Max from UNFTR

Looking at the Anthropic prospectus through the lens of my 99 year old father in law. And some other stuff, some serious - some very silly. Like Trump's weird mouth noises.

In October 1983, the CIA warned exactly what Iran would do if provoked: strike Gulf oil facilities, mine the Strait of Hormuz, spike world prices. Four decades later, Trump’s war of choice is following that script almost line for line. The latest from @rashedmian.bsky.social for #UNFTR.

For the past... oh, I don't know... five years our respective audiences have asked why we don't collaborate. Well. Now we do. First conversation with many to follow. I got hooked on his bourbon talks during COVID and now @jysexton.bsky.social is in the building. Talking activism and outrage.

It was hard to fit them all into 30 minutes but I got 'er done. A defense of democratic socialism and a plague on all other houses.

Most people don't know who Joe Kernen is. If they do, they certainly don't care. But he's been a fixture on cable financial news for a looong time. I make the case here for why people like Kernen are far more insidious and destructive than the hyper-partisan opinion hosts.

The $111 billion Paramount Skydance–Warner Bros. Discovery merger puts two of the five largest studios, plus CNN and CBS News, under one mega-GOP-donor family. The erosion of the free press was already underway; this accelerated it. The latest from @rashedmian.bsky.social for #UNFTR.

The great @franifio.bsky.social returns to UNFTR for a discussion on Dems and the future of the party. And climate change. And comedy. And the Ellisons. Also... I'm heading to Bklyn to see her and @mattlieb.bsky.social at the Bell House this Thursday so NY Unf*ckers let's do this!

Um... you guys? I think I know what the "October Surprise" might be. Also, a teaser of my conversation with @franifio.bsky.social - full interview drops tomorrow. France has a debt problem, Lebanon has an Israel problem, and Hegseth is just a problem.

The Buffett Indicator measures total U.S. market cap against GDP. Over 100% was Buffett's signal to get cautious and park some cash. Today..it's at 238%. No wonder he retired. Watch the full video: youtu.be/519iYFBb5fQ

A deep dive into Anthropic's IPO and an analogy about babies that no one asked for. You're welcome.

Corporate bonds are paying out, the 10-year is at five and a quarter, and if you already have money you cannot lose. That's who's driving consumer spending right now—the top 10%, not you. And it only holds until it doesn’t. Watch the full video: youtu.be/519iYFBb5fQ

Trump is staging an Iran escalation and not one Democratic leader has called for halting the deployment. 58 House Democrats, Pelosi among them, voted with Republicans to extend the sanctions. This is why the left hates Chuck and Hakeem. Watch the full video: youtu.be/519iYFBb5fQ

Trump's economy is a zit about to pop and ooze all over our faces. Brazil is running two years behind us and about to repeat our mistake. And the Buffett indicator is so far off the charts it's no wonder Warren retired! It's On The Record. Let's go. Watch the full video: youtu.be/519iYFBb5fQ

Seven months after U.S. missiles killed 156 at a school in Minab, Iran—120 of them children—new reporting from @jeremyscahill.com dismantles the Pentagon's "targeting mistake" story. The school had been standing there for more than a decade. The latest from @rashedmian.bsky.social for #UNFTR.

The "radical" DSA endgame is court expansion that FDR already threatened, energy nationalization that most industrialized nations already have, and amendments that the Constitution is already made of. That it sounds impossible is the measure of our loss. Watch the full video: youtu.be/t7Gb6DfHM68

The question was never whether AI works. It's whether the people lending into it get paid back. The 30-year Treasury is at its highest level since 2004, and those rates flow into private credit portfolios full of variable loans nobody gets to see. Watch the full video: youtu.be/x-w6kuo7F8s

Zagged a bit this week. Watched a frustrating conversation between leftists about DSA; Netanyahu name-checking Hasan; Trump paying more attention to Zohran than his own party. Felt the need to put DSA's mobilizing efforts in historical context and offer some perspective on left movements.

The financial media got bored of private credit and moved on. I get it. Lots to talk about these days. But we should be looking into private credit, not past it. Inside this opaque world there's a debt bomb tied to AI financing. A responsible administration would make them open their books.

