Fine. Noted. Pitchforks up. Got it.

Here’s the part nobody wants to sit with.

The people yelling the loudest? They are typing their screeds on an iPhone — billionaire Tim Cook’s glass prism into the world — and posting their wrath on platforms built by the guys they’re yelling at. And hey, yelling all day makes you hungry. It’s lunch from DoorDash (Tony Xu), which shows up courtesy of a gig economy propped up by the same index-fund capital these people claim to despise (oh hi, Larry Fink). What’s for lunch? A Cava bowl (thanks, Ron Shaich) and a then latte from the Starbucks empire that ol’ Howard Schultz turned into a personality trait. How do we pay all this shit? With a credit card whose rewards program is basically Amazon Prime incognito (yo, Bezos says hi. And thank you very much.)

This is not a lifestyle. This is a bespoke supply chain lined by the people you claim to hate.

These people shouting billionaire bad are not serious people, and the furthest thing you can be from anti-billionaire. I spend my days laughing at the charade.

The Tell

The tell isn’t people using these products. Opting out isn’t a realistic menu option in 2026. The tell is the certainty. Don’t you love the morally superior tone? The idea that ranting and raving against a founder on his own platform counts as being a part of the resistance. Never mind that it’s the single most profitable thing you could do for him all day. Laughable. You didn’t stick it to Zuck or Musk, you improved their engagement numbers.

Best remember: on a free platform, you are the product. Their product. You are the money in their pocket.

To Be Fair

There’s a real point buried in the mess: nobody is going to opt into feudalism; they’re opting into the only economy currently on offer. Using a product made by someone you criticize doesn’t automatically qualify as hypocrisy — it’s what living inside this system looks like.

But that argument covers the usage. It doesn’t cover the tone. Nobody participates in a system they actually think is evil, but if the system were really that broken, the correct mood would be grim resignation — not gleeful “eat the rich” dunking, sandwiched between a DoorDash order and an Instagram pic of your Cava bowl. That’s not resistance. That’s cosplay attached to your Yelp review.

The Actual Move

The real counterculture angle was never the tweet. It’s the boring stuff not even worth a social media post to begin with: using cash instead of the card, shopping on the street corner instead of the app, opting out of the rideshare, or cooking instead of the fast food order. None of it trends. But none of it feels as good as ratioing a billionaire from his own phone on his own platform. \

Which is precisely why almost no one is doing it.

Hate the billionaire? It’s still a free country. But maybe don’t do it with his ring halfway to your lips.

Calling bullshit accordingly,

Todd

Meanwhile, much of the financial press is still processing the jab… Whooops!

What actually happened

Thirty-year yields hit their highest level since 2007 last week - back in the good ol’ days when daddy’s ARM was the scary headline. Bessent responded by doubling the Treasury’s minimum long-bond buyback size, from $2 billion to $4 billion a pop. Markets yawned. The pop faded fast. Consensus take: nice gesture, funded by rolling more short-term bills, a simple duration swap dressed up as decisive action.

Then, today, Bessent sent 2 hapless Treasury officials out to feed the talking heads at CNBC. Their message: the buybacks could instead be funded by draining the Treasury General Account - the government’s own operating cash at the Fed, sitting north of $950 billion. The 10 and 30-year yields dropped again on that news alone. Not because the buyback got bigger, but because the market just found out how many chips were actually on the table.

Ahhhh, this is a real card game now…

What it does to the bond market

There are two ways to fund a buyback, and they are not the same animal.

1 - Sell new bills to buy back old bonds. A duration swap - this shortens the average maturity of the pile, shaves a little term premium off the long end, doesn’t touch net supply. That’s the “Treasury Twist.” Priced in. Boring. Exactly why the first announcement fizzled.

2 - Drain the Treasury General Account instead. Now you’re spending cash that already exists inside the system rather than borrowing new cash just to pull it right back out. This is not debt management anymore - it’s a government-issue liquidity injection. Or if you want to be honest about it, “yield curve control.”

Fighters, keep bobbing and weaving. A trillion-dollar checkbook gets spent once. When it’s gone, the Treasury’s back to issuing bills to refill it - and the underlying condition - a $40 trillion debt load with foreign central banks now holding roughly 12% of it and shrinking as they sell out of their holdings. That doesn’t get cured, it only gets postponed. This is a war chest buying for time (or elections), not a fix buying certainty.

The ripple into gold

Gold didn’t wait for the footnotes. It jumped over 4% the day of the first buyback headline, cleared $4,500 within a day, and hasn’t really looked back — past $4,600 by Friday, north of $4,630 by Monday, its best run since May, up double digits for the month. I look to it continue up to $4,850 easily.

The logic isn’t complicated. Lower real yields make a non-yielding hard asset cheaper to hold - and as the debt continues to punch back, folks are looking long and hard at this hard asset.

A government publicly intervening in its own bond auctions to defend its own borrowing costs is, to anyone who’s watched this movie since 2008, a tell - not a technicality. It reads as the state quietly conceding the market won’t clear its paper at the “real” price without a thumb on the scale and a little juice on the table. That’s the debasement trade, and it just got a fresh jolt of oxygen.

The takeaway

Nobody is going to call this QE, and technically they’re right. But markets don’t trade footnotes - they trade based on who’s holding the bag when the bill comes due. Treasury just showed it’s willing to spend its own savings account defending the long bond, in a market where the old reliable buyers are quietly leaving the table. That doesn’t mean the bond market is saved. It means the people running it are worried enough to open the vault.

Gold got the memo in real time. The rest of the tape is still reading the headline.

Watching girls go passing by
It ain't the latest thing
I'm just standing in a doorway
I'm just trying to make some sense'
Out of these girls that passing by
The tales they tell of men
I'm not waiting on a lady
I'm just waiting on a friend

Todd

Lyrics by Richards and Jagger

It happens constantly now. I say something and there’s that half-second lag before the response lands - like I’m on a satellite call to someone standing three feet away. Follow-up questions often feel like guesses on where the conversation actually sits. People say “sorry, what?” when I’m in the middle of a sentence - not because the room’s too loud, but because attention is now too porous. Tell someone a story, and when you deliver the story’s climax, the person on the other end is still struggling with the opening line. What in the hell is going on these days!

Three suspects. I keep rotating through them:

Suspect One: The iPhone did it.

We made peace with it too fast. Two decades of pocket-notifications have rewired our brain’s baseline. And here’s the deal - the phone doesn’t even have to be out of the pocket to work; it must merely exist in the room. A silent third wheel at any table. And everyone at that table knows the phone is in charge; we just negotiate around it. Then the electronic beast lights up and we all bow. Call it digital triangulation: two people talking, with a phantom third party dictating the terms - and it is a true Digital Dictator. It’s inevitable - at some point in any meeting, you’ll know where you stand between the person sitting across from you and a roofing company in his/her neighborhood offering free shingle inspections, someone just re-tweeted the picture of their morning chai latte, a guy walking his dog triggered their Ring camera, Amazon just delivered new shoes, and another friend is pinging them asking them if they’re free for coffee in five minutes. Clearly you’ve intruded on this person’s life.

Suspect Two: The pill did it.

It’s Prozac Nation, twenty-five years hence. Half the room’s on something. And I’m not knocking anyone’s meds - genuinely, if the pills are keeping you above ground and vertical, take them. But something is getting sanded down along with the edges. Rampant SSRI use flattens the highs to save you from the lows, so what’s left is a midpoint flatline that can look a lot like someone way off in the distance - la la land. So sometimes when I’m talking to a friend, I must acknowledge I’m not really talking to him. I’m talking to Eli Lilly. Don’t mind him; he’s just interrupting his Prozac bender.

Suspect Three: It’s Me.

Least fun option, but most likely to be at least partly true. Maybe I’ve become the guy who monologues 2nd- and 3rd-order topics at a barbecue when the room just wants to talk about Kim Kardashian's negative chlamydia test that just hit Insta. I know I’m not owed anyone’s full attention just because I showed up with something to say (I actually go into my Notes app and write down topics of conversation as I “pre-game” most social gatherings). However, this thought stings because there’s no gadget or pharmaceutical to blame - just the possibility that I’ve become boring - or worse, I’ve always been boring and the people around me used to be sharp enough to fake it. Today as I speak, that distant look and wayward feeling might just be the person in front of me desperately scanning the room for someone who knows the results of Kim Kardashian’s recent chlamydia test. Dear God, save me from this Todd Robbins clown; he’s on about the yield curve again.

Landing it

It’s most likely all three, running at once. That’s the actual story. Not “phones are bad” - that essay has been read forty times by everyone in the room. It’s that every face-to-face conversation now has to compete against an infinite doomscroll feed, a mood stabilizer, and whatever’s actually going on in the other person’s life alongside their daily pill box - that’s a stacked deck where true conversations and connections will ultimately lose. Real conversation used to be two people in a room. Now it’s two people with the Apple board of directors, Mark Zuckerberg, and it’s TikTok o’clock at the pharmacy counter’s refill show - these all have better production values than you.

Ideas

When you catch someone’s eyes leaving the conversation, stop talking. Not passive-aggressively. Just stop, mid-sentence, and wait. Most people will notice the silence faster than they noticed the words. It’s the one thing scrolling a feed can’t give back to them. And if they reach for the phone - check a notification, look at a text, check an incoming call - stop. Sit and smile, and wait until the phone goes back down on the table or back in the pocket. Then continue where you left off.

Maybe we can get on top of this thing!

Now, what were you saying?

Todd

That’s not a catchphrase from a Hallmark card. It’s Scripture. Proverbs 17:22: “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.”

Dead true. If you cannot look at the circus of modern life and laugh, you will eventually break. Notice the men who go soft first are the ones who forgot how to mock the absurd.

But laughter is not just medicine. It is a weapon.

You need laughter in your quiver when you walk the frontier of work, business, and the endless parade of people who should never have been given a microphone, a title, or a standing.

Laughter as a Weapon (1)

In an abhorrent culmination of a certain producer’s can’t-make-a-decision track-count nightmare scenario, we’ve got a mix rolling on the console stuffed with way too much of everything. I’m pushing my Pro Tools rig to the max and we have to pull in a Logic rig to handle some of the track count. We have an entire SSL G+ chock-full of inputs across the main faders and the smaller monitor faders as well. The entire gamut here—twelve tracks of guitar, each mic’d with four mics—that’s 48 tracks just for the guitar sounds. We have drum tracks galore—including a mic inside the toaster oven in the studio lounge for vibe, leaving the door open so the drums could bleed into whatever reason for a microphone they dreamt up in there. String passes that have sixteen tracks for each pass, stacked with four passes—that’s 64 tracks just for the string sound. Layers upon layers of keyboard madness, percussion, bips and boops, and then around 40 tracks of vocal madness on top of it all. It’s a mess that takes three mega twelve-hour days to decipher as the producer begins to realize the error of his ways. He thought we’d knock this thing out in three or four hours, tops.

Near the end of our mixing marathon, the label dispatches a promotions guy for a listen—and ostensibly sign-off authority on the mix. And when I say a promotions guy, I mean the guy who designs cardboard end-caps for record stores—possibly a creative soul in his own lane, but light-years removed from anything resembling music-making. No business in a control room, and yet here he sits.

We play the mix. It’s horrendous. He leans in with brow furrowed, doing his best impression of a man in complete authority of the madness pouring out of the speakers—a track overstuffed like an audio hoarder’s garage. As the cacophony finally fades, our intrepid listener swivels toward the room and kicks off with something genuinely bizarre:

“Do you know what’s going to be really, really big this year?”

What, are we talking shoes and fall fashion trends now?

He leans in further, dead serious, and drops the bomb:

“BAGPIPES. This track needs BAGPIPES. They’re going to be huge this year!”

The room goes church-silent. The artist shifts in his chair like his ass just caught fire. The producer stands stoic and quizzical—quite possibly considering the idea as a worthy addition to his litany of poor decision-making to date. Me? I go straight for weapons-grade laughter. I know full well this lunatic isn’t joking, but I decide that the room’s best chance of survival is to convince him that he is, indeed, joking. I slap my knee hard and howl, “Oh man… bagpipes… Dude, you had me for a second! I actually thought you were serious! Bagpipes—nice one! That is HILARIOUS!” I throw a glance at the artist and producer, dragging them onto my bandwagon. “Can you imagine bagpipes on this track? Dear Lord. Nightmare fuel. This guy got me good! Did y’all think he was serious too?” They pile on with enough uncomfortable chuckling to finish the job—burying the poor man’s bagpipe dream in a mass grave of forced hilarity.

Mr. Promotions Man, sensing defeat, slinks out of the room like a dog caught eating a Thanksgiving turkey. As we watch his taillights disappear out of the parking lot, the producer leans over toward me. “Dude, I think he was serious about the bagpipes.”

I look back, slap him on the shoulder and nod. “Dead serious.”

Laughter as a Weapon (2)

I’m working at Apple, where I dutifully arrive daily at 8 am for my shift. Though I sold the ass-end out of the place, I was happy to be compensated hourly and not on commission. It just made the working environment cleaner and easier. Arriving at 8 am, however, meant we’d sometimes have to wait for a manager to arrive, unlock the door, and let us in. ***Sometimes this manager arrival was an on-time 7:55, but other times 8:03, 8:05, maybe 8:06 on a very rare occasion.

I never thought much about it - everyone was there, we all filed in, and we all got to work. The Business Team I led was always the #1 in our market, always outperforming the other 32 stores that made up the market’s set of stores.

