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Thursday’s Forum
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20 responses to “Thursday’s Forum”
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Greatest economy ever. A collection of today’s financial headlines:
Oil hits 3-week high on Middle East supply concerns amid war impasse
Dollar falls to three-month low as Treasury moves to soothe bond jitters
Scott Bessent just cried uncle on the bond market: Chart of the Day
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Axis of Evil?
A quiet channel between ICE and Iran shaped deportation flights, newly released emails show
U.S. immigration officials worked with Iran to deport Iranians in 2025, newly released emails show, revealing a working relationship between the U.S. and Iranian governments despite tensions mounting between the countries.
Hundreds of emails exchanged between U.S. immigration officials, which were obtained by the National Iranian American Council and made public Tuesday, offer the most transparent play by play yet of how the two countries worked together to arrange for more than 100 Iranians to be flown back to Iran on three separate immigration flights in September and December 2025 and January 2026.
The emails show that Iranian officials had some influence over which Iranian immigrants in the U.S. were sent back to their home country, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials apparently heeded some last-minute changes to deportation lists at the request of Iran.
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Coordination of the flights remained a high priority even as ICE officials acknowledged internally that Iranians were fleeing Iran amid the deadly 12-day war with the U.S. and Israel in June 2025, emails show. The flights departed just months after the U.S. and Israel agreed to a ceasefire with Iran.The new emails highlight a clear departure from a decades-long practice by the U.S. of welcoming Iranian dissidents, exiles and others since the 1979 Islamic Revolution forced a large number of Iranians to flee.
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Trump is a common type. Mao, Kaiser Wilhelm etc.
Scroll down through the comments/replies to this:
Mao had his own Natalie – Zhang Yufeng.
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Trump is a common type. Mao, Kaiser Wilhelm etc.
Scroll down through the comments/replies to this:
Mao had his own Natalie – Zhang Yufeng.
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A quiet but harsh podcast about the politization of our military by Pete Hegseth.
Focuses on Chief of Naval Operations, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Caudle and what he did to get his current job.
Who Moves Up, and Who’s Pushed Out, in Pete Hegseth’s Military
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Meanwhile, in California, where, according to right wing media, everyone is fleeing and where no one wants to live, the Wall Street Journal just published a piece titled California Draws More Investment Than All Other 49 States Combined
California is in the midst of a record-shattering investment wave, fueled by the artificial-intelligence boom in Silicon Valley.
Companies based in the Golden State have drawn around $366 billion of venture capital since the beginning of the year, according to data provider PitchBook. That’s more than three times the amount of venture funding that has gone into the other 49 states combined, and nearly double California’s previous record, set in 2025. New York state ranks a distant second in venture-capital investment, with $27 billion in deals announced so far this year.
California’s funding keeps coming despite the threat of a billionaire tax that detractors, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, have warned could scare off investors. Thus far, at least, investments in the biggest AI companies are keeping the frenzy going while the state’s billionaire class waits to see if voters back the new levy in November.
The capital pouring into AI has supercharged housing prices in San Francisco and created a new class of millionaires overnight. But the boom is reverberating beyond the tech-centric Bay Area: the money has also helped ease the state government’s chronic budget deficit by helping push income-tax revenues well above forecasts.
In May 2025, California’s finance department projected $126 billion in personal-income tax revenues for the fiscal year that ended June 30. Actual income taxes instead generated around $147 billion, as AI enthusiasm fueled a soaring stock market and boosted compensation for tech workers. Future initial public offerings of young AI companies that are raising venture funding today will produce additional tax revenue from capital gains.
Not Texas.
Not Florida.
Not Tennessee.
Not Georgia.
California. Still.-
Meanwhile, in California, where, according to right wing media, everyone is fleeing and where no one wants to live, the Wall Street Journal just published a piece titled California Draws More Investment Than All Other 49 States Combined
The two are completely unrelated.
California’s population has dropped over the past 5 years, as previous residents move to other states. That’s somewhat offset by immigrant populations moving into the state. But, even with that immigrant addition, the population has decreased. There’s worry that after the next census, California will lose seats in the House.
Much has been made of the California exodus to other states, and rightly so. This migration, over the decades, has the power to reshape the state. From 2010 through 2024 (the year of the latest data) almost 10 million people moved from California to other states, while just over 7 million people moved to California from other parts of the country, according to the American Community Survey. In fact, according to Department of Finance estimates, the state has lost residents to other states every year since 2001.
[emphasis mine]
— Public Policy Institute of California (but you can find this info in plenty of other places).
The influx of money isn’t going into the general economy. It’s going into AI companies that are soon going to burst the bubble and come crashing down. And all that tax money that the state is planning on from AI is going to vanish–and they’ll be dealing with a deficit the likes of which will make the dot com burst of 2000 look like they lost some change in the couch.
Your argument is like me saying “My wife left me, took the kids and the dog, and my former friends don’t like me, but I’m getting overtime at work, so everything is super happy”.
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No. My argument is that California has more investment coming into it’s state than the other 49 states combined.
That’s what the point of my post was.
If you want to discuss the net population loss of California, we can do that.
Last year, California had a net loss of about 9,500 people.
Out of 39+ million. That’s 0.00024% of it’s population.Since 2020, it has lost 170,000 people.
Out of 39+ million. That’s 0.0043 of it’s population.An AI crash is coming. I agree with you. But given California’s myriad of businesses and very diverse economy, it’s going to weather it much better than Texas, Florida, Tennessee and Georgia.
California is the 4th largest economy in the world. Only behind the USA, China and Germany. It is responsible for 15% of the entire US economy. It’s got 4.3trillion in GDP.
If there is an AI crash, which I believe will happen, I’d rather be in the state with the diverse economy as opposed to those all in on AI.
If you think California is going to suffer worse than other states during a prolonged crash, you weren’t paying attention in 2000 or 2008.
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Stars and Stripes publisher announces departure with a parting shot at Pentagon
The longtime publisher of Stars and Stripes announced he’s stepping down weeks after the Pentagon installed an active-duty Navy captain at the military newspaper, an atypical appointment that staffers, board members and Democratic lawmakers say risks further eroding the publication’s independence from the government.
Quite frankly, I think the Stars and Stripes has outlived its usefulness. In this age of an individual’s worldwide access to news and information, the original purpose of getting news to the troops is no longer needed.
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I sort of agree, but think that the content curated and written for a very specific audience continues to have merit.
We read the Stars & Stripes when we lived overseas, and it contained a lot of articles and information that was relevant to us that would never have made it into standard news sources. In addition to the topics, the writing also assumed a base level of understanding about issues and topics relevant to the military and DOD/State Department that again, wouldn’t make it into standard reporting.
Yes, it’s niche. But I tend to think that the homogenization of news is problematic.
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I hear you. I read Stars and Stripes when I was stationed in Japan in the 80s. But we also got a clip service out of the Pentagon called the Early Bird. And there was also Far East Network, our local DoD run cable service.
But today you can read Military Times, Defense News and other defense specialty outlets that are not DoD managed. Is that better in this day and age? I think yes. Especially if propaganda is the order of the day.
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Substack post on the issue of radiation for trips to Mars
TL;DR: Adolf should definitely go, and take Lex and as many other billionaires and MAGAts as fit in their Xtarship coffin.
To put it a bit more literarily: not at the present point of our ignorance.
