RedStateBlues

I'm currently in Dubai and the banks are getting weird. Citi and Standard Chartered literally evacuated their offices this week. Told staff go home, work remote. HSBC closed their Qatar branches. Hedge funds are in "contingency mode." That's a polite way of saying they're bricking it. Analysts are saying customers could pull out $307 BILLION if this goes on another month. $307 billion. Let that number sit for a second. Bank withdrawals are "elevated" — that's the official word. A guy I know who works at Emirates NBD told me they've had more wire transfer requests in the last two weeks than in all of Q4 last year. Iranian accounts? Those are getting flagged and frozen quietly. No announcement. The UAE central bank just launched their biggest support package since COVID. That's not a good sign — that's a panic button. People are moving money to Singapore, Switzerland, anywhere that isn't in Iran's flight path. The dirham is pegged to the dollar so it looks stable. But that peg costs money to defend, and everyone's watching it.

Fox: I'm really, really not happy about this inflation report. This does not look good to me. Prices were up by 3.11%. You're up 4.3% year-over-year.