We know what’s coming and we are prepared.
🏦 🇺🇸 🇮🇷 Pilkington: The US is losing control, not just over global markets, but over their own bond markets.
Philip Pilkington’s read on this week comes down to one thing: control. More specifically, who is starting to lose it.
He points to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s intervention in the bond market, where Treasury sold short-term bills to help fund purchases of longer-term bonds. It was an unusual move that effectively stepped into territory normally handled by the Fed. It lasted less than a day before yields climbed again.
For Pilkington, the bigger issue is what the move says about the system: Treasury appeared willing to fight its own central bank in the middle of a crisis, suggesting the coordination between Washington’s institutions is starting to break down.
He sees something similar in the yen intervention. Washington shorted the euro to support the yen, which Pilkington sees as a departure from the usual rules of currency diplomacy. He interprets the ECB’s warning about a possible AI bubble as a response rather than a neutral observation.
His argument is that European pension funds could take that as a signal to start quietly reducing their exposure to U.S. equities.
His strongest analogy is the doorknob. You never think about how it works until suddenly it doesn’t. Pilkington argues that the same is true of things like the U.S. military’s reputation, the dollar’s perceived safety and the Fed’s authority over markets.
Much of that power depends on confidence and expectations. His view is that Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz has put several of those assumptions under pressure at the same time.
He is also skeptical of the Axios report suggesting oil shipping through Oman has returned close to pre-war levels. He points instead to diesel crack spreads above $100 and reports from contacts receiving genuine requests for physical fuel.
His China argument also runs against the obvious assumption. Beijing no longer needs to protect the U.S. economy in the way it once did, because years of shifting exports toward the Global South have reduced its dependence on American demand.
If Washington responds with secondary sanctions, Pilkington expects China to retaliate by restricting rare earth exports. In his view, that could hit the AI industry very quickly rather than gradually.
The system won't collapse on a particular day. He is arguing that several pressures are building at once, and that systems can look stable right up until the moment they aren’t.
đź“Ž Mario Nawfal
🇺🇸 Teenagers are now facing charges after doing a ding-dong ditch prank with a twist. They showed up in masks, wearing tactical gear and a rifle, or what looks like a rifle.
Two #Delaware teenagers, aged 16 and 17, faced charges after knocking on doors in New Castle while wearing tactical-style vests and carrying what appeared to be a rifle, police said.
This could’ve ended so badly..
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🌆 Market News Digest
[Oct 20, 2026 EST]
🔥 Top Stories
• US–Iran tensions swing markets — Hormuz tanker fire, Israel warns of renewed strikes, Rubio says talks are hard; oil stayed volatile even as Brent eased below $109
• Anthropic’s massive AI spend shock — WSJ says it may spend >$600B on compute, with huge cloud/Nvidia commitments and >$80B H1 loss
• Trump on Ukraine, Iran and trade — says Ukraine must make a deal, India trade is “pretty close,” and he’s weighing Iran action
â›˝ Oil & Energy
• Hormuz tanker fire / mine incident — IRGC says a supertanker carrying >2M barrels caught fire after hitting a mine
• Europe gas >€90 — benchmark tops 2022 levels on supply fears; US diesel prices remain elevated
• NATO and EU security push — NATO adds Black Sea assets; EU doubles down on Arctic security and keeping fossil fuels in the ground
đź“Š Markets & Macro
• US housing weakens further — starts fell 5.2% and pending sales dropped 7.3% to a record low, pressuring ...
📝 🇪🇺 🇫🇷 Mario Nawfal on X: Europe's riots are just the beginning. The real economic shock hasn't even arrived yet.
I spoke with economist Philip Pilkington about the unrest spreading across France, Italy and Albania.
He thinks we're watching the early stages of something much bigger.
One statistic really caught my attention.
According to Pilkington, France's inflation-adjusted household food consumption has fallen roughly 6.4% since 2022. He suspects the poorest households have suffered far steeper cuts.
Now add another surge in energy prices.
Pilkington pointed to rice futures rising 70% this year, wheat and sugar climbing 40%, and fertilizer shortages threatening next year's harvest.
His prediction is that the worst food inflation could arrive this winter or next spring.
And there's a political problem sitting right on top of it.
Governments across Europe are already deeply unpopular. People are struggling to afford basic necessities, and another prolonged energy ...
