Tuesday assorted links

1. European T-Bill sales are not an effective threat.

2. Is the 1963 The Essex hit song “Easier Said than Done” actually about a white woman who cannot bring herself to confess her love for a black man?

3. New Zealand is contracting (NYT).  And Knausgaard overview (NYT).

4. “Our main result is that empirical markdowns respond only 0–25% as much as the monopsony model would have predicted.”

5. “We find that AI exposure and adaptive capacity are positively correlated: many occupations highly exposed to AI contain workers with relatively strong means to manage a job transition.”

6. In America, would fewer bus stops be better?

7. “The New York Stock Exchange is developing a platform to trade and settle tokenized stocks, though the initiative requires regulatory approval before launching.”

8. China fact of the day: “Put differently, there were fewer births in China in 2025 than in 1776”

9. Does the Japanese bond shock mean tighter global liquidity?