Andy

[Lee Roach @leevalueroach]

Japan is the canary. Nobody is listening.

For thirty years Japan ran the largest monetary experiment in human history. Zero rates. Yield curve control. A central bank that ended up owning roughly half its own government bond market. The theory was that a sovereign borrowing in its own currency faces no real constraint. For three decades the theory held, and every trader who bet against it got carried out on a stretcher. They called it the widowmaker.

The widowmaker is collecting now.

Debt above 200% of GDP. The 10 year JGB touched 2.91% last week, the highest in thirty years. The policy rate sits at 1%, a level last seen in 1995. Debt servicing in the fiscal 2026 budget hit 31.3 trillion yen, roughly a quarter of the entire national budget, and the Ministry of Finance now assumes a 3% bond rate, the highest assumption since 1997. Social security and interest payments together consume close to 60% of all government spending.

Six of every ten yen Tokyo spends now goes to promises made in the past. The remaining four have to cover defense, education, infrastructure, and everything else a modern state is supposed to do.

The yen sits at 163, a 40 year low. Japan burned roughly 11.7 trillion yen defending it and bought a few weeks of relief. This is the trap they built for themselves. Hike enough to defend the currency and the interest bill detonates. Hold rates to protect the fiscal position and the currency keeps bleeding out. Japan imports 90% of its energy and 60% of its calories, so every tick of depreciation lands directly on the grocery bill.

Now the part almost nobody models correctly. Hyperinflation is a distraction. Four percent for fifteen years cuts purchasing power roughly in half, and it arrives so slowly that no single year ever registers as a crisis. There are no wheelbarrow photographs from a 4% decade. There is a retiree in 2041 who did everything right and is poor anyway.

The Japanese saver pays for this twice. Thirty years of zero rates already moved wealth quietly out of household balance sheets and into the state's. Now the debt those zero rates financed gets inflated away in real terms while consumption taxes climb and benefits get quietly trimmed. A bond issued at 0.2% rolls at 3%, and the gap comes out of somebody's standard of living. Extraction, spread thin enough that nobody can point to the day it happened.

Now look west.

US publicly held debt is at 99% of GDP, the highest since 1946, and the CBO baseline puts it at 120% by 2036. Net interest runs from about 1 trillion this year to 2.1 trillion by 2036. The number that should keep you up: the primary deficit, excluding interest, actually declines over that window, from 2.6% of GDP to 2.1%. The entire deterioration is interest compounding on itself. CBO's own baseline has the average rate on the debt crossing above the growth rate around 2031, the threshold where the arithmetic stops correcting itself and starts feeding itself.

The 30 year is at its highest since 2007. The Fed just held with three members dissenting in favor of a hike. And Japan, sitting on 1.19 trillion of Treasuries as the largest foreign holder, sold nearly 30 billion in the first quarter alone. When domestic bonds pay 2.8% with no currency risk attached, Japanese insurers have no reason to own American paper. The most reliable marginal bidder in the world is packing up and going home.

Central planning dies slowly. It ends as a grinding transfer from everyone who saved to everyone who borrowed, administered by people who will call it stability the entire time it is happening.

Japan is fifteen years ahead of us on this road. Everything happening to them is a broadcast from our own future, running in real time, with the sound turned off.

[Finbarr Bermingham @fbermingham]

Brutal. 100,000!

Volkswagen is planning to cut up to 100,000 jobs and end production at four plants in Germany in a significant acceleration of its cost-cutting plans as Europe’s largest carmaker seeks to survive the rapid advance of Chinese rivals.

https://t.co/kRNRzXdJlK

[Rothmus 🏴 @Rothmus]

As a young socialist, Hayek read Ludwig von Mises’ 1920 paper “Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth.”

Mises showed that socialist central planning isn’t merely inefficient, it’s impossible.

Without private property and genuine market prices, planners lack any rational way to allocate scarce resources or determine real costs and needs.

