So, you know, there's this concept in oceanography
called a rogue wave. It is honestly terrifying.
Oh, absolutely. Because like on the surface,
the sea might look, I don't know, a little choppy,
but generally fine. manageable but underneath
you have these deep currents colliding in just
the right way to suddenly push up a massive wall
of water exactly a wall of water they can just
capsize a ship out of nowhere yeah and that is
exactly the feeling I got reading through today's
stack of sources for this deep dive. Yeah, I
mean it feels like we're looking out at the ocean
and the weather report says sunny and mild but
all the sensors down below are just screaming
that something massive is moving. It's a classic
case of visibility bias. We are so trained to
look at the shiny object, right? The headline
unemployment rate or the glossy public image
of a public figure or even just the price tag
on a chocolate bar. But our sources today are
really tearing up the floorboards to show you
what's actually going on underneath. Let me tell
you what is underneath is incredibly turbulent
So we're calling today's deep dive hidden currents
and we have three major stacks to get through
today First we've got the Epstein ripple effect.
There's this massive news dump from electoral
vote detailing these really high -profile arrests.
We're talking a former UK ambassador, a member
of the royal family, plus this looming shadow
over the White House literally hours before the
State of the Union address. And that actually
connects, surprisingly, to our second stack,
which is the Mississippi pilot economy. We have
this fascinating investment report that uses
a 19th century steamboat manual to explain why
the US labor market is flashing danger signals.
Even though the headline numbers look completely
safe. Exactly. And finally, we're going to look
at the great cocoa crash. Like, why is the price
of raw cocoa collapsed by nearly 70 %? But you're
still paying a premium for a Snickers bar. And
the answer involves a really surprising link
to weight loss drugs. It's a wild journey from
the corridors of power to the grocery aisle.
But the lesson is the same across the board.
If you aren't watching the hidden currents, you're
going to get swept away. So let's just jump right
into the deep end. We have to start with this
news drop from electoral vote. It has been an
incredibly chaotic 24 hours for what the source
calls consequences regarding the Epstein files.
Yeah, consequences, putting it mildly. I mean,
this is a roll call that spans politics, royalty,
mainstream media, medicine. The source material
is painting a picture of a dam finally breaking.
For years, there was just silence, and now suddenly
there's noise everywhere. Right. And let's start
across the pond. The source reports that Peter
Mandelson, who is the former UK ambassador to
the United States and deeply embedded in the
transatlantic power structure, has been arrested.
And he's not alone. He is joined by Andrew Mountbatten
-Windsor. Formerly known to the world as Prince
Andrew. And what is critical here isn't just
the fact of the arrest, but the specific nature
of the charges. The source explicitly mentions
misconduct in public office and financial crimes.
They made that Al Capone comparison, right? Precisely.
It's the old Al Capone strategy. If you can't
get them on the violence, get them on the taxes.
Financial paper trails are often what actually
bring powerful people down. Because in this case,
the allegation is about sharing privileged financial
information with Epstein. Yeah, it's a stark
reminder that these relationships weren't just
social. They were highly transactional. was friendship
but underneath you had money and influence moving
in illegal ways. Which from a legal standpoint
is often much easier to prove in court than you
know he said she said regarding abuse from decades
ago. Paper just doesn't forget. No it doesn't
and that ripple effect is moving into sectors
you wouldn't necessarily expect like mainstream
media and medicine. The resignation of Dr. Peter
Etia from CBS News really stood out in the stack.
It did, because Etia is a huge name in the longevity
and health space. He's usually very precise,
very scientific, but he resigned yesterday and
the source was very specific about why. It wasn't
just guilt by association. No, it was the actual
content of the emails. It completely destroys
the I didn't know defense. The source quotes
an email exchange regarding young women that
was, well, let's just say it was incredibly crude.
Yeah, Atiya made a joke that, quote, pussy is
indeed low carb. That is a direct quote from
his email. And for a medical professional, a
contributor to a major news network, that is
just career suicide in black and white text.
It reveals the misogyny that underpinned that
entire network. And then you have Deepak Chopra.
