rice

@earthserenityy Beautiful

For moon lovers

Do you have this problem too? I listen to a LOT of podcasts... Finance, macro, business, tech, politics, health, long-form interviews. You name it. Each one is 60-90 minutes. Sometimes 3 hours. Most of the value sits in maybe 10 minutes of actual signal. If you're trying to keep up with the smartest people across the topics you care about, you're losing 15-20 hours a week. There's so much value out there, but I don't have the TIME to consume all of it. And I feel like I'm not the only one. So we built something to fix it. It pulls the best podcasts each week across whatever topics you follow, strips out the noise, and gives you the actual ideas, arguments, and takeaways in a few minutes of reading. No fluff. No filler. Just straight to the point value. And it's free right now. I'm sharing it because I genuinely think it's useful, and I want feedback from people who care about their time as much as I do. If you want in, join below: open.substack.com/pub/podcastweek Save yourself the dozens of hours. Spend them actually putting the ideas to work.

My good friend @GordonJohnson19 totally nails it with this brilliant thread. Car crash in progress. $TSLA is about to completely collapse as the stock catches down to the imploding fundamentals. No narrative will save the stock this time. The destruction in market cap will be epic. BRING IT. THIS WILL BE EPIC.

$5 trillion in sovereign wealth is being rethought right now. And most investors have no idea what that means for their portfolios. Gulf sovereign wealth funds (Saudi Arabia's PIF, Abu Dhabi's ADIA, Qatar's QIA) collectively control roughly $5 trillion in global assets. They own stakes in Volkswagen, Barclays, Glencore, Harrods, the Shard, Heathrow Airport, and Canary Wharf. They're anchored across European blue chips, US Treasuries, Silicon Valley tech, and Manhattan real estate. These funds were built for a rainy day. And it's POURING. One month into the Iran war, the damage is adding up FAST. Saudi Arabia was forced to cut oil production from 10.4 million barrels per day in February to 8 million in March. At Brent above $110, that's over $8 billion in lost crude revenue in a single month. Add the shutdown of LPG terminals and surging insurance costs, and Saudi's total first month losses climb to roughly $10 billion. The UAE got hit differently. Not just oil disruption - Iran's drones struck data centers, ports, and aviation infrastructure. Dubai and Abu Dhabi built their global brand on logistics, tourism, and trade. All three are now under severe strain. Qatar may have it worst though. Its core LNG export infrastructure took direct hits. The $580 billion QIA owns trophy assets across Europe - 17% of Volkswagen, stakes in Barclays, Glencore, the London Stock Exchange, plus Harrods, Heathrow, and the Shard. If the conflict drags on, some of those crown jewels may need to become cash. 3 of the 4 largest GCC economies have already BEGUN internal reviews of their investment strategies. They're reviewing existing contracts. Evaluating force majeure clauses. Reconsidering hundreds of billions in US investment pledges made to Trump just last year. Here's what I want you to understand: These funds don't just own stocks and buildings. They ARE the market in many corners of it. When the third largest shareholder in Volkswagen starts thinking about liquidity, that's a structural event - not just a portfolio adjustment. And the math is getting worse by the day. Saudi Arabia's 2026 budget was ALREADY built on a $44 billion deficit. Public debt was projected to hit $430 billion. Oil still accounts for 54% of state revenues. Every month this war continues forces Riyadh to choose between slowing Vision 2030 megaprojects or borrowing more on international markets. The good news (if you can call it that) is these funds hold significant liquid assets. ADIA reports 60-75% of its portfolio in public equities and debt. They can sell without fire-sale conditions. But "can sell" and "the market absorbs it smoothly" are two very different things. The IEA's Fatih Birol said last week that April will be MUCH worse than March for oil supply. The ships that were already in transit when the war started have now delivered. Nothing new is coming through Hormuz. The physical reality is catching up to paper prices. Brent is at $111 today. Goldman says $150-200 if the blockade persists through June. This is literally the worst energy disruption in history - bigger than '73, bigger than the Gulf War, bigger than the Russian gas cutoff. Meanwhile, gold sits at $4,675. Up over 25% since early 2025. The sovereign wealth fund story is the SECOND ORDER effect nobody's pricing in. Oil disruption is the headline. The possibility of $5 trillion in institutional capital being redeployed, liquidated, or frozen is the aftershock. When governments face existential short-term risk, long-term investment horizons collapse overnight. That's not theory. That's happening RIGHT NOW across the Gulf. Own gold. Own energy. Stay out of the way of forced sellers.

