Tyranny, Liberty, B.S. And The Dollar
Dollar weakness is becoming the consensus narrative, which probably means we're about to witness some kind of dramatic episode that drives down breakevens, pushes up reals, and sends everyone scurrying for the safety of USD cash -- a March redux.
I jest. But only a little. Cast a wary eye at consensus narratives. They have a habit of going awry. And sometimes quickly. The best-laid plans, and such.
But, for now, the stars have aligned for dollar weakness, just as they've aligned for gold stren
For anyone interested, Francis Fukuyama is an author worth following. His Political Order and Political Decay takes on an enormously complex problem of identifying the ways in which societies prosper and how societies collapse.
The work is well above my cognitive capacity in comprehending civilization’s cohesiveness (and a book I really need to finish), but is certainly relevant to our current state of affairs.
I would imagine his other publications are of similar quality.
Fukuyama’s worth as a political thinker is difficult to refute.
Regardless, as much as he has tried to distance himself from it, his personal history of having helped to provide the intellectual underpinnings to neoconservatism continues to color his legacy. It is perhaps properly ironic that neocon policies run amok have shown that no socioeconomic system is inevitable (or permanent) when it comes to human development.
To wit, history is unlikely to have ended with liberal democracy as the ultimate end state.
Tom, that adds some great perspective on Fukuyama. Thanks.
Wearing a mask is tyranny but a topless female can be jail time.
I like yelling at the maskless,”You better not be wearing underwear, they been checking” Humans are so cute when they have a befuddled look on their face. No point in arguments. Joke them if they can’t take a fuck.
Re-Goldman analysis on the dollar. It is flawed. The dollar down has powerful momentum but there are some inconvenient facts. First, the liquidity issue is about to become a significant positive. The key chart is the 8 week lead of Fed SOMA purchases – Treasury issuance, It points the dollar higher. Second, buy-the-rumour, sell the fact on Europe’s Hamilton moment seems irresistible. Third, there is this totally weird thing going on where if you look at CFTC positioning versus economic surprises you find that currencies with the highest surprises (aka economic momentum) have the most negative positioning. So if the thesis is that US economic momentum is reversing, it might be counter-intuitively a dollar positive. Fourth, the dollar smile theory continues to operate. If the tech unraveling leads to a broader retrenchment in the risk trade, expect the dollar to be bid. The dollar in 2020 is in essence a proxy on the risk trade. Risk off equals strong dollar. My mate Zach Pandl has this wrong.