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The sharpest signals, deepst dives and must-read reports from Citizen Watch Report.

Why millions to make billions when you could pay trillions to make millions! Firms spend $61.9B on AI in 2025, most still waiting for results. 42% of pilot projects scrapped. McKinsey calls it the “generative paradox”

$61.9 billion. That’s how much companies are spending on generative AI in 2025. IDC says investment jumped 94% this year. https://www.business-standard.com/technology/tech-news/genai-paradox-companies-pouring-billions-into-ai-it-has-yet-to-pay-off-125081302003_1.html The payoff? Still nowhere to be seen. McKinsey finds nearly 80% of firms use generative AI—but the same number say it hasn’t boosted the bottom line. https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2025/08/14/companies-are-pouring-billions-into-ai-it-has-yet-to-pay-off Pilot projects are collapsing fast. S&P Global …

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Trump deals billion-dollar immunity to Big Tech while demanding a cut of AI chip exports.

Trump didn’t deregulate Big Tech. He sold them immunity. “At the beginning of Trump’s second term, at least 104 technology sector corporations faced at least 143 federal investigations and enforcement actions. So far, 47 of those enforcement actions (against 45 tech corporations) have been withdrawn or halted (38 withdrawn, nine halted).” https://www.citizen.org/news/trump-puts-big-tech-above-the-law-amid-industrys-billion-dollar-influence-campaign/ The cost was …

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Sure, delete your emails. Just don’t forget to turn off the AI servers first

UK government wants you to delete old emails and pictures to save water https://www.gov.uk/government/news/national-drought-group-meets-to-address-nationally-significant-water-shortfall Not satire. Not a parody. Real advice from a government facing its worst drought since 1976. They’re calling it a “nationally significant incident.” And their solution? Clear your inbox. Because data centres use water to cool their systems. Because your unread …

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Palantir posts $1B quarter and 140% contract growth but short seller Andrew Left says the stock is wildly overpriced and headed for a crash

“It’s a retail darling… I like Alex Karp, I like his politics, I like him as a person… But even if Palantir was the greatest company ever created and you slapped the highest possible multiple on it, the stock is still trading above that. It has gotten absurd.” https://www.benzinga.com/trading-ideas/short-ideas/25/08/47107749/gamestop-short-seller-andrew-left-is-taking-on-retail-investors-again-now-says-palantir-stock-is-beyond-overvalued “You cannot be a big data …

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$609K HACLA, $219K Metro, $2M to his own org. LA councilmember Price under fire for alleged embezzlement

“Between October 2019 and June 2020, the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles paid about $609,600 to Del Richardson & Associates, a company owned by Price’s wife… Price participated and voted in favor of a $35 million federal grant and a state grant application for $252 million… Price’s staff flagged the conflict before …

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Kind of feels like we’re peaking in a lot of ways…

This is the real story nobody on Wall Street wants to admit: the financial world is booming, but the real economy is bleeding. People are skipping meals, drowning in debt, and struggling to pay rent while markets hit record highs. Money printing didn’t just inflate assets, it shredded everyday life for millions. You can’t celebrate …

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So we are not in a housing shortage?

1) According to John Burns, from 2022-24, all of the growth in renter households came from immigration. While only 5% of buyer demand came from immigration. pic.twitter.com/hrjxgn5n1h — Nick Gerli (@nickgerli1) August 14, 2025 3) According to RealPage, there were 227k apartment units absorbed in Q2 2025, which was above last year. And allowed the …

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In Our New High Tech Dystopia, The Elite Are “Breeding Smarter Babies” As They Pursue New Technologies That Will Allow Them To “Live Forever”

by Michael The high tech elite that have accumulated so much wealth and so much power over the past couple of decades really are trying to create an entirely new class of people.  While the majority of the population continues to decline physically and mentally, they intend to use technology to transform themselves and their …

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Crypto derivatives primed to spark global meltdown 10 times bigger than 2008 crash

If 2008 was a house fire, crypto derivatives are a fireworks factory next to a gas station. “Derivatives are driving the growth and sophistication of investment in cryptocurrency markets… now account for the majority of daily volume, outpacing spot trading in size and impact… In 2025 alone, global annual derivative volumes are approaching an estimated …

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PPI came in hotter than expected! Foreign producers refuse to cut prices despite tariffs

