Luke Gromen

Chart rhymes with Catholic private school enrollment.

If you had to convert to Catholicism in order to save your kids from being enrolled in public school during COVID & then after to avoid all of the nonsense associated w/COVID & what came after, would you?

I would.

“You down with YCC?”

“Yeah you know me!”

Oct-2008: US govt invests $250B into failing US banks…Wall Street cheers

Aug-2025: US govt invests into US defense industrial base that is losing to China & that just got outproduced 4-to-1 in Ukraine by Russia…Wall Street boos

Why the difference in reaction? 🤔

Great point, and IMO that was further proof of multi-currency oil is live....why would oil rise when Israel bombed Iran if the Petrodollar was no longer functioning? Gold/oil ratio should've risen on Israel bombing Iran under dead Petrodollar, and that's what happened👇

That's just a function of the level of the USD price of oil though. See the chart below - oil at $15-25 from 1990-2010, US oil production down to 5m b/d; USD fell 60-90% v. oil (oil to $75-150), US produces 13m b/d.

US has more oil at the right USD price of oil. @freegolds

With all the talk in mainstream media denigrating Trump’s tariffs, it is critical to understand that neoliberal free trade of the past 25-40 yrs have left the US begging China (literally) for military grade rare earths.

Any tariff discussion that does not address this fact is 💩

39% tariff rate on Switzerland presently

"upend" might be apt description

0% yielding bonds of infinite duration & finite issuance have been MASSIVELY bid since summer 2020 though👇

Gold is just a 0% yielding-bond of finite issuance, infinite duration, and infinite face value (LT UST duration = negative real yield bonds of infinite issuance, finite duration & face value.

Economists miss it because they are paid to miss it, because the solution is letting gold float (which has major implications for USD and USD hegemony).

Settle trade in gold that floats in all currencies. Gold at $6,000 = 4.0 CNY v. USD

Gold at $12,000 = 2.0 CNY v. USD>

BOTH sides prevent free trade in assets that would balance trade.

If the US let gold settle trade, it would bid up gold.

At $6,000 gold, CNY would trade at 4.0 v. USD.

At $12,000 gold, CNY would trade at 2.0 v. USD.

Have to let gold settle trade to cut the Gordian Knot.

The US could revalue CNY v. USD for China easily enough: Revalue gold in USD to a more competitive rate v. CNY gold.

IE - $6,000 USD gold with CNY 24,000 gold = CNY of 4.0 v. USD.

China has massively devalued CNY v. gold in last 2, 5, 10 years 👇

@Brad_Setser

Because they ARE illiquid shitcoins (chart below of LT UST futures v. gold since Central Banks stopped supporting UST mkt in late 2014). :)

One way trade down 80% in real terms, & yet most western investors have loved them & hated gold the whole (1-way) ride down

And US workforce with a disability has gone up 6 million since January 2021 & up 1.6m in the last 5 mths alone, likely adding to wage pressures up

the USD system as structured the past 54 years has become a threat to US national security so obvious even mainstream financial media is reporting on it now 👇

Wall St. banks will either get with the program or get run over by US DoD:

Interesting timing, and an admission the USD has fallen from 1/42 oz to 1/3300 oz of gold in the past 54 yrs, a CAGR of 8.4% (which, since everyone suddenly cares about economic data accuracy, is MUCH higher than the official reported US inflation rate of the past 54 years.)

It's almost as if China has been moving to a gold-based CNY (as PBOC began saying in 2009, then again in 2014, & in 2015, & as the late great Harald Malmgren said in 2019 China was "quietly aiming for gold-based CNY":)

CNY oil = China can control USD gold price. Gold in CNY👇

US 10y Term Premiums (blue, RS) v. 10y Chinese government bond yields (red, LS), 3q14-present.

Consensus says Chinese 10y CGB yields are declining b/c China is in a deflationary death spiral, but few asking why US 10y TP's stopped following 10y CGB yields lower in 2022.

RE: "Recalibrate to the new information" -

US 10y Term Premiums v. 10y CGB yields, 3q14-present.

Why have US 10y TP's stopped declining on China's "deflationary death cycle"?

I'm not the one needing to "recalibrate to the new information" it seems

Gonna be epic when more market participants figure this out

So far, lefties and righties are both mad about it for their own reasons… but they haven’t realized the above yet.

When they do👇… fun will ensue

The US military ultimately backs the USD…

…but Chinese rare earths ultimately back the US military. 🤯

US industrial policy cometh…bigly.

Unless you're Russian, why do you care about whether Russians can protest or not? If you're not Russian, it's none of your business.

In the meantime, per capita Russian GDP is up 10x since Putin has been in office, so perhaps that's why Russians don't seem to mind things

Thanks for your kind words and support. I sometimes feel like I'm taking crazy pills when I see how people react to the same thing I'm watching.

Fascinating times, & always good to see the "campfires" of other "gentle people" 🙏

"China didn't do anything to mfg that wasn't already on trend long before 2001" = ???

Either 20 years (1981-2001) is a "long trend" for you, or your eyes are bad, but IMO, the "long trend" for US mfg employment (flat 1981-2001) abruptly changed trend

Begs the question: If socialism drives shorter life expectancy & capitalism higher life expectancy...why have EU mortality rates fallen sharply while middle-aged US white male mortality rates have spiked directionally similar to 1990s Russia?

2/ "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"

Manufacturing employment in US collapsed after China entered WTO (below.)

And related, from 2008-2022, US had 1 million opioid drug deaths which were classified as "Deaths of Economic Hopelessness" in 2015 in a landmark study by Case & Deaton.

i agree it can work, but gotta get capex up in US, ASAP for the math to work...thus far, CEO outlook is not good:

He will be correct someday. Just not on a real basis for a long time. 👇

I remember when the US did not have record wealth inequality, 1m dead of drug OD's 2010-22, 11% of the population w/a disability, CEOs being assassinated on the streets of Midtown Manhattan, large political riots, & an avowed socialist winning the mayoral primary of NYC, Julia.

Remind me...where did she teach, what did she teach, what were her credentials, and what are the political leanings of the institution(s) at which she taught?