When I read "The Black Swan", a lot of this type of discussion was based on probability models for adverse events, and there was the reality that there are vultures that will swoop in and make a killing.
What this discussion does now is merely give me an ulcer, a big one, because the implication is total colllapse, where even the vultures die. My take on this is that anyone with the ability to do so will keep a lot of cash available -- literally a stash of cash -- because the system could crash to the point where there will be weeks of banking nonfunction. That same person is going to keep cash in a checking account for a year's worth of expenses, not just the conventional six months. Perhaps that should be 18 months?
This is one of the scariest financial analysis postings I have ever read.
The other aspect of all of this, not discussed today, is that the larger collateral solution to the problem remains political, as it would be impeachment and conviction of Trump. Would Congress actually do its duty, were Trump to crash the economy?
To heighten the fraught moment...add the geopolitical instability ignited by this deliberate economic destruction, and the long-term implications for the dollar, as the rule of law continues to erode.
Wouldn't that be nice? Let's hope for blue tsunami in 2026 and a subsequent impeachment of both King MAGA and VP Hillbilly. Then the new speaker, Hakeem Jeffries, would be next in line to take over the Oval Office. I can dream, can't I?
"Would Congress actually do its duty, were Trump to crash the economy?"
Easy answer. No. We are powerless to prevent Trump's rampage of destruction until at least January 2027, when a new Congress comes in. And then only if the nation wakes up and kicks out every miserable, rotten GOP coward who is up for reelection in 2026. Until (possibly) then, we all have to just sit back and enjoy the ride!
I am beginning to wonder about "cash" now too. Will I need to stuff my mattress with 100 dollar bills? Will my checking account really be safe? Will the CDs I have be safe? What a god damn mess.
Hi Jeffrey- I feel exactly the same as you- I think I had an anxiety attack While listening to that. Here’s the rub- I have opened up several accounts recently in credit unions(I dunno- safer??)- Along with having several $K- stashed in safety deposit box-anyway there’s a Substack poster “critical Resistance” who got me all riled up. They discuss the current hollowing out of FDIC and that would mean said checking accounts would be unavailable- goes on to say we NOW no longer have systems in place to detect when banks are weak….! I’m sooooo freaking out- most of my friends haven’t even done as much as I have and don’t want to listen to this chat we just heard- let me know your thoughts because I think more folks should be discussing a run on the banks/or that it won’t happen…
There are numerous articles in the press recently, including the NYTimes, on "preppers" and how they are dealing with perceived social disruption. Even more extreme is the fictional "Zero Day" series streaming now. I am just a retiree, not an economist or political expert, but my wife and I have children and extended family who are definitely not considering these economic risks. Having gone through 1987, 2008, and covid, and having some appreciation of the potential for hackers to disrupt economic systems, I certainly have done some personal thinking about risks. We all realize that Dr Krugman and his colleagues are not allowed to give much advice on risk mitigation. Runs on banks are real, and I know through some personal family experience, through a relative who was very senior in management at the Fed Reserve of Boston, that the Fed has a playbook on dealing with runs (he was in leadership for the Bank of New England difficulties around 1991). I am curious, given your mention of bank strength, as to whether the DOGE process has impacted the Comptroller of the Currency and other banking regulators at this time.
Hurts my head to read this, but glad I did. I have known that it’s carefully planned chaos since P2025, as well as Helsinki. Steve Bannon promised that they would destroy the administrative state. They have weaponized imbecility and are too stupid to know what they don’t know. And we are too ignorant of financial economics to be as panicked as we should be. Thanks for telling me more than I ever wanted to know.
Thank you Paul and Nathan. What scares the hell out of me is, what's to stop the musk/trump dogies from diverting Government funds (Our tax dollars) to musk/trump personal accounts? From what I'm reading not as gawddamned thing.
Hopefully we'll be pleasantly surprised. I expected a crowd of maybe 100,000 on April 5. We ended up with about a million, so let's keep our fingers crossed as we head for the rallies.
I wish it was that big. A crowd that size would have clogged both 5th and 6th from 40th up to Central Park, and probably with spillover into Madison and B'way to boot. I'd say we ended up with at least a half million, and possibly as much as a million.
