TRIBALISM

Human beings are wired for connection. Having strong communities in which members looked out for each other is what kept our ancestors alive, and connection is still key to our well-being. We want to feel a sense of belonging within a group of people who share our values — whether

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Contagion

Everything is too interconnected. We showed you neon last week. Without it we can’t make semiconductors. Without semiconductors we don’t get much of anything these days. Then we have energy. Whoo boy! I won’t rehash what you already know well by now. Going into this fiasco we had a massive

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Can’t Access It? Don’t Own It

In a stunning move, the Sleepy Joe administration woke up, stumbled out of bed, and in what is unfortunately now characteristic they promptly froze the central bank’s assets of one of the world’s foremost military and nuclear-armed powers. This is how it was described in the WSJ article: Many economists

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Brace for a food crisis – OWTW

  MEET HUGO The 1921-1923 hyperinflation in Germany and Austria was blamed on the 1918 Spanish Flu. The 202X hyperinflation will be blamed on Covid-19. History is repeating itself. For some inspiration, it’s worth revisiting one Hugo Stinnes. Hugo was a cunning bugger who became Germany’s richest man during the 1920s. Now,

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ONLY ONCE

Can you do this: removing Russia’s central bank and a number of other commercial banks from the SWIFT payment messaging system. That’s what just happened. This is the weaponisation of money on this scale we’ve never seen before. Why do I say this? Because the second-order effects are that the

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WHAT ISN’T BEING TALKED ABOUT

This edition is probably the beastiest we’ve produced. Late nights, phone calls, research into the wee hours, you name it. It is hard not to feel overwhelmed. We feel fortunate we’ve been watching much of this for decades now, so the ability to parse information and understand it within context

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LONG DEATH

While correlation doesn’t always equal causation… It’s morbid AF to have a “long death” portfolio, but if people are dying, people are dying. And we’d wish for them and their loved ones to have as dignified an experience as one can get in such shitty conditions. Funeral homes — a

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RUSSIA: SANCTION ITS EXPORTS AT YOUR PERIL

By now you might be thinking we are “pro-Russia”. Nothing of the sort. In essence, what we are trying to do is point out how Russia is way more important to the world economy than it was some 20 years ago. To embargo or limit Russia’s exports will only lead

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