rooted out a Chinese bot farm of 200,000 THOUSAND accounts influencing American politics, with hundreds of them running an influence operation against the construction of data centers in the US

The posts claimed that AI data centers "drive up household electricity prices" and "strain the grid"

"Others included AI-generated cartoons that depicted data-center operators enriching themselves at the public's expense."

"We take seriously any attempts to undermine the integrity of the global town square and suspend accounts that violate our Authenticity policy."

Good! Purge them all! @elonmusk

[Erika Mann @erikammann]

And the oil keeps flowing …

[TankerTrackers.com, Inc. @TankerTrackers]

Over the past seven complete days, the Middle East region has exported nearly six million barrels of crude oil per day via the US Navy blockade line to global markets.

During entire February 2026, the daily average stood over nineteen million barrels per day.

#OOTT #IranWar #Tankers

[Erika Mann @erikammann]

Interesting exchange … the integration of AI-tools into different business environments is undoubtedly happening.

[Salesforce @salesforce]

Marc @Benioff + @DarioAmodei. Live on @CNBCFastMoney.

Watch as they talk Salesforce + @AnthropicAI, the Claudeforce partnership, and what’s next for enterprise AI.

[Erika Mann @erikammann]

Good decision … though I fear it might be too late already.

[Luis Garicano 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @lugaricano]

An announcement: Under the leadership of Mario Draghi and @patrickc we have set up the Rhine Group: policymakers, economists, entrepreneurs and business people pushing European reforms and the Draghi agenda.
https://t.co/ZtoW7Rb173

[Sean Hannity 🇺🇸 @seanhannity]

Iran's rial just crashed past 2 million to the dollar. Strait of Hormuz crossings are up 400% as the Navy reroutes tankers to safety. Trump says he does not know who is even in charge in Iran anymore. Fox reports live from Tel Aviv.

[Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent @SecScottBessent]

President Trump has dismantled Iran’s military capabilities, destroyed nearly 100 percent of its military factories, and buried its nuclear program.

We are now entering the endgame. At dawn begins an economic D-Day — the single greatest financial offensive ever marshaled against an adversary.

The Islamic Republic has subsisted by dressing extortion as security guarantees. It has drawn strength from a calculus that regards Iranian retaliation as certain and American enforcement as negotiable. Under President Trump, that era is over. And those who fear the danger of defying Tehran ought not to discount the cost of testing Washington.

The President has created the conditions to leverage every agency, every authority and action many assumed we would never summon. Our objective is to sever every economic lifeline that sustains the tyrannical regime until Tehran stands alone.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

This is why I switched Starship to stainless steel.

We have since created our own new alloys and no longer use 301.

[Erika Mann @erikammann]

The love for artificially designed children and families is a somewhat bizarre concept of certain wings in the Green Party.

[Erika Mann @erikammann]

Yeah … Taiwan might get invaded though I still think the Chinese government will identify a smarter approach.

[Jawwwn @jawwwn_]

Peter Thiel on TikTok and if it is a national security threat:

“There’s something very strange going on. TikTok algorithms for the US are very different from the ByteDance algorithms in China.”

“I don’t think we’re going to do anything. I met the TikTok CEO last summer… I told him he didn’t need to worry about it being shut down in the US.”

“Because we are incompetent and slow and bureaucratic, and we will never get our act together in dealing with the problems of China, until the day they invade Taiwan. And then it will be shut down within 24 hours.”

Via @AspenInstitute

[dnap @dnapway]

Alex Karp reveals Peter Thiel has never been what the right or left think he is

"I've known Peter since we were poor students at Stanford. We had conversations as just poor students fighting about intellectual things. He was always heterodox right. I was always heterodox left. I don't think much has changed."

"He's still heterodox right, meaning he's very frustrating to classic Republicans. He's never been a neocon. He actually does not really believe in classic Republican economic theory.”

“You tend to have people on the right basically explaining all problems as the result of capitalism not being driven far enough. That's just not Peter's view."

"He's not a simplistic or caricatured thinker on the right. And he's definitely not the caricature that the left wants to present."

[tothepoint @2thepointnews]

Iranian FM Araghchi announced that Tehran would answer US' “an eye for an eye,” which he intended as a threat. Sec of State Rubio responded that the President’s policy is “a head for an eye.” This is exactly the right policy.
READ ON… 👉 https://t.co/eNnlPHRFCn

[Erika Mann @erikammann]

@AndrewCFollett @nathancofnas How awful

[Jay Bhattacharya @DrJBhattacharya]

@nathancofnas Ghent scapegoating @nathancofnas for Cambridge's failure... A dark day for academic freedom in Europe.

[Eric Daugherty @EricLDaugh]

🚨 BREAKING: Treasury Sec. Scott Bessent just DROPPED this chilling line on Iran

"WE ARE GOING TO COLLAPSE THIS REGIME." 🔥

"This is going to be the greatest coordinated economic isolation in the HISTORY OF THE WORLD."

"You are with us or against us. You want this m*rderous regime to END. If you insist on doing business with them? Transferring money, buying oil? THE US TREASURY WILL PUT ITS FULL MIGHT AND FORCE AGAINST YOU!"

Bessent UNLEASHED!!

"Time for the rest of the world to make a decision. We are going to squash the economy of this m*rderous regime."

"This WILL work. It worked in VZ, it's working in Cuba. It's going to work in Iran."

[Jawwwn @jawwwn_]

Palantir CEO Alex Karp says AI labs are in a "hyper-religion of hyper-optimism":

"They believe all problems—present, past, and future, including the ones they create but don't acknowledge they create—will be solved by them, including human nature."

Via @CNBC