Greetings folks,

We all (well most of us) lost an hour of sleep on Sunday, which feels like a good time to remind you that people used to pay someone to shoot peas at their window at 3am. Before alarm clocks were affordable, Britain had an entire profession called “knocker uppers”: human alarm clocks who worked their way through industrial neighbourhoods with rods, sticks, and peashooters, tapping on windows and refusing to leave until they got a response. In 1876, one of them discovered a house fire at 2:00 AM and saved a family. Another discovered Jack the Ripper’s first victim. The ancient Chinese, meanwhile, stuck incense sticks between their toes so the burning would wake them up. Which, frankly, still sounds better than checking oil prices first thing Monday morning. 

Because this week has been relentless, in every way imaginable. Brent hit $101 for the first time since 2022. Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei (the old one’s son, because apparently theocratic succession works like a family business) declared he won’t negotiate. Russia is quietly pocketing $150 million a day in extra oil revenue. Ukraine’s $2,000 drones are suddenly the hottest military export on the planet. And Anthropic published a report showing that 75% of what computer programmers do can already be done by an AI. There’s more so let’s get into it.

Start with Russia, because the numbers are staggering. Before the strikes on February 28th, Russia’s Urals crude was trading at roughly $40 per barrel, battered by Western sanctions and steep buyer discounts. Nine days later it had more than doubled, briefly trading above Brent itself. According to Financial Times calculations based on industry data, Russia has been earning up to $150 million per day in additional budget revenue from oil sales, with a total windfall of $1.3B to $1.9B already banked. By month’s end, that figure could reach $3.3B to $4.9B. The Moscow Times estimates that if prices average $90 for the year, Russia stands to gain roughly $55 billion in additional revenue compared to its budget forecast. Before the war, Russia was staring at a potential deficit of 7.3 trillion rubles. Now it’s meeting budget targets for the first time in months. As the Kyiv School of Economics dryly noted: “Washington is fighting Iran and bankrolling Moscow at the same time.”

It gets worse. The US Treasury issued a 30-day waiver allowing India to resume buying Russian crude already on tankers, reversing months of sanctions pressure. Venezuela’s exports stalled after the Maduro capture in January, and Iran’s exports are obviously offline, which means refineries designed to process heavy crude now have exactly one major supplier left: Russia. Al Jazeera put it simply: “Russian oil will be sought.” The IEA has responded by releasing 400 million barrels from strategic reserves, but that’s a bandage. Russia’s 2026 budget was built on $59 Urals crude. The war handed Putin a price nearly double that.

Now pivot to the most unlikely winner: Ukraine. Last August, Zelenskyy’s team pitched the Trump administration on anti-drone “drone walls” for the Middle East, complete with a PowerPoint presentation (obtained by Axios) showing how Ukrainian interceptors could protect American bases. The administration dismissed it. Then the war started, and Iranian Shaheds began killing American soldiers. A Shahed hit the US Navy’s nerve centre in Bahrain in broad daylight. The Pentagon conceded in closed-door briefings that it was “struggling to stop waves of drones.” The math is brutal: the US was spending millions per intercept on missiles designed for high-speed threats, while Shaheds cost $20,000 to $50,000 each. Ukraine’s interceptor drones, names like Sting, Bullet, and Octopus, cost between $2,000 and $5,000. Eleven countries have now requested Ukrainian help. Zelenskyy, who Trump told “you don’t have the cards,” suddenly has a Royal Flush.

And then there’s China, which spent years preparing for precisely this scenario. Beijing has accumulated roughly 1.2 billion barrels of oil stockpiles, enough to cover imports for about 100 days. Customs data released this week showed crude imports up 16% in early 2026, suggesting significant pre-war hoarding. But the real insulation comes from structural preparation: China’s aggressive EV pivot (BYD alone sold 4.6 million vehicles last year), its massive domestic coal and renewable energy capacity, and a deepening energy partnership with Russia via the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline. As one analyst at Bernstein Research put it: “I do think they will feel vindicated.” China’s foreign minister has called for a ceasefire but offered Tehran little beyond rhetoric. Semafor’s Andy Browne argued that nothing would give Beijing “more satisfaction than watching the US bog itself down in another Middle East quagmire.”

