It’s a somber Friday here in the United States with the 25th anniversary of 9/11.
Presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Joe Biden attended the ceremony in New York City.
United States of America: Heroes of 2001 Semipostal Issue Date: June 7, 2002 City: New York, New York Quantity: 204,000,000 Printed By: Ashton Potter (USA) LTD. Printing Method: Lithograph Perforations: 11 ¼ Color: Multicolored
Heroes Of 2001 Semi-Postal On June 7, 2002, the USPS issued the Heroes of 2001 Semi-Postal stamp.
Following the September 11 terrorist attacks, many people wanted to help the families of those emergency workers who were killed or critically injured responding to the attacks. On November 12, 2001, Congress passed the 9/11 Heroes Stamp Act of 2001. The act permitted the USPS to produce a semi-postal stamp to raise money for these families.
The stamp artwork was based on a photo taken by photographer Thomas Franklin of three weary firefighters raising a flag over the rubble that had been the World Trade Center. The stamp covered the 34¢ first-class postage rate and included an 11¢ surcharge that would be deposited into a fund for the families.
The stamp went on sale on June 7, 2002. The First Day of Issue ceremony was held on the Lawn at Battery Park in New York City. The ceremony included a presentation of colors as well as speeches by the governor of New York, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and several senators.
The stamp remained on sale through December 2004, with a total of 133 million being sold. During the two-plus years it was on sale, the stamp raised $10,565,073. The money raised was given to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which would then distribute the funds to the families of emergency responders killed or disabled during the 9/11 attacks on New York, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. About 1,000 people or families were eligible to receive aid, and each received about $10,000. [Source: mysticstamp.com]
Headlines from Fortune online, with photo from Kevin Dietsch/ Getty Images
Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Steven Tian write for Fortune magazine:
In February 1993, weeks into Bill Clinton’s presidency, James Carville famously quipped: “I used to think if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or a .400 baseball hitter. But now I want to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.”
What Carville was referring to is the fact that the U.S. government runs massive deficits every year, which requires the U.S. government to issue bonds to fund those deficits. In turn, other people, i.e. the bond market, have to be willing to buy those bonds we issue. That is the difference between a healthy country vs. a country like Russia, where nobody wants to buy their debt and they have to resort to cannibalization to fund spending.
When the bond market stops buying the debt we issue, bond yields rise, increasing debt servicing costs; and quickly rising bond yields amounts to a flashing red light to stop spending and to stop issuing new debt.
Just as Clinton had to collapse his new spending plans when faced with a bond market revolt, President Donald Trump is now learning the same lesson as bond markets are in active revolt over what the market clearly perceives to be excessive spending plans, with 30-year bond yields reaching heights unseen since before the 2008 Great Financial Crisis.
But instead of picking up the hint, Trump only continues to throw fresh fuel on the fire, sending bond yields ever higher at the risk of sparking a self-inflicted economic crisis.
Indeed, on Wednesday night in Dallas, at the RNC “Midterm Convention,” Trump promised that if Republicans hold Congress in November, he will “issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000, very much like a successful company will do a cash distribution to its shareholders.”
That comparison conveniently omits the fact that companies pay dividends out of profits and generally suspend dividends when they need to pay down debt, which is the situation Washington finds itself in, running a deficit of nearly $1.8 trillion last year on top of over $40 trillion in debt.
But far more importantly, bond markets have sold off even more dramatically in the aftermath of Trump’s $5,000 announcement, with 30-year bond yields reaching a fresh 30-year high of 5.35%, up 6 basis points today alone, and 10-year bond yields up 9 basis points to 4.92% this morning.
Bond markets surely realize what Trump does not, which is that sending $5,000 to every adult citizen will likely end up costing the U.S. taxpayers far more than $5,000 per person, given the U.S. government will have to fund these payments by issuing new debt at currently elevated interest rates. Consider the back of the envelope math.
