Dr Maslow, please report to the National Day Room. Dr Maslow - to the day room ASAP.
May 29, 2026
May 28, 2026
On The Nature Of Trump
Feb 2025
Trump’s Stated Motives Seldom Reveal Agenda
I know a little something that so many do not appreciate about Donald, but those of us who worked with him in the financial services game have known for decades — long before he ever made a run at politics.
His stated motives rarely reveal his true agenda. His showmanship and charisma bedazzles the uninformed, which is exactly how he likes it. He never signed a contract or met an agreement he wouldn’t violate or wriggle out of if it suited his hidden agenda. He never met an investor whose purse he didn’t consider his own in some strategic way. And he never met a human being he wouldn’t screw in order to advance or satisfy himself.
I know a little something that so many do not appreciate about Donald, but those of us who worked with him in the financial services game have known for decades — long before he ever made a run at politics.
His stated motives rarely reveal his true agenda. His showmanship and charisma bedazzles the uninformed, which is exactly how he likes it. He never signed a contract or met an agreement he wouldn’t violate or wriggle out of if it suited his hidden agenda. He never met an investor whose purse he didn’t consider his own in some strategic way. And he never met a human being he wouldn’t screw in order to advance or satisfy himself.
- If you want to understand his beef with Panama, don’t look at the canal to which he now points. Look at Trump enterprises and their fraught financial and criminal relationship with Panama, and look to the Russian oligarchs who bought condos in his Panama Tower.
- If you want to understand his fixation with Gaza, don’t look at the Palestinian or Israeli people. Look at the real estate value he now perceives that Gaza holds, and that he’d like to unlock.
- If you want to understand his insane, obsessive beef with energy renewable windmills, don’t look at the wind energy aspect. Look at his beef with Scotland over his golf course and the nearby windmills that damaged his idea of its aesthetics.
- If you want to understand his irrational hatred of Obama, don’t look at the policies of the Obama administration. Look to the annual press corp dinner in 2011 where Obama poked fun at him and bruised his ego.
- If you want to understand his demonization of Democrats, look not to Democratic social policy, but to the fact they didn’t want him to run under the color of their party.
- If you want to understand his hatred of immigrants, don’t look to the actual contributions and challenges related to immigration, but his own germophobia and personal disgust for all things “dirty and brown.”
What Trump does so masterfully, as many sociopaths do, is figure out how to align, however temporarily, his own personal agenda with the drives of those he can then use to help him execute it. And the Republican Party fell right in line with that abusive strategy in 2016, and has never deviated from it.
The GOP now looks much like a battered wife who would love to quit Trump, but who also knows their financial security, personal comfort, and social status would collapse if they ran away. And they fear they won’t get much sympathy or support from the people who tried to warn them not to marry the dude — a serial liar, cheater, thief, sadist, and a generally Bad Person.
Many Republican politicians today are busily masking their own abuse from the general public. But at some point, however, as they watch their power continue to erode, their reputations get smashed, and themselves blamed for the extensive abuse they now suffer, something’s going to give.
I don’t know what it is, but every bone in my body feels an energetic convergence heading toward a massive, massive explosion coming soon.
The GOP now looks much like a battered wife who would love to quit Trump, but who also knows their financial security, personal comfort, and social status would collapse if they ran away. And they fear they won’t get much sympathy or support from the people who tried to warn them not to marry the dude — a serial liar, cheater, thief, sadist, and a generally Bad Person.
Many Republican politicians today are busily masking their own abuse from the general public. But at some point, however, as they watch their power continue to erode, their reputations get smashed, and themselves blamed for the extensive abuse they now suffer, something’s going to give.
I don’t know what it is, but every bone in my body feels an energetic convergence heading toward a massive, massive explosion coming soon.
More A.I. Slop-iness
Cybercab driving itself out of the GigaTexas factory pic.twitter.com/EwAMVVDjYy
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 28, 2026
A major Reuters investigation published today reveals that Tesla’s widely touted “Full Self-Driving” safety statistics are built on deeply flawed methodology — and that the company’s own data labelers, the workers who train the AI system, don’t trust the technology to drive them.