44.7% of home sales in the three months ending August included seller concessions, the highest share since Redfin started tracking in 2020. Closing cost help, repair credits, rate buydowns. The market is softening. That still isn't the same as affordable. Watch the full video: youtu.be/icDcWDmmojE

Trump greenlit a nearly $3 billion arms package for Israel: 40,000 one-ton bombs, paid for by American taxpayers. Israel's defense minister pledged to "finish the job" in Gaza. Congress could block it, but they're on a six-week break. The latest from @rashedmian.bsky.social for #UNFTR.

The $40t debt number is a cudgel conservatives use to cut vital programs. Nobody asks who's on the other side of the ledger. We're asking. Plus Alex Karp is unhinged, 750k Americans lost health coverage, and Scott Bessent does Scott things. It's OTR time. Watch the full video: youtu.be/icDcWDmmojE

We're having the wrong national debt conversation. Also, Alex Karp shouldn't have a driver's license let alone control of Palantir. Also, eyeliner boy just cut 750,000 people from health insurance on Dr. Oz's recommendation because we're in the worst timeline. On the Record is here.

Video essay. Thinking out loud about how this all ends.

Tonight! 8PM EST. The premiere of our cover story / doc on Milton Friedman. This has been months in the making in collaboration with @currentaffairs.bsky.social. If you're wondering how the new world neoliberal order was established and who was responsible, I've got answers.

Despite a Democrat's best efforts to enrich the Trump family and do the bidding of the crypto lobby, the CLARITY Act is officially done. (For now.) We don't win often these days so when we do, we should celebrate. Oh.. and f*ck you KG.

On the record is out! I'm not buying Dario Amodei's bullshit anymore. There's one answer to the AI problem and I've solved it using Dario's own logic. So there. Also, I took the Trump pledge! So fun. Try it! KLTW to Chris Hedges and our Chart of the Week is the 10 Year Treasury.

The PPI report (Producer Price Index) was a bigger disaster than people realize. In and out of the news cycle already, but a foreshadowing of epic inflation set to hit this fall. On top of existing inflation. This is a breakdown of PPI and a forecast of what's to come.

This guy is catching Ls like he's catching COVID in 2020. Can't win for losing. Less than 2 yrs into the job and he WILL go down as the worst TS of all time. And that includes Donald Regan. Oh! Bingo! Blammo! Thwap!

Hillbilly hypocrite JD Vance's new scheme is a disgrace. Trump appears to be melting. Here we go again (again) Germany. Phone a friend is back with @nathanjrobinson.bsky.social. @davidgriscom.bsky.social for KLTW. And proof the Wage-Price Spiral is horseshit. This week's On the Record.

Kevin Hassett thinks Trump's economy is a labor day "present" for the American people.

Historians will file Venezuela and Iran among the dumbest, most shortsighted moves in the long, ugly history of American intervention abroad. And that's saying something. Same playbook as Iraq: install a government, take the oil, mistake "easy" for wise. Watch the full video: youtu.be/yMpeIh0ZT_0

The real outcome of cutting access to healthcare? People die. It's pretty straightforward. Our system was always built on perverse incentives that guaranteed poor outcomes for expensive care. But by killing what's left of this "system" the GOP has opened the door for Medicare for All. #M4A #UNFTR

Reagan's boosters credit him with restoring American pride. What he actually did was cut taxes for the top, break unions, and make the military budget untouchable. We're still living inside that wreckage. 🎧 Listen to the latest episode of #UNFTR: Did Ronald Reagan Destroy the American Dream?

The largest proven oil reserves in the world and it only cost us a kidnapping, decades of sanctions, an evil think tank, and a dash of colonialism. Plus John Roberts' long war on voting rights and day 78 of the McConnell disappearance. It's OTR from UNFTR. Watch the full video: youtu.be/yMpeIh0ZT_0

A full explanation of the "deal" for Venezuelan oil - a crock of shit that has Heritage Foundation fingerprints all over it. ICE sends Milo packing. @theprogressivemag.bsky.social on the Roberts court. @brittanyepage.bsky.social for the Killer Left Take of the Week. And anyone seen Mitch?

