The Grey Swan Investment Fraternity now has members in over 28 countries! That’s not including members of our investor’s network, who also reach into countries such as Russia and China.
Thank you for being a member of our fraternity, and for helping expand the map. We look forward to updating it further!
Grey Swan Investment Fraternity member map as of 12/10/2024
December 17, 2025 • Addison Wiggin
The dollar-centric system and its bubbles may have given the U.S. economy a form of Dutch disease. This system has many rarely debated costs that go along with its benefits.
Deficit spending and stimulus inflated prices for stocks, real estate, and consumer goods. Trillions in savings remain in accounts from stimulus bills.
Without this spending, prices would be lower, a point lost on the Biden administration’s hyper-Keynesian economists, who never met a spending bill they did not cheer.
December 17, 2025 • Addison Wiggin
As we round out this year, what’s being repriced is more than the market task of assessing risk. Legitimacy. That’s what is under scrutiny right now.
Seen through a cyclical lens, that makes sense. The Fourth Turning, popularized by Howe and Strauss, is upon us. So are Dalio’s long and short debt cycles.
We watch the Fed meetings, minutes and press conferences with the same intrigue as always. But long cycle is telling us the short-term one doesn’t have the gumption that the markets once believed.
It’s actually amusing, if you think about it. We spend a lot of our lives believing there’s a narrative that ties this ol’ ball spinning free in space together in some coherent pattern.
December 17, 2025 • Addison Wiggin
Except for a minor blowup in the private credit markets, the only challenge financial stocks had this year was in April, when everything got whacked by Trump’s shock-and-awe tariff announcements.
Stands to reason, in a bull market for stocks, mergers, acquisitions and new issues, financial stocks are like the “brick and mortar” plays for Wall Street itself.
For now? It’s smooth sailing into the new year.
December 16, 2025 • Addison Wiggin
What would a return to gold look like? Jim presents multiple scenarios, including a partial gold backing of new international reserve currencies. He notes that prior attempts to stabilize the global economy – such as the Genoa Conference in 1922 and the postwar Bretton Woods system – centered on gold’s role in anchoring currency values.
As history has shown, when trust in paper currencies erodes, gold emerges as the ultimate safe haven. The world looks to be on the cusp of another monetary realignment, and this time, gold will play a critical role.
