changegonnacome

I applaud it - and it warms the blood to see Putin so embarrassed by it.....one can imagine him in a fit of rage in the Kremlin when he heard the news.....but taking a step back.......and thinking about it rationally..........invading completely undefended territory of your enemy hundreds of miles away from the actual battlefield in SE Ukraine............feels like a PR/moral boosting stunt you pull when the 'real' military objective of capturing your own territory back isn't going so well. To do so IMO is an admission that, fundamentally, the reality is setting in that in a conventional war Ukraine hasn't the manpower left now to achieve any traditional military objectives against Russia....i.e. capture back Oblasts lost since 2022. The Kursk invasion - on the surface appears like a military operation......but IMO its a very important pivot to a kind of scaled up version of gorilla warfare by Zelensky....which is an admission by Ukraine that even with all the military aid they've been provided they lack the human resources to make any progress on the actual battlefield in South Eastern Ukraine.

As do I.....I shouldnt have put them in the same paragraph......history will be kind to Zelensky........Bibi.....well....the less said about Bibi the better!

with EU allies like Zelensky - who needs enemies?...blowing up a key energy conduit into Europe precipitating an energy crisis and now effectively condemning a generation of European energy intensive industry offshore to the USA or Asia is quite the neighborly thing to do......especially to an economic trading bloc your eager to join! Reminds me a bit of Bibi.....who's seems quite happy to pull forward a regional conflict in the Middle East where the USA is gonna be forced to commit extraordinary resources in a war they have no interest in starting. Sometimes in the alliances......the tail starts wagging the dog......if the dog isnt careful to remind the tail who's the boss sometimes!

Yeah listen I don’t actually worry about the deficit or the debt….where the US is concerned. Deficits & debt are for every other country to worry about…but not the US. I think about only from policy perspective and how it might affect asset prices….never one of the Cassandra types with a bug out kit from Costco! It’s just not really a problem when you think of the US as the global hegemon militarily and the reserve currency. Not only is there vast amounts of untapped income / wealth to tax in the US if/when needed. But the US always holds the joker in the pack…run the following scenario…Biden gets on TV tomorrow and says due to extraordinary financial constraints…the US is turning all foreign held US bonds to zero coupon ones….just this one time. I mean sure financial panic for a few days….but what is anybody gonna do about it really?? When you get down to it…the US sets the rules of the financial game everyone else plays…a month after the ‘bond zero’ day….the Deutsche Bank guys will be sending treasury bills over to the UBS guys as collateral like they always do….I mean there is no alternative (bitcoin won’t solve this). It’s the American century for as far as the eye can see…..when you’re both the referee and a player in a game…the fiscal budgetary ‘rules’ are for the players, not you.

Everybody has their pet peeves - on the expenditure side......and everybody has their pet peeves on revenue side People talk about billions here and billions there.........but in a multi-trillion dollar federal budget....with a trillion dollar deficit it just doesn't do anything worth talking about to change the math. You really need to go after the BIG ones on the expenditure side -the sacred cows - Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Defense...if your gonna save money there. Then on the revenue side...I mean you can close carried interest for the PE guys or tax endowments......but it doesn't move the needle one iota.......you have to go after the big stuff - and simply.....they are income taxes and corporate taxes....or you introduce a federal value added tax.

@Red Lion Yes but the US is headed for a fiscal math problem…..~7% deficit with record unemployment….you don’t really need the economy to roll over to cause problems for the 2025 congress…obviously if it does things just get worse….….you've got a situation where personal income taxes are in a bake off with corporate taxes…they are locked in a barrel together going over Niagara falls regardless of the political engineering…and Trump played quite a magic trick with this new GOP….lots of republican congressmen have a ‘Trump constituency’…which is to say one that used to vote democratic…but liked MAGA…..TCJA was politically palatable cause everybody got a cut…TCJA 2025 where only corporates get to keep their cut is politically unpalatable. TCJA + fiscal math mean taxes have to go up…it’s as plain as day…..and while corp tax cuts can roll on…there’s one problem…corporates don’t vote but people with income taxes do.

If there was ever a 'school of rock' John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers were it....music is lucky John was around to nurture a generation of geniuses.

