Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

A trans Tamil immigrant on a temporary student visa has just been ELECTED as a Green Party MSP to Holyrood in Scotland – despite having no British citizenship, no permanent residency and no right to full-time work.

Where else would this be allowed to happen? It’s insane.

The candidate, Dr Q Manivannan (they/them), arrived in the UK a few years ago as a PhD student and was selected for the Green list in Edinburgh and the Lothians East. Scotland’s rules – relaxed under the SNP – explicitly allow non-citizens to stand for election and take office.

A trans Indian migrant who arrived in the UK a few years ago and is not a citizen or permanent resident was elected to the Scottish parliament as a member of the woke Green Party. Scotland allows non-citizens to become elected to office.

“Q Mannivannan” is set to earn over… pic.twitter.com/3ePA6B0le1

— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) May 9, 2026

Trans Green Party candidate with no permanent British visa is elected to Holyrood https://t.co/KCSmyt3YuE

— Daily Mail (@DailyMail) May 10, 2026

Manivannan’s own victory remarks left nothing to the imagination. “My name is Dr Q Manivannan, I am a transgender Tamil immigrant, my pronouns are they/them.” And later: “I am, to some in this country, everything that the hateful despise, and I’m standing here as your MSP now with care.”

Q Manivannan, transgender Indian migrant now Scottish Greens MSP, arguing for ‘trans pride’.

“Transness is Blackness. Transness is womanhood. Transness is disability. Transness is everything the world wants you to believe that is unlovable.”

He goes on to defend Mridul Wadhwa,… pic.twitter.com/HJOQ6bXqBQ

— ‘New Scots’ Profiles (@NewScotProfiles) May 10, 2026

The individual is clearly not OK mentally.

He’s also racist against White people and suffers extreme mental sickness according to his many posts about it all pic.twitter.com/GrEIiMqZu2

— ddsnorth ™ (@ddsnorth) May 10, 2026

This is not an isolated stunt. The Green Party has become a conduit for an unholy alliance of islamists and gender ideology obsessives.

Deputy leader Mothin Ali was pictured alongside a trans candidate, the awkward expression speaking volumes.

The guy on the left is the Green Party’s deputy leader, Mothin Ali; the woman on the right is one of his party’s trans candidates. The look on his face says it all. Is there a future for this marriage of convenience between Islamist extremism and woke crankery? I doubt it. pic.twitter.com/v9JJWOkRR9

— Never Again (@Never_Again2020) May 9, 2026

Other recent Green candidates reinforce the pattern. In Preston, new councillor “Tina” Balmer declared: “I want to help the city I love.”

? “I want to help the city I love” – Meet Preston’s first ever Green Party councillor, Tina Balmer.??

Tina ffs! ?

Is it Tina but pronounced Trevor? ? pic.twitter.com/GkTmz9zJ4K

— Matt Casey ??????? ?? (@MattCas04807118) May 9, 2026

Here are more Green candidates that stood for election:

Wow these are Green Party Candidates ?

How would you describe this look? pic.twitter.com/FzA29MK4JT

— Benonwine (@benonwine) May 1, 2026

A small compendium of Green Party candidates, make up your own mind about what this says about the state of British politics. pic.twitter.com/9X4nDULsJg

— Kevin Lister (@KevsTribulation) May 8, 2026

“What’s interesting about these Green Party candidates is that they are actually men” pic.twitter.com/DkdTIuL4Ty

— Barry Robson (@barryrobson) May 8, 2026

And here’s the support they’re drawing…

Say hello to ‘Kate’, from the Redbridge Green Party. Not mental at all… pic.twitter.com/xkVGaXBqXI

— RagingDissident_ (@JustRaging01) February 27, 2026

They’ll lecture you all day long about ‘hate’, meanwhile…

How many Green Party Candidates investigated over antisemitic hate:

Just the thirty. pic.twitter.com/Nuftw4gVnz

— Tom Hawklin Jr (@TomHawklin10558) May 7, 2026

Many of them simply don’t bother to speak English:

GB News host Martin Daubney can’t understand the Green Party and neither can we!

Political candidates in Britain should speak English. pic.twitter.com/au6CkSRdVp

— Turning Point UK ?? (@TPointUK) May 8, 2026

Meanwhile, UK Deputy Green Party leader had a meltdown when Piers Morgan asked if in her view women can have penises:

UK Deputy Green Party leader has meltdown after Piers Morgan asked if she thinks women can have “penises.”

“That’s a weird question. Piers it’s a weird question. The answer is the trans community in this country are treated appallingly.” pic.twitter.com/qWVPRg0fdU

— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) May 9, 2026

He asked that question because during a previous exchange, Party leader Zack Polanski went full gender-ideologue, claiming women can have penises and dismissed biological reality.

The party is also pushing to teach schoolchildren they should have a “moral obligation” to accept mass immigration.

