Title: AIA Free Weekly Email 9.16.26 Show: Actionable Intelligence Alert (Substack) — written post, free weekly email Author: John Polomny Date: 2026-09-16 (title-date 9.16.26; API post_date 2026-09-16T14:06Z) URL: https://actionablenews.substack.com/p/aia-free-weekly-email-91626 Length: written post — no timestamps Note: Verbatim body captured from the public post (substack_fetch.py); wording unaltered. Attribution markers ([Polomny:] / [Chris Puplava blurb:] / [Interview-host blurb:]) were added to separate Polomny's own framing from the material he reprints — the marker lines themselves are editorial, everything after them is verbatim. The post's images (a Jim Grant quote card, a Geiger Capital tweet of Bessent's "I am the house now" remark, a StockCharts monthly $TNX chart, a Bravos Research US-debt chart) were viewed and are transcribed below as [Image — …] blocks. A short curated round-up: no securities named. Polomny's own views are the Bessent "the house" nickname as a top-of-reputation tell, the 10-year yield having broken its 40-year downtrend (and whether Bessent's capitulation will be yield-curve control), the debt "root cause" getting worse, and whether diesel can hit $10/gal as the Middle East heats up. =====
[Image — header quote card:] "The Federal Reserve is the most dangerous financial institution on the face of the earth." — Jim Grant
[Chris Puplava blurb — Polomny links a Financial Sense interview:]
Chris Puplava: Markets Can’t Ignore This Energy Shock Stocks are flashing warning signs beneath the surface. Financial Sense CIO Chris Puplava examines how narrowing market leadership, rising energy costs and renewed rate-hike expectations are testing the rally. With consumer stocks weakening and a corporate buyback blackout approaching, he favors keeping cash available for a deeper pullback—while remaining cautiously optimistic that easing geopolitical tensions could support a year-end rebound.
[Polomny:]
Scott “the house” Bessent thinks he is bigger than the market
[Image — Geiger Capital (@Geiger_Capital) tweet, Sep 8: "Incredible quote by Bessent... 'I am the house now.'" Embedded news excerpt: "Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent challenged traders to counter his efforts to strengthen Japan's currency, touting that when he makes market calls nowadays he's effectively doing so with inside information. 'I am the house now, so when we intervene with the Japanese yen, I have pretty good insight into what the Japanese, what the Bank of Japan is going to do, what Japanese policymakers are going to do,' Bessent said. 'And you can bet against me if you want.'"]
Every time the media dubs one of these idiots a nickname, it usually means they're at the top for reputation or ascendancy. Remember Anthony “the science” Fauci or Alan “the maestro” Greenspan? Meanwhile, ten-year rates have broken their 40-year downtrend and are in a defined uptrend. At what point does “the house” capitulate? And is capitulation yield curve control?
[Image — StockCharts $TNX CBOE 10-Year Treasury Yield, monthly, 1983 onward (header date printed as 10-Sep-2025; close 49.44 = 4.944%). Annotations: "Secular Bond Bull Market Began In 1984" (14.50%); a descending red channel of lower highs 10.23% (1987), 8.16% (1994), 6.82% (2000), 5.32% (2007), 3.25% (2018) and lows 6.98%, 5.15%, 4.10%, 3.07%, 2.04%, 1.34%, 0.40% (2020); "Secular Bond Bull Market Ended in 2020"; "New Secular Bear Market for Bonds (Confirmed Break Higher in Yields)" at the 2022 channel breakout; subsequent 4.33%, 4.997% highs and a current 4.95% label; MACD(12,26,9) panel with a "Buy Signal" marked near 2024. Note: the chart's printed header date (Sep 2025) predates the post by a year; Polomny uses it for the long-term trend, not the current level.]
Meanwhile, the root cause of the problem is only getting worse.
[Image — Bravos Research (@bravosresearch) tweet, Sep 9: "The US government once took 2 years to add $1 trillion in debt. Today, that same $1 trillion is added in just 10 weeks. America's debt problem is getting out of control. A thread." Chart "US Government Debt" (in trillion $, 1945 through August 2026; source US Treasury, Bravos Research): $1 trillion every 716 days (2000s), every 331 days (2010s), every 145 days (2020s), every 70 days (today); debt approaching the $40T line.]
[Interview-host blurb — Polomny links a podcast conversation he gave; the host's description is reprinted (the host is not named in the email):]
Protecting Your Portfolio in a Troubled World Another conversation with John Polomy of Actionable Intelligence Alert The conversation I had a couple of weeks ago with John Polomy of Actionable Intelligence Alert picked up where we left off last time in the Soviet Union. It ended in some avocado orchards in California, and somehow made complete sense the whole way through. In John’s telling, the institutions we’ve spent our lives assuming are permanent, such as the dollar’s reserve status, US military primacy, and the two-party establishment, are not laws of nature. They’re arrangements. And arrangements evolve to protect themselves, not you, and tend to work right up until the moment they don’t. John sees military and fiscal overextension followed by a culminating event that seals an empire’s end. He points to Iran, revealing something the Pentagon would rather not say out loud. A handful of drones and missiles can now neutralize the kind of power projection that once required nothing more than showing up with a carrier group. That genie is now out of the bottle.
[Polomny:]
I had a great conversation with JeremyMckeown of “Hypernormal Times”. I like Jeremy’s work, and he sends an excellent daily email that covers the major themes in the news. I enjoy his style and thinking. Definitely worth subscribing to his work.
Saudi east-west pipeline hit by Iraqi militias. Oil and refined products soar. AIA Weekly 9.12.26
Things are heating up in the ME, and the administration seems to have no answers. Can diesel hit $10 per gallon? That’s it for this week. John Polomny