Maybe Texas will be the exception to a downturn? I worry about the drought and heat that is forecasted for Texas and the implications that might have on immigration and land values. Do those issues concern you? I have read, that due to weather, the future is in the mid-west. Thank you for the thought-provoking article.
My doubts about the stock market started not long after I left active duty service in 2010 and began a very short tour as a financial advisor for Merril Lynch. Lessons learned: the system is set up such that retail investors are the gazelles and anyone with a Series 7 is a predator. There are certainly good financial pros out there but there are more than a few sharks too. And there are also just a lot of normal humans incentivized to get as much of your money as they can and not always for your benefit. I also began to understand that the entire equities space is so much pushing around of (digital) paper without much productive end. As stated by Jeremy Irons’s character in the fabulous movie, Margin Call: “(money is) not even real; it’s made up.” When money and paper become the end instead of the means to an end (as it should be), you know our economy is badly skewed. It was at the end of that year that I realized that I was a real estate person. I also realized that while I am absolutely fascinated by financial markets as a human institution, I have zero faith in them to actually benefit me.
I listened to the Edward Chancellor episode on Grant Williams podcast. I haven’t read the book yet but have it downloaded and ready for a long trip (or time on the skid steer clearing cedar). I don’t consider myself as a strict adherent to any one economic dogma, but I do like Hayek’s (and the Austrian) understanding of the economy as being far too complex a thing for any group of people to fully grasp and therefore control. I’ve been reading a lot lately about systems theory (started with weather researcher Edward Lorenz a few decades ago). I find that this is absolutely the correct framework to consider the economy (which I identify as our “Culture of Exchange” because it is far more culture and sociology than hard numbers and mathematics). Which basically means that almost any attempt to control an economy will be met with counteracting forces and tertiary, inverse, and unintended reactions that doom such attempted control to failure. But I am pretty sure it will take us decades to come back around to this fact. In the mean time, the eggheads at the Fed and the nincompoops in government will try desperately to bail water from the Titanic. And while I have no clue precisely what will happen, I am pretty certain that any consequence that they lay out as intended will not come to fruition.
I hear you about the politics of Texas. Having spent quite a bit of time in Cali, it is an incredibly beautiful state being squandered by nonsense. I also know more than a few people (two of whom I directly encourage and assisted) who were Cali refugees and now hardcore Texans. And when I say hardcore Texans, I mean Hard-Core. We also have the intentionally planned inefficiency of our legislative system in our favor. There is only so much an activist can get done when the Leg is in session.
I love the Cross Timbers region of Hamilton-Stephenville-Brownsville. Beautiful country. My g-g-g-great grandfather and mother (and the original Texas emigres on my father’s side) are buried in a little farm cemetery outside Dublin.
Dustin, like you I fall into the Cassandra camp. After the last few days in the stock market - maybe I, too, am missing something! I read this on your twitter feed by Levi: https://twitter.com/Levijameshere/status/1585267272507019264?s=20&t=d21OGuDQZGaZhU1C2ejeHg
Maybe Texas will be the exception to a downturn? I worry about the drought and heat that is forecasted for Texas and the implications that might have on immigration and land values. Do those issues concern you? I have read, that due to weather, the future is in the mid-west. Thank you for the thought-provoking article.
My doubts about the stock market started not long after I left active duty service in 2010 and began a very short tour as a financial advisor for Merril Lynch. Lessons learned: the system is set up such that retail investors are the gazelles and anyone with a Series 7 is a predator. There are certainly good financial pros out there but there are more than a few sharks too. And there are also just a lot of normal humans incentivized to get as much of your money as they can and not always for your benefit. I also began to understand that the entire equities space is so much pushing around of (digital) paper without much productive end. As stated by Jeremy Irons’s character in the fabulous movie, Margin Call: “(money is) not even real; it’s made up.” When money and paper become the end instead of the means to an end (as it should be), you know our economy is badly skewed. It was at the end of that year that I realized that I was a real estate person. I also realized that while I am absolutely fascinated by financial markets as a human institution, I have zero faith in them to actually benefit me.
I listened to the Edward Chancellor episode on Grant Williams podcast. I haven’t read the book yet but have it downloaded and ready for a long trip (or time on the skid steer clearing cedar). I don’t consider myself as a strict adherent to any one economic dogma, but I do like Hayek’s (and the Austrian) understanding of the economy as being far too complex a thing for any group of people to fully grasp and therefore control. I’ve been reading a lot lately about systems theory (started with weather researcher Edward Lorenz a few decades ago). I find that this is absolutely the correct framework to consider the economy (which I identify as our “Culture of Exchange” because it is far more culture and sociology than hard numbers and mathematics). Which basically means that almost any attempt to control an economy will be met with counteracting forces and tertiary, inverse, and unintended reactions that doom such attempted control to failure. But I am pretty sure it will take us decades to come back around to this fact. In the mean time, the eggheads at the Fed and the nincompoops in government will try desperately to bail water from the Titanic. And while I have no clue precisely what will happen, I am pretty certain that any consequence that they lay out as intended will not come to fruition.
I hear you about the politics of Texas. Having spent quite a bit of time in Cali, it is an incredibly beautiful state being squandered by nonsense. I also know more than a few people (two of whom I directly encourage and assisted) who were Cali refugees and now hardcore Texans. And when I say hardcore Texans, I mean Hard-Core. We also have the intentionally planned inefficiency of our legislative system in our favor. There is only so much an activist can get done when the Leg is in session.
I love the Cross Timbers region of Hamilton-Stephenville-Brownsville. Beautiful country. My g-g-g-great grandfather and mother (and the original Texas emigres on my father’s side) are buried in a little farm cemetery outside Dublin.