The NLRB whistleblower reported that the doggies leave doors open for entrance by their friendly players. So I have no doubt if the money can be taken in and out of an account it can also be accessed by anyone they have enabled.
Well the way the CIA/FBI and any other govt. system designator make sure Russian hackers won’t hollow out all our banks is GONE- I’m guessing Putin is gonna have my money pretty soon unless I take it OUT- jeeeeeezus I didn’t want to know all this shit….
Wow. The gulf between the confidence millions of people have in Trump and what is happening in the markets is the real Gulf of America. Thanks for pulling back the veil.
They want it all to crash, and to replace the dollar with crypto to continue the corruption, the international money laundering, and the avoidance of income taxes.
Crypto seems to be the way to avoid the responsibility of following the law by the global oligarch network (Anne Applebaum). A Russification of the global financial system by creating a currency devoid of any state’s control, beyond regulatory scrutiny, law enforcement, and the courts. A financial “Bloodlands”. A protective racket to secure and insure legal and illegal wealth accumulation.
Paul, if you read your comments, please let other substackers in on the transcript software you use. Having the conversation presented for each individual, as you do, rather than an undifferentiated stream, (every other substack site I've seen) is vastly preferable.
Many of us prefer to read transcripts as it is a better use of our time (and they can be easily searched). Having other substacks follow your lead would be very helpful.
I suspect there is an actual human who takes the raw transcript and creates the highly readable document we receive. If there is software that does it this well, I want to know, too! I get tired of reading the machine-generated transcripts of videos I make and then fixing all the errors...
Commerical Zoom and other apps can automatically do this. I think MSFT Teams can do this also. I'm a Board Chair of a foundation and we generate meeting transcripts automatically this way. It is about the only AI thing that I see as useful.
Yes, this can definitely be done automatically (for the most part). Paul wouldn't be able to post so quickly after the discussions, if a human had to be involved in generating it.
It definitely can. The AI assistant I use for my video calls does it when it sends me my call summary. It's proprietary for my company though, so I have to refrain from telling you where I work.
Thank you Nathan and Paul. I write these comments mostly for myself and my own sanity. I guess a way to try to process the insanity of these times.
If I had to put a % on how much I understood Nathan's discussion, I would say 20% of it. So I will echo one of the other comments which is, I knew it was bad and now I know how really bad it is.
Last comment, do not despair, get out on the street, protest, call your congress people and tell them the government is being driven off a cliff and start acting like it means something. Don't wait for someone else to save the republic, each of us have to do it. Courage.
This is why developing local backup currencies like the one in Marin County, Ca have become relevant. Or developing local bartering networks. It’s ironic that the survival methods people used during the Great Depression are needed again. The New Deal programs Musk and Trump are busy destroying did a much better job of sustaining people than local bartering networks and are the principal reason FDR was elected four times.
Just thanks for this. There are still people on Substack who think these halfwits have a cunning plan, when the truth is they don't have a clue about a clue (iterate as long as you can stand it). I'm an old technical guy and burst out laughing at the idea of translating Cobol using AI. These guys really do believe their own bullshit, don't they? Except for Trump. I don't think he knows what he believes, or indeed, what is real, anymore.
The conventional wisdom crowd is ideologically hidebound. In every election they say that the Republicans are better for the economy and stocks. The actual results show an opposite result. So, the run up during the interregnum between Biden and Trump was iron pyrite. They say that the Republicans are fiscally responsible but they never are.
This was a scary interview but so informative that I bought a subscription. It also gave me agita. We have a regime that is ready to let the banks run amuck. Without regulations a big bank could disappear in days like the run on Silicon Valley Bank.
And, the idea of replacing the software of the SSA without running a backup system in parallel for a couple of years is crazy. If the new software breaks down, chaos reigns.
You and Nathan really are a great team. Nathan comes up with all this important obscure stuff and then you digest it into a practical narrative that we mortals can understand. Thank you so much for doing this.
Is this why DOGE is trying so hard to get the controls of both IRS and SSA? Can the government just take everyone’s money and give it to the oligarchs, or they can weaponize it and target specific individuals without using due process?
Debiting NY City's account is a really dangerous precedent. Has NY City asked a federal court to intervene? I am becoming a bit paranoid about this intervention. I suspect someone in the administration or elsewhere is keeping an enemies list. It would be so easy to do with AI. Everything is on the internet. And it would be equally easy to stop payments for Social Security and military or civil service retirement benefits for someone perceived to be too outspoken--maybe about impeachment or seriously threatening trumps ego.
