I debate @JasonFurman—Pres. Obama’s Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors—at Harvard over the effect of tax increases on the expected value of innovative risk-taking and the magnitude of changes needed to equilibrate America’s fiscal policy. edwardconard.com/macro-round…

China’s youth unemployment (ages 16–24) dropped to 18% in September from 18.9% in August. 12.7 million new university graduates entered the workforce this summer, ~4% more than last year. edwardconard.com/macro-round…

At 40.7, CAPE is nearing its December 1999 peak of 44.2. For the S&P 500 to beat TIPS over the next decade, today’s near-record P/E multiple must persist for ten years, or real earnings must grow more than 5.8% a year—a pace exceeded in only two decades since 1880: the 1920s and 2010s. edwardconard.com/macro-round…

Citing flat revenue per worker, and profit margin growth for the S&P 493, Slok argues that so far, AI’s diffusion through the economy has delivered “zero financial payoff to corporate America outside of tech.” edwardconard.com/macro-round…

Azhar argues that the offensive cyber capabilities of AI will eventually result in a less open but ultimately safer internet. “If software making starts to favour reliability and security, we might end up with a more robust codebase than we had imagined.” edwardconard.com/macro-round…

Kedrosky warns "The Hackening" is underway as the diffusion of AI enables sophisticated cyberattacks at scale. 5.2% of all critical software vulnerabilities ever reported were disclosed in October, and ~ half the critical software vulnerabilities ever found were found in 2026. edwardconard.com/macro-round…

From 1970 to 2010, growth in US medical spending outpaced GDP growth by ~2.4pp annually. From 2010 to 2024, that growth differential fell to just 0.3pp. If it persists, medical spending reaches only 19% of GDP by 2040; if excess spending growth reverts to 2.4pp, it reaches 26%. edwardconard.com/macro-round…

Dan Wang argues that the Arizona TSMC expansion is “a winning formula for American reindustrialization." "The most important asset TSMC offers is not money, equipment or local employment but what’s known as process knowledge.” edwardconard.com/macro-round…

Klein observes that recent benchmark revisions to retail sales and inventories suggest that inventories from 2023 to the present have been larger than previously thought– suggesting less risk of shortages, but also less willingness to draw down inventories to cushion supply and demand shocks, allowing larger swings in prices. edwardconard.com/macro-round…

Armstrong argues that the Treasury rally, with the 10-year yield falling to 4.96% and an accompanying rout in technology stocks, has “the feeling of a turning point.” Since October 5, data-center-related sectors have sold off, while defensive sectors—health care and consumer staples—have outperformed. edwardconard.com/macro-round…

Moneyed individuals representing at least ~30% of California’s billionaire wealth have left the state ahead of the proposed Billionaire Wealth Tax. edwardconard.com/macro-round…

Brooks argues a global debt crisis is underway, pointing to contagion from France driving rising yields in Italy and Spain, and a flight to safety driving down yields in the US, while low-debt safe havens like Germany, Sweden and Switzerland extend their outperformance. edwardconard.com/macro-round…

China's export basket increasingly overlaps with that of advanced economies. By CFR's measure, the export similarity index has risen ~6pp since 2007, driven by growing overlap in chemicals since 2016 and in machinery and transport equipment, notably EVs, since 2023. edwardconard.com/macro-round…

China’s RMB is becoming considerably more important in international trade and finance. ~30% of Chinese goods trade is now settled in RMB, and an estimated 80% of Chinese trade finance credit is RMB-denominated. Yet the RMB share of global FX reserves remains stuck at 2 to 3%. edwardconard.com/macro-round…

Meta's free cash flow turned negative in Q3 and the price of five-year CDS on its debt hit a record high after the company raised its AI-related spending commitments. edwardconard.com/macro-round…

According to Ramp data, 80% of firms in the top 1% of AI spending are VC-backed, compared with just 13% of firms at the median. This suggests that the largest purchasers of AI computing capacity rely heavily on venture capital rather than internally generated earnings. edwardconard.com/macro-round…

Norway’s 2021–24 tax reforms nearly doubled the effective wealth tax on business equity, from 0.47% to 0.88%. Though 100 of the wealthiest individuals emigrated, wealth-tax revenues rose 70% from 2021 to 2024, with no significant decline in investment among Norwegian-owned firms. edwardconard.com/macro-round…

Among US families headed by 45 to 64 year olds, 49% of the top 1% by income have 3 or more children, compared to ~40% of the rest of the top 10%. Since the 1990s, three-child families have become rarer everywhere except at the top. edwardconard.com/macro-round…

Job-switching has rebounded among workers 25 and older, but remains near historic lows for ages 16–24. The incentive to switch jobs is strengthening as the wage-growth premium for job switchers rises again. edwardconard.com/macro-round…

French 10-year yields hit 5%, their highest level since 2002, having more than doubled since February. The spread between French and German 10-year borrowing costs rose to 160bp, the highest level since the Eurozone debt crisis. edwardconard.com/macro-round…

China is expanding export controls to cover more drones and machinery, such as components of dredgers and tunnel boring machines, which have "an obvious military-civil dual-use nature." edwardconard.com/macro-round…