Anywhooo… one day a manager (there are 5 or 6 managers at the store) comes into my office. This was a young-buck kid who’d just been promoted to manager - his name was Billy, and I always called him Billy the Kid. He’s obviously bored this particular day and looking for things to do, so he interrupts my important work to talk about the fact that I often arrive a few minutes late in the mornings. ***Sometimes my arrival was an on-time 7:55, but other times 8:03, 8:05, maybe 8:06 on a very rare occasion. (see above).

The dude is being serious. Dead serious. Me? I go straight for weapons-grade laughter. I know full well this lunatic isn’t joking, but I decide that my best chance of survival is to convince him that he is, indeed, joking. I slap my knee hard and howl, “Oh man… Dude, you had me for a second! I actually thought you were serious! Late? Three minutes, five minutes late?—Nice one! That is HILARIOUS! Dude, I have a call with a client here soon that I’m prepping for; do you mind closing my door on the way out?”

Mr. Manager Man, sensing defeat, rises slowly out of the chair and slinks out of the door behind him - leaving my office with a blank stare, and not quite knowing what just hit him as I continue my guffawing.

Laughter as a Weapon (3)

I am the president of our HOA, and a lady has come to an HOA meeting to complain about the way the grass in our common area fields is being mowed. She has a picture of her shoes covered with grass, and she’s saying, “This is what happens to my shoes when I walk through the grass. They get covered with grass!”

This lady is being serious. Dead serious. Me? I go straight for weapons-grade laughter. I know full well this lunatic isn’t joking, but I decide that the room’s best chance of survival is to convince her that she is, indeed, joking. I slap my knee hard and howl, “Oh wow… Lady, you had me for a second! I actually thought you were serious! Grass on our shoes from walking through grass?—Nice one! That is HILARIOUS!” I throw a glance around the room, dragging the rest of the HOA Board onto my bandwagon. “Can you imagine grass on your shoes after walking through grass? Dear Lord. Nightmare fuel. She got me good! Did y’all think she was serious too?” They pile on with enough uncomfortable chuckling to finish the job—burying the poor lady’s grass problems in a mass grave of forced hilarity.

Miss Grassy Shoes, sensing defeat, slinks out of the room. As we watch her taillights disappear out of the parking lot, a fellow board member leans over toward me. “Dude, I think he was serious about the grass.”

I look back, slap him on the shoulder and nod. “Dead serious.”

Lessons Learned

In each of these instances, there is no reasoning with the perpetrators. There is no way to stoop down to this level of thinking, this absurdity of their banal and facile reality. Don’t even try; don’t waste your time. There is no way to have a conversation where you can even align with this low-level, futile thinking. Do not attempt to even get down to that level. The danger of arguing with an idiot is they have far more practice at being an idiot than you do.

No, the only thing you can give them is that which they deserve. Laugh them the hell out of the room!

For this strategy to be successful, you must wholesale commit to the bit. It won’t be easy. It will feel awkward, but it’s supposed to - for the other guy. You cannot show weakness - once you fire off the laughter, you’re committed. You’re not showing empathy here; you are slamming the door in the face of abject stupidity. Do not let your target get a word in anywhere. You’re ending the conversation with your bit, and moving on. It’s supposed to feel brutal. But it’s fighting fire with fire - brutal stupidity with the brutal response it deserves.

Dichotomy of Control

The laughter is not cruelty for its own sake. It is the sound of a man refusing to be drafted into another person’s delusion - the practical application of the dichotomy of control in real time.

The dichotomy of control is the core Stoic split: What is up to you. What is not.

• Up to you: your judgments, your responses, your character, the stories you tell yourself about what just happened.

• Not up to you: other people’s opinions, their stupidity, their theories, their feelings.

Most men spend their lives trying to control the second category and neglect the first. That is how they end up enslaved - their time spent angry at fools, exhausted by arguments that were never winnable, drafted into someone else’s delusion.

Practical application of the dichotomy of control in real time means you do not wait for a lengthy debate, a mindless hearing, or some journal entry on the topic at hand. You execute the split the second the absurdity appears.

The promotions guy says “bagpipes”; the manager marks time entries that aren’t even yours; a lady walks through the grass and emerges upset about the grass.

Your move is not to explain why these people are insane. That would be trying to control others.

Your move is to decide, instantly, that this insanity has no place in your own mind. You laugh, and you end it. And then you return to the state of being that is actually yours.

Laughter, in that moment, is not performance. It’s not cruelty. It is the clean refusal to hand over the only thing that belongs to you - your freedom. You keep the helm and stay free.

That is the dichotomy of control.

You know where to find me,

Todd

You fly over to Europe, where you refuse to bow to their customs, their queues, their quiet little judgments about how loud and free you are. You’re the Ugly American. Case closed. The locals sneer, the media nods, and you’re told to shut up and assimilate - or go back home. They’ll literally scream it at you.

Now flip it.

You’re home. In your own country. You watch people from other cultures plant themselves here and refuse the most basic American norms—our language, our laws, the idea that public space isn’t a third-world bazaar. Maybe we still go to Target and actually pay for the merchandise. We get prayer horns blaring over neighborhoods that never asked for them. We have open borders turning cities into something unrecognizable. But don’t dare open your mouth. Suddenly you’re the Ugly American again.

Same label. Opposite direction. The rule is simple: American identity must now dissolve on contact.

Where Does This Come From?

This didn’t fall out of the sky. The progressive era of today was rocket-fueled during the Obama White House. Obama and his clan turned apology into official US policy. Go back and read the record - 2009 to 2017. It doesn’t feel that long ago, yet it reads like messaging from some odd alien land. We were told America had too much to atone for—too much power, too much pride, too much of America itself. The message landed hard: your culture is the problem. Your confidence is suspect. Your preference for your own way of life is proof of moral defect.

Hell, Michelle Obama stated she had not been proud of her country for most of her adult life until 2008. What kind of life is that? I’m sorry to inform you that you have failed Michelle Obama once again. This is a woman you could invite over to dinner, serve her a corn casserole, and all of a sudden you’re a racist because slaves used to pick corn and casseroles are a vestige of the south to designed keep the black man down at the dinner table. Then the NYT will pick up on her ire and run a story with the headline “Casseroles: The South’s Dining Mainstay is a Racial Holdout to the Plantation Days.” You’re chuckling because this does not sound far-fetched at all. It’s highly plausible because this insane progressive messaging is designed to work exactly like this.

Where Does This Leave Us?

We’re trading the hard edges of American culture for DEI soft-serve. Everything distinctive gets sanded down in the name of “inclusion.” Statues torn down, literature eradicated, historic artifacts hidden away, even foundational documents deemed unacceptable — it’s all in play. Pride in our own flag becomes optional, then gauche, and then suspect. Entire political factions treat the Stars and Stripes like a hate symbol while they wave every other flag under the sun in our face and demand we salute. The same people who demand you respect every imported custom turn around and treat our own native customs - the ones that have been around for over two centuries - like radioactive waste.

The [mainstream] Democrat candidate for governor in Wisconsin once wrote: “Cancel Thanksgiving. Should have done this in 1621. If it takes a worldwide pandemic for us to realize we should stop celebrating colonialism and the original superspreader event that killed Indigenous folx and women so be it.” - you cannot make this stuff up!

The same girl said: “My proximity to whiteness continues, right... My son is biracial. He is half-white and half-Korean. I think navigating what his identity is and how people perceive him is always at the back of my mind.” - Proximity to whiteness, you say? SHE HAD SEX WITH A WHITE GUY!!!! LIKE, HOW MUCH MORE PROXIMITY DO YOU NEED??? You’re killing me, Smalls!

Remember assimilation? Come here, join the project, or don’t come at all? Now the demand runs 180 degrees the other way: the host must now contort itself until the guests feel right at home - home being the dismal shanty-towns they left behind to live the American Dream. Complain about illegal immigration flooding the system? You’re a xenophobe. Point out the cultural friction? You’re the problem. Defend the idea that a nation is more than an airport surrounded by an economic zone? The digital megaphone brands you: Ugly American.

It’s A Con

It’s a con. A one-way ratchet designed to make the historic American majority ashamed of itself while every other identity is celebrated for staying intact and unapologetic.

The men who built this place never apologized for taking up space. They wouldn’t recognize the posture. They didn’t beg the world for permission to exist on their own terms. They demanded newcomers meet the standard—not rewrite it.

We’re past polite disagreement. The double standard is the point. It keeps the traditional culture permanently on the defensive so it can be managed, diluted, and eventually replaced by something softer, more manageable, and more controllable. Some of the things I see white men—America’s traditional power brokers—bowing to are unimaginable. Some of them are men I know from past lives in business, church, or earlier careers look like lab rats today - wholesale infected by the progressive experiment. It’s sickening.

Why do we insist on this culture of suicidal empathy? As Gad Saad put it: a society dies when it cares more about exhibiting infinite tolerance and empathy than invoking its survival instinct.

Refuse the label. Do not apologize. It’s ok to be a Zionist. It’s ok to be an Islamaphobe. Don’t let these new “hot” labels of the progressive left scare you.

The only thing uglier than an American who won’t adapt abroad is a country that won’t insist its own people adapt at home.

Without apology, now is the time for those who are proudly American—and yes, for those who are proudly white and American—to stand. Why does this scare people?

-Todd

Does the phone start ringing? Does a manager call/text asking where the hell you are? If you keep choosing these types of days, does the paycheck stop? Does the income stream get cut?

That’s the first chain

Now go further. Rip up the checkbook and stop the auto-drafts. Quit feeding the machine that lives inside your bank account. Ok, the utilities will go dark eventually - but water and power are negotiable if you’re willing to dig a well and wire up some solar panels. Plenty of folks already do it. Off-grid is not theory. It is practice.

How about the cars? Does someone tow them away? The house? Does the bank show up with a yellow piece of paper and the sheriff to change the locks and put red tape across the door? Keep refusing taxes long enough and men with badges and guns will show up because you failed to pay the people who authorize the badges and the guns. These folks do not ask. They collect.

That’s the second chain

Most men never look at either one, preferring to bury their heads in what they call responsibility. Or adulting. Other people (influencers) call it being a productive member of society. Here’s what it looks like:

• Wake up

• Report to the assigned location at the assigned time

• Perform the assigned tasks

• Send the assigned portion of life-force to:

  • the bank and creditors

  • the landlord

  • the insurance companies

  • the government

  • the car note/lease

  • the student loan

  • the credit card (that was supposed to buy freedom through points).

• At the end of the day, you’re happy and willing to confuse the absence of immediate physical violence with freedom.

• Repeat, and ask the man/woman in charge if you can have a few days off when you need a break from the cycle.

This is not freedom. It is living on a damn leash.

The owned man has a schedule that is not his. An income that can be switched off by someone else. A roof that is contingent on continuous payment to people who don’t really give a damn if he lives or dies. A vehicle that is only “his” until the lien lapses. He owns nothing that can’t be taken by paperwork and/or force.

He has permission, not ownership.

The free man has the opposite.

He has days that belong to him without explanation. He has shelter that does not depend on a monthly ransom to a bank. He can say no to work that does not serve him, because his survival is not rented. He has tools, land, skills, and the willingness to use them when the systems fail or extract too much. He can walk away from the consumer script and still eat and sleep under a roof that answers only to him. He can move without asking permission.

Most of what passes for modern life is designed to make the status of a free man feel impossible or irresponsible. Debt is marketed as leverage and consumer clout. Credit is sold as adulthood, image, and social standing. A career is presented as your identity (meet someone at a party, and the first thing they’ll ask is “so what kind of work do you do?”). The man who rejects the package is painted as a dropout, a deadbeat, a threat to the social order. The propaganda is constant, and it works.

Men accept the chains because the alternative looks difficult and the status quo delivers comfort on schedule.

Comfort is not ownership.

Ownership is the ability to refuse. To stop. To disappear from the mass of obligations without the machine relentlessly hunting you down - stripping what you pretend was yours. Very few men have that. Most have a painfully crafted illusion of it, paid for daily with hours + interest.

Examine your own life without the soothing language. Who can interrupt your day and demand an explanation of your whereabouts? Who can shut off your money hose? Who can take the home in which you live if the payments stop? Who really has the keys to our car, with the ability to come drive it away if those payments aren’t sent on time? And who can put you in a cage for failing to fund the system that claims the right to cage you?

Now think of the freedom you’d have if you can call bullshit on the whole thing.

Those are the owners.

The free man is the one who has reduced this power over him to zero or near-zero, and the closer you can get to zero, the better - trust me. But the free man did not get there by complaining online or waiting for the culture to change. He got there by cutting expenses until the leash went slack, by building skills that cannot be outsourced, by learning skills that ensure self-reliance, by owning assets that do not require continuous tribute, by refusing debt the way a sober man refuses the bottle. It is slower than the advertised path. It is also real, and it works.

The question is not whether the system is fair. The system is what it is - and you don’t even have to change the system (good thing, cuz the system ain’t gonna change). You simply ask: how much of your life you are still renting, and what you are willing to do to stop.

Live free and well,

Todd

Note - I practice what I preach. Zero debt, 100% retired, finances/income structured where my AGI/MAGI avoid all taxation and even provide for free health insurance via healthcare.gov. My only “mandatory” obligation: property tax $200/mo (Tennessee needs a homestead exemption!) - consider it a 0.32% yearly fee on investment against my paid-for house. That’s equivalent to an inexpensive ETF. Cheers.

Millions of people are watching Jay Guapõ approach two lawyers on a Central Park bench, barking “Get a room” and “There’s kids around” - and then he keeps filming as they ask him to stop. He then cheeredleadered the spectacle into millions of views. 3.5 - 5 million views depending on the stat you read.