Talk about unintended consequences. The US launched a war to neutralise Iran’s nuclear programme and destabilise an adversarial regime. Two weeks in, the operation has rescued Russia’s war budget, elevated Ukraine indispensable anti-drone, drone supplier (you read that right), positioned China as the calm voice of restraint with the deepest energy buffer, and pushed oil above $100 for the first time since 2022. The EIA forecasts Brent staying above $95 through May before easing to $80 in Q3, but that assumes the Strait reopens. If it doesn’t, Barclays says $120 and Qatar’s energy minister has warned about $150. Friday’s NFP print of negative 92,000 jobs already hinted at the “stag” in stagflation. Triple-digit oil delivers the “flation” half, I may have missed the mark on that pun.

In Canada, Alberta is printing money. WTI above $95 turns Alberta’s projected $10B deficit into a potential surplus. The loonie got a commodity tailwind, briefly strengthening past 1.36. Canada is being talked about as a secure energy alternative to the Gulf. That being said, the BoC is holding at 2.25% with CPI at 2.3%, and sustained triple-digit oil would reignite the inflation fight. Carney’s pitch as a reliable energy supplier gains credibility by the day, but the domestic cost-of-living implications cut the other way. As they say in Alberta: “oil money solves a lot of problems, right up until it creates new ones.” In another sign that Canada is becoming important for energy, starting in November there are going to be direct flights between Calgary and Abu Dhabi. This section was long, but the rest will be shorter-ish.

Sentiment

Reddit’s r/worldnews is fixated on the Russia windfall irony. War on the Rocks and Atlantic Council have published detailed analyses of Ukraine’s drone diplomacy. Seeking Alpha is bullish on energy and defence. The dominant online mood: grudging admiration for everyone except the people who started the war.

The Nobel Peace Prize is, by most honest assessments interesting to say the least. Joshua Muravchik in the WSJ lays out the highlight reel: Yasser Arafat won it for signing a peace deal he never intended to honour. Le Duc Tho of North Vietnam won it for the same reason. Rigoberta Menchú won it for a book intended to bolster Guatemala’s communist guerrillas that turned out to be substantially fraudulent. Barack Obama won it for, in Muravchik’s phrasing, “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy” (which translates to “not being George W. Bush”). Jimmy Carter won it for noble intentions. Would Trump really want to join that company?

The more interesting argument is what Trump could actually achieve. Muravchik frames the current geopolitical landscape as an anti-American coalition of communist, semi-communist, and Islamist states united not by ideology but by a shared goal of stopping the US (stop what exactly is the confusing part). Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, the BRICS bloc. The downfall of Iran’s regime, he argues, would blow a hole in that coalition the way the Soviet collapse dismantled communism’s global infrastructure. Islamism as a political force didn’t fully materialise until Khomeini founded the Islamic Republic in 1979; its removal would deflate radical movements from Hezbollah to Hamas the way Soviet collapse deflated Marxist movements worldwide. Reagan never got a Nobel for ending the Cold War. But nobody remembers who won the 1987 Peace Prize.

The track record of American regime change producing stable democracies is solid (its not). Trump said there’s no deal without “unconditional surrender.” Iran’s new Supreme Leader says he won’t negotiate. If this becomes another decade-long conflict, the Nobel committee won’t be calling, and neither will history. That being said they gave Henry Kissinger the Nobel Prize, so really anything is possible. Reagan never got a Nobel for ending the Cold War. But nobody remembers who won the 1987 Peace Prize. Technically Trump does have a Nobel Prize, just doesn’t have his name on it.

Sentiment

The piece resonated heavily on conservative X/Twitter and drew predictable pushback from foreign policy realists on Bluesky. Reddit’s r/geopolitics debated the Reagan comparison extensively, with most noting the USSR collapsed from internal rot, not a bombing campaign. LinkedIn’s foreign policy crowd was split. General mood: compelling framing, questionable conclusion.