Even Oskar Lange, a leading socialist in the calculation debate, effectively conceded the point.
While he promoted “market socialism” with trial-and-error pricing by a central board, real-world socialist planners in Eastern Europe quietly relied on world capitalist market prices as a guide.

Without external free-market price signals, pure socialism would be economically blind and coordination would collapse.

Mises went further, arguing that interventionism, the “middle way” of government meddling, is inherently unstable.
Each intervention creates problems that invite more interventions, eventually leading to full socialization.
Price controls cause shortages, subsidies distort production, and the cycle continues until the economy is fully planned.

The lesson is clear.
Rational economics requires genuine market prices emerging from voluntary exchange and private property.
Half-measures don’t stabilize the system. They accelerate the drift into central planning.

The Austrian School understood this decades before the collapse of the Soviet bloc proved it in practice.

[Rahul @sairahul1]

https://t.co/4U0aNsoAmo

[Andy @thinkdoodle]

The only reason why I buy Gardenia bread is because it’s made in Singapore. https://t.co/B85PeBElVP

[Polymarket Sports @PolymarketSport]

🚨REPORT: FIFA has settled on a broadcasting deal with China for $60M just 27 days out from the tournament

FIFA originally wanted $300M for the deal

[Andrew Yeung @andruyeung]

Anthropic is paying up to $400,000 a year for an events role.

They're looking for someone to own the execution of brand experiences that translate Anthropic's values into physical moments.

This person will produce everything from intimate thought-leadership gatherings to large-scale industry activations.

The top AI research lab in the world recognizes that to cross the chasm and reach everyday consumers, they need to lean into hospitality. They need to create visceral, unforgettable IRL experiences that make complex technology feel accessible and human.

They understand that digital channels are getting increasingly saturated. Every feed is flooded with AI content... every inbox is overflowing.

The massive opportunity now is offline, analog, in-person.

The companies that win in the next decade won't just have the best product but the most emotional in-person presence and the most compelling storytelling.

If you're in events, experiential marketing, or brand activations, this is your moment. The biggest tech companies in the world are betting on you.

[Andy @thinkdoodle]

Why are the convicts’ identities protected? https://t.co/UQmWbquIrf

[Andy @thinkdoodle]

Stoking fear.

[Michael A. Arouet @MichaelAArouet]

Germany is simply cooked. Three things:

1. China leads in robotics, robotic dark factories don’t even need lights

2. China leads in innovations (see below)

3. Germany is mentally stuck in the last century with unions, regulations, and similar relicts

Did I miss anything?

[Andy @thinkdoodle]

SM Lee Hsien Loong at the Chatham House Dialogue (Oct 2025) | Prime Minister's Office Singapore https://t.co/7yl9CX04e3

[IGN @IGN]

A Japanese study sought to answer why Nintendo offered Switch 2 preorders through a lottery system in Japan, but via “first-come, first-served” invites in the U.S. and other countries. Here's what it found: https://t.co/CBItoVYXdB

[Andy @thinkdoodle]

Whenever someone describes Singapore as dull, I always wonder whether the issue is with the author. There aren’t many other places in the world with so much to do.

[Andy @thinkdoodle]

Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund is US$1.1 trillion! How are the returns making citizens’ lives better? https://t.co/z6vkcIa6lz

[Andy @thinkdoodle]

Guy needs 32 MPs to integrate immigrants! https://t.co/GXuVO6rhck

[Andy @thinkdoodle]

https://t.co/fBUyS1zDmg

[Andy @thinkdoodle]

😂 https://t.co/4XcQFQJBJd

[Andy @thinkdoodle]

https://t.co/C19m2bLiFD

[Andy @thinkdoodle]

Speed bumps are uncivilised.

[Andy @thinkdoodle]

Airdrops development. https://t.co/7evzU3AUV0

[Andy @thinkdoodle]

Trump blinked. China is the target. https://t.co/V1kUPtWQqa