CAF contends as the economy tanks, more and more financial frauds will be popping up. CAF is already seeing it at The Solari Report. So, CAF and team put together a special presentation called “Protecting Your Assets.” CAF says one of the many frauds she sees are fraudsters impersonating her to rip people off with phony deals and false financial advice. CAF says, “We can’t give you investment advice, but we can tell you don’t do that scam.”
In closing, CAF points out gold and silver are both in long term bull markets, but as the economy takes a hit the metals can get sold off to raise cash. CAF says, “Big drops in gold and silver can happen.”
Many people think AI is carefully engineered. In reality, it’s closer to something being grown and these systems are evolving in ways even their creators struggle to predict.
AI researcher and former LLM builder Connor Leahy explains what’s happening inside the labs: why the alignment problem remains unsolved, why the race to AGI is accelerating, and why the people leading it may be moving faster than they understand.
We also discuss AI risk, Silicon Valley’s power dynamics, the Department of Defense’s growing involvement and the rise of “AI psychosis.”
Azizi argues that Operation Epic Fury failed to deliver the quick, decisive victory the US and Israel expected, and that Iran instead turned the conflict into a war of attrition by closing the Strait of Hormuz and striking US bases and Israel, forcing Washington to the negotiating table. He contends the assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei did not produce regime change but rather accelerated a long-running “creeping coup” by the IRGC, shifting Iran from a vertical clerical system to a horizontal military-security leadership. While Iran discovered the Strait as its single most important leverage and asserted itself by striking Israel over Lebanon for the first time, Azizi insists Iran’s apparent victory is overstated: it lost deterrence entirely, faces $270 billion in reconstruction costs and inflation above 80%, which is why it actually came to the table.
Leadership transformation, not regime change: Azizi describes a shift from Khamenei’s vertical, clerically-dominated system to a horizontal, IRGC-dominated security core, a process he traces back to the 2009 Green Movement and the 2021 selection of Raisi. He explicitly refuses to call it regime change because the same entrenched figures (like Qalibaf, who failed four presidential bids, and IRGC commander-in-chief Ahmadi) remain in power, making it more authoritarian than before.
The Memorandum of Understanding versus the JCPOA: The MOU is a short 14-article document to be signed in Geneva on Friday, broader than the JCPOA because it covers a permanent end to war and shipping, not just the nuclear program. Azizi frames it as “more for more” — Iran halting enrichment for 10 to 20 years (versus enriching at 3.6% from day one under the JCPOA) in exchange for removal of even primary sanctions, though he calls it deliberately ambiguous enough for both sides to claim victory.
The Strait of Hormuz as nuclear-deterrence substitute: Iran’s closure of the Strait proved its most significant leverage and helped end the war on its terms, but Azizi says growing voices in Iran’s strategic community still advocate for nuclear weapons. He argues the real constraints on weaponization are Iran’s lack of infrastructure and intelligence exposure (not the Strait), and notes Saudi Arabia and the UAE each have pipelines bypassing Hormuz capable of 5 million barrels per day.
Lebanon and Hezbollah as the deal’s biggest threat: Iran insisted on linking Lebanon to the deal and, for the first time ever, struck Israel in retaliation for Israeli attacks on a third party (Hezbollah in southern Beirut) rather than for an attack on Iran itself. Azizi calls this the most dangerous contradiction: Iran is de facto recognizing Israel as a negotiating party while refusing to recognize its existence, and if Israel acts alone in southern Lebanon (as it does in southern Syria beyond the Golan Heights), the whole arrangement could collapse.
What Iran lost — deterrence and economy: Azizi stresses the conflict is not the one-sided Iranian victory some portray, because Iran lost proper deterrence — Israel and the US could re-establish air dominance “almost as easily” as on February 28th, and the new supreme leader has been in hiding since day one, a criticism raised by pro-government experts on state TV. The war caused roughly $270 billion in reconstruction costs, drove inflation above 80%, and left about 60% of Iranians unable to manage their finances if war continues.
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