Notes in the Margin

"Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby."

The February 2026 strike on Iran has raised serious questions about both the credibility and sustainability of US leadership in the region.

Paul Ehrlich, the leading false prophet of inevitable environmental doom and author of the infamous The Population Bomb, has died at age 93.

"77 percent of [Republicans] support the war, on average. But that’s exactly what we’d expect for almost any Trump policy."

"Wright's use of the word "unlikely" was a veiled concession that a spike to $200 was possible, though he repeated that the price jump would be weeks not months."

Growth in gross domestic product was down sharply from 4.4% in last year’s Q3 and 3.8% in Q2. The fourth-quarter number was half the govt’s first estimate of 1.4%

"A 'multitude' of intelligence reports provide 'consistent analysis that the regime is not in danger' of collapse and 'retains control of the Iranian public.'"

"The recent increase shows that, unlike other producers, their shipments are unimpeded and that China hasn’t lost its appetite for Tehran’s crude."

A flurry of bad news has drawn fresh scrutiny to the roughly $2 tln private credit market, as investors question the health of loan portfolios.

The rise in oil prices defied a U.S. effort hours earlier to reassure markets with an announcement of the second-largest ever release from the nation's petroleum reserve.