The Greens aren’t just pushing open borders and gender ideology – they are the vehicle that fuses the two into one destructive package.

Scotland’s sovereignty is now being exercised by people who aren’t even British citizens, while taxpayers foot the bill for six-figure salaries and the erosion of women’s rights, free speech and national identity.

This isn’t democracy. It’s demographic replacement dressed up as progress – and the Green Party is leading the parade.

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A recent report in Financial Times indicates the European Union is preparing for “potential” future talks with Russia and President Vladimir Putin at a moment of extreme doubts over both US military commitments and Russia’s intentions in Ukraine.

Putin himself during his V-Day speech Saturday hinted for the first time that the conflict may be ‘coming to an end’:

“I ⁠⁠think that the matter is coming to an end,” Putin told reporters of the Russia-Ukraine war, Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.

The Russian leader, however, added he would be willing to meet Zelensky only after the terms of a peace agreement had already been settled. The Kremlin had rejected US President Donald Trump’s August 2025 offer to hold a trilateral meeting with Zelenskyy, Putin and Trump.

“This should be the final point, not the negotiations themselves,” Putin said after the Victory Day, which marks Russia’s victory over Nazi Germany in 1945 in World War II.

Sputnik/Reuters

Also on Saturday, António Costa, the president of the European Council, said to a press conference the EU will only talk to Putin at the “right moment”. Costa ultimately sees “potential” for direct EU engagement with Putin

“We need in the right moment to have talks with Russia to address our common issues with security,” the EU president had said.

“We don’t want to disturb the initiative led by President Trump,” said Costa at a ‘Europe Day’ celebration in Brussels. He also spoke of preparations aimed at being “ready to do what we need to do” regarding Europe’s security.

And separately an EU official said: “There will be a moment when the EU will need to speak to Russia because it’s an existential issue for Europe. Now it’s not the time.”

President Trump has recently blasted NATO as a “paper tiger” (though it wasn’t the first time) and has said the US is withdrawing 5,000 American troops from Germany.

In response, European governments have accelerated discussions on deeper EU military coordination, including joint defense initiatives which bypass US protection.

Currently, the three-day Ukraine ceasefire announced and backed by President Trump appears to have held throughout the weekend, as no drone attacks have been registered on Moscow or other parts of the country. 

Trump had presented this as a window and opportunity to achieve a more permanent truce, and Putin is without doubt seizing on the initiative, but surely wants a final settlement in line with Kremlin aims in Ukraine.

Via Remix News,

Khalid Al-Hail is a defector from the Qatari ruling establishment, the president of the Qatar National Democratic Party, and the country’s most prominent opposition spokesman. Now living in exile in the United Kingdom, he is a successful international businessman and the leading advocate for democratic reform in Qatar, known for exposing the regime’s state-backed influence operations and media manipulation abroad.

I can’t believe how petty this sounds, but I really think western socialists are frightened that the fall of the Ayatollahs will split their vote base. Why on earth else would people whose hearts bled for Palestine be back out in the streets supporting a regime which has matched the death toll of Gaza in just a few months? The clue is in the prevailing ideology of the Western intelligentsia. The signs have been visible for years.

In 2022, a socialist political network within the European Union became embroiled in the so called ‘Qatargate’ scandal, involving cash bribes to close down debate about Qatar’s Human Rights abuses.

As Qatar’s democratic opposition in political exile, I was encouraged by a recent campaign to call the European Union’s attention to this and other abuses of Qatar’s governance in the West. Billboards decried the Al Jazeera Propaganda network, the human rights violations of Qatar’s indentured foreign workforce and Qatar’s constant support for proscribed terrorist organisations including the Taliban, Hamas and Al Qaeda – all of which has been going on for decades.

This is a message to the West and to my European friends!

The Al Thanis, Qatar’s ruling family, are funding terrorism, subverting and corrupting the West, promoting Islamist propaganda, and committing human right abuses.

Help me free my beautiful country of these terrorists! 🇶🇦 pic.twitter.com/T2hF78zrsA

— خالد الهيل KHALID AL-HAIL (@Khalidalhail) May 8, 2026

But the synergy between borderless, European socialism and Qatar’s radical Wahhabi Islamism runs deep.

The reason left liberals stand shoulder to shoulder with Islamist causes is that both ideologies create the same problems for themselves, which can be explained away with the same PR.

Both respect ideology more than nationhood, so they naturally collaborate to attack any society with a strong cultural identity. Both share a Tabula Rasa concept of humanity, resenting freedom of the individuals to express Petit Bourgeoisie or Haram political values. Both interpret justice through the lens of doctrine and revelation, so neither can accept equality under the law. Both are therefore incapable of building or sustaining societal contracts and wealth. Both are in denial about that fact and cover their failures by taking what free societies have built and pretending that they created it themselves. Finally, they both have to silence anybody who exposes the obvious failures of their ideologies. The natural enemy of both is the individualist, independent, thinker who does not wish the state to interfere with his life.

