Dollars Are for Using. Gold Is for Holding.

The private issuer, the sovereign, and the reserve manager reached the same conclusion about the dollar system from three different directions. The GENIUS Act wrote half of it into law and made the other half illegal.

2026-09-12 · David H. Friedel Jr. · 11 min read

The Next Run on the Bank Won't Look Like a Bank Run

Stablecoins may solve America's Treasury-demand problem. In doing so, they could build the architecture for the next liquidity crisis.

2026-09-10 · David H. Friedel Jr. · 13 min read

The Boom Is the Fuse

A productivity boom and a classic credit crisis are not competing forecasts. They can be two sides of one event — and the boom can be part of the mechanism that produces the collapse.

2026-09-09 · David H. Friedel Jr. · 9 min read

Who Keeps the Dividend

Productivity is rising and the labor share just hit its lowest reading since 1947. The dividend is real. It is not being shared.

2026-09-02 · David H. Friedel Jr. · 7 min read

The Gap Isn't in the Weights

Everyone is clamoring that AI will soon cost more than the engineers it replaces. Most don't understand what is unfolding

2026-07-15 · David H. Friedel Jr. · 7 min read

The AI Boom Is Being Financed With Money You Can't See

The world's central bank just put a name to it... "shadow borrowing." The same move is running through three markets at once. And the person standing at the end of the chain is you.

2026-06-13 · David H. Friedel Jr. · 12 min read

A Trillion-Dollar Markup

The largest IPO in history prices a trillion dollars of unproven optionality as if it were already earned.

2026-06-06 · David H. Friedel Jr. · 16 min read

The Strike Price Illusion

The number on your option grant was calculated by an independent appraiser, blessed by the IRS, and may have almost nothing to do with what your equity is actually worth.

2026-03-31 · David H. Friedel Jr. · 13 min read

The Option Pool Shuffle

Every funding round quietly takes something from you before the money arrives. The people paying for it are never the ones who negotiated the terms.

2026-03-30 · David H. Friedel Jr. · 11 min read