Zarathustra

BREAKING. The United States Treasury’s own consolidated financial statements for fiscal year 2025 report $6.06 trillion in total assets against $47.78 trillion in total liabilities. That is a negative net position of $41.72 trillion. And that number excludes Social Security and Medicare, which CBO projects add another $50 to $70 trillion in unfunded obligations over 30 years. Steve Hanke and David Walker wrote in Fortune on March 23 that these numbers constitute insolvency under any standard accounting framework. The Treasury has not used that word. No sovereign government that issues its own reserve currency calls itself insolvent. But the numbers are the Treasury’s own. They are published on Treasury.gov. They are audited. And they show a government whose liabilities exceed its assets by a ratio of nearly 8 to 1. Now layer the war on top. Annual interest on the national debt reached $1.22 trillion in fiscal year 2025. That is more than the defence budget. More than Medicare. The war supplemental request for the Iran conflict exceeds $200 billion. The Federal Reserve cannot cut rates because Hormuz-driven energy inflation has pushed PCE to 2.7 percent and rising. Every basis point the Fed holds is a basis point that compounds against $39 trillion in gross debt. The war that was supposed to last weeks is now costing hundreds of billions while the borrowing cost of financing it rises with every barrel of oil that does not transit the strait. The arithmetic is circular and accelerating. The war spikes energy prices. Energy prices spike inflation. Inflation prevents rate cuts. Higher rates increase the cost of servicing $39 trillion in debt. Higher debt service costs expand the deficit. The expanded deficit requires more borrowing. The borrowing occurs at higher rates because the war is still running. The circle has no exit as long as the strait is closed. Japan is watching from the other side of the carry trade. Life insurers hold $5 trillion in foreign assets, heavily weighted toward US Treasuries. The BOJ is tightening. The 10-year JGB hit 2.278 percent. If Japanese institutions begin repatriating, the largest marginal buyer of American debt becomes a seller at the exact moment the US needs to borrow $200 billion more for the war. The yuan is entering the gap. Every tanker that pays $2 million in yuan at the IRGC toll booth is a transaction that does not require dollar settlement. Every bilateral deal between Russia and China in rubles and yuan is a trade flow that does not pass through SWIFT. Intra-BRICS trade reached $500 billion in 2025 with over half settled in local currencies. The dollar’s share of global reserves has fallen from 72 percent in 2000 to 56.9 percent. The Hormuz toll booth is not just blocking molecules. It is demonstrating in real time that global energy can settle without the dollar. And the demonstration occurs while the dollar’s issuer publishes financial statements showing $41.72 trillion in net liabilities. The Treasury is not insolvent. A sovereign that prints its own reserve currency can always meet its obligations. But the mechanism for meeting those obligations, borrowing at ever-higher rates, printing when borrowing becomes untenable, inflating when printing becomes visible, has a cost. That cost is measured in purchasing power, in credibility, and in the willingness of foreign holders to continue financing a government whose own statements show liabilities eight times its assets while fighting a war it cannot afford to win or afford to lose. The molecules are trapped behind the strait. The fiscal credibility is trapped behind the numbers. And the numbers are the Treasury’s own. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

AI has become the justification for every layoff. It's the perfect excuse card, but there is a lot of spin involved. Every layoff is some combo of the following five very different AI stories. 1. Nothing changed, we just realized we have too many people. We are going to blame AI, but we are bullshitting. This is the AI as an excuse; it was really sloppy hiring, and we are just blaming AI. (See Block) 2. Growth has gone away so now we have too many people. This may be because of AI if you are a SaaS company. All the customer love is now going to AI. But it's less AI as a productivity lift, and more about you just building a less ambitious growth company. (See Salesforce and most every SaaS company) 3. We spent our money on capex to build AI so now we can’t afford as many people. Management may say it’s about AI making us productive (4 below) but my gut is a lot of it is about Nvidia getting our money so now there is none for you. (See Meta and Oracle) 4 We are really using AI the way god intended us to. We don't need as many people. This is the ONLY version of the story that is actually about a productivity increase. It's real, it's happening, but I wonder if it is even the majority of the layoffs. (See some software engineering departments right now) @jasonlk raised a fifth reason that doesn't get talked about enough: we just have the wrong people. Maybe we don't need 20 engineers who all know C++, but rather eight who have strong AI skills. This I think should be happening everywhere. Every time a layoff announcement comes out, I try and mentally categorize per the above.

Iran signals a preference for JD Vance in negotiations - as Trump picks his team trib.al/v2ROtnd