Re: the present day and the context of investing, we’re now situated astride multiple fault lines, edges of several tectonic paradigms brushing up against each other, creating tension and energy, coiling to slip and reshape the very surface of our world.
In economics, finance, geopolitics, and technology, old paradigms are starting to give way to new ones.
W/r/t economics, we are reaching the end of multiple cycles and trends. The most obvious progression is that of
@RayDalio's long-term debt cycle model.
We can also think about it in post-Bretton Woods terms, which is to say the last 80 years of the $ as the reserve currency, or the last 40 years of globalization and disinflation, spurred by opening up new labor markets and economies in other parts of the world.
Now we’re looking at the countervailing trends of de-globalization, inflation, supply chain dislocations, and energy shortages. We’ve been printing $ at an accelerating rate and running up the debt, which has created a sovereign debt bubble (h/t
@LukeGromen).
Unlike a stock bubble or a housing bubble, this one cannot be deferred or absorbed by a higher tier of the financial system. There are now almost no credible scenarios in which either of these currents will ebb or be curtailed for any sustained period without massive pain
Since massive pain is politically untenable, we can expect the less painful option to prevail: more printing, more debt, and more debasement of the currency.
With respect to finance, particularly personal finance, the 60/40 portfolio looks pretty shaky, the 40-year bull market in bonds is in question, and CPI is hitting levels unseen in half a century.
Sacred cows of the personal finance space that have been effective w/i the existing paradigm (think 4% rule, indiscriminate index-fund buying) will likely face pressure during and through a fundamental change in this paradigm.
Many heroes and progenitors of personal finance like Warren Buffett and Jack Bogle spent the majority of their own investing lives within the existing paradigm.
Given the stock market’s rise in the years since WW2, we can conclude that, regardless of whether Buffett was personally investing through that paradigm shift, his investing principles would have worked swimmingly. However, this is the wrong analog.
The U.S. came out of WW2 the undisputed global hegemon. Europe had just blown itself up and destroyed its financial position to wage war. In other words, the U.S. was an ascendent power and the ultimate winner of the last big shift. And this brings me to my next point.
With respect to geopolitics, we’re in a precarious moment. Unlike WW2, the U.S. is no longer an ascending power. We are a descending power. The world is devolving from a unipolar world, in which the U.S. exerts unquestioned dominance, to a multipolar world.
The U.S. now is more closely analogous to England prior to WW2 than it is to itself during the same period. Which is why saying well, Buffett’s principles would’ve worked through WW2 so they would probably work through any similarly seismic paradigm shift, is inapposite.
The more accurate analog would be to an investor in England pre-WW2, which should underscore the difficulty of stewarding oneself and one’s wealth through such a transformative period.
For the record, I am not predicting a world war.
But it’s inarguable that the monetary response to COVID-19 resembled wartime finance. Moreover, there is of course the Russia/Ukraine conflict, which remains unsettled and introduces a number of variables and uncertainties, all of which have massive geopolitical implications.
This progression from a unipolar world to a multipolar world also has implications with regard to reserve currencies and reserve assets, which is to say the global monetary order.
The monetary Rubicon was prob crossed with freezing of Russian reserves earlier this yr. After all, if a nation’s foreign reserves can be rendered not-money by countries w/ whom it falls out of favor, might nations rethink the types of assets they want to hold in their reserves?
Re: technology,
#Bitcoin is an innovation on the scale of the internet or the printing press, both of which indelibly altered the world.
While the internet and the printing press both decentralized information/communication and sparked Cambrian explosions of ideas and applications,
#Bitcoin is a technological advance of money itself.
So we are at a pivotal point in history. We’re entering a liminal, transitional state between big paradigms, which could last several years and possibly a decade. It will be volatile throughout, as the world deconstructs and rearranges itself.
The risk is mistaking this volatility as mere volatility and not the rumblings or symptoms of meaningful structural transformation.
We’ve been lulled into a false sense of security and a precariously grounded faith in the idea that this time is never different.
Sometimes it actually is different. And, historically, the conclusion of long-term debt cycles have been the times when things have been different.
The big, obvious question is how do we, as ppl trying to preserve value and wealth over time/space, approach a momentous paradigm shift. It’s difficult to predict or imagine precisely how a new global economic order will reconstitute itself on the other side a big paradigm shift.
And it remains, of course, a possibility that we are not, in fact, on the cusp of such a shift. But more signposts, harbingers, and developments emerge every day (and every year) that evince a directional trend.
In this environment, there are a litany of reasons and ways in which
#Bitcoin is useful. Moreover, prognosticating into the future, there are a number of ways in which Bitcoin can play a vital role in reshaping any emergent new order.
With respect to the former, many of the trends we’ve discussed are inflationary (though they will likely also cause episodic deflationary swoons). Fiat currencies will thus continue to bleed purchasing power.
Moreover, geopolitical developments, particularly the continuing evolution from a unipolar, U.S.-dominated world to a multi-polar world competing for spheres of influence, continue to make the idea of a neutral reserve asset increasingly relevant.
From a human rights perspective, many across the world are awakening to Bitcoin as a way to protect and grow wealth under double-digit inflation and/or authoritarian regimes.
As Bob Dylan said, “you don’t need a weather man to know which way the wind blows.” Which is to say, directionally we know where we’re going, even though we might not know what the final destination looks like.
And this is why no one should have a 0% allocation to
#Bitcoin. If you think there is a greater than 0% probability that we are in a transitional period of major paradigm shifts, then you should have a greater-than-0% allocation to the asset most directionally aligned with them.
Successful investing, as Benjamin Graham said, is about managing risk and not avoiding it. Too many investors are avoiding paradigm shift risk and are very long on the the structural status quo, building proverbial Maginot lines in their portfolios.
I write about all this and more in the latest issue of my weekly newsletter about
#Bitcoin. Check it out
Think Bitcoin™ Issue #37Paradigm shift risk (why no one should have a 0% Bitcoin allocation); the fairness of Bitcoin's origin; Bitcoin is good for the environment; the real definition of inflationhttps://thinkbitcoin.substack.com/p/think-bitcoin-issue-37
I also share great work by
@resistancemoney,
@level39,
@La__Cuen,
@DzambhalaHODL, and
@mary_imasuen.
Gm
#Bitcoin fam and thanks for inspiring me every day!
Disclaimer: not investing advice. Just my long-form thoughts and opinions.