Nathaniel Cullerton (partner, reportedly married) and Kelsey Borenzweig (legal associate) at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz got doxxed, investigated, and then put on leave from their jobs - nuking a lucrative job promotion for Cullerton in the process. The internet did what the internet does: speculated about the affair, moralized about the age gap and workforce power dynamic, and treated the ambush as wildly fun entertainment - à la the Coldplay Kiss-Cam.

This one hits a bit different. The Coldplay couple bought a ticket and attended an event - an event that advertised the idea that its attendees (famously) become part of the show. Sure, Guapõ’s targets were in a public space, where the expectation of privacy does not exist, but they didn’t sit down on the bench and start kissing under the pretense they bought a ticket to some sort of event running the same act of audience participation. Don’t people in NYC just mind their own business? - [insert sarcasm here]

Flock You!

Meanwhile, across the country, people are losing their collective minds and actively tearing down, bagging, painting, sawing, and shooting Flock Safety cameras off poles. Cities are canceling contracts as activists map the camera locations, protest them, and treat the license-plate readers as the visible face of society’s prison panopticon.

So, if I am understanding this correctly, privacy is sacred when the camera is bolted to a streetlight and feeds a database. Privacy is off the table - actually it’s entertainment - when the camera is in a content creator’s hand and the targets are two people minding their own business on a public park bench.

Which is it?

You can’t have it both ways. Either we still believe adults can exist in public without every private moment becoming international HR material - with the public as the arbiters- or we accept that the phone in every pocket is a more effective and arbitrary surveillance tool than any government contract. The Flock rage is coherent only if you care about mass data collection, mission creep, and unaccountable tracking. The TikTok applause is coherent only if you think the highest use of a camera is personal destruction for social media engagement. Pretty sick when you think about it.

Hypocrisy is the Product

This is digital triangulation at work. The platforms, and the culture they reward, don’t want you living an actual life. They want you performing your life under constant threat of capture. A lunchtime make-out becomes a scandal because some comedian decided your face was his inventory. The same people who will lecture you about “surveillance capitalism” and “the right to be left alone” will then share, stitch, and moralize the video of the couple who asked the stranger to put the phone down and leave them alone.

The hypocrisy is not subtle. The hypocrisy is the product.

Public space used to mean something. You could be a man and a woman on a bench in summer without every passerby treating you as potential clickbait. You could fail, screw up, kiss the wrong person, or simply exist without the permanent record of some random asshole with a following. Now that world is dying because we keep feeding the people who kill it. Guapõ didn’t invent this, he simply (and quite efficiently) performed his act in the current business model: find the moment, film the discomfort, post it, and let the social media mob do the rest. When the couple pushed back - as anyone would (or should… lawyer dude should’ve pressed back way harder imo - like kicked the guy’s ass). That only made the circus seals bark and clap louder.

The deeper sickness is the selective application of principle. When the camera is corporate or governmental, we suddenly discover our inner civil libertarian and start cutting down poles. When the camera belongs to a TikToker harvesting embarrassment, we call it “accountability” and forget anything resembling a surveillance state - piling on like some jury selected for morality control. One is framed as resistance. The other is framed as justice. Both are the same impulse: control what other people want to do of their own accord, and control their time in shared space - literally, in the public square.

Analog manliness does not require you to like the lawyers, defend the alleged affair, or pretend power dynamics don’t exist in a workplace. It requires you to recognize a society that cannot tolerate two adults kissing on a park bench without turning it into bloodsport has already surrendered the public square. You don’t get to cheer the ambush and then cry about Flock. You pick - one or the other, bubba, what’s it gonna be? Either the cameras in our hands are the bigger threat to living like a free people, or the ones on the poles are. Pretending both can be true depending on the day’s narrative is the coward’s position. Actually, it’s pure bullshit.

Live accordingly. Put the phone down yourself, to stop rewarding the ones who won’t. The alternative is a world where every park bench is a potential TV set, and every private failure becomes someone else’s payday. That’s not progress - it’s a soft police state with better lighting and terrible incentives.

Now where’s my espresso,

Todd

Examples of culture of today:

• SAT requirements are gutted in the name of “equity.” Coursework like algebra is eliminated because “math is racist.”

• Hiring is filtered through the lens of skin color, genitalia, and deviant sexual preference - Competence? Way down toward the bottom.

• The high-ability man is left running hot in a deliberately cooled room, useful when results are needed but isolated the rest of the time.

Now the only question left: why the hell are we allowing it?

Eliminating the SAT is not a technical adjustment. It is the willful destruction of one of the few remaining objective signals of abstract reasoning and working memory.

DEI hiring that elevates identity over performance is not compassion. It is the open rejection of competence as the organizing principle of any enterprise claiming to be serious.

Both are insane ways of thinking if our societal goals are to be functional institutions, increasing living standards, and actual opportunity. This mismatch does not lift the bottom; it sets them up to fail in environments they cannot handle while starving the top of oxygen.

So why does this remain popular on the progressive left?

It is power. It is control. And it is something deeper and more corrosive: a moral framework that treats any unequal outcome as original sin. Forefathers bad. Constitution bad. Country founded by racists. White man bad. Heterosexual man a threat. Smart man a threat. Power bad. Authority bad. Work bad. Laws threaten. Rich man bad. He was successful only because he abused the system. History bad. History wrong. History irrelevant. Philosophers and great thinkers irrelevant. Iconography bad. America bad.

Once you accept that premise, objective measurement becomes the enemy.

The SAT does not create group differences in cognitive ability; it merely records them. Standardized tests, performance metrics, and merit filters all have the same unforgivable defect—they reveal that ability is not evenly distributed. An ideology committed to equal results cannot tolerate the evidence. So the evidence must go.

The practical payoff is obvious. Destroy the filters and you expand the class of people who can claim moral authority and institutional power without having to demonstrate superior results. DEI offices, equity bureaucracies, and soft-admissions regimes create jobs, status, and leverage for those who administer the new rules. Loyalty to the narrative becomes more valuable than competence. Dissent can be pathologized as “lack of emotional intelligence” or “systemic bias.” The high-ability man who notices the drop in ambient cognitive temperature is not debated; he is isolated.

This is systemic stupidity in its pure form. It is not a conspiracy of geniuses. It is the predictable result of an ideology that prioritizes feelings of fairness over the actual distribution of talent, then builds institutions that enforce that fantasy.

The progressive left does not seek to raise the floor. It seeks to lower the ceiling, making the gaps less visible while the people enforcing this new order become indispensable.

There is no soft landing from this. A civilization that systematically selects against clarity, pattern recognition, and delayed consequences will get exactly what it selects for:

• Thinner Air - Walk into a modern corporate strategy meeting. I’ve been in DOZENS! The high-ability man lays out a three-step chain: A new policy put forth by management raises short-term headcount numbers, lowers average output per employee, and, within two budget cycles forces the firm to cut the people it just hired. Wasteful. The room stares. Someone replies that the policy “centers equity.” Another says the projection feels “negative.” A third asks how the idea lands emotionally. The oxygen is gone. Precision has been replaced by vibes. He is speaking in cause and effect; the room is speaking in permission.

• Weaker Institutions - A state university system drops the SAT in the name of access. Admissions shift to recommendations and demographic checkboxes. Four years later, the same system is running remedial algebra for freshmen who cannot handle the coursework the degree still claims to represent. Graduation rates are propped up by softer standards. Employers quietly discount the credential. The institution still issues diplomas, still collects tuition, still congratulates itself on “inclusion.” However, what it no longer produces is reliable signal. Competence has been subordinated to feelings of fairness, and the product (the degree) is diluted accordingly.

• A permanent foreigner class of men who can still see the chains of cause and effect: A man sits in the break room at Apple after his accounts are handed to a less experienced hire who checked the right identity boxes. He can see the second-order effects: declining results, rising rework, the rapid erosion of the team’s edge. The system demands he not say it out loud. Burdensome. At home he absorbs the charge that he is “too intense” or “lacking empathy”. He remains useful only when the system needs the hard problem solved - his managers being unable to solve them. The rest of the time he is treated as an inconvenience. A boor. He has not left his own country. His country simply decided that clear sight is no longer welcome in its public spaces.

The only rational response remains the same one stated in Parts 1 and 2:

• Refuse the horizon - Stop letting the ambient standards of first-order thinkers set the ceiling on your life. Walk out of the rooms, jobs, and conversations that require you to amputate your cognitive reasoning.

• Build where the cognitive floor is still high enough for real exchange - Choose work, partners, and circles where people can track second- and third-order effects without their eyes glazing over. Who has vision, ideas, formidable plans? Put your energy only into domains that still reward clarity over the immediate performance of feelings.

• Stop apologizing for noticing - Clarity is not a character flaw, and you do not owe anyone a softened version of what you think. None whatsoever. The culture will call your accurate perception arrogance. Let it.

The culture can keep lowering the floor and punishing those who notice.
Let reality deliver them the damn bill.

Offered without apology,

Todd

• Schools today teach to the middle, and then they lower the middle to accommodate the chaff below. When the SAT is eliminated to accommodate the low-IQ set, we should take notice.

• Media speaks in slogans short enough to fit between two ads, and sound bites rule over substantive reporting. Can anyone even read a long-form article today? Scroll, scroll, scroll…

• Corporate HR designs company policy and procedure so the slowest thinker in the room never feels left behind, recognizing poor performance as the cost of a society of inequitable processes. It’s not you, sweetie, it’s the system…

• Politics runs on feelings and tribal signals because complex trade-offs require more working memory than the median voter is willing to spend, and more airtime than what a post on X can accommodate. Some in the political set can barely transmit thought into sentence form.

The result is a systematic thinning of the air.

Example 1: My local middle school has 84 cheerleaders. They eliminated tryouts - just sign up, and BOOM! You’re now a cheerleader. I will guarantee you that life for that #84 is rougher than if she’d gone through a tryout and been told she didn’t make the squad. Why? Because kids know. People know. That #84 does not belong, and she is rightfully being told she does not belong. Am I a bully? No. I’m a realist, and I know how the world works. The world does not work with 84 damn cheerleaders.

Example 2: Some states and a long list of universities have abandoned the SAT and ACT as hard requirements. They call it “equity.” What it actually does is remove one of the few remaining objective filters that separate high cognitive ability from the slop. When you strip out a standardized measure of abstract reasoning, pattern recognition, and working memory, then admissions collapse toward softer criteria - mainly demographic checkboxes. The high-IQ kid who can actually think in systems is no longer sorted upward by measurable ability; he is diluted into a pool optimized for the lowest common denominator. The result is classrooms, majors, and eventually professions where the ambient cognitive temperature is deliberately obliterated for the mere goal of ensuring so no one feels left behind. Excellence becomes socially expensive - at the very gate where it used to be measured.

Extrapolate this across a business environment. A high-IQ man steps into this environment and immediately feels the pressure drop. Conversations stay at first-order level by design. Incentives reward the person who can merely perform the baseline, not the one who can map second- and third-order consequences - you know, the things that will increase the company’s market cap. Abstract thought is treated as elitism. Pattern recognition that stretches beyond the current fiscal quarter is called “overthinking things.” Long time horizons, projections, and outlooks look like arrogance to people who are locked in weekly survival mode.

You’re Not Imagining the Ostracism. It’s Structural.

In the workplace, the high-IQ man watches promotions flow to either the politically fluent or the DEI puppets, not the competent. In social circles, he learns to sand down his speech a bit so the room does not glaze over.

Example 3: Can you relate to that conversation where you know the person you’re speaking with is so far behind you feel as if you’re suddenly speaking Swahili? Then you get to the end of what you’re trying to say, and realize the person you’re speaking with is struggling with the reason why you’re even saying what you are trying to say. Brutal!

In relationships, the high-IQ man discovers that most folks experience his natural mode of thinking as cold or judgmental. The culture tells him the problem is his lack of “emotional intelligence.” The truth is simpler: our society’s ambient cognitive temperature is actively being lowered, and he runs hot.

This is the real cost of engineering our society to the lowest common denominator. You do not merely dilute excellence; you make excellence socially expensive. The man who can see systems, incentives, and delayed consequences becomes a stranger in a strange land - a foreigner in his own country.

Of course, he is useful when the system needs results, but inconvenient the rest of the time. So the system isolates him—through meetings that go nowhere, through language that has been scrubbed of precision, through status games that punish clarity. Hell, they even punish high performance.

Example 4: I was a victim of this at Apple, to the point that when I became inconvenient, I was replaced by a young man 30 years my junior with minimal experience. My managers gave him my accounts and my desk, leaving me absolutely nothing to do and nowhere to do it. If something did come up that required my attention, I was forced to work in the breakroom, and my “desk” was the table where people at their lunch. Why did this happen? I was inconvenient. Far too good at my job (high performance punished), and in Apple’s culture far too white, masculine, alpha, conservative, and far too smart - smarter than managers who struggled to understand even the initial parameters of my job (and thus isolated by the system).

Financial life reflects the same pattern - look around. How many debt products, rewards points, subscription traps, and status consumption packages are engineered for the first-order thinkers? Victoria’s Secret literally sells a 3-pack of panties on a plan of 4 easy payments (hey, the signs are all over the mall, brother.) The man who refuses these offers is treated as a freak or a killjoy. Literally laughed at.

