We learn yet again to never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by Trumpian incompetence.

“Thanks to our latest findings, we now know that early citizens of the United States had a more nuanced system of government than previously thought,” said Professor Lee Somers, director of the site excavation

h/t @courtneyshupert.bsky.social 😂

How is Matt Klein not on here yet? Beautiful work in this piece on the yield/yen disconnect in Japanese markets: The Overshoot: Is Japan "Normal" Again? theovershoot.co/p/is-japan-n...

He could have just offered a consulting contract to Maduro but he wanted the tips for free.

Former Boston Fed Rosengren over on Twitter: "The political attack on the chair by threatening criminal prosecution is likely to be highly counterproductive. It likely only encourages the chair to stay on the committee after May."

Alberta oil and gas royalty income surged as oil sands projects shifted from pre- to post-payout royalty rates and both global crude prices/WCS differentials held strong.

From @peark.es nips to FT Alphaville’s ears: Get your ‘Free Jay Powell’ T-shirts here giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

If you have a moment, it's worth watching this professionally-produced documentary illustrating how the Trump administration's attacks on the Fed's independence will work out:

Fun With Charts for January 12: 1/3 The dollar is on the defensive against all of its major rivals after the weekend’s attack against Fed chair Jerome Powell, but moves have been relatively small so far:

After seeing one bond guy struggle with basic percentages on live television and another fail at elementary game theory on Bluesky within weeks of one another, really starting to buy the idea that the 40-year bull market in fixed income made successes out of some stone-cold morons.

Whatever you think of Powell’s interest rate policies, this is a highly commendable move. Standing up to a tinpot president. Putting some of the business community to shame.

It might not be entirely prudent to FAFO the Fed with an NIIP at negative 90% of GDP?

Global bond fund manager lobbies for destruction of global bond markets. Absolute scenes.

Beyond now-familiar attacks on the Fed, the prospect of capital controls or Tobin taxes remains a far more disruptive risk imho—one that markets have scarcely begun to price.

You either die a disruptor, or live long enough to see yourself become an incumbent

My economic outlook for 2026: "If someone is super confident on TV, telling you they know exactly what's going to happen, the only thing you're learning is about their disposition... their overconfidence."

'26 is shaping up to deliver fiscal easing across the major Eurozone economies thanks to Germany's expansionary policy. Hardly something one would expect even just a few years ago.

The golden rule for social media:

I done one of these. bsky.app/profile/did:...

“Starter packs?” <spits> “My feed is not a cable TV subscription, no sir. It is the result of years of manually fine-tuning weird frequencies picked up in the deepest parts of space.”

Stolen from the other place

*SELL-SIDE SETS EVERY DAY AS OPINION DAY

Now THAT’S the top:

Guessing the revisions messed with any tradeable interpretation, but still. Amazing ...-ly stupid stuff.

Fun With Charts for Jan 9, starting with the clichéd one: 1/3: The unemployment rate fell last month, giving the Fed room to hold, but on a full-year basis, the US added an average 49k jobs per month, marking the worst performance outside the dot-com collapse or a recession in the last 25 years:

Average monthly job growth since April (Liberation Day): USA: ==========+12k Canada: ======================+22k.

For me, labor market story of 2025 is that, since liberation day, 121% of all new private sector jobs have been in health care. During that same period 161,000 blue-collar jobs (@josephpolitano.bsky.social's definition) have been lost. Whatever tariffs were meant to do for workers hasn't happened.

The folks claiming that US trade imbalances have narrowed are getting absolutely rugged by bullwhip effects—when non-monetary gold shipments are excluded, the US goods trade deficit in the first ten months of 2025 was up +11.1% from the prior year:

Still think the Ives clothing line launch was the market ringing the bell at peak tech froth. A sell-side analyst dressing to differentiate himself makes sense in a terrible way. Thinking someone (other than a super cool toddler) might pay for it, does not.

ok, but what *kind* of Venezuelan production cost breakeven/industry rehabilitation price tag estimate are you?

Definitely one for a very small audience of FX nerds, but here's a very fun forward curve:

Over the middle two Qs of 2025 real output per hour rose 4.5%, which is the second-best showing outside of recessions since 2004 (2H '23 was slightly stronger). Looking at a 2y run rate, productivity is still well short of the payoff from 1990s IT adoption but is running >2x what it did post-GFC.

Charts from this morning's note: 1/3 Canadian crude prices have fallen in FX-adjusted terms, but the bulk of the move has been driven by declines in global benchmarks, not by a Venezuela-driven widening in spreads (for more on why, consult @roryjohnston.bsky.social:

The dog that didn't bark will probably turn into a chihuahua that yapped a little - my take on layoffs and the JOLTS data. Link: macromostly.substack.com/p/jolts-reca...

@chrisfreiman.bsky.social on the other site:

The irony involved in the US imposing imperial mercantilism on another country—without doing the work involved in actually occupying it—is just 👨‍🍳😘

Clown-show price controls. 🤡 @scottlincicome.bsky.social $BX

Just putting this out there - what if the ‘AI bubble’ collapsed and no one noticed?

There are some major inconsistencies in this morning's JOLTS report that could render it null and void, but from a high-level standpoint, looks as if labour demand is still eroding:

The K-shaped economy is real*, but much of the discourse amounts to noblesse oblige virtue-signalling on par with "I learn so much about the economy from talking to taxi drivers!" *And more about age than income imho

As @tracyalloway.bsky.social famously* discovered: www.bloomberg.com/news/article... *fintwit-famously

Trump chasing imaginary oil supplies, Big Tech chasing an imaginary AI deity, and wannabe Fed chairs chasing an imaginary productivity boom. My new year's resolution of not getting angry about bullshit narratives is not going to last long

The “one time price adjustment” theory of tariff implications really only works under a theoretical, actual one-time policy implementation. Which is neither what we’ve had, nor what we should expect.

Guess we know what Rubio got him for Christmas.

Excellent. Trade imbalances are important, but advanced economies share the blame for creating regulatory frictions and tax incentives that damage productivity, widen inequality, and exacerbate political strife. Tolstoy: “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself”

ICYMI: There is a very weak relationship between economic growth and House seat change in midterm elections. Midterms are a backlash, not a referendum www.gelliottmorris.com/p/midterms-a...