Roulette Diplomacy

While Trump’s in the Middle East cutting deals and shaking hands with sheikhs, he’s got the American consumer’s wallet — your wallet — parked squarely on the betting table.

Trump’s roulette diplomacy is entertaining, if nothing else.

The ball’s spinning fast. Dollar dominance? In play. Global trade terms? Up for grabs. Federal solvency? Well… the house is a little over-leveraged and getting even more so.

So, how’s the average American holding up while Trump raises the stakes?

Surprisingly well, actually.

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It’s true that total household debt crept up $167 billion in the first quarter to $18.2 trillion — a 1% rise — but disposable income rose faster, up 4% year over year.

That brought the debt-to-income ratio down to 81.9%, which is not only decent but also historically low.

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For the first time in what feels like forever, credit card and auto loan balances actually dropped.

Turns out the “drunken sailors” we love to mock might’ve traded in their bar tabs for balance sheets. If only temporarily.

🧨 Subprime Still Can’t Catch a Break

Out at the edge of the credit pool — where the water’s always colder and the lifeguard’s gone home — subprime borrowers are slipping again. Delinquencies are ticking up. Credit scores are heading south. The pandemic-era pause on reality is over, and the default cycle is coming out of hibernation.

Subprime’s not an immediate crisis, but a growing one worth watching.

🎓 Student Loans: Forgiven, Forgotten… Then Oops, Unforgiven

Remember the great student loan pause? Three years of no payments, no interest, and plenty of political promises? Well, that grace period has ended with all the grace of a falling piano.

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First quarter student loan balances hit $1.63 trillion.

Of that, $126 billion is now 90+ days delinquent. Remember, these aren’t new loans — they’re just old ghosts that got a court-ordered resuscitation.

💸 The Real Reckless Borrower

Everyone loves wagging fingers at consumers, but let’s be honest: the most irresponsible debtor in the room is still the federal government.

According to Global Markets Investor, we’re already in a debt crisis — we just haven’t sent out the invitations yet.

Seven months into the fiscal year, the deficit is already $1.05 trillion. April brought in a healthy-looking $258 billion surplus — thanks to tax season — but it’s like bailing out the Titanic with a thimble.

The CBO projects a 225% Debt-to-GDP ratio by 2055. That’s assuming no recessions, no wars, no new spending sprees. Sure. Let’s assume that.

📈 The Bond Market’s Tapping the Glass

The 30-year Treasury yield popped to 4.94% — levels we haven’t seen since Lehman Brothers still had a phone line. This isn’t just a market flutter. It’s the bond market flashing hazard lights.

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Higher yields mean higher interest costs. And higher interest costs mean that Washington’s room for error just shrank to about the size of a congressional ethics hearing.

🌍 Trump’s New Bretton Woods Moment

Over in Riyadh, Trump is trying to rewire global trade. He’s courting oil producers, cutting side deals, and pitching a return to dollar hegemony like a high-roller laying out chips at a Saudi baccarat table. But behind the scenes, foreign central banks are watching yields and wondering if the dollar’s still the table they want to play at.

Trump wants pricing power back on our shores. But the cost might be an overstretched domestic economy, higher borrowing costs, and a Fed that can’t print its way out this time.

🧠 For the Gentleman Investor Who’s Seen This Movie Before

If you remember Nixon slamming the gold window shut… if you had CDs that paid double-digit interest during Volcker’s inflation smackdown… if you trimmed your tech positions the day Greenspan sighed about “irrational exuberance” — you know what this is.

This isn’t a blip. It’s a regime change. Not just monetary. Fiscal. Political. Global.

The American consumer, somehow, got the memo. They’re pulling back, deleveraging, maybe even saving.

The government? Still out there maxing out the card and calling it “investment.” Trump’s playing for legacy. Powell’s playing for credibility. You, gentle reader, are playing for survival — and if you’re sharp, maybe something better than that. This market rally may be fooling some, but the pain in the bond market suggests more volatility ahead.

~ Addison

While Trump’s in the Middle East cutting deals and shaking hands with sheikhs, he’s got the American consumer’s wallet — your wallet — parked squarely on the betting table.

Trump’s roulette diplomacy is entertaining, if nothing else.

The ball’s spinning fast. Dollar dominance? In play. Global trade terms? Up for grabs. Federal solvency? Well… the house is a little over-leveraged and getting even more so.

So, how’s the average American holding up while Trump raises the stakes?

Surprisingly well, actually.

Turn Your Images On

It’s true that total household debt crept up $167 billion in the first quarter to $18.2 trillion — a 1% rise — but disposable income rose faster, up 4% year over year.

That brought the debt-to-income ratio down to 81.9%, which is not only decent but also historically low.

Turn Your Images On

For the first time in what feels like forever, credit card and auto loan balances actually dropped.

Turns out the “drunken sailors” we love to mock might’ve traded in their bar tabs for balance sheets. If only temporarily.

