Heading out the door for the Labor Day weekend, with blue skies and 85° temperatures, I had to share a chart. It’s from the San Francisco Federal Reserve (via Torsten Slok of Apollo) and shows Wall Street expectations for Federal Reserve rate action.

It’s the perfect explainer for why forecasts tend to be so inaccurate.

As you can see, as recently as February 2026, market participants expected a series of ongoing rate hikes—a simple extrapolation from the prior trend.

Then the war began sending food and energy prices higher.

But the Middle Eastern adventure was promised to be short and indeed already over, so the next set of expectations were flat. A few months later, the “short military operation” turned into a war; inflation remained sticky, and expectations were for modestly higher rates.

Now we are six months into a war that shows no signs of ending, voters are angry, and a bad actor is in control of the Strait of Hormuz, with the likelihood of an ongoing tax on Middle Eastern oil. Once again, expectations were adjusted upwards, and now we see “higher for longer” as the consensus.

Unless, of course, something else unanticipated occurs…

Forecasts are for the most part simple extrapolations of the status quo or the current trend; they also fail to include random or unanticipated events – the kind that happens all the time in the economy, markets, and geopolitics.

When you stumble across a forecast that turned out to be more or less correct, it usually means nothing happened, and the extrapolation proved to be randomly correct.1 

But most of the time, $h*t happens: wars break out, Pandemics occur, terror attacks happen, new technology comes along and fails or succeeds, and governments fail to fund their annual budgets or wildly overspend their fiscal limits.

The parade of endless random events derails even the most thoughtful of predictions. A year is simply too short a time to guarantee that the dominant secular trend asserts itself, and too long a period to avoid random events.

Previously:
The Folly of Forecasting (June 7, 2005)

Nobody Knows Anything (Archive)

Source:
Productivity -Driven Growth Confronts Elevated Inflation
Huiyu Li
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, September 3, 2026

__________

1. Please note that I said randomly correct — that is not he same as being prescient.

The post Nobody Knows Anything, Rate Expectations Edition appeared first on The Big Picture.

​• Job Postings Show Early Signs of AI Automation Impact: The Dallas Fed finds the automation signal starting to show up in the listings data. (Dallas Fed)

• The Death of the Safe Haven: How to Fix Your Bond Strategy as Yields Rise: The rise in U.S. Treasury yields is creating opportunities—along with serious portfolio risks. (Barron’s)

• The Cost of Being Warren Buffett: He turned 96 years old a few days ago, on 30th August 2026. He bought his first stock at the age of 11, which means he has now spent about 85 years at this game, and at 96 he is still the man most of us in this business measure ourselves against. It felt like a good moment to sit down and think about him once more. ​Safal Niveshak on what the compounding machine gave up along the way.  (Safal Niveshak)

​• Data Center-Related Investments Available Across Most Asset Classes: Bailey McCann on the $580 billion invested in data centers in 2025 — set to be eclipsed by the $750 billion hyperscalers plan to spend this year — and the ways investors can participate. (Chief Investment Officer)

​• A $40 Billion ETF Shuffle Helps Foreign Investors Dodge US Taxes: Every three months like clockwork, investors pull $40 billion or more from a BlackRock ETF and park it in a near-identical twin — flipping funds to avoid dividends and the 30% tax that comes with them. (Bloomberg)

• Why the Flock Backlash Has Gotten So Intense: The sudden anger about these cameras seems to reflect more than just wariness about the surveillance system (The Atlantic)

• Who Approves Trump’s Washington Makeover Projects? The Supreme Court gave a green light to the new White House ballroom, but several of the president’s other Washington projects remain stalled .(New York Times)

​• This El Niño Will Be Unlike Any in the Past Eight Decades: Joshua Partlow on the box scientists have drawn in the middle of the Pacific — two-thirds the size of China — and the anomalies its buoys are recording. (The Atlantic) see also El Niño Is Now Stronger Than at Any Point in the Last 1,000 Years, Study Finds: Jacek Krywko on “one more warning sign of what we’re facing in a warmer world.” (Ars Technica)

• Why is it so hard to give away my dad’s brain? Scientists need fresh samples to research new treatments. But the donor process is an odyssey. ​Courtney E. Martin on the most emotionally taxing three-way call since junior high — navigating the urgency and bureaucracy of brain donation. (Vox)

​• By Dropping a Sledgehammer, Adam Silver Squares Off Against the NBA’s Richest Owner: He was a terribvle CEO; he is an even worse professional team owenr. Five takeaways from the league’s punishment of the Clippers over the Kawhi Leonard cap-circumvention scandal. (Yahoo Sports) see also Report of the Independent Investigators Concerning the LA Clippers and Kawhi Leonard: The full Wachtell Lipton summary report (PDF). (Wachtell Lipton).