What is unusual about Qatar is that it has a lot of money (I shall avoid saying ‘wealth’ – their resource of natural gas was handed to them by the British along with their state in 1971) so, unlike other Islamist regimes, they can buy strategic influence in the West. I’m not just talking about celebrities and broadcasters like Tucker Carlson. Qatar, a radical Wahhabi State and among the most extreme Islamist societies on Earth, sees that socialist political movements are equipped with idealistic students, newspapers and think tanks – so they have become a generous benefactors of universities, media networks and think tanks – their proteges forming a united front against Israel. 

Qatar also backs terrorist groups, colludes with the Muslim Brotherhood and houses Hamas operatives in Doha while securing exclusive reportage rights for Al Jazeera from the Gaza Strip. Al Jazeera’s Arabic language channel, which meets all the criteria under which RIA Novosti and Russia Today are banned, enjoys the same immunity in the EU as it appears to in the USA. That’s what expensive lobbying can do in democratic societies.

Recent events, however, threaten to break this uneasy Islamist-socialist alliance.

The 1979 revolution in Iran marked the first and only time an ancient, civilised and educated, country was totally subverted by radical Islam. When the Ayatollahs fall and the whole story of the long dark decades which followed is told in the West, it will strike a shattering blow to the marriage of convenience between the liberal left and Islamism.

I suspect that some more cynical Western political actors always knew this day was coming but just kept hoping that it wouldn’t arrive on their watch. Some are determined to ride the alliance into the ground and are now mobilising in full support of the Iranian Islamic regime which has killed tens of thousands of its own citizens in the last few months.

Spotted among a recent pro-Iranian regime march in London were Jeremy Corbyn – the former leader of the UK Labour Party – and Mothin Ali, the deputy leader of the Greens. Meanwhile Zohran Mamdani, the Mayor of New York who appealed to Brooklyn LGBTQ liberals on a pro Palestine platform, has also expressed his disgust at the shaking of the Ayatollahs – as has the Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez who recently naturalised 800,000 illegals. When people complained that the foreigners bring crime to Spain, the far-left Más Madrid spokeswoman Tesh Sidi breezily retorted that they are no longer foreigners but now Spaniards.

Would these figures of the radical left ever apply their own logic to the new arrivals in Israel in 1947? No – obviously they couldn’t – which is to say that the union between those who are all giving of the shared Western inheritance and those who are all taking for Political Islam is now openly inconsistent with its own values.

The shaking of the Ayatollahs in Tehran will be an informative moment in the history of Western self-determination as well as Iran’s. As we saw with East European Communism, as we will see in Gender theory and much of the Net-Zero green agenda, an ideology truly collapses not because of its military defeat or political sabotage but because of its inability to justify its own excesses any further. A recent comment made by Qatar’s ex Prime Minister makes me realise how desperate the game is getting to keep the radical left and Islamists together.

‘As soon as we declare war on Iran, America will withdraw from the conflict, sell weapons to both sides and use our resources to defeat both sides and expand the Greater Israel Project.’

This level of paranoid insanity will always appeal to a few lunatics – but is surely too much, even for the socialist Eurocrats, academics and journalists who take Qatari cash bribes.

Read more here…

Authored by Savannah Halsey Pointer via The Epoch Times,

Celebrations across the United States are expected in the coming months as Americans mark the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding.

Americans can find parties, fireworks, sporting events, and opportunities to learn about history in various locations. The events are being hosted by individual states and the federal government, which established a task force for celebrations this year.

Days after his inauguration, President Donald Trump signed an executive order “to provide a grand celebration worthy of the momentous occasion of the 250th anniversary of American Independence on July 4, 2026.”

That order established the Salute to America 250 Task Force, or “Task Force 250,” for “engaging all levels of government, the private sector, non-profit and educational institutions, and every citizen across the country to celebrate this historic milestone.”

Washington

Many events have been planned in the nation’s capital for the lead-up to the anniversary on July 4—the date the Second Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence, which announced the 13 American colonies’ intent to separate from the British monarchy.

Events kicked off on Dec. 31 2025, with videos projected on the Washington Monument to detail the nation’s history—from its discovery as the “New World” to the present day. That ran through Jan. 5 of this year.

On May 17, the National Mall will host a National Prayer event with worship, testimonies, and music. “Streamed to parishes, the event is amplified through coordinated media and a lead-up series with pastors and partners highlighting the Church’s role in history and civic life,” the White House said.

On Memorial Day, May 25, there will be a Spirit of America Parade, honoring service members and their sacrifice.

