“I think we’re actually going to get some margin expansion,” Mr. Varghese added. ...
Yeah, that'll be popular.
... Some years ago, I traveled to the Faroe Islands, an autonomous territory of Denmark, to report on their tax authority, which is arguably the best in the world. There, all normal wages are routed through a central government database, which automatically keeps track of how much you are making, and what benefit programs you are eligible for.
While this computerized system is quite sophisticated and required a lot of initial investment, it is incredibly easy to operate. For an ordinary worker, what you owe automatically comes out of the paycheck, and any benefit payments automatically go right into your bank account. Ordinary employees don’t have to file their taxes or any enrollment paperwork (if they have a child and become eligible for the Faroese child allowance, for instance, the money just starts showing up), while employers don’t have to hire a payroll processor to handle their tax payments. ...
Don’t call time on dollar dominance just yet, say analysts as ‘petroyuan’ call sparks debate
... “Oil is not priced in US dollars simply because the United States has long acted as the world’s policeman,” wrote Sonal Desai, Franklin Templeton’s fixed income CIO.
“Oil exporters have a strong self-interest in getting paid in USD, because of what dollars represent: access to the deepest, most liquid capital markets in the world, backed by an institutional and legal framework that protects property rights and enforces contracts, supported by a strong, dynamic, and innovative economy.” ...
Franklin Templeton’s Desai added in the note that building the right infrastructure for a credible replacement, consisting of “deep markets, rule of law, full convertibility, a track record of macro stability”, takes decades, not years. ...
Desai added that the dollar’s recent weakness is simply a function of its characteristics.
“Some dollar softness is perfectly consistent with global reserve currency status,” Desai wrote.
“Unlike the renminbi, the dollar is a freely floating currency. It floats – up and down.”
I coulda mentioned salad the other day, but I didn't.
The average price made a new record high in 1Q2026.
Why BLTs and salad just got more expensive — tariffs, war send tomato prices soaring
This story is about fresh tomatoes, not salad, and it is interesting, but the average price of tomatoes in 1Q2026 still hasn't surpassed 1Q2016.
Adjusted for inflation since 1Q1980, tomatoes could cost $2.64 per pound, but they were only $1.98 in 1Q.
As the story says, canned tomatoes are much cheaper. I make my sauce from stewed whole plum tomatoes from a can, preferably Italian, preferably San Marzano or Parma, but there are many acceptable American brands to choose from.
Powell staying on as acting chair until Trump can get his shit together would be customary procedure, not an anomaly.
Trump threatens to fire Powell if Fed chair doesn’t leave office on his own
Fed nominee Warsh filings detail vast wealth, far exceeding past chairs
... Warsh’s filings detail roughly 1,800 individual assets. Many individual items are identified as being subject to “pre-existing confidentiality obligations” that prevent him from specifying the underlying assets.
Warsh in the filings pledges to divest these assets if confirmed. ...
And core wholesale inflation in 1Q2026 also rounds to 3.8% yoy, and is right back where we started with Trump in 1Q2025, if you give me 0.04 for 3.77% year over year.
Wholesale prices rose 0.5% in March, much less than expected despite war impact
The producer price index, a gauge of pipeline costs for final demand goods and services, increased a seasonally adjusted 0.5% for the month, well below the Dow Jones consensus estimate for 1.1%.
Excluding food and energy, core PPI was up just 0.1% against the forecast for 0.5%.
On an annual basis, the all-items PPI accelerated 4%, the biggest 12-month gain since February 2023. The core PPI posted a 3.8% annual gain. ...
All items
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| Core |
I can see the jowls of 74 forming already. 🤣
My favorite part of this is her concern for the little girls of Iran.
After 911 she didn't care about their little girls at all, when she wanted all these countries invaded, their leaders killed, and everyone converted to Christianity. She didn't want us to be too careful about it either, because we carpet bombed Germany in WWII and killed civilians because it was a war then, and 911 was also a war, even though it wasn't. It too was undeclared just like this one now against Iran, but Ann pretends otherwise.
If Trump had a decent PR machine, he'd be talking about how awful the crackdown in Iran was after the Christmas 2025 university demonstrations. Thousands of Iranians desiring freedom were brutally massacred by the regime. Trump wasn't ready for that, but he did begin the airbridge to Europe and the Middle East in mid-February, beginning the process of shuttling military assets in theatre to confront the Ayatollah. I know because I monitored it myself day after day. This was not a surprise.
Those military assets weren't as strong or ready as they needed to be in the last week of February when Trump got the call from Bibi about the decapitation opportunity, but he pulled the trigger anyway. That's Trump, always reactive, not proactive. He's not the commander in chief many of us would choose, but you fight with the commander you have.
If we had taken Ann's advice in 2001, the Persian Gulf would be a Christian paradise today, and we wouldn't be having this stupid conversation about the terror regime in Iran yet one more time a quarter century later and how to solve that problem.
They have missiles to destroy their neighbors and reach Europe, and they have demonstrated their willingness to do so. It doesn't matter now how it started. They must be stopped.
Just two out of the Strait of Hormuz April 10-11, just nine through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait in either direction after Iran attacked the Saudi pipeline to Yanbu on April 8-9.
