Oil Demand SURGES Despite Energy Transition Hype | Josh Young

2024-08-09

After Russia invaded Ukraine, the US and its allies froze over $58 billion in assets from Russian oligarchs and blocked major Russian banks from using the international payment system, known as SWIFT. Did the US cross a line in terms of weaponizing the dollar and denying access to the global financial system—opening the door to other nations losing confidence in the US dollar?

Saleha Mohsin, a senior Washington correspondent for Bloomberg News and my guest today on Global Macro Update, pegs the watershed moment for dollar weaponization back decades earlier, to the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. She covers this in detail in her book, Paper Soldiers, which has been one of my favorite geopolitical reads of the year.

We delve further into dollar weaponization in our interview, along

2024-08-02

As the US and its Western allies realign supply chains to strengthen economic resiliency, the cost of certain goods and commodities will go up. I call this “resiliency-driven inflation.”

I received a note from renowned economist Bill White about this, which prompted our interview. Bill is a former chairman of the Economic and Development Review Committee at the OECD. He has served at the Bank of Canada and Bank of England, and he is a long-time favorite speaker at the Mauldin Economics Strategic Investment Conference.

Bill and I share concerns about an extended era of both higher inflation and higher interest rates. He sees us moving from an age of plenty, which he pegs as roughly 1990 to 2020, to an age of scarcity. In our interview, he discusses the five key macroeconomic factors

2024-07-19

Is the US in “Cold War II” with China? Dmitri Alperovitch believes we are, and that it could turn kinetic, starting with China potentially invading Taiwan.

Dmitri is a founder of cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike and the co-author of World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the Twenty-First Century. He’s also one of the few analysts who accurately predicted when, why, and how Russia would invade Ukraine. He got it right—and he got it right early.

Dmitri articulates Taiwan’s strategic importance to both China and the US in plain terms. He points to China’s belief in its right to global preeminence, saying that China doesn’t want to be a US peer—it wants to “eclipse” it. When China looks out from its shores, it sees a ring of US naval power constraining it, keeping it

2024-06-28

We are entering a golden age of macro investing says Harris Kupperman, or “Kuppy” as he’s colloquially known.

Kuppy is the founder and CIO of Praetorian Capital, where he publishes an excellent, free investor letter (link below) that I read regularly. In it, he’s written about the “great macro dreamscape,” where the world unravels largely in response to runaway government debt.

While many of Kuppy’s readers took his forecasts in a negative light (and there will be negative fallout, particularly inflation), he is more focused on the opportunities it will create for macro investors.

We dig into those opportunities in detail in this interview, with Kuppy sharing specific areas—including offshore energy—that he likes. We also discuss his success with uranium, and how our tense

2024-05-24

Will the stock market rise another 50% by 2030? Dr. Ed Yardeni believes there’s a substantial chance this could happen. We discuss why in this Global Macro Update interview.

Dr. Ed’s thesis cites increasing productivity, fueled by advances in technology. This aligns with my AI/productivity boom theme: AI and automation will supplement workers, who are in short supply, making companies much more productive.

Dr. Ed says, “Productivity is sort of fairy dust: It boosts real GDP, it keeps a lid on inflation, it allows wages to rise faster than prices, and it’s great for profit margins.”

Dr. Ed is a former chief investment strategist at Prudential Equity Group and at Deutsche Bank’s US Equity Group. Today, he runs Yardeni Research. His chief markets strategist, Eric Wallerstein (formerly of

2024-05-17

Intelligence expert Karim Hijazi says the online threats to our national security go well beyond TikTok. They are vast, largely invisible, and ever-present—and AI is only amplifying this.

Karim is the founder/CEO of cybersecurity firm Vigilocity, and we connected through Renè Aninao, the managing partner of CORBŪ.

Karim and I discuss how cyberspace has become the primary medium for spycraft and warfare among advanced nations. He says we are in a “new Cold War” that is “even more cold than it was before because it’s under the surface in a fairly murky and nebulous and cryptic world that most people just don’t understand.” And he backs that up with a stream of concrete examples.

You will also hear how cyberattacks produce kinetic damage, why your personal laptop might be a bigger

2024-05-10

QI Research founder and former Dallas Fed adviser Danielle DiMartino Booth discusses recession signals, how America lost its ability to budget, and whether we’re barreling toward stagflation.

Danielle unpacks a litany of troubling economic data in our interview. Layoffs are spreading from tech to retail, manufacturing, and transportation. And for the first time ever, Americans are paying more to service their non-mortgage debt than their mortgage debt.

Danielle and I also cover AI’s impact on jobs, short-sighted Covid-era policies, and the coming “condo-mageddon.”

Investors, watch to the end for Danielle’s thoughtful guidance on what this all means for the markets and where to look for safe havens.

Learn about Danielle DiMartino Booth’s letter, The Daily Feather, here: