BigPopLipe

I’m sort of a dumbass

[Plioric @Plioric89]

Paul Volcker took inflation from 14.8% to 3% in 3 years, and Ray Dalio went broke betting the economy would crash instead.

Years later, Dalio sat across from Volcker and asked him how he held on.

In March 1980, inflation hit 14.8%. Volcker saw it speeding up near 15%, and he figured that if the Fed pussyfooted much longer it would reach 20%.

So he tightened, "like a bulldog biting at it straight out."

Rates went to 20%. Unemployment went to 10%. It was the worst downturn since the Great Depression.

There were protests. Farmers parked tractors outside the Federal Reserve. He held.

By 1982, even Volcker was worried. Unemployment was finally rising, and "the damn inflation rate wasn't coming down." Backing off would have wasted all of it. "I felt we were stuck."

That is the year in the post below. Dalio ran the debt numbers, watched Mexico default in August, and bet the economy and the market would go down a lot.

Summer 1982 was also when Volcker's squeeze started to work. The money supply came down, then inflation came down. By the end of the year, the recession looked finished.

By 1983, inflation was 3%, and a decade of strong growth followed.

Dalio was right about the debt. He was wrong about how long Volcker would hold.

The $4,000 loan from his dad paid for that lesson.

[nick usen @nickusen]

It’s fine to eat the popcorn that rises above the top of the bag before the movie starts, that’s the Baron’s Delight. But you must be weary of digging too greedily into the popcorn inside the bag before the previews even end, that is the Duke’s Lament

[Stern Drew @SternDrewCrypto]

🚨 SCOTT BESSENT EFFECTIVELY CONFIRMS A BOND CRISIS, SAYS MARKET TOO ILLIQUID TO CONTROL

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent went on CNBC and said the quiet part out loud: He raised the size of U.S. Treasury buybacks because “we are in a very illiquid period. The market is moving quickly… I can’t set the equilibrium price.”

This is the same man who weeks earlier told traders “I am the house now. I have asymmetric information. Bet against me if you want.”

Here’s what’s actually happening.

He doubled bond buybacks, then pushed toward $6 billion, liquidity-support buybacks of 10- to 30-year bonds.

He went on to dump Euros and Dollars to save the yen so BoJ doesn’t dump their U.S. Treasury Holdings. Scott Bessent even warned the Fed to expand the FIMA facility to Japan or watch the treasury market bleed.

The 10-year has been grinding toward 5.2%+. The 30-year just printed levels last seen in 2004. Global government bond yields are near 4%, highest since 2007. Japan’s 10-year hit highs not seen since 1996. Germany’s 10-year is at 17-year peaks.

This isn’t one country. This is a synchronized long-end revolt.

Japan still holds about $1.1 trillion of U.S. Treasuries, the largest foreign holder. Those holdings have been sliding for months as Tokyo’s own debt-to-GDP sits above 220% and JGB yields explode. When the world’s biggest overseas buyer starts preferring its own higher-yielding paper (or just needs the cash), the bid for U.S. duration gets thinner.

That’s the illiquidity Bessent is now admitting he cannot paper over with a few billion in buybacks against hundreds of billions in new issuance and $40 trillion+ of existing debt.

When the official who called himself “the house” starts saying he cannot set the equilibrium price, the market is telling you something simple: we are in a bond crisis.

The most dangerous response from @yutokanzakireal: “Japan isn’t just betting against the house, it’s bringing the entire house down.”

We’re now seeing that as a global debt crisis which could catastrophically turn into a global liquidity crisis if not stopped.

That’s why gold exists. Not as a trade. As the asset that doesn’t require a Treasury Secretary to promise he can still control the price.

[leon @towheretobegin]

A rogue openai agent breached my icloud and texted my ex, I'm shaking rn this is extremely alarming

[Mark Cuban @mcuban]

Share this with your governor. Share this with every politician you know. It will cut the healthcare costs in your state.

We started Cost Plus Drugs because the prescription drug market is too complicated, too opaque and too expensive.
Our model is simple: we show what we pay for a drug, add a transparent markup and pharmacy fee, and show the customer the price.
No games. No hidden spread.
And a large percentage of our customers already have insurance.
They come to us because our cash price is often lower than what their insurance plan asks them to pay.
That tells you something is wrong.
Here are five things Texas can do about it.
1. Let patients shop for cheaper drugs
If someone's insurance says a prescription costs $500, but they can buy the exact same drug for $100 cash, let them buy it for $100.
Then credit that $100 toward their deductible and out-of-pocket maximum wherever Texas has authority to do so.
Patients should be rewarded for saving themselves and their health plan money.
They shouldn't be punished for it.
That's how you create something healthcare desperately needs:
Price competition.
2. Standardize PBM and TPA contracts
Texas should require the state, cities, counties and school districts to use standardized model contracts and mandatory terms for PBMs and TPAs.
I've reviewed these contracts.
They routinely run hundreds of pages.
I've seen contracting packages longer than a thousand pages.
There is no human being—or group of human beings—on this planet who can stay awake and understand every provision in contracts that complicated.
I don't care how much coffee they drink.
I call it contractual terrorism.
The vendor only has to sneak a couple of tricks through hundreds of pages.
The employer has to find every one.
It can't.
I've developed a model PBM contract designed to eliminate the major tricks and hidden economics we've identified.
Texas can have it for free.
Use mine. Improve it. Open source it.
I don't care.
Just stop making every government entity negotiate these contracts from scratch.
3. Make the economics public
If taxpayers are paying the bill, taxpayers should know the price.
Pricing. Fees. Rebates. Guarantees. Pharmacy reimbursement. Affiliate compensation. Audit rights.
Make them public.
I'm not talking about patient information or legitimate security information.
I'm talking about the money.
You cannot have an efficient market without price discovery.
Without price discovery, you get information asymmetry.
And when one side knows dramatically more than the other, guess who wins?
Not taxpayers.
Not employers.
Not patients.
Open the contracts up and let competitors see what they have to beat.
That giant sucking sound you hear will be money moving away from healthcare conglomerates that are too big to care and back toward taxpayers, employers and patients.
In the immortal words of Charles Barkley:
I guarantee it.
4. Kill the gag clauses
PBM contracts are like Fight Club.
The number one rule of Fight Club is that you can't talk about Fight Club.
The number one rule of many PBM contracts seems to be that you can't talk about your PBM contract.
That's insane.
Let employers compare pricing, rebates, fees, guarantees and reimbursement terms.
Markets work better when buyers know what other buyers are paying.
5. Make enforcement hurt
If a healthcare company commits a serious violation, give them one mulligan.
But after a second material federal or Texas enforcement action within a defined period, make them ineligible for new Texas government contracts for a period of time.
Two strikes.
You're out.
Today, some of these companies can make billions, get caught, pay a fine and write it off more easily than I wrote off an NBA fine.
That's not deterrence.
That's a cost of doing business.
And Texas should spend more on enforcement.
If Texas spends $10 million auditing contracts and analyzing claims and prevents $100 million in unnecessary spending, that's not overhead.
That's a 10x return on investment

