If you are driving all day long with a friend, and there’s nothing but blue sky and straight roads ahead, your conversation will probably wander to all kinds of topics. Perhaps you’ll listen to some music or news together. Maybe you’ll tell a funny story or share some thoughts about something going on in the world. It’s a good way to pass the time.
On the other hand, during the same trip, if you hit a huge patch of ice and start spinning around, putting you and your companion at risk of slamming into ongoing traffic of tumbling down a cliff, the priorities are going to change in a big hurry. You’re not going to be chit-chatting and laughing. You’re going to be focused on the emergency at hand and trying to save your life. Searching the FM radio dial for a good station simply isn’t going to occur to anyone.
That encapsulates, for me, the change that is happening under our feet. For years now, the world has been more or less in easy-going, music-playing, take-it-easy mode, and we have suddenly found ourselves spinning out of control. Unlike my little metaphor, I don’t envision a situation in which, after a few moments of terror, we right ourselves and return to our normal pleasant road trip. The spin-out is going to take many, many months, and it’s going to change a lot of fundamentals in the world around us.
Off the top of my head, I have conjured up some changes that are taking place, or will take place in the near future. By no means is this list exhaustive, not only because I gave up thinking any more examples since I figured I had plenty already, but also because, in a way, they all share exactly the same DNA: that is, a disposal of the frivolous in exchange for getting back to the raw basics. Emergency situations demand it, and I believe we are heading into the most profound disruption our lifetimes. Some of these examples themselves are frivolous, but that is symptomatic of the times from which we have emerged.
Gals and Fellas
The amount of time, energy, and paper, and digital ink that has been devoted to gender issues over the past decade has been astronomical. Gender fluidity, pronouns, the number of sexes, whether there’s such a thing as male or female, whether men can be mothers, and on and on and on. I suspect most people are in my camp, which is the ‘live and let live, but leave me out of it” camp, but given the atrociously grim times I believe are ahead, I think that gender identity issues are going to get crowded out with stuff like, ya know, finding food to eat.
Ill-Advised IPOs
The old saw about “IPO means It’s Probably Overpriced” goes back for decades, but the lunacy of IPOs, particularly in 2021, was beyond the pale. So many junk companies went public, and although some of them experienced massive gains, in almost all those cases, not only were the gains wiped out, but the stock went out to crumble to be a fraction of its original offering price. One can only imagine how many new offers over the past decade are in the “80% or greater loss” club.
Central Banker Arrogance
Take a look at that face. If there’s a more punchable face on the planet, I haven’t seen it. In any case, the central bankers of the world, and most particularly the United States, have been hailed as saviors, heroes, and demigods for years and years. They swagger their way through Washington, unafraid of political consequence, as they are, by definition, immune from examination. What the not-that-bright general public finally realizes how instrumental these creeps have been at wrecking the entire American way of life. Greenspan, Bernanke, and Yellen all deserve a very special place in Hell.
Creepy Crap
Perhaps you’ve heard of the ultra-rich freaks in Silicon Valley who buy blood drawn from young people (making them true blood-suckers) based on the idea that it’ll increase their lifespan substantially. I’m not sure what crackpot quack suggested this to these self-indulgent and egocentric whack-jobs, but these ostensibly super-smart guys are engaging in a laughable sport of trying to avoid aging, when in fact they’re all going to die and look like shit just like everyone else does.
One chap, the odd looking fellow below, spends millions every year in an effort, and I quote, to keep his “brain, heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, tendons, teeth, skin, hair, bladder, penis and rectum” in the same condition of that of an 18 year old. Well, I imagine he’s probably got the rectum all squared away by now, but, yeah, buddy, whatever. In any event, this is yet another freak show that is going to skulk away and pray that no one remembers this bizarre fad.
CEO Worship
When I was growing up, I had no idea who the CEO of Exxon, or General Electric, or Ford was. Want to know why? Because I didn’t give a shit! Nor did anyone else. These days, however, everyone seems to know the leadership of corporations, both big and small, and we’re all supposed to admire and emulate these goons. As their fall from grace already started in earnest late in 2021, and is bound to accelerate, I hope that we can return to an era in which no one really cares what people like Jeff Bezos are doing with their lives.
No More Quick Fixes
This one hasn’t ended yet. Look no further than March 12 2023. That is the day when Janet Yellen declared there would be no “bailout” of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank and then, just hours later, bailed them out. She did so by declaring that ALL deposits were now magically insured, which was important since virtually ALL the deposits at these banks were too large to be covered by the FDIC.
The cold fact of the matter is that quick fixes like Jerome Powell’s fabled BRRRRRRRRRR money printer and Janet Yellen’s utter dismissal of the rule of law in order to help out her banking friends does not have infinite power. Hard as it is to believe, the market is actually bigger than these clowns, and once they are shown to be impotent, the entire house of cards is going to crumble.
The Cathie Wood Cult
As I’ve said before, Cathie Wood is simply the new Mary Meeker. Both of them got super-famous on the tee-vee mainly because they were females in a heavily male-dominated industry. The fact that she has lost virtually all of the money her investors poured into her funds since late 2021 doesn’t matter. Bizarrely, her AUM has been growing in leaps and bounds since folks think they are getting the likes of ARKK and ARKG at bargain-basement prices. Once the pain becomes unbearable, they will bail, and Cathie will ride into the sunset (albeit with sacks full of those sweet, sweet management fees she’s been collecting all these years).