HOLY FCUK NEVER SEEN A HOTTER PPI OMG Expectation was .2 % It came in at 1% 😱 — tic toc (@TicTocTick) August 14, 2025 Blowout PPI pic.twitter.com/GIHSOuSS1o — TT3 (@TradingThomas3) August 14, 2025 PPI. pic.twitter.com/NYsazFsA0x — Heisenberg (@Mr_Derivatives) August 14, 2025 Core PPI has risen by 0.6% . The services sector inflation has risen …

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The Big Moment Has Arrived – This Is Why The Meeting Between Trump And Putin Will Be One Of The Most Important Events In Modern History

by Michael Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are about to make decisions that could radically alter the trajectory of human history.  When they meet in Alaska on Friday, the stakes will be incredibly high.  If they are able to agree to some sort of a deal, the world will rejoice.  But if the meeting goes …

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Still think you wont be sued, Hunter? You can’t tell lies without proof you will pay.

Hunter Biden tossed out a line in a Channel 5 interview: “Epstein introduced Melania to Trump. The connections are, like, so wide and deep.” https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/first-lady-melania-trump-puts-hunter-biden-on-1b-notice-over-false-defamatory-epstein-comments/ar-AA1Ktxs3 Melania Trump’s lawyer Alejandro Brito didn’t flinch. He sent a $1B demand letter calling the claim “false, defamatory, disparaging, and inflammatory.” https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-14/melania-trump-sues-hunter-biden/105650958 Hunter’s source? Michael Wolff. The same one The …

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Trump touts trillions from tariffs, and Bessent floats expanding export taxes, together creating the largest tax hike in American history.

“Trillions of dollars is coming in from tariffs.” – Trump https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/trump-says-his-tariffs-collected-trillions-in-revenue-so-far-here-s-the-real-figure/ar-AA1KoVft Yeah. The largest tax hike in American history. Tariff imports are a tax on Americans. Now they’re thinking about taxing exports too. Insane. 🔴 US Treasury Secretary Bessent floats rolling out export tax to more industries – FT. — FinancialJuice (@financialjuice) August 13, 2025 …

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Newsom moves to redraw California maps to end Trump presidency; Speaker warns of third impeachment if democrats win house

Newsom didn’t leak it. He posted it. All caps. All bait. “DONALD ‘TACO’ TRUMP… MISSED THE DEADLINE!!!” He said California will draw “beautiful maps” to “END THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY.” No draft. No legal path. Just the threat. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/newsom-says-california-to-draw-congressional-maps-to-end-trump-presidency/ar-AA1Ksr5N Texas triggered it. GOP maps drop five new seats. California counters with a legislative override — if …

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AI chip shipments bugged: US targets Nvidia and Super Micro with secret trackers to monitor China-bound servers

The US government is no longer warning, it’s wiring. Reuters confirms federal agencies are embedding tracking devices in AI chip shipments to catch illegal diversions to China. https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-embeds-trackers-ai-chip-shipments-catch-diversions-china-sources-2025-08-13/ If this is in the news it means the FBI likely already did it and if that’s the case $NVDA but most of all $SMCI are in …

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Matt Taibbi predicts ‘significant’ indictments from DOJ Obamagate probe. Hillary Clinton is a criminal target of grand jury.

MATT TAIBBI PREDICTS SIGNIFICANT INDICTMENTS IN OBAMAGATEpic.twitter.com/8TNLyMFWFg — Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) August 13, 2025 Even Joe Scarborough knows DC isn’t safe: “I have friends, that work in the media that say they're and they don't feel safe walking three blocks in Washington, DC.” If members of the media know DC isn’t safe, why aren’t …

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Russian Forces Achieve A Major Breakthrough In Ukraine, And That Will Complicate Last-Ditch Peace Talks In Alaska On Friday

by Michael Decisions that are made in the coming days will have enormous implications for the future of humanity. I love the fact that President Trump is going to sit down with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday. But the fact that Russian forces are penetrating very deeply into Ukrainian-held territory in the …

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EIA forecasts crude to hit $50 in 2026, lowest since pandemic. OPEC floods market, US rigs shut down below $70 breakeven

EIA now sees Brent crude falling below $60 by the end of 2025 and averaging around $50 through 2026. https://www.eia.gov/pressroom/releases/press573.php The US rig count is already in freefall. It’s down to 411 this week, from 487 in January. Back in December 2022, there were 780 rigs running. That’s a 52% collapse. https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/crude-oil-rigs OPEC+ has reversed …

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Americans ditch alcohol in record numbers. Gen Z drives collapse in drinking culture. Bars are doomed

Gallup’s 2025 Consumption Habits survey shows only 54% of US adults drank alcohol in the past year. That’s down from 62% in 2023 and 58% in 2024 — the lowest share Gallup has ever recorded. https://www.aol.com/us-alcohol-consumption-record-low-103851807.html A slim majority now see drinking as a health risk. 53% say moderate alcohol use is bad for you, …

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GPT-5 was trained on synthetic outputs, meaning AI models are now learning from other AI-generated content.

