Stablecoin seems like a Ponzi scheme that will eventually follow the Bitcoin train to Clarksville. Anything ‘secured’ by debt instruments of a broke country has a high risk element. Trump is a globalist tool.
Private equity loan calls, over leveraged commercial real estate, over valued equity markets etc how does this end well? They want to bring on 2030 Armageddon. Be right with God pray that the hands of the crafty will have no success. Job 5:12
Great essay and explanation of the levers the actual conductors behind the scenes, including Scott Besant, are working on that actually address the debt crisis and will, I predict, keep it within survivable parameters for a while yet. Who knows how long? Nevertheless, we're still dancing on the lower decks of the Titanic and this isn't just musical chairs where one or just a few of the contestants get pushed out of the game each time the music stops. We're all on the same ship here in the good old US of A and I'm not sure even the Plan B preparations available to those with sufficient moxy will be sufficient. Meanwhile, I might have missed your hook that explains even if only ironically what it is that Trump contributes other than utter chaos and smoke by his declarations. I'll have to go back thru your essay, if I get a few extra minutes later today. If you explained that I missed it. But, either way, thanks for the effort
Good insight into why stablecoins have taken off. They are on first glance a good thing for the world, allowing to acquire USD, better than their local fiat. But your explanation of the "other side" of the transaction tells the story. The USG needs another sucker to rug-pull. Poof - $300 billion more made legal by some legislation that only benefits the US government.
Leads me back to my dislike of things sounding like "strategic bitcoin reserves" - getting any government near private money is going to turn out poorly for the rest of us.
I am not an economist. I have been to Japan more than 50 times in the last 13 years. Officially, economists have called it a recession for 30 years. Then you walk the street.A vending-machine drink was 100 yen the first time I went. It stayed there for years. After COVID it became 120. That is the “collapse.” Interest rates were so low for so long that ordinary Japanese still cannot believe what the rest of the world pays. People are careful with money. Compared with the neighboring countries, they look stingy as hell. Those places are new money: flash, status, spend it while it is there. Japan is old money habits in a modern economy. That is how you live through three decades of “recession” without the country falling over.Japan printed. Households still got cheap money. Variable mortgages there were around 1.2%. Even after the Bank of Japan’s latest hike to 1.25%, they are only moving toward about 1.45%. A 35-year fixed is still around 3.2%. Thailand is in the same neighborhood: policy rate near 1%, 10-year yield around 2.3%, cheap mortgages. China prints even harder and funds projects across Africa with cheap money. The difference is who eats. In Japan the citizen gets the cheap loan. In China it is officials and the elite.America built the system and is now the one trapped inside it. Roughly $40 trillion of debt. Interest already over $1 trillion a year. The 10-year sits near 5%. A 30-year mortgage is 6.5% to 7%. That is the whole trick. A $40 trillion problem at 4% is the same interest bill as an $80 trillion problem at 2%. The stock of debt is not the only number. The rate is the other half of the equation.Then everyone acts shocked that Asia compounds faster. Of course it does. Capital is cheap there and expensive here.And then the gold crowd points at Russia. Fine. For years the articles and opinions have praised Moscow for stacking gold, pushing the metal toward 40% of reserves, and talking about backing the ruble with it. As a reserve policy, that may be the right thing. Great. Very great. I still do not want to live in Russia. A country can be correct about gold and still be a place you would not take a mortgage. Policy rate 14%. Ten-year near 16%. That is what “sound money” feels like on the ground when the cost of money is the policy. I can admit the gold argument and still refuse the life.Thirty years of Japanese “recession” did not wreck daily life. Twenty percent inflation from printing for slogans does. High American rates on a $40 trillion pile are not strength. They are the bill for a system Washington created and can no longer roll on the old terms.
Stablecoin seems like a Ponzi scheme that will eventually follow the Bitcoin train to Clarksville. Anything ‘secured’ by debt instruments of a broke country has a high risk element. Trump is a globalist tool.
