“Can you live and build a ton of wealth and just have no idea about where interest rates have gone, where they will go, probably like you'll probably be fine,” he said. Reflecting on his own habits, he added, “Would my life have changed if I never went on my interest rate rabbit holes? Like, as an average person with my average finances, probably not.”
"I've never seen a situation like this change so quickly," says Wettlaufer, partner at the short-selling shop Bleecker Street Research, which opened its short position into SVB in January. Wettlaufer wasn't talking about the events of the last two and a half days-when a bank run ushered the California financial regulator into its offices to close it down not long after SVB said it was raising more than $2 billion in capital through a share sale. No-Wettlaufer was referring to the last two years.
Roughly one in four Americans are paying off auto debt, according to a report published Wednesday by the Century Foundation, a progressive think tank, and are overall on the hook for a record $1.68 trillion in car loans or outstanding payments. Those figures out auto loans on par with all outstanding federal student loan debt($1.69 trillion of federal debt and $1.84 trillion total) and ahead of credit card balances ($1.28 trillion outstanding as of last year).
The European Central Bank has kept interest rates on hold, despite inflation rising to an estimated 3.0% in April 2026, driven primarily by energy prices.
The iShares U.S. Treasury Bond ETF holds only U.S. Treasury notes and bonds across the maturity curve, providing the cleanest expression of flight-to-quality stability in a single ticker. Credit risk is effectively zero because every holding carries the full faith and credit of the U.S. government.