If there are roughly 245 million adult citizens, each of whom will receive $5,000 – then the U.S. government will have to issue $1.2 trillion of debt to fund those payments. If the government issues 10-year bonds at the current interest rate of 4.92%, then over 10 years, the interest plus principal will come out to approximately $8,000 – far more than $5,000 a person. Thus, not only does the “Trump Dividend” substantively amount to a payday loan in which the taxpayer is both borrower and lender; but the U.S. is plainly getting a raw deal.
And that is far from all, as the bond market has not been revolting against merely a single pledge. It is revolting against a pattern of spending promises by Trump which the market sees as excessive and reckless. Last November, it was $2,000 tariff-dividend checks, whose odds experts now put at “effectively zero.” In December it was $1,776 “warrior dividend” checks to 1.45 million service members.
Then came the war with Iran, which had cost $37.5 billion by July, for which the Pentagon floated a $200 billion request in March and came back for $67 billion more this summer, while the conflict pushed Brent crude past $100 and reignited inflation. Layer on interest on the debt that reached $1.25 trillion last year, more than the entire defense budget, and you have the reality that the bond market is behaving like a disgruntled lender that has stopped extending credit on faith.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s answer has been to try to throw money at the problem, bragging that “I am the house now,” which is flailing in plain sight. Bessent has initiated Treasury buybacks, which amount to issuing new bonds at higher interest rates to buy back older bonds issued years ago, at a lower interest rate – which is a bit paradoxical as this creates an effectively higher cash interest rate the U.S. government has to pay.
Furthermore, Bessent has accelerated a pattern he previously attacked the Biden Administration for doing, of retiring longer-term notes by issuing more short-term bills – which amounts to switching fixed low rates for floating high rates, making the U.S. government even more vulnerable to every tiny move in short-term interest rates. In short, Treasury is buying bonds with money it raises by selling more bills. Evercore’s Krishna Guha called it “a weak form Operation Twist.” It is almost akin to bailing water while the captain drills holes in the hull.
Markets have seen through the emptiness of Bessent’s remedy, as ‘bond vigilantes’ have driven bond yields even higher despite Bessent’s band-aids. That hasn’t stopped Bessent from continuing to throw more money at the problem.
In August, he doubled Treasury’s buybacks of long-dated bonds to $4 billion per operation, declaring “we have a big toolkit” and insisting that yields “don’t reflect the underlying fundamentals.” On Wednesday, the same day Trump promised $1.3 trillion, Treasury went to $6 billion. Yields rose anyway, counteracting Bessent’s move entirely. Despite Bessent’s braggadocio that “I am the house now”, the house is evidently undercapitalized, as bond traders mint fortunes calling out the fact that the emperor has no clothes.
Yes, this is a global storm. British 30-year gilts sit at 5.88%, the highest since 1998. Japan’s 10-year is near 3%, a three-decade high. German bunds are at levels unseen since 2011. But those governments are being disciplined into restraint; in London, the gilt market is effectively writing the next budget. Only Trump is responding to the highest borrowing costs in a generation by promising to borrow $1.3 trillion more to mail out checks before an election, with no signs of stopping his spending binge anytime soon.
Carville’s point was that the bond market is the ultimate failsafe, the one constituency a president cannot spin. Clinton grasped that within a week, but Trump is still refusing to learn the lesson, at the soaring cost of debt, still fast rising by the day, sparking heightened risk of a self-inflicted economic and financial crisis.
The Republican Illinois Senator Everett Dirkson, Senate Minority Leader through the 1960s, is commonly attributed with saying, “A billion dollars here, a billion dollars there, pretty soon you’re talking real money.” (This ad lib quip was drawn from unwritten remarks before a Senate-House Republican leadership press conference on March 8, 1962.)