Example 5: I recently entered into a discussion where I claimed credit card reward offers are a trap designed to increase your spending and dependency on a credit card company you have no business dealing with. (It’s true). I was laughed out of the room. Of course, every genius in the discussion was the one genius who’d figure out how to beat Visa/American Express at their own game - yet the geniuses either couldn’t or refused to walk me through the math. The math was treated as a given - a baseline of truth. The entire room was working on the first-order and refusing to move beyond. Everyone simply lined up to snort the dopamine. Astounding!

Career paths that reward ownership and compounding skill are greatly narrowed. Credentialed mediocrity is subsidized. Social relationships that require matched levels of thinking are rarer and more fragile - culture insists all gaps are merely “communication issues” that can be fixed with better feelings. Keep an ear out for that feelings word… oh, you’ll hear it!

Speaking here to high-ability men - yes, you notice this. And you are not suffering from arrogance; you are suffering from accurate perception in an environment that has made accuracy costly.

No Soft Solution

There is no soft solution. You can’t reform a machine built to flatter the lowest common denominator into suddenly valuing the upper tail. You can only refuse to live inside its horizon.

Choose domains - work, money, close relationships - where the cognitive floor is high enough that real exchange is possible. Accept that most public spaces will remain hostile to depth. And for Pete’s sake, stop apologizing for seeing further than the room is willing to look! One day you’ll end up on the break room table with nothing to do while a 28-year-old kid struggles to ski in your wake. Move on.

The culture will keep calling that arrogance. So be it. The alternative? You’ll slowly starve the part of yourself that can still think past the first move. You don’t want that.

You know where to find me,

Todd

First-order thinking is the default setting of the human animal: immediate, concrete, linear.

Stimulus → response. Pain → avoidance. Reward → chase.

It works fine for survival. It fails for building anything that lasts.

A man operating on first-order logic picks the job that pays the most this year. He buys the car that impresses the neighborhood. He stays in the relationship that keeps the nights warm. He never asks the second-order questions: What does this cost me in five years? What incentives am I feeding? What happens when the easy path runs out?

IQ Gap - Life is Easy… No, It’s Hard…

The gap between that first-order man and the one who thinks in systems is not just “different priorities.” It is a cognitive chasm, but it’s only about 20 IQ points. That’s a mere 1.3 standard deviations. At that distance, language itself starts to fail. That’s the difference between a low-average (85) and high-average (115) IQ individual.

Broaden the gap, and it gets worse - the 125 high-IQ man trying to talk to the 80 low-IQ man. Brutal. We’re not even speaking the same language. For reference, an IQ of 70 points to potential intellectual disabilities, while an IQ of 130 means “gifted”.

What feels like clean logic to the higher man sounds like pretentious fog to the lower. Metaphors get taken as facts. Jokes land as insults. Cause-and-effect chains longer than two steps collapse into “this good, that bad” with the low-IQ man almost resorting to animalistic concepts - as if he’s picking acorns off the ground for lunch. Ugh, it is maddening! One mind is already three moves ahead, tracking incentives and second-order consequences. The other is still arguing about the first move. Both leave the conversation angry. Both feel the other is the problem.

This is why high-ability men feel chronically alien in ordinary workplaces, ordinary marriages, ordinary friend groups. It is also why average men find the bright ones exhausting, arrogant, or “weird.” You are not speaking the same conceptual language. Basic coordination is possible, but the deep exchange of complex ideas usually is not.

Throw people across that gap into the same team, the same marriage, the same institution, and the friction never goes away. “Just be nicer” does not close a systems-level difference in how reality is processed. It only papers over it until the next decision.

Career

First-order career thinking looks like this: take the highest-paying offer. Climb the ladder that is already there. Collect the title. Protect the paycheck. Second- and third-order thinking asks different questions. What skills compound? What industry is being subsidized by politics or debt and will therefore eventually collapse? What role trains you to think like an owner instead of a mere functionary?

This is why a man/woman who stays locked in first-order logic ends up 10, 20, 30 years later with a résumé full of impressive titles but zero optionality. He/she is valuable only inside the system that employed him/her. Outside of that system? Just another middle manager with a mortgage and a LinkedIn stuffed with LinkedIn lingo.

Money

First-order money is credit cards, rewards points, the new truck, the house that stretches the income. It is “I can afford the payment.” Second-order money is cash flow, ownership, time preference, the ability to walk away. The man who cannot see past the next payment will always be owned by the people who can. He will call frugality “being cheap” and independence “risky.” He will never understand why some men refuse debt the way others refuse poison.

This is the chain that enslaves the first-order thinker in an earn/borrow/spend cycle for life. His/her paycheck (and therefore worth) is based solely on time. Work for 8 hours, paid for 8 hours, use that to leverage up to 12 hours worth of spending, and wonder why you’re stuck on a hamster wheel running, and running, and running but never getting to the point you feel you’ve gone anywhere.

Social Relationships

First-order relationship thinking is chemistry, convenience, and the avoidance of loneliness. Drinking buddies. Second-order is character under pressure, shared time horizons, the ability to communicate at the same level of abstraction. Massive cognitive mismatches produce the same chronic friction you see in mismatched workplaces. Where one side of the relationship is trying to discuss incentives and long-term consequences, the other side hears judgment. Both feel misunderstood, and the relationship slowly starves.

On a practical level, this is why many HOAs have problems. The second-order thinkers serve as leadership on the HOA board - successful in life and business, and therefore have more free time to commit to volunteer opportunities. These folks also see a time horizon and time-compounded cause & effect that first-order thinkers cannot comprehend. The average resident sees HOA processes and rules as judgment, the same judgment he/she feels at his/her job where they lie on the lower end of the chain due to the same first-order reasoning they bring to an HOA meeting.

Putting It All In Context

People of low IQ overestimate their competence precisely because they lack the insight required to notice the gaps they face. That is not cruelty. It is a description of how limited metacognition works. The man who cannot see second-order effects also cannot see that he cannot see them. Life gets hard. How often do you see someone way out over his/her skis? They think they're setting a world record ski jump while you’re watching the wipeout of a lifetime…

None of this means high intelligence is a moral virtue. Plenty of bright men are cowards, parasites, or self-destructive. But pretending the gap does not exist—pretending that every disagreement is just “communication style” or “emotional intelligence”—is the real arrogance. It is the soft lie that keeps institutions mediocre and men trapped in conversations that can never go anywhere real. In Part 2 we’ll look at how we’ve sold our society out to the lowest common denominator so the mediocre don’t feel embarrassed or have their feelings hurt.

The practical move is simple and unsentimental. Stop trying to force deep alignment across large cognitive gaps. In your life, build with people who can track the same chains of consequence you do. In your career, money, and the people you let close, prefer those who already think past the first move. Everyone else will eventually cost you more time, energy, and clarity than they are worth. Choices must be made. Sanity must come first.

The world is full of first-order thinkers. You do not have to live inside their horizon.

With this in mind, start to notice…

Todd

X Money is rolling out to more U.S. Premium users so you can park cash in the app you already open every day - and it pays 6%. If you so choose, you will also get a metal Visa debit card with your handle on it, 3% cash back, free ATMs, no foreign fees, and X-handle peer-to-peer transfers. Your money on deposit sits at Cross River Bank (NJ) under FDIC insurance (no, they are not publicly traded).

That’s the offer…

The Fed funds rate is roughly 3.50–3.75%. Short-term Treasuries sit in the same neighborhood. The average U.S. savings account still pays about 0.4%. Even the aggressive fintechs price below the risk-free rate. They have to.

If you paid attention during ECON101, banks take your money, earn the risk-free rate (or better by lending), and keep the spread. Paying more than the risk-free rate means losing money on every dollar unless something else is covering the gap.

And here’s the problem for every traditional bank in America.

X Is Paying Above It

Two explanations fit.

• One is pure acquisition subsidy. X already owns the daily addiction of hundreds of millions of people (around 600 million monthly active users). Where most fintechs spend heavily on ads and bonuses to drag a depositor in the door, X can simply overpay on yield for a while and call it customer acquisition.

• The other is a less conventional yield engine—stablecoin reserves in Treasuries or similar structures that can generate return and still settle in dollars. X has flagged crypto integration, though right now the funding source is not disclosed. The rate is variable. Full Truth-in-Savings language is thin. TBD.

Traditional banking’s real moat was never product; it was inertia. Most people haven’t switched their primary account in more than a decade - it’s a right pain in the arse to switch banks. Therefore, traditional banks pay almost nothing on savings accounts and bank on friction and habit.

X just dropped a better deal inside the app people already live in. Switching friction collapses. The card and cash back make the balance usable every day. Creator payouts land inside the same wallet and spend the same day. Slick. Smooth.

Will 6% last? It almost certainly won't last forever. Watch the next Fed cut. A slow, modest trim at X Money suggests something real underneath. A steep drop back toward 4% confirms it was mostly marketing fuel. Either way, the interesting question is whether the money stays once the subsidy normalizes - but habits stick.

Licensing is incomplete. Regulators are watching. Social platforms and money always make an awkward pair. None of that changes the core fact: someone is willing to overpay for deposits inside a high-frequency habit app, and legacy deposit franchises have no clean answer for it.

The average bank savings rate in this country is still a rounding error while X just put a 6% sign in the window. Whether the number holds is secondary. The fact that the sign exists is the part the money incumbents need to be studying.

Not advice. Rates change. Read the terms yourself.

X Money user,

Todd

And then they plastered the World Cup with their creation: Polymarket.

Of all the addictions that can chain a man, gambling is one of the meanest of the lot. It sells the sweetest lie: that the next bet might just solve everything. The gambler keeps the faith that one smart play will make the whole mess vanish. All it takes is being smarter than the rest of the suckers on one single score. And one thing you’ll always notice when the gambler talks about his gambling? He always thinks he’s very smart. I’ll say this— anything touting “online prediction” is a sucker’s bet. Pure and simple.

Back when you had to work with a travel agent on a vacation package to Vegas, the gambling damage had limits. Now the casino, in an expanded format, rides in your pocket. Now you can torch your bank account without even getting dressed and leaving the couch. This poison is especially tasty to young men. An app like Polymarket lets you bet on damn near anything, and a whole generation of them is hooked. Seventy percent of the users walk away net losers. More than 100,000 users have lost $1,000 or more (that’s $100 million for those scoring at home). Polymarket is valued at $15 BILLION—it’s investors are banking on much more addiction.

Here’s where the blood hits the streets. And it’s nasty: Polymarket has been running a network of influencers to promote the app, and cooked results just to set the hook deeper. From the Wall Street Journal (slightly paraphrased by me for context):

In its push to draw users to its unregulated platform, Polymarket flooded social media with videos that appear genuine at first glance. In reality, Polymarket built near-perfect copies of its website, then instructed creators to make simulated trades on those dummy sites and hide that they were being paid by Polymarket.

To get the videos to go viral, Polymarket recruited a social-media army to copy and re-post creators’ footage. The social-media creators are paid to specifically target U.S. users…

“The company instructed creators not to disclose they are paid, according to creators who have worked with the company. They said the pay often added up to $2,000 to $3,000 a month.

One of the earliest videos showing signs of a fake trade was posted to social media in June 2025, and it was filmed inside Polymarket’s New York office. The video shows someone betting $100,000 that Jerome Powell would say “good afternoon” during a press conference. The caption described the bet as “a valid testosterone test”—and the bet would have won. ” [bold print is mine]

Excerpt From

“They Looked Like They Were Getting Rich on Polymarket—but None of It Was Real”by Audrey Valbuena, Brenna T. Smith, Caitlin Ostroff, Drew An-Pham, Katherine Long, Neil Mehta—The Wall Street Journal. This material may be protected by copyright.

This is disgusting. And this is Rick Rubin? I’m honestly a bit surprised. His image is that of high standards, purity in the pursuit of art and creation, critical thinking, and high intelligence. Not anymore!

How does one get involved with an outfit that stoops to the lowest of the lows like this? The whole sensei thing really seems like a grift now. And that’s as kind as I can say. Otherwise, he can eff right off.

Stay thirsty,

Todd

In the past few weeks we’ve seen some things stirring worth mentioning. For one, we now have Kevin Warsh in charge at the Fed. So long Jerome Powell, it’s been real. Give Janet Yellen a big hug for me.

To the point: Not a bad time to sit and wait in bonds. Hell, in you can grab 4% while you wait for Warsh to get on the Trump Train and lower rates (hello midterms). And when rates nudge down you have 25% off its highs and that’ll bump. You also have +18% on the year and that’ll bump. And, of course, when rates nudge down, will bump. You’ll lose a little juice on your cash at and my guess is is gonna …

So mid-summer is a good time to review the 5-point plan that begins here.

We Won’t Be Fooled Again

Don’t let the news media fool ya - CPI fell a seasonally adjusted 0.4% during June, bringing the annual inflation rate down to 3.5% - beating expectations. It is the biggest decline in consumer prices in more than six years. ← Read this is even more reason Warsh will not raise rates in the July meeting, as so many are predicting. He doesn’t want to do it, and Trump doesn’t want him to do it.

And thank our lucky stars we don’t have a Janet Yellen monkeying around with this shit anymore! My gosh, we’re still unwinding the damage that woman laid down.

Fort Worth, For What It’s Worth

I just joined BJ’s Wholesale Club in Fort Worth. A $20 membership for a year. They give you a $10 coupon good for your first purchase—making it a $10 membership. Then I saved $6 on gas versus a fill-up at Wal-Mart, my next cheapest option (BJ was $2.11/gallon). So now we’re down to a $4 membership, but then they gave me a $3 coupon on Cafe Bustello (and a price that’s well below Wal-Mart’s price), so now it’s a $1 membership… Seems like an arbitrage opportunity to me. I’ll take it!

