The Real Headline This Week? Burrito-Backed Bonds.
We finished a week that featured the FOMC and the Bank of England, and yet the most important financial development wasn’t Powell’s “dot plots” or musings on inflation. No, it was burrito-backed loans. Tell me you didn’t miss this historic moment in the evolution of finance: consumers now taking out loans to buy DoorDash orders through Klarna.
Fast forward to 2030—picture this: we’re in a full-blown financial crisis, scrambling to unwind the latest iteration of CDOs. Not Collateralized Debt Obligations. Collateralized DoorDash Obligations. Some analyst on CNBC explaining why the market is seizing up because people defaulted on their Chipotle bowls. You can’t make it up.
Eat Now, Pay Later: The Endgame?
It’s been said that “a given culture reveals its overall understanding of life through the choices it makes in production and consumption.” Is “Eat Now, Pay Later” solving a real problem, or is it just another mutation of consumerism—fabricating new needs and exploiting old weaknesses?
Feels like a deal that fosters intemperance. A new twist on the old game: immediate gratification over future responsibility. But hey, I’ll reserve judgment. At least until 2030 when my burrito-backed bonds come due. Hopefully, with extra guac.
Everything Is Noise (Including This?)
The fact that social media cared more about Klarna and DoorDash than tariffs or central banks is just more proof that everything is noise. “You need to be wired not to believe the bullshit. To not be listening.” Legendary investor Nick Sleep said that. I’d add: he was right.
What We Were Reading Last Week
If you enjoyed last week’s quotes, here’s where they came from:
March 17 - Lords of Finance
March 18 - Fed Up
March 19 - The Price of Time
March 20 - Slouching Towards Utopia
March 21 - Infectious Greed
You’ll learn more from any one of those books than from the daily deluge of financial “news.”
Markets: Still Hungry for Rate Cuts
We start the week with the S&P at 5,667, now down 3% on the year. The Magnificent 7 are down ~12%. The 2-year Treasury sits at 3.97%, and the 10-year at 4.26%. Markets are still pricing in two rate cuts, even as inflation continues to gnaw at the edges of the growth narrative.
April 2nd looms as the most important date on the calendar, as we wait for more clarity on tariffs. Investors are still wrestling with stagflation—though it only seems to be a crisis if DoorDash stops delivering.
What’s on the Plate This Week
Here’s what’s cooking:
Today: S&P PMIs
Tuesday: Home Price Index, Conference Board Consumer Confidence, New Home Sales, 2-year note auction, Fedspeak
Wednesday: Durable Goods, more Fedspeak, 5-year note auction
Thursday: Final 4Q24 GDP, Jobless Claims, 7-year note auction
Friday: PCE (the Fed’s favorite inflation flavor)
XTODs
XTOD: “This is the Brownfield Fund. I’m wanting to offload my credit default swaps.” “Alright, whatcha got?” “20 double-A tranches of BBS CDOs” “These are pretty bad?” “Complete shit. Burritos underlying these didn’t even have extra guac.”
XTOD: "They're called Chimichanga Default Swaps"
XTOD: You are telling me these loans are backed by consumers who ordered burritos on DoorDash?
XTOD: Warren Buffett: "Go to work for whomever you admire the most. You can't get a bad result. You'll jump out of bed in the morning."
XTOD: “I wished I commuted to the office to provide maximum shareholder value more often.” https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Gmljc5lXsAAjeYa?format=jpg&name=900x900
XTOD: Optimization kills organic connection. When someone starts optimizing everything - time, relationships, conversations - they start treating people as "inputs" rather than companions. Friendship isn’t efficient. It’s built on shared inefficiencies. Wasted time. Deep talks. Pointless laughter. The moment someone treats friendship like a cost-benefit equation, they’ve already checked out.
https://x.com/Larryjamieson_/status/1903199915431563416
https://x.com/EffMktHype/status/1903126157232656881
https://x.com/BoringBiz_/status/1903067850522186039
https://x.com/kejca/status/1902375995123921148
https://x.com/randomrecruiter/status/1903161669921931369
https://x.com/nayanmanihazra/status/1900574149350981703
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