Pre-war Hormuz traffic: ~120 ships/day Kpler: 14 ships. An uptick, but nowhere close to normal. Trump: "We have total control over the Hormuz Strait... we own it." Energy Secretary: actually the official count is too low, ships are sneaking through covertly. Total control, but they still need to sneak. Cool cool cool.

Iran and the US are acting like exes fighting over who controls the strait, except the thing they're fighting over is a fifth of the world's oil supply. Trump says the US has total control over Hormuz and is calling the naval blockade a "wall of steel." Iran says the strait stays shut until its conditions are met. Talks to revive June's ceasefire have gone nowhere, both sides blame each other for breaking it. Brent sitting around ~$88 while the world waits to see who caves first.

We got convinced that living within your means was cheap, and living beyond your means was normal. Coffee at home used to just be Tuesday. Now it's a $7 "treat yourself" before 9am. Meanwhile financing a couch, a phone, and a vacation you can't afford gets called "treating yourself" too. Nothing wrong with enjoying life. Something very wrong with spending money you don't have.

CPI eased to 3.4% in July (from 3.5%), but core inflation's still stuck at 2.5%, well above the Fed's 2% target. Add last week's weak jobs report to the mix, and the Fed's September call is looking like hike vs. hold, not hike vs. cut.

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Americans now owe $18.8 Trillion. Yup, with a capital T. Total household debt actually dipped a little this quarter, just $13 billion. Feels like nothing against a number that big. But credit card debt is climbing again, up $21 billion. Auto loans too, up $28 billion. That's real money families are carrying month to month. Delinquencies held mostly steady, which is good news. But steady at these levels still means a lot of people are stretched thin. This isn't just a chart. It's rent that's due, cars people need to get to work, groceries that cost more than they used to. (source: newyorkfed .org)

"We don't see a rate HIKE this year" - Goldman Sachs That's Jan Hatzius, chief economist and head of Global Investment Research at Goldman Sachs, a three-time winner of the Lawrence R. Klein Award for the most accurate US economic forecast. He told Fox Business there's no need for a hike because rent and wage inflation are already cooling on their own.

Bitcoin whale addresses (10K+ BTC, $640M+) just hit a 6-month high. 90 addresses now hold that much BTC. Last seen this level: early Feb. Low point since: 84 in mid-June. Doesn't look dramatic, but it signals coins rotating from weak hands → diamond hands. Classic bear-bottom behavior (chart: Bitcoin Magazine Pro)

Cathie Wood: Bitcoin is critical financial infrastructure, and the people defending it deserve access to the most powerful AI tools out there. Attackers aren't waiting. Defenders shouldn't have to either.

The US is now paying over $3B a day in interest on the national debt, on track for more than $1T a year. That’s already more than half of major federal health spending (Medicare + Medicaid). When the debt gets this big, the money printer becomes the easiest way out. And they still wonder why we believe in Bitcoin.

SpaceX told investors from its Bastrop, Texas facility that it's on pace for $100B in annual revenue by December, and Musk called that the base case if the company does nothing else. A week later Norway's Government Pension Fund Global, the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, quietly revealed it's already in, holding a $1.2B stake as of June. The smart money isn't waiting to see if the bet pays off.

Four crew killed in a suspected Houthi attack on a cargo vessel in the Red Sea. US Navy helicopter fired Hellfire missiles at a ship's steering gear in the Gulf of Oman for breaking the Iranian port blockade. Both sides want compensation from each other, and nobody is budging. Two chokepoints, ~26% of world oil supply. Oil price isn't going down anytime soon, is it?

Here is what financial freedom is not: It is not a number. It is not a retirement age. It is the morning you wake up and realise you are not going to work because you have to. That morning is built one decision at a time.

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Iran: Pay up, 5 months of damage. Trump: Nope. You owe us 50 years of damage. Cool, so we've gone from ceasefire to a receipt-swapping contest. Oil still elevated with 20% of the world's supply stuck behind a strait both sides claim to control. Nobody's winning this except whoever sells tanker insurance.