America is spending on AI like Rome at its peak. $155B next year — more than the entire U.S. education budget. But instead of securing dominance, this AI arms race could set us up for strategic decline. 🧵

The Fed says we’re in a soft landing. But for millions of Americans, it already feels like a depression. Not a crash — a slow suffocation. 🧵 Why this consumer squeeze is worse than 2008 or 2001:

Trump didn't have a problem with the job numbers over the last few months before today's revision He also doesn't seem to have a problem with the low inflation prints that the same BLS has been publishing I suspect when the July CPI print homes out hot, that will be a rigged data point as well See where this is heading

KEVIN WARSH: WE'RE AT A 'TRANSFORMATIONAL MOMENT' IN ECONOMIC HISTORY WARSH: THE LAST THING WE NEED IS 'CONTINUITY' AT THE FED Warsh on CNBC making his case to be the Fed Chair and totally destroying the Powell Fed Quite refreshing if you ask me

Potentially unpopular opinion by me I'm fine with the witch hunt against Fed Chair Powell Missing the inflation target for 5 years and helping to orchestrate the largest gap in wealth equalityin America in over 100 years (possibly longer) is grounds for removal if you ask me. Don't worry about the "loss" of Fed independence if he is gone and Trump removes him with a shill. Markets and society can handle it and maybe we won't have the same outcomes that we have had which have favored Wall Street, the wealthy, homeowners and the banks over everyone else. Thread and article below

It seems like there is a solution here that China has enacted. "We will not sell the west rare earths anymore to be used for weapons which may later be used to fight China or its allies" @LukeGromen

🧵 THREAD: The economy is booming but most Americans don’t feel it. Why? Because we’ve built a system that’s strong on paper, but hollow at its core. This is the K-shaped economy: a structure that works for fewer people, even as markets soar. A deep dive

Earlier this week there was discussion on FinTwit about how great of a Fed Chair Jerome Powell has been. I would like to respectfully and wholeheartedly disagree. The Powell Fed has proven that it no longer serves the public. It has stopped fighting inflation, deepened inequality, and quietly handed monetary control back to the U.S. Treasury — all without saying a word. That’s what Powell’s Fed has done. A thread 🧵

Guess who's back? Let's see if this changes by Taco tuesday "We're going to start sending letters out to various countries starting tomorrow," Trump told reporters late Thursday. "We'll probably have 10 or 12 go out tomorrow, and over the next few days, I think by the 9th, they'll be fully covered. And they'll range in value from maybe 60 or 70% tariffs to 10 and 20% tariffs." He said the tariffs would kick in from the start of August. The higher end of that range would be more than almost all the reciprocal rates that Trump had floated earlier. Except for China, the highest of those was 50%.

NFP this morning is confirmation of a slowing but still growing economy. Labor market momentum decelerating but not at a concerning enough pace yet to warrant imminent rate cuts, especially when a majority of the Fed is saying they expect to see tariff related inflation show up starting from the June data. And now we are getting trade deals that may show that 10% reciprocal tariff rate is possibly on the low side, which is only going to add more pressure on goods pricing in the eyes of the Fed. So July is off the table (as it should be) and some will wonder whether or not September is still live (it probably is). Everyone short the US$ coming into this so that gets rinsed, higher front end yields as well. When the OBBB gets passed, we are going to restart UST issuance next week which will be bills focused but will still be a drain on bank reserves and liquidity over the next few months as the TGA is restocked. Pushing out the timeline to receiving Fed liquidity is usually a bad setup for risk assets. Let's see if this time is different.