Dirksen’s admonition is worth keeping in mind amidst Trump’s casual dismissal of the rapidly escalating costs of his far-fetched spending pledges. Presciently – Dirksen’s $1 billion in 1962 is worth $1.1 trillion in 2026 dollars the nominal cost of Trump’s program and the debt financing cost of this doubles the total cost to $2.3 trillion.
Paying $8K to $10K per person to receive $5K per person may help explain why President Trump as a business leader went bankrupt six times.
(The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.)
The US Tennis Association did it again.
They went ahead with the Shelton-Alcaraz match even though it was already after 11 pm. The match was completed at 3.33 am this morning.
Blah-blah-blah goes the explanation:
the schedule was set;
commitments had been made to advertisers and sponsors;
the preceding matches ran long.
In the end, the only thing that mattered for the USTA was money. 🤑
The spectators that had paid dearly for their tickets, and had no trains to go back home with, did not matter.
The officials and the ball boys and ball girls that were cheated out of a night’s sleep, did not matter.
And the players were paid handsomely, right? So who cares if they had their whole circadian rhythms upended along with everyone else.
Did I get all of that right, USTA?
There’s the clock above the exit, but it’s not 3.33 pm. It’s 3.33 am. [Post on X by The Wall Street Journal @WSJ]
Open AI announced today that their AI technology had solved one of the seven Millennium Problems in mathematics: the Navier-Stokes problem.
(The work of the AI bots leaned heavily on breakthroughs highly related to the Navier-Stokes problem, done by New York University mathematician Tristan Buckmaster and Anthropic mathematician Levent Alpöge. So it did not start with a clean slate.)
Google AI Mode explains in broad terms how it was done:
The computational proof demonstrating a finite-time breakdown in fluid motion was achieved through the coordination of 10,000 autonomous AI agents operating continuously for 88 hours. This swarm engineeredan inward-spiraling vortex where competing physical forces precisely neutralized each other, resulting in a self-driven singularity whose logical steps were formally verified using the Lean programming language.
Below is the answer to my request to Google AI state to state the Navier Stokes millennium problem in simple terms.
Happy Labor Day.
We should just assume we’re not going to see $3 gas for a very long time.
Bessent is US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent— the man that tried and failed to lower long-term borrowing costs by announcing on August 19 (as the US debt crossed $40 trillion) that the Treasury would double the maximum size of its long-dated bond buyback operations from $2 billion to at least $4 billion per operation. And since it is Labor Day: Yes, the US jobs numbers for August look decent on the face of it (+162k jobs, unemployment 4.1%) but wage growth continues to lose to inflation. Fed Chair Warsh will have to raise interest rates at some point. There are many more misdeeds, such as the trade war with Canada and the tariffs on Canadian imports that are seriously harming the US auto industry, and raising prices for cars old and new. [Posted by Aaron Rupar @atrupar on X]
The Star Trek franchise is 60 years old this month.
I found this infographic in the South African newspaper ‘Die Burger’ and enlisted the help of AI chatbot Claude from Anthropic to translate the Afrikaans bits into English.
(For the record: I can read and translate the Afrikaans in the picture as well— but not in 11 seconds flat).
Star Trek movies and television episodes frequently feature robots, androids, and advanced artificial intelligence. Lieutenant Commander Data is a fictional, self-aware android in the Star Trek franchise, best known as the chief operations officer and second officer on the USS Enterprise-D in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
From the Washington Post:
The United States was the only country to vote against the United Nations resolution which encourages the use of an “Equal Earth” map. (The vote was 164-1.)
Yaryna Ferencevych, the U.S. deputy representative to the U.N. Economic and Social Council, described the initiative as part of a broader “radical ideological project” being pursued by the U.N. when it should be focused on “genuine problems of international peace, prosperity, or good relations.”
Ah yes.
Rich comments— from a representative of an United States administration that alienates its allies, wages a war that is upending the world’s economies, and propagates policies that destroy the environment.
Earth 1 and Earth 2.And here is 7.15 pm tonight, with sunset now at 7.41 pm
Happy Friday.
