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How vulnerable is your personal supply chain? For the average American, the answer is: very. Americans consider abundance and ready availability as birthrights so basic they’re like the air we breathe. The idea that shelves could become bare and stay bare is incomprehensible. yet that is the world we’re entering, for a number of complex reasons.

But when the Fed’s fundamental powerlessness is revealed and the buy-the-dippers have been forced to liquidate, the true meaning of “mild” contagion will become apparent. Since I’d rather not be renditioned to a rat-infested, freezing cell in an unnamed ‘stan, I’m circumspect about viruses in general.

Are we smart enough to keep our oh-so-easily conjured riches? If we continue to believe that doing more of what’s failed spectacularly will deliver permanently expanding riches, then the answer is no.

When the market goes bidless, it’s too late to preserve capital, never mind all those life-changing gains. Everyone with some gray in their ponytails knows the stock market has ticked every box for a bubble top, so everybody get in crash positions:

If Xi’s gambit succeeds, China could become a magnet for global capital. If success is only partial or temporary, China may well struggle with the structural excesses that are piling up not just in China but in the entire global economy. As noted here last month, the Chinese characters that comprise “crisis” are famously–and incorrectly–translated as “danger” and “opportunity.”