The Signal
The Ceasefire Asterisk
Oil prices came down. The energy market disruption didn't. A second update to our AI infrastructure cost thesis.
The Signal
The Bond Market's Forced Reckoning
For six weeks, bond markets ran two contradictory bets. The ceasefire collapsed one of them. What's left is a pure tariff inflation signal the market now has to price honestly.
The Signal
After the Ceasefire: What the Oil Price Collapse Means for AI Infrastructure
Oil fell from $126 to $92. That reverses part of what we said was breaking. Here is what precisely changed — and what didn't.
The Signal
The Tariff Stack: How Metals, Pharma, and Section 232 Restructuring Are Compounding the Cost Burden
Three tariff regimes are now running simultaneously. The Section 232 restructuring's mechanism shift — from metal-content to full-customs-value — is the underreported one, and its cost implications for AI infrastructure are direct.
The Signal
The Net Negative: Goldman Sachs Puts a Number on AI Labor Market Displacement
Goldman Sachs ran forty years of longitudinal data and found AI is cutting 16,000 net payrolls per month — and the scarring lasts a decade. The unemployment rate doesn't show it.
Economics
Liberation Day, Year One: What the Tariffs Actually Built
89,000 fewer manufacturing jobs, a permanently smaller economy, $166B in refunded wrongly-collected tariffs, and a policy regime running on borrowed legal authority. The anniversary ledger.
The Signal
The $126 Barrel Problem
The AI capex boom was modeled on cheap energy and stable supply chains. Neither assumption is still operative. A stress test in three pressure points.
Economics
The Ladder Disappears Before You Reach the Rungs
Brookings found 11 million non-degree workers in AI-exposed Gateway occupations — the roles that built 23 million upward transitions over the past decade. The question isn't just whether those jobs survive. It's whether the sequences do.
Economics
The Fed Is Watching Now: What Washington's First AI Adoption Monitor Actually Measures
The same economy produces 18%, 41%, and 78% AI adoption figures simultaneously. All three are correct. A new Federal Reserve note explains why — and reveals the measurement blind spot: agents don't appear in any of the three surveys.
The Signal
The Cost of Fake Trust
Delve didn't just fake compliance reports. It demonstrated that when AI drops the cost of manufacturing trust signals to near zero, the Akerlof mechanism that makes trust markets function breaks down.
Economics
Liberation Day, Year One: What the Tariffs Actually Built
One year after Liberation Day: 89,000 fewer manufacturing jobs, a permanently smaller economy, and $166 billion in wrongly-collected tariffs being refunded.
The Signal
The +178K Nobody Should Take at Face Value
The March jobs report beat consensus by three times. The strike reversal in healthcare accounts for 76,000 of those jobs. Strip it out and the organic print is 102,000 — respectable but not a blowout. The story is in the revisions.