Video of the day: What Happens When Everything Is for Sale?

Be sure to check out our Master’s in Business next week with William McNabb, former CEO and Chairman of the Vanguard Group from 2007-17. He is also an advisor to Venrock, and was an investor and advisor to Altruist, which was just sold to VG for $2 billion.

Hospital prices increased 3X overall inflation rates, closely followed by college costs and child care

Source: “How Much, Doc?”

Sign up for our reads-only mailing list here.

The post 10 Friday AM Reads appeared first on The Big Picture.

I have been fascinated by Victor Niederhoffer for decades.

I first learned about him in a New Yorker piece titled “The Blow-Up Artist;” I was intrigued by his unique strategies and by his tendencies to repeatedly boom and bust. That led me to have him on the podcast in 2017, after a recent crash, rebuilding, and crash (again) for the third time. He passed away this past summer, and I thought it was worth sharing some background.

Between when he was booked to appear on the show at Bloomberg and the actual recording date in 2017, the 3rd crash occurred. To his credit, he honored his commitment and showed up. This, despite his being clearly and deeply distraught. I’ve never told the podcast story while he was alive, but now that he has shuffled off this mortal coil, he won’t be offended.

I began with innocuous background questions – about his education, squash and teaching – and was surprised by his responses. From the very first question, it was obvious that he was not OK. Whatever I would ask would be greeted by a loud and heavy sigh, followed by a lengthy pause – and then a thoughtful response.

This pattern — question, sigh, pause, response — occurred after every single query. Some pauses were long; some were longer. The producer was in my ear the whole time, yelling, “This is awful, none of it is usable, let’s tap out.”

But I waved her off. I KNEW that this was going to be valuable… It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to hear a legendary trader discuss his career and own his own errors. I recall we recorded for over 90 minutes, maybe closer to two hours. In its raw form, the pauses would have made for terrible radio – too much dead air. But I also suspected it would be incredibly valuable.

The only way to make it usable was to edit out all of the pauses and blank spaces.1 What was left was 54 minutes of me trying to urge him on, and Victor telling stories from memory. It was not smooth or slick, but it was important.

RCM Alternatives2 wrote up a lovely history of Victor and the lessons we can learn from his career, presented below:

The Lessons of Victor Niederhoffer

Being right is a luxury good. Solvency is a necessity. Path dependency is the most underrated concept in finance — the sequence of returns matters as much as the returns.

Your risk tolerance is irrelevant; your clearing broker’s is the one that counts. You can have diamond hands all day. Refco doesn’t care about your hands. When the margin clerk calls, you’re not a Chicago PhD with a seventeen-year record — you’re a line item getting hit at whatever the screen says. Leverage doesn’t just amplify losses. It hands the exit decision to somebody else.

A long winning streak isn’t proof of safety. Sometimes it’s the measurement of hidden risk. Sharpe sees the volatility of returns. It doesn’t see the shape of the tail. Make a nickel ninety-five times and lose ten bucks once, and Sharpe will call you Warren Buffett right up until the ambulance arrives. Same movie as LTCM. Same movie as XIV in February 2018. Same movie most cycles.

Know which bet you’re actually making. Vic used the same instrument for both legs in 1997, on two continents, for the same underlying reason. If you’re a contrarian expressing it through short options, you own the view and the funding risk and the convexity — all at once, all pointing the same direction. Size for the trade you have, not the one you’d describe on a call.

Drifting into areas where you don’t have much expertise is about as red as flags get. Vic’s own words. A short-horizon statistical trader made an illiquid, levered, fundamental EM bet partly on the basis of cigarette-butt length. When the edge tightens and the capital’s still there, the pull toward finding risk somewhere new is enormous. That’s usually where the body’s buried.

Nobody sets a stop-gain. This is his best line, from a 2010 Slate interview, and almost nobody quotes it: “If they go to Vegas with $10,000, they say I’m not going to spend more than $5,000. But they never say, ‘Hey, when I win a certain amount, that’s when I’m going to quit.’ I’d had this incredible string of successes where I made 50, 100 percent, year after year… but I didn’t take account of this. I didn’t have a stop-gain, if you will.” Every risk framework in the industry is built around losses. His diagnosis was that the winning is what got him.

And the footnote nobody mentions. After 1997 he sued the CME in federal court in Illinois, on behalf of his customers, alleging floor traders colluded to mark options against him at far above market prices to force him out. The exchange settled. He distributed the entire settlement to his clients without deducting a dollar for the substantial legal fees he’d run up. That’s not a risk lesson. That’s a character lesson, and it’s worth more than most of the risk lessons.

