This week we went deep on debt—all $72 trillion of it—and made the case that the bond market is the real economy, that the Fed has already lost control of the entire curve, and that when the AI trade unwinds, the flood into Treasuries won’t save anyone the way the textbook says it should. Then we watched Japan demonstrate in real time what happens when you don’t have the exorbitant privilege of issuing the world’s reserve currency. A 40-year low for the yen, Japan spending $87 billion in two days trying to hold it together, and the U.S. quietly i...
This week we went deep on debt—all $72 trillion of it—and made the case that the bond market is the real economy, that the Fed has already lost control of the entire curve, and that when the AI trade unwinds, the flood into Treasuries won’t save anyone the way the textbook says it should. Then we watched Japan demonstrate in real time what happens when you don’t have the exorbitant privilege of issuing the world’s reserve currency. A 40-year low for the yen, Japan spending $87 billion in two days trying to hold it together, and the U.S. quietly intervening not out of friendship, but because Japan’s dumping Treasuries would torch our bond market at the worst possible moment.
Chapters
Intro: 00:00:38
Quick Takes: 00:01:33
Max Notes: 00:07:34
Killer Left Take of the Week: 00:24:44
Chart of the Week: 00:27:02
Headlines: 00:30:56
Outro: 00:32:23
Resources
Fox News: Carville vows to FLEE Dem Party over Hasan Piker: ‘Out of here’
Forbes Breaking News: Trump Gives Update On Talks With Iran
Forbes Breaking News: Sparks Fly When RFK Jr. Is Pressed On Vaccines, Pandemic Prevention During CNN Interview
NBC News: Trump: Jeanine Pirro ‘made a mistake’ dropping Reflecting Pool vandalism case
The Thomas Crown Affair
CNBC: AI investor Leopold Aschenbrenner forced to unwind all public stock positions after steep losses, sources say
Federal Reserve Bank of New York: Household Debt and Credit Report (Q1 2026)
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System: Financial Accounts of the United States - Z.1
FiscalData: What is the national debt?
SIFMA: US Treasury Securities Statistics
Fortune: U.S. national debt officially hits $39 trillion—adding approximately $5 billion a day since October
Nippon: Japan Govt Worsens Debt-to-GDP Ratio Estimate for FY 2026
Financial Stability Board: Report on Vulnerabilities in Private Credit
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System: Implementation Note issued June 17, 2026
U.S. Department of the Treasury: Daily Treasury Rates
TFTC: Treasury Sells $139B in Polar-Opposite Auctions: 2Y Soars, 5Y Craters
MS Now: ‘Don’t be surprised when this gets kind of ugly’: El-Sayed on hotly contested MI Senate primary
Bloomberg Television: Trump Revives Hopes for Iran Deal, Oil Sinks | Insight with Haslinda Amin 8/03/2026
Bloomberg: Why Japan Is Propping Up the Yen With US Help
Bloomberg: BOJ Data Point to $34 Billion Japan FX Intervention Friday
MacroMicro: World - Major Economies’ Holdings of US Debt
The Japan Times: Yen carry trade is a ‘ticking time bomb,’ warns BCA research
Forever Wars: The Markets Matter For War—You Don’t
The American Prospect: The AI Bailout Could Be Baked Into the AI Bubble
Jacobin: Centrist Democrats Keep Making Awful Health Reform Proposals
UNFTR Resources
Video: On The Record 08-04-26 (The Yen Bailout, RFK Jr. Fail, and the $72 Trillion Debt.)
Essay: The $72 Trillion Debt Problem.
Video: Situational Awareness: How a 25-Year-Old’s Hedge Fund Exposed the Entire AI Bubble.
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