It is Labor Day Weekend here in the United States: the unofficial end of summer.
There was a little rain on Tuesday and Wednesday here in the city (0.2 in) and mild temperatures all week (high 60s, about 19 °C).
The hardy plumbago (leadwort) on my back porch has bloomed, the way it does every year, late summer and into fall.
‘The tournament has become a sweat-stained fashion week for players, spectators and celebrities.’
– The Styles Desk from the New York Times
(My comment: Well, all right. It is high time! Dressing fashionably has been in vogue at Wimbledon and at the French Open since time immemorial).
The Styles Desk again: The U.S. Open has become something akin to a fashion week: for celebrities, who stepped onto a blue carpet on the opening night; for fans, who have come to love the green and cream hats of Aimé Leon Dore and the look of a Ralph Lauren sweater draped over their shoulders; and for players, who are contractually obligated to wear much of what you see them wear. On the courts, Carlos Alcaraz has stood out for his insouciant, almost slinky tank top. Naomi Osaka, as usual, could not be ignored as she pulled out an array of dramatic looks: a hooded newspaper gown with a skirt of white tulle; a shiny coated black skirt with a perforated underlayer; and a Dolce & Gabbana dress and Sophia Webster heels she wore to explore the stadium on the eve of the Open. Then there is Adrian Mannarino’s anti-fashion fashion: a loose, unflashy white T-shirt and baggy pink shorts.
As these athletes’ personalities burst into view in sometimes grueling matches, celebrities like Queen Latifah and Travis Scott drew our eyes to the crowd, too.
Reporting from the New York Times. Carlos’s locks of hair is the longest I have ever seen it, and is held in place by a hairband.
Here is a meme published in Thursday’s South African newspaper Die Burger (‘The Citizen’).
The kiwi is a small, nocturnal, flightless bird with hair-like feathers that serves as a national symbol for New Zealand.
The blue crane is the national bird of South Africa.
Kiwi: You’re too low! Blue Crane: Not as low as you! [From Die Burger newspaper, Sept. 3]
This is DHL Stadium in Cape Town, South Africa, last Saturday, at the start of the Castle Double Malt Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry match between the South African Springboks and the New Zealand All Blacks. Some 56,000 spectators are ensconced inside the stadium. The airplanes skimming over the stadium’s roof with some 45 feet to spare for the lowest one, are two Embraer E190/ E195 regional passenger jets. They belong to a domestic airline called Airlink. The observers/ photographers on the rooftop had permission to be there. The ‘pyrotechnic’ effects are made by very fine powder and didn’t pose a danger to the aircraft (or so we are told).
Here is Matthew Klint writing on the website liveandletsfly.com: Airlink says the South African Civil Aviation Authority approved the altitude and speed and that the aircraft remained within those parameters, so this was not some rogue pair of pilots deciding to buzz a stadium. That makes me ask: why was such a small margin approved in the first place?
South African regulations ordinarily prohibit aircraft from flying less than 1,000 feet above the highest obstacle when over a congested area or open-air gathering, though regulators can authorize special operations. Clearly, some sort of authorization existed here. But approval does not make a maneuver prudent. Airlink has said it will have the event independently reviewed, which seems entirely appropriate. I hope that review asks not only whether everyone followed the approved plan, but whether the plan itself created an unnecessary risk. A flyover could have certainly occurred without going so low … but on the other hand, I’m not pronouncing final judgment at this time.
Let’s see if a transparent investigation occurs.
There goes August, as we make our relentless way to the back end of 2026.
This is the month in which America’s national debt crossed $40 trillion.
That is about $117,000 for every person living in the United States.
The debt-to-GDP ratio in now 125% of the country’s total economic output. 😱
Looking back 12 months. Will the US stock market indices end 2026 with another double-digit gain? Time will tell, but it in the mean time there are sticky inflation, tariffs and the fallout of the Iran war to contend with. The S&P 500 fell about 8% from late Feb. through March at the start of the Iran war. The Nasdaq dropped into correction territory earlier in the year with a decline of over 10% from its high. [Graphic from the New York Times]
I opted for the Seattle Public Library (instead of the bookstore) for my book fix today.
