Nancy Chen

Just a humble observer watching the world go by

[Alternative News @AlternatNews]

China sanctions Rheinmetall and 13 other weapons producers; all of them delivering weapons to Ukraine.

The 14 Chinese sanctions mirror EU sanctions on 14 Chinese companies.

There is one difference: China can replace the EU immediately, while Rheinmetall has no access to rare earths and magnets anymore.

A typical example where the EU in their hubris MISTAKENLY believe they can “punish” China.

#FAFO

[Stern Drew @SternDrewCrypto]

🚨 WE ARE ABOUT TO WITNESS THE BIGGEST WAR IN HISTORY FOR THE SURVIVAL OF PETRODOLLAR

Massive U.S. bomber formations, continuous surveillance flights, and heavy air movements are now saturating the skies near Iran. This is no longer posturing.

This is the opening chapter of the biggest geopolitical-financial war of our lifetime, the one that will decide whether the petrodollar survives… or dies.

If the U.S. fails to completely dismantle the IRGC’s control inside Iran, the consequences are not gradual. They are terminal‼️

Iran has already laid down the new law of energy: Every single barrel of oil that passes through the Strait of Hormuz, the artery carrying ~20% of the world’s crude, must be settled in Chinese yuan. No dollars. Full stop.

The moment that demand sticks, the 50-year monopoly that forced the world to recycle oil revenues into U.S. Treasuries collapses overnight. The petrodollar doesn’t weaken. It dies. And the yuan (backed by real oil flow) becomes the new settlement currency of the energy world.

Watch the bombers. Watch the surveillance orbits. Watch Hormuz.

Because if this war ends with the IRGC still standing, the dollar’s exorbitant privilege ends with it and a multipolar monetary order ruled by Beijing’s currency and decentralized rails takes its place.

The markets haven’t priced this yet. They will.

The faith of the petrodollar is now being decided in the skies over the Gulf.

[DaiWW @BeijingDai]

It's genuinely entertaining watching American tech companies tear into each other over whether to ban Chinese open-source AI. This is a big deal in the U.S., but in China? Not so much. China really couldn't care less about what America does on this front.

If the U.S. does ban open-source AI, China might take some economic hits in the short term, but in the long run, America will keep isolating itself from the rest of the world—much like the Americas are geographically isolated from the Eurasian and African landmasses.

And I bet those CEOs who signed the letter have cursed "fuck you Sam Altman, fuck you Dario Amodei" under their breath a hundred times already. OpenAI and Anthropic—these two Jewish-founded companies—operate with an extreme, reckless style. They'll throw morality under the bus, trample the law, disregard American national interest, and couldn't care less about the future of humanity—or even their own long-term survival, for that matter. Their only compass is immediate self-interest. It's radical individualism at its worst, and frankly, it's the same playbook we see from Israel.

[Afshin Rattansi @afshinrattansi]

REMINDER: J.D. Vance admitted the MoU was signed to refill global oil reserves and US weapons stocks, and then to ‘see where the hand is.’

The US knew it signed a deal on Iran’s terms, and had no intention of fulfilling it.

The MoU was used an opportunity to prepare for a resumption of the war.

[The Hormuz Letter @HormuzLetter]

BREAKING: China directly rejects Trump's latest Truth Social claim that Xi told him China would not sell weapons to Iran under any circumstances, saying "as a comprehensive strategic partner, China strongly supports Iran in safeguarding its sovereignty, security, and national dignity."

[Andy Boreham 安柏然 @AndyBxxx]

Spot on, mate!

Australia helped push a shaky Xinjiang forced-labour narrative that never met basic legal standards, and now they're getting a taste of their own, bitter medicine.

Read Jaq's tweet:

[Dustin @r0ck3t23]

Scott Galloway just explained why China doesn’t need to build better AI than America. It only needs to make American AI worthless.

Galloway: “I think China is beginning to engage in what I’ll call AI dumping.”

Not competing. Dumping.

It’s the term economists use for flooding a foreign market with below-cost goods until the domestic industry collapses.

Galloway: “They’re going to have a series of open-weight models. About a third of corporations now are supposedly using Chinese lightweight open-weight models that are cheaper.”

Not better. Cheaper.

A third of corporations. Already.

China isn’t trying to out-innovate Silicon Valley. It’s trying to collapse the economics beneath it.

Price warfare at the infrastructure layer.

Galloway: “If I were Xi, I would just dump cheap AI into the US market.”

