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One of the great fictions about money is that it is neutral. It isn’t. It’s either designed for the elites or for the citizenry. Many proclaim a desire for “sound money,” but “backed by X” currencies are not “sound money” unless they can be converted directly into X.

If we don’t bother measuring national well-being, the health of the nation’s commons and resources and advances in the public’s interests, then we foolishly call a decade of tremendous advancement “stagflation.”

Rather than cheer the concept of a new currency, we’re better served to look at the velocity of that currency and the cycles of investing that currency in assets denominated in that currency for a low-risk return.

Should the wealth effect reverse as assets fall, capital gains evaporate and investment income declines, the top 10% will no longer have the means or appetite to spend so freely. Soaring wealth-income inequality has all sorts of consequences.

We need a new iteration of economics that advances beyond the obsolete, misleading statistical measurements of bygone eras. Let’s focus on a largely forgotten history, one within living memory of everyone born in the 1950s, a history of signal importance to our understanding of the forces that will dominate the next decade.

The second essential step is to recognize how the spectacles of “news” and entertainment distract our attention from this erosion of basic rights. Hierarchical power structures like city-states arose as problem-solving solutions<, not just for the elites who benefited from the concentration of wealth and power but for the citizenry.

If the Fed succeeding is a “Black Swan,” bring it on. What if the “Black Swan” of 2023 is the Federal Reserve succeeds?

We have the capacity to learn from previous civilization’s errors–rising inequality, hubris, over-reach, decay of production and trade, parasitic elites, and so on–yet we go right ahead and repeat those same errors.

As painful as this liquidation and repricing of risk is for borrowers and lenders, those without debt, those with cash and those with essential skills that are in demand regardless of boom or bust will all benefit.

If we want social / economic renewal, we have to make it easy to climb the ladder to middle class security for anyone willing to adopt the values and habits of thrift, prudence, negotiation, and hard work.

If the consensus of experts misunderstand money, credit and prosperity, how are we going to advance? Describing all the ways experts got it wrong is a thriving cottage industry.

This dynamic–making problems much worse by forcing more of whatever worked in the previous era into a saturated, increasing unstable new era–receives little attention or understanding.

The question that should be on our minds is: how are my household’s buffers holding up? Lists of predictions for the new year are reliably popular.

It’s inconvenient when those whose sacrifices are essential to the system get fed up and find some other way to live. Convenience isn’t just about small appliances. It’s also about ruling nations. Let’s start with the semantics of ruling nations.

It shouldn’t surprise us if 2023 turns out to be atypical and disruptively transformational in ways few believe possible. It seems expectations about 2023 cleave neatly into two camps:

The mainstream assumption is the status quo will continue on much as before. This isn’t just unlikely, it’s impossible if total energy produced and consumed declines.

The gag reflex kicks in at some point and we walk away because it is no longer worth the price. Everyone has a line in the sand when it comes to inflated prices they refuse to pay.

In my analysis, this is a fatally flawed misreading of structural trends and cycles. Is it time to get out of the stock market?

Those who see the madness for what it is have only one escape: go to ground, fade from public view, become self-reliant and weather the coming storm in the nooks and crannies.