Their prices in the store range from decent to ridiculously cheap. Chicken = $2.69/pound, Prime NY Strips = $14.99/pound, wild-caught yellowfin tuna = $5.50/pound, wild-caught Coho salmon = $9/pound, a 4# bag of frozen blueberries = $9.49, a big 32oz jar of pure peanut butter (ingredients: peanuts & sea salt) = $6.49. Oh, and locally sourced butter = $2.40/pound. These are excellent prices!

Bonus points - Texas does not have a sales tax on groceries!

Yes, BJ’s does have a hot dog for a $1.50—not sure on qulaity there. I did not see any blue-hairs giving away samples. My buddy David Costello is gonna knock off big-time points there, but he’s a Costco man through and through. BJ’s is like a Costco that just laid down about 4 droppers of good 2,000mg CBD oil under its tongue. You don’t have to stretch before you leave home and prepare for hand-to-hand combat - very chill…

We’re loving Fort Worth- this spot we’re in (near Benbrook Lake) is pretty sparse from a population density perspective. Far more sparse than even Franklin, TN. No traffic, wide open spaces, and very peaceful - but the storm is brewing. In 5 years this place will be unrecognizable. You can see these places like BJ’s, a giant Target, huge shopping centers, and HUGE self-storage units popping up in the middle of nowhere, and they are popping up for a reason. Because you also see a lot of land cleared, graded, piped & plumbed, and staked off for housing. Tons of housing. And they stack the houses in here like 4” apart. Anyway, for now… very happy!

You (now) know where to find me,

Todd

The stated fears are noise, constant lighting, and an electrical hum that will supposedly destroy the welfare of 3,700 animals across 350 species and wreck long-running breeding programs.

Never mind we have animals penned up in captivity right off the noisy din of Nolensville Road - many animals thousands of miles from their natural habitats.

•

In Wyoming the same script is playing out in slower motion: rural pushback against projects near Cheyenne, moratorium talk, and complaints about temporary worker housing for the crews who would actually build the things.

The question worth asking is whether this blowback is mostly organic local friction or a convenient mix of genuine annoyance, professional activism, and self-sabotage that happens to serve larger strategic interests.

The grievances are real enough on the surface.

The holes in them are larger than the petitioners want to admit.

What’s Actually Being Proposed in Nashville

DC Blox, an Atlanta-based colocation provider, wants to replace two existing office buildings on a 23.5-acre site at 648 Grassmere Park with a data center roughly of 69,000 square feet - indications of a second, larger building to follow. It is not a hyperscale AI training monster. It is a more modest facility that would employ perhaps two dozen people once operational. The company has publicly committed to closed-loop or waterless cooling designs and to paying the local utility for every watt consumed plus any new infrastructure required to serve the load.

While the hysteria is new, the plan is not - a data center was previously permitted on this same parcel.

The zoo’s petition and Brad Paisley’s amplification turned this into a viral local crisis almost overnight. The imagery is powerful: innocent animals versus humming servers and floodlights. It plays well. It also sidesteps several practical realities about how modern facilities are actually designed and operated.

The Standard Complaints and Where They Bend

Opponents everywhere recycle the same fear points. Data centers use too much power and will drive up rates or strain an already fragile grid. They consume millions of gallons of water for cooling. They are loud, ugly, and industrial. They promise jobs but deliver mostly temporary construction work and very few permanent positions. They consume farmland or open space and deliver tax incentives that blunt the local fiscal benefit. And underneath it all sits a broader discomfort with AI itself—too fast, too powerful, too likely to displace people or concentrate power in the hands of a few companies.

Some of this is straightforward engineering and site friction. Large loads do require serious power delivery. Construction is disruptive. Not every site is ideal. But the rest of the case collapses quickly under scrutiny.

Power demand is not a hypothetical. Frontier AI training and inference already require it at scale, and the demand curve is steep. Pretending the load will simply disappear if one community blocks a project is magical thinking. The U.S. grid has been underbuilt for years thanks to regulatory drag, intermittent-renewable mandates that ignore physics, and local veto power that blocks new generation of any kind.

Data centers are not creating the underlying shortage; they are exposing it and forcing a reckoning. Blocking them locally does not solve the shortage - it exacerbates it by exporting the problem and surrendering the capability.

Water use was a legitimate issue with older evaporative designs. The industry has moved aggressively toward closed-loop systems, immersion cooling, and air-based or waterless approaches precisely because water is expensive, scarce in many places, and a PR liability. Companies have every economic incentive to minimize ongoing resource consumption. The Nashville proposal explicitly leans into those newer designs.

Noise is measurable and mitigable. Modern low-noise fans, acoustic enclosures, building orientation, and sound barriers can bring levels down dramatically, while also improving energy efficiency. Zoos are not pristine wilderness; they are managed, mechanical environments with their own constant background of human activity, HVAC, and visitor noise. What would disturb a lowland gorilla more - HVAC hum or thousands of little shits on field trips screaming at him every day? Dude just wants ot be left alone. The claim that a properly engineered data center will uniquely destroy animal welfare is asserted far more than demonstrated. The company is offering to address the concerns through design rather than through denial.

Jobs and taxes are always the weakest part of the booster case, but the reverse is also true. Construction crews spend money locally for months or years. Permanent operations staff is small but well-compensated. Property and sales tax contributions can still be material even after incentives, especially in jurisdictions that negotiate harder than others. The comparison to sports-stadium deals or corporate headquarters handouts is instructive: those often deliver worse long-term economics with far larger physical footprint.

The deeper objection - that we simply do not need this much computing power or should slow the AI buildout - is pure preference dressed up as analysis. This type of architecture is fast becoming foundational infrastructure of the next economy the way steel, electricity, and semiconductors were in earlier eras. You either build the capacity or you will be forced to rent it from whoever did. Sentiment does not change the physics or the geopolitics.

Wyoming Is Running the Same Playbook

In Cheyenne and spreading to other Wyoming towns, the complaints track the same lines: too much strain on small communities, ugly temporary housing for out-of-state workers, loss of rural character. Wyoming is an energy-producing state with vast land and generation capacity. It is better positioned than most places to absorb these projects on its own terms. The pattern, however, is familiar - opposition treats a finite construction boom as permanent cultural erasure, ignoring that the alternative - economic stagnation dressed up as preservation.

The Larger Strategic Context

While American communities litigate decibels and petition over animal stress, China is expanding power generation and data-center capacity at a pace the U.S. has not matched in decades. The U.S. still leads in total installed data centers and in the most advanced hyperscale operators. That lead is narrowing on the infrastructure side because China (obviously) faces fewer internal veto points and has treated energy abundance as a national priority rather than a series of NIMBYs.

Every project delayed or canceled in our homeland - for reasons of local sentiment or process - is additional runway for a strategic competitor that does not share our political constraints. The effect is indistinguishable from a successful influence campaign, even if no foreign hand is directly steering the petitions - I, however, believe foreign influence is the main driver.

We are volunteering to handicap ourselves in the one contest that will determine who sets the terms for advanced AI, advanced manufacturing, and the information backbone of national power.

What the Trade-Off Actually Looks Like

Framing the choice as “save the zoo animals or destroy the planet” is emotional blackmail that collapses once you look at actual mitigation options and the alternative trajectory.

The benefits are obvious: large-scale private capital deployed into physical plant, construction employment that circulates locally, a durable tax base in places that need one, and the hard infrastructure required to remain competitive in the technology reshaping every sector.

The costs are addressable through siting discipline, modern engineering, and tougher negotiation on incentives and community benefits. The benefits are not optional if the goal is to retain technological and strategic agency rather than managing a graceful decline.

The data center will not solve every local economic problem, and it will create some new ones. But the larger pattern is clear: communities that treat every new piece of enabling infrastructure as an existential threat eventually discover they have opted out of the future while still expecting to enjoy its products.

What we can’t afford is the illusion that blocking the physical layer of advanced compute is a cost-free or virtuous act. The people building capacity elsewhere are not waiting for our petitions to be resolved or our acoustic studies to be completed. They are pouring concrete. We can match the pace with pragmatic speed and honest mitigation, or we can keep discovering new reasons why nothing should ever be built near anything anyone cares about. One path keeps options open. The other does not.

And Free Harambe!

You know where to find me,

Todd

The irony is so thick it’s practically a war crime. Democrats and their social auxiliaries have spent the last ten years flinging “Nazi” around like confetti, aiming at anyone who deviated from their approved script on immigration, crime, gender ideology, or whether the 1619 Project counted as history or historical fanfiction. One wrong opinion and suddenly you’re a goose-step away from the Reichstag. The bar wasn’t low—it was buried in the basement.

Now the same people have a real live one on their hands - an actual Nazi. This is not some misinterpreted emoji on X. Not a “problematic” tweet from 2012. Not some professor’s tortured reading of a Renaissance painting. This is a real live Nazi shit - THE skull-and-crossbones design modeled on the insignia of Hitler’s Schutzstaffel - that’s the outfit that ran the death camps, in case you slept through World History 101.

Graham Platner, the Maine oyster farmer and progressive golden boy trying to unseat Susan Collins, got inked in 2007 with fellow Marines in Croatia. He kept the ink through two decades of “Never Forget” programming, endless WW2 documentaries, and a cultural environment where people were fired for using the wrong damn pronoun. Only when reporters and political opponents started asking questions in 2025 did he suddenly “discover” it had meaning. Then he covered it up.

And the defense? “He didn’t know what it was.”

Bullshit.

You do not accidentally keep the most recognizable symbol of industrialized genocide on your body for two decades unless you are either willfully incurious, aggressively stupid, or blatantly lying. Platner was a Marine. He lived in the world. He had access to the internet. His own stepfather is Jewish. Yet we’re supposed to believe the exact configuration of jawline and bone placement that distinguishes the SS Totenkopf from generic pirate skulls never once registered with him? No problem for 20 years, until it became electorally inconvenient.

But the real tell isn’t Platner. It’s the reaction - or rather, the lack of a reaction - from the people who spent years positioning themselves as the conscience of the left.

I’m talking about the Christian liberals in media, nonprofits, academia, and whatever industry you’re in - including the CCM industry right here in Nashville, Tennessee. I’m talking about the same cohorts who spent the last decade writing essays, hosting panels, and posting solemn threads demanding that evangelical Christians publicly denounce Trump, “Christian nationalism,” January 6th rhetoric, or any Republican policy they dislike.

The “Nazi” label got so watered down, the left simply started shouting it in the face of mere policy disagreemt - or when they saw insufficient enthusiasm about whatever their current social justice priority might be. These voices claimed the moral high ground. They lectured the religious right about consistency, about loving your neighbor, about not compromising with evil.

And now? When an actual Nazi is walking around as one of their rising stars? Radio silence. Crickets. The same people who could smell fascism in a tax bracket suddenly develop severe olfactory fatigue.

What is noticeably lacking? No think pieces. No demands that Platner drop out. No soul-searching about how the left’s own coalition tolerates this. Just endorsements from the usual progressive royalty and the occasional “he’s apologized, now let’s talk about healthcare.” - what a joke!

As Peter denied Jesus 3 times during his trial, Schumer has endorsed Platner 5 times during his sprint for the Senate. Oy vey!

What’s Really Happening?

This isn’t really about Graham Platner’s chest. It’s about the total collapse of any shared standard for what words actually mean. “Nazi” stopped being a descriptor of actual National Socialism years ago. It became a social and professional weapon - basically an internet meme used for shutting down debate, justifying institutional power, and signaling tribal loyalty. See Godwin’s Law.

When the word finally attaches to the real thing on the Democrat side of the aisle, the weapon is quickly holstered. Excuses are manufactured - excuses that aren’t even worth mentioning here, as they are so silly. The same standard that would have ended a Republican career in twenty-four hours is suddenly flexible when it threatens a Democrat’s Senate seat.

And for the Christian liberals who made a whole brand out of moral clarity and prophetic witness against the right? Their absence is the loudest part of the story. It suggests their entire project was never really about opposing evil wherever it appears. It was about opposing the other team!

When the symbol of historical evil shows up inconveniently close to home, the hierarchy of concerns reveals itself: beating Susan Collins matters more than confronting the SS head on. That’s not principle. That’s team sports with extra steps, mixed with some really weird worship aesthetics. Sing on, brother!

/rant off

Todd

If you’ve enjoyed the series, please leave a comment on a key thought or takeaway so I can focus on building better content.

If, on the other hand, you find these to be the ramblings of a total fool, I’d love to hear that perspective as well!

In Part 1, we saw how the earnings-yield inversion (stocks offering only ~3.1% on trailing earnings while the 30-year Treasury sits above 5%) has compressed equity expectations and favored rotation toward value and quality ($SPYM + $IDMO + $FRDM )

In Part 2, bonds ($BND + $BNDX) emerged as a genuine income competitor and volatility dampener.

Part 3 showed real estate ($SCHH + $VNQI) navigating rate-driven cap-rate pressure but still delivering inflation-hedging income through select sectors.

Part 4 examined gold ($BAR + $FNV), where higher real yields create a near-term opportunity-cost headwind yet the sleeve’s diversification and tail-risk insurance role has rarely been more relevant.

Cash Today

We close today with the cash and cash-like sleeve - a diversified portfolio’s ultimate risk-management and liquidity layer (typically 5–20% allocation).

In the zero-rate era that defined the 2010s and early 2020s, cash was “trash” - it was almost impossible to capture a yield on cash that would outpace inflation. Holding cash meant losing money!

