Transcripts
Erik: Joining me now is Forest for the Trees founder, Luke Gromen.
Luke, it’s great to get you back on the show. You’ve been on my mind lately, because I have been saying for I don’t know how many years it’s been now, I’m absolutely certain Luke Gromen will be proven right in the end. But I kind of thought in the beginning you were a little bit early. Maybe I guess you were, as history has proven out.
Are we at the point where we have the so-called Luke Gromen moment where the US dollar really does start a decline that’s a one-way direction beginning to lose reserve currency status, it’s the beginning of the end kind of moment?
And, if so, I think a lot of people, including myself initially, had maybe misunderstood you on that: Some people thought you were predicting a dollar crash. And I really don’t think you are. I think you’re predicting more of a slow process.
So how do you see this playing out? And where are we in the story at this point?
Erik: Joining me now is petroleum geologist Art Berman. For anyone who doesn’t know, Art is famous for his graphs and charts, so you’re going to want to be sure to download the chart deck that accompanies today’s interview. You’ll find the download link in your Research Roundup email. If you don’t have a Research Roundup email, that means you’re not yet registered at macrovoices.com. Just go to our home page, look for the red button above Art’s picture that says Looking for the Downloads?
Art, our regular listeners know that I’m dying to ask you about the production decline that you have been predicting.
But before we even get to that, I want to start with this week’s OPEC+ meeting when Saudi Arabia surprised a lot of people by essentially resolving a deadlock where they couldn’t agree on what to do about production cuts and Saudi Arabia kind of volunteered to go it alone and unilaterally cut on their side in order to allow other OPEC+ countries not to have to cut.
What’s going on there? What do you make of this? What brought that about? And what do you make of this meeting in general?
Erik: Macrovoices episode 252 was pre-recorded on December 14, 2020. I’m Erik Townsend.
This episode is brought to you by Abaxx Technologies. Pioneering the design of Smarter Markets that better meet the needs of both market participants and society as a whole.
...and by the North Shore Global Uranium Mining ETF – ticker URNM. a focused play on miners and holders of uranium.
There won’t be any market wrap or postgame segment this week. Instead we’ll be bringing you part two of our holiday special, in which we’re taking a deep dive on the topic of fiat currency being debased in real value. Patrick Ceresna will host the series, and I’ll be acting as a panelist alongside both Grant Williams, author of the Things that Make You Go Hmm newsletter and producer of the Grant Williams Podcast, and Ronni Stoefele, publisher of the In Gold We Trust report and fund manager for Incrementum.
In last week’s episode, we began with a review of the major events of 2020, then discussed the topic of fiat currency debasement at a high level, before moving on to distinguish fiat debasement from inflation. We then discussed which trading strategies are appropriate to hedge each of these separate and distinct phenomena. We even pondered whether Bitcoin is replacing Gold as the favored store-of-value hedge against fiat debasement.
This week we’re going to return to the distinction between inflation and fiat debasement, and then talk through a long list of hedging trades against each of those risks, ranging from precious metals to bitcoin to farmland to base metals and crude oil.
We’ll be back to our regular format with a market wrap and postgame segment on January 7th.
Patrick, let’s dive right back in where we left off last week…
Erik: Macrovoices Episode 251 was pre-recorded on December 14, 2020. I’m Erik Townsend.
This episode is brought to you by Abaxx Technologies. Pioneering the design of Smarter Markets that better meet the needs of both market participants and society as a whole.
...and by the North Shore Global Uranium Mining ETF – ticker URNM. a focused play on miners and holders of uranium.
There won’t be any market wrap or postgame segment this week or next. Instead we’ll be bringing you a two-part holiday special, in which we’re going to take a deep dive on the topic of fiat currency being debased in real value because of accommodative central bank monetary policy and expectations that the growing popularity of Modern Monetary Policy among policymakers will accelerate the pace of fiat debasement. And we’re bringing in the big guns for this special series. Patrick Ceresna will host the series, and I’ll be acting as a panelist alongside both Grant Williams, author of the Things that Make You Go Hmm newsletter and producer of the Grant Williams Podcast, and Ronni Stoefele, publisher of the In Gold We Trust report and fund manager for Incrementum.
Erik: Joining me now is Hayman Capital founder and fund manager Kyle Bass.
Kyle, it’s great to finally get you on MacroVoices. I think you are our most requested guest ever.
Here we are: global pandemic, big explosion in cases, hospitalizations, deaths. Monday this week, Mayor de Blasio said get ready for a possible total shutdown of New York City.
Lots of bad stuff going on. Stock market rallying to effectively all-time highs.
What’s going on here? Is it basically we’re in a new market paradigm where it’s all about expectations of Fed stimulus? Or how is it possible that we’re at all-time highs with, really, a hundred-year disaster on our hands?
Kyle: I tell you, the markets are very good at looking across even the Grand Canyon when you’re talking about different shapes of recovery.
But I think in this case we’ve seen – this word is so often used today that it becomes lest impactful. But we’ve seen an unprecedented coordinated global central-bank response to the Chinese pandemic that I think the amount of both M1 and M2 in global systems, coupled with the fact that we are getting to a place where we have a vaccine that shows a very effective response – call it 90%-plus efficacy – and its ability to vaccinate against this horrible virus.
So I think by the middle of 2021, we’re going to have a vaccine-led boom in global markets coupled with the fact that we have so much cash sloshing around. That’s why you see both stocks and bitcoin and assets and basically everything you and I can buy is headed to new highs.
MACRO VOICES is presented for informational and entertainment purposes only. The information presented in MACRO VOICES should NOT be construed as investment advice. Always consult a licensed investment professional before making important investment decisions. The opinions expressed on MACRO VOICES are those of the participants. MACRO VOICES, its producers, and hosts Erik Townsend and Patrick Ceresna shall NOT be liable for losses resulting from investment decisions based on information or viewpoints presented on MACRO VOICES.
