The White House and Treasury aren't on the same page about bonds, Nvidia just told hyperscalers their AI buildout just got 15% more expensive, and diesel is driving family farms toward a sixth straight year of losses. Three different stories, one common thread: the cost of keeping things running is breaking the old playbooks.
Asked whether he'd direct Treasury Secretary Bessent to intervene again after long-dated yields climbed right back from their 19-year high, Trump's answer turned heads: "The ultimate intervention is our military. And if we have to use that, we will." Bellicose one-liner aside, his "not at all" about ordering the buyback suggests the White House and Treasury aren't even flipping from the same playbook.
Nvidia has quietly told its biggest hyperscaler customers that server prices are jumping more than 15% in many cases, hitting the flagship Grace Blackwell and Vera Rubin lines when they ship early next year. The driver is soaring memory chip costs. The increases will ripple to Microsoft, Google and Oracle - and land days before Nvidia's earnings, where it serves as the bellwether for the whole AI buildout.
Chapter 12 farm bankruptcies hit 336 in the year to June, up from 282, as war-driven diesel and fertilizer costs stack onto already-negative crop margins. Diesel alone eats $10B of the $15.6B US farms spend on fuel. Farm Bureau economists see farm returns running $32B short of expenses by 2027, a sixth straight year of red ink.
You’re caught up.
That was all 3 stories in the 23 August issue.