Yep recessions are recessions - couple of years of depressed earnings....so what....in the scheme of things it doesn't matter to the underlying long term value of a business. TCJA cuts don't get renewed...and all the profit shifting & avoidance rules TCJA created stay (which they will)........and so we go from 21 back to 35%...but it won't be your old late 2010's 35% rate... it will be 35%++ with TCJA avoidance rules layered on with the BEPS & global minimum rates still in place....once that happens, given the very difficult budgetary math in D.C., you could be at 35% topline for a very very long time. That really does change the long run value of future cash flows. TCJA was a very clever piece of Republican electioneering...it created a constituency of capitalists (tech billionaires, private equity etc.)...and helps explain some surprising defections from heretofore die hard liberals.....to the Trump/Republican ticket in 2024.....Biden's age gave them a mental loophole previously to turn red for the first time in their lives....I've seen some of them struggle now to explain why Trump is still their guy in 2024 post-Kamala taking top of the ticket......they can't quite bring themselves to admit thats its the TCJA that really matters to them.

A post of mine from a year ago before Sahm rule became fashionable two days ago! Its most likely the Fed is now behind the curve.....but still entertaining the possibility they aren't.......as for sure this disinflationary cycle has been less about demand side getting completely crushed by Fed policy......and more about the labor supply side equation & imports surprising to the upside. Two things that suggest "it's different this time" than the usual disinflationary/interest cutting cycles that have not ended well is this period of disinflationary pressure has been brought on by: - huge wave, unprecedented uptick of inward migration post-COVID in the US - which provided a very large uplift in labor market supply....and a hugely disinflationary tailwind with it & - USD getting to levels of strength not seen since the Plaza Accord in 80's.....the strong dollar deflated US import prices by a huge degree.....and was hugely disinflationary to the end US consumer Let's see it's gonna be interesting.

No doubt about that....never positioned like there is only one outcome possible...market goes up 70% of the time, all the time thats a very important base rate...ex-ante however you've got to pay some attention to base rates.....like broadly paying a 100 times revenues for a company rarely works out well...or paying 26x times for SPY has poor historical forward returns....

Yep we're gonna get the answer pretty soon on the immaculate disinflation/soft landing question. Its still possible......the unprecedented wave of immigration post-COVID (lets call it 'revenge' immigration after revenge travel) has been a big help.....the crazy strong dollar disinflated imported goods.......and the immigration wave helped disinflate domestic labor pressures. As I said, from an economic data perspective, a trip to 5.5% unemployment is kind of nothing burger....in the scheme of things its more a return to the historical average.......3.5% unemployment is the outlier

Unemployment has ticked up to 4.3% Sahm Rule has officially been tripped If past is prologue we are likely to see unemployment continue up to somewhere in the mid-5’s with some negative GDP prints adjoining Fed should get cutting…it’s been a VERY long period of inversion…….which is to say that there is likely months of disinflationary/negative momentum in the tank (long & variable lags)…the last mile is usually a bitch and usually occurs in the context of low interest rates not high ones….plus there’s the rarely discussed phenomenon at the end of hiking cycles and the beginning of cutting cycles….which is folks….knowing that lower rates are inevitable & coming…do one final act of consumption deferral and sit on their hands….knowing that significantly lower interest rates & by extension financing rates will be available to them soon. Given the exceptionally strong economic base with record low unemployment that has characterized this period ….a ~5.5% unemployment rate is really not something to write home about in the historical record. What makes this period interesting however is the fiscal position…both balance sheet and fiscal deficit….this is not a US government that made hay while the sun shined running surpluses and therefore has saved deficit space for a rainy day….they’re running insane annual budget deficits in a period of record low unemployment. It’s been reckless and the question is whether they get away with it or chicken come home to roost.

Nah Trump is dumb on this......the USA has Europe exactly where it wants it......if it aint broke, dont fix it.......a Europe systemically underspending on its domestic military capabilities....is a European allies that when push comes to shove follows your lead on all manner of foreign policy issues....the upside, for the Europeans, is that a Europe systematically underspending on its military......paradoxically....is a Europe less likely to see millions die in a war. If Trump's dream is to reinvigorate the Europeans military muscle by forcing them to spend more....expect to see Europe not now but in say a decade diverge from the USA on important issues that they never would have dreamed off before. Who knows maybe China/Taiwain for example....like you do realize how important a trading partner China is for Germany? And why......to save a few billion nickels?.......when your the global superpower with the reserve currency.....projecting global power & guarding your position as the 800ilb Gorilla in the sysem is not where you penny pinch! Trump is concerned with billions being wasted....in a dumb transactional childish way...but again...its kind of 1st level thinking....see when your 800ilb gorilla in the global system and as I've argued NATO is one piece of the puzzle that insures the USA remains the ONLY 800ilb gorilla...its kind of dumb to worry about billions when it comes to maintaining your king of the jungle position......see the king of the jungle doesn't have debts.......Debt to GDP levels are for the little guys....fiscal crisis are for everybody else. The USA could wake up tomorrow.....and tell every foreign holder of US paper to go jump.....and there's zilch anybody could do about....they'd scream bloody murder in France and Germany...bond yields would go crazy....for a while......and a month later BNP Paribas would be sending Deutsche Bank US treasury paper again as collateral...why......cause what else can you do?....the 800ilb gorilla does what it wants....because when you get down to it the USA literally designed, operates and police's the global financial and trade system in which everyone operates. There is no viable alternative to pivot too. Trump's doing Xi & Putin's work for them when he diminishes in any way the US's relative power in the system it currently dominates....withdrawing from NATO or strengthening the underlying militaries of other NATO member states....not participating in TPP.....these moves dont enhance America's power, influence and leverage in the system they degrade it....and with it the exorbitant privilege that being the 800ilb gorilla confers on us all in the USA. Thats the big big big picture @cubsfan

