August 8
Bitcoin Price
Down $8 from $64,954 (when oil was $77.08 at 5:00 Friday) | 6:30pm Saturday
NYT
Iran Issues List of Demands, Complicating Efforts to Reopen Strait
The list of demands upended expectations that a deal with Oman would soon allow commerce to flow through the strait once more and ease global energy prices.
AlJz
Iran sets new conditions to reopen Hormuz, wants US to ‘correct behaviour’
No deal yet as White House stays quiet. | Zero at 3:35pm
Iran
Iran says Hormuz to stay closed unless US accepts its terms
Wauck
Tariffs Backfire. Like others, back in 2024 I favored the idea of using tariffs to encourage the growth and/or return of manufacturing to the United States, to restore a more balanced economic model after the disaster of hyper financialization since Reagan. The use of tariffs—which are taxes on US consumers—for that purpose would require careful calculation to be effective, but that’s what the Congress is for.
The Accidental Iconoclast: Part 1
How Trump’s Strategic Folly Unravelled the Globalist Architecture. Trump’s strategic miscalculation shattered the globalist empire from within, exposing the hard physical limits of American power and compelling nations across Eurasia and the Global South to assert their own sovereign, multipolar independence.
The Accidental Iconoclast: Part 2
US statecraft has managed to deliver the worst of both worlds—trapping the U.S. military-industrial complex in two concurrent, unwinnable wars of attrition that accelerate the physical demise of the American Empire.
Zero
Joint Chiefs Chair Pushing For Iran War Off-Ramp, Warning Escalation Will Backfire
AAA
Gasoline is $4.024 vs $4.103 a week ago
Peak
mRNA Flu Vaccine Approved as AI Designs Viruses, US-Saudi Oil Imports Hit Zero, “Muslim NATO” Forms
CBB Weekly
Manufacturing activity expanded at the fastest pace since May 2022. The ISM Manufacturing Index has surged 7.7 points so far in 2026, the steepest advance since emerging from the pandemic. Strength was notably broad-based. In particular, factories are ramping up production.
News
Last Weak: Jobs Meet Strong Earnings
Week Ahead: Soft CPI to Follow Disappointing US Jobs Report | Marc
Cleveland Fed sees headline CPI at .09 m/m and 3.42 y/y. Core .21 and 2.52
Also this week: PPI, retail sales, and Michigan Consumer Confidence
Mkts 2Y 10Y 30Y
The S&P 500 rose 0.6% to a record close of 7,758
2Y is lower in yield by 5.2bp to 4.206% | 13:51
10Y is 4.654%, lower in yield by 2.7bp
Yield curve moves steepener on bullish NFP
Dollar Index's 30-day correlation with changes 2Y has stabilized and is near 0.62 | Marc
“Never confuse education with intelligence. You can have a PhD and still be an idiot.”
~Richard P. Feynman
The Week In Pictures
Pleading the fifth when you already received a full Presidential pardon is like wearing a mask afer being fully vaccinated.
Secretariat offers a glimpse of the upper limits of biology
Fifty years later, billions of dollars have been poured into breeding and training, yet Secretariat’s record still stands. This is the paradox of the thoroughbred: breeders have spent centuries trying to create a faster horse, but in doing so, they may have bred away the very genetic diversity that would allow the horse to keep improving, or even to remain robust.
AmTh
Globalism Must Be Vanquished. Today’s internationalists were yesterday’s imperialists. Ten or fifteen years ago, calling someone a “globalist” didn’t have much effect. Today, it is well understood as a pejorative that highlights someone’s allegiance to international institutions over those created within a nation state.
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