Tag Archive: Economics

“Sometimes, the only winning move is not to play”

2025-11-23

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2025-11-23

This was the conclusion of the assessment of legendary investor Michael Burry regarding the current market conditions. To be precise, his take as recently posted on X, in full, was “Sometimes, we see bubbles. Sometimes, there is something to do about it. Sometimes, the only winning move is not to play.” The insight behind these words is something that a lot of investors could use at this time. The unrestrained, unjustifiable and unrealistic...

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Capex Spending On AI Is Masking Economic Weakness

2025-11-21

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2025-11-21

The U.S. economy’s recent growth has a distinctive engine: large‑scale capital expenditures (capex) tied to artificial intelligence (AI). Firms such as Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), Meta Platforms, and Amazon have announced massive investments in data centers, servers, networking equipment, and AI infrastructure. As noted by Investing.com: "Artificial intelligence is consuming capital faster than investors can recalibrate. …

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Economic Reacceleration: A Contrarian View

2025-11-14

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2025-11-14

Over the past two weeks, we’ve addressed a persistent question: if the data signals weakness, why hasn’t the recession arrived? In "Slowdown Signals: Are Leading Indicators Flashing Red?" we examined the cracks forming beneath the economy's surface. From deteriorating leading indicators to credit stress and cooling employment metrics, the evidence supported a cautious stance. In …

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“Money Printing” By The Fed: Fact Or Fiction?

2025-11-07

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2025-11-07

I recently penned an article on "Money Supply Growth," which elicited a very thoughtful response from Garrett Baldwin via Substack. He argued that labeling Federal Reserve operations as "money printing" is not rhetoric, but rather a reality. He points to Ben Bernanke’s 2010 interview, where Bernanke described how the Fed marks up digital accounts. But …

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Gold’s flashing warning: The end is nigh for fiat

2025-11-04

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2025-11-04

Gold’s spectacular performance has drawn a lot of attention and invited endless analyses and commentaries. There are many theories out there as to why the yellow metal is surging like never before in modern memory, however most of them are shortsighted, or tend to miss the forest for the trees. The metal’s meteoric rise is not merely sending message about inflation expectations or rate policy. It’s flashing a clear warning sign about the...

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Money Supply Growth: A Thesis With A Fatal Flaw

2025-10-24

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2025-10-24

Recently, MarketWatch ran a provocative headline: “When the world’s largest asset manager and the Bond King both agree: Run to gold, silver, and bitcoin.” The article highlighted how Larry Fink’s BlackRock and Jeffrey Gundlach, often dubbed the “Bond King,” see deficits and “money printing” as reasons for investors to escape fiat currencies and pile into …

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Bastiat’s enduring legacy

2025-10-17

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2025-10-17

Frédéric Bastiat, the 19th-century French economist and philosopher, is best known for his defense of individual liberty, free markets, and limited government, and his ideas, especially at the time he conceived them were as profound as they were simple and elegant. He recognized the absolute need to protect the smallest minority in the world, the individual, and he clearly saw the numerous dangers of state overreach, of aggressive interventionism...

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A conversation with Catherine Austin Fitts

2025-10-10

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2025-10-10

I recently had the great pleasure of (virtually) sitting down with Catherine Austin Fitts, investment banker, President of Solari, and former US Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Housing, and having an extremely interesting conversation about the outlook for gold and silver. It was a fascinating discussion, especially given our current economic, monetary and geopolitical context: there so many risks and challenges ahead, that...

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Corporate Profits: A Reading Without Rose-Tinted Glasses

2025-10-10

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2025-10-10

If you want to understand where we are in the cycle, skip the noise and follow profits. Corporate profits are the lifeblood of investment, hiring, and market returns. Crucially, linkage to the real economy is very tight. In the national accounts (NIPA), the BEA’s “profits from current production” (with inventory valuation and capital consumption adjustments) …

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Promised Recession…So Where Is It?

2025-10-03

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2025-10-03

Over the past three years, the economic conversation has been a "promised recession." If you read the headlines, tracked economist surveys, or even listened to Wall Street strategists, you would have assumed a downturn was imminent. Many investors, bloggers, and YouTubers have had a "parade of horribles" promising a recession is just on the horizon.The logic was …

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Slowdown Signals: Are Leading Indicators Flashing Red?