All of these are hugely insightful rules for anyone trading professionally.

That first rule is a thing of literary beauty: “Being right is a luxury good. Solvency is a necessity. Path dependency is the most underrated concept in finance”

For me personally, there is an even bigger takeaway from his professional experiences, and it’s this: If you set the course record on the straightaway but crash into the wall at the turn at the end, your record for the course does not count. 

The advantage of a boom is accumulating and retaining a pool of capital to work from. Booms followed by busts are the functional equivalent of never having that pile of capital in the first place…

Previously:
MIB: Victor Niederhoffer on Making and Losing Fortunes (September 19, 2017)

Sources:
Right, But Not Solvent: The Lessons of Victor Niederhoffer
Attain Alternatives Blog , September 2, 2026

The Blow-Up Artist
By John Cassidy
The New Yorker, October 8, 2007

Blowing Up: How Nassim Taleb turned the inevitability of disaster into an investment strategy.
By Malcolm Gladwell
The New Yorker, April 15, 2002

__________

1. Bloomberg noted when it was published, “Edited for length and clarity,” but that doesn’t begin to explain what it was like fighting through those pauses during the actual recording process…

2. I found this article via a Google alert — the piece quotes me; I found it so compelling that it was worth excerpting.

The post Lessons from Victor Niederhoffer’s Life appeared first on The Big Picture.

• AI at 70: 14 lessons from a lifetime of boom and bust: Adrian Cox of Deutsche Bank Research on seven decades of artificial intelligence cycles. (Deutsche Bank Research)

• Global Debt Is Slumping But It’s Nothing Like the 2022 Rout: The difference is scale. While the latest pullback has driven yields to multi-year highs in the world’s biggest markets, the move is just a fraction of the one seen in late 2022. Global government bond yields have risen 17 basis points on a rolling 20-day cumulative basis, compared with 62 basis points back then, data compiled by Bloomberg show. On a peak-to-trough basis, bonds have lost 4.2% this year — a far cry from the 23% plunge seen in 2022.(Bloomberg) see also The Bond Market Issues World Leaders a Failing Grade Nothing in this week’s G-20 suggested an end to the deficits, inflation and geopolitical disruptions that are roiling investors. (Wall Street Journal)

• Welcome, Mr. Chairman Kevin Warsh’s speech at Jackson Hole was the introduction to the Fed Chair we deserved. In two weeks, the real work begins. ​Claudia Sahm grades Kevin Warsh’s Jackson Hole speech — the one he needed to give, from the AI open (100% human-written, she checked) to his seven principles of monetary policy. (Claudia Sahm)

• Companies Plow Tariff Refunds Into Price Cuts, Appealing to Stretched Consumers: E.l.f. Beauty, Walmart and Tractor Supply are among the companies dropping prices to boost sales. ​ (Wall Street Journal)

• Vanguard Struck with Altruist Take-Out After Schwab and Fidelity Zapped It with ETF ‘Platform’ Fees: RIABiz on the $4.6 billion acquisition analysts say could redraw the competitive landscape for RIA custody — a sleeping monster awakened, with a massive “Vanguard effect” to follow. Waking a sleeping monster that could redraw the competitive landscape for RIA custody. (RIABiz)

​• Why the Flock Backlash Has Gotten So Intense: David A. Graham on a corporate name that evokes both the cameras and a flock of sheep protected by a watchful shepherd — and why the shepherd metaphor stopped working. (The Atlantic)

​• The Logistics Nightmare Facing U.S. Warships: John Ismay on how Iranian attacks upended the Navy’s Middle East supply chain — a typical carrier’s 5,000 crew members need up to four meals a day, and the ships being kept in the region indefinitely. (New York Times) see also Navy Not Returning to Damaged Bahrain Base ‘Anytime Soon,’ Top Officer Says: CNO Adm. Daryl Caudle levels with displaced sailors. (Navy Times)

• ​There’s No Place Like Group Chats: My old friends and I have ended up scattered across different states, in different time zones, but we’ve made our own neighborhood inside the black and blue bubbles of our phones. Hanif Abdurraqib on old friends scattered across states and time zones who built their own neighborhood inside the black and blue bubbles of their phones. (New Yorker)

​• What We Know About Autism — and How to Treat It — Could Change After New UCSF Study: Jason Fagone on researchers fusing AI with new molecular techniques to map autism spectrum disorder in unprecedented detail. (San Francisco Chronicle)

• An Anvil Just Landed on David Zaslav’s Head: Acme-grade plans produce Acme-grade backfires. (Slate)

Video of the day: How A Student’s Question Saved This NYC Skyscraper

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with William McNabb, former CEO and Chairman of the Vanguard Group from 2007-17. He is also an advisor to venture firm Venrock, and was an investor and advisor to Altruist, which was just sold to VG for $2 billion.