For those of you paying attention to the bigger picture, this is just another example of “blowback” whereby the techniques originally employed by the empire against its enemies on the periphery find their way back into the metropole where rival factions in turn employ them against one another and the general citizenry.
In this particular instance I mean that the debiting of the NYC account is the internal “blowback” equivalent of the empire’s addiction to the use of sanctions (think here of the seizure of Russian assets in EuroClear) abroad …
When I read "The Black Swan", a lot of this type of discussion was based on probability models for adverse events, and there was the reality that there are vultures that will swoop in and make a killing.
What this discussion does now is merely give me an ulcer, a big one, because the implication is total colllapse, where even the vultures die. My take on this is that anyone with the ability to do so will keep a lot of cash available -- literally a stash of cash -- because the system could crash to the point where there will be weeks of banking nonfunction. That same person is going to keep cash in a checking account for a year's worth of expenses, not just the conventional six months. Perhaps that should be 18 months?
This is one of the scariest financial analysis postings I have ever read.
The other aspect of all of this, not discussed today, is that the larger collateral solution to the problem remains political, as it would be impeachment and conviction of Trump. Would Congress actually do its duty, were Trump to crash the economy?
To heighten the fraught moment...add the geopolitical instability ignited by this deliberate economic destruction, and the long-term implications for the dollar, as the rule of law continues to erode.
Wouldn't that be nice? Let's hope for blue tsunami in 2026 and a subsequent impeachment of both King MAGA and VP Hillbilly. Then the new speaker, Hakeem Jeffries, would be next in line to take over the Oval Office. I can dream, can't I?
Jeffries is milquetoast. We need someone brave. Someone willing to start a new beginning. AOC better.
Jeffries is in line to become Speaker, AOC isn't. That's not something we have control of. We need to take whatever victories we can get.
Its time to jump the queue.
How? The Speaker is elected by Congress.
I would say that he was knowledgeable and thoughtful, which I would prefer to someone emulating a medieval knight.
"Would Congress actually do its duty, were Trump to crash the economy?"
Easy answer. No. We are powerless to prevent Trump's rampage of destruction until at least January 2027, when a new Congress comes in. And then only if the nation wakes up and kicks out every miserable, rotten GOP coward who is up for reelection in 2026. Until (possibly) then, we all have to just sit back and enjoy the ride!
How certain are you there will be free and fair or any federal elections in 2026?
the anti-fragility of the global financial system in the face of crazy trade disruptions and gov't disregard for contract law is being tested
I am beginning to wonder about "cash" now too. Will I need to stuff my mattress with 100 dollar bills? Will my checking account really be safe? Will the CDs I have be safe? What a god damn mess.
Hi Jeffrey- I feel exactly the same as you- I think I had an anxiety attack While listening to that. Here’s the rub- I have opened up several accounts recently in credit unions(I dunno- safer??)- Along with having several $K- stashed in safety deposit box-anyway there’s a Substack poster “critical Resistance” who got me all riled up. They discuss the current hollowing out of FDIC and that would mean said checking accounts would be unavailable- goes on to say we NOW no longer have systems in place to detect when banks are weak….! I’m sooooo freaking out- most of my friends haven’t even done as much as I have and don’t want to listen to this chat we just heard- let me know your thoughts because I think more folks should be discussing a run on the banks/or that it won’t happen…
There are numerous articles in the press recently, including the NYTimes, on "preppers" and how they are dealing with perceived social disruption. Even more extreme is the fictional "Zero Day" series streaming now. I am just a retiree, not an economist or political expert, but my wife and I have children and extended family who are definitely not considering these economic risks. Having gone through 1987, 2008, and covid, and having some appreciation of the potential for hackers to disrupt economic systems, I certainly have done some personal thinking about risks. We all realize that Dr Krugman and his colleagues are not allowed to give much advice on risk mitigation. Runs on banks are real, and I know through some personal family experience, through a relative who was very senior in management at the Fed Reserve of Boston, that the Fed has a playbook on dealing with runs (he was in leadership for the Bank of New England difficulties around 1991). I am curious, given your mention of bank strength, as to whether the DOGE process has impacted the Comptroller of the Currency and other banking regulators at this time.