That narrative is now obsolete. With the 30-year Treasury yield above 5% for the first time since 2007, inflation re-accelerating to 3.8% YoY, and equity valuations stretched near 32x trailing earnings, cash-like instruments have become a competitive, low-volatility income engine.

They offer near-immediate liquidity, minimal duration risk, and positive real yields in many scenarios - finally rewarding patience after more than a decade of financial repression!

In a diversified portfolio, this sleeve serves three expanded roles:

1. Dry powder - for opportunistic rebalancing when equities or other assets de-rate.

2. Income floor - competing directly with the S&P 500’s current earnings yield while carrying far lower volatility.

3. Volatility buffer - acting as the portfolio’s shock absorber when rates, equities, or geopolitics spike.

Let’s break down the three instruments, their mechanics in today’s environment, and the full range of scenarios an investor should consider.

$CLIP – Ultra-Short T-Bills: The Purest Government Cash Equivalent

$CLIP (iShares 0-3 Month Treasury Bond ETF) holds the shortest-maturity U.S. Treasuries, delivering near-zero duration and virtually no credit risk.

As of mid-May 2026:

• 30-day SEC yield: ~4.85–4.92%

• Effective duration: 0.1–0.2 years

• Expense ratio: 0.07%

• AUM: multi-billion, exceptionally liquid

Key mechanics: $CLIP rolls constantly into new T-bills priced at today’s elevated short-term rates. With the Fed’s policy rate anchored higher-for-longer (and markets pricing minimal near-term cuts), this ETF captures almost the full risk-free rate with negligible price volatility. It is the closest thing to “cash” that still generates meaningful income - ideal for the portion of the portfolio that must remain truly liquid.

$JPST – JPMorgan Ultra-Short Income ETF: The Credit-Enhanced Cash Booster

$JPST invests in ultra-short investment-grade corporate bonds, commercial paper, and other high-quality credit instruments.

Mid-May 2026 metrics:

• 30-day SEC yield: ~5.15–5.25%

• Effective duration: ~0.6–0.7 years

• Expense ratio: 0.18%

• AUM: large and highly liquid

The credit edge: By taking a modest step out on the credit spectrum (while staying ultra-short maturity), $JPST adds 25–40 basis points of extra yield over pure Treasuries. In the current regime of healthy corporate balance sheets and contained default risks, that spread is attractive compensation for minimal added volatility. The fund’s active management allows it to navigate credit curves efficiently, making it a step-up income vehicle without sacrificing the “cash-like” character.

Nuances, Edge Cases, and Scenario Analysis

Here’s the expanded playbook:

• Soft landing + Fed pivot (inflation cools to 2.5% and policy rates begin to fall): Yields on both $CLIP and $JPST will decline modestly, but the income already earned compounds nicely.

  • Portfolio action suggestion: Gradually rotate some cash into bonds or equities to maintain target risk levels.

• Sticky inflation/stagflation: Cash-like instruments shine as real yields stay positive. $CLIP and $JPST deliver reliable income with almost no price erosion.

  • Portfolio action suggestion: Favor a larger allocation to this sleeve as a hedge while equities and longer-duration assets struggle.

• Hard recession: Flight-to-quality flows would boost $CLIP (pure Treasuries) most strongly. $JPST remains resilient due to short maturities and high-quality credit.

  • Portfolio action suggestion: Cash becomes the star - use it to buy discounted assets during panic or a fire sale.

• Further yield spike (short rates → 5.5%+): Both ETFs would see their yields rise quickly (a benefit for new money), with negligible NAV impact thanks to ultra-short duration.

  • Portfolio action suggestion: Dollar-cost-average fresh capital here - the income cushion grows immediately.

• Disinflation surprise (inflation falls faster than expected): Short-term yields drop, modestly reducing future income.

  • Portfolio action suggestion: Rebalance any overweight cash back into the broader portfolio to capture the relief rally elsewhere.

Additional considerations

• Taxes: $CLIP’s Treasury interest is state-tax exempt (a meaningful edge in high-tax states). $JPST distributions are fully taxable as ordinary income - best held in tax-advantaged accounts.

• Inflation protection: Neither is inflation-linked; a small TIPS ladder can complement if CPI remains sticky. That is definitely worth considering.

• Behavioral angle: After more than a decade of near-zero rates, many investors still view cash as “losing to inflation.” The current setup flips that script - cash now preserves and grows purchasing power while waiting for better opportunities.

• Historical parallel: The last time short-term rates sustainably exceeded 5% (2006–2007) was followed by a period where cash-like holdings outperformed longer-duration assets during the ensuing volatility. Starting yields mattered enormously for future returns.

Bottom line for Part 5 - Cash: The cash sleeve of a diversified portfolio is no longer a placeholder (or a loss-leader!) - it is a competitive income generator, liquidity reserve, and volatility buffer in a world of 5%+ long-term yields and stretched equity valuations.

$CLIP delivers pure safety, $JPST adds a credit-enhanced yield pickup. Together they round out the portfolio beautifully, complementing the growth of equities, the income of bonds and real estate, and the insurance of gold.

- Series Conclusion -

Across all five parts of the series, we have seen the same theme: the regime shift of 2026 has normalized risk premiums after years of some easy money. A diversified portfolio that is simple, rules-based, and globally diversified remains exceptionally well-constructed for this environment.

No single sleeve is a slam-dunk winner, but the combination gives you income where it is now available, growth where it is still rewarded, and protection where uncertainty is highest.

Important note: This is not investment advice, and markets can remain irrational longer than expected. But the math is speaking clearly. Whether you rebalance modestly, add to cash-like holdings while yields are attractive, or simply stay the course, the key is discipline and alignment with your time horizon and risk tolerance.

Thank You

Thank you for following the series. If you found it useful, I want to hear your thoughts in the comments!

If you think I’m an idiot, borderline nuts, or way off in left field, you won’t be the first. I want to hear from you, too!

Subscribe for more Man on the Move thoughts, ideas, pontifications, rants, and fits of madness!

Important Disclaimer: This post reflects only my personal opinions. I may own any security mentioned in this article at any time. This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stocks or securities, just my opinions. This is not a solicitation to buy or sell any stocks or securities; it’s simply my (often raw) research, thoughts, and ideas. Do not make decisions based solely on my blog. Conduct your own due diligence. Consult with professionals who have many credentials after their names, which they earned at considerable expense. I position myself on the contrarian edge. Many of my views are not widely shared—possibly for a reason. Or perhaps I’m onto something here… That’s for you to determine; however, I feel like a monster reincarnation of Horatio Alger, a Man on the Move, and just sick enough to be totally confident.

In Part 1 we saw how the earnings-yield inversion (stocks at ~3.1% trailing earnings yield versus 30-year Treasuries above 5%) has compressed forward equity expectations and triggered rotation away from high-duration growth names.

In Part 2 we examined how the bond sleeve ($BND and $BNDX) has become a genuine income competitor and portfolio stabilizer.

In Part 3 we unpacked real estate ($SCHH and $VNQI), where higher cap rates create headwinds but inflation-pass-through rents and select-sector strength (data centers, industrial) keep the sleeve relevant for income and diversification.

All the Gold…

Gold and gold royalties now enter the picture as a portfolio’s classic “insurance policy”. Traditionally 5–20% of a portfolio, gold is held for its low (or negative) correlation to both stocks and bonds, its role as an inflation and currency hedge, and its safe-haven properties during geopolitical or monetary uncertainty.

In the current environment - 30-year yields above 5% for the first time since 2007, S&P 500 valuations near 32x trailing earnings, and inflation re-accelerating to 3.8% YoY - the math is more nuanced than in the zero-rate (ZIRP) era.

Currently, gold is caught between inflation (bullish) and rising real rates (bearish). We’ll see what ends up as the leading indicator, but my prediction is that near-term money will move to 5% Treasuries, and that money will come from both gold and stocks.

Higher real yields raise the opportunity cost of holding a non-yielding asset like gold, yet persistent macro stresses and expensive equities make gold’s diversification role more valuable than ever.

Let’s break down the mechanics, the differential impacts of physical gold versus a royalty/streaming business, and the full range of scenarios an investor should consider.

$BAR – GraniteShares Gold Trust: Pure Physical Gold Exposure

$BAR is a physically backed ETF that holds allocated gold bars in London vaults and seeks to track the spot price of gold minus a very low expense ratio of 0.17%.

As of mid-May 2026, gold is trading around $4,650–$4,700 per ounce after an incredibly strong multi-year rally driven by central-bank buying and inflation fears. $BAR itself has delivered impressive longer-term returns (1-year total return near 40%+), though it has experienced short-term pullbacks amid the recent yield spike. AUM exceeds $1.59 billion, and the fund remains highly liquid with no futures, derivatives, or counterparty risk - just direct ownership of bullion.

Key mechanics in today’s environment

Gold is a non-yielding asset—no coupons, no dividends, no cash flows.

• When real yields rise, the opportunity cost of holding gold increases: investors forgo a positive real return in bonds to own a barren metal (you will have to determine your comfort level here)

• In discounted-cash-flow terms, gold behaves like a very long-duration asset (for instance, PIMCO’s empirical “real duration” estimate is approximately 18 years over 2004–2025). A 100-basis-point (1%) increase in 10-year real Treasury yields has historically been associated with an ~18% decline in the inflation-adjusted gold price, all else being equal.

This is why gold is often described as “trading as a leveraged inverse-yield instrument” in rate-sensitive regimes. Higher real yields compress its present value; lower (or negative) real yields expand it.

Period-by-period patterns (1970s–2026):

• 1970s stagflation (deeply negative real rates): Gold exploded from $35 → $680/oz.

• 1980–2000 disinflation (positive real rates 2–5%): Gold collapsed from $680 → $290/oz.

• 2001–2011 (near-zero/negative real rates post-dot-com and Great Financial Crises): Gold surged from $290 → $1,850/oz.

• 2011–2015 (rising positive real rates): Gold fell ~43%.

• 2020–2021 (deeply negative real rates): Gold gained ~40%.

The 2022–2026 Breakdown: When the Classic Rule Failed

Starting with the Fed’s hiking cycle in 2022, gold’s correlation decayed sharply. Gold climbed even as real yields rose above 1.5% - a regime that would have crushed bullion in prior decades!

• Primary drivers of decoupling: Explosive central-bank gold purchases (especially by China, India, and other emerging market nations), worldwide de-dollarization trends, and a persistent geopolitical risk premium.

• Result: Gold hit records above $5,000/oz in early 2026 despite elevated (and rising) real rates - the strongest annual gain since 1979!

This “new regime” behavior frustrated quants but highlighted gold’s evolving role as a debasement hedge and reserve asset rather than purely a rates play.

But beware! Recent price action shows the relationship snapping back: last week’s yield surge (30-year breaking 5.12%) triggered a ~3% gold drop in a single session, with analysts describing bullion as “losing at the hands of an overly concerned bond market.”

$FNV - Franco-Nevada: Gold Royalty and Streaming Leader

$FNV is not pure gold exposure, but I like it for a bit of diversification into mining and mining royalties, without having to own volatile stocks in the miners. It is a premier royalty and streaming company that provides upfront capital to miners in exchange for a percentage of future production (royalties) or a fixed supply at a predetermined price (streams). This business model gives investors leveraged exposure to rising gold prices without the operational risks, cost inflation, or capital expenditure of traditional miners.

As of mid-May 2026:

• Dividend yield: ~1.1–1.2% (paid quarterly, with a history of increases)

• Recent performance: Strong multi-year gains tracking gold’s rally but with lower volatility than physical gold or mining equities; 1-year total return ~35–38%

• AUM and liquidity: large-cap, highly liquid equity with a market cap well north of $25 billion

The royalty advantage

Unlike $BAR, $FNV generates cash flows and pays dividends, making it less sensitive to the pure opportunity-cost headwind of higher real yields. When gold prices rise, Franco-Nevada’s royalty revenues increase with no additional capex - creating built-in operating leverage!

The company’s diversified portfolio (gold, silver, platinum, oil & gas) and a conservative balance sheet (no debt, strong cash position) further reduce risk. In an inflationary regime, higher gold prices flow straight to the bottom line, while the equity structure allows it to behave somewhat like a quality growth stock when macro conditions favor precious metals.

Portfolio-Level Implications for a portfolio’s gold sleeve

In a diversified Portfolio, the gold allocation ($BAR for pure beta, $FNV for higher-quality cash-flow exposure) is not an income engine like bonds or REITs. Instead, it functions as portfolio insurance:

• Diversification boost: Gold’s historically low correlation to equities shines when both stocks (expensive) and bonds (duration risk) face simultaneous pressures.

• Inflation and tail-risk hedge: It protects purchasing power when CPI remains sticky and central banks are slower to pivot - important as we see inflation has re-accelerated rapidly from March’s 2.2% to April’s CPI 3.8% YoY.

• Rebalancing opportunity: Investors overweight equities can trim and add to the gold sleeve without sacrificing the portfolio’s growth engine - especially since $FNV adds a small yield component.

A blended 5–20% allocation is still relevant. Beware, however. The regime has raised the opportunity cost while at the same time amplifying the very uncertainties gold is designed to offset. Tread carefully - gold is a touchy one right now.

To reiterate, gold is currently caught between inflation (good for gold) and rising real rates (bad for gold). It’s a battle for the ages!

Nuances, Edge Cases, and Scenario Analysis

Here’s the expanded playbook for the gold sleeve under various market scenarios:

• Soft landing + Fed pivot (inflation cools to 2.5% and long-term yields fall): Real yields decline, sharply reducing gold’s opportunity cost. Both $BAR and $FNV may rally strongly on lower discount rates and relief in equity markets. $BAR would capture pure price upside; $FNV would add dividend growth.