Private-construction-Data-centers-vs.-everything-else

Source: Invictus chart using Census data via ChatGPT.

Sign up for our reads-only mailing list here.

The post 10 Thursday AM Reads appeared first on The Big Picture.

I am a sucker for infographics like these:

In 2025, Global GDP hit an all-time high of $118.4 trillion — about $14,406 per person worldwide.

To reach $150T by 2030 — 26.7% higher than where we are now — would require 4 years of gains averaging 4.86%. Any combination of nominal growth plus inflation gets us there. 3% annual GDP growth with a 2% inflation rate hits $150T in 2030.

China, which was half of the US GDP not too long ago, is now 68.9% of our economy’s size; Europe, at $37 trillion, is about the same size as the United States’ economy.

$150 trillion is not a reach, and at current growth and inflation rates, if sustained, the world would reach $300 trillion sometime in 2044…

Source:
World Economic Outlook via Visual Capitalist

The post $150 Trillion Global Economy (2030) appeared first on The Big Picture.

• ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’ self-help author Robert Kiyosaki is $1.2 billion in debt: report. The self-help guru who has made a fortune preaching the secrets of financial success — has amassed a staggering $1.2 billion in debt tied to his sprawling real-estate investments, according to a report. ​Ariel Zilber on the 79-year-old guru who preaches the secrets of financial success while touting his own ten-figure real-estate debt as strategy. (New York Post)

​• 10 Brutally Honest Predictions on the Future of AI: Ted Gioia on why you could get more reliable information from tarot cards — 95% of AI pilot programs failed, and 86% of the public now distrusts AI. (The Honest Broker)

•  The Sudden Unraveling of Wall Street’s Momentum Trade: The S&P 500 Momentum Index is down more than 9% since July 1 against the S&P 500’s 2.8% gain — the “self-fulfilling prophecy” of betting on rising winners has turned into a losing game  for investors who banked on its success. (Wall Street Journal)

• Happy birthday to the First Index Investment Trust Witness the FIITnes. Fifty years ago today, the Vanguard Group of Investment Companies launched its first passive index-tracking fund. It was an infamously terrible, horrible, no good, very bad launch. Today, it manages an astonishing $1.7tn — more than most sovereign wealth funds. ​Robin Wigglesworth on Vanguard’s first passive index fund, now an astonishing $1.7 trillion — more than most sovereign wealth funds. (Financial Times)

​• Data Centers Are Driving an Alarming Gas Power Expansion in the US: There’s no clearer sign of the data center boom than rampant gas projects that have been proposed or that are already under construction. Molly Taft on new Global Energy Monitor research showing gas-fired power in development for data centers has nearly doubled in less than a year. (Wired)

​• Florida May Be Showing Us the Great Senior Short-Sale Before It Arrives Everywhere: Mike Hathorne on a housing market that can be short of homes and still have too many of the wrong homes for the households coming next. (Mike Hathorne)

• A War That Won’t End Is Complicating the Fed’s Next Move: A Fed governor says the central bank should act if inflation doesn’t improve soon, while Bessent says Fed should look past high energy prices. ​(Wall Street Journal)

​• Hegseth’s Pentagon Lurches off the Rails: Tom Nichols on the price of nominating a TV host who topped out as a National Guard major to run the Defense Department. (The Atlantic) see also Dan Driscoll’s Parting Shot: The Army secretary told Trump about problems in the Army and his friction with Hegseth, then resigned. (The Atlantic)  see also The Generals Are Worried: A leak of a recent report suggests that even Hegseth loyalists can’t keep ignoring how depleted American reserves are. (Slate)

​• Forbidden Planet: Was Pluto’s 2006 Demotion a Big Mistake?: Since it was stripped of planetary status, Pluto’s defenders have been fighting the decision – and they’re only getting more passionate. Tim Dowling revisits the vote that cost the ninth planet its title. (The Guardian)

​• Keep Chasing That Bird: The Oral History of ‘Coyote vs. Acme’: The Looney Tunes movie finally hits theaters after its controversial shelving three years ago — the story of how it got out from under the anvil. (The Ringer)

Video of the day: OnlyFans: How an $8B Cash Machine Got Stripped Bare

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business with David Booth, Founder, Chairman, and former CEO of Dimensional Funds Advisors. DFA just crossed $1 trillion dollars, and has become the largest active equity ETF manager. Booth’s new book is “Stay Calm: Learn to Embrace Uncertainty in Investing and Life.”

America is still missing the Electric Revolution

Source: Noahpinion

Sign up for our reads-only mailing list here.

The post 10 Wednesday AM Reads appeared first on The Big Picture.

