This piece is pissing me off. Real 'man proposes, but Pimco disposes (of their Gilt holdings)' vibes. Pull your necks in.

There are so many inadvertent gems in this Softbank presentation, it's difficult to pick favourites. group.softbank/media/Projec...

Can we point to a single time in history where this has worked out well for all concerned?

'It's hard to fathom.'

Bill is getting dragged for this, but, as Elon has amply demonstrated, having stockholders who are complete morons is truly the largest moat there is in business.

Watergate www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Somehow, Palpatine returned.

The way to think about the SpaceX IPO is that it's like the 1990's Russian privatisations, but in reverse.

Henry Blodget was thrown in prison for far less than this.

Chinese stocks tend to trade on low valuations cos everyone in Chinese markets is either a sharp or a mark. It's pure dog eat dog and the dogs know what they're getting into. Trump and Elon ripping out the wiring from the US system of market infrastructure is...not a long-term positive development.

Everyone agrees that Osborne-era austerity was a disaster, but we're now sagely ushering in Austerity 2.0, which is just like Austerity 1.0 with the added bonus that every burp and flutter in the bond market will catalyse an orgy of handwringing. Cheers, Liz; gilt market's crying.

Of all the things that won't happen, this isn't going to happen the most, but credit for getting an FT write-up, I guess. Say what you like about Neom; at least MBS controls vast resources and, more importantly, doesn't have to deal with the English planning system. www.ft.com/content/e50f...

This is going to be the white collar crime of the century by orders of magnitude.

Imagine having an invincible season and not even qualifying for Champions League!

I'm not a fan of 'x country is fundamentally broken' drive-by macro narratives, but sometimes you do have to give it to the haters.

This is an insane way to run a country, my God. Elect who you want, and then the onus is on them to keep the markets onside. Filtering candidates by who is a priori acceptable to the bond markets is a recipe for the austerity, muddle and stasis that got us to this point. www.ft.com/content/3e1c...

'We have to keep our lame duck leader in place to appease the bond market' is, I'm afraid, the kind of tepid, focus grouped, don't rock the boat do-nothingness that has led Labour to this juncture in the first place.

Restaurant. I mean, I know how to spell it, but something deep inside me wants to discuss it every single time.

The jokes write themselves.

A good read. If you've ever spent time in Mayfair or other louche London locations, you'll recognise some of these characters as Perfect Archetypes. If you haven't, it's no Say Nothing, but still a compelling read.

Not that we need any more evidence of US regime brainrot, but the fact that this scenario is presented in terms of its GDP impact is truly beyond parody.

The real 4D chess is Iran can't even threaten to retaliate by destroying US infrastructure cos successive US administrations have pre-empted them.

A lot going on here.

At these valuations, the US govt should IPO NASA and pay off the national debt.

Not a fan of parsing Trump's nonsense, but this makes sense in that all other alternatives are manifestly unsustainable, so maybe we can glimpse an out here? Trump does a seagull: makes a lot of noise, shits on everything and then flies off, everyone else pays the toll, and the world keeps turning.

As long as the Strait remains closed, you can sell risk. The closure is like a cardiac arrest; the longer it remains untreated, the worse the prognosis. I believe this first order Neanderthal approach handily beats Trump Kremlinology. Any Trump puffery rallies are a God-given gift to lighten.

I have two ears and a mere 24 hours in a day, and casual empiricism suggests most other people are dealing with similar constraints. So I am once again asking: who is listening to all these f***ing podcasts?!

Loads of guys on here saying, oh yeah, OF COURSE you can't take anything Trump says at face value; you have to parse the tea leaves. Meanwhile, the tea leaves: www.ndtv.com/world-news/i...

Funny cos it's true.

Takes two to TACO.

Everyone is Twelve theory remains undefeated.

'War is God's way of teaching Americans geography' has never been more apt than now.

Taken me too long to crystallise the connection, but the reason the whole AI 'you're going to be utterly left behind if you're not Claude Coding 24 / 7' sounds exactly like the Bitcoin 'not going to make it' shtick is bcos it's exactly the same windowless guys who've just pivoted to the next thing.

Dubai?

Buying dips sinks ships.

Since forever, we've all tacitly agreed to attach outsize importance to the NFP report, like the drunk searching for their car keys under the lamppost - cos that's where the light is. But, with the evisceration, demoralisation and politicisation of the BLS, I'm no longer inclined to play this game.

As per usual: our President, your problem. US manufacturing may be in decline, but they still know how to export clusterf***s

Oh, you sweet summer child...

Thinking of this Khatami interview, for reasons.

This is going to become a yuge story, and probably a massive scandal at some point in the not too distant future, via a murky nexus of self-dealing, lightly regulated offshore subsidiaries and Joe Sixpack inadvertently holding the other side of the trade.

A proper private credit crackup would solve one of the conundrums of modern financial markets. Virtually everyone predicted that a sharp hiking cycle after an extended period of exceptionally low rates would cause carnage - and then it never happened and we all just segued to the next talking point

With news that US military commanders are referencing the end times, I guess we're doing this again.

Il Sorpasso 2.0

An interlocutor once asserted to Adam Smith: "If we go on at this rate, the nation must be ruined!" Smith famously replied "Be assured...that there is a great deal of ruin in a nation". Very wise words. But thanks to Trump, we might finally get to answer the question: how much ruin, exactly?

The Middle East - famously a geopolitics-free zone.

'AI will replace all white collar work' Investors: 'YES, YES!!!!' 'AI will solve all outstanding scientific problems and propel us to the stars' Investors: 'Ooooohh, aaaahhh!!' 'AI will disrupt B2B SAAS' Investors: 'Well, this is just fantastical nonsense. Is everyone stupid now?!'

It's what plants crave.