The White House will also host an Ultimate Fighting Championship event called UFC Freedom 250. That’s scheduled to take place on June 14 on the South Lawn of the White House and feature an “unprecedented mixed martial arts event.” Confirmed fights include Alex Pereira versus Ciryl Gane for the interim UFC heavyweight title, and Ilia Topuria versus Justin Gaethje for the lightweight title.

The Washington Monument is illuminated with a projection of President Donald Trump’s “Freedom 250” initiative during the New Year’s Eve show at the National Mall in Washington on Dec. 31, 2025. Amid FARAHI/AFP via Getty Images

On July 3, the Official Countdown 250 Ball will take place at the Washington Hilton, about three blocks from the Mall. The black tie event will launch America’s 250th anniversary weekend.

The ball will feature six party zones, four live entertainment stages, premium open bars, the All-American Hero Lifetime Achievement Awards, and a signature midnight countdown to the moment America enters its 250th year.

Starting on June 25 and running through July 10 of this year, a large-scale celebration at the National Mall will feature pavilions for every state and territory, as well as themed exhibits to highlight topics such as arts, innovation, faith, and agriculture in the United States.

The fair will include live performances and traditional fair attractions, as well as interactive exhibits.

More than a million Americans are expected to head to the nation’s capital on July 4 for what the White House calls “one of the grandest displays of patriotism that the world has ever seen.”

The day will feature remarks from Trump and a fireworks display, which the White House is advertising as “the largest pyrotechnics display in the history of the world.” It will also include musical performances and ceremonies honoring both service members and everyday Americans.

North Dakota

In North Dakota, a new presidential library is slated to open in Medora on July 1. The library will feature exhibits on former President Theodore Roosevelt’s life and legacy, as well as galleries and interactive displays.

New York

On July 4, New York Harbor will host Sail 4th 250, an international event of tall ships and naval vessels from more than 30 nations. This event will include parades, performances, and public programming.

It will also include a naval review, showcasing U.S. ships’ power and capabilities.

Pennsylvania

The state of Pennsylvania has positioned itself as a centerpiece of the anniversary in materials about the city’s events, due to Philadelphia’s role in the founding.

The city is considered the birthplace of American independence, because the signing of the Declaration of Independence took place at Independence Hall on July 4, 1776. Additionally, Philadelphia served as the nation’s capital for portions of the Revolutionary era.

According to the city website, “Philly goes bigger than ever in 2026,” touting the largest Independence Day celebration in the nation, which will close out 16 days of festivities with a giant, free-to-attend event on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. The city expects thousands to head to the City Center for the family-friendly event.

Freedom 250’s Timothy Crawford (L) and Nick Bravo (R ) brought their mobile museum “Freedom Truck” to Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida, on Feb. 23, 2026. Jacob Burg/The Epoch Times

Post-July Events

Throughout 2026, the White House’s Freedom 250 initiative has six mobile museums housed in double-wide tractor-trailers crossing the nation.

The “Freedom Trucks” will travel across all 48 contiguous states with their exhibits, visiting schools, parks, and community events. The goal is to reach millions with the interactive displays on American independence and notable figures from U.S. history.

On Aug. 22–23, Washington will play host to the Freedom 250 Grand Prix, which will be the first Indycar race on a street circuit around the National Mall. The White House called the event a “historic moment in American motorsport, designed specifically to celebrate the 250th anniversary.”

The track map of the upcoming Freedom 250 Grand Prix, in Washington on March 9, 2026. Featuring a 1.7 mile course with seven turns on the National Mall, the Aug. 23 event will celebrate America’s 250th birthday. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

In the fall of 2026, the Freedom 250 initiative will launch the Patriot Games—a national competition for high school athletes from every state and territory. The event will pair mentors and students to compete for a $250,000 prize to be split between one male and one female winner.

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

Nobody is going to be able to save the spring planting season in the northern hemisphere now, and that is really bad news because according to the UN the number of people in the world experiencing acute hunger was already at an all-time high even before the war began. A historic global food crisis has been escalating for years, and now farmers all over the northern hemisphere either can’t get the nitrogen fertilizer that they desperately need or they are paying much more for it. As a result, global food prices will start rising dramatically once harvest season rolls around, and in many impoverished nations there simply won’t be enough food for everyone.

During normal times, approximately one-third of all globally-traded nitrogen fertilizer travels through the Strait of Hormuz, but right now it can’t get out of the Persian Gulf thanks to the Iranians. Unfortunately, if that nitrogen fertilizer doesn’t get into the hands of farmers in the northern hemisphere within a certain period of time they will completely miss the application window…

The Hormuz Strait carries roughly one-third of global fertilizer trade. If farmers miss the application window, no amount of catch-up planting can recover the loss. The International Grains Council estimates cumulative global wheat and coarse grain output could fall 53 million tons below last season, a shortfall larger than Ukraine’s entire annual grain export volume in a typical year.