A few weeks ago, the biggest controversy in prediction markets was whether Cardi B dancing at the Super Bowl constituted a “performance.” (Polymarket said yes. Kalshi gave refunds.) Then the Iran war started and the platforms discovered something considerably harder to adjudicate: should you be allowed to bet on whether a head of state gets assassinated? The answer, it turns out, depends on which platform you’re on. A Polymarket user called “Magamyman” made $553,000 betting that Khamenei would be ousted, with the position placed hours before the strikes landed. Crypto-analytics firm Bubblemaps identified six suspected insiders who collectively wagered $1.2 million on the Iran strikes. On Kalshi, which is federally regulated by the CFTC, the Khamenei market attracted $54 million in trades before the company froze it after his death, citing rules barring wagers tied to death. 

The ethical and legal landscape is complicated. Federal regulations already prohibit futures contracts based on assassinations, war, or terrorism. But the Iran trades that paid out on Khamenei’s death occurred on Polymarket’s largely unregulated international platform, which Americans access through VPNs. War on the Rocks published a piece in January arguing that prediction markets create “structural incentives to monetise non-public information” and that Moscow and Beijing would be watching closely: “Why spend resources recruiting assets when your adversary’s own national security apparatus is incentivised to leak through anonymous betting markets?” Bloomberg’s editorial board was blunter: these platforms should just stop offering wagers on anything related to war, military operations, or regime change. Polymarket also hosted (and later quietly archived) markets on whether a nuclear weapon would be detonated in Ukraine this year, after posting roughly 22% odds on X.

Kalshi and Polymarket are in discussions with investors about raising funds at $20 billion valuations, double their late-2025 figures. Kalshi recently crossed $1.5 billion in revenue run rate. The platforms have partnerships with CNN, CNBC, Google Finance, and Yahoo Finance. And here’s the part that makes regulators nervous: Donald Trump Jr. serves as an adviser to both Kalshi and Polymarket, while several former Kalshi staffers have joined the Trump administration, including one who now oversees SEC matters at DOGE. Senators Merkley and Klobuchar introduced the “End Prediction Market Corruption Act” last week, which would bar the president, VP, and members of Congress from trading event contracts. Meanwhile, Kalshi’s co-founder once said the long-term vision is to “financialize everything and create a tradable asset out of any difference in opinion.” I’m surprised there isn’t a market on whether prediction markets get banned, they should I think but its just too entertaining. Also how do parley bets work?

Sentiment

NPR, CNN, Bloomberg, and Al Jazeera all ran major investigations this week. Reddit’s r/wallstreetbets finds the whole thing hilarious. The crypto community is split between celebrating Polymarket’s growth and acknowledging the ethics problem. War on the Rocks and FPRI provided the most thoughtful security analyses. General mood: fascinating, profitable, and deeply uncomfortable.

Most research on AI and jobs focuses on what AI could theoretically do. Anthropic’s new report asks a different question: what is it actually doing? The company introduced a metric called “observed exposure” that combines theoretical LLM capability (from the widely cited Eloundou et al. 2023 framework) with real-world usage data from Claude’s Anthropic Economic Index. The gap between theory and practice is enormous. In the Computer & Math category, AI could theoretically handle 94% of tasks. In reality, Claude currently covers 33%. The report’s most exposed occupations read like a Silicon Valley layoff list: computer programmers at 74.5%, customer service representatives at 70.1%, data entry keyers at 67.1%, medical record specialists at 66.7%, and financial analysts at 57.2%.

The demographic profile of the most exposed workers is worth noting. Compared to unexposed workers, they’re 16% more likely to be female, 11% more likely to be white, almost twice as likely to be Asian, and they earn 47% more on average. Graduate degree holders are four times overrepresented. In other words, AI displacement risk is concentrated in the educated, well-paid, white-collar workforce. This is not the automation story we were told, where robots replace factory workers. This is the story where AI comes for the people who thought they were safe.

The reassuring finding (for now): no systematic increase in unemployment for highly exposed workers since ChatGPT launched in late 2022. The concerning finding: hiring of 22-25 year olds into exposed occupations has dropped roughly 14% in the post-ChatGPT era. The authors are careful to note this is “just barely statistically significant” and that alternative explanations exist (young people could be staying in school, taking different jobs, or remaining at existing positions longer). ADP data is showing a 6-16% employment fall for young workers in exposed occupations. Companies aren’t firing people because of AI. They’re just not hiring the next generation into those roles. The layoffs aren’t visible because they’re happening through attrition, not pink slips.

