Monetary McFly 🪰

Don't be surprised when the next round of QE simply turns into a massive period of stablecoin creation🤔 A not QE, QE

Don't be surprised when the next round of QE simply turns into a massive period of stablecoin creation🤔 A not QE, QE

ENTRY-LEVEL UNEMPLOYMENT HIT 13.3% LAST JULY, THE WORST JOB MARKET FOR FRESHERS IN 37 YEARS, ACCORDING TO FORTUNE.

Are we getting closer to this?

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The Maiden Lane Facilities 📚 During the 2008 financial crisis, the Federal Reserve created three special purpose vehicles called "Maiden Lane" LLCs in an attempt to contain the economic meltdown. This FRED chart shows their net portfolio holdings over time — the toxic assets the Fed effectively absorbed on their balance sheet to stave off worsening chaos… for some market participants The stacked bars peak near $75 billion in January 2009, then wind down to near zero as assets were ultimately sold off - and surprisingly with substantial profits 🤔 What were they? 🔵Maiden Lane LLC (Bear Stearns bailout – 2008) To help JPMorgan acquire the failing Bear Stearns, the NY Fed lent $28.85B to this LLC to buy $30B of Bear's illiquid mortgage assets that JPM didn't want. JPM put in a subordinated $1.15B loan. The goal: unwind slowly without dumping assets into a frozen market. 💵Maiden Lane I: ~$2.5B net gain to Treasury by 2012. JPM would be 100% paid back including interest at 4.5% over the Fed’s Primary Credit Rate - plus an absolute “fire sale” $2 per share price for Bear Stearns 🟢Maiden Lane II LLC (AIG – securities lending) Created in late 2008 as part of AIG's government backed rescue. The Fed lent $19.5B to this LLC to buy $20.5B of residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) from AIG's securities lending program. AIG subordinated $1B of its position and this relieved immediate liquidity pressure on AIG 🔴Maiden Lane III LLC (AIG – credit default swaps) The biggest and riskiest. The Fed lent $24.3B to buy $29.3B of multi-sector collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) that AIG had insured via credit default swaps - AIG added $5B of equity. By purchasing the underlying CDOs, the LLC allowed AIG to cancel the toxic CDS contracts and stop hemorrhaging collateral calls 💵Maiden Lane II: ~$2.9B net gain to Treasury by 2012 💵Maiden Lane III: ~$6.6B net gain to Treasury by 2018 In ML II and III, the Fed loaned cash to brand-new LLCs it created and controlled. AIG provided junior capital ($1B deferred in II; $5B cash in III at 3.00% over LIBOR) behind the Fed’s senior loans. This let the LLCs buy the toxic assets and ease the squeeze on AIG - which was largely Treasury owned by this point in time In the end, 2008 was never really about collateral impairment or realized losses from toxic mortgages, it was lack of dollar liquidity when needed, the painful unwinding of frozen counterparty risk, and “buying more time”

@uptownsaul Again with this dude

Hyun Song Shin gotta know about this...

🚨Recent data shows Gen Z belief in God has surged to 45%, nearly tripling from 16% in 2021

Long beach California, full of oil towers in 1944... By the 1940s, parts of Southern California looked less like a coastline and more like an industrial forest. Long Beach, especially nearby Signal Hill, sat atop one of the richest oil fields in the country. At its peak, the field produced over 260,000 barrels of oil per day, and the landscape filled with thousands of derricks packed tightly together, each tapping into the same underground reservoir. This wasn’t just local industry, it was strategic. During World War II, California’s oil fields were critical to fueling ships, aircraft, and the broader U.S. war effort. The demand helped push production to historic highs, transforming quiet neighborhoods into dense grids of machinery almost overnight. The moment was temporary. As production declined and urban development expanded, most of these towers disappeared. Today, the same areas are covered with homes, parks, and streets, with little visible trace of what once stood there. At one point, Signal Hill was so saturated with wells that some lots were drilled just a few feet apart, making it one of the most densely drilled oil fields in the world. 📷© Andreas Feininger © Vintage American Photos #archaeohistories