• Higher Yields Are a Boon for Muni Bond Buyers: The rise in bond yields has been a good news/bad news story. For the U.S. Treasury, the increase has been disquieting and has elicited an extraordinary scheme to double its buying of long-term maturities to boost their prices and suppress their yields. Hilltop’s Tom Kozlik on municipal yields hitting some of their most compelling levels in years — and unlike Treasuries, munis still reward investors for extending maturities. (Barron’s)

• How Much Is the Iran War Costing Americans?: John Cassidy on why a proper calculation must take in much more than just the military costs. (New Yorker) see also How the War in Iran Is Redrawing the Global Energy Map: Coco Liu on what six months of disrupted Middle Eastern production and a contested Strait of Hormuz have done — chiefly, pushing governments and consumers toward renewables. (Bloomberg)

​• ‘A Roth IRA on Steroids’: Wealthy Americans Find Another Tax-Free Way to Invest: On the tax-free vehicle one adviser calls “a Roth IRA on steroids for people who can afford it and want to leave it to their heirs.” Private-placement life insurance contracts allow unlimited investments to grow tax-free. (Wall Street Journal)

​• America’s Next Grocery Shock Is Brewing: Erica Pandey on the forces piling up beyond beef, coffee, and chocolate — expensive grain, soaring fertilizer, and more.  (Axios)

• Scott Bessent Takes On Bond Vigilantes in $32tn Treasury Market: George Steer on the Treasury’s plan, which stunned Wall Street, to “at least double” its purchases of long-term government bonds — dismissed by investors as a “band-aid on a bullet hole” amid a $40tn debt burden and smouldering inflation. (Financial Times) see also What Is Scott Bessent Doing With the $32tn Treasury Market — and Will It Work?: Claire Jones on the former financier’s sternest test yet. (Financial Times)

​• The Online Shopping Trend Where You Buy Nothing: Itika Sharma Punit on South Korea’s “dopamine sites,” where the pleasure comes from browsing, curating, and tracking — not from a delivery. (Rest of World)

• How Paris swapped cars for bikes – and transformed its streets: Under Anne Hidalgo – mayor for 12 years until last week – the French capital added bike lanes, cut traffic and reclaimed public space, but not without resistance (The Guardian)

​• These Generals Fought for Israel. Now They See ‘Jewish Terrorism’ as the Threat.: Ronen Bergman on the growing number of former Israeli generals, intelligence officials, and prime ministers accusing West Bank settlers of ethnic cleansing with government support. “Once a society behaves this way, that society is doomed.” (New York Times)

​• Your Brain May Not Actually “Make” Decisions: Indiana University’s Tom James on why the perceive-then-decide sequence we all imagine may be very different from what actually happens inside the brain. (ScienceDaily)

​• How Arena Club and Fanatics Are Turning Baseball Cards Into Online Casinos: Derek Jeter, fresh off his Hall of Fame induction, became the face of a startup that digitizes pack-ripping — turning an age-old hobby into something that resembles online gambling. (Barron’s)

Video of the day: I Tracked Down the Company Ruining Fruit

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business with David Booth, Founder, Chairman, and former CEO of Dimensional Funds Advisors. DFA just crossed $1 trillion dollars, and has become the largest active equity ETF manager. Booth’s new book is “Stay Calm: Learn to Embrace Uncertainty in Investing and Life.”

Earth’s oceans just broke a heat record. The implications will be massive

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Sign up for our reads-only mailing list here.

The post 10 Tuesday AM Reads appeared first on The Big Picture.

• Is the AI Capex Bubble About to Burst? What 250 Years of Market History Tell Us. The spending on artificial intelligence will end, but probably not when investors suspect it will.  (Barron’s)

• Rampell: Wall Street Loved Scott Bessent and Kevin Warsh. Not Anymore.: Catherine Rampell on how the bond market soured on the Treasury secretary and the Fed chair it once cheered. (New York Times).see also Rising bond yields add tens of billions to G7 countries’ debt costs World’s biggest developed economies face higher financing costs since start of US-Iran war, weighing on. (Financial Times)

• Ordinary Abundance: Edward Bellamy once imagined that music on demand would be “the limit of human felicity.” A modern apartment is full of things that once drew the same kind of awe. A meditation on the wealth hiding in plain sight — the ordinary comforts, capabilities, and freedoms that would have astonished every previous generation. (Ordinary Abundance)

• Six Conversations About Money You Should Have Before Getting Married: Heather and Douglas Boneparth with the words of wisdom they wish someone had shared with them many moons ago. Planning the life you’ll have together takes a lot more than looking at your bank accounts. Here’s how to get started (The Joint Account)

