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So sorry, but “you’ll own nothing and be miserable–oops, we mean happy, yes, deliriously happy” doesn’t count as a solution. The global economy is perched on the edge of an abyss, and averting our gaze doesn’t actually lessen the risk, it increases it because problems which aren’t faced directly and addressed directly fester and rot the system from within.

Nothing unravels quite as dramatically as systems which are presumed to be rock-solid and forever. Here’s the default Bullish case for stocks and the economy: let’s call it Plan Zero. 1. The economy and equities can grow forever (a.k.a. infinite grow…

Let’s ask “cui bono” of the $33 trillion in added debt and the $9 trillion added to GDP: to whose benefit? I’ve been thinking about how hard it is to get our heads around big numbers. Technical analyst Sven Henrich (@NorthmanTrader) recently provided one method to grasp the immense wealth of Elon Musk: How to become as wealthy as Elon Musk?

When the system can’t borrow more and distribute the insolvency, it implodes I started writing about debt saturation back in 2011. The basic idea is we can continue to borrow and spend as long as one of two conditions hold: 1) real (inflation-adjusted) income is rising, so there’s more income to service additional debt, or 2) the cost of borrowing declines so the same income can support more debt.

Most people would be horrified by a 40% decline in their “investments.” When bubbles pop, speculative assets don’t drop 40%, they drop 90% or even 98%. The irony of the sudden panic about real-world inflation generated by rising wages is two-fold:

Clinging to delusional fantasies of “free wealth” won’t lead to positive outcomes, any more than swallowing handfuls of meds leads to “free health.” Under various guises, labels and rationalizations, “free money” has now been established as the default policy fix for any problem.

Whether we admit it or not, collapse is the default “solution.” That destiny has already been written by demographics. The saying “demographics is destiny” encapsulates the reality that demographics–rising or falling trends of births and deaths–energize or constrain economies and societies regardless of other conditions.

Those trusting the Fed to be visibly weak, corrupt and incompetent forever might be in for an unwelcome surprise. When even the crash test dummies are nervous, it pays to pay attention. Being in a mild crash isn’t too bad if all the protective devices inflate as intended.

Nations that fail to adapt to the end of financialization and globalization will unravel. We all sense the global order has cracked. The existing order is breaking down on multiple fronts. Those who have benefited from this arrangement are doing everything in their power to patch the cracks, while those who chafed under the old order’s chains seek a new order that suits their interests.

As for our central banks’ defaulting on their lines of credit with the Martian Central Bank–that’s another alien intervention we’ll live to regret. I hope this won’t shock the more sensitive readers too greatly, but I’ve discovered undeniable evidence that all our planet’s problems are the result of alien intervention.

Sealing the USD’s coffin requires conjuring up a replacement reserve currency, and that turns out to be a lot more challenging than many understand. You know the scene in movies where the body-bag is being zipped up or the coffin lid slid into place when the recently deceased startles everyone by suddenly sitting upright?

Stocks don’t vanish when sold; somebody owns the shares all the way to the bottom. These owners who refuse to sell because they have convinced themselves the next dip will be the hoped-for resumption of the bullish trend are called “bagholders.” Trends are tricky.

The solutions will come not from those profiting from inequality and scarcity but from relocalizing “money” and production to create degrowth community economies. We think we understand “money”–we don’t. We think the current versions of “money” are the final versions–they aren’t. Understanding “money” requires some heavy-lifting, but it’s important, so let’s dig in.

Our control is what’s irreplaceable. Wealth, status and the illusory security of dependency chains cannot replace control. What’s our personal strategy for navigating tumultuous times? I’ve long advocated controlling as much as you can. We don’t control the availability of fuel and food from far away, or the government’s policies.

This desire for compliance and consensus dooms the autocracy to failure and collapse because dissent is the essence of evolutionary churn and adaptation..The various flavors of autocracy (theocracy, kleptocracy, dictatorship, etc.) look remarkably successful at first blush but they all share a fatal flaw. To understand the flaw we must start with the dominant dynamic of all organisms, natural selection.

The financialization of healthcare started two generations ago and is now in a run-to-fail feedback loop of insolvency. Long-time readers know I have been critical of U.S. healthcare for over a decade.When I use the term sickcare this is not a reflection on the hard work of frontline caregivers–it is a reflection of the financialization incentives that have distorted the system’s priorities and put it on a path to insolvency.

All this decay is so incremental that nobody thinks it possible that it could ever accumulate into a risk that threatens the entire system.The funny thing about risk is the risk that everyone sees isn’t the risk that blows up the system.

Eventually the “flock of timid and industrious animals” changes their minds about how much exploitation by the few is acceptable. You may have noticed the news flow beyond the hot war in Ukraine is largely focused on capital financial capital (markets, liquidity, interest rates, commodities, central bank tightening, etc.) and political capital (geopolitical maneuvering, sanctions, revising energy and defense policies, etc.)

Totalitarian imposed inequality is the only possible path of centralized Degrowth: 10,000 for me, one for you, unless you disobey, and then you get zero. The fantasy is that everything will soon be super-abundant and cheap again because creating money out of thin air creates demand out of thin air and supply will always magically appear if there is demand.