Bessent: "I can't control the bond market. What I can do is try to get people to slow down and think." "What I meant by 'I am the house' is that I have superior information."

JUST IN: Strait of Hormuz oil flows have rebounded to 80% of pre-war levels, with crude exports topping 14M barrels per day

President Trump is not fucking around.

BREAKING: Yemen's Houthis announce they struck the Saudi Aramco oil field and central processing hub at Khurais with ballistic missiles and drones, causing major fires, alongside a second operation against Saudi Aramco facilities in Riyadh. Khurais is one of the largest onshore crude oil processing facilities in the world, handling about 1.5 million barrels per day. It is the first strike on Khurais since September 2019, when it was hit alongside Abqaiq.

WHY I EXPECT THE HORMUZ WAR TO ESCALATE AGAIN. 1. The U.S. is getting some Gulf oil through Hormuz while keeping Iranian exports and payments constrained. Every successful protected voyage buys Washington time and weakens Tehran’s bargaining position. 2. Iran still wants the blockade lifted, frozen funds it can use, and an end to hostilities across the region. Washington reportedly rejected Tehran’s seven-day proposal. Neither side has accepted the other’s first step. 3. Iran does not need to close the strait completely. It needs shipowners and insurers to doubt that American protection works. Enough risk can raise costs and reduce the oil that actually reaches buyers. 4. Attacking protected traffic could restore Iranian leverage. It could also trigger U.S. retaliation and harden Gulf opposition to lifting the blockade. That is the escalation trap. 5. I see the New York talks as smoke and mirrors while both sides test who can withstand the pressure. Reports of a possible U.S. bombing campaign after the midterms do not prevent Iran from escalating at sea sooner. 6. Read my full article on Babylon Burns.

Axios' @mikeallen asks Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent if he regrets saying "I am the house now." Bessent: "No, because look, the house doesn't win every hand. The house plays percentages."

I’ll take $5,000 dollars over socialism. It’s not a hard choice. Vote RED!

Anthropic's Sholto Douglas says AI capex could rise from $1 trillion this year to $4 trillion in 2028 and begin doubling humanity’s GDP by the early 2030s “Over the course of the last four or five years, we’ve been 2x-ing or 3x-ing the amount of compute capacity devoted to AI every year." "And so I think that’s roughly, together, the hyperscalers are spending about a trillion dollars this year on capex related to AI. A very interesting question will be, will that trend line hold, and so will it go to $2 trillion next year and then $4 trillion in 2028?" "And if that trend line broadly holds, and you can expand that to encompass the broader robotics industry, then that means that in the early 2030s, you start to get to the point where you’re actually effectively doubling the GDP of humanity, which, again, is a little bit of a ridiculous concept, but requires a lot of things to go right.”

If Republicans win the House of Representatives and the Senate in the 2026 Midterm Elections, I’m going to give all adult citizens in the United States of America, $5,000! Thank you for your attention to this matter, and I look forward to signing those checks!

A rumor out of Iran says Abbas Araghchi asked the Americans for asylum the week he was in New York, got a preliminary yes, and pulled it two days later. Family problems, he said. The version going around was that his own security detail found out and his sister and family were picked up overnight. That is why he stayed. He was trying to bargain his way out of a case before Rubio told the delegation to get on a plane. I cannot confirm the asylum request. The week on the record is strange enough. Pezeshkian spoke and left. Araghchi stayed, supposedly for indirect talks through Qatar that went nowhere. Axios reported the State Department put a U.S. protective detail on him after reviewing threats. Then Rubio ordered the team out. They flew to Doha at 1:20 in the morning. Tehran denied they had been told to leave. Then he landed, and his sister was dead. Pezeshkian, the roads minister, the atomic energy chief, Qatar, Pakistan, all sending condolences. A funeral photo. No cause. A foreign minister who needs American bodyguards in New York, because he does not trust the men who flew in with him, is not negotiating from strength. He comes home and the person who was supposed to be the leverage is in the ground. The Islamic Republic does not have to announce how these things happen. It just has to make sure the diplomat is the one standing at the grave. No matter what happened, Araghchi's travel to New York and his extra stay and getting thrown out were all very strange. The regime might be closer to falling than we think.

Qatar just confirmed what the LNG market already feared: Ras Laffan won’t be back in time to rescue winter. Europe is short on storage, South Asia is vulnerable to spot-price rationing, and both are chasing the same marginal cargoes. High LNG prices probably go higher. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…