Upper income quintiles have excess savings while lower income quintiles do not, but falling gas prices and moderating grocery prices help lower income quintiles significantly and support demand.

A Norwegian investor who bought S&P 500 stocks in 2011 in dollars was up about 1,000% at the highs: roughly 400-500% from stock appreciation plus another 50% currency gain as the euro halved against the dollar.

The IMF, originally designed to regulate country imbalances at Bretton Woods, no longer serves that function; even if the IMF tells China it must do XYZ to reduce imbalances, China can ignore the directive and political power within countries is much more powerful than so-called world government institutions, making international cooperation difficult.

China is increasing enforcement of laws against lending at interest rates above 24% and in the 24-36% gray zone, preventing the high-rate consumer borrowing that would be Ponzi-style financing; Minsky would call this non-productive borrowing that makes economies vulnerable.

The U.S. banking system is highly concentrated, with the top four banks holding approximately 40% or more of total banking sector assets (approximately 10 trillion of roughly 20+ trillion), making the system dependent on how Jamie Dimon (JP Morgan) runs his operations.

As a result of non-prepaying mortgages, the duration of mortgage-backed securities extends significantly beyond original assumptions, leaving the Fed and mortgage investors with perpetually longer-duration exposure than they expected.

The U.S. Treasury market and U.S. mortgage-backed security market are under considerable structural distress and together represent almost the entire Federal Reserve balance sheet (roughly two-thirds treasuries, one-third mortgage-backed securities).

The predictable bias of 'policy bears' (people who claim all policy moves are always wrong) creates motivated reasoning: they criticized the Fed for being too tight in 2022, then criticized it for signaling cuts in 2024; in both cases the conclusion was 'Fed is wrong' regardless of direction.

The fact that many people were wrong about 'easy money caused housing bubble' for 15 years while missing supply shortage fundamentals is evidence that focus on monetary policy leads people astray from basic economic analysis.

Assuming a 7:1 exchange rate (7 yuan per dollar), 1 trillion yuan in stimulus equals approximately $140 billion, or roughly 5% of the US 2020 stimulus package of $3 trillion; even a 10 trillion yuan package would equal only $1.4 trillion, less than half the US 2020 stimulus

Japan should not have been collecting income taxes for decades; people willing to lend Japan money at negative rates suggests the country could have issued perpetual bonds instead, keeping money in the economy—this represents a policy solution that Japan failed to pursue

Joseph Wang's book 'Central Banking 101' and his essay 'Ameradollars' on fedguy.com provide accessible introductions to modern monetary theory and fiscal theory frameworks; Wang's work bridges between technical analysis and popular understanding

The Fed's narrative about balance sheet normalization has consistently ratcheted expectations downward: starting with 'temporary, we'll get back to pre-crisis levels,' shifting to 'maybe not back to pre-crisis,' then to 'back to wherever it needs to be now,' and finally to keeping the balance sheet permanently enlarged.

Yield curve control and similar tools have been used by major central banks (Japan, Australia) in the past, suggesting they are reasonable policy options that have gained acceptance.

High yield bond spreads are at a 90th percentile of richness (historically tight valuation) based on data going back to 1997, making high yield bonds unattractive on a valuation basis despite the no-landing reflationary scenario being supportive of credit.