This playbook is old. China ran it with steel. Ran it with solar. Ran it with semiconductors.

Flood a market with a cheaper version until the domestic industry can’t sustain itself.

AI is next.

Galloway: “The moment large corporations start announcing they’re disengaging these multi-million dollar site licenses with Anthropic or OpenAI, they’re using these inexpensive Chinese models…”

One CFO after another decides the Chinese model at a fraction of the cost is good enough.

Not better. Good enough.

“Good enough” at a lower price has killed more market leaders than any superior product ever has.

Galloway: “…and the market realizes that there’s no way they can justify these incredible valuations, I think the US market crashes.”

Not because the technology failed.

Because the business model did.

American AI companies are valued on the assumption that corporations will pay premium prices for premium models.

China’s whole strategy is to make that assumption false.

Galloway: “40% of the S&P now is directly or tangentially related to this giant bet America’s making on AI.”

40% of the S&P. Tied to one sector.

Galloway: “The majority of GDP growth over the last two years has come from AI CapEx.”

The majority of GDP growth. From one source.

America didn’t diversify its future. It concentrated everything into a single bet, then left that bet undefended.

Galloway: “If that slows down, we are immediately in a recession.”

Immediately. Not gradually. Not over quarters.

The distance between AI boom and American recession is one procurement decision.

America built the most advanced AI on Earth and forgot to build an economy that survives someone selling it cheaper.

The threat to American AI was never that China would build something smarter.

It was that China would build something cheaper, and American corporations would choose the price.

China’s real weapon isn’t Chinese technology. It’s American capitalism.

The same rational self-interest that built the AI industry will dismantle it the moment a cheaper alternative appears. The market has no patriotism. Only price sensitivity.

The technology race was never the real race.

The real race was always whether America could turn its AI dominance into something that survives being undercut.

America hasn’t even started running it.

China already has.

[Wimar.X @DefiWimar]

🚨 BREAKING

🇨🇳 CHINA HAS DUMPED $663 BILLION IN U.S. TREASURY HOLDINGS.

IT NOW HOLDS JUST $659 BILLION - THE LOWEST LEVEL SINCE 2008.

MEANWHILE, CHINA'S GOLD RESERVES HAVE PUMPED FOR 17 MONTHS IN A ROW, TO $303 BILLION - A NEW HIGH.

IT HAS ALREADY BOUGHT NEARLY TWICE AS MUCH GOLD THIS YEAR AS IT DID IN ALL OF 2025.

THEY’RE EXITING THE SYSTEM...

[Iran Observer @IranObserver0]

⚡️BREAKING:

The IRGC on US requesting ceasefire:

"We will no longer Allow the United States to Replenish its Oil and Ammunition reserves through deceptive Ceasefires and then continue the War"

[Stern Drew @SternDrewCrypto]

🚨 THE U.S. CANNOT Pull Out of Iran War… Or the PETRODOLLAR DIES!

Iran just dropped a nuke on the dollar:

“Every barrel of oil through the Strait of Hormuz MUST be paid in Chinese Yuan ONLY.”

Russia + China + Iran just formed the kill squad against the Petrodollar.

If Trump pulls out without TOTAL victory… The dollar loses world reserve status.

Hyperinflation. Economic ARMAGEDDON.

This War Would Decide The Faith Of The Dollar…

[The Kobeissi Letter @KobeissiLetter]

BREAKING: The US 10Y Note Yield officially surges above 4.70% for the first time since January 2025.

This puts yields above the "Liberation Day" high in April 2025, set to drive interest rates to new 52-week highs.

The bond market is flashing red.

[Hedgie @HedgieMarkets]

🦔A Nikkei investigation found that Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Oracle have $1.65 trillion in debt that doesn't appear on their balance sheets, more than the $1.35 trillion they officially report. These are GPU contracts, data center leases, and joint ventures that don't count as debt under accounting rules until the facilities go live. Meta's hidden debt is $420 billion, triple its reported debt. Oracle's grew 30-fold in four years. All five declined to comment.

My Take
Nikkei examined the actual filings and put a number on something the BIS already flagged as "shadow borrowing" back in March. These companies owe more off their balance sheets than on them, and the accounting rules let them keep it that way until the data centers go live. That's legal, but it means investors looking at quarterly earnings this week are seeing less than half the picture.