Yeah dont think you get it. NATO isn't there to protect Western Europe from Russia. Not anymore. Russia is a military joke (outside its nuke capability)....NATO is there to protect Western Europe from itself. The biggest threat to democracy and peace in Western Europe over time.....isnt Russia...spoiler alert...its countries in Western Europe!........namely........France and Germany.....Napoleonic wars, WWI, WWII....need I go further back in time........the precursor to each of these most recent Western European wars was increased spending on defence by the main protagonists, France & Germany.....which triggered a security competition in their opposing rival state and a general re-armament across other countries in Europe...with Britain chipping in from across the Channel......creating various great power alliances....a very unstable equilibrium.....which inevitably led to war.....see with enough anxiety and paranoia...most leaders of powers threatened by their neighbour come to the same conclusion.....the best defense, is eventually a good offense. The creation of the EU economic architecture and the defacto outsourcing of European defense and security to the United States under NATO......is really designed, at its heart, to unburden the French and German's from the paranoia of having to look over each others shoulders around what the other is doing from a military perspective......they can sleep easy knowing each other has a piss poor military incapable of invading the other. Think about it - NATO disappears tomorrow.......France and Germany individually start taking their individual national security deadly serious again....3-4% of GDP.......but France starts spending 5%.....Germany wonders why Macron is so serious about this defense thing so they up their spend to 6%...the German forms a defense pact alliance with Italians..bla bla bla....well you've got yourself an old fashioned security competition.....and the history of Europe in this regard is just brutal in terms of the outcome. So - NATO is a US tool, sure, by which it gets to contain the Soviet threat and Europe gets not worry about Russia......but deep down NATO is a security umbrella under which Western European nations get to be protected, in effect, from themselves.....which is to say the security competitions of the past that inevitably led to wars need never get started cause Uncle Sam is Europe's bodyguard. The cost to Europe is that when its views diverge from that of the US it effectively has no strategic autonomy and inevitably falls into line on major issues.....this lack of European strategic autonomy...is the US's payment/reward for providing this service. Its, IMO, a good deal for all concerned..but a great deal for the US.....and the fact Trump wants to tinker with it.....shows how truly dumb he is on this stuff.

