September 2026 Snapshot of Who Owns the U.S. National Debt
The U.S. government's 2026 fiscal year came to an end on 30 September 2026. On that date, after tallying up the entire the national debt to the penny, the federal government's total public debt…
What an excellent idea
The point is, my suggestion would radically transform the availability of funds for investment in the UK economy, particularly if matched by the transformation that I propose with regard to ISAs,…
People in Glass Houses should be very careful throwing stones…
It really does feel the Atlantic Ocean got much, much wider. As Europe struggles with riots and populism, financiers in the USA dismiss Yoorp as irrelevant, and think their economy is doing just…
The International Festival of Economics, in Turin, October 22-25
The International Festival of Economics will take place in Turin from 22 to 25 October 2026. I hope to be there to participate in all but the first day. (I'll be speaking on Saturday.) The…
I can see clearly now the clouds have gone
When Google Goes Down, Your Bank Goes Down. Who Is Really in Control? We spent decades worrying about banks being too big to fail. Now we have a handful of technology companies that are too important…
The United States Alternative Assets Collectible Cards Composite Index (USAACCCI) update for October 21, 2026. The Permanent Contrarian’s view on investing in alternative assets.
The Index is valued at $1,435 USD on October 21, 2026, a gain of +43.50% since its inception in July 2026 at $1,000 USD.  Ben Rice: 2025 Topps Chrome Update Series #USC138 –…
Widener’s on Guns and Ammo Pricing
This is a very long and detailed article and study on pricing yesteryear and today on a whole host of things. I’ll leave it to the reader to study for himself, but here are snippets. At a…
The Abdication of the Software Engineer
AI didn't make software less valuable. It removed the disguise that building it was the hard part. Notes on supply and demand, where things may be moving.
Does GEX tell more than VIX? 14 years of 0DTE straddles say no
In my last post about the 14 year GEX backtest, I left one question open, does GEX (gamma exposure, how much hedging the option dealers have to do when the index moves) add anything beyond VIX? GEX…
On the Need for Public Banking
mainstreetjournal.substack.com/p/raising…
Hydrogen At Scale
Hydrogen remains one of the most exciting applications of clean , renewable energy. Its production has been demonstrated on an industrial scale. Today the price of hydrogen is at an all time low of…
Fundamentals
Most economic news seems to be average-to-bad, yet the stock market keeps soaring! Who will be the bag holders?
Why aren’t we talking about growing the economy?
The UK’s political conversation is almost entirely focused on how to find money and how to spend it. We debate taxes, borrowing and public service budgets while neglecting the economy that generates…
The Number Nobody Will Say
$942,068.68.I know that number to the cent because somebody made sure that I did, and twenty years later I still can't round it off in my head.I was in my twenties at DTCC, the company that…
Higher Oil Prices Are Like To Stay
Last months the Trump administration was loudly claiming that Iran had lost control of the Strait of Hormuz. Some ‘experts’ even claimed that the flow of oil was back at a pre-war level.…
The Underpants Gnomes' Step 2
Source Barry Ritholtz posted this up-and-right chart, which is a classic of exponential extrapolation. Given the difficulty, delays, and cost of bringing the current generation of data center…
Adios, Cowgirl
As dawn broke over a united country the Canadian dollar surged a half-point. The move made it the best-performing currency among western countries on Tuesday, hiking .44% against the greenback.…
Private Equity: Meet the New Boss; Same as the Old Boss
Not too far into Hettie O’Brien’s The Asset Class: How Private Equity Turned Capitalism Against Itself, it occurred to me that I was reading a familiar story. The financial sector found a…
Transcript: Bob Michele, CIO and Head of Global Fixed Income, Currency & Commodities, J.P. Morgan Asset Management
    The transcript from this week’s MiB: Bob Michele, CIO and Head of Global Fixed Income, Currency & Commodities, J.P. Morgan Asset Management, is below. You can stream and download…
The 85 DMA Slugfest, Housing, Serious AI-Consciousness Work
The 85 DMA Slugfest, Housing, Serious AI-Consciousness Work We are definitely drifting back toward the short-and-to-the-point public columns. The reason is simple: Deep dives on Peoplenomics are…
9.48 Do Prediction Markets Match Option Prices? The Binary Benchmark
Bitcoin threshold binaries: invert a listed call into the discounted risk-neutral Yes price. Polymarket sits about six points above it, widest at low probability, and the gap halves in four hours.
My Experience as a Crowd-Sourced Funding Investor
In 2024 I invested $1500 in Evee and Broad Radio via Birchal's crowd funding platform and not much has happened since.
Tomato Soup Prices Spike Upward as Campbell's Launches Turnaround Plan
Soup season has arrived! With fall now in full swing, complete with leaves changing color and cooler temperatures, Americans are increasingly turning to warmer foods as the warmth of summer fades.…
Will Protein and Fiber Save the Ailing Cereal Business?
