This week we went deep on debt—all $72 trillion of it—and made the case that the bond market is the real economy, that the Fed has already lost control of the entire curve, and that when the AI trade unwinds, the flood into Treasuries won’t save anyone the way the textbook says it should. Then we watched Japan demonstrate in real time what happens when you don’t have the exorbitant privilege of issuing the world’s reserve currency. A 40-year low for the yen, Japan spending $87 billion in two days trying to hold it together, and the U.S. quietly intervening not out of friendship, but because Japan’s dumping Treasuries would torch our bond market at the worst possible moment.

Chapters

Intro: 00:00:38

Quick Takes: 00:01:33

Max Notes: 00:07:34

Killer Left Take of the Week: 00:24:44

Chart of the Week: 00:27:02

Headlines: 00:30:56

Outro: 00:32:23

Resources

Fox News: Carville vows to FLEE Dem Party over Hasan Piker: ‘Out of here’

Forbes Breaking News: Trump Gives Update On Talks With Iran

Forbes Breaking News: Sparks Fly When RFK Jr. Is Pressed On Vaccines, Pandemic Prevention During CNN Interview

NBC News: Trump: Jeanine Pirro ‘made a mistake’ dropping Reflecting Pool vandalism case

The Thomas Crown Affair

CNBC: AI investor Leopold Aschenbrenner forced to unwind all public stock positions after steep losses, sources say

Federal Reserve Bank of New York: Household Debt and Credit Report (Q1 2026)

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System: Financial Accounts of the United States - Z.1

FiscalData: What is the national debt?

SIFMA: US Treasury Securities Statistics

Fortune: U.S. national debt officially hits $39 trillion—adding approximately $5 billion a day since October

Nippon: Japan Govt Worsens Debt-to-GDP Ratio Estimate for FY 2026

Financial Stability Board: Report on Vulnerabilities in Private Credit

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System: Implementation Note issued June 17, 2026

U.S. Department of the Treasury: Daily Treasury Rates

TFTC: Treasury Sells $139B in Polar-Opposite Auctions: 2Y Soars, 5Y Craters

MS Now: ‘Don’t be surprised when this gets kind of ugly’: El-Sayed on hotly contested MI Senate primary

Bloomberg Television: Trump Revives Hopes for Iran Deal, Oil Sinks | Insight with Haslinda Amin 8/03/2026

Bloomberg: Why Japan Is Propping Up the Yen With US Help

Bloomberg: BOJ Data Point to $34 Billion Japan FX Intervention Friday

MacroMicro: World - Major Economies’ Holdings of US Debt

The Japan Times: Yen carry trade is a ‘ticking time bomb,’ warns BCA research

Forever Wars: The Markets Matter For War—You Don’t

The American Prospect: The AI Bailout Could Be Baked Into the AI Bubble

Jacobin: Centrist Democrats Keep Making Awful Health Reform Proposals

UNFTR Resources

Video: On The Record 08-04-26 (The Yen Bailout, RFK Jr. Fail, and the $72 Trillion Debt.)

Essay: The $72 Trillion Debt Problem.

Video: Situational Awareness: How a 25-Year-Old’s Hedge Fund Exposed the Entire AI Bubble.

--

If you like #UNFTR, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify: unftr.com/rate and follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at unftr.com.

Become a member at unftr.com/memberships.

Buy yourself some Unf*cking Coffee at shop.unftr.com.

Visit our bookshop.org page at bookshop.org/shop/UNFTRpod to find the full UNFTR book list, and find book recommendations from our Unf*ckers at bookshop.org/lists/unf-cker-book-recommendations.

Access the UNFTR Musicless feed by following the instructions at unftr.com/accessibility