  • Portfolio action suggestion: Hold or modestly add to maintain the insurance layer.

• Sticky inflation/stagflation: Gold shines as the classic hedge. Rental-equivalent “monetary inflation” and commodity strength drive spot prices higher. $FNV’s royalty leverage amplifies returns while its dividend provides income.

  • Portfolio action suggestion: Favor a slight tilt toward $FNV in the blend for its cash-flow resilience.

• Hard recession: Initial risk-off selling could pressure gold alongside equities (in a liquidity crunch), but safe-haven flows would quickly dominate. $BAR would benefit most from pure flight-to-safety; $FNV would hold up better than miners due to its low-cost structure.

  • Portfolio action suggestion: Gold becomes a relative outperformer - rebalance from stocks if the sleeve drifts below your target.

• Further yield spike (30-yr → 5.5%+): Tough short-term headwind as real yields climb further, pressuring $BAR’s NAV more than $FNV’s (the royalty model provides some equity cushion).

  • Portfolio action suggestion: Use dollar-cost-averaging into weakness - the structural tailwinds (inflation, geopolitics) do remain intact.

• Disinflation surprise (inflation falls faster than expected): Gold could face near-term consolidation as real yields stay elevated, but any equity de-rating at 32x P/E would still support safe-haven bids. $FNV’s dividends would cushion the ride.

  • Portfolio action suggestion: Rebalance if underweight back to target to keep the hedge in place.

Additional considerations

• Taxes: $BAR is treated, like all gold holdings, as a collectible (long-term gains taxed at 28% max); hold in tax-advantaged accounts when possible. $FNV dividends are qualified and taxed at ordinary rates.

• Storage and liquidity: $BAR eliminates physical storage hassles; $FNV is a liquid equity with no storage issues.

• Behavioral angle: After years of low rates and equity dominance, many investors forgot gold’s role as “portfolio insurance”, missing the recent record rise in price ( a real shame for those not in gold during its recent run). The current regime serves as a reminder: gold won’t deliver bond-like income or stock-like growth, but it should still excel when the other sleeves face simultaneous stress.

• Historical parallel: The last sustained period of 5%+ 30-year yields (2007) coincided with gold’s early bull market as inflation fears and monetary expansion took hold. Starting valuations in gold (then cheap) mattered more than the headline rate level. The difference today is gold starting on a relatively high note.

Bottom line for Part 4

The gold sleeve of a diversified portfolio faces a clear near-term headwind from higher real yields and opportunity costs, yet its structural role as a hedge against sticky inflation, expensive equities, and geopolitical risk (more bombs, more gold???) has never been more relevant.

$BAR delivers pure, low-cost exposure to spot gold; $FNV adds cash-flow leverage, dividends, and lower volatility through its royalty business model. Together they provide the diversification and tail-risk protection that neither stocks, bonds, nor real estate can fully replicate in a risk-premium environment.

For long-term investors, maintaining your golf sleeve at current levels offers prudent insurance without sacrificing the overall portfolio’s growth orientation.

Next up (the Part 5 Finale)

Cash and Cash-Like Instruments - $CLIP (Ultra-Short T-Bills), $JPST (Ultra-Short Income), and $VWOB (Emerging Markets Government Bonds). We’ll explore why cash is no longer “trash” in a 5%+ yield world and how short-duration instruments round out a diversified portfolio’s risk-management toolkit.

I’ll see you then!

Todd

Important Disclaimer: This post reflects only my personal opinions. I may own any security mentioned in this article at any time. This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stocks or securities, just my opinions. This is not a solicitation to buy or sell any stocks or securities; it’s simply my (often raw) research, thoughts, and ideas. Do not make decisions based solely on my blog. Conduct your own due diligence. Consult with professionals who have many credentials after their names, which they earned at considerable expense. I position myself on the contrarian edge. Many of my views are not widely shared—possibly for a reason. Or perhaps I’m onto something here… That’s for you to determine; however, I feel like a monster reincarnation of Horatio Alger, a Man on the Move, and just sick enough to be totally confident.

In Part 1 we saw how the earnings-yield inversion (stocks at ~3.1% trailing earnings yield versus 30-year Treasuries above 5%) has compressed forward equity expectations and triggered rotation away from high-duration growth names.

In Part 2 we examined how the bond sleeve ($BND and $BNDX) has become a genuine income competitor and portfolio stabilizer in this higher-for-longer rate environment.

Part 3 - Real Estate

Real estate now sits at an interesting crossroads. REITs have historically offered a blend of income, inflation hedging, and diversification. They are, however, among the most rate-sensitive asset classes because property values are directly tied to capitalization rates (Cap Rates - the required yield investors demand).

When long-term Treasury yields rise to 5%+ and equities trade at stretched 32x valuations, the math of higher discount rates and refinancing costs creates clear headwinds in real estate, yet certain sectors and geographic exposures within a portfolio’s real estate sleeve are better positioned than many investors may realize.

In a diversified portfolio, real estate (typically a 5-20% allocation) serves three key roles: income generation above the level of many bonds, inflation-pass-through potential via rent escalations, and a diversifier with a low correlation to both stocks and bonds that can smooth overall volatility.

Let’s break down exactly how the current regime affects $SCHH and $VNQI.

$SCHH – Schwab U.S. REIT ETF: The Domestic Core

$SCHH tracks the Dow Jones Equity All REIT Capped Index, delivering broad exposure to U.S. equity REITs across data centers, industrial warehouses, healthcare, residential, retail, and offices.

As of mid-May 2026:

• AUM: approximately $9.9 billion

• Expense ratio: 0.07% (ultra-low)

• 30-day SEC yield: ~3.31–3.35%

• Trailing twelve-month distribution yield: ~2.8–3.0%

• Recent performance: YTD total return ~12.7%, 1-year return ~15.1–15.7%

Key mechanics in today’s environment

REIT valuations are driven by the spread between net operating income (NOI) and cap rates. When 30-year yields climb above 5%, cap rates typically expand - investors demand higher returns to compete with risk-free alternatives - which mathematically compresses property values.

At the same time, many REITs carry maturing debt that must be refinanced at today’s higher rates (mortgage rates are hovering near an ear-popping 6.4%). This creates near-term pressure on leverage-heavy or office/retail-heavy names.

However, $SCHH has benefited from powerful secular tailwinds. AI-driven demand has supercharged data centers and logistics/industrial properties. Rental growth and occupancy remain robust even in a higher-rate world.

Also, consider spiking inflation. Inflation at 3.8% YoY also provides a natural hedge: many leases include annual escalators that pass rising costs to tenants. The result is that $SCHH has held up during the recent yield spike.

$VNQI – Vanguard Global ex-U.S. Real Estate ETF: The International Diversifier

$VNQI provides exposure to real estate markets outside the United States - primarily Europe, Asia, and select emerging markets - through an unhedged index of REITs and property companies. Mid-May 2026 metrics:

• AUM: ~$3.7–3.9 billion

• Expense ratio: 0.12%

• Dividend yield: ~4.4–4.6% (higher than $SCHH)

• Recent performance: YTD total return ~4.1%, 1-year return ~15–16%

The diversification advantage

$VNQI is unhedged, so it does carry currency exposure (a tailwind when the dollar weakens, a headwind when it strengthens). Many international markets have lower or more stable rate environments than the U.S., and some central banks have already begun easing.

Top holdings lean toward industrial, office, and residential properties in Japan, Australia, and Europe. The higher baseline dividend yield reflects more attractive starting valuations overseas and different yield curves. While U.S. rates have pushed cap rates higher domestically, international REITs have seen more muted moves, giving $VNQI a relative stability edge in the short term.

Portfolio-Level Implications for a Portfolio’s Real Estate Sleeve

A typical portfolio real estate allocation might blend $SCHH (domestic growth and inflation hedge) with $VNQI (geographic diversification and higher income). In the current regime this sleeve now plays a more nuanced role:

• Income boost: Blended yield in the 3.5–4.0% range comfortably exceeds the S&P 500’s trailing earnings yield while offering legitimate inflation protection.

• Diversification value: REITs maintain low-to-moderate correlation with both the equity sleeve and the bond sleeve, helping smooth drawdowns when stocks de-rate or bonds face duration risk - though REITs will certainly face near-term pressures.

• Rebalancing opportunity: Investors who let equities run during the long bull market can now trim $SPYM in favor of real estate without sacrificing income potential - especially in sectors that benefit from AI and e-commerce.

Higher rates are a headwind, but the income cushion and select-sector strength make real estate more resilient than it was in the zero-rate (ZIRP) era.

Nuances, Edge Cases, and Scenario Analysis

Here’s the expanded playbook for the real estate sleeve under various market scenarios:

• Soft landing + Fed pivot (inflation cools to 2.5% and long-term yields fall): Cap rates compress, refinancing costs drop, and property values rebound sharply. Both $SCHH and $VNQI would deliver strong total returns (price appreciation plus income). $SCHH would likely lead on U.S. growth sectors like data centers.

  • Portfolio action suggestion: Hold or modestly add to lock in the relief rally.

• Sticky inflation/stagflation: Rental escalations and inflation-pass-through leases provide a natural hedge, supporting NOI growth. However, prolonged high rates keep cap-rate pressure alive, particularly for $SCHH’s more leveraged U.S. holdings. $VNQI may fare better in markets with different inflation dynamics.

  • Portfolio action suggestion: Slightly favor $VNQI in the blend while staying patient for income to compound.

• Hard recession: Cyclical sectors (offices, retail) would face occupancy and rent pressure, weighing on both ETFs—though $SCHH’s data-center and industrial exposure would limit downside relative to broader REIT indices. Flight-to-safety flows could eventually support high-quality properties.

  • Portfolio action suggestion: Real estate becomes a relative outperformer within a broader equity drawdown; rebalance from stocks if the sleeve falls below target.

• Further yield spike (30-yr → 5.5%+): Short-term NAV pressure would hit both funds as cap rates expand further and refinancing costs rise. $SCHH (more U.S.-centric) would feel it more acutely.

  • Portfolio action suggestion: Use dollar-cost-averaging into weakness - the higher starting yields provide an increasing cushion over 12–18 months.

• Disinflation surprise (inflation falls faster than expected): Quick cap-rate compression and cheaper financing would spark a sharp rebound in property values. $SCHH’s growth-oriented holdings would outperform.

  • Portfolio action suggestion: Rebalance any underweight sleeve back to target to maintain the intended diversification balance.

Additional considerations

• Taxes: REIT distributions are most often taxed as ordinary income (though qualified dividends and return-of-capital portions can help). $VNQI’s international exposure may involve minor foreign withholding taxes. Hold these in tax-advantaged accounts when possible.

• Sector rotation within REITs: Data centers and industrial continue to shine; traditional offices lag. $SCHH’s index automatically tilts toward the winners.

• Currency risk: $VNQI’s unhedged structure adds exchange-rate volatility but also potential upside if the dollar weakens.

• Behavioral angle: Many investors entered REITs during the low-rate era, expecting endless price appreciation. The current regime rewards a focus on income and fundamentals over capital gains - this will be important in a portfolio that emphasizes a rules-based approach.

• Historical parallel: The last sustained period of 5%+ 30-year yields (2007) was followed by a painful but ultimately recoverable REIT correction once rates peaked and the economy adjusted. Starting yields and sector quality mattered far more than the headline rate level.

Bottom line for Part 3

The real estate sleeve of a diversified portfolio faces genuine rate-driven headwinds via higher cap rates and refinancing costs. It may be tough going in real estate for a bit. However, strong fundamentals in data centers, industrial, and inflation-linked rents keep it relevant - so don’t run away!

$SCHH delivers U.S. growth and inflation hedging; $VNQI adds geographic diversification and a higher income baseline. Together, they provide competitive yield relative to expensive equities, with diversification benefits that neither pure stocks nor bonds can fully replicate.

For investors comfortable with moderate volatility, this regime offers an opportunity to rebalance thoughtfully, rather than abandoning the real estate asset class as a whole.

Next up (Part 4)

Gold and Gold-Royalty investments – $BAR (Physical Gold) and $FNV (Franco-Nevada). We’ll explore the classic real-yield headwind for gold alongside its powerful role as a hedge in a world of sticky inflation, expensive equities, and geopolitical tension.

Gold has been en fuego recently. What might happen next?

Bring your dancing shoes, I’ll see you then!

Todd

Important Disclaimer: This post reflects only my personal opinions. I may own any security mentioned in this article at any time. This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stocks or securities, just my opinions. This is not a solicitation to buy or sell any stocks or securities; it’s simply my (often raw) research, thoughts, and ideas. Do not make decisions based solely on my blog. Conduct your own due diligence. Consult with professionals who have many credentials after their names, which they earned at considerable expense. I position myself on the contrarian edge. Many of my views are not widely shared—possibly for a reason. Or perhaps I’m onto something here… That’s for you to determine; however, I feel like a monster reincarnation of Horatio Alger, a Man on the Move, and just sick enough to be totally confident.

Nashville! We’ve come so far!

Think back to the days of “Small Time” Nashville when we made the Rolling Stones start a Vanderbilt Stadium concert at 4 pm cuz the local residents thought the show might be too loud near their bedtime. My gosh, the Stones don’t even roll out of bed before 7! Music City claiming The Rolling Stones were going to keep us up too late? Rubes!