Notes for the pictures: Black Tesla Model Y photobombs my picture of the William Kenzo Nakamura United States Courthouse on 6th Avenue.
The Courthouse is a federal courthouse and primarily used by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. It was completed in 1940.
I am not sure why the 13-star flag (for the original 13 colonies, used 1777-1795) is on the courthouse— possibly to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. (Any past official national flag can be legally flown or exhibited for historical and patriotic displays.) Flags are flying at half-staff to honor the life and memory of country music legend and philanthropist Dolly Parton, who passed away Tuesday at the age of 80.
The yellow Lamborghini is a Lamborghini HuracánSpyder (the convertible Huracán, which is Spanish for hurricane).
Near the Hotel Sorrento off Madison Street is where I caught the G-line bus on the way back. The Hotel Sorrento was completed in 1909 and is Seattle’s longest-operating boutique hotel. Gas prices are still high. The war with Iran is now 6 months old. The Strait of Hormuz is still closed, despite the insistence of the White House that it is ‘open’.
This Year’s Record-Breaking El Niño in 3 Charts
Reported by Mira Rojanasakul and Chico Harlan for The New York Times
This year’s El Niño is already intense, and it’s not done growing. Scientists expect that by December, when El Niño events typically reach their peak, this one will wind up as the strongest in at least 80 years of precise record keeping. And perhaps as the most powerful in centuries.
The event will alter weather patterns across the planet and could drive an additional 49 million people into hunger, according to a projection by the United Nations’ World Food Program. It will also temporarily boost global temperatures that were already rising because of climate change.
El Niños are essentially anomalies in the tropical Pacific Ocean. Their magnitude is measured by how far temperatures there rise beyond the norm. Temperatures must jump 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above average to qualify as a Super El Niño. But this year’s event is expected to go even further, well exceeding the prior strong El Niños that began in 1997, 2015 and 2023.
It’s unusual to have three strong El Niños in 11 years. And scientists are divided about whether that run is just a coincidence, or whether climate change might be making El Niño events more frequent and intense.
An El Niño’s magnitude is measured in a vast rectangular zone of the Pacific that runs along the Equator, starting off the coast of South America. Most years, temperatures in that zone hit a peak of around 28 degrees Celsius (82 degrees Fahrenheit) in May and then gently decline through the Northern Hemisphere summer. But during an El Niño year, temperatures break from that pattern, and this year they are spiking like never before. In no other year on record have temperatures held above 29 degrees Celsius (84 degrees Fahrenheit) in July and August.
This warming is happening in an ocean that has been heating up for decades as it absorbs heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions from human activity. The effects are not constrained to the Pacific. On Saturday, the daily global average sea surface temperature reached 21.1 degrees Celsius (70 degrees Fahrenheit), according to Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, breaking the previous record set in March 2024.
The heat that builds up near the surface of the tropical Pacific eventually makes the entire planet warmer. The trend takes a while to materialize, but recent El Niños have led to annual global heat records in the year after they form. To that end, scientists broadly expect 2027 to be the hottest year humans have ever experienced. But the heat is altering the trajectory of 2026 as well. The first half of this year, while broadly hotter than in previous decades, generally did not approach the heat records set in 2024. But recent days in August have been warmer than comparable dates in any prior year.
Happy Friday.
Summer is running out— and so are the flowers in the gardens here on Seattle’s Capitol Hill. I still found these beautiful, bountiful white chrysanthemums today, though.
Here are my amateur photos of tonight’s partial lunar eclipse, taken at my house from an upstairs window.
Here in Seattle the eclipse was already underway by sunset.
The moon was low in the sky, looking east-southeast.
