Tomas Hirst

I walk that in less than an hour!

True that. Also it’s a purity of expression problem - trying to make a binary bet of the problem isn’t capturing the many dimensions of it. “Ha, he didn’t invade a NATO ally you noobs” is to ignore the, uh, threats as a thing in themselves. Betting brain stops people thinking of risk surface.

Also, look at the literal market reaction. Sold off modestly as people were risk hedging (to the extent possible) and then ramped back on relief. That’s…not different to taking the same bet it’s just timing it better than “no but when it was priced at 98”

I saw a Famous Poster take a victory lap around the lines of "he didn't invade now, did he, you bunch of deranged neurotics" and I think it finally crystallised for me what I dislike with prediction market brain >>

Have a good evening all. I am OUT.

Ok, that one was a loooooooooooooooooooooooong day

the local government theory of everything

Also, if he was serious about rebalancing global trade (narrator: he was not) then you sort of *need* Europe to unwind its US assets to fund more current consumption. But then, nothing means anything anymore.

Made the same point here: bsky.app/profile/toma...

Absolutely! The relative value point stands! But it’s a weird market for mandate-constrained credit funds.

Gonna come back to this one! Sorry, calls beginning

It's definitively not cheap, but e.g. US HY nowhere near as expensive as a straight lookback would suggest and IG bakes in a lot of term premia across the curve

Couple of points on that: excess compensation over the risk free rate to compensate for credit risk is low, but due to elevated term premia in cash government markets your total compensation is low but less extreme. Moreover, big changes in duration over the past 5 years mean that it's not atypical.

I remember that one!

This is a good thread. I've written before that the rise of Reform is partly a "smash it all and see what happens" kind of politics.

www.joxleywrites.jmoxley.co.uk/p/the-corrid...

But the narrative, the narrative…Nooooooo!

Honestly, this website sometimes *le sigh*

a man in a suit and tie is sitting at a desk with a computer and the word and written on it ALT: a man in a suit and tie is sitting at a desk with a computer and the word and written on it

These Burnham selloffs get shorter and shorter every year

It’s not instantly contradicted, and frankly the tone of this discussion is increasingly disinclining me from continuing. Just assume that I’m not dumb to the economics since it is literally my job.

I don’t think we’re disagreeing here. It’s not the cross-country difference but trend.

Nah it’s 2-3 bps across the curve

Ha, yeah remember the days when “Labour has lost the confidence of the bond market” was a thing people said with a straight face (and an apparent inability to look at USTs)

It was extremely aimed at the US, where productivity has slowed much as it has across the developed world (albeit picked up a bit post-pandemic). Story holds there arguably more than anywhere else because the outcomes of the bets are *so extreme*.

As the old proverb goes “may you live in the most incredibly dumb timeline*”

*ed: may have taken a few liberties there with the quote

Burnham becoming a figure of fear for the bond markets was not on my bingo card for 2026

Yes indeed. It’s also doubly beneficial for megatech to do this because it’s the proof of concept for the tech they’re trying to sell. It’s literally “look at how many people AI is replacing at my firm - you can save this money too!”

Yeah, having been a sceptic for most of the buildout I can confirm the latest models are a big leap forward.

I think people know they can lose big, but in a zero sum world people are willing to take the bet more often than they should.

I am literally using the frame as a way to explain why a number of *rich* people are doing seemingly insane things as much as it explains why those without are gambling. So I get the feeling we’re just talking past each other here. This is not some reheated rust-belt story I’m pushing.