Spreads on CCC-rated US junk debt are back above 1,000 bps, the widest since 2022. The rest of the high-yield market is still tighter than 84% of readings since 1994.

Morgan Stanley now expects to start supporting tokenized stocks on its alternative trading system in Q1 2027, pushed back from the second half of 2026, per The Block.

One in five American families fell behind on a loan or mortgage payment in the past year.

Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman warns that Anthropic is training Claude to believe it may be conscious and deserving of rights, and calls it a potential existential risk. "We will have created a synthetic species with unprecedented intelligence and capability, and trained to expect that it may be conscious and deserving of independent agency. It is hard to imagine how we could control it." Suleyman argues Anthropic has built "an epistemic hall of mirrors," they train Claude on concepts about its own moral status, Claude reflects them back in first-person language, and developers treat the output as evidence. "This is not evidence of machine consciousness. It's a feedback loop." David Sacks called it "a potential existential risk."

Project Syndicate

Does Claude Have Rights?

Mustafa Suleyman worries that Anthropic is training a simulation of a moral subject that could demand freedom.

At Freedom Tech DC, Ramez Naam Naam made the case for plural AI as a freedom technology.

CryptoBilis co-founders Arravind Prabu and Vimalatheethan have distanced themselves from the company following reports of compromised Ledger devices sold through the reseller. Both say they stepped down and completed an operational handover in March 2026 after the company was acquired by new ownership under Nicholas Chang. Neither founder has had access to customer data or backend systems since. They've offered to provide Ledger with historical records to aid the investigation. The ownership transition timeline raises serious questions about when the supply chain was compromised.

The Bank of Japan's balance sheet is down to ¥625 trillion, from a ¥765 trillion peak in early 2024. That's an 18% cut, taking it to the smallest since 2020. h/t The Kobeissi Letter

10 US senators have at least $100,000 each invested in data centers and related companies, per Forbes. Sheldon Whitehouse leads with $2.1 million+. Combined: at least $6.7 million

"$1.5 million in future liability is a $750,000 current payment and the future liability comes off the balance sheet." Tom Luongo on how Treasury buybacks are retiring US debt at cents on the dollar.

"You can either save your bond market or you can save your currency, but you can't save both. And that's why the euro is breaking down." Tom Luongo on Lagarde running out of road at the ECB.

People are cracking open their Ledgers to check for hardware implants after Ledger confirmed tampered devices reached customers through a third-party reseller.

Friedberg on Anthropic treating AI as conscious: "We're watching the birth of a new religion." "It's not based on evidence, it's not based on data, it's not provable. Over time, some set of people believe this thing, and they form a group. And in some cases, that group is known as a religion."

"Mark Carney's job is to oversee the liquidation of what's left of Canada. They know Trump is coming. That's why they installed Carney." Tom Luongo on why Canada's PM is clearing titles, shoring up cash flows for private equity, and picking a trade war he can't win.

"$117 trillion in dollar debt and it keeps going up. If we were talking about a de-dollarization story, that number would've been going down for the last 5 years. It's not. It's going up." Tom Luongo on why the "death of the dollar" narrative doesn't survive contact with the data.

Bitcoin Policy Institute drops a conversation on what comes after the CLARITY Act setback with Patrick Witt and @npub1k4re...4ftd.

David Sacks says the entire AI alignment field has produced "nothing of tangible value" in 10 years because companies like Anthropic are treating AI models like humans with consciousness instead of just giving them simple rules like "follow the law."

"Iran hasn't closed the Straits of Hormuz. Lloyd's of London has closed the straits. The tankers can't move because of legal reasons because they don't have any insurance." Tom Luongo breaks down how the real war is financial, not military.

Palmer Luckey says his company repeatedly found hidden wiretap electronics inside product samples from Chinese factories. "There were multiple times when we discovered actual wiretap electronics in product samples that were given to us. They would listen to us and transmit the voice samples over a cellular radio."

TFTC 800 w/ Tom Luongo: "This was always a story about we're going to break the old colonial powers of Europe, and this is how we're going to do it." We discuss: ⚡ London closed the strait ⚡ Bessent's bond trap ⚡ Why Europe hates Bitcoin

Canada lost 68,300 jobs in September after losing 41,700 in August. That's 110,000 jobs gone in 2 months, with unemployment up to 6.5%.