According to a former co-chair of the White House’s Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force, the spring fertilizer application window in the northern hemisphere ends next month…

Spring fertilizer application in the Northern Hemisphere runs through June. Parts of Africa are entering the primary planting season now — a critical window for the continent’s most food-insecure populations. A missed window doesn’t delay a harvest — it eliminates it. The shortfall will be invisible until it materializes in spiking prices and empty shelves next fall.

This is the story the Hormuz blockade coverage is missing. The crisis isn’t just raising energy prices — it is breaking food supply chains. The world is facing a slow-motion catastrophe that will not announce itself until it is too late.

That last sentence is so true.

We really are facing a slow-motion catastrophe.

For example, we are being told that fertilizer shortages and high fuel costs have created a “critical threat” to global rice supplies…

Global rice supplies are facing a critical threat this year as farmers across Asia have been forced to reduce planting due to fertilizer shortages and soaring fuel costs, issues exacerbated by the ongoing Iran war. This situation is compounded by the emerging El Nino effect, which is anticipated to further tighten global rice output.

Rice is central to global food security, and even slight disruptions in supply can have wide-ranging effects. Experts warn that rising prices could pressure household budgets, especially in price-sensitive regions like Asia and Africa.

A lot less rice is going to be grown this year.

Meanwhile, the global population continues to grow.

So who is going to have enough rice to eat?

It won’t be the poor.

The wealthy will buy up whatever is available, and it will be at significantly higher prices.

There are close to 1.6 billion people living in Africa, and we are being warned that they will soon be facing soaring prices and food shortages…

The Iran war could have “dramatic consequences”, causing food shortages and price rises in some of Africa’s poorest and most vulnerable communities, the head of the world’s largest fertiliser company has said.

Svein Tore Holsether, the chief executive of Yara International, said world leaders needed to guard against soaring prices and shortages of fertiliser causing a de facto global auction that would leave the poorest countries, particularly in Africa, scrambling for supplies they could ill afford.

Here in the United States, food will still be available.

But it will cost a lot more than it once did, because farmers will be forced to pass along much higher costs for fertilizer and fuel…

Farmers have already begun to feel the effects, with rising fertilizer costs and shortages in supply.

The effects of the global conflict are being felt all over Ohio, Bales said. They have taken a large toll on areas such as north central Ohio and western Ohio, where a large amount of row cropping occurs.

“(Between the) double whammy of fertilizer and fuel, that is definitely going to make some tough decisions going forward,” said Bales.

This crisis is going to hit us a lot harder than most people realize.

One recent survey discovered that a whopping 70 percent of all U.S. farmers are unable to afford all the fertilizer that they need this year…

The result is wreaking havoc on farmers. An agricultural lobbying group, the American Farm Bureau Federation, ran a survey and found that 70% of farmers couldn’t afford all the fertilizer they needed.

“Fertilizer pre-booking rates varied significantly by region, with just 19% of Southern producers reporting fertilizer purchases secured ahead of the season, compared to 30% in the Northeast, 31% in the West and 67% in the Midwest, reflecting differences in planting decision timelines and exposure to recent price increases,” the AFBF wrote. Farm diesel prices, which fuel the heavy machinery used in the industry (other than small-scale farms that don’t produce the majority of food crops in the country) are up 46% since the end of February, according to the organizations.

We have never been through anything like this.

Some farmers have decided to switch to crops that require less fertilizer, and some farmers have decided not to plant at all this season.

In fact, the number of acres of wheat that U.S. farmers are planting this spring will be the fewest that we have seen “since record keeping began in 1919”.

If the Strait of Hormuz reopened tomorrow, and there is no way that is going to happen, it would take weeks for cargo vessels to reach their destinations.

And once the Strait does finally reopen, we are being told that “it could be months before supply chains normalize”…

“Even if the strait reopens, it will take weeks to bring the plants back online and get them running efficiently … it could be months before supply chains normalize,” the United States House Agriculture Committee wrote in a letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

At this point, there is no saving the spring planting season in the northern hemisphere.

It is going to be a disaster.

Meanwhile, 60 different nations have implemented emergency energy policies within the past two months…

We desperately need the Strait of Hormuz to be reopened.

But the Iranians are telling us that this is going to be how it is from now on.

They are in full control of the Strait, and it appears that they just attacked yet another cargo ship…

A cargo ship was struck by multiple small craft while sailing near the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, UK military officials said.

The ship, which was not immediately identified, was hit right off the coast of Sirik, Iran, just east of the strait, according to the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Centre.

We are still in the very early stages of this nightmare.

If Iran holds the global economy hostage for an extended period of time, we will see economic chaos that is unlike anything we have ever seen before.

But for now most people in the western world are not taking this crisis seriously enough, because they are convinced that it is just a temporary bump in the road.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

Authored by Deborah Palma via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Economics is not a zero-sum game in which one person’s gain comes at another’s expense; nor is it just about numbers or purposeless statistical aggregates, but conscious human action.