Yes, we are keeping a stash of cash and plan to increase it. It stuns me to be thinking this is necessary.
Thank you both for a fascinating but worrying discussion. I knew it was bad, and now I know how bad.
Hurts my head to read this, but glad I did. I have known that it’s carefully planned chaos since P2025, as well as Helsinki. Steve Bannon promised that they would destroy the administrative state. They have weaponized imbecility and are too stupid to know what they don’t know. And we are too ignorant of financial economics to be as panicked as we should be. Thanks for telling me more than I ever wanted to know.
Thank you Paul and Nathan. What scares the hell out of me is, what's to stop the musk/trump dogies from diverting Government funds (Our tax dollars) to musk/trump personal accounts? From what I'm reading not as gawddamned thing.
Not a damn thing. Til the damage is irreversible…
Not true! We can Rise! Resist! ✊✊✊
Get out there to a rally near you, with or without a sign. Preferably with. Make some noise.
Going at noon today in Texas. But have no illusions. Would love to meet a mob there…
Hopefully we'll be pleasantly surprised. I expected a crowd of maybe 100,000 on April 5. We ended up with about a million, so let's keep our fingers crossed as we head for the rallies.
3.5 to 5 million!
I wish it was that big. A crowd that size would have clogged both 5th and 6th from 40th up to Central Park, and probably with spillover into Madison and B'way to boot. I'd say we ended up with at least a half million, and possibly as much as a million.
Crossed everything I’ve got.
Fay, and anybody's bank account can be emptied by DOGE?
The NLRB whistleblower reported that the doggies leave doors open for entrance by their friendly players. So I have no doubt if the money can be taken in and out of an account it can also be accessed by anyone they have enabled.
Don’t like but they have proved that it’s not only possible but has been done.
The only thing we can do now ir Rise! Resist! ✊✊✊
Get a sign and get out there today. Find the rally nearest you here:
https://events.pol-rev.com/search?contentType=EVENTS&__cf_chl_tk=siNyvFG3.MJxkXLqLCgJ.k_s8mNfM6odE8o.MhdskJM-1745065608-1.0.1.1-YE4mT_KG1HR43aoeH6EENdquGF4NjIMyjVs_fzIK2vI&when=april19&eventPage=1
Type your city/state into the searchbar (don't use just a zip code, it doesn't work well).
Well the way the CIA/FBI and any other govt. system designator make sure Russian hackers won’t hollow out all our banks is GONE- I’m guessing Putin is gonna have my money pretty soon unless I take it OUT- jeeeeeezus I didn’t want to know all this shit….
Wow. The gulf between the confidence millions of people have in Trump and what is happening in the markets is the real Gulf of America. Thanks for pulling back the veil.
I am not an economist, but I have to say that this interview is probably the most terrifying thing I have read on the internet in quite some time.
Right! Like, should I go buy a bigger mattress?
Good grief, this is terrifying. At what point does keeping money stuffed into your mattress seem more secure than buying Treasuries?
They want it all to crash, and to replace the dollar with crypto to continue the corruption, the international money laundering, and the avoidance of income taxes.
And you can’t stuff crypto in your mattress.
Crypto seems to be the way to avoid the responsibility of following the law by the global oligarch network (Anne Applebaum). A Russification of the global financial system by creating a currency devoid of any state’s control, beyond regulatory scrutiny, law enforcement, and the courts. A financial “Bloodlands”. A protective racket to secure and insure legal and illegal wealth accumulation.
Like Now- well I put some in safety deposit box- but shit that’s still in a freaking BANK
Aaaarrrggghhh
Now you understand all those buried pots of 1500 year-old silver coins that metal detectorists keep finding around Europe.
Metacomment here.
Paul, if you read your comments, please let other substackers in on the transcript software you use. Having the conversation presented for each individual, as you do, rather than an undifferentiated stream, (every other substack site I've seen) is vastly preferable.
Many of us prefer to read transcripts as it is a better use of our time (and they can be easily searched). Having other substacks follow your lead would be very helpful.
Agreed! Due to profound hearing loss I get nothing from podcasts unless they are closed captioned and having a transcript is even better!