The source material on him was perhaps the most
jarring for me because his entire brand is peace,
wellness, higher consciousness. Yet the emails
show him encouraging Epstein to, quote, bring
your girls and even suggesting Epstein use an
alias to avoid detection. It's the ultimate hypocrisy.
It is. And the source makes a really keen observation
here about the difference in consequences. Atia
lost his job. Chopra is 80 years old. He doesn't
have a boss to fire him. Right. So his consequences
total reputation destruction. He can't be fired,
but he's being effectively canceled by the revelation
of his private character. And speaking of consequences,
there's Casey Wasserman, the chair of the LA
2028 Olympics. Now, this is a high stakes situation.
You have the Olympics, which is supposed to be
the ultimate brand of global unity and excellence.
And the man at the top is now linked via sexually
loaded emails to Ghislaine Maxwell. And he's
already selling his talent agency because clients
were defecting left and right. The pressure for
him to resign from the Olympic committee is immense
because, as the source argues, you just can't
have the face of your city's best efforts be
someone with those kinds of ties. But, you know,
there is one place the source describes as a
consequence -free zone. Ah, yes, the White House.
This is the elephant in the room for tonight's
State of the Union address. The source report
highlights that Donald Trump and Commerce Secretary
Howard Lutnick appear multiple times in the files.
Right, and both have denied deep relationships,
but the files suggest otherwise. Now, we need
to be very clear here for you listening. We are
just reporting on the allegations and the public
sentiment as presented in the source. They explicitly
state that while they believe there is a pattern
of behavior, they really doubt there will be
legal consequences for the president. But the
public perception? That is an entirely different
story. The data here is critical. We have polling
from Quinnipiac, Reuters, YouGov. It's not just
one outlier poll. YouGov found that 53 % of Americans,
and that actually includes 13 % of Republicans,
believe Trump is covering up crimes related to
Epstein. That is a majority of the country believing
the president is actively engaged in a cover
-up. And Reuters found that 69 % of respondents
believe the rich rarely face accountability.
And that number, that 69 percent, is the one
that should worry politicians the most. It tells
you that the electorate is deeply cynical. They
see a two tiered justice system, one for the
Mandelsons and Trumps of the world and one for
everyone else. Which creates a incredibly volatile
backdrop for the state of the union tonight,
especially since Democrats are bringing Epstein
victims as their guests to the gallery. It's
a very powerful visual tactic. You have the president
at the podium speaking about the state of the
nation and looking down at him from the balcony
are the living victims of the man he is accused
of protecting. It shifts the narrative entirely
from policy to character. The hidden current
is literally rising up to sit in the balcony.
Exactly. It feels like everything is becoming
a battleground lately. Right. Even things that
used to be pure escapism. Which brings us to
our second segment. The intersection of sports
and politics. Because apparently you can't even
watch college football without a culture war
breaking out. You're talking about the Josh Pate
interview. This is a fascinating case study and
audience capture. So just for context, Josh Pate
is a massive college football podcaster. His
whole brand, his core promise to you, the listener,
is stick to sports, no politics, just ball. Right.
And then he interviews Donald Trump. And he justified
it beforehand by saying it was a 1000 percent
auto yes for any president. And he promised his
audience that anyone expecting a political rally
would be sorely disappointed. So we looked at
the game tape provided by the source. They literally
broke down the 10 minute interview by topic.
Do you want to guess how much actual college
football was discussed? Five percent. Five percent.
That is the definition. of a bait and switch.
It really is. The breakdown was 35 percent praising
his own cabinet, 20 percent bragging about election
results, 10 percent attacking enemies. The actual
sport was just a rapper. And the fallout for
Patey was real. He lost subscribers. He tried
to claim it was bots. But the source suggests
something much more fundamental. Betrayal. It
raises a huge question for content creators.
If you build an audience on the premise of being
a sanctuary from politics, and then you platform
a polarizing figure, whether it's Trump or anyone
else, you are breaking the contract with your
listener. You might think it's this huge get
for your show, but if it alienates the people
who actually pay your bills, is it really worth
it? Probably not. And it seems the White House
is struggling with that stick to sports concept,
too. We have this story about FBI Director Cash
Patel and the Winter Olympics in Italy. Oh, man,
this is a classic optics versus reality clash.