Four of these five report earnings in the next two weeks. The reported debt will look manageable. The $1.65 trillion in footnotes won't make the headlines. But when those data centers start operating, the leases hit the books all at once. If AI demand comes in below projections, those facilities get marked down and the losses land on the investors and insurance policyholders who funded the construction through private credit and project bonds without realizing how much total exposure they were carrying.

Hedgie🤗

[𝘊𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘦 @OopsGuess]

British Steel was collapsing.

Britain could not shut it down, because that would make the UK the only G7 country without primary steelmaking capacity.

So it brought in Chinese capital.

Jingye spent six years and £1.2 billion rescuing British Steel, upgrading equipment, preserving jobs, paying taxes, and keeping Britain’s industrial dignity alive.

Then, once the company could stand again, London seized control.

This has nothing to do with national security;
it's simply the instinct for greed ingrained in the DNA of an empire.

Jingye demands £1 billion in compensation.

Britain offers less than £100 million — and even hides behind an “independent assessment” before paying what it already owes.

This is how empire behaves when it loses the ability to build.

It invites foreign capital when it is desperate.
It steals the asset when it becomes valuable.
Then it calls the theft “rules.”

China has to set a price for this.

Otherwise every Chinese company overseas is being told the same thing:

your money is welcome,
your technology is welcome,
your jobs are welcome,
your taxes are welcome—

until the West decides your ownership is inconvenient.

The British Empire used warships to force open China’s doors, ushering in a century of humiliation.

Britain poisoned the Chinese people with opium, looted and burned the Old Summer Palace, and stole China’s wealth.

Now Britain is using modern legal costume to repeat an old imperial habit:

take Chinese wealth,
deny Chinese rights,
then lecture China about rules.

With great skill.
And with great self-righteousness.

This is why Chinese public anger is boiling. Many are demanding that Beijing stop treating British state fraud as a normal commercial dispute or another round of polite diplomacy.

History must not repeat itself, no matter the method.

The empire died.

The theft instinct survived.

[The Kobeissi Letter @KobeissiLetter]

Stress in one of the credit market's riskiest areas is intensifying:

Collateralized loan obligation (CLO) equity tranches returned -15% in Q1 2026, their worst quarterly performance since the 2020 pandemic crash.

These tranches represent the highest-risk layer of the $1.3 trillion CLO market, with equity investors taking the first losses when underlying loans underperform.

This also marks the 2nd consecutive quarterly loss and even exceeds the Q2 2022 bear market drop of -12%.

The selloff has been driven by a decline in software loan prices combined with fewer new corporate loans being issued.

This leaves CLO managers, the firms responsible for selecting the loans inside CLO portfolios, with fewer opportunities to invest in attractive assets, putting further pressure on returns.

Credit market stress is rising beneath the surface.

[yanguoliusheng @szygls]

欧洲人最近抢中国空调，不是因为便宜，而是那边卖空调的打法，简直是两个世界。
你看日本空调，技术顶尖，做工扎实，摆在店里，打折，就是没人碰。
为什么？你租个公寓，38度天，热得像铁板烧。你想装个空调，房东第一个摇头，外墙是古建筑，一个孔都不准打。
行，不打孔。你去找物业，物业让你去征求整栋楼的同意。你敲开邻居的门，楼上大爷直接把门摔上。
就算你跑断腿，把所有字都签了，拿着文件去市政厅。对方看一眼，让你两个月后再来问进度。
等你拿到许可，安装工的电话打过去，报价2000欧，不含税。而且，现在下单，下下个月再上门。
一套流程走完，雪都下了。
就在欧洲人快被热到融化的时候，中国厂商直接把一个箱子推到他们面前。
移动分体空调。
没有外机，不用打孔。一根粗管子，从窗户缝里伸出去，卡扣一扣，完事。自己动手，十分钟，插上电，冷风就吹出来了。
最绝的不是这个。
法国人跑来说，我们法律规定，超过2公斤冷媒的空调，每年都要专业人员上门年检，一次几百欧。中国厂商直接把说明书翻到背面，指着一行字：冷媒，1.99公斤。刚好，不用检。
德国人又过来了，说我们这儿有夜间噪音法，超过36分贝就算扰民，警察会上门罚款。中国厂商直接把机器开到最大，拿分贝仪怼在出风口，上面显示一个数字：35。
他们不是在卖一个产品。
他们是把欧洲各国的法律条文、城市规定、甚至是邻里之间那点破事，全都读了一遍，然后做出了一个“标准答案”。
这仗还怎么打？
日本工程师还在实验室里，追求那0.1度的温差，琢磨着怎么让空调再多用上五年。
而中国这边，早就在论坛里问用户了：“你最烦的是什么？是安装，是年检，还是邻居投诉？行，我全给你绕过去。”
一个在造完美的“工业品”，想着怎么教育你。
另一个在做贴心的“服务包”，问你到底哪里疼。
这不是产品和产品在打架，这根本就是两种思路在降维打击。

[The Kobeissi Letter @KobeissiLetter]

BREAKING: The US saw 372 large-company bankruptcies in the first 6 months of the 2026, the highest first half total in 16 years.