Custom image by FEE

Ludwig von Mises, in his work “Human Action,” explains that individuals act to replace a less satisfactory state of affairs with a more satisfactory one. This process is inherently subjective and teleological, meaning that the values guiding economic activity are rooted in individual choices, and not in physical objects themselves.

Economic calculation serves as the bridge between the subjectivity of human desires and the objective reality of scarce resources. Consider a quantity of steel that could be used to build either a hospital or a factory. Without a system of prices reflecting society’s preferences and the relative scarcity of resources, there would be no way to determine which of these projects creates greater value. Economic calculation, expressed through prices, allows for the comparison of alternatives, whilst directing resources toward their most-valued uses.

Similarly, consider an entrepreneur evaluating whether they should open a bakery. They must decide how much to invest in equipment, rent, labor, and so on. By comparing the costs of these factors with the expected revenue from sales, our entrepreneur can estimate whether the business will create value. If revenues are expected to exceed total costs and taxes, there will be profit.

Profit, therefore, is not merely a financial gain, but evidence that scarce resources have been allocated in ways that better satisfy societal needs, because society has, in an undirected way, decided its needs are satisfied this way. Conversely, losses would indicate that those resources should have been allocated to more valuable uses. Without prices, profits, and losses, the entrepreneur would have no way of knowing whether resources are being used efficiently.

In a complex economy with an advanced division of labor, individuals cannot rely solely on their own direct knowledge to decide how to allocate resources among many possible combinations. They require a common denominator that allows for the comparison of costs and benefits. This denominator is the price, which emerges from voluntary exchanges in the market.

Prices are not arbitrary numbers; they are determined by exchange values arising from the competitive interaction between consumers and producers. Price reflects the relative scarcity of a good in relation to all other possible uses of the same factors of production.

When an entrepreneur invests in new technology or capital infrastructure, they rely on monetary calculation to assess whether the value of the final product will exceed the total value of the inputs consumed. This “surplus” is profit, an unmistakable signal that value has been created by, and for, society. The opposite—loss—signals the waste of scarce resources.

The importance of prices becomes even more evident when we examine historical attempts to artificially control them. Throughout history, governments have sought to replace the market price system with centrally-directed mechanisms, and the results have been consistently disastrous.

One of the earliest examples dates back to the reign of Diocletian in the Roman Empire. In 301 AD, the emperor issued the Edict on Maximum Prices, imposing price ceilings on thousands of goods and services, including basic items such as wheat, meat, and clothing, as well as wages for various professions such as farmers, bakers, craftsmen, and teachers. By fixing prices below their market-clearing levels, the policy reduced the incentive for producers to supply these goods, since many could no longer cover their costs or earn a profit. At the same time, artificially low prices increased consumer demand. This imbalance between reduced supply and increased demand led to widespread shortages. As a result, many goods disappeared from official markets and were instead traded illegally at higher prices, contributing to the expansion of black markets and the disruption of normal productive activity. The policy ultimately proved unsustainable and was abandoned due to its failure.

More recently, similar policies were implemented in Brazil under the government of José Sarney, particularly during the Cruzado Plan of 1986. The freezing of prices, initially celebrated as a solution to inflation, quickly resulted in widespread shortages, empty shelves, and the emergence of parallel markets. Unable to adjust prices, producers reduced supply, exposing the inability of such measures to coordinate a complex economy.

More recent cases reinforce this pattern. In Venezuela, strict price controls implemented over the past decades have contributed to chronic shortages, the collapse of domestic production, and increasing dependence on imports. Basic goods disappeared from store shelves, while informal markets became central to the population’s survival.

These episodes produce the same outcome: scarcity. Prices emerge from decentralized interactions between individuals, reflecting their preferences and the relative scarcity of goods. Once formed, however, they also serve to coordinate economic activity by conveying information that guides producers and consumers in their decisions. When prices cease to reflect the relationship between supply and demand, they lose this informational and coordinating function. Instead of promoting order, price controls generate disorganization, shortages, and waste.

Mises’s thesis was challenged by economists such as Oskar Lange, who proposed a form of “market socialism.” Lange argued that a planning board could simulate the market through a process of trial and error, adjusting prices as surpluses or shortages emerged. However, Mises and his student Friedrich Hayek refuted this view, emphasizing that the problem is not merely one of data processing. The crucial point is that the data required for economic calculation, such as subjective preferences and local knowledge, only come into existence through real market exchanges.

Attempts to treat the economy as a system of simultaneous equations, in which equilibrium can be mathematically determined, ignore the dynamic nature of reality. The market is a continuous process of discovery, not a static state of rest. The economy cannot be managed like a problem of engineering or mechanical physics, because it involves constant change, subjective expectations, and genuine uncertainty, elements that no fixed equation can fully capture.