I'd posit your view is naive. There's no deep state thinking required - only the simple application of the golden rule of international relations - nations states dont have friends and allies, they have interests.....when interest align....you look like fast friends........it is in the United States interest to be the most powerful nation in the world....I applaud us for it....and they achieved it with perfect execution for decades now. The architecture put in place post WWII was about putting in place a world order where the US was the great power (militarily and economically) in the system.....you wanted global prosperity, trade and economic recovery in Europe (Marshall plan) because this would ultimately be to the benefit and security of the United States....and we got to write the rules...reserve currency, NYC as financial centre,UN in NYC, IMF in D.C....the American century ....but dont confuse economic diplomacy with altruistic kindness....the US never wanted again to be concerned about the military rise of an imperial Germany or France or UK coming out of Europe capabale of projecting power on the world stage......NATO neutered this possibility while also containing the great power (USSR) with the capability to challenge you. Dont get me wrong Europe wanted this too....generations were ravaged by war.....Europe was done with 'wars' after generations were annihilated....it welcomed with open arms the neutering of itself..... Providing a security umbrella in Europe and in Asia to Japan....South Korea......though is both 'kind' but also brutally strategic at the same time......its neutres their ability to project power....again you want to be the king of the jungle in Europe and Asia even......the smart way to run your business in the international system is to put out fires before they can even start........NATO and security umbrellas for Japan/S.Korea......took possible chess pieces off the board....allowing the US to focus on true emerging threats..the USSR first......now China.....and who knows perhaps India one day....depending on its ambitions. It was a powerful offset for the United States against the peer competitor that was the USSR post-WWII up until its collapse....Russia, today, is militarily a joke in terms of its ability to project true occupation power into Western Europe (obviosly it could blow it up a thousand times over).....don't believe the threat inflation about Putin marching into Ukraine and then on to Poland and then Berlin....all that Biden cold war nonsense...believe what you can see with your own eyes.......Russia's great military is literally stuck in the mud in Western Ukraine. The true value of NATO to the Europeans.......is that by outsourcing their security to the United States.....it fulfills a desire that all European who went through WWI and WWII wanted......which is not to repeat the chaos and bloodshed and misery again that comes from security competition on the continent thats been going on for hundred of years but reached a crescendo when industrialized killing machines became available a hundred years ago. The source of that bloodshed and misery?.....effectively the unchecked security competition between the chief modern protagonists in Western Europe...... France and Germany.....that sent millions to the slaughter in the early 20th century. Europe, was like an addict, addicted to killing and war........and NATO, in a real sense, is like an AA meeting for it........NATO allows Germany, France to effectively disavow the need for true military scale....it relegates the inevitable security competition that has bedeviled the continent ......one should see the EU and NATO combined.....as like a junkie doing everything they possibly can not to 'use' again.....the EU is an economic peace project......and NATO is an outsourcing of the very concept of a nation capable of projecting power building a military capability to do so......see all military first get built in the understandable AND justibable spirit of defense....they later get used for expansionary purposes. Couldn't agree more......its all about maximizing ones relative position in the global system from a security and economic point of view.....security architecture via alliance and containment design is ultimately the MOST pure expression of what one might call 'risk management'....cause it concerns the safety and prosperity of one's own people......

Courage....I'm sorry......Trump is stone cold dummy on this issue.....and he displayed effectively first level kindergartener thinking as applied to NATO and the global security architecture from the USA's vantage point.........see NATO is not about making Europe strong and safe...it's about keeping Europe and its collection of nations weak and dependent on the US security umbrella....such that France, Germany, UK when push comes to shove are the USA's lapdogs...NATO is ALSO of course about containing the Soviet and now Russian threat. It is not a good day in the office.......for the USA over the very very long pull..........to have a country as powerful as Germany or France with their imperialistic history and pedigree ramping up its military spending towards 2% of GDP.........the problem with building defensive military capabilities....is that they are indistinguishable from offensive military capabilities.....I know it's unimaginable to folks today in 2024 that somehow France or Germany could be security challenge to the US globally on issues....but the arc of time is long.....and folks should know by now that more things can happen that you can even imagine.......... So with this 'new' framework.....I'll ask ......as a US patriot @cubsfan concerned with keeping the USA as powerful as possible for as long as humanly possible (decades, millenia).....is it a good outcome to have Germany/France/UK ramping up their military spend to 2% of GDP....how would the USA or France feel if say Germany for example, under the guise of defense, ramped that spend up to say 6%?......and created an indigenous German military industrial complex that was a peer competitor to Raytheon & General Dynamics. Not its not good outcome for the USA.......the BEST outcome for the USA, if you really think about it, is to maximize its RELATIVE military capability vis a vie every other nation on the planet including its 'allies'. Trump does not get how ultimately magical it is for USA now and over the long pull........to have Germany, France and the UK under-spend on their military.......it takes every dollar of US spend on its military and maximize its power and influence globally....on everything from trade, to economic coalitions against China, to strong arming folks to go with USA on various espcades in Iraq and Afghanistan etc. etc. The problem with Trump in regards to NATO as I hope I've explained......is also what I see with his retarded tariff proposals....and his talk of weakening the USD......everywhere with him......I see real first level policy thinking........ .....he consistently, it seems, fails to get the big big big strategic picture....Joe Biden doesn't seem to be able to do even do first level thinking anymore but thats an aside.....when you go down the list...think about how ultimately wonderful it is that the dollar is strong and the reserve currency, how fucking amazing it is that we in the USA get to send the rest of the world pieces of paper and they send us real stuff we can use....why the hell would you put tariffs on a 'racket like that'!?!?......and finally, to bring it back to topic, how amazing it is that former global imperial superpowers like Germany, France and the UK, under the umbrella of NATO, have let their once great military capabilities atrophy...such that the USA is the goddamn 800ilb gorilla in every room its in and its not even close anymore. That's just a slam dunk outcome for any nation so why the hell would you mess with it.