The breakfast cereal business has a problem. After a brief reprieve during the pandemic, sales are hurting again. They’re down 13 percent from 2021. Gen Z, in particular, is finding little…
What is the Average Net Worth by Age? [2025 Latest Data]
Do you want to know how you are doing relative to your peers financially? Then this is the article for you. The Federal Reserve recently released its 2025 Survey of Consumer Finances, the gold…
UK Sectoral Balances - Oct 2026
Sectoral Financial Balances for the UK as a % of GDP, smoothed over a year
UK Employment Stats - Oct 2026
The number of people in the UK without work that want it
Cleaning up TradFi.
tl;drMastercard is attempting to clean up TradFi and about time too. JPMorgan capitulates in recognition that decentralised ledgers are superior to anything it could build itself.Market SnapMarket…
Lower bills and more investment: it is never going to work
Everyone knows that Britain needs a major infrastructure upgrade. Over 40 years since the first privatisation kicked off, none of the core infrastructure networks is fit for purpose. From potholes…
Mutual Funds Decoded - From Order to NAV
Mutual Funds Decoded As investors, we buy mutual funds(MF) from various platforms and receive units. But have you ever wondered what happens behind the scenes? How do these funds operate, function…
The relay economy: how Claude, GPT and Codex are resold as APIs in China and beyond (Oct 2026)
The relay economy is a large, commoditized grey market: hundreds of storefronts on a handful of open-source gateways. Some of what it sells is legitimate resale, but much rests on two fragile…
Testing California's bond funds against the billionaire tax odds
Prediction markets have priced California's Proposition 40 for almost a year, and a fund of California municipal bonds has not moved with the odds by any amount I could detect. Before November 3, I…
The Contract Is the Collateral
Compute already has a large, measured market: a GPU loan book is priced on who signs the offtake. The futures everyone talks about trade almost nothing, and the return sits with whoever packages and…
HOMO SAPIENS, HOMO FABER, HOMO LUDENS? (Our dear dog Ronja couldn't care le...
HOMO SAPIENS, HOMO FABER, HOMO LUDENS? (Our dear dog Ronja couldn't care less...) In 1927, Richard Buckminster Fuller, who was thinking further ahead than most, decided to do the following: “I want…
The Economics of Losing Money on Purpose
Watch Listen “Suffer a loss to gain a profit.” Japanese proverb A few days ago I wrote about the point where more effort starts to cost you more than it gives back. Uber and Alibaba each chose to go…
What is the Personal Data Economy?
Where did it come from? The personal data economy took root around 2012, when Google changed its privacy policy to…
Cloud Imperium UK Ltd Late Filing Its Accounts Again
After filing on time for the first time in 6 years in 2025, Cloud Imperium has returned to its old ways and has not yet filed the 2025 financial accounts for Cloud Imperium UK Ltd yet. CIG is not yet…
Pujo Committee and the “Money Trust”
            A significant amount of political energy was poured into the cause of breaking up American monopolies in the 1890s and 1900s. These…
Mastering Multi-Timeframe Analysis | Moving Averages and Trading Strategy
A practical guide to Dow Theory, SMA20 alignment, Granville’s Laws, risk management and backtesting. Introduction: Why Market Context Matters A technically convincing signal can still be a poor trade…
The AI Economy Is Here, But We’re Measuring the Wrong Revolution
Two years ago, The Economist asked what happened to the AI revolution. Today, we’re investing more than ever, still struggling to prove the returns, and discovering that AI’s impact on…
TabPFN used for Trading
It has been quite a while since my last post, and during this time I have been investigating a couple of complimentary things: TabPFN and revisiting my Kalman-EMA filter. I say complimentary as I…
Talk Your Book: The Case for Value and Momentum
Today’s Talk Your Book is brought to you by Victory Capital: To learn more about Victory Capital click here: www.vcm.com On today’s show, we discuss: Why value and momentum can be…
How I trade stocks for fun and profit
Most people think trading means you need to be active. You sit in front of several screens, watch every price move, and buy and sell stocks all day. I do the opposite. Sure, I follow the market every…
Review: The Passions and the Interests
I downloaded this 1977 book by Albert Hirschman after a long chat session with Claude about the rise (and inevitability?) of capitalism, which concludes in favor of competition in markets and…
Case Study 47: Who Owns the Work? India and the Changing Balance of Power in Professional Services
India has become central to how international professional services firms deliver their engagements, while their Indian member firms have grown into substantial businesses serving domestic companies,…
Interesting TACs of the Week (October 12 – October 18, 2026)
  Summary – A top-down review of interesting calls and comments made last week in Treasuries, monetary policy, economics, stocks, bonds & commodities. TAC is our acronym for Tweets,…
US Budget Deficit, Receipts, Outlays for FY 2026
On October 15, 2026, the US Treasury reported in its Monthly Treasury Statement (and xlsx ) for September that the federal deficit for FY 2025 ending September 30, 2026, was $1,99 billion. Here are…
Ten-year money
A venture fund has a clock inside it. The future runs on a different one. On funding long bets, and what India's 1970 patent law teaches about them.
Is CoreWeave Worth Zero?
A neocloud is a chip-rental business run on borrowed money. What CoreWeave's signed contracts are worth, what its share price assumes, and a model to test it yourself.