Meet Marc Lipschultz. The man who got paid $23.9 million last year to tell you everything was "fine." On February 5, he sat on Blue Owl's earnings call and said: "We don't have red flags. In point of fact, we don't have yellow flags. We have largely green flags. The tech portfolio continues to be the most pristine amongst all of our subsectors." 8 weeks later, investors tried to yank 41% of that "pristine" tech fund back. And what did Blue Owl's co-founder Doug Ostrover say about this mess? He told the Australian Financial Review that private credit "lost control of the narrative." That Blue Owl had "only itself to blame." That they "could have done a better job explaining it." Lost control of the NARRATIVE? This isn't a PR problem. It's a PRODUCT problem. When investors demand 41% of their money back and you can only give them 5% - that's not a narrative failure. That's a structural failure baked into the product from day one. You sold people a product with no exit. Then when they discovered there was no exit, you blamed your communications team. Now here's the part I really want you to know: Marc's pay isn't tied to performance, credit losses, or the safety of your money. According to Blue Owl's own proxy statement, his compensation is formulaically tied to Management Fee Revenue. So the more money he pulls in from retail investors, the more he gets paid - regardless of what happens to your capital afterward. Do you understand what that means? He gets paid to GATHER your money. Not to PROTECT it. In 2024, that formula paid him $23.9 million - a 29% RAISE from the year before. Meanwhile his co-CEO Ostrover pulled down another $23.9 million. Their CFO got $47.4 million - a 519% raise. 3 executives splitting $95 million in a single year while retail investors get the door locked behind them. Here's what Marc's incentive structure actually means: When loans go bad because AI eats the borrowers, Marc still gets paid. When the stock craters 60%, Marc still gets paid. When investors demand their money and Blue Owl gates the funds, Marc STILL gets paid. His downside is your downside. His upside is his alone. And the problem isn't the "narrative." The problem is the PRODUCT. Private credit was sold to retail investors as equity-like returns with bond-like stability. That was never true. You cannot eliminate volatility. You can only hide it behind quarterly marks and withdrawal gates. The volatility was always there. They just made sure you couldn't see it - until you tried to leave. Marc knew this. His $23.9 million paycheck knew this. The proxy statement KNOWS this. I'm telling you, this has happened countless times before. Someone with perfect credentials stands in front of a microphone and tells you "green flags" while their compensation structure pays them to keep gathering your capital. Then the tide goes out. And suddenly it's not a narrative problem anymore. It's your retirement account. Believe the incentives. Not the resume.

Marc Lipschultz please call your office. Doug Ostrover, Alan Kirshenbaum and you epitomize everything that is wrong with Wall Street. You have perfected the art of legal fraud. Mark to model, gotcha footnotes, selective disclosure, selling an illiquid product to retail investors - the list goes on. “When things are not obvious, they are not obvious for a reason.” Andy Fastow would like to have a word with you. Your words ring hollow. Nobody believes you. History will not be kind to you. Investors should run, not walk from anything that is associated with Blue Owl. JUST SAY NO TO PRIVATE CREDIT @MarcLipschultz $OWL

