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Bill’s Commentary:
“The future has arrived…”
Agricultural Commodity Prices Break Out As JPMorgan’s Food Crisis Warning Gets Louder
JPMorgan analyst Nora Szentivanyi’s warning last week that the next global food crisis could begin as early as next year has been a major wake-up call for some, adding to the growing voices on institutional desks warning that food inflation is poised to re-accelerate.
Remaining extra watchful about agricultural prices, Bloomberg reported earlier that US corn futures moved higher after preliminary results from the Pro Farmer Crop Tour indicated weaker-than-expected yields in parts of critical growing belts across the Midwest.
Corn yield estimates were about 3% below last year in Ohio and 14% lower in South Dakota. Soybean pod counts also declined, while severe storms and flooding in Indiana and Ohio added to concerns about further crop damage.”
Bill interviews with Sean at SGT Report (Also posted under Interviews)
Bill’s Commentary:
“$3 trillion in off balance sheet liabilities… where does this money come from?”
WSJ Catches Up, Discovers AI’s Off-Balance Sheet Liabilities Are $3 Trillion And Growing $1.2 Trillion Per Quarter
More than two months ago, long before most Wall Street analysts had any clue that the bulk of the AI buildout commitments were diligently hidden in various off-balance sheet SPVs and other (perfectly legal) accounting gimmicks, we wrote a lengthy article detailing just that, and explaining why far beyond the $1 trillion (and rapidly rising) in annual plain vanilla capex — all of which now has to be funded through debt issuance since free cash flow across the hyperscaler universe is negative for the foreseeable future (if not forever) — which most pundits obsess over daily…
… the real risk was in the “The $1.8 Trillion Off-Balance Sheet Time Bomb At The Heart Of The AI Supercycle.”
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Bill’s Commentary:
“Who needs math in DEI world?”
I teach calculus at Berkeley. Some of my students can’t do middle school math
In March, two California families opened college admissions decisions that should make anyone who cares about higher education stop and think.
One student — I’ll call him Elias — was admitted to a top University of California engineering program. His family was thrilled though surprised. Math had been his weakest subject in high school, but they assumed the university had seen something they hadn’t.
Another student — Nadia — watched rejection after rejection arrive from UC campuses. One turned her down even though she had earned A’s there in Calculus II and other college-level STEM courses through concurrent enrollment.
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Bill’s Commentary:
“Maybe its time to buy a home with some gold bars?”
Macro Liquidity by Sunil Reddy
@Macrobysunil
In 1970, a representative home cost roughly $19,000 — or 537 oz of Gold.
Today, it is around $608,000 — but only 140 oz of Gold.
Homes are 31x more expensive in dollars, yet roughly 74% cheaper in Gold.
That collapse in the Gold price of a home tells you something important: housing didn’t become impossibly scarce — fiat purchasing power collapsed.
That is why affordability collapsed for ordinary income earners, while Gold preserved purchasing power.
Bill’s Commentary:
Rating Action CommentaryFitch Affirms the United States of America at ‘AA+’; Outlook Stable
Fitch Ratings – New York – 13 Aug 2026: Fitch Ratings has affirmed the United States of America’s Long-Term Foreign- and Local Currency Issuer Default Ratings (IDRs) at ‘AA+’ with a Stable Outlook.
A full list of rating actions is at the end of this rating action commentary.
The United States’ ‘AA+’ rating is supported by its large economy, high per-capita income, dynamic business environment and exceptional financing flexibility due to the U.S. dollar’s role as the preeminent global reserve currency. However, high fiscal deficits, a substantial interest burden, and high and rising government debt levels constrain the rating. Debt is more than double the ‘AA’ rating median. The government has not taken meaningful actions to address the large general government (GG) fiscal deficits (averaging 7% of GDP since 2022), and spending pressures will mount over the next decade due to an aging population.
Bill’s Commentary:
“More “winning”?”
The New Great Game, revisited
It took only a few Yemeni missiles on Saudi refineries to wake up “leadership” vectors of the Ummah; not over 100,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza by the death cult.
The Mecca Sunni NATO pact between Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan remains a puzzle. Or dodgy sub-standard theatre – complete with photo ops and sparse intel sharing. The full text has not been released. Everything is quite vague, only stressing “collective deterrence”.
Against whom, it’s in the eyes of the beholder. All options – Eretz Israel, US-Israel, India (in case of attacking Pakistan) – might apply. The operative concept is “might”. Add to it Turkiye’s myriad NATO constraints: a viper’s nest in itself.
Bill’s Commentary:
“Totally “normal” in today’s dystopic world!”
Jew Made President of Catholic Biblical Association, Will Edit Antisemitic Bible Verses
The Catholic Biblical Association of America has spent nearly ninety years shaping how American Catholics read the Bible. It publishes the Catholic Biblical Quarterly, supplies scholarship to seminaries, helps train the people who train priests, and is well within the institutional machinery Rome uses to teach Scripture to Catholics. Last month, they acquired a new president. Amy-Jill Levine became the first Jewish scholar elected to lead the Catholic Biblical Association.