I dunno - maybe they're dummies....but two prominent asset managers (Bill Ackman & now Ken Fisher) choosing right now as a pretty good time to sell a piece of their carry....... Fisher Investments Sells Stake of Up to $3 Billion - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-16/advent-nears-deal-for-minority-stake-in-fisher-investments-wsj?sref=7zqHEcxJ Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Sells 10% Stake for $1.05 Billion https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-03/pershing-square-sells-10-stake-for-1-05-billion-ahead-of-ipo?sref=7zqHEcxJ

Again missing my point......given Gaza....you do realise Gaza is not a country right?.....it not an autonomous sovereign state...so fails the true test of nationalism dream.....automony, self-determintion.....THIS is the most important point and nuance here your missing. Yes it is......last I checked Germany, Italy and Japan are not occupied or subjected people....they transitioned out of occupation into automony and sovereignty in time...because the Allied forces ultimately realized that it would impossible over time to quell German, Italian or Japanese desire for sovereignty and autonomy and a roadmap was created for them to exi.....if we still occupied and subjected those countries I can assure you there would be a nationalist extremist group Hamas-like blowing up US soldiers and US settlers stationed there.

Think your missing my point......until Palestinian has an autonomous state......Palestinian nationalism will live on...with moderate and extremist arms.......and the historical record more or less shows the primacy of nationalism when a geographic location has a population of say 70%+ that identify as a nation other than that which is their technical nation.......all your examples above speak to that......the Allied forces effectively returned these conquered countries to autonomy & self-determination in time......Palestinian nationalism (ironic cause it was never a official country) is not going away like the KKK either.......the KKK existed under the umbrella of US nationalism...when the meme of racism petered out so too did the KKK cause it was a derivative of US nationalism.....Palestinian nationalism exists alone...it has primacy...there is no other idea above it. Self-determination expressed through nationalism is the main idea of our age......the post-colonial British Empire broke apart on the principle of self-determination by a people that roughly identified as one.....again the US is example of this....I myself come from a former British colony.....but within living memory versus the US......my grandparents we're able to tell me about a time when Irish nationalism and self-determination was forced to sit under the umrella of British nationalism....as the British Empire broke apart they tried in piecemeal fashion to maintain it...to devolve local power, to local colonies....it didn't work out at all and it never really works out...sovereignty and self-determination is like the joke about pregnancy....its impossible to be half pregnant....and its impossible to have half your nationalist desires quenched. Nationalism cares little for money......or the economy......ask the British most recently with Brexit......it was clear as mud that they would be worse off economically but it didn't matter....they felt the lack of autonomy and sovereignty constrained inside the EU..they broke free, at a cost to their economy....the idea of nationalism & self-determination is fundamentally immune to bribery.....its why Israel knows that even if Gaza became some kind of ward of the Saudi & Qatari's and got all the investment in the world..became an economic mircale as you say......in time...the Palenstian's would kick against their golden cage....and demand true autonomy & self-determination not a derivative form dependent on Israeli permission & Saudi/Qatari subvention. You want a shot at Palestinian problem to actually go away in time......the two State solution is the only shot at this. If I were Israel......and thinking about it from the real poltik of it all.....I think you destroy Gaza while destroying Hamas (as they pretty much have)....make some half hearted attempt after to create a governing coalition for Gaza where your really still in control....but enough that is some half-pregnant version of Palestinian nationalism..some devolved local powers.....you slow roll its rebuilding at every turn.......and in twenty years, hopefully 30 or 40yrs you get another Oct 7th.......then you do it all over again....destroy Gaza, slow roll its rebuilding....ad infinitum. Its sad but its true. Cause the variables of the equation are irrefutable. - Palestinian nationalism wont go away until they have true Statehood - Israel nationalism is not going away and anything opposed to Israeli nationalism is an existential threat - the creation of Palestinian state has a non-zero probability of creating an existential threat to Israel in time - ergo the creation of one is not in Israel's best interests Its why its such an intractable problem....and the idea of rebuilding Gaza is a nice one with Saudi & Qatari assistance....but whats the phrase....you can't teach peace to the conquered.