OpenAI has confirmed that GPT-4.5 was trained on synthetic data generated by smaller models, and GPT-5 has expanded the same pipeline. The company is not revealing the datasets used or how much synthetic material is in the mix. https://openai.com/index/introducing-gpt-4-5/ Its research head says the shift to synthetic data comes from a scarcity of high-quality public …

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U.S. Stock Market at its most expensive valuation since the Great Depression. Record $1 trillion margin debt fuels market surge

U.S. Stock Market at its most expensive valuation since the Great Depression 🚨 Probably Fine? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/JVCijfR202 — Barchart (@Barchart) August 11, 2025 Guess what the biggest driver of this stock market rally has been? Leverage. For the first time ever, margin debt has topped $1 trillion and has ballooned +25% over the past year. Fully one-fifth of …

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“This is why they want me dead”. Nick Fuentes just blew the lid on the ENTIRE operation. And he brought the receipts:

The Thiel-Musk-Sacks consortium, who own JD Vance, and their quietly advancing coup. In two minutes. Pray for @NickJFuentes, because he just blew the lid on the ENTIRE operation. And he brought the receipts: pic.twitter.com/JfycY4JzT8 — David J. Reilly 🇺🇸 (@realDaveReilly) August 12, 2025 @grok any truth to this ? The video outlines real connections: Thiel …

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In his first 5 months, Trump has launched almost as many military strikes as Biden did in 4 years. What happened to no new wars?

Sauce for the image. Also, just looking at the number of bombs he’s dropped is also misleading, you have to look at the size of them and where the attacks were launched. Case in point, the bunker buster bombs he dropped on Iran’s nuclear sites, are a massive escalation in global tensions. They are the largest …

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Some of Trump’s STRONGEST Original Supporters Now Call Him a “Sell-Out” or “Betrayer” or “Victim of the Deep State.”

by David Haggith You may have thought I’d be writing about inflation today since it is the main economic topic in today’s news, and I did—quite a lot actually—but I’m going to save it for my Deeper Dive because there is another inflation report coming out on Thursday to which I want to compare everything …

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Texas data centers guzzle billions of gallons while residents face drought restrictions

Microsoft and the Army Corps pulled 463 million gallons out of San Antonio between 2023 and 2024. https://www.sacurrent.com/news/san-antonio-data-centers-guzzled-463-million-gallons-of-water-as-area-faced-drought-38116670 The city was under Stage 3 drought rules. Residents could water lawns once a week. https://www.newsweek.com/texas-data-center-water-artificial-intelligence-2107500 In 2025, Texas data centers are projected to use 49 billion gallons. By 2030, the number jumps to 399 billion gallons …

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Digital privacy for me, not for thee: officer records go live, politicians suddenly care

1.5 million pages of police misconduct and use-of-force records. Twelve thousand cases. Nearly 700 California law enforcement agencies. https://filtermag.org/california-police-misconduct-database/ The Police Records Access Project is live. UC Berkeley and Stanford built it. CalMatters, LA Times, SF Chronicle, and KQED put it out. https://journalism.berkeley.edu/police-records-access/ You can search by officer name, agency, or case type. Shootings, beatings, …

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Tariffs rake in $27.7B, but July spending wipes out the gains and burns $630B in 31 days. The US deficit is on pace to hit $3.5 trillion

US deficit hit $291B in July. That’s a $3.5 trillion yearly pace without a war or a recession. Just “normal” Washington spending. https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2025-08/61304-MBR.pdf Tariffs brought in $25B. Trump called it “incredible revenue.” The same month, the government spent $630B. That’s pocket change against a tidal wave. https://www.crfb.org/blogs/tariffs-are-generating-meaningful-new-revenue Social Security payouts jumped $108B. Medicare and Medicaid …

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