🧨 Subprime Still Can’t Catch a Break

Subprime’s not an immediate crisis, but a growing one worth watching.

🎓 Student Loans: Forgiven, Forgotten… Then Oops, Unforgiven

Remember the great student loan pause? Three years of no payments, no interest, and plenty of political promises? Well, that grace period has ended with all the grace of a falling piano.

Turn Your Images On

First quarter student loan balances hit $1.63 trillion.

Of that, $126 billion is now 90+ days delinquent. Remember, these aren’t new loans — they’re just old ghosts that got a court-ordered resuscitation.

💸 The Real Reckless Borrower

Everyone loves wagging fingers at consumers, but let’s be honest: the most irresponsible debtor in the room is still the federal government.

According to Global Markets Investor, we’re already in a debt crisis — we just haven’t sent out the invitations yet.

The CBO projects a 225% Debt-to-GDP ratio by 2055. That’s assuming no recessions, no wars, no new spending sprees. Sure. Let’s assume that.

📈 The Bond Market’s Tapping the Glass

Turn Your Images On

Higher yields mean higher interest costs. And higher interest costs mean that Washington’s room for error just shrank to about the size of a congressional ethics hearing.

🌍 Trump’s New Bretton Woods Moment

Trump wants pricing power back on our shores. But the cost might be an overstretched domestic economy, higher borrowing costs, and a Fed that can’t print its way out this time.

🧠 For the Gentleman Investor Who’s Seen This Movie Before

This isn’t a blip. It’s a regime change. Not just monetary. Fiscal. Political. Global.

The American consumer, somehow, got the memo. They’re pulling back, deleveraging, maybe even saving.

~ Addison

Trump and Powell are no buddies. They’ve been fighting over rate cuts all year—Trump demanding more, Powell holding back. Even after cutting twice, Trump called him “grossly incompetent” and said he’d “love to fire” him. The tension has been building for months.

And Trump now seems ready to install someone who shares his appetite for lower rates and easier money.

Trump has been dropping hints for weeks—saying on November 18, “I think I already know my choice,” and then doubling down last Sunday aboard Air Force One with, “I know who I am going to pick… we’ll be announcing it.”

He was referring to one Kevin Hassett, who—according to a recent Bloomberg report—has emerged as the overwhelming favorite to become the next Fed chair.

Here we sit — investors, analysts, retirees, accountants, even a few masochistic economists — gathered beneath the leafless monetary tree, rehearsing our lines as we wait for Jerome Powell to step onstage and tell us what the future means.

Spoiler: he can’t. But that does not stop us from waiting.

Tomorrow, he is expected to deliver the December rate cut. Polymarket odds sit at 96% for a dainty 25-point cut.

Trump, Navarro and Lutnick pine for 50 points.

And somewhere in the wings smiles Kevin Hassett — at 74% odds this morning, the presumed Powell successor — watching the last few snowflakes fall before his cue arrives.

With U.S. stocks trading at about 24 times forward earnings, plans for capital growth have to go off without a hitch. Given the billions of dollars in commitments by AI companies, financing to the hilt on debt, the most realistic outcome is a hitch.

On a valuation basis, global markets will likely show better returns than U.S. stocks in 2026.

America leads the world in innovation. A U.S. tech stock will naturally fetch a higher price than, say, a German brewery. But value matters, too.

As copper flowed into the United States, LME inventories thinned and backwardation steepened. Higher U.S. pricing, tariff protection, and lower political risk made American warehouses the most attractive destination for metal. Each new shipment strengthened the spread.

The arbitrage, once triggered, became self-reinforcing. Traders were not participating in theory; they were responding to the physical incentives in front of them.

The United States had quietly become the marginal buyer of the world’s most important industrial metal. China, long the gravitational center of global copper demand, found itself on the outside.

And Trump now seems ready to install someone who shares his appetite for lower rates and easier money.

He was referring to one Kevin Hassett, who—according to a recent Bloomberg report—has emerged as the overwhelming favorite to become the next Fed chair.

Spoiler: he can’t. But that does not stop us from waiting.

Tomorrow, he is expected to deliver the December rate cut. Polymarket odds sit at 96% for a dainty 25-point cut.

Trump, Navarro and Lutnick pine for 50 points.

And somewhere in the wings smiles Kevin Hassett — at 74% odds this morning, the presumed Powell successor — watching the last few snowflakes fall before his cue arrives.

On a valuation basis, global markets will likely show better returns than U.S. stocks in 2026.

America leads the world in innovation. A U.S. tech stock will naturally fetch a higher price than, say, a German brewery. But value matters, too.

The arbitrage, once triggered, became self-reinforcing. Traders were not participating in theory; they were responding to the physical incentives in front of them.

The United States had quietly become the marginal buyer of the world’s most important industrial metal. China, long the gravitational center of global copper demand, found itself on the outside.