Slope of Hope Blog Posts

Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.

NFT Fifty

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Honestly, I get it. I understand that new technologies come along, and people unacquainted with them will eschew them. I’ve been mixed up in high tech for almost my entire life, and I understand this. Plus, I’ve never seen myself as a luddite. It may take me a while to fully grasp the consequence of something new, but I don’t have a knee-jerk reaction to reject everything that comes along with is novel.

But here’s the thing – – – when I saw new things come out in my lifetime – – be it graphical user interfaces, or the LaserWriter, or LANs, or WiFi, or the commercial Internet, or electric cars, or the iPhone, or anything else – – no one could plausibly make the argument that one of those given things was useless and idiotic. Any reasonable person could be convinced that, yes, this new “thing” might just turn out to be important, even if it wasn’t immediately obvious as to why.

Try as I might, this still hasn’t clicked for me with crypto, which is pretty odd, since this is literally a multi-trillion dollar market now with hundreds of well-funded companies in that ecosystem. But my refusal to embrace the idea that crypto is going to change the entire universe is dwarfed by my eye-rolling about the latest extension of crypto, which is NFT. I just stumbled upon a site whose sole purpose in life is to sell digital artwork by way of NFT, and it’s quite a sight.

Here’s one auction of note – – you will kindly note that the winning bid was well over a million dollars.

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Atmospheric Change

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It’s been quiet for a long time. Exceptionally quiet. And why shouldn’t it be? Things are humming along in a manner that is satisfying to one and all. No one’s really needing to work. Everyone’s getting to gamble. And it’s easy to turn a profit. I’m sure people would like things to be like this until the end of time. Naturally.

It is said that the wisest words ever uttered were: “And this, too, shall pass.” Although people don’t want the firehose of free-money and risk-free profits to ever end, it will. I have no basis for saying so except the entirety of human history. It’ll end. And it will do so for reasons none of us are imagining.

Part of the quiet, incidentally, is in my own inbox. Tumbleweeds blow by, dust collects, and no missives sully it. I shouldn’t complain, though. I’d rather it be empty than full of anger. Empty isn’t so bad for a little while. The world has just the right mix of complacency and shock to not need to say anything.

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An Inflationary Slingshot

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Cost-push inflation could break out (and a note on gold)

Before beginning the post a little context is in order. We (NFTRH) anticipated the current pause in long-term Treasury yields (one indicator of inflation) because pro-inflation sentiment became over-done in March and was due for a cool down; so said a contrarian view. This post discussing the likelihood of more inflation to come is not written by a one-way bias booster. It’s important for credibility to make these distinctions from the herds running with the daily news cycle.

The short-term contrary sentiment situation against the inflation view began with the Bond King’s media-touted short of long-term Treasuries (i.e. expectation of higher yields), per one of our best macro tools…

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