BREAKING: The Japanese Yen just hit 160 against the dollar again, the same level Japan spent $73 billion trying to defend earlier this year. It did not work and The yen is back at 160. A weak yen is a direct inflation crisis for Japan. The country imports nearly all of its energy. At $93 oil, every further drop in the yen makes that import bill more expensive. The BOJ meets June 15-16 and is expected to hike rates from 0.75% to 1.0%. A rate hike in Japan matters far beyond Japan. The entire world has been borrowing cheaply in yen for years to fund investments in US stocks, crypto, and AI. When Japanese rates rise, that trade unwinds. Investors sell their positions and convert back to yen. The day after, June 16-17, Kevin Warsh chairs his very first Fed meeting. He is inheriting 3.8% inflation, $93 oil, and a jobs market running twice as hot as expected. Markets are now fully pricing in a rate hike by year end. If both the BOJ and Fed signal tightening in the same week, the liquidity that has been holding this market up faces its most serious test of 2026.

On this day in 1943, FDR signed a law that permanently changed your relationship with your own paycheck. You just never noticed, which was entirely the point. Before the Current Tax Payment Act of 1943, Americans paid their income taxes in one lump sum. Every year, you calculated what you owed and wrote a single check to the government. You felt every dollar. You knew exactly how much the government was taking. The 1942 wartime revenue act suddenly expanded the income tax to cover millions of working-class Americans who had never paid it before. The government desperately needed revenue. But they had a problem: how do you get people to pay a new, much larger tax without causing a revolt? A Macy's executive named Beardsley Ruml came up with the answer. Withhold it before workers ever see it. Take it out of the paycheck automatically. Make the number on the check the only number that feels real. It worked. The psychology was perfect. People don't grieve money they never held. The government went from collecting taxes from 7 million Americans to 60 million, almost overnight, with barely any public resistance. They also quietly canceled 75% of what was owed from the prior year to smooth the transition. A one-time tax amnesty that almost no one remembers happened. Economists and historians have noted for decades that withholding is a primary reason Americans never developed the visceral anti-tax anger common in countries where people write the check themselves. You were supposed to notice. They made sure you wouldn't.

The 10Y Treasury yield rose 0.016 from 4.536 on June 5th, 2026 to 4.552 on June 8th, 2026, a rise by 16 basis points within less than a single weekend, demonstrating how the US Treasury is no longer a safe haven. Central banks are dumping treasuries, as inflation rises.