Private equity loan calls, over leveraged commercial real estate, over valued equity markets etc how does this end well? They want to bring on 2030 Armageddon. Be right with God pray that the hands of the crafty will have no success. Job 5:12
Amen brother🙏
Nice Henry - Job understood the markets (at least via his mentor) as does my colleague at BOOM Economics: https://boomfinanceandeconomics.wordpress.com/2026/09/12/casino-capitalism-bank-failures-the-history-no-bank-crises-from-1945-to-1970-why-the-power-of-physical-cash-and-community-owned-cooperative-banks-us-cash-usage-today-velocity-of-m1-mon/
Thank you for great explanation.
Great essay and explanation of the levers the actual conductors behind the scenes, including Scott Besant, are working on that actually address the debt crisis and will, I predict, keep it within survivable parameters for a while yet. Who knows how long? Nevertheless, we're still dancing on the lower decks of the Titanic and this isn't just musical chairs where one or just a few of the contestants get pushed out of the game each time the music stops. We're all on the same ship here in the good old US of A and I'm not sure even the Plan B preparations available to those with sufficient moxy will be sufficient. Meanwhile, I might have missed your hook that explains even if only ironically what it is that Trump contributes other than utter chaos and smoke by his declarations. I'll have to go back thru your essay, if I get a few extra minutes later today. If you explained that I missed it. But, either way, thanks for the effort
Well, it looks like Trumpenstein will blow up global trade.
That is, unless he says, "Just kidding."
Good insight into why stablecoins have taken off. They are on first glance a good thing for the world, allowing to acquire USD, better than their local fiat. But your explanation of the "other side" of the transaction tells the story. The USG needs another sucker to rug-pull. Poof - $300 billion more made legal by some legislation that only benefits the US government.
Leads me back to my dislike of things sounding like "strategic bitcoin reserves" - getting any government near private money is going to turn out poorly for the rest of us.
Buy bitcoin, buy gold. Or miners (of either).
I am not an economist. I have been to Japan more than 50 times in the last 13 years. Officially, economists have called it a recession for 30 years. Then you walk the street.A vending-machine drink was 100 yen the first time I went. It stayed there for years. After COVID it became 120. That is the “collapse.” Interest rates were so low for so long that ordinary Japanese still cannot believe what the rest of the world pays. People are careful with money. Compared with the neighboring countries, they look stingy as hell. Those places are new money: flash, status, spend it while it is there. Japan is old money habits in a modern economy. That is how you live through three decades of “recession” without the country falling over.Japan printed. Households still got cheap money. Variable mortgages there were around 1.2%. Even after the Bank of Japan’s latest hike to 1.25%, they are only moving toward about 1.45%. A 35-year fixed is still around 3.2%. Thailand is in the same neighborhood: policy rate near 1%, 10-year yield around 2.3%, cheap mortgages. China prints even harder and funds projects across Africa with cheap money. The difference is who eats. In Japan the citizen gets the cheap loan. In China it is officials and the elite.America built the system and is now the one trapped inside it. Roughly $40 trillion of debt. Interest already over $1 trillion a year. The 10-year sits near 5%. A 30-year mortgage is 6.5% to 7%. That is the whole trick. A $40 trillion problem at 4% is the same interest bill as an $80 trillion problem at 2%. The stock of debt is not the only number. The rate is the other half of the equation.Then everyone acts shocked that Asia compounds faster. Of course it does. Capital is cheap there and expensive here.And then the gold crowd points at Russia. Fine. For years the articles and opinions have praised Moscow for stacking gold, pushing the metal toward 40% of reserves, and talking about backing the ruble with it. As a reserve policy, that may be the right thing. Great. Very great. I still do not want to live in Russia. A country can be correct about gold and still be a place you would not take a mortgage. Policy rate 14%. Ten-year near 16%. That is what “sound money” feels like on the ground when the cost of money is the policy. I can admit the gold argument and still refuse the life.Thirty years of Japanese “recession” did not wreck daily life. Twenty percent inflation from printing for slogans does. High American rates on a $40 trillion pile are not strength. They are the bill for a system Washington created and can no longer roll on the old terms.
A great study, thank you Lau. Whatever option is chosen (or combination) the writing is definitely on the wall: https://austrianpeter.substack.com/p/the-financial-jigsaw-part-2-89-the?