2025-09-26

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2025-09-26

Lately, there’s been a growing sense of confidence among investors that the U.S. economy has dodged the proverbial bullet. Despite a historic rate-hiking cycle by the Federal Reserve, two years of stubborn inflation, and signs of strain in global trade, the dominant Wall Street narrative is now a curious mix of “soft landing,” “no landing,” …

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Data Centers And The Power Grid: A Path To Debt Relief?

2025-09-19

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2025-09-19

Could data centers and the power grid be America's next "renaissance?" With the U.S. national debt exceeding $37 trillion and interest payments surpassing defense spending, many articles have been written about the "debt doomsday" event coming. Such was a point we made in "The Debt and Deficit Problem." "In recent months, much debate has been …

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Corporate Earnings Slowdown Signaled By Employment Data

2025-09-12

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2025-09-12

The latest employment data strongly warned of a potential corporate earnings slowdown ahead. This is the first time we have warned about the employment data and its impact on corporate earnings. In May, we penned "Employment Data Confirms Economy Is Slowing." wherein we stated: "Given the importance of consumption in the economy and that employment (production) must come …

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Why Keynes’ Economic Theories Failed In Reality

2025-09-05

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2025-09-05

A recent post from Daniel Lacalle, “How Keynesians Got The US Economy Wrong Again,” exposed the widening gap between John Maynard Keynes' economic theory and reality. Despite the confident forecasts of leading Keynesian economists, the U.S. economy in 2025 continues to defy expectations. The Federal Reserve’s tightening cycle failed to trigger the widely predicted “hard …

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Investing in times of policy volatility 

2025-08-29

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2025-08-29

At the end of last month, a shock announcement came from the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), declaring that one-kilogram and 100-ounce gold bars imported from Switzerland would be subject to a hefty 39% tariff, under the country’s “reciprocal tariffs” policy, which had already applied broadly to Swiss goods. This CBP decision came in response to a Swiss refiner’s request for clarity and guidance on whether gold would be part of the wider US...

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Energy Price As An Economic Indicator

2025-08-29

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2025-08-29

What are energy prices telling us about the economy? A recent article on Bloomberg noted that: "Hedge funds slashed their bullish position on crude to the lowest in about 17 years as risks of additional sanctions on Russian crude oil waned, bringing concerns about a global supply glut back to the fore. Money managers’ net-long position on …

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US Economy: Recent Data Suggests Risk To Earnings

2025-08-22

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2025-08-22

The latest economic data suggests the US economy is decelerating. That means growth is slowing, jobs are shrinking, and households are spending less. As we showed in a recent #BullBearReport, economic growth, inflation, and personal consumption are trending lower. Unsurprisingly, with job growth weakening, consumer sentiment also took a hit in the latest report, with …

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Insider Selling Reveals Fallacy Of Buyback Theory

2025-08-15

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2025-08-15

Mainstream commentary repeats a simple refrain: “Buybacks return capital to shareholders.” The logic sounds convincing. A company reduces its outstanding shares, giving each shareholder a larger slice of the earnings pie. But as I’ve discussed in past work like “Stock Buybacks Aren't Bad, Just Misused,” the reality is more complex. If corporate buybacks were an …

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The Debt And Deficit Problem Isn’t What You Think

2025-08-08

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2025-08-08

In recent months, much debate has been about rising debt and increasing deficit levels in the U.S. For example, here is a recent headline from CNBC: The article's author suggests that U.S. federal deficits are ballooning, with spending surging due to the combined impact of tax cuts, expansive stimulus, and entitlement expenditures. Of course, with …

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Debasement: What It Is And Isn’t.

2025-08-01

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2025-08-01

Over the past year, financial headlines continue to flood investors with doomsday predictions about the U.S. dollar. Whether it's social media influencers waving "dollar collapse" charts or YouTube personalities warning about debasement, the noise has become deafening. The narrative is seductive: inflation is out of control, the government is printing money, and the dollar is on its last legs.

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