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BREAKING: South Korea just announced mandatory fuel rationing. Government vehicles at public institutions barred from operating one day each week on a five-day licence plate rotation. The world’s 10th largest economy, a G20 member, a semiconductor superpower, home to Samsung and SK Hynix, the country that fabricates a quarter of the world’s memory chips, is rationing fuel like Sri Lanka. South Korea imports 73 to 87 percent of its oil from the Middle East. Every barrel transits the Strait of Hormuz. The strait is closed and mined. There is no alternative route for Korean crude imports at scale. The Kospi crashed 4.9 percent on Monday before Trump’s “productive conversations” post briefly eased the panic. The won is weakening. Inflation is accelerating. And now the Energy Minister is telling government workers which days they cannot drive. Count the dominoes. Sri Lanka rationed first: Wednesdays off, QR codes at pumps, LPG vanished from southern shelves. Bangladesh followed with public holidays to conserve fuel. Pakistan imposed restrictions. India tightened allocations. Slovenia became the first EU country with QR codes and odd-even plates. Now South Korea. The rationing is no longer a developing-world phenomenon. It is migrating up the GDP ladder. The 10th largest economy. The 12th largest military budget. A US treaty ally hosting 28,500 American troops. Rationing. Those 28,500 troops run on fuel. USFK operates bases across the peninsula that require continuous diesel, aviation fuel, and generator capacity. Joint exercises with the ROK military consume thousands of tonnes of fuel annually. Every barrel of that fuel traces back to the same Middle Eastern supply chain that South Korea’s Energy Minister just acknowledged cannot sustain civilian demand. If civilian vehicles are being restricted, military logistics are under pressure. If military logistics are under pressure, deterrence against North Korea erodes. If deterrence erodes, Pyongyang and Beijing calculate. The Strait of Hormuz is 7,500 kilometres from the Korean DMZ. The fuel that deters Kim Jong Un transits a chokepoint held closed by Iran’s 140 remaining missile launchers. Kim Jong Un is watching. Every day that South Korea rations fuel is a day that North Korea’s calculus shifts. Not toward war, not yet, but toward the conclusion that the American alliance system has a fuel dependency that a single regional conflict can exploit. The US cannot simultaneously secure the Strait of Hormuz with carrier groups, deploy 82nd Airborne paratroopers to the Iran theater, accelerate the 11th MEU from San Diego, AND maintain full deterrence posture on the Korean Peninsula. Something gives. The fuel rationing in Seoul is the first visible signal of what is giving. Taiwan is watching too. TSMC’s fabrication plants in Hsinchu are counting LNG reserves in single-digit days. Taiwan imports virtually all of its energy. If South Korea, with its larger strategic reserves and diversified economy, is already rationing, Taiwan’s timeline is shorter. The chips that power every Nvidia GPU, every Apple processor, every AI training run on Earth depend on a gas supply that depends on a strait that depends on a 5-day pause that depends on a Truth Social post that Iran says corresponds to nothing. Sri Lanka. Bangladesh. Pakistan. India. Slovenia. South Korea. Six countries rationing. Three continents. One strait. The molecules do not check GDP rankings. The molecules check whether the chokepoint is open. It is not. open.substack.com/pub/xerion/p/a…

Japan is Said to Sound Out Market on Oil Futures Intervention

Why should “money” earn interest - especially if Clarity allows it be invested into a 24/7 yield bearing investment that can be cashed out and spent point of sale at the sushi restaurant I’d rather we focus on anonymity features and potential use cases of Stablecoins As far as the Banks go, they should be forced to forgo any IORB on Reserve balances used as collateral to make their own stablecoins or tokenized deposits

That effectively makes USD linked stablecoins useless other than for payments or as a bridge in an exchange transaction . At least you can earn interest on USD. Ultimately if there is a CBDC in the US in the future on which you can earn interest what will be the benefit of USD linked stablecoins.. I guess other countries can allow interest on USD linked stablecoins and some capital will move offshore from the US to other destinations.

The Iran War Could Break The Japanese Yen

GBBC member @Ripple has announced plans to secure an Australian Financial Services License to expand its payments offering across Australia and the broader #APAC region 🇦🇺 Explore here 👇 ripple.com/ripple-press/r…

China’s central bank just said something BIG. They are signalling that global imbalances aren’t the result of policy failures. They are saying it is the consequence of a system built on a single dominant currency. When the People’s Bank of China links its surplus to structural flaws in the monetary order, it’s no longer about trade. It’s about the system itself. A system that the United States once called “temporary” when it suspended the convertibility of the dollar into gold in 1971. This is the structure I’ve been writing about for nearly a decade. And it’s starting to be acknowledged at the highest levels.

The ECB hiked rates in July 2008 - 4 months after Bear Stearns and 2 months before Lehman Bros - because they were worried about inflation due to oil price shocks 🫣

Before 1971, the system had discipline because gold acted as the anchor. It didn’t eliminate imbalances but it exposed them quickly and forced a response. When that link was cut, it wasn’t replaced, it was removed, and what followed wasn’t a new system but the ability to extend imbalances far beyond what was previously possible and allowed its currencies to float against each other in a debasement race.

The average monthly mortgage payment in 1987 was $760 The Boomer new house payment is today’s new car payment

@iluminatibot It’s worse, they don’t actually create money, they create Reserves And the only Banks can use the Reserves, and only amongst other Banks A Bank needs to find a reason to make you a loan before it becomes money

The money that you spend so much of your life chasing, it's printed out of thin air. Ultimately, the dollar is a scam.

The truckload spot market is absolutely ripping right now and people who say it isn’t are looking at old data and not talking to operators. Brokers are sweating