Welcome to February, (#1424093) where the bitcoins you hodl give you fewer things they have than in a loooong time.
Our future employees agree...-ish (I'm extrapolating)
Despite the insistence of Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, that America has a “strong-dollar policy”, Mr Trump seems to believe that a weaker dollar will boost American exports and curb imports, reducing the trade deficit—one of his long-standing bugbears.
Exhibit A for the debasement trade is the surging price of gold. An ounce of it costs $5,200. That is 22% more than at the start of the year—and it is not even February.
Gotta suck to go to print right before gold reset a lot
"If gold tells one story, though, other assets tell another.""If gold tells one story, though, other assets tell another."
- stocks, down...ish: "Even as the dollar has weakened over the past 12 months, the S&P 500 has risen by 15%."
- USTs up: "The yield on America’s ten-year Treasury bonds, which moves inversely to their price, is lower than it was when Mr Trump took office just over a year ago."
- dollar normalized: "Using The Economist’s Big Mac Index, based on the prices of the McDonald’s delicacy around the world, the dollar is overvalued against 49 of 70 currencies."
Both the real exchange rate and the hedging behaviour imply that the dollar may have a long way to fall. If America’s currency is not weak by historical standards, it could easily get weaker. And hedging could make it so, particularly if Mr Trump gets his wish and the Fed cuts short-term interest rates.
Fed independence worries, America sucks etc:
If this self-reinforcing cycle continues for long enough, “hedge America” may eventually turn into full-blown “sell America”. If Mr Trump keeps undermining the credibility of America’s financial system, that moment could come sooner. In the meantime, debasement traders had better buckle up.
Archive: https://archive.md/L4qcy
"Sell America" for what though?
where's the meme... sell for what, FOR WHAT?!
I hear Ms Christine Lagarde thinks this is Europe's moment. Us Europooreans R guud
US military industrial complex is crippled due to loss of supply of refined rare earths (and many other strategic supply lines) after decades of decadent neoliberal decimation of the US industrial base.
Financialisation hollowed out the practical capacity of the US military industrial base- and transferred it to China.
China understands the lessons of The Opium Wars and will not trust the US to abandon its imperialist hegemony but the US empire today is facing insolvency due to its gutted mercantile capacity.
The petrodollar is dying.
A new era of a multi-polar world is emerging and Trumps grasping to retain regional hegemony at the expense of European and Asian allies confirms this.
US wealth and power will be much smaller in the coming decade.
Taiwan will be taken by agreement, not force
The USA must negotiate and manage its decline and Trumps tilt toward 'crypto' is analogous the the second empire constructed by the City of London as the British Empire declined.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np_ylvc8Zj8