Well, Music City, congratulations - you’re now “Big Time” Nashville! You just landed Super Bowl LXIV in 2030 at the shiny new (soon to be completed) Nissan Stadium! The NFL owners voted, the confetti cannons are primed, and every pedal-tavern operator on Broadway is already pricing out surge-rate margaritas.

This is Big Time - the biggest show of all! And the party is coming to Broadway!

As usual, the chorus of party-poopers is already warming up - the NIMBYs, the doomsayers, the “I-65 is a parking lot!” crowd - insisting the real story is not The Big Game, but the traffic apocalypse headed our way.

That’s all I’m hearing - traffic, traffic, traffic.

Well, let’s take a look at other Super Bowl host cities and compare their traffic to ours. Are Nashville’s roads way out of line? Are these naysayers just spouting off a bunch of skullbuggery?

Data Is Not That Hard!

I analyzed the latest TomTom Traffic Index 2025 and the INRIX 2025 Global Traffic Scorecard and lined up the numbers for every recent Super Bowl host city versus Nashville, with a rating of more(+) or less (-) traffic and congestion. The chart below tells the real story…

Nashville isn’t showing up as the traffic outlier. We’re right in the sweet spot - respectable, manageable, and honestly not that bad for a town that’s added a couple hundred thousand new neighbors in the blink of an eye.

The Recent Roster: Last 10 Hosts (2016–2025)

Here’s the traffic rap sheet:

Nashville baseline - INRIX 65 hours lost to traffic per year (we’re not even a U.S. top 10), TomTom 38.1% congestion peak level (we’re quite respectable).

• Los Angeles (2022, and again in 2027): INRIX 87 hours lost (+). TomTom 59.8% congestion (+). The undisputed champ. Los Angelenos lose more time in traffic than some people spend in therapy sessions or Botox appointments. Nashville looks positively speedy next to this.

• San Fran / Bay Area (2026, and again in 2029): INRIX 49 hours lost (-). TomTom 50% congestion (+). In Nashville, a bachelorette hanging off a rooftop bar might try to show you her breasts. In San Fran, a hobo on the sidewalk might try to shit on your shoes. I’ll take the Nashville traffic, thank you very much.

• Atlanta (2019, and 2028): INRIX 75 hours (+). TomTom ~44% (+). Close enough to call it a Southern cousin rivalry, but anyone who has driven in Atlanta knows the deal. They’ve hosted the Super Bowl before; we’ll just add more Woo-Girls taverns to the mix. Atlanta will add more gunfire.

• Miami (2020): INRIX 75 hours (+). TomTom ~47% (+). Sun, sand, and soul-crushing backups. In Nashville, you’ll see our tourists in cowboy boots instead of thongs and flip-flops. And that’s a good thang.

• Tampa (2021): INRIX 41 hours (+) TomTom ~41.5% (-). Solid mid-tier snarl. Florida Man energy meets Music City chaos. Probably the only city so far that’s comparable, but no one looks at Tampa and screams “LAWDHAMMURCY!!! THE TRAFFIC!!!”

• Houston (2017): INRIX 70 hours (+). TomTom ~41% (+). Big, sprawling, and perpetually annoyed. Sound familiar? Bigger is better in Texas, and Houston beats us in the humidity department as well.. It’s even miserable in Houston in February!

• Las Vegas (2024, and 2029): INRIX n/a. TomTom ~34.1% (-) Noticeably lighter here… Hell, they spread the pain across a damn desert grid and call it a feature. Our version of traffic comes with a live honky-tonk. Theirs comes with regret.

• Phoenix/Glendale (2023), New Orleans (2025), Minneapolis (2018): The rest of the pack trends milder. But come on… Summers in Phoenix? (nope) Winters in Minneapolis? (nope) An overnight in New Orleans? (hell nope!)

Buckle up, Music City. Strap it on!

Look, traffic here gets thick sometimes. Show me a Big Time city without some bumper-to-bumper fun and rush-hour madness. It’s just the price you pay when your city grows this insanely fast, and everyone wants in on the action.

The data, however, is clear: in the traffic category, we’re not the worst. Not even close. We’re a Super Bowl host that is dialed in - ready to throw the biggest, loudest, most badass tailgate the NFL has seen in years.

Let’s use the Super Bowl to put Nashville on the Big Time map. Again.

Let’s (figuratively) burn this damn place to the ground in the biggest embers of a Music City party the NFL and worldwide audience has ever seen!

This is worthy of celebration!

You’ll see me there,

Todd

Part 1 - Review

In Part 1, we examined equities ($SPYM, $IDMO, $FRDM) and saw how the earnings-yield inversion - stocks offering only ~3.1% on trailing earnings while the 30-year Treasury now yields above 5% - has reset expectations. Forward returns for equities are likely compressed, volatility is higher, and rotation toward value/quality factors becomes more attractive.

Buzzing around like an annoying housefly - inflation has re-accelerated rapidly from March’s 2.2% to April’s CPI 3.8% YoY.

Part 2 - Bonds

Bonds are the natural counterpart. For the first time in nearly two decades, the fixed-income portion of a portfolio is no longer a “yield-starved” afterthought. It has become a genuine competitor to expensive equities and a powerful portfolio stabilizer. Let’s unpack exactly why, with the mechanics, the math, the differential impacts of $BND versus $BNDX, and a full range of scenarios an investor should consider.

Why Bonds Matter More in This Regime

Higher long-term Treasury yields function as a higher discount rate across the entire economy. They also reset the income floor for savers and re-anchor the risk-free rate that every other asset class must beat.

With inflation re-accelerating and energy pressures persisting, nominal yields above 5% on the 30-year finally deliver positive real yields in many scenarios. This is a structural regime shift after 15+ years of financial repression. We have Quantitative Easy to thank, in large part, for that!

In an investor’s portfolio, the bond sleeve (we’ll consider a blend of $BND and $BNDX) now serves three expanded roles:

1. Income generator – competing directly with the S&P 500’s current earnings yield.

2. Volatility dampener – providing ballast when equities de-rate.

3. Capital-appreciation potential – when yields eventually peak and reverse course, bond prices will increase as yields decrease.

$BND – Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF: The Core U.S. Anchor

$BND tracks the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index, giving broad, investment-grade exposure across Treasuries (~40%), corporates (~30%), mortgage-backed securities, and agency debt.

As of mid-May 2026: ‘

• 30-day SEC yield: ~4.39%

• Yield to maturity (YTM): ~4.6%

• Effective duration: 5.7–5.8 years

• Average maturity: ~8.1 years

• Expense ratio: 0.03% (ultra-low)

• AUM: well over $100 billion, extremely liquid

Key mechanics in today’s environment

The “roll-up” effect is powerful. Older, lower-coupon bonds in the index mature, are prepaid (mortgage-backed securities), or are called and replaced by new issues carrying today’s higher coupons and yields. Over the next 12–24 months, this steadily lifts the portfolio’s forward income without any action required from the investor - you!

Duration math is straightforward and investor-friendly here. A 50-basis-point (0.5%) further rise in yields would imply roughly a 2.9% price decline in the ETF. (duration × yield change, or 5.8 × 0.5 = 2.9 ) But the higher coupons provide more income (within 6-9 months) to cushion a drop in bond prices.

Recent performance reflects the transition: 1-year total return ~5.5%, and YTD is modestly positive even amid volatility.

For investors, $BND restores the classic appeal of bond action in one’s portfolio. It now generates more income than at any point since 2007 (!!!) while acting as a stronger hedge against the equity sleeve’s rate sensitivity.

Yield Chart:

$BNDX – Vanguard Total International Bond ETF: The Global Diversifier (USD-Hedged)

$BNDX delivers USD-hedged exposure* to investment-grade bonds outside the United States (government, corporate, and securitized debt across Europe, Japan, Australia, and select emerging markets). Mid-May 2026 metrics:

• 30-day SEC yield: ~3.49–3.50%

• Yield to maturity (YTM): ~5.06%

• Effective duration: 6.6–6.7 years

• Average maturity: ~8.4–8.5 years

• Expense ratio: 0.07%

• AUM: multi-billion, highly liquid

*A USD-hedged exposure means an investment denominated in a foreign currency or asset that has been protected (or "hedged") against fluctuations in the U.S. Dollar. This shields the investor from currency risk, ensuring returns depend entirely on the performance of the underlying asset, and not the exchange rate.

The hedging advantage

Currency hedging, to a large extent, strips exchange rate volatility. As a result, you get a purer (less diluted) exposure to international interest rates and credit spreads. While $BND rides the U.S. yield surge directly, $BNDX benefits from diverging global policy paths. Many non-U.S. central banks (ECB, BoJ, Bank of England) have already eased or are closer to cutting than the Fed. This can produce capital appreciation in $BNDX even if U.S. yields stay elevated longer. The higher underlying YTM (5.06%) versus the SEC yield reflects the attractive starting point in international credit and government markets.

Recent performance has been steadier but lower than $BND (~2.3–2.8% 1-year total return), which is exactly why the two pair so well: $BND for U.S. income strength, $BNDX for geographic and policy diversification.

Yield Chart:

Portfolio-Level Implications for a Portfolio’s Bond Sleeve

A typical portfolio allocation might be 20–40% in bonds. In the current regime, this sleeve now pulls more weight than it has in years:

• Income boost: Blended yield in the 4.0–4.8% range (depending on mix) comfortably exceeds the S&P 500’s trailing earnings yield.

• Risk reduction: Moderate combined duration (~6 years) limits downside from further yield spikes while still allowing meaningful price gains on any reversal.

• Rebalancing opportunity: Investors overweight equities after the long bull market can now shift toward $BND/$BNDX without sacrificing income.

Nuances, Edge Cases, and Scenario Analysis

Here’s the expanded playbook for the bond sleeve under various market scenarios:

• Soft landing + Fed pivot (inflation cools to 2.5%): Both $BND and $BNDX are likely to deliver strong capital gains on top of their already attractive income streams. $BNDX could see even stronger performance because many international central banks are further along the easing path than the Fed.

  • Portfolio action suggestion: Hold or modestly add to capture the full total-return upside.

• Sticky inflation / stagflation: Income remains solid for both funds as higher coupons continue to roll in, but modest price pressure could emerge, especially in $BND’s corporate and MBS holdings. $BNDX may see some widening in international credit spreads.

  • Portfolio action suggestion: Slightly favor $BND over $BNDX in the blend while staying patient for the income cushion to work.

• Hard recession: A classic flight-to-quality rally would boost Treasuries inside $BND, producing meaningful price appreciation alongside steady income. $BNDX would also perform well thanks to its hedged safety and global government-bond exposure.

  • Portfolio action suggestion: Bonds could become the star of a diverse portfolio - rebalancing from equities into this sleeve may be especially powerful.

• Further yield spike (30-yr → 5.5%+): Short-term NAV pressure would hit both ETFs, with $BNDX experiencing a slightly larger dip due to its longer duration. However, the higher starting coupons provide a growing offset within 6–12 months.

  • Portfolio action suggestion: Use dollar-cost-averaging into any weakness and remain disciplined - starting yields this high historically reward patience.

• Disinflation surprise (inflation falls faster than expected): Quick price appreciation across both funds as yields fall and duration works in your favor. $BNDX could lead on global relief.

  • Portfolio action suggestion: Rebalance any underweight sleeve back to your target allocation to lock in gains and maintain your intended risk balance.

Additional considerations

• Behavioral angle: After years of near-zero yields (ZIRP), many investors became conditioned to view bonds as “boring” or “losers.” The current setup rewards patience - higher coupons compound and eventually dominate price volatility.

• Historical parallel: The last time the 30-year yield crossed 5% (2007) was followed by a sharp bond rally once the Fed pivoted. The 2022 bear market in bonds (when yields rose from near-zero) taught us that starting yields matter enormously for future returns.

Bottom Line for Part 2

The bond sleeve of your portfolio is in one of its most attractive setups in two decades. $BND delivers reliable U.S. income and roll-up potential; $BNDX adds global diversification and policy divergence. Together, they compete directly with expensive equities on yield, dampen portfolio volatility, and position you for capital gains if (or, more likely, when) the rate-hike cycle eventually peaks. For investors who have been underweight bonds, this regime offers a rare window to rebalance without giving up income.

— Of note, Jerome Powell’s second term as chair expired Friday, May 15. Kevin Warsh was confirmed by the Senate on May 13, via a 54-45 vote (the narrowest margin since 1977). Warsh, during his confirmation hearings, put the Senate Banking Committee on notice. He wants "regime change" at the Fed, including a change in how the central bank measures inflation. Warsh’s first FOMC is June 17. It appears the bond market is already doing his job for him…

Next up (Part 3)

Real Estate – $SCHH (U.S. REITs) and $VNQI (Global ex-U.S. Real Estate). We’ll examine how higher cap rates and refinancing costs create headwinds, but also why select sectors (data centers, industrial) and inflation-pass-through rents still offer compelling income and diversification in a portfolio.

See you tomorrow!

Todd

Important Disclaimer: This post reflects only my personal opinions. I may own any security mentioned in this article at any time. This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stocks or securities, just my opinions. This is not a solicitation to buy or sell any stocks or securities; it’s simply my (often raw) research, thoughts, and ideas. Do not make decisions based solely on my blog. Conduct your own due diligence. Consult with professionals who have many credentials after their names, which they earned at considerable expense. I position myself on the contrarian edge. Many of my views are not widely shared—possibly for a reason. Or perhaps I’m onto something here… That’s for you to determine; however, I feel like a monster reincarnation of Horatio Alger, a Man on the Move, and just sick enough to be totally confident.