This is one of the most shameless displays of financial gaslighting I've seen in 45 YEARS. This week Blue Owl Capital disclosed that investors demanded 41% of their money back from one fund and 22% from another. $5.4 BILLION in total redemption requests in a single quarter. Blue Owl's response? They capped withdrawals at 5%. Meaning if you had $1 million in Blue Owl's tech fund, you asked for $410,000 back, and they gave you $50,000. Then they put out a LinkedIn post blaming "heightened negative sentiment" and insisting their fund performance is "robust." That's like a restaurant blaming Yelp reviews while the kitchen is on fire. Here's what they don't want you to focus on: 70% of Blue Owl's lending book is concentrated in software companies. They admitted this on their own earnings call. These are the exact businesses most at risk of being disrupted or destroyed by AI. And when the Wall Street Journal investigated further, they found Blue Owl's flagship fund reported 11.6% software exposure in public filings. The Journal's own analysis found it was actually closer to 21%. That's not just a rounding error... The timeline tells you everything: In February, Blue Owl sold $1.4 billion in loans to meet redemptions. They claimed 99.7 cents on the dollar. Sounds great right? Except one of the buyers was Kuvare - an insurance company whose asset management arm Blue Owl ACQUIRED for $750 million in 2024. Blue Owl manages their money. They sold assets to a company they control and called it an arm's length transaction. Barclays downgraded the stock. Shareholders filed a lawsuit. Congress is now demanding disclosures on sales practices, leverage, and risk management. The stock hit a record low of $7.95 - down over 60% from its 52 week high. And through all of this, Blue Owl's CEO went on the earnings call and said: "We don't have red flags. We don't have yellow flags. We actually have largely green flags." $5.4 billion in redemption requests. 60% stock decline. Gated exits. Congressional scrutiny. All green flags, apparently. I've been warning about private credit for months. The sales pitch was always the same: equity-like returns with bond-like stability. No volatility. No correlation to public markets. Safe. Predictable. Except when investors actually want their money, they discover the exits are bolted shut. You can't eliminate volatility. You can only HIDE it. And that's exactly what Blue Owl has been doing - hiding risk behind opaque valuations, related-party transactions, and withdrawal gates. This isn't "negative sentiment." This is what happens when the tide goes out. Are you listening?

WARREN BUFFETT JUST EXPLAINED WHY HE'S SITTING ON $300 BILLION IN CASH In a recent interview, Buffett was asked about the market selloff. His answer was devastating in its simplicity: "This is nothing." Markets are down 5-7% and everyone's panicking. Buffett has watched Berkshire drop 50% THREE times. He doesn't get excited about a 5-6% dip. In his own words: "We aren't in it to make 5 or 6 percent." These prices aren't even close to cheap. And the numbers back him up: Buffett's own favorite indicator - total market cap to GDP - is at 208%. He once called anything above 120% "playing with fire." We're nearly DOUBLE that threshold. At current levels, his model projects roughly 0.4% annual returns over the next 8 years. Zero point four percent. You can get 5% in a savings account. Meanwhile, Moody's AI-driven recession model just hit 49% probability. Every time it's crossed 50% in 80 years of backtesting, a recession followed within 12 months. And that reading was BEFORE the Iran war shut down the Strait of Hormuz and sent oil above $120. The IEA calls this the worst energy crisis in history. Worse than 1973. Worse than 1979. We've lost 12 million barrels per day - more than both 1970s oil crises COMBINED. The S&P is down 7% year to date. The Nasdaq is off 10%. Q1 was the worst quarterly performance in 4 years. US GDP growth just got revised down from 1.4% to 0.7%. The economy LOST 92,000 jobs last month when economists expected a GAIN of 59,000. And inflation is creeping higher while the economy slows. This is the early stage of stagflation. Buffett sees it. That's why he's been a NET SELLER of stocks for 9 straight quarters. That's why Berkshire is sitting on its largest cash pile in history. The greatest investor alive is telling you - not with words, but with actions - that this market is overpriced and he'd rather earn 5% in T-bills than own stocks at these valuations. When has Buffett been this cautious? Late 1999. Right before the dot-com crash wiped out 49%. Late 2007. Right before the financial crisis wiped out 57%. Both times he was mocked for "missing the rally." Both times he was right. Now look at what's happening around us: Oil at $120 with the Strait of Hormuz still closed. Gas above $4 for the first time since 2022. The IEA warns April will be WORSE than March. This is comparable to the 1970s stagflation era. And the market is still priced for perfection. Buffett didn't get rich by buying expensive stocks during geopolitical crises. He got rich by being patient, sitting in cash, and buying when everyone else was panicking. We're not at the panic stage yet. We're at the stage right before it. The smart money isn't buying this dip. The smart money IS the dip.

