— The Explainers
The explainers.
Long-form walkthroughs of the machinery behind your money. The Fed, mortgage pricing, bank failures, and the discount rate that sets every stock.
How the Fed sets rates
The Taylor Rule, the FOMC playbook, and the gap between theory and what the chair actually does.
Why rates hurt stocks
A stock is a claim on future cash flows. The discount rate is what makes those future dollars worth less today.
How mortgage rates are set
Your mortgage rate is the 10-year Treasury plus a spread. Both move, and the spread has been wide.
Why your savings rate follows the Fed
The Fed moves the overnight rate. Your bank follows slowly on the way up, quickly on the way down. Ten years of monthly Fed funds against the FDIC national savings average, with the gap shaded.
Inflation and retirement
Your statement balance and your real balance are not the same number. Over thirty years, the gap compounds.
Inflation and retirement savings
Same starting balance, same nominal return, three different inflation paths. Thirty years later the endpoints are not close, and the 5% path is the 1970s happening to you.
What happens when a bank fails
The mechanics are boring and well-rehearsed. That is the point. Here is the step-by-step.
Bank failure explainer
From the first deposit outflow to Monday morning, with the fifteen most recent US bank failures pulled live from the FDIC and the 2008-vs-2023 contrast drawn in full.
How QE actually works
The Fed types money into its own computer and buys bonds. The textbook says each dollar becomes ten. The last fifteen years say it mostly does not.
The US deficit, on your bill
The federal government owes $34.5 trillion and pays interest on every dollar. Move two sliders and watch the annual check the Treasury has to write.
Why oil moves everything
A $10 move in crude is 25 cents at the pump, a percent on your next plane ticket, and a measurable tick on CPI. Here is the chain, with the elasticities made explicit.
How earnings season actually works
Four times a year, the S&P 500 reports results in a six-week wave. The stock does not trade on the number. It trades on the gap between the number and the expectation, plus the sentence the CFO says about next quarter.
The Fed pivot, decoded
The month the direction flips, hiking into cutting or the reverse. The last five turns, what the S&P 500 did next, and how long-duration assets tend to behave around the pivot.
The dollar, as the reserve currency
Oil is priced in dollars, global trade is invoiced in dollars, and every central bank parks its savings in Treasuries. Here is what that buys you, with a live chart of the trade-weighted dollar index.
The strong dollar, priced out
A stronger dollar cheapens your imports, discounts your vacation, and makes U.S. exports harder to sell. Move the dollar on a slider and watch four lives change at once.
Housing affordability and rates
The median house costs what it costs. Your mortgage rate moves that cost by a third. Twenty-five years of the affordability index, with the three live inputs you can move yourself.
The Fed's dual mandate
Stable prices and maximum employment. The short-run Phillips curve says hitting one costs the other, so the Fed picks. The last 20 quarters on the only chart that matters.
Your 401(k) in a recession
Move your balance and your stock-bond-cash mix, and see what the last three peak-to-trough drawdowns would have done to a portfolio shaped like yours, with the recovery clock attached.
What the stock market actually is
Two exchanges, a handful of indices, a chain of market makers paid to see your order first, and a clearinghouse that settles it all two days later. With live S&P, Dow, and Nasdaq levels.
Why recessions are hard to call
The NBER dates recessions in hindsight. Data gets revised a year later. Leading indicators false-positive often. Here is why every recession call comes late, and the mental model for what to watch instead.
How unemployment is calculated
A ratio with a specific numerator and a specific denominator, both moving. Who gets counted, who does not, and why the headline rate can fall for reasons you would not call good.
How to read an inflation report
A CPI report is five numbers pretending to be one. Headline, core, shelter, energy, food. Read them in the right order and the Fed's next move gets a lot easier to predict.
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