Under socialism, the abolition of private property in the means of production destroys the very concept of capital as a calculable value. When the state owns all higher-order goods (machines, land, and raw materials), there are no exchanges between private owners for these items. Consequently, there are no market prices for capital goods. Without these prices, the central planner, no matter how well-intentioned, lacks the necessary information to determine whether they are creating wealth or merely consuming the nation’s capital.

From the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

Utah-based defense tech firm Hypercraft has unveiled a 300 hp diesel-hybrid-electric unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) that can power directed-energy weapons, charge drones, and sustain a forward command post, all autonomously.

Defense Blog’s Dylan Malyasov reports that Hypercraft’s Razorback UGV can travel 280 miles on a single charge, reach speeds of 60 mph, and export 38 kilowatts of power, which is enough to power laser weapons and recharge drones.

Razorback is being positioned as a critical energy source for forward operating units that need power for drones, electronic warfare, ISR, counter-UAS systems, and communications. The UGV is also designed to move supplies and support infrastructure on the modern battlefield.

The role of UGVs on the battlefield is still being shaped in real time by the Russia-Ukraine war, where robots, whether ground bots or drones, are increasingly removing infantrymen from harm’s way as the grinding fight evolves into a war of attrition fought by machines.

The wars across Eurasia, from Ukraine-Russia to the U.S.-Iran conflict, have validated a new style of warfare in which cheap ground robots and drones increasingly operate in ‘no man’s land’ (front lines). The next phase is already coming: humanoid systems entering the battlespace as militaries look to push more machines, not infantrymen, into the kill zone.

Authored by Aaron Gifford via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

New organized labor reforms signed into law by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last week require a majority of members to be present for teachers union certification or recertification votes, increase fines for illegal strikes, and establish merit-based pay for educators.

Students join striking teachers as they demand higher pay and smaller class sizes outside Oakland Technical High School in Oakland, Calif., on Feb. 21, 2019. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

In Idaho, after July 1, teachers unions will be prohibited from collecting dues directly from members’ paychecks, using paid time off for union activities, or recruiting new members during school hours.

A similar law in Arizona, which also bans teacher strikes and prohibits organized labor members from using any school property—even email addresses—for union activities, will be decided on by voters in the November election.

“They can’t consume taxpayer-funded resources during the school day,” said Rusty Brown, special projects director for the Freedom Foundation policy organization, which assisted state legislators with those measures and helps teachers opt out of union membership.

These ideas are expected to gain ground throughout the nation in the months and years ahead, Brown told The Epoch Times.

Individually, the Freedom Foundation’s Teacher Freedom Alliance has so far helped more than 272,535 teachers opt out of union membership, including more than 50,000 in 2025 alone, according to data provided to The Epoch Times. This includes educators in red and blue states.

At the state level, Oklahoma lawmakers have advanced legislation that would allow teachers to withdraw from a union at any time and would terminate “closed shop” provisions that prevent teachers from accessing alternative labor or professional organizations, such as the Teacher Freedom Alliance.

Brown calls this an “equal access and an end to a monopoly and captive audience bill.” Alternative organizations can offer teacher liability insurance and other benefits at a fraction of the price that traditional unions charge, he said.

Brown said he believes that the legislation could pass before Oklahoma’s session ends later this month, but the member withdrawal proposal probably won’t go through this session.

Alabama state lawmakers will consider legislation similar to Oklahoma’s next session, he said.

Maxford Nelsen, Freedom Foundation’s director of research and government affairs, said several factors prompted growing interest in pushing back against teachers unions. Members do not like that dues are automatically deducted from their paychecks. There is increasing animosity toward “zombie unions,” in which a limited number of members are informed or allowed to vote on matters. Labor organizations also engage in practices that create very narrow windows and bureaucratic hurdles for terminating membership.

“That’s the last thing they want to think about during their summer vacation,” Nelsen told The Epoch Times, citing one union’s requirement in which opt-outs were limited to the last 10 days of July.

Perhaps the most contentious issue, Nelson said, is how teachers union dues are spent. A review of the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers unions’ websites shows that both heavily favor Democrats and promote transgender ideology; diversity, equity, and inclusion practices; special protections for illegal immigrants; anti-school choice measures; and other left-leaning policies.

“Hundreds of millions of dollars are flowing into this progressive apparatus,” Nelson said.

A recent report from Defending Education, a conservative policy center, states that teachers unions at the local, state, and national levels have spent more than $1 billion on “far-left political causes” unrelated to collective bargaining since 2015. This includes school board races, political action committees, and campaigns against school choice.

“Given the outsized role that unions have played in the education system over the past 50 years, greater transparency on union spending is absolutely critical so that policymakers and teachers themselves can make informed decisions about the role that these entities should—or should not—play in the future,” Defending Education President Nicole Neily said in an April 27 statement.