Levine joined the CBA in 1988, spent twelve years as book review editor of the Catholic Biblical Quarterly, served as vice president last year, became the first Jew to teach New Testament at Rome’s Pontifical Biblical Institute, and met with the previous pope, Pope Francis, multiple times. The National Catholic Reporter celebrated her election as a milestone for the first Jew to serve as editor of the Catholic Biblical Quarterly. She now sits at the head of one of the Roman Catholic Church’s most important academic institutions.
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Bill’s Commentary:
“Every bubble since 1982 has been popped by rising interest rates, this “Mother of all Bubbles” will be no different!”
Tailing 30Y Auction Prices At Highest Yield In 25 Years
After yesterday’s ugly 10Y auction, moments ago we got the last of the week’s refunding auctions, when the Treasury sold $25BN in 30Y paper (the same paper that has seen yield shoot up in the past week, ever since Warsh’s most recent FOMC meeting in which he left the long-end hang out to dry), and just like the 10Y auction before it, this one was also rather deplorable.
Pricing at a high yield of 5.216%, the auction tailed the When Issued 5.212% by 0.4bps…
… but more importantly, it priced at the highest yield since 2001 some 25 years ago.
The bid to cover was 2.392, down from 2.444 in July and below the recent average of 2.429.
Bill’s latest interview (Also posted under Interviews)
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Bill’s Commentary:
“What does this say about common sense?”
https://xcancel.com/KanekoaTheGreat/status/2087338157251641443
The latest from USA Watchdog –
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Bill’s Commentary:
“Celestial events have been turning points for markets and sentiment throughout the ages. This one appears to be major with 4 events at once. With the global financial system walking a tightrope made of fishing line, have the stars aligned for a change of epic proportions?”
Bill’s Commentary:
“Food for thought”
The Eurodollar Trap: Why the Dollar Will Spike Before It Dies.
There is a paradox at the heart of the coming crisis. The same event that will temporarily send the US dollar soaring will, within months, destroy its role as the world’s reserve currency. Understanding this sequencing is the difference between being positioned for the crisis and being destroyed by it.
This article unpacks a framework developed through extensive analysis of the Eurodollar system, the Japanese yen carry trade, the escalating conflict in the Middle East, and the structural debt trap facing the United States. The conclusion is stark: the dollar system is a highly leveraged bubble of promissory notes, and its unwind will follow a specific sequence that most investors are unprepared for.
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Bill’s Commentary:
“The woman speaks truth!”
The latest from USA Watchdog –
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Bill’s Commentary:
“The Debt clock”
Bill’s Commentary:
“The progression of US Treasury debt since 1929”
U.S. National Debt by Year
National debt is the outstanding financial obligations of a country. The national debt of the United States is what the federal government owes to its creditors.
The U.S. has always carried national debt, and the majority of presidents have added to it. However, total national debt has been expanding rapidly since 2008 due to a combination of increased government spending and failure to raise taxes.1
Understanding the National Debt
The federal government borrows money to cover outstanding expenses that accumulate over time. Funds for federal spending are mainly generated by collecting taxes on personal and corporate income, payroll earnings, and borrowing.
Bill’s Commentary:
“W, not even a Band-Aid, they are now down to chewing gum…”
Bill,
Heaven knows, not even the Fed wants to own the Treasury Bonds! Temporary Repos only. Perhaps Christie's can auction them off as a nostalgic relic of bygone days?🤣
Wolfgang
https://x.com/i/status/2085364546881896595 -
Bill is interviewed by his good friend Andy Schectman (Also posted under Interviews)
Bill’s Commentary:
“Putin goes on offense…”
Bill’s Commentary:
“Maybe we need to pay more taxes to build up the arsenal?”
Nearly 80% of interceptors for a key missile defense system depleted, sources say
The US military has exhausted nearly 80% of its interceptors for a key missile defense system as senior US military commanders are warning that the Pentagon’s munitions stockpile is “dangerously low,” according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.
Stockpiles of key air defense systems have been particularly depleted during the war with Iran. The US military has burned through nearly four-fifths of its THAAD missile inventory compared to pre-war numbers and roughly half of its Patriot interceptors since the start of the war, according to two sources familiar with the latest inventory report. The disclosure of the low THAAD inventory has not been previously reported.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates the United States had around 2,200 Patriots (of the platform’s two most-modernized variants) and 452 THAAD missiles in its stockpile before the Iran war started.
Bill’s Commentary:
“Why would the Biden DOJ prosecute someone for helping Biden win? A 1st grader could see through this one…”
More than 600,000 voter files ripped off Arizona site in 2020 by hacker, but DOJ didn’t prosecute
Though the FBI identified a suspect who confessed to investigators, state and federal prosecutors declined to bring charges in a 2020 online hack that stole more than 600,000 voter registration files from Maricopa County, and exposed the sensitive personal information of 933 voters.
Arizona’s largest county suffered a significant breach of its election data in the days before the 2020 presidential election when a self-described hacker foiled security and obtained 633,000 voter registration files but the Biden Justice Department and local prosecutors declined to bring charges even after the FBI got the suspect to confess, according to declassified documents made public Thursday by the White House.
The scraping of Maricopa County’s voter registration files was the most flagged security incident in a cyberintrusion log kept by U.S. spy agencies in the days around the Nov. 3, 2020 election, and it caused an extensive FBI investigation that led agents to a home in Fountain Hills, Ariz., the memos show.
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The latest from USA Watchdog –
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