Patel's spokesperson went on the record claiming
reports of him going to the Olympics on taxpayer
money were false. Quote, fake news. And then.
And then there he is on high definition television
sitting in a luxury box. And later, he's seen
chugging beers in the locker room with the U
.S. men's hockey team. It's just the brazenness
of it, saying I'm not there while literally waving
at the camera. But the real friction point the
source identifies is the massive difference in
how the men's team and the women's team were
treated by the administration. It's stark. The
men's hockey team is perceived as being magia
-aligned. So they get the locker room visit,
the beer celebration with the FBI director, and
an invite to the State of the Union. And the
women's team, who we should definitely add, actually
won the gold medal. Right. They got mocked. Trump
explicitly joked on the call with the men that
he'd be impeached if he invited the women's team.
And the women's team didn't take that lying down.
They issued a formal statement declining a White
House visit due to scheduling conflicts. Which
the source translates beautifully as, when hell
freezes over. It really highlights a deep cultural
fracture. We used to just rally around the flag
on the jersey. But now it seems the administration
is vetting the politics of the players before
deciding if they are even worth celebrating.
It's the politicization of everything. There
is no neutral ground left. But speaking of neutral
ground, or at least ground that looks neutral,
let's talk about the economy. Yes. This next
source from Ocean Park Asset Management is titled
The Mississippi Pilot. And it starts with this
amazing story about Mark Twain. I love this analogy
so much. So back in the 1800s, stepping onto
a Mississippi steamboat was basically a gamble.
The river surface often looked totally calm,
just brown, opaque water. But underneath there
were these snags, sunken trees, sandbars that
could rip the hull right off the boat. And the
pilot's job wasn't to look at the pretty surface.
It was to read the soundings, the measurements
of depth. Right. And the argument here is that
the U .S. labor market right now is that river.
If you look at the surface, the headline numbers,
it looks safe. It looks navigable. But the soundings,
they are screaming shallow water. Let's look
at that surface first. The January 2026 jobs
report was released recently. And on the surface,
it looked solid. 130 ,000 new jobs added, unemployment
sitting at a relatively low 4 .3%. If you just
read the headlines, you'd think, full steam ahead.
But the source tells us to drop the lead line
and check the depth. What are the actual snags
here? There are three massive ones. First, the
phantom jobs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics
performed a benchmark revision on the previous
year's data. They wiped out nearly 900 ,000 jobs
from the 2025 records. Explain that to me. 900
,000 jobs just gone. It means that for most of
last year when we thought the economy was growing,
it actually wasn't. Those jobs never existed.
The data was just wrong. So we were celebrating
economic growth that was actually just a statistical
error. That is a massive correction. That's almost
a million fandom jobs. OK, so that's snag number
one. What's number two? The hiring freeze. So
we look at a report called Jolts, the job openings
and labor turnover survey. For years, there were
plenty of open jobs. But now, for the first time
since before the pandemic, there is less than
one job opening for every unemployed person.
So the cushion is gone. Yeah. If you lose your
job today, statistically, there isn't a new one
waiting for you. Exactly. Upward mobility has
basically frozen, and that leads to the third
and frankly the scariest snag, AI. The source
calls this quiet hiring suppression. I found
this concept fascinating because usually when
we talk about AI, we picture like a robot firing
a human. You know, you're fired. The algorithm
will do your job now. But that's not how it's
happening at all. It's much more subtle. It's
happening through attrition. Let's say Susan
in accounting retires, or Mike in marketing moves
to a different city. Instead of posting a job
ad to replace them, the company just buys an
enterprise license for an AI agent to absorb
their workload. So nobody actually gets a pink
slip. The job opening just evaporates. Correct.
The job is deleted from the economy silently.
The source cites Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic.
He warns that AI could wipe out half of all entry
level white collar jobs in the next one to five
years. Half. That is a staggering number. That's
the entire bottom rung of the corporate ladder.