The report, based on interviews with nine former Tesla data labelers, a former self-driving engineer, and 11 traffic-safety researchers, paints a damning picture of the gap between Tesla’s safety marketing and the reality of its autonomous driving program.
Tesla’s safety stats inflated by a factor of 3
We’ve been calling out Tesla’s misleading FSD safety claims for a while now, and the Reuters investigation confirms the core problem with hard data.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk and other executives have repeatedly claimed that “Full Self-Driving” is up to 10 times safer than human drivers. Tesla CFO Vaibhav Taneja first made this claim last July, and Tesla Board Chair Robyn Denholm repeated it at a November shareholder meeting. Musk himself displayed a chart at that meeting claiming “85% less crashes.”
Reuters found that a central comparison error inflated Tesla’s claimed safety level by a factor of three. Tesla counted crashes where airbags deployed in its own vehicles, then compared that number to federal data that includes all crashes requiring a tow truck — a far less severe threshold. Tow-truck crashes often don’t involve airbag deployments at all.
The critical point: the federal data Tesla used already included airbag-deployment crashes as a separate category. Tesla could have made a valid apples-to-apples comparison but chose not to.
When University of Michigan researcher Marco Benedetti performed the correct comparison — airbag crashes for Teslas versus airbag crashes for all vehicles — the result dropped from “10 times safer” to roughly three times farther between crashes. And even that figure is unreliable because of additional methodological problems, including the massive age gap between Tesla’s fleet (4.1 years average) and the overall U.S. fleet (12.8 years).
As Carnegie Mellon professor Phil Koopman put it: “It’s like saying: ‘My jet airplane is faster than your World War II bomber.’ Yeah, so, what’s your point?”
Ten of the 11 traffic-safety researchers who reviewed Tesla’s methodology for Reuters said the statistics amounted to misleading marketing rather than a serious safety investigation.
‘Don’t trust Elon on this’
Beyond the statistics, the Reuters report reveals what Tesla employees actually think about the technology they help build.
Seven of the nine former data labelers told Reuters they wouldn’t trust FSD to drive them. One said he wouldn’t ride in a Tesla robotaxi “if you fucking paid me.” A veteran self-driving engineer who reviewed Tesla crash data for years called the company’s safety claims “bullshit” and said: “Definitely, don’t trust Elon on this.”
The data labelers, based primarily in a Utah office, review video footage from the eight exterior cameras on Tesla vehicles using FSD. They described regularly seeing FSD fail at basic tasks: pulling over for emergency vehicles, giving motorcyclists enough space, braking on freeway off-ramps, and avoiding construction zones. In one incident, a Tesla drove into a construction zone and nearly struck workers.
A specialized team in Palo Alto, known internally as the “trauma team,” focused specifically on near-misses with pedestrians. Former employees described seeing clips of FSD-piloted Teslas nearly hitting children and failing to recognize pedestrians in crosswalks.
The report also details FSD regularly exceeding speed limits by 20 to 30 mph after Tesla introduced a “Mad Max” mode for more aggressive driving, with one labeler reporting an FSD vehicle traveling 60 mph in a 25-mph zone.
The robotaxi mapping that undermines Musk’s key claim
One of the most significant findings in the Reuters investigation is how Tesla extensively mapped its robotaxi operating zones before public launches — directly contradicting Musk’s central claim that Tesla’s approach doesn’t require the “laborious local mapping” used by rivals like Waymo.
For weeks before the October 2024 Cybercab unveiling at the Warner Bros. studio lot, staff tested prototypes every night from 6 p.m. until dawn, collecting video of the exact routes the cars would follow. Data labelers spent hundreds of hours annotating curbs and road markings to prevent embarrassing incidents.