• How Big Tech Blinded Itself to the Grassroots AI Revolt: Caught in its own echo chamber, the industry’s playbook is failing — and the messier things get, the more out of touch tech leaders appear, even with Anthropic and OpenAI IPOs looming. (Wall Street Journal)

• Why Your Weather App Sucks: Forecasts are more accurate than ever. Why doesn’t it feel that way? Nitish Pahwa on why “30 percent chance of scattered thunderstorms” becomes a partly-cloudy icon — correct for 70 percent of your area, soaking wrong for the rest.  (Slate)

• Why America Is Switching From Booze to Weed. Derek Thompson on two extraordinary simultaneous trends — the share of Americans who drink is at a record low since Gallup began tracking in the 1930s, and 66% of under-35s now say moderate drinking is bad for your health, up from under 30% in 2004. (Plain English)

• Earth’s Oceans Just Broke a Heat Record. The Implications Will Be Massive: Anthony Edwards on Friday’s warmest globally averaged sea surface temperatures in recorded history, amid a surging El Niño and long-term warming. (San Francisco Chronicle) see also 2026: A Climate ‘You Are Here’: Thomas Neuburger closes his series on this year’s record Super El Niño with a look at what’s coming over the next ten years (God’s Spies by Thomas Neuburger)

• Trump tried to scrap NASA’s Roman Space Telescope last year. Now it’s launched: “People were giving up their weekends, and at the same time, there was this compartmentalized knowledge that it could all get cut.” Josh Dinner on the flagship observatory’s final hours before liftoff, freshly encapsulated in its payload fairing. (Space.com)

• Wilde at heart Is Olivia Wilde doing male narcissist autofiction? Olivia Wilde is a woman making choices in her professional and personal life; isn’t that feminism? (Dirt)

Video of the day: Japan’s Honda Is Taking Over the World’s Skies — And Nobody Knows

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business with David Booth, Founder, Chairman, and former CEO of Dimensional Funds Advisors. DFA just crossed $1 trillion dollars, and has become the largest active equity ETF manager. Booth’s new book is “Stay Calm: Learn to Embrace Uncertainty in Investing and Life.”

ICE Arrests Soar as People With No Criminal Record Are Increasingly Targeted

Source: New York Times

Sign up for our reads-only mailing list here.

The post 10 Monday AM Reads appeared first on The Big Picture.

1. What you’ve got to know is she WROTE those songs!

So it’s October 1973. I’m driving with the top down on my 1963 Chevy Impala trying to get something on the radio.

This was before cassette decks. Sure, you could buy an aftermarket 8-track, but they sat under the dash and were notorious for getting stolen. Furthermore, the 8-track format itself was wonky. With the movement of the heads from track to track…tapes wore out quickly and thus were a bad investment. Which is all to say when you were in the hinterlands, long before the days of Bluetooth, never mind satellite radio, you’d drive down the highway with your right hand on the radio dial, trying to pull in a listenable station.

Now this was in the hinterlands of Vermont. Needless to say, this ’63 convertible didn’t have FM, not that there was a station broadcasting in the backwoods. But AM signals travel further and…

What you notoriously got was rural news, the farm report, and country music. In an era where no proud rocker followed what was going on in Nashville.

Sure, Ringo made a record in Tennessee. But most of us in the north had never even been south of the Mason-Dixon Line, unless it was the hop, skip and a jump to Florida. We wrote off the south, that’s where you went with your long hair and got attacked by rednecks.

Now don’t confuse today’s country music with yesteryear’s. Today’s country is the rock of the seventies. Back then, it was people with high hair singing twangy songs…

Sure, there was a TV show, “Hee Haw.” But this was long before the average fan of the Fab Four gave props to Roy Clark for his picking ability. As for Buck Owens…we couldn’t find Bakersfield on a map, never mind name a single song of his.

Sure, we knew Roger Miller from the AM radio of the sixties. “Trailers for sale or rent…” This was what we endured to get to the Beatles.

But I’m in a pensive mood, wondering how I’m going to endure another year of college, it’s a brisk day and I stumble on to a station and what comes out is “Jolene.” It was not only the first time I heard the song, it was the first time I’d ever heard Dolly Parton. She hadn’t crossed over, she wasn’t featured on Top 40 radio in the metropolis. But rather than continuing to mosey down the dial, looking for some rock, I listened.

“Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene”

This was rootsy. Not that different from those Bonnie Raitt albums I was enamored of. This was not drippy drama, songs to sleep to. I could relate. And I never forgot it.

