Yes Retreat, Baby, Yes Surrender

Donald Trump will either surrender to Iran on Friday in Switzerland, or scuttle the deal—sorry, “memorandum of understanding”—in the face of overwhelming opprobrium and humiliation. Who can say!

In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

• Why the terms of the peace deal, such as we understand them, are so unacceptable to the Iran hawks who made strategic alliance with Trump because they thought they could manipulate him into war;

• How a deal that’s both weaker than JCPOA and leaves Iran with de facto control over the Strait of Hormuz changes geopolitics—and is likely unacceptable to Israel;

• Whether Democrats should rub Trump’s defeat in his face, or let him pretend he won to reduce the risk that he goes back to war.

Then, Elon Musk became a trillionaire last week, after taking SpaceX public. And he did so thanks in large part to Nasdaq, which changed its own rules to require Nasdaq index funds to buy SpaceX stock, and bid up its price, despite the fact that the company lacks any near-term path to profitability. Is this a reasonable evolution in Wall Street’s treatment of mature companies when they go public? Or was Nasdaq snookered by Musk’s many grandiose promises of future growth and technological development? Should passive investors really have no recourse to scrutinize and challenge these companies when they change rules governing how our money is invested? And what should happen if it turns out Musk is just exploiting laws, rules, and markets to turn our IRAs and 401ks into piggy banks to bail out his failing companies?

Answers are available in full to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

• Catherine Rampell on the SpaceX IPO.

• Vanguard urges calm on the SpaceX IPO.

• Former AIPAC spox can’t believe the leopard ate his face.