Lets be clear here....you can destroy Hamas, every last single weasel...I'm all for it...but the deep underlying problem is Hamas is really just the extremist arm of an idea....probably the most powerful idea of our age....nationalism....in this case Palestinian nationalism......you would think Zionist's would understand this reality deeply.....most nationalist movements have those at the extreme who are willing to do unspeakable things to further their aims. There is no price too high for the true nationalist zealot......the list of examples here is endless.....nationalism (an elevated form of tribalism) boils the blood of angry young men like nothing else that has ever been invented.....and the Palestinian have the worst strain of nationalism known to mankind.....sectarian nationalism......mixing religion (God) and nationalism (tribe) is just a powder keg. So its naive to think you can effectively kill an ideology......there will ALWAYS be a subset of the Palestinian nationalist movement who see extreme violence and terrorism as the optimal route to get their own state. So this military exercise by the IDF will cut off the violent snake head of this multi headed palestinian nationalist movement for a time.....but be under no illusions that it will regenerate over time.....cause the Palestinian desire for self-government is not going away.....in the same way that Israel's desire to remain a jewish homeland itself won't go away. Its a terrible bind for Israel....they know an Oct 7th type issue will occur every couple of decades with the status quo.....the clock is now simply ticking till the next one........but I think what the Israeli far right wont tell you..in a world of only bad options moving forward for Israel......an Oct 7th type incident say c.20yrs might be a preferable outcome to enabling a truly sovereign autonomous Palestinian state on Israel's doorstep.

Had a feeling BTC was somewhere inside your short USD & USD assets thesis......non-zero chance your right....but for BTC to do well it doesn't require USD & USD assets to falter.....the digital gold thesis works quite well from here......but I guess 100x from here isnt enough for some people to dream about......so it requires a total upending of worlds ordering of asset and currency allocations. Listen I'm with you on some of stuff.....we are moving from the unipolar moment to a multi-polar world....the freezing & seizing of Russian assets inside the Euro-Dollar system.....and the various weaponizations of SWIFT that have occured...and all the BRICS guys banding together in some aspirational dream to ditch the dollar.....are exactly the entries you'd expect in the timeline of a reserve currencies demise......but its still the US's to lose IMO......there is a long and illustrious history with a very high body count of those that have called the end of the greenback. Somebody, someday will be right....the failure rate of reserve currencies is 100% after all.

Re: USD and US asset dynamics.......pretty clear that China's hardcore mercantilist days are behind it.....part of which was inevitable as the domestic economy developed and they finally stopped holding down domestic consumption.....part of which we in the West accelerated by kicking off Cold War 2.0...which is to say the venerable Chinese saver who's excess savings invariably flowed into our pockets (as low cost debt) and put a solid bid under US assets (treasuries, equities & RE) likely peaked in the late 2010's. So on your same theme - China demand for USD and US assets for excess savings is shifting as it shifts to more of consumption led economy.......the caveat is that another 1.4bn people in industrious India might be about to start sending us their wave of excess savings & bids for US assets as they implement the China playbook.......after them probably an aggregate of some African nations with young populations and progressive leadership. BIG big picture however and counter to your thesis......is the US remains the shining city on the hill for the RoW....living here of course and watching US 'news' folks like to think its a dumpster fire headed for a cliff.....the reality and percpetion is different of course most especially for the 7.7bn people who don't live in the USA......quality, security & durability always catches a flow and a bid....one of the great secular trends of our time is premiumization......what's more 'premium' in the hierarchy of global assets/currencies than USD and US domiciled assets?

I did use the word adjacent........but my main point is that running the street or lets call it market perception management is so much more important than many think....it can literally turn water into wine via reflexivity.

The power of reflexivity in markets......GameStop was a shitco heading for bankruptcy...but then a bunch of people believed in the company's future...it issued a bunch of stock......now its a company with a future simply by virtue of its ability to issue paper and get cash with WACC well below 1% which it can now deploy to do other things. ShitCo > Believe > OkCo....the market turning water into wine before our eyes Love him or loathe Elon is Roaring Kitty adjacent when you get down to it.....he may be an engineering genius/visionary....but his real special sauce IMO is his business 'charisma' as the companies he's involved with get access to top tier talent who idolize him while he is also able to access cheap equity capital such that it changes the underlying business prospects of everything he touches. Competency is important of course and Elon has it but being able to run the street is a skill. So 'running the street' is I think an underestimated skillset of a public company CEO.....now of course there's a line......spend 80% of your time running the street as a CEO instead of your business.....and your effectively a stock promoter......but ignore it and your failing to do your job and hurting your company's business prospects.

Curious what the denominator is here?....three families running the house on one income where its the woman securing the income....is it like three out of 10 such single income families just wondering what % this represents. Also when you look into the mans eyes - do they seem hollowed out to you