2. Now we knew who Dolly Parton was. I mean how could you not? With that hair and those boobs?

But the real breakthrough into the mainstream was “9 to 5.” Back when Jane Fonda could open a movie and a flick like this could garner an audience. “9 to 5” was a staple. Everybody saw it. And what they saw in Dolly Parton was someone who didn’t deny her roots, but was in on the joke. That was the thing about Dolly Parton, she had a sense of humor, she could make fun of herself. Not to mention writing the title song, which went all the way to number one and earned her an Oscar nomination.

Dolly Parton was now part of the firmament.

From the holler, but never lumped into the same bucket as Loretta Lynn and George Jones, no matter how talented they might have been. Dolly Parton was now mainstream, when those other acts were not. They were still inhabitants of the country ghetto, Parton had transcended that.

And she maintained this status for the next half century. To this day! Most people have ups and downs, their careers wax and wane. People change their opinions on them. But not Dolly Parton. Somehow by being aw shucks and exhibiting all that talent, she was embraced.

And, once again, she was in on the joke. She’d go on late night TV and play the role. You’d think she was ditzy, almost a bimbo, and then she’d let out a zinger showing that she was as sharp as you and me and to underestimate her was a mistake.

3. But Parton’s crossover appeal, the cementing of her credibility amongst those who were not country fans, was the 1987 “Trio” album, which she made with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris.

I bought that album, played it too. It was a natural extension of the country rock that began with “Sweetheart of the Rodeo,” which always had a place in the firmament, it never died.

Now the funny thing is the true star, the person who could make it happen, was Linda Ronstadt, who was a superstar in the seventies and then broadened her purview to the stage with “Pirates of Penzance” and then cut three albums of standards with Nelson Riddle. If Ronstadt’s name was on it, it sold.

And in truth, Linda had much more broad-based musical success than Dolly, more hit albums, but now, nearly forty years later…

Linda’s star in the public firmament has faded, yet Dolly’s shines as bright as ever.

Because Dolly wrote.

That’s what makes it so you’re remembered. The songs.

And Dolly’s songs were personal. And her story from there to here was one of lifting herself up by her own bootstraps. Gloria Steinem may have gotten all the ink, but Dolly was just as much of a role model for women’s liberation, if not more.

Dolly wrote for herself. And the personal is universal, when you do it right.

And she was so damn likable. Without being syrupy sweet, without shaving off all of her rough edges. She played the game with a wink. And those who play and can beat the odds doing it their way…we cotton to them.

4. And then there was the whole kerfuffle with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Unlike the desperate with a chip on their shoulder, looking for the accolade as a victory lap they can put on their résumé, Dolly thought she didn’t deserve induction, because she wasn’t really a rock artist.

But if you’re going to induct Whitney Houston…

And, of course, Dolly wrote Whitney’s signature song, “I Will Always Love You.” An outstanding performance, but it’s the song that will live on, not Whitney Houston. Look at history, rarely are interpreters remembered, but writing, when done right, is forever.

So Dolly Parton, of all people, is calling the Hall on its B.S. Ironically, she’s standing up for the leather jacketed crowd pissed that pop, never mind hip-hop, is now part of the Hall. She was more interested in the integrity of the institution than the award.

But when Dolly finally acceded, she took the stage, played the guitar and ROCKED! I was there. You couldn’t watch it without a smile on your face. If this was the Rock Hall, she was going to deliver, and she did!

5. Now if you want to know every facet of Dolly’s career, there are plenty of obituaries to fill that need. You can go on Spotify and listen to her catalog. I’m no expert.

I’m just like so many of you. Country music of the sixties and seventies was not my bag (Although I did love Charlie Rich’s “The Most Beautiful Girl”… Then again, do youngsters even know that classic? I don’t see any of them covering it. But young acts continue to cover “Jolene” and other Dolly Parton songs.), but Dolly Parton was an exception. We all knew her, she was embedded in our hearts and minds. As much as she appeared, she was never overexposed, we were always glad to see her. She was like someone from down the street, dropping by for a cup of coffee, gossiping with relish. She was more than a performer, she was a person!

I know you know what I’m talking about.

Which is why there’s a national, international outcry over her passing.

Old rockers? They’re dropping like flies. Then again, when they’re not on the road…out of sight, out of mind. But Dolly Parton never left the news. And she’s left a hole that cannot be filled, because she was sui generis, there was only one Dolly Parton.

And there will never be one again.

Just like the Beatles were a product of post-war Liverpool…

Dolly Parton was a product of a rural America that has expired with modernity. Sure, there’s still poverty, but there’s also flat screen TVs and smartphones and the internet…

Actually, all you can really do is marvel. At what Dolly achieved, and she never rested on her laurels, she continued to march forward.

Wow.

~~~

Visit the archive:   http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/

@Lefsetz  http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz
–
If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter

~~~

Originally published by Bob Lefsetz at the Leftsetz Letter

The post Dolly Parton appeared first on The Big Picture.