I suspect there is an actual human who takes the raw transcript and creates the highly readable document we receive. If there is software that does it this well, I want to know, too! I get tired of reading the machine-generated transcripts of videos I make and then fixing all the errors...
Commerical Zoom and other apps can automatically do this. I think MSFT Teams can do this also. I'm a Board Chair of a foundation and we generate meeting transcripts automatically this way. It is about the only AI thing that I see as useful.
Yes, this can definitely be done automatically (for the most part). Paul wouldn't be able to post so quickly after the discussions, if a human had to be involved in generating it.
Somebody did have to manually put in the hyperlinks. AI cannot do that yet AFAIK.
It definitely can. The AI assistant I use for my video calls does it when it sends me my call summary. It's proprietary for my company though, so I have to refrain from telling you where I work.
Thank you Nathan and Paul. I write these comments mostly for myself and my own sanity. I guess a way to try to process the insanity of these times.
If I had to put a % on how much I understood Nathan's discussion, I would say 20% of it. So I will echo one of the other comments which is, I knew it was bad and now I know how really bad it is.
Last comment, do not despair, get out on the street, protest, call your congress people and tell them the government is being driven off a cliff and start acting like it means something. Don't wait for someone else to save the republic, each of us have to do it. Courage.
This is why developing local backup currencies like the one in Marin County, Ca have become relevant. Or developing local bartering networks. It’s ironic that the survival methods people used during the Great Depression are needed again. The New Deal programs Musk and Trump are busy destroying did a much better job of sustaining people than local bartering networks and are the principal reason FDR was elected four times.
As it insightful as it is frightening. We'll all need that drink. Have Nathan back.
double scoop coffee which needs cream to be palatable
Just thanks for this. There are still people on Substack who think these halfwits have a cunning plan, when the truth is they don't have a clue about a clue (iterate as long as you can stand it). I'm an old technical guy and burst out laughing at the idea of translating Cobol using AI. These guys really do believe their own bullshit, don't they? Except for Trump. I don't think he knows what he believes, or indeed, what is real, anymore.
The conventional wisdom crowd is ideologically hidebound. In every election they say that the Republicans are better for the economy and stocks. The actual results show an opposite result. So, the run up during the interregnum between Biden and Trump was iron pyrite. They say that the Republicans are fiscally responsible but they never are.
This was a scary interview but so informative that I bought a subscription. It also gave me agita. We have a regime that is ready to let the banks run amuck. Without regulations a big bank could disappear in days like the run on Silicon Valley Bank.
And, the idea of replacing the software of the SSA without running a backup system in parallel for a couple of years is crazy. If the new software breaks down, chaos reigns.
You and Nathan really are a great team. Nathan comes up with all this important obscure stuff and then you digest it into a practical narrative that we mortals can understand. Thank you so much for doing this.
Is this why DOGE is trying so hard to get the controls of both IRS and SSA? Can the government just take everyone’s money and give it to the oligarchs, or they can weaponize it and target specific individuals without using due process?
Musk / DOGE is downloading the US data Infrastructure to xAI in Memphis TN
xAI is training Large Language Models on the US data Infrastructure to create an AI Operation like Cambridge Analytica, only a bazillion times vaster.
Which will be owned by Musk. Our data.
Both of these scenarios seem to be the goal. A kleptocracy with absolute unchecked power.
I am thinking they will make all government services contingent on party membership.
Debiting NY City's account is a really dangerous precedent. Has NY City asked a federal court to intervene? I am becoming a bit paranoid about this intervention. I suspect someone in the administration or elsewhere is keeping an enemies list. It would be so easy to do with AI. Everything is on the internet. And it would be equally easy to stop payments for Social Security and military or civil service retirement benefits for someone perceived to be too outspoken--maybe about impeachment or seriously threatening trumps ego.
For those of you paying attention to the bigger picture, this is just another example of “blowback” whereby the techniques originally employed by the empire against its enemies on the periphery find their way back into the metropole where rival factions in turn employ them against one another and the general citizenry.
In this particular instance I mean that the debiting of the NYC account is the internal “blowback” equivalent of the empire’s addiction to the use of sanctions (think here of the seizure of Russian assets in EuroClear) abroad …
Or just being in the “wrong” party.