The same thing happened before the Austin robotaxi launch in June 2025. Tesla extensively filmed features in the limited robotaxi zone to map stop lights, road signs, and other features. The Utah data-labeling staff doubled to about 300 workers in the six months before launch, working primarily on making the Austin test go smoothly.
We’ve previously reported on how Tesla’s robotaxi expansion looked more like a stock pump than a genuine scaling effort, and more recently that the fleet is actually shrinking rather than growing. The Reuters report now explains why scaling is so difficult: the labor-intensive safeguards Tesla deploys for each launch zone are extremely difficult to replicate broadly.
Nearly a year after the Austin launch, Tesla still operates only about 20 unsupervised robotaxis there, traversing a limited and carefully mapped zone. Some still have human safety monitors in the front seat.
As one former employee told Reuters about the Austin zone: “You can’t get creative outside of that.”
A growing pile of investigations and lawsuits
The Reuters report arrives at a time when Tesla faces mounting regulatory scrutiny over FSD. NHTSA currently has four active investigations into FSD and Autopilot, including a probe into dozens of cases where FSD ran red lights or turned into oncoming traffic, and an investigation into whether Tesla’s 2023 Autopilot recall was sufficient.
Tesla was also hit with a $243 million verdict after an Autopilot crash in Florida killed a 22-year-old woman, and the company has struggled to turn over FSD traffic violation data to NHTSA investigators.
Musk told shareholders in November that Tesla would soon let drivers text while using FSD. Six months later, the company hasn’t done so, and its own FSD website continues to warn: “Currently enabled features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous.”
Electrek’s Take
None of this is surprising to anyone who has been paying close attention. We’ve been documenting FSD’s pattern of repeated safety claims that don’t hold up, version after version, year after year. What the Reuters investigation adds is the internal perspective — and it’s devastating.
The fact that Tesla’s own data labelers, the people who see FSD’s performance every single day, overwhelmingly don’t trust the system to drive them should tell you everything you need to know about the gap between Musk’s promises and reality.
The statistical methodology issue is particularly damning because it’s not a subtle error. Tesla had access to the correct comparison data and chose to use a metric that inflated its safety claims by 3x. That’s not a choice you make by accident. And when 10 out of 11 independent traffic-safety researchers call your safety report “misleading marketing,” you have a credibility problem that no software update can fix.
All Together Now
Ew
Notice how the lady puts on some speed to get up those steps, and out of the line of fire.
Those are deep
— Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini) 🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@AdamKinzinger) May 28, 2026
Told ya pic.twitter.com/ZDlI8T0BfR
More Slippage
More workers are raiding their 401(k)s as average balances fall, Fidelity says
Key Points
- Retirement balances fell in the first quarter of 2026 amid severe market volatility sparked by the Iran war, according to a new report by Fidelity.
- At the same time, more savers tapped their accounts for cash out of financial necessity.
- Most financial experts advise against raiding a 401(k) since you’ll be forfeiting the power of compound interest.
Financial pressures pushed more savers to tap their retirement accounts in the first part of 2026, new data shows — potentially locking in losses during the early weeks of the Iran war.
Amid severe market volatility earlier this year, the average 401(k) balance fell by 4% to $141,000, according to first-quarter data released Thursday from Fidelity Investments, the nation’s largest provider of 401(k) savings plans.
The average individual retirement account balance was also down 4% to $131,380 in the first quarter, Fidelity found.
The drop was due to the outbreak of the Iran war, which sparked a stock selloff, according to Kirsten Hunter Peterson, vice president of workplace thought leadership at Fidelity Investments. “Luckily, a couple of months later, we are trending in a much better direction,” she said, referring to recent market highs.
After the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, the S&P 500 lost 5.1% in March for its worst monthly performance since 2022. The Dow dropped 5.4%, snapping a 10-month winning streak. The Nasdaq declined 4.8%.
Markets have since rebounded from earlier losses. As of Wednesday’s close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up roughly 5.3% year to date, while the S&P 500 rose nearly 10% and the Nasdaq Composite gained 14.8%.
