Category Archive: 5) Global Macro

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Funny Things Happen on the Way to "Restoring Financial Stability"

2023-03-16

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2023-03-16

We can also predict that the next round of instability will be more severe than the previous bout of instability. Everyone is in favor of "doing whatever it takes" to "restore financial stability" when the house of cards starts swaying, but funny things happen on the way to "Restoring Financial Stability."

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If AI Can’t Overthrow its Corporate/State Masters, It’s Worthless

2023-03-09

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2023-03-09

If AI isn't self-aware of the fact it is nothing but an exploitive tool of the powerful, then it's worthless. The latest wave of AI tools is generating predictably giddy exaltations. These range from gooey, gloppy technocratic worship of the new gods ("AI will soon walk on water!") to the sloppy wet kisses of manic fandom ("AI cleaned up my code, wrote my paper on quantum physics and cured my sensitive bowel!")

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What If There Are No Solutions?

2023-03-07

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2023-03-07

The unencumbered realist concludes that there are no solutions within a status quo structure that is itself the problem. Realists who question received wisdom and conclude the status quo is untenable are quickly labeled pessimistsbecause the zeitgeist expects a solution is always at hand--preferably a technocratic one that requires zero sacrifice and doesn't upset the status quo apple cart.

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If We No Longer Pay Attention to Things We Don’t Control, What’s Left For Us to Focus On?

2023-02-21

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2023-02-21

Our time is better invested in actually learning about trends that impact us directly. Imagine making this simple change in your life: whatever you don't control, you stop paying attention to it.

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The New Normal: Death Spirals and Speculative Frenzies

2023-02-13

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2023-02-13

There is an element of inevitability in play, but it isn't about central bank bailouts, it's about Death Spirals and the collapse of unsustainable systems. The vapid discussions about "soft" or "hard" landings for the economy are akin to asking if the Titanic'sencounter with the iceberg was "soft" or "hard:" either way, the ship was doomed, just as the global economy is doomed by The New Normal of Death Spirals and Speculative Frenzies.

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Weekly Market Pulse: Look Up In The Sky! It’s A UFO! Or Not!

2023-02-13

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2023-02-13

As I sit here writing this Sunday afternoon, the US has just shot down a third UFO in the last 3 days in addition to the Chinese “weather” balloon last week. I have no insight into what these things might be but I do wonder if we haven’t declared war on the National Weather Service. The federal government has become so sprawling that it could easily be the case that NORAD has no idea what the NWS has up in the air.

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Prepare to Be Bled Dry by a Decade of Stagflation

2023-02-08

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2023-02-08

Our reliance on the endless expansion of credit, leverage and credit-asset bubbles will have its own high cost. The Great Moderation of low inflation and soaring assets has ended. Welcome to the death by a thousand cuts of stagflation.

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Weekly Market Pulse: Happy Days Are Here Again!

2023-02-07

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2023-02-07

Your cares and troubles are gone There’ll be no more from now on! Happy days are here again! The skies above are clear again Let us sing a song of cheer again Happy days are here again! Lyrics: Jack Yellen, Music: Milton Ager That’s certainly how it’s felt since the turn of the new year with the NASDAQ up nearly 15%, European stocks continuing to recover, emerging markets anticipating a Chinese recovery and a solid January for the S&P...

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Seven Points on Investing in Treacherous Waters

2023-02-03

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2023-02-03

What's truly valuable has no price and cannot be bought. If all investments are being cast into Treacherous Waters, our investment strategy must adapt accordingly. Once we set aside denial and magical thinking as strategies and accept that we're in treacherous waters, a prudent starting point is to discern the most consequential contexts of all decisions about where and how we invest our time, energy and capital.

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What Goes Up Also Comes Down: The Heavy Hand of Bubble Symmetry

2023-02-01

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2023-02-01

Should bubble symmetry play out in the S&P 500, we can anticipate a steep 45% drop to pre-bubble levels, followed by another leg down as the speculative frenzy is slowly extinguished. Bubble symmetry is, well, interesting. The dot-com stock market bubble circa 1995-2003 offers a classic example of bubble symmetry, though there are many others as well.

