7/16/2025

My Dear Friend & POTUS, DJT,

                  I hope your meeting with the guys from Barhain goes ok today. It’s nice that they want to buy our airplanes, but I encourage caution in dealing with them. Freedom House gives them very low scores suggesting that they do not really represent the people of their nation. Folks rebelled against them in 2011 & could do so again. Their assets tend to be in the form of cryptocurrency & I’m not sure we can trust those either.

                  SoW, do you understand $? The folks at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago put out a report trying to explain these things in 2024 using a historical account to address the question, “Should we expect multiple monies, private & public, to compete with each other?” I found the report baffling & intriguing at the same time.

                  Why am I bringing this up? Because you are eager to get Congress to pass your stablecoin legislation & today is the first time I have heard of this new form of currency. What I learned from AP today is the legislation passed by the Senate has a provision barring members of Congress & their families from profiting off stablecoins, but no similar prohibition against you or your family. That doesn’t seem fair. A NPR piece notes “critics fear (it) will open up all kinds of risks that may not be so apparent right now, leading to unintended consequences.”

                  The stablecoin situation reminds me of the Butterfly Effect which highlights the ways in which small initial perturbations can get exponentially magnified in complex systems over time. I encourage you to slow down on this one so everyone can wrap their heads around how best to protect the whole financial system from the kind of run that caused the collapse of  Silicon Valley Bank in 2023.

                  It’s tempting to read the Economist to get educated on this topic, but Hpone Myat’s recent piece in the Irrawaddy cast doubt on the credibility of that source. They claim the Economist fails to give the revolutionary forces in Burma the respect they deserve & are critical of how their characterization of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi as a “Snake Charmer.”

                  When you dine with the PM of Qatar tonight, please ask their thoughts on Burma, especially the Rohingya.

                  BYBS,