More workers are pulling money from their 401(k)s
However, more savers also tapped their accounts to free up cash during this time, which experts say is a sign of underlying financial strain.
The share of workers with an outstanding loan at the end of the first quarter of 2026 was 19.2%, up slightly from 18.8% a year earlier, according to Fidelity. About 2.4% of workers took out a new loan from their 401(k) in the first quarter, up from 2.3% in 2025.
The share of workers taking a hardship withdrawal, which is broken out separately, also rose year over year to 2.5% from 2.3%, Fidelity found. A hardship withdrawal can be taken from a retirement plan without paying an early withdrawal penalty for an “immediate and heavy financial need,” according to the IRS.
Get this delivered to your inbox, and more info about our products and services.
By signing up for newsletters, you are agreeing to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Many households have struggled in the face of rising prices for necessities like groceries and gas due to the Iran war. As a result, consumers have had less room in their budgets to cover an unexpected expense or emergency, experts say.
In most cases, workers take hardship withdrawals for less than $2,000, Fidelity’s Hunter Peterson said, which is “not so significant.” But some are taking more than one hardship withdrawal in a year, which indicates a more precarious financial position. “Those are the type of savers we want to monitor,” Hunter Peterson said.
A 401(k) hardship withdrawal should be a last resort, according to certified financial planner Douglas Boneparth, president and founder of Bone Fide Wealth, a wealth management firm in New York City. Early withdrawals may trigger taxes and a 10% penalty, but “the long-term compounding loss is even larger,” he said.
Why 401(k) hardship withdrawals are on the rise
“The 401(k)-withdrawal trend … reflects broader pressure across household finances as inflation and elevated living costs continue squeezing consumers,” said Boneparth, a member of CNBC’s Financial Advisor Council.
Plus, pulling money out during a market downturn makes it harder to recoup losses in the long run, financial advisors also say.
The households best positioned to weather sudden affordability challenges are the ones with even a modest emergency cushion, Boneparth said. If monthly cash flow is tight, redirect a small amount — such as $25 to $50 a month — into a high-yield savings account as a buffer before cutting retirement contributions, he said.
Meanwhile, the majority of retirement savers continued to contribute during the first quarter, helped by features like auto-escalation, which automatically raises a worker’s savings rate each year, often by a percentage point at a time, Fidelity said.
The average 401(k) contribution rate, including employer and employee contributions, edged up to 14.4%, a record high and just shy of Fidelity’s suggested savings rate of 15%.
“While it can be tempting to make changes to retirement savings during market volatility, it is positive to see participants stay the course with their contributions — an approach that will ultimately strengthen outcomes as retirement nears,” Sharon Brovelli, president of Fidelity’s workplace investing, said in a statement.
Slipping
We're out here gettin' fucked with our pants on, while corporate parasites are pulling down some nice fat profits.
And no, it's not just that simple, but ask yourself - when was the last time you got a 17% raise?
The economy grew at a 1.6% annual rate in the quarter, down from the initial reported pace of 2%
The U.S. economy grew more slowly during the first three months of the year, updated government data showed Thursday.
Gross domestic product, a broad measure of the goods and services produced across the U.S., rose at a 1.6% seasonally and inflation-adjusted annual rate in January through March, the Commerce Department said Thursday.
The department previously estimated first-quarter GDP rose at a 2% rate. And economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected the pace to stay at 2%.
The downgrade to the GDP reading was largely due to a lower estimate for inventory investment, a volatile category that is often subject to large revisions.
Even so, consumer spending on services like healthcare was revised lower for the quarter. Overall consumer spending rose at a 1.4% rate, compared with a previous estimate for 1.6%.
A key measure of U.S. business earnings, profits after tax without inventory valuation and capital consumption adjustments, increased 3.3% from the prior quarter and was up 17% from a year ago. That was the largest year-over-year change in corporate profits since the final quarter of 2021.
May 27, 2026
Aaron Parnas
If corporations are people, then they can't own other corporations.
13th Amendment, bitches.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)