Week 6 rollup - Best podcasts & articles
Week 6 rollup - Best podcasts & articles
Tether's doomsday clock strikes 11
What I’m thinking about
Here’s the thing with Tether — the world’s largest and shadiest stablecoin — there’s been ~19 occasions in the last 6 years when it seemed like Tether was finally going to blow up. Except that it turns out that USDT is a vampire, it never dies.
I liken it to the Doomsday clock which “predicts” how close we are to annihilating human civilization in glorious nuclear conflagration. The risk is always there but it hasn’t happened so far.
Why bring this up now? There’s been a new court case which has denied Tether’s request to keep their reserves secret. There’s also a chance that Alex Mashinky (of Celsius) might turn state’s evidence against Tether, furthering the chance that Tether is forced to disclose the assets backing (not backing) USDT. Since I think there’s a 95% chance that Tether isn’t fully backed, its failure to report full reserves could be a big deal. Or not! Who the hell knows. But if the Tether doomsday clock was at 9pm for the past year, now it’s closer to 11pm.
Long-term, Tether blowing up would be good for crypto. Short-term, not so much. We shall see.
Worth checking out
If you live somewhere with a lot of mosquitoes, these style of traps are incredibly effective. Mine has more than a hundred bugs in it after just a month. I love the design because it’s simple, there’s no chemicals and apart from the background whir of the fan, there’s no noise.
Do you feel like Twitter has kind of sucked lately? Well it’s not just you. Jakob Greenfeld recently Tweeted out a thread about why this new Twitter algo isn’t working for anyone.
For the Ethereum fans, short but interesting thread on Reddit claiming that the SEC is going after staking services not staking itself.
Jay Martin — you know him from YouTube — has a Substack. He seems to be posting with some regularity. Could be worth checking out if you enjoy his style.
Best articles
Kaoboy Musings on Substack is back!
Michael Kao was something of a Twitter personality, well-known in the FinTwit arena until he got banned last week. Poof, gone from existence. He’s since been reinstated, but following the ban Michael has promised to start posting more on his Substack, if you’d like to follow his work there.
How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline
This article has gone viral and picked up more likes than I’ve ever seen on a Substack. I’ve read more than a hundred comments on Twitter about this article and many people have claimed that Seymour Hersh, the author, doesn’t have a great track record for reliability. Make of that what you will.
As for myself, I’ve long thought the USA probably blew up the pipeline based off the exceedingly simple metric: cui bono? Who benefits? As far as I can tell the USA is the only country that comes out ahead when Nord Stream goes offline. Plus, the whole thing just seems so USA. Covert, highly-technical underwater bombing operation in international waters? That’s the ‘Murica I know.
Best of YouTube
More 'zombie companies' today than in 2000, how to pick the live ones
David at Kitco has started bringing people on and asking them to share their best investing advice. Ted Oakley is a legend as far as I’m concerned, so I was happy to hear what he has to say about picking stocks, what young investors should focus on, some of Ted’s mistakes, and so forth. Also! One of the biggest mistakes that Ted sees the newly rich make. Great interview.
Is Population Collapse A Real Risk?
If you follow Peter Zeihan you’ll know that demographics is destiny, and our destiny is to have a lot less people on this planet. In fact we’re at peak population right now, it’s all downhill from here. What are the implications of a declining population? How has it happened? What effect does modern society have on demographic collapse? Why does dating suck for everyone? All that and more in this episode. I’ve been watching Chris Williamson for years and he’s starting to get really bloody good at conducting an interview.
This RARE Signal Just Flashed RED!
Typically FX Evolution focuses on trading, but in the first ten minutes of this video the host (Tom?) goes over some macro indicators like earnings, yields and a very useful chart showing that junk bonds are a full standard deviation overbought which has almost always led to a downside in equities. This was all excellent and well-worth watching.
Capital Wars - The Rise Of Global Liquidity
A rare treat. Two financial technicians, Michael Howell and Russell Napier get together to discuss bond pricing, global liquidity, financing versus refinancing, the Asian financial crisis, etc. Great 101 introduction to how the financial system works. I’ll also be publishing a review of Howell’s book Capital Wars next week.
David Brady: Could We See a Precious Metal Buying Mania?
David Brady is a great storyteller. As I’ve stated before, I don’t think the United States will ever go back on a gold standard, but it’s still interesting to listen to Brady arguing the case. He also discusses recent action in the dollar, the CPI index, what he thinks happens to stocks, etc. Brady thinks the dollar is going to go higher in the short to intermediate term, DXY to ~110, but then crash down and precious metals will go on a massive bull run. An enjoyable conversation that seriously makes me want to nudge up my holding of physical gold.
'Economic Pain' Lies Ahead In 2023 Once Hard Landing Becomes Too Obvious To Ignore
Tommy Thornton gives an update on his views. Best summarized as he thinks markets are going to trend lower, but he expects a lot of chop. Could be several years of SPX bouncing between 3,500 and 4,400, for example. As of now he’s net short 30% and over-allocated to cash. Looking to increase his Tesla short, is not a believer in markets at these prices.
This week’s off topic video is…
Watch some of the world’s best surfers get smashed to bits as they tackle a physics-defying wave breaking in three feet of water. Plus, I love the soundtrack.
My favorite AI image is…
Alien bluegrass