• ‘A Deal Written in Pencil’: Tariffs Are Erasing America’s Credibility: David Hebert on the lesson Mark Carney says Canada drew from 18 months of dealing with Washington, after the US slapped a 50% tariff on $20 billion of Canadian goods. (The Daily Economy)) see also Wiped Out: US Faces Surging Toilet Paper Prices amid Trade War with Canada: Lauren Aratani on Carney’s vow to match US tariffs “dollar for dollar.” (The Guardian)

• The Government Report That Made Me Stop Trusting Our Statistical Agencies: Jared Bernstein has spent years waving people off this degree of mistrust. He writes that he no longer can. (Jared Bernstein)

• Bitcoin Treasury Companies Shed $80bn in Value as Business Model Unwinds: Nikou Asgari on an FT analysis of the 50 largest corporate bitcoin holders — combined market cap down from $150bn in July 2025 to $67bn today.(Financial Times) see also Bitcoin Is Great (For Systemic Theft of Aid Money): Robin Wigglesworth on a new NBER paper that uses on-chain data to trace exactly where the money went. Jamie Dimon’s acerbic list of bitcoin’s use cases holds up better than its defenders would like. (Financial Times)

• Logging In Was Never Supposed to Be This Complicated: Will Oremus on password managers, passkeys, and the tyranny of the two-factor-authentication code. (The Atlantic)

• The Teaser Period: Why the AI Boom Is Built to Break: Groundbreaker rewinds to summer 2006, when prices had risen for a decade, delinquencies were near record lows, spreads were tight, and the securitization machine hummed. Ask a trading desk then whether the mortgage market was months from seizing and most would have laughed. Trillions in compute commitments come due in 2027–2028. The hidden mechanics reveal how the AI boom breaks, and when. (Groundbreaker) see also Wiggleswroth: This Is How the A.I. Debt Binge Sinks the Economy: In other words, if 2025’s A.I. frenzy was merely bonkers, we are now entering the territory of bonkers squared — or perhaps even bonkers cubed. Robin Wigglesworth on the hyperscalers’ borrowing spree — if 2025’s AI frenzy was merely bonkers, we are now entering the territory of bonkers squared, or perhaps bonkers cubed. (New York Times)

• A State Gave Sheriffs 20% of Its Opioid Settlement Cash. We Followed the Money: Aneri Pattani on Louisiana sheriffs spending millions in settlement funds on law enforcement gear rather than treatmentt (Stat)

• They Dedicated Their Lives to Teaching. Then the Deepfakes Started: Caroline Haskins on teachers like Luis DeSantiago, whose likeness turned up in AI-generated photos circulating among students on social media. The deepfake epidemic in schools is affecting more than students. Four teachers tell WIRED about becoming targets of sexualized, AI-generated content—and how difficult it was to find accountability. (Wired)

• America Has 3 Billion Words of Legal Code Riddled With ‘Policy Sludge’: Outdated rules are gumming up governments across the country. Daniel E. Ho of Stanford: the Fed still sends Congress an annual report on the Presidential $1 Coin Program, years after the coins stopped being minted for circulation. Federal law demands it. (Washington Post)

• Josh Shapiro is battling RFK Jr. over measles, and the politics are getting messy: Rachel Roubein on the heated call between the Pennsylvania governor and the health secretary, minutes before Shapiro announced two measles-related deaths. A feud between the Pennsylvania governor and health secretary sparked by this week’s reports of measles-related deaths laid bare the increasingly polarized politics of public health. (Washington Post) see also RFK Jr Lied in Senate Confirmation Hearings, Newly Revealed Documents Indicate: Michelle R. Smith on letters obtained by the Guardian and AP contradicting the health secretary’s sworn testimony that his 2019 Samoa visit had “nothing to do with vaccines.”Letters obtained by Guardian and AP contradict testimony that 2019 visit to Samoa had ‘nothing to do with vaccines’ (The Guardian)

• Dolphins and other lovers: The Andoque of the Amazon know what we have forgotten: the forest’s most beautiful creatures are also its most dangerous (Aeon)

Video of the day: Your Reality Is a Simulation

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business with David Booth, Founder, Chairman, and former CEO of Dimensional Funds Advisors. DFA just crossed $1 trillion dollars, and has become the largest active equity ETF manager. Booth’s new book is “Stay Calm: Learn to Embrace Uncertainty in Investing and Life.”

One of two measles-related deaths of unvaccinated people in Pennsylvania was an infant

Source: CNN

Sign up for our reads-only mailing list here.

~~~

To learn how these reads are assembled each day, please see this.

The post 10 Sunday Reads appeared first on The Big Picture.