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Today’s Animal Spirits is brought to you by YCharts:
On today’s show, we discuss:
- Bessent Leans Into His Role as America’s Bond Trader in Chief
- Bessent could tap near $1 trillion Treasury General Account to fund bond buybacks, sources said
- Let the Bond Market Speak
- Three Things – The Buyback That Shook the World
- The Most Hated Asset Class in the World
- University of Michigan Drops First-Semester Grades to ‘Curb Mental Health Crisis’
- Some Take On Debt for Their Weddings. These Brides Are Making Money.
- These ‘Innovative’ ETFs Have Been Disastrous for Investors
- Tech Deploys Charm Offensive to Combat AI Data Center Backlash
- Does AI stop children from learning?
- Is Private Equity Destroying the Life Insurance Industry? | The Real Eisman Playbook Ep 64
- Used cars are more expensive now. Here’s how to get the best deal.
- Columbia House Is Shutting Down After 71 Years
Listen here:
Charts:
Tweets/BlueSky:
Sorry, but this is the most obviously AI-generated op-ed ever. It has "it's not X, it's Y" construction in both the first 2 paragraphs. Pangram has it as 100% AI
One of the most prominent finance billionaires submitted this? The WSJ just ran it? Are there no standards anymore? https://t.co/lNcKprUTRH pic.twitter.com/f61nIL0rhZ
— Joey Politano 🏳️🌈 (@JosephPolitano) August 25, 2026
My most contrarian take right now is I’m not worried about a US government debt crisis
We have the biggest economy
We have the reserve currency
We have the most rich ppl
There is no substitute for Treasuries
We’ll just keep spending and ppl will complain but no crisis will…
— Ben Carlson (@awealthofcs) August 19, 2026
US household debt:GDP… lowest since 1998 @augurinfinity pic.twitter.com/J2YEFeRSae
— Mike Zaccardi, CFA, CMT 🍖 (@MikeZaccardi) August 20, 2026
There's been such a strong consumer deleveraging that total debt (government and private) as a share of GDP is flat over the last 20 years. pic.twitter.com/MrbHPpBqvG
— Morgan Housel (@morganhousel) August 20, 2026
Current outstanding supply at Market Value:
U.S. Treasuries w/ maturity >= 10 years***: $4.37T
Apple shares: $4.62T
In other words, just one single stock in the US equity market is bigger and heavier in weight in the global portfolio than the entire long-term treasury…
— Jesse Livermore (@Jesse_Livermore) August 20, 2026
Just thinking about how people spent 15 years saying aging societies would mean low inflation and interest rates.
— Conor Sen (@conorsen) August 22, 2026
Nearly 3 times as many people (44% vs 15%) say they'd support a nuclear power plant being built near where they live than a data center. That is insane. pic.twitter.com/RaBgCFjuep
— John Arnold (@johnarnold) August 20, 2026
Anthropic’s best AI model struggles to attract users as cheaper tools thrive https://t.co/lBg4Bgs6Jj
— Financial Times (@FT) August 23, 2026
HOUSING STARTS
July single-family housing starts broke below 70k.
This is the second lowest monthly print in the post-pandemic era. Only Nov 2022 has been weaker.
Remember: SF housing employs 3X MF…This level of starts points to significant residential construction layoffs. pic.twitter.com/rJ8Xuuuz09
— Warren Pies (@WarrenPies) August 18, 2026
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