[Pete Hegseth @PeteHegseth]

This is DISGUSTING and FAKE. A complete LIE.

Shame on the Washington Post — they’re worse than Iranian state media.

[Lyn Alden @LynAldenContact]

The fact that people still care about 25 basis points is evidence that they don’t yet appreciate the depth of the fiscal dominance we are in.

Anyway, have a nice weekend.

[Ramp Capital @RampCapitalLLC]

You’re worried about AI killing humanity. I’m worried about the 10Y yield killing humanity. We are not the same.

[Nick Timiraos @NickTimiraos]

Stanley Druckenmiller renders an unfavorable opinion of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's use of buybacks to defend against higher yields in a market that is functioning normally.

"I have spent five decades trading on a simple premise: Markets aggregate information no committee possesses, and prices are how that information reaches decision makers. The long-term Treasury yield is the most important price in the world. It is also the only fiscal disciplinarian the U.S. has left."

"Every basis point of artificial yield suppression is a subsidy to procrastination."

"Return buybacks to their stated purpose: small, scheduled, off-the-run liquidity operations announced at quarterly refundings, never off-cycle responses to yield levels. Term out the debt honestly and pay the price the market sets."

"If the 30-year must trade at 5.5% to clear, that isn’t a crisis. It is an invoice. Then do the only thing that durably lowers long-term yields: address the primary deficit."

https://t.co/Xe8Vi38WiI

[Andy Constan @dampedspring]

Consequences of microscopic 🍆-day on Iran

Give people a longer runway to sell UST before 🍆 Day sanctions are implemented. while "doing whatever it takes" to suppress long term interest rates is very nice treatment of foreign allies and enemies holding and now selling our debt.

Bad for dollar, good for gold and hard money. Inflationary and paid for by US holders of UST, consumers, and the tax payers.

[Mark Cuban @mcuban]

If you own shares in a fund that owns any of the biggest insurance carriers, you are part of the cost of healthcare problem in this country.

Those companies put the share price over the health of you, your family, co-workers and friends. The worst part Is they will lie and mislead you to make more

Tell the funds you own that you will sell if they don’t divest their interests in the biggest insurance companies

61 pct of Americans own stocks directly or indirectly. You can make a difference

[Devin Duke @sirDukeDevin]

No, MAGA, you can't storm the Capitol One.

[TheHappyHawaiian @ThHappyHawaiian]

The weirdest thing about the ‘maybe deals’ is every time one is announced oil dive $10 but the moment it falls apart nothing happens

[Shay Boloor @StockSavvyShay]

THIS HAS TO BE THE STORY OF 2026

Ken Griffin’s Citadel was pushing surprise-rate-hike fears just days before the AI trade collapsed and forced 4x-levered Leopold Aschenbrenner's Situational Awareness to unload its book near the lows.

Citadel then reportedly bought most of those assets at significantly lower prices knowing that if sentiment deteriorated enough the fund could be forced to sell which makes the entire sequence look absolutely ruthless.

This is why the stock market is the greatest game on Earth.

[Stanphyl Capital 🇺🇸 🇮🇱 🇺🇦 @StanphylCap]

Warsh is a smart guy, so I'll give you with a "charitable explanation" for his apparent cowardice:

He *knew* the 10 & 30-year rates would spike if he did nothing, so he got the MEANINGFUL rate increases he wanted without pissing off the clueless dummy who apppointed him.

[BigPopLipe @bigmoneylipe]

They boutta build a statue of Brad Stevens in Philly for this 😭😭

[Shams Charania @ShamsCharania]

BREAKING: LeBron James is signing with the Philadelphia 76ers on a two-year, $8 million deal with a player option, Klutch Sports Group and Klutch CEO and Game Over show host Rich Paul tells ESPN.

[Futebol Nostálgico! @futnostalgico]

15 minutos de Pelé 🇧🇷😊

[Midnite @midnite]

Lionel Messi in that first half

[BigPopLipe @bigmoneylipe]

Viva España 🇪🇸🏆

[BigPopLipe @bigmoneylipe]

@jrichardgoodman Do you notice how the story keeps changing? I think Klutch Sports and rest of Sports Media are just running this circus because they know this may be LeBron’s last season and they want to ride the pony one last time.