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A Most Dangerous Assumption: Mining the Future to Spend More Today
A Most Dangerous Assumption: Mining the Future to Spend More Today What the cheerleaders are actually claiming is the process of adding zeroes to “money” is limitless, but there are limits on the utility of devaluing currency, too. How prosperous would the world be if we hadn’t collectively borrowed and spent $315 trillion—-333% of global […]
Prepare for the Repricing of Risk Globally
Prepare for the Repricing of Risk Globally There are no more “saves” available for the next market meltdown. The past 24 years can be viewed as an era in which risk declined due to the dynamics of globalization and financialization. The ascent of China as “workshop of the world” generated a deflationary wave of lower […]
Our Crisis of Competence
Our Crisis of Competence If this is what passes for competence while we cheerlead “the Roaring 20s”, then our delusion has reached “what looks like a permanently high plateau.” That America is mired in a crisis of competence appears to be yet another issue that can’t be addressed directly as it might upset the narrative control that all […]
Precarious: One Misfortune Away from Insolvency
Precarious: One Misfortune Away from Insolvency As a result, a significant percentage of households that are considered middle-class are one misfortune away from insolvency. We can summarize the changes in our economy over the past two generations with one word: precarity, as life for the bottom 90% of American households has become far more precarious over […]
The Decay of Everyday Life
The Decay of Everyday Life So where does this leave us? We’re on our own. This month I’ve described what can be summarized as The Decay of Everyday Life: the erosion of the fundamental elements of everyday life: work, opportunity, social mobility, security and well-being, which includes civility, conviviality and a functional, competent social-political order. In other […]
The Ghetto-ization of American Life
The Ghetto-ization of American Life Behind the facade of normalization, even high-income lifestyles have been ghetto-ized. Consider the defining characteristics of a ghetto: 1. The residents can’t afford to live elsewhere. 2. Everything is a rip-off because options are limited and retailers / service providers know residents have no other choice or must go to […]
Living on Uneasy Street
Living on Uneasy Street It’s nice to anticipate sunny weather, but it’s a good idea to carry an umbrella just in case the forecasts prove overly optimistic. Yes, the market will rally if World War III didn’t start last night. The market will also rally if World War III does start, because the Federal Reserve will […]
Is There a Road Map for What’s Ahead?
Is There a Road Map for What’s Ahead? One of our primary survival traits is the ability to anticipate the future to avoid threats and reap higher yields. We seek a vantage point to view the road ahead, or even better a road map to what’s ahead. Is there a road map to what’s ahead? An enormous […]
Financial Forecast 2025-2032: Please Don’t Be Naive
Financial Forecast 2025-2032: Please Don’t Be Naive Rather than attempt to evade Caesar’s reach, a better strategy might be to ‘go gray’: blend in, appear average. Let’s start by stipulating that I don’t “like” this forecast. I’m not “talking my book” (for example, promoting nuclear power because I own shares in a uranium mine) or issuing […]
Staving Off Revolution
Staving Off Revolution If the leadership chooses happy-story PR and toothless reforms for show in the hopes it will all blow over, these subterfuges have the potential to push dissatisfaction beyond the point of control. Whatever else we might say or think about the leadership class, they tend to have a keen sense of self-preservation. The […]
What Happens When There’s Nobody Left to Save Us?
What Happens When There’s Nobody Left to Save Us? Passively waiting for centralized powers to “save us” from their own excesses is not a solution. It’s no exaggeration to say that our way of life depends on somebody somewhere saving us from the excesses that are the bedrock of our way of life. What excesses, you […]
Irony Alert: “Outlawing” Recession Has Made a Monster Recession Inevitable
Irony Alert: “Outlawing” Recession Has Made a Monster Recession Inevitable Those who came of age after 1982 have never experienced a real recession, and so they’re unprepared for anything other than guarantees of rescue and permanent expansion. The mainstream view is that recession is caused by economic-financial factors. The mainstream view is wrong, for recession […]
The Era of Easy Money Ruined Us
The Era of Easy Money Ruined Us The rot caused by easy money will only become fully visible when the hollowed out institutions start collapsing under the weight of incompetence, debt and hubris. We have yet to reach a full reckoning of the consequences of the era of easy money, but it’s abundantly clear that […]
Rome Was Eternal, Until It Wasn’t: Imperial Analogs of Decay
Rome Was Eternal, Until It Wasn’t: Imperial Analogs of Decay The tricky part is distinguishing the critical dependencies–those resources the empire literally cannot do without–from longer-term sources of decay and decline. In response to my recent post What If There Are No Analogs for 2024?, an astute reader nominated the Roman Empire as a fitting analog. Longtime […]
Here’s How “Prosperity” Ends: Global Bubbles Are Popping
Here’s How “Prosperity” Ends: Global Bubbles Are Popping So here we are: the global credit-asset bubbles are popping, and the illusory “prosperity” generated by the bubbles is about to tumble off a cliff. There are two kinds of prosperity, one fake, one real. Bogus “prosperity” depends on credit-asset bubbles inflating, magically creating “wealth” not from labor, […]