Pundits are saying that Bessent is falling back on his hedge fund instincts. Those instincts ran Key Square Capital from $5 billion down to $577 million, four years of losses during a historic bull run. That is the resume he brought to Treasury. Watch the full video: youtu.be/2J0nFcqT2cI

Did Reagan destroy the American Dream? Of course he did. Blueskyers know that. A quick tale on how he grabbed power, three ways he shredded the poor and working class and what the Left can learn (and in one case has already learned) from Reagan's politics.

Operation Economic Outcast will foreclose every option available to the Iranian regime, per Scott Bessent. Same promise Carter made. And Bush. And Obama. And Trump. We have the clips. Nearly 50 years of the "toughest sanctions ever imposed." Watch the full video: youtu.be/2J0nFcqT2cI

New sanctions on Iran are finally going to work this time! The Trump family stablecoin keeps climbing. Supreme Court blows it, again. Hard to tell which side Hakeem Jeffries is on. And Scott Bessent's running for president. On The Record is here. Let's go. Watch the full video: youtu.be/2J0nFcqT2cI

Scott Bessent can't stop losing. Nevertheless, he continues to take over the failed Trump presidency and put his own stamp of failure on it. Personally, I think he's the GOP frontrunner for 2028 so it's helpful to understand what a loser this guy is. Also, everything else is terrible.

Musk, Bezos, Brin, Griffin, Cuban, etc., are spending more to lobby against wealth taxes than the taxes would cost them. The point was never the money. It is that they can bend the political system to their will, and that is what has to be prevented. Watch the full video: youtu.be/cKDaQG_ZQ2U

You paid the 2025 tariffs. The New York Fed put close to 90% of the burden on American firms and consumers. Now the Supreme Court voided them and $166B in refunds is going back to importers. Apple got $2.2B. Walmart is in line for $10B. You get nothing. Watch the full video: youtu.be/cKDaQG_ZQ2U

The more we focus on taxing the rich, the further away we get from addressing the problem. Instead of taxing individual billionaires, focus on preventing individuals from becoming billionaires. The real fuckery lives within the corporate tax code.

Behind every part of your life that costs more and delivers less is a corporation whose bank account gets fatter. Media, food suppliers, pharma, tech, ag. Trump said he would run the country like a business and he has. One of his businesses. Watch the full video: youtu.be/GCKq2-jE0ME

The Powell Memo was a blueprint for corporatocracy, and it worked. Trump is a distraction from the fact that the corporate enemy will still be here once he's gone, stronger and better organized. And nobody on the left has the answer to it. Watch the full video: youtu.be/GCKq2-jE0ME

Investors are trying to price roughly $70 billion in what Bloomberg calls phantom liabilities: real promises that never hit a balance sheet. Nvidia, Broadcom and Meta are all in it. If you are getting 2007 vibes, you're on the right track. Watch the full video: youtu.be/GCKq2-jE0ME

Sailors out of TP, AOC freezing eggs, a suggestion for what ICE can do with their new gloves, the AI financing Ponzi scheme, an Amber Alert for Hakeem Jeffries' soul, and in Max Notes, who Trump really works for. It's Season 2 of On The Record. Let's go. Watch the full video: youtu.be/GCKq2-jE0ME

Back from vacation to kick of Season Two of On the Record. Covering AI Ponzi financing schemes, Trump's corporate masters, what ICE should do with their shock mittens, Hakeem is a punk and @moreperfectunion.bsky.social crushes it again.

In 2008 the underlying asset was a mortgage. Today it's a corporate bond, stacked into CLOs, hedge fund leverage and private credit. Aschenbrenner didn't blow up because his thesis was wrong. His brokers called margin and dumped his entire book overnight. Watch the full video: youtu.be/sDlH8OwFqgU

Exxon's scientists proved in the 1970s that burning fossil fuels would heat the planet. In the 1990s the military mapped which bases would end up underwater. Not Al Gore, not Greenpeace. They knew it and buried it, and we're running the same play with AI. Watch the full video: youtu.be/VVYO4A25eqI