Failure-Chain Scorecard
Twelve items across five subsystems -- capacity, logistics, labor, fiscal extraction, legitimacy -- each scored 0/1/2 against a fixed threshold, summed to one 0-24 reading. Five items pull a live FRED series directly; seven use a headline-frequency proxy against BBC Business, BBC Economy, and Al Jazeera, since no free live numeric feed exists for them. Method is labeled per item -- a LIVE-SERIES score and a HEADLINE-PROXY score are not the same strength of evidence. Recomputed weekly.
LIVE-SERIES items (5 of 12): credit-to-state channel reads the ICE BofA US High-Yield Index OAS (FRED BAMLH0A0HYM2) against the same 400/500bp stress bands that marked 2008, 2020, and 2022. Financial plumbing reads Federal Reserve discount-window primary credit (FRED WLCFLPCL) against its own trailing 7-week baseline, since it normally sits near zero. Unemployment/hours uses the Sahm Rule real-time recession indicator (FRED SAHMREALTIME) at its own published 0.5pp trigger. Household distress reads credit-card delinquency (FRED DRCCLACBS). Tax base/interest crowding-out reads federal net interest outlays as percent of GDP (FRED FYOIGDA188S).
HEADLINE-PROXY items (7 of 12): government functioning, energy/transport reliability, physical delivery pain, input bottlenecks, coercive policy, social trust, and violence/disruption externalities each count keyword hits for the item's concept across the same three RSS feeds already live on Triggers and Markets. Zero hits scores 0, one or two hits scores 1, three or more scores 2. A real proxy, not a placeholder -- but weaker evidence than a hard series, which is why the method is shown next to every item rather than blended in silently.