Zero Due Diligence Investments
You’ve read the tales. Regarding Softbank’s billions poured into the failure WeWork: “Many reports indicated that SoftBank made its investment decision in a matter of hours at a first meeting based principally on a personal attraction to Neumann.” Regarding Sequoia’s total loss when they poured money into the failed FTX: “Sam Bankman-Fried was once caught playing “League of Legends,” during a meeting with investors from Sequoia Capital, according to a since-removed profile of the founder on the firm’s website.” These very public screw-ups have, I think, sunk in, and I suspect clowns like SBF and Neumann won’t be able to amble into a VC’s office with some b.s. song-and-dance and leave with a multi-billion dollar check.
Patience and Tolerance
Notice how convicted felon Trevor Milton (Nikola Research scam) is still a free man? How about convicted felon Elizabeth Holmes (Theranos scam) kicking back on her boy-toy’s big estate, claiming that since she has kids, she shouldn’t go to prison? (Fun Fact: a full 80% of all female prisoners in the U.S. have minor children). And how about the fact that SBF is hanging out with his parents on the Stanford campus? If we were already deep into the recession right now, these crooks would all be behind bars. During good times, the public is very, very tolerant of illegal activities and white collar crime. When times are hard, they don’t put up with this shit. A “lock ’em up” mentality is going to return with a vengeance.
Wild-Ass Guesses
Take it from someone who has to try to make a living predicting the future – – it’s very hard! But at least I try to base my predictions on a combination of classic charting techniques and an awareness of what is going on in the political and economic environment. In recent years, ANYONE with ANY opinion was happy to make wild-assed guesses about stocks, crypto, real estate, bonds, and anything else with a ticker symbol. The complete failure of almost all these individuals to make any meaningful predictions about forthcoming price moves has, shall we say, diminished their credibility.
CNBC Culture
One of the great mysteries of the modern world is how Jim Cramer can be paid $5 million a year to make what are arguably the world’s worst prognostications about what stocks to buy and sell. I suppose since CNBC is kind of the only game in town, they are able to thrive as a financial network, but once it sinks in to the everyday public just how dreadful (and perma-bullish) the network’s celebrities are, the worse their ratings are going to get.
Douche Kings
The buckets of testosterone that were dumped onto the world in 2020 and 2021 is something we’re all still trying to clean up. Whether it was Tai Lopez, Edward Constantinescu (AKA ZackMorris), or David Portnoy (below), these dudes held themselves out to the world as genius investors who couldn’t get enough cash ‘n’ tail to sate their manly desires. Well, as Warren Buffett famously said, you don’t know who is swimming naked until the tide goes out, and now that the tide has receded, we’re cursed with looking at the skinny johnsons of all of these dorks. It’s only heartening that some of them have already been nabbed and are being dragged off, kicking and screaming, to Justice.
Trust in the Fed
Do a poll of 100 random people on the street and have them tell you what the Federal Reserve does. I would guess that maybe – – just maybe – – 1 of them would get it right. Let’s face it, most people are none too bright, and the ignorance of the Fed is not only shameful but also a vital reason that Federal Reserve continues to exist (believe me, the Fed WANTS the public to be dumb). In the vaguest terms, Joe and Jane Public believe the Fed can fix the economy, no matter what. It just ain’t so, folks, and that is going to be made abundantly clear.
Hot Young “Traders”
This is a cousin of the aforementioned douches, and it has to do with their followers. I suppose the highest concentration of these bozos would be in the WSB subreddit where, particularly in 2020 and 2021, youngsters and their stimmy checks found it was oh-so-easy to make money with stocks and, even better, options. I’d love to see the statistics on how all these chaps have fared, particularly throughout the course of 2022, but the words that leap to mind are “Schedule D Loss Carry-Forward.“
Psychotic “Investments”
There were plenty of ridiculous trades and investments made in recent years, but the king of all of these had to have been NFTs. The fact that people actually were willing to spend seven figures on a computer picture that anyone on the planet could copy (but was special because it was tethered to a unique code) is laughable beyond description. I can understand why, for example, an original Picasso would appreciate during prosperous times. But………..a picture of a cartoon monkey? Jesus!
In-Your-Face Billionaires
Oh, that Bezos laugh. It’s truly charming, isn’t it? As the nation’s billionaires had nearly $2 trillion added to their net worth thanks to the Covid Cash dumped on the nation, they loved, loved, loved getting in front of the camera and showing off their superyachts and, even better, spaceships. Below we see Bezos yucking it up with his brother (on his right) and Janet Yellen’s grandmother (on his left). Well, the space tourism thing lasted maybe a few months, and now no one gives a shit anymore. These days, Bezos is focusing his time galivanting around with the world’s most adept gold-digger in the most public midlife crisis in human history.
I could probably come up with a dozen more ideas if I tried, but that’s enough. That’s a lot to process,
The changes are already starting. I’ll let Ellis have the last word.