This marks the 4th consecutive YoY increase for this period of the year.

This also surpassed the full-year total for 2022, when 317 firms went bankrupt.

Both May and June recorded 72 filings, the 3rd-highest monthly total since July 2020.

Industrial companies led with 50 filings year-to-date, followed by 35 in consumer discretionary, and 26 in healthcare.

Corporate bankruptcies are accelerating.

[Alex Veremeyenko @alex_verem]

The Chinese president stood on a stage in Shanghai and laid out China's entire AI playbook in one speech.

It was his first-ever in-person appearance at the World AI Conference. I went through the whole thing and pulled out everything that matters.

- he opened with his signature maxim that great changes unseen in a century are unfolding across the world.

- he said AI development should not be a solo performance by a single country but a symphony of international cooperation.

- he reaffirmed China's commitment to open source AI in the name of openness and shared benefit.

- he warned against overstretching the concept of national security in AI, where one country puts its own security above everyone else's.

- he said China opposes the emergence of new historical injustices in AI, one of the strongest-worded lines in the speech.

- he pledged 5,000 AI training opportunities for developing countries over the next five years, naming ASEAN, the Arab League, the African Union, CELAC, the SCO, and BRICS.

- he committed to giving 30 countries access to a Chinese AI weather system that provides early disaster warnings.

- a day before the speech, 29 countries signed the agreement creating a new World AI Cooperation Organization headquartered in Shanghai.

strip away the politics and one thing stands out to me. he didn't pitch benchmarks or chatbots. he pitched AI as infrastructure, weather warnings for countries that lose thousands of lives to storms they never saw coming, and training programs for regions the AI boom has skipped.

meanwhile most of the Western AI conversation revolves around which lab ships the next frontier model.

I don't care who wins the race. I care whether the computing power reaches the people who need it.

The full speech is below, and it's worth your time.

[Tomthunkit™ @TomthunkitsMind]

Saudi Arabia is the largest exporter of oil out of the Middle East up until now because of their pipeline from the Gulf to the Red Sea.

However, the Houthis have closed the Red Sea and the Saudi are in a full scale war with them.

The Houthis are not going tit for tat. They are destroying Saudi Arabia. The airport is done.

This started because a plane carrying Houthis’ leaders were returning from Iran’s funeral on an Iranian plane. The US & Saudis had closed the Houthis’ airport for 10 years prior.

The first flight to land there was that Iranian plane to pick them up for the funeral. Upon return in this historic journey, while a gaggle of press watched on the tarmac, the Saudis bombed the runway as the plane was approaching.

They aborted the landing. Landed in a smaller unused airport safely.

So, it seems this was a photo op by the Saudis under instructions from Trump so that he can win the news cycle to feed his ego.

Well, it backfired tremendously. It will be 114 degrees in Saudi Arabia tomorrow. They’re in a desert. They rely on desalination plants to survive. If Ansar Allah destroys them then we will have a humanitarian crisis like Rwanda or Sudan.

The rich and wealthy will flee to leave the less fortunate to die.

[Megatron @Megatron_ron]

JUST IN: 🇧🇷🇺🇸 Brazil President Lula:

“The US lied about Iran's nuclear weapons just like it lied about Iraq. It provoked this war. Now Trump says oil owners must pay him 20% for each ship he claims to unblock.

That used to be called piracy."

[InfoGram @_InfoGram_]

Trump’s Weekly Routine

MON: 🇺🇸Trump SELL the Stock
TUE: 🇺🇸Trump declares VICTORY and Ceasefire
WED: 🇺🇸Trump DESTROY everything in Iran
THU: 🇺🇸Trump try to CONTROL Hormuz
FRI: 🇺🇸Trump BUYS Stock again
SAT: 🇺🇸 Trump threats Iran to give control on Hormuz
SUN: 🇺🇸Trump Started bombing again
MON: 🇺🇸CYCLE REPEATS

TRUMP has become a global laughing stock ⚡