The graph above provides a good summary of the report. Basically most jobs in Business and Finance (aka me), will be out of a job. I am hoping my sense of humour will keep me employed.

Sentiment

The report generated a lot of engagement on Hacker News, Reddit’s r/machinelearning, and LinkedIn. The 14% hiring drop for young workers was the most discussed finding. Semafor’s flagship ran a related piece on AI wargaming. The Anthropic vs Pentagon story (Semafor, Lawfare) adds another dimension. General mood: sober, data-rich, and slightly existential.

Monocle’s Tyler Brûlé sat down with Carney at Canada’s Tokyo embassy (designed by Japanese-Canadian architect Raymond Moriyama, opened 1991, and by all accounts one of the country’s finest diplomatic missions). It was the first visit by a Canadian PM to Japan in a decade, and Carney, who worked in Tokyo for Goldman Sachs in the early ’90s, opened with a few lines of Japanese. The substance was significant: ‘CA$500 billion in defence and dual-use investment over the next decade’, including submarines, aircraft, drones, Arctic radar systems, AI, and quantum computing. Canada has reached its 2% NATO GDP commitment. Recruitment is up 13% since the new defence strategy launched. Carney is also pushing to connect the CPTPP and the EU into a single trading bloc of 1.5 billion people, which would be, in his words, “far and away the biggest trading bloc in the world.”

The interview is notable for what it doesn’t mention. Carney never once names the United States. The entire 40-minute conversation is framed around building alternative partnerships, diversifying away from a single trading relationship, and establishing Canada as a sovereign, reliable, “Canada Strong” brand. The subtext is loud. He described the current moment as a “rupture” requiring speed: “The kaleidoscope has been shaken. How will the pieces come together? Now is the time to be engaged.” He rattled off an impressive list of renewed relationships: India (more engagement in the past year than the previous 20 combined), South Korea (submarines, space, K-pop (he actually did)), the Philippines, Thailand, ASEAN, Australia, the Nordics on Arctic security. When the Queen was told a Canadian would govern the Bank of England, she reportedly said: “Oh good, a Canadian. They’re very reliable.” Carney is leaning hard into that brand.

But the best part is Monocle’s to-do list. Ten suggestions for the PM, including: Ottawa needs a “proper scrub down.” Launch a global tourism campaign targeting Europeans who don’t want to visit the US right now. Create bilateral work permits with the EU for 18-to-25-year-olds. ‘Join Eurovision’ (if Australia can do it, so can Canada). Invest more in Olympic medals. Replace the US-brand limo with a Toyota Century. Commission a new official residence. And my personal favourite: “The middle powers need a home and a brand. Build it, brand it.” The man pitched a CPTPP-EU mega-bloc and his magazine told him to join a singing contest. That might be the most Canadian outcome imaginable.

Sentiment

The Davos speech Carney references has had unexpectedly broad uptake, with people approaching him on the street in multiple countries. LinkedIn’s international policy crowd loved the “middle power” framing. Reddit’s r/canada is cautiously optimistic about the defence spend but sceptical about execution timelines. The Eurovision suggestion went viral. General mood: refreshingly forward-looking in a week dominated by war.

I would like to end this week by quote the venerable Mike Tyson, "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." I thought it was face, but its not. Hope you enjoyed this edition and you feedback is always appreciated. Please forward my thoughts to your friends if you think its worth sharing.

Many thanks, Sam.

Sources

Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Monocle, Anthropic, Axios, BBC, CNN, CNBC, NPR, PBS NewsHour, Bloomberg, Al Jazeera, Washington Post, Reuters, Semafor, War on the Rocks, Atlantic Council, FPRI, The Hill, TIME, Newsweek, Moscow Times, Ukrainska Pravda, Euromaidan Press, Lawfare, Politico, Rest of World, PYMNTS, iGaming Business, Wikipedia, EIA, IEA, Bernstein Research, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, Kyiv School of Economics, Barclays, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Bubblemaps, Priyom, Trading Economics, Bank of Canada.