$315 BILLION in stablecoins are now backed by US Treasuries. And I don't understand why no one's questioning this. Goldman's David Solomon and former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin just did a victory lap on stablecoins. Their pitch: Stablecoins strengthen the dollar, create demand for Treasuries, make it easier for people outside the United States to hold dollars. Sounds great. Until you look at what's actually happening underneath... The GENIUS Act passed in July 2025. First federal stablecoin framework in US history. Stablecoin market cap has grown 50% year over year. Tether alone holds $141 billion in US Treasuries, making it one of the largest holders of American government debt on the planet. Washington's pitch is simple: every time someone in Argentina, Turkey, or Nigeria buys USDT, they're buying Treasuries by proxy. Dollar dominance strengthened. Problem solved. And here's the part they REALLY love... The US ran an $1.8 trillion deficit in fiscal 2025. CBO projects $1.9 trillion this year. National debt just crossed $39 trillion. Interest payments alone now exceed $1 trillion annually. Meanwhile, the biggest foreign buyers of Treasuries (China, Japan, Canada) have been pulling back for years. ARK Invest found that the share of Treasuries held by the largest foreign creditors dropped from 23% to just over 6% in the past 13 years. The Fed is STILL running down its balance sheet. So who's going to buy all this debt? Washington's answer: stablecoin issuers. Treasury Secretary Bessent said it himself: "A thriving stablecoin ecosystem will drive demand from the private sector for US Treasuries and help rein in the national debt." Think about what that actually means. The government is counting on a $315 billion crypto product (run largely by a company in El Salvador that just got its first real audit last week) to help finance a $1.9 TRILLION annual deficit. Stablecoin issuers currently hold less than 2% of outstanding Treasury bills. Even if the market hits $2 trillion by 2028 like Standard Chartered projects, that's still just a rounding error against $39 trillion in total debt. This is literally a NARRATIVE designed to make the debt problem sound manageable. But the Federal Reserve published a study showing that for every $1 that moves from bank deposits into stablecoins, bank lending contracts by roughly 50 cents. Stablecoin issuers can't make loans. The GENIUS Act prohibits it. They can ONLY hold Treasuries, reverse repos, and cash equivalents. So when deposits leave banks and flow into stablecoins, that money stops funding mortgages, small business loans, and commercial credit. It starts funding government debt instead. The US Treasury itself estimated stablecoins could drain up to $6.6 TRILLION from the banking system. That's not "strengthening the dollar." That's redirecting the lifeblood of the real economy into government IOUs while starving Main Street of credit. And then there's the run risk nobody wants to discuss. Fed Governor Michael Barr said it yesterday: Stablecoin issuers have every incentive to chase higher returns on their reserves. But unlike banks, they CANNOT access the Fed's discount window. If a stablecoin run happens, issuers dump Treasuries into the market all at once. Stablecoin inflows push Treasury yields down 2-2.5 basis points. Outflows spike yields UP 6-8 basis points. Easy in. Ugly out. Meanwhile, Tether is the 800-pound gorilla. $185 billion in circulation. 550 million users. And until last week, it had never had a Big Four audit. It just hired KPMG after 12 years of operating with nothing but quarterly attestations. This is the entity Wall Street is celebrating as the future of dollar dominance. A company headquartered in El Salvador that fought transparency in court twice and LOST both times. Here's what Solomon and Mnuchin are actually telling you if you listen carefully: Stablecoins create captive demand for short-term US government debt. Foreign governments don't want to hold Treasuries anymore. So Washington's solution is to get 550 million retail users in emerging markets to hold them instead through a digital wrapper called a "stablecoin." The holders get zero interest. The GENIUS Act explicitly prohibits it. The issuers pocket the Treasury returns. Tether made $10 billion in profit last year. And the real economy loses credit while the government gets cheaper funding. This is a classic Wall Street pitch to sell financial innovation as progress: "This strengthens the system. This is good for everyone." Then the leverage builds, the risks concentrate, and the people who sold you on it are nowhere to be found when it unwinds. Stablecoins are NOT saving the dollar. They're a $315 billion shadow money market fund with no Fed backstop, no deposit insurance, and run dynamics that could destabilize the very Treasury market they're supposed to support. If you want to hold dollars, hold dollars. If you want to own the asset that central banks are actually buying instead of Treasuries, you already know what that is... 🥇

Today at 2PM EST.

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