When A Society Has Reached Its Limits, Reforms No Longer Fix What's Broken

US Core Factory Orders Unexpectedly Plunge Most In A Year Despite the latest Manufacturing PMI surging to four year highs, US Factory Orders unexpectedly dropped in June (-0.3% MoM vs +0.2% MoM expected). This is the second monthly decline in the headline print in a row, but orders remain up 7.4% YoY... Source: Bloomberg Worse still, Core Factory Orders (excluding Transports), dropped 0.4% MoM (dramatically missing expectations of a 0.4% MoM rise). This is the first monthly drop since October and biggest MoM decline since April 2025... Source: Bloomberg Orders Ex-Defense also tumbled 0.4%...

Putin Praises Iran's 'Courage' As US Gloats Over Oil Blockade & 'Zero' Exports The Trump administration has been busy boasting that it has brought Iran's economy to its knees through the navy enforced oil blockade and through sweeping 'Economic D-Day' sanctions, but in direct contradiction to this, Russia is busy hailing Tehran's 'courage'. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a phone call Wednesday, on the occasion of Putin's birthday, wherein the two leaders pledged to strengthen bilateral cooperation, per readouts from both sides. Zuma/TASSPutin pointed to their Comprehensive...

The White House has asked the intelligence community to assess how Iran would respond to the US declaring victory and ending the conflict.  According to multiple sources speaking with Reuters, senior Trump administration officials requested the intelligence community develop the assessment. The request could signal that President Donald Trump may be seeking an off-ramp to […]