Money versus Monetary Policy

Despite Crazy Revisions, Consumer Confidence Rebounds From January's Doom After Boomers and Gen X dragged The Conference Board Confidence measure down to eight month lows to end 2025, expectations were for a rebound to start 2026. Instead, January was a bloodbath with all the cohorts tumbling. Today sees February's data released with expectations for a rebound, particularly in expectations... and the consensus was right. The headline Consumer Confidence print rose from 84.5 (revised dramatically up to 89.0) to 91.2 (better than the 87.1 expected) Under the hood it was kind of crazy with the...

​​​​​​​Trump Warns "A Whole Civilization Will Die Tonight" After Bombing Kharg Island Ahead Of Iran Deadline Summary:  Kharg Island heavily bombed in preparation for potential US Marine/Special Forces ground siezure. Israel has begun attacking Iran's railway infrastructure, telling civilians to not take trains, cancelations across country. IRGC still defiant - announces new retaliatory attacks on petrochemical plants in eastern Saudi Arabia. Iran's 10-point counter to the US 15-point ceasefire shows signs of willingness to compromise ('reparations' from US dropped as a demand). Vance says war will end "very shortly". *  *  * WH Trying to Manufacture...

Et Tu, Indonesia! As the squeeze continues on China's energy supply (and Xi has started to lash out here and here), we suspect the next words out of the Chinese leader's mouth (if he spoke Latin) will be "...et tu, Indonesia!" As Stephen Green writes at PJMedia, it might have seemed like one of those dry, bureaucratic, almost meaningless announcements on Monday, when War Secretary Pete Hegseth posted on X that the U.S. and Indonesia "are elevating our relationship to a Major Defense Cooperation Partnership."  This arrangement “will explore mutually agreed cutting-edge...