Where finance and media intersect with reality.

In the Blind Spot: Global shock therapy and the rise of the American Mittelstand

  SNEAK PEEK — THE ULTIMATE MAGA TARIFF Q&A: You’ve seen the mainstream take on Trumpian tariffs. We answer all your questions about the counter perspective. — Does Trump’s pardoning of HDR Global Trading give us a hint about what they’re planning for dollar liquidity management? — The return of MEFO bills. Oh yeah. Good […]

U.S. tariffs as an attack on the rentier class?

Yes, don’t laugh. But this coming Palm Sunday, as Christians around the world mark the day Jesus drove the moneylenders from the temple, a different sort of cleansing might be underway on Wall Street — one targeting America’s rentier class. One undertaken by arguably the most famous rent extractor of all: Donald J. Trump. As […]

The coming dollar superstructure: Why stablecoins are America’s next great export

As we peer into a future shaped by real-time, surge-priced liquidity demands, it’s becoming increasingly plausible that stablecoins will provide the plumbing. In a world where funding needs appear not just daily but intraday, and the Fed is increasingly hesitant to overextend its balance sheet or assume timing risk, market-based mechanisms are poised to take […]

In the Blind Spot: Exorbitant privilege as a service

  SNEAK PEEK — The risky attempt to transition from an era where America provided the world with liquidity for free to one where access to the dollar is a premium service. — U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent provides some more clues about how a U.S. sovereign wealth fund might work.  — Ask not what the […]

In the Blind Spot: The incoming ‘Trump Pump’

  SNEAK PEEK — Still struggling to understand what the great Trumpian economic restructuring is all about? Think reverse ESG. — It’s not a tariff on money. It’s Regulation Q in reverse. — We ask what role private military contractors will play in a Ukraine peace deal Happy Saturday subscribers! We’ve spent some time this […]

It’s not ‘Military Keynesianism’, it’s ‘Military Thatcherism’

“Surplus production provokes a destructive backlash that precludes civilization for societies that do not have, or cannot build, defense capabilities. Yet, an optimal first public choice offers a resolution to the paradox of civilization along two paths. One is being twice-lucky in terms of growth and defense capabilities. The other is to create artificial defense […]

The DSR: A Bretton Woods for War?

A coalition of former NATO officials, European defense leaders, and financial elites is pushing for the creation of a Defense, Security, and Resilience (DSR) Bank. This is a proposed £100 billion military finance institution designed to underwrite Western defense spending. Styled as an IMF for war, the DSR Bank would issue AAA-rated bonds to raise […]

In the Blind Spot: A controlled demolition of U.S. stock prices

  SNEAK PEEK — The Mar-a-Lago Accord as a pathway to a new global order and a renewed trust pact centered on the idea of “mutual assured narrative collapse” theory. — Why Trump’s ‘tariff talk’ seeks to emulate China’s ultimate inequality-check mechanism (aka its tendency to use regulatory threats to burst financial bubbles before they […]

In the Blind Spot: Mutual liberation syndrome

  SNEAK PEEK — A renewed bid to help Ukraine get its hands on €300 billion of frozen Russian assets may embolden Zelensky to go it alone with only EU support. — When both sides think they’re saving the other. The skeleton key to understanding global markets is that nobody can agree on who is […]