And the data is already supporting this. AI was
explicitly cited in 7 % of job cuts in January.
But the real impact is invisible. It's the recent
college grads sending out 500 resumes and getting
zero callbacks because the junior analyst roles
simply don't exist anymore. And this ties back
to the SAM rule mentioned in the report, right?
Yes. So the SAM rule is a recession indicator
that has a near perfect track record. It triggers
when the three month average unemployment rate
rises. half a percent off its low. And it actually
triggered back in July 2024. We didn't declare
a recession then. No, because everyone said,
oh, this time is different. They blamed immigration.
They blamed post -pandemic weirdness. But the
river pilot advice here is, trust the soundings.
If the indicator says the water is getting shallow,
don't argue with the river. We are likely in
a much more fragile economic state than the S
&P 500 suggests. So we have a labor market that
looks totally fine but is secretly hollowing
out from the inside. Now I want to pivot to a
market where the crash has already happened but
we aren't feeling the benefit yet. Chocolate.
Yes, the great cocoa unwind. This is a perfect
lesson in how supply chains actually work in
the real world. Here's the paradox that really
confused me at first. Cocoa prices have absolutely
collapsed. They hit a peak of nearly $11 ,000
a ton back in May 2024, and now they're down
to about $3 ,100. That is a 70 % drop. The bubble
completely burst. It imploded. So why did I pay
$2 .50 for a chocolate bar this morning? Two
words. Inventory accounting. You have to understand
that massive companies like Hershey or Mars,
they don't buy cocoa on the spot market the day
they make the candy. They buy futures contracts.
They lock in prices months in advance to ensure
their supply. So the chocolate on the shelf right
now? Was made with cocoa bought six months ago.
They are currently working through inventory
they purchased at the absolute peak of the bubble.
We literally won't see the impact of today's
low prices on store shelves until mid -2026.
OK, so the price relief is coming. It's just
stuck in the pipeline. Exactly. But there is
another factor here that I found absolutely mind
blowing. The source explicitly links the drop
in global demand for chocolate to Ozempic. I
had to reread that part twice. Weight loss drugs
are crashing the global cocoa market. It's the
GLP -1 effect. Demand for chocolate is down 1
.5 % in the US and a massive 8 % in Germany.
The source notes that while high prices are definitely
part of it, the widespread use of drugs like
ozempic and wagovi is fundamentally curbing consumer
appetites for sweets. That is wild. We are literally
medicating away the demand for junk food. It's
a huge structural shift in consumption. And when
you zoom out to the macro picture, the hedge
eye notes in our stack, we are in what they call
Quad 3. Growth is slowing, but inflation is sticky.
So while cocoa is crashing, things you actually
need, like oil and gold, are ripping higher.
So for the regular person, it just feels like
stagflation. The stuff you need to drive to work
is getting more expensive, the chocolate you
want is still expensive because of inventory
lag, and the job market is secretly freezing
up because of AI. It's a really messy, contradictory
environment right now, and it circles right back
to our main theme today. Visibility. If you only
look at the dashboard, the headline inflation
number, the stock ticker, you are flying blind.
You have to look at the soundings. You have to
read the underlying emails. You have to understand
the inventory lag. It really makes you think
about that AI point again. I want to leave you,
the listener, with this thought to mull over.
We're so focused on the fear of a crash. like
a 1929 stock market crash, or a massive wave
of mass layoffs where everyone gets fired on
a Friday. But what if the crash is already happening?
just completely silently. A crash of opportunity.
Exactly. If the economy stops hiring entry -level
workers because an AI can do it cheaper, we aren't
seeing a disaster on the evening news. We just
see a generation that can't get started. And
that is a crisis that doesn't show up in the
unemployment rate until years later. When you
saw off the bottom rungs of the ladder, the people
at the very top don't feel it. But eventually,
no one is climbing up to replace them. That is
the hidden current that could reshape society
for the next decade. Definitely something to
chew on while you watch the State of the Union
tonight. Keep an eye on the gallery and keep
an eye on the hidden currents. Thanks for diving
deep with us. See you in the deep end.