As darkness fell, the moon rose higher, and more of it was obscured by Earth’s shadow until it was 95% in the dark by 9.12 pm.
The last photo is a little overexposed, and the light speck below the moon is an airplane.
The days are getting shorter, and we today brought the last of the 8 o’clock sunsets (or later) for 2026, here in Seattle.
Looking out westward, from East Thomas St and 13th Avenue East on Seattle’s Capitol Hill at 8.08pm. (Sunset was at 8.01 pm.) [Shot with iPhone 16 Pro 5x lens and Dramatic Warm filter]
Welp— Carlos and Serena are out of the mixed doubles at the US Open. (See report below by Stephen Whyno for Associated Press).
I did not realize the event mixed doubles tournament had already started, alongside the qualifying rounds. It is ‘Fan Week’ this week, before the main tournament starts in on Monday.
It is more expensive than ever before to attend the event in person.
Explains Google AI Overview:
‘Ticket prices for the 2026 US Open are soaring due to a massive surge in demand, a booming resale market, and stadium redevelopments geared toward high-yield corporate hospitality.
Marquee sessions sold out months in advance during the initial May presales, leaving limited inventory.
Opening-day grounds passes with a $65 face value have resold for over $360.
High-profile sports and entertainment convergence in New York City has driven average household incomes of attendees past $262,000, creating an event heavily tailored toward affluent buyers and corporate spenders.’
Erling Haaland, Samson, and whether elite sports stars lose their powers when they shave their heads
(Amelie Claydon writing for The Athletic in The New York Times .. it’s a mixed bag and several sports stars had great success after cutting their long hair)
Erling Haaland has cut off the hair that Zlatan Ibrahimovic warned was the source of his strength.
Erling Haaland’s post on Instagram.
The former Sweden striker gave him that advice during the 2026 World Cup and on Sunday, Haaland failed to score in the first game he has played without the long blond hair that had become his trademark.
The 26-year-old Manchester City striker went for a buzzcut before his side’s opener against Bournemouth, then went goalless despite having five shots in a 2-1 victory. Before Sunday, he had scored in every Premier League opener he had played (seven goals in four games).
.. In 1995, a 24-year-old Andre Agassi arrived at the Australian Open with his head shaved, having spent the early part of his career with long hair that became central to his public image.
He later revealed he had worn a hairpiece due to his receding hairline, but became so anxious about it coming loose that it distracted him during matches. Once rid of the hairpiece, Agassi produced the most successful season of his career.
.. Carlos Alcaraz was 22 when his brother made a mistake with the clippers before the 2025 U.S. Open, leaving him with little choice but to shave most of his hair off. Alcaraz joked that he was “faster” without it and reached the final without dropping a set before beating Jannik Sinner in four to win his sixth Grand Slam and take the world No 1 ranking from the Italian.
2026 Cincinnati Open concluded at the Lindner Family Tennis Center in Mason, Ohio, today.
Coco Gauff (22, 🇺🇸)won the women’s title and Arthur Fils (22, 🇫🇷) captured his first ATP Masters 1000 crown.
The start of the 2026 US Open is a week away.
Carlos Alcaraz (23, 🇪🇸) confirmed that he is making his comeback after four months away from the circuit due to a wrist injury.
Unfortunately Jannik Sinner (25, 🇮🇹) is out of the US Open due to a knee injury.
That’s Arthur Fils in the foreground, playing in the final today against France ‘Big Foe’ Tiafoe (28, 🇺🇸). Fils is sporting a pair of pink ASICS GEL-Resolution tennis shoes to go with his powder blue Lacoste shirt. He plays with the intensity of Carlos Alcaraz, and the two of them may well meet up in the later rounds of the US Open. Fils is on a roll, though, and Alcaraz has not played an ATP match in four months. [Still image from Tennis TV streaming channel].Fils pumping himself up and looking at his support team. [Still image from Tennis TV streaming channel].