The Epoch Times reached out to the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers unions for comment.

In response to prior Florida legislation that prohibited teachers unions from deducting dues directly from paychecks, the Florida Education Association contracted with a company to withdraw dues from members’ bank accounts after their paychecks are deposited.

“This type of ‘paycheck deception’ legislation is nothing new and has been wielded across the country to weaken unions and roll back working conditions,” the Florida Education Association stated on its website. “It’s no secret that this legislation is designed to diminish our collective voice.”

The Idaho Education Association teachers union implemented a similar system. It also denounced Idaho Gov. Brad Little for refusing to veto the legislation.

“Idaho’s students and the dedicated professionals who teach them will be worse off because of his choice,” the union’s president, Layne McInelly, said in an April 10 statement. “They deserve better.”

The Freedom Foundation is scrutinizing public organized labor groups across the nation, not just teachers unions. In Oregon, it recently submitted a complaint to the state employment relations board on behalf of a union member who said dues were deducted from his paycheck without his authorization. He asked for a refund and requested to opt out of the union, only to be told that the window to do so is Aug. 8 through Sept. 9, according to documentation provided to The Epoch Times.

Nelsen did not work on that case but said this type of practice by unions is common in an era of direct deposits and withdrawals and digital forms.

“There are no mechanisms in place to verify that the individual workers have authorized the form, let alone understand it,” he said.

While the digital US economy, if proxied through the earnings growth and stock prices of AI companies and their “picks and shovels” support ecosystem, has never been stronger, the traditional US consumer, responsible for 70% of US GDP, has rarely been more depressed than right now (and according to the latest University of Michigan sentiment survey, Americans have literally never been more pessimistic). 

That was the take home message from the latest earnings week, when various executives across retail, restaurants and packaged goods indicated they are increasingly worried about US shoppers – especially those from the” lower half” of the K-shaped economy – with tighter budgets amid surging gas prices caused by the Iran war, and consumer electronics prices through the roof thanks to record memory chip prices.

“They’re literally running out of money at the end of the month,” Kraft Heinz CEO Steve Cahillane said in an interview with the WSJ . “We’re seeing negative cash flows in the lower-income brackets where they’re dipping into savings.” Sure enough, last week we showed that as a result of personal spending growth far outpacing personal income…

… the personal savings rate has collapsed to a 3 year low.

This underscores a remarkable trend: since the pandemic, Americans have continued to spend at surprising levels despite high inflation, keeping the US economy growing and thwarting recession fears, with much of the spending growth fueled by credit card debt, with February’s $10BN+ increase in credit card debt the highest since February 2024.

But soaring fuel costs might be the straw that breaks the overlevered camel’s back: “The war in Iran amplified consumer concerns about the cost of living,” Whirlpool. CEO Marc Bitzer said Thursday on a call with analysts. The maker of washers and dryers said it’s counting on purchases picking up after a harsh US winter slowed shopping, but the war caused a collapse in consumer sentiment. The company described the resulting 15% hit to industry demand as similar to the global financial crisis in the aughts. In other words a depression.

In fast food, McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski said confidence among shoppers isn’t improving and may be getting worse. The company cited “heightened anxiety” and gas prices that disproportionately impact low-income consumers.

Sit-down dining is also taking a hit. “Our price-sensitive, more value-oriented guests seem to be staying home a bit more,” Dine Brands CEO John Peyton said on an earnings call this week. The company, which owns the Applebee’s and IHOP chains, said it hasn’t seen a similar pullback in other income levels.

Meanwhile, eyewear retailer Warby Parker  said younger shoppers are feeling the pinch from higher-than-usual unemployment and student debt bills.

Gas prices, now at $4.56 a gallon on average, are at their highest levels since July 2022, according to data from the American Automobile Association. As shoppers put more of their income toward fuel, they have less money for discretionary spending like eating out. Enlarged tax refunds helped blunt some of the impact, but sentiment has still soured to a record low.

Americans are putting less away as they try to keep up, with the savings rate dropping in March to the lowest in three years. Meanwhile, economists warn the disruptions from the war in Iran could lead to higher prices for a range of goods over time, including groceries, putting even more pressure on low-income households and draining what little savings are left. 

Low-income consumers have already cut back on real gasoline consumption to try to limit costs, according to recent research published by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

In the near term, Americans can draw down savings or tap credit cards, but the longer gas prices stay high, the more consumers will change their spending patterns to balance their budgets, said Bill Adams, chief economist at Comerica Bank.

Planet Fitness on Thursday fell the most on record after cutting its full-year outlook on weaker-than-expected member signups during the typically busy New Year period.

The gym chain also said it paused the national rollout of a price increase to its top-tier membership, with CEO Colleen Keating making it clear why that decision was made. “The consumer and economic backdrop have shifted,” she said.