And speaking of the Olympics ... is this as important as the medal count?
2/5
Japan is under a "state of emergency" and as Apple mobility shows, they are severely restricting their movements (the Olympics started July 23).
(Apple aggregates location data services for various areas)
3/5
Google also aggregates movement of their phones and they similarly show Tokyo businesses have essentially closed, mass transit is empty and even walks in the park are down since the opening ceremonies (July 23).
4/5
What did Tokyo get from the Olympics?
* $Billions spent on sports facilities that will rarely get used again
* massive disruption life and business, lost income
* no tourism
* A spike in delta variant cases that will last a while
The blowback will be big and profound.
5/5
Worth noting that former Prime Minister Abe was strutting around like a Peacock in front of the world at the closing ceremonies of the Rio games in 2016 celebrating that the next games would be in Tokyo.
He did not even attend the opening ceremonies last week.
nuff said
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
67% of the US Federal debt outstanding can be tied to military spending.
Getting Europe/Canada and the rest of NATO to take up more of this spending can take a huge weight off US government finances.
Europe/Canada appear to be willing to do exactly this.
🧵
2/14
European leaders have gotten the message from Washington about doing more for their own defense and for Ukraine, too. nytimes.com/2025/03/26/wor…
3/14
Europeans are mooching and that any American military action, no matter how clearly in American interests as well, should be somehow paid for by other beneficiaries.
Uncertainty measures, sentiment swings, and doubts about American Exceptionalism have all been overdone. They set up a sentiment low in markets.
Now, markets are bouncing back.
🧵
2/6
The Policy Uncertainty Index is from the 10 largest newspapers' policy stories that contain words that denote uncertainty.
March 11 this index reached its highest level in over 40 years, higher than 9/11, the Iraq War, the Financial Crisis, and the Covid-19 shutdown.
3/6
Did last week’s buildup to Trump’s April 2 tariff announcement (aka Liberation Day) really exceed the uncertainty surrounding these other events? Investors are reacting as if this is the case.
Investors’ Intelligence is a survey of newsletter writers about the stock market. The bottom panel of the chart below shows that in the three weeks ending March 11, the same day as the uncertainty peak above, the percentage of respondents describing themselves as bullish declined by 21.6%. This is the fastest exit over three weeks since the 1987 stock market crash.
Everyone needs to calm down about the Atlanta Fed GDPnow flipping to negative (chart).
It was driven by one statistic, merchandise trade imports, which can snap back as early as next month and take GDPnow back up.
The world is not ending.
2/4
Here is the Merchandise trade deficit.
I labeled the last three months to show how much it blew out (and March 2022).
3/4
The trade deficit exploded in the last three months, as well as March 2022, due to the surge in imports (orange) while exports (blue) remained relatively unchanged.
---
The Ukraine War started in March 2022, and importers rushed to import products (such as grain) from the Black Sea area ahead of potential disruption.
Similarly, the last three months have seen importers rush to bring goods into the country ahead of Trump's tariffs.