Blake Hampton

The NYT has some of the best long-form journalism on "people" subjects out of any newspaper. Do you want a well-written article detailing the experiences of a Ukrainian citizen throughout their war? The NYT is almost certainly the best place for something like that. I still pick up the WSJ first thing though.

Why? My community paper sucks. It has almost zero useful information, and it takes me probably 3 mins max to read it. Still costs close to $150 a year too which definitely isn’t worth it. Fortunately I don’t pay for it.

I think the WSJ and NYT both do an exceptional job. I’ll admit that there’s implicit bias, but that’s why you read both.

Mainstream social media is a cancer. These are platforms designed to prey on their user's weaknesses in order to capture their attention. Last year, Meta must've pissed someone off at the WSJ, because they ran front-page articles seemingly week-after-week about how Meta was feeding curated pedophiliac content to some people. Fuck Elon and fuck Zuckerberg. Edit: I almost forget TikTaco Trump. Fuck him too.

I do.

I believe the death of American thinking was the downfall of local newspapers. The media that now shapes the average person’s worldview is so warped, so full of lies, so dominated by ignorance, that it ultimately reflects itself into basically everything. Obama said we need to explore new forms of journalism, and I agree. The current model we have now is just not sustainable.

I can't recommend reading The Economist enough. One of the only great financial publications I can't personally attest to is the FT, and the only reason I don't read it is because it's so god-darn expensive. Outside of possibly that one, I don't think there's any better journalism than The Economist.

"The lack of transparency in private markets means regulators and investors might not see a problem coming until the very last moment." The Economist: The debt barons who are taking on the banks Scary stuff.

A lot of this was covered quite well in a recent special Report section of The Economist. I see so much speculation in markets that I just mentally threw it on top of the pile: The Economist: New, untested and dangerous It had a cool cover too:

I guess I'm turning into Cubs because it feels like I can't budge on how important this is. I respect a lot of you, I believe this board is extremely intelligent on average, but I still think people are largely ignoring these risks. I think that the 2% of the time where macro is important might just be enough to kill you if you're not prepared for it. Maybe missing the 1920's was worth it if you didn't get completely crushed during the crash. This is a hill I'm going to die on.

See the problem with investors generally is that they've been trained to think macro is immaterial, just like they've been trained into thinking that putting 100% of their money in the S&P 500, no matter the valuation, is somehow prudent. Fiscal deficits will soon be approaching $2.5 trillion, possibly even closer to $3 trillion. A $2.5 trillion deficit is $19,000 in Treasury issuance annually for every single U.S. household. You have Buffett repeatedly warning about runaway inflation, Dimon explicitly saying that we're going to see a severe bond market crisis, and this is supposed to somehow be "useless and immaterial." I disagree. If you don't like what I write, don't read it.

“I have ideas on what to do but I haven’t made a final—I like to make the final decision one second before it’s due.” - The Orange Stinker, Donald Trump

Please explain how deficits pre-fund the cash that buys treasury securities.

While our country is minting $2.5 trillion deficits, these morons are worried about regulating stablecoins. I swear to god our country is asking for it.

WSJ: Senate Passes Stablecoin Bill in Big Win for Crypto Industry

^ I think

^ BUD

“There are two times in a man's life when he should not speculate: when he can't afford it and when he can.” - Mark Twain

Am I not the only one up at 1:30 am?

Average American POV:

It won't come to an end. But it can be very bad.

I'm off the forum for a bit:

Yeah, when Trump almost blew up global trade in a week, that was a huge deal. And he backed out of it like a little bitch when Bessent got on his hands and knees and begged him to. Think long-term.

It does, does it? Watch how far that pendulum swings when the bond market's in crisis. I imagine you'll soil your drawers.