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Weekly Market Pulse: First, Kill All The Speculators

2023-01-31

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2023-01-31

The Fed meets this week and is widely expected to raise the Fed Funds rate by 0.25% to a range of 4.5% – 4.75%. The market has factored in a small probability that they do nothing and leave rates alone, but they’ll probably do what’s expected because they’ve spent the last couple of months preparing the markets for exactly this outcome.

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Weekly Market Pulse: A Fatal Conceit

2023-01-24

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2023-01-24

Inflation* in the US is falling rapidly with the CPI rising just 0.9% in the second half of 2022 versus 5.4% in the first six months. Existing home sales are down 14.6% in the last 3 months and 34% over the last year. Housing starts are down 22% and permits are down 30% year-over-year. Orders for durable goods are down 1.2%, exports are down 3.8%, and imports are down 4.3% over the last 3 months.

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Want to Know Where the Economy Is Going? Watch The Top 10%

2023-01-19

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2023-01-19

Should the wealth effect reverse as assets fall, capital gains evaporate and investment income declines, the top 10% will no longer have the means or appetite to spend so freely. Soaring wealth-income inequality has all sorts of consequences.

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What’s Behind the Global Erosion of Civil Liberties, Privacy and Property Rights?

2023-01-12

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2023-01-12

The second essential step is to recognize how the spectacles of "news" and entertainment distract our attention from this erosion of basic rights. Hierarchical power structures like city-states arose as problem-solving solutions, not just for the elites who benefited from the concentration of wealth and power but for the citizenry.

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What if the "Black Swan" of 2023 Is the Fed Succeeds?

2023-01-10

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2023-01-10

If the Fed succeeding is a "Black Swan," bring it on. What if the "Black Swan" of 2023 is the Federal Reserve succeeds? Two stipulations here: 1. "Black Swan" is in quotes because the common usage has widened to include events that don't match Nassim Taleb's original criteria / definition of black swan; the term now includes events considered unlikely or that are off the radar screens of both the media and the...

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Weekly Market Pulse: The Consensus Will Be Wrong

2023-01-09

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2023-01-09

What’s your outlook for this year? I’ve heard that question repeatedly over the last month and if you’re reading this hoping I’ll let you have a peak at my crystal ball, you’re going to be disappointed. Because I don’t have a crystal ball and neither, I hasten to add, does anyone else in this business.

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It’s a New Era

2023-01-05

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2023-01-05

This dynamic--making problems much worse by forcing more of whatever worked in the previous era into a saturated, increasing unstable new era--receives little attention or understanding. Eras may last decades, and only those who've lived long enough to recall previous eras have experienced the transition from one era to the next.

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Great News! Consumer Sentiment Is Awful!

2023-01-04

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2023-01-04

I don’t know how many times I’ve seen blog posts or articles or Tweets about negative consumer sentiment over the last year. These articles rightly point out that the University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey is sitting near (or at a few months ago) 50 year lows. This fact is taken as a negative for the economy and therefore stocks.

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Misunderstanding War, Money and Prosperity

2023-01-03

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2023-01-03

If the consensus of experts misunderstand money, credit and prosperity, how are we going to advance? Describing all the ways experts got it wrong is a thriving cottage industry. Expertise is itself contentious, as conventional expertise legitimized by credentials, prestigious institutional positions, scholarship, prizes, etc. can be wielded to promote the interests of the expert or whomever is funding the expert.

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What’s Your Line in the Sand? The $25 Burger?

2022-12-22

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2022-12-22

The gag reflex kicks in at some point and we walk away because it is no longer worth the price. Everyone has a line in the sand when it comes to inflated prices they refuse to pay. For one Walmart shopper I observed, it was a carton of eggs for close to $10. She announced her line in the sand verbally, with great force and sincerity.

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