We gained a few years this morning on our march toward being a cranky, “old fart,” as one octogenarian friend in New Hampshire would say.
Voters in New York City, New Jersey, and Virginia proved again that they don’t know much about economics — or history. Bad timing, given the precarious melt-up in AI stocks and the market’s collective sugar high.
It’s fitting, somehow, isn’t it? That today is Guy Fawkes Day — a day when rebellious Brits gather to light bonfires and celebrate the foiling of a plot to blow up Parliament in 1605.
Four centuries later, voters, central bankers, and mayors-in-waiting all light their own fuses. The political class no longer needs Guy Fawkes to torch the system; it’s doing just fine on its own.
Mamdani, The Socialist
Zohran Mamdani, 34, proudly calls himself a socialist — and now, he’s the next mayor of New York City.
The turnout was enormous, the largest since 1969: over two million ballots cast, with Mamdani clearing the 50% threshold. Cuomo managed 41.6%, Curtis Sliwa a meager 7.1%.
“The energy was unlike anything we’ve seen since AOC,” said a New York Times reporter outside Mamdani’s rally in Astoria, where the crowd chanted “From the Bronx to the Bay, socialism is here to stay.”
“Wokeness was almost anti-charismatic,” observed Reihan Salam. “Mamdani’s democratic socialism is the opposite — it’s sleek, emotional, and packaged like a lifestyle brand.”
Momdani’s campaign targeted ethnic enclaves with tailored messaging, ran digital ads in six languages, and even borrowed the Knicks’ logo for his campaign signs.
His real skill may lie in marketing ideology as an aspiration.
Mamdani has no managerial experience and minimal work history. You’d think that would matter, but then you’d be wrong.
“This new age will be defined by competence and compassion, too long placed at odds,” Zohran told supporters in a victory speech, which is fitting because speaking in public seems to be his primary skill.
To small business owners, that sounded like a punch in the gut.
As The Economist noted this morning, “New York has elected not a manager but a message — and it’s unclear how that message will pay the bills.”
Indeed. There are several gaps in understanding here: private vs. public sector. And age.
Currently, in New York, industries such as Finance and Insurance, Real Estate, and “Information” represent a combined 46.3% of the state’s GDP in 2024.
In 2022, the finance sector alone comprised 29.2% of New York State’s entire economic output. Private sector jobs also account for a massive majority of total employment.
Finance, of all industries, is portable. If, as the ol’ timers will tell you, “capital goes where it’s treated best,” how long will it stay in New York?
Perhaps, this is the appropriate spot to point out that the Texas Stock Exchange (TXSE) received SEC approval to operate in September 2025 and will be a new competitor to the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. The exchange plans to launch trading and listings in 2026.
According to a Reuters exit poll, 75% of New York voters under 30 backed Zohran Mamdani.
How will the young people feel when they have to start shouldering the costs of the vision their new mayor just sold to them? It’s fair to say the young voters of New York City have fucked around and now they’re going to find out.
The mind boggles.
(Courtesy of Liz Wolfe @ Reason Roundup. Thanks, Liz.)
While Mamdani revels in his revolution, the markets are beginning to sober up.
Tech stocks led another selloff as investors finally asked the question they’ve been avoiding all year: what if AI isn’t magic?
The Melt-Up Meets Reality
“The euphoria has gotten ahead of itself,” said Bloomberg’s John Authers, noting that the Nasdaq’s forward P/E ratio is now north of 40 — right back to dot-com bubble levels.
Bitcoin clawed back above $100,000 after a rough week, though CoinDesk reported that long-time holders have dumped 400,000 coins — about $45 billion worth and 2% of bitcoin’s entire supply — over the last month.
Even as investors cash out, Wall Street’s bonuses are up again. “The market looks like the Roaring Twenties with better coffee,” quipped Barron’s.
Meanwhile, the U.S. government shutdown has entered Day 36, officially the longest in American history. Over 600,000 federal workers are on the job without pay, another 650,000 furloughed, and the economy is bleeding between $10 and $30 billion per week.
“Every day of gridlock eats into Q4 GDP,” warned Steve Liesman on CNBC. “We’re literally paying for dysfunction.”
Trump’s Tariff Trial
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments this morning on whether President Trump overstepped his authority by using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose sweeping tariffs. The president calls the case “life or death for our country.”
“This is all about foreign policy,” one adviser told Politico. “To diminish the tools he has to do that is really dangerous.”
Betting markets currently put the odds at 60–40 against Trump:
But constitutional purists see it differently. Reason’s Damon Root wrote, “If the Court allows Trump to wield powers he denied Biden, Roberts will forfeit any claim to judicial principle.”
Still, he has fallback options: Section 301 of the Trade Act, Cold War–era Section 232, and the nearly forgotten Section 338, which allows tariffs up to 50% for “unreasonable” foreign practices.
If the Court rules against him, Trump could refund billions in tariffs — deepening a deficit already flirting with $2 trillion — then reimpose them under a new label.
“The system has guardrails,” said The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, “but Trump’s team is busy learning how to drive through them.”
Rare Earth, Rare Leverage
Inches beneath the legal wrangling over tariffs lies the real pressure point: rare earths.
China produces 70% of the global supply and refines 91% of it. It holds 38% of the world’s reserves — twenty-three times the U.S. share — and controls 94% of magnet production, crucial for everything from fighter jets to iPhones.
Rare earths production is China’s game. They started playing it in earnest decades before the rest of the world.
(Source: US Geological Survey.)
“The world’s green and digital revolutions are built on materials we don’t control,” The Financial Times noted grimly. Trump’s tariffs aren’t just about jobs in Ohio — they’re about leverage in the age of AI and semiconductors.
China also has more rare earths beneath the ground than any major commodities-driven economy.
(Source: US Geological Survey).
China knows it, too, and continues to play the long game. “Trade policy,” The Economist wrote, “is now industrial policy by other means.”
Green Without the Glue
One wonders, with Mamdani’s vibe win in NYC, if the pendulum might soon swing back on this globalist agenda chestnut, too.
World leaders — including France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Friedrich Merz — will gather Thursday in Belém, Brazil, for two days of climate talks ahead of next week’s COP30 summit.
In bureaucratic terms, that’s the “30th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).”
Noticeably absent: President Trump, whose latest withdrawal from the Paris Accord has stripped the meetings of their usual American weight.
Even without Washington’s backing, money continues to flow into green tech globally. Investment in renewable energy, EVs, and sustainable agriculture continues to accelerate, forcing shifts in some of the world’s dirtiest sectors.
Projections like these get investors all lathered up about the green tech sector, but when the money gets raised at successive COP summits, where does it actually go…? (Source: Bloomberg)
“No one can solve climate change, it is too late for that. But we can avoid the worst,” said Christiana Figueres, one of the architects of the Paris Agreement. “Technology is working. It is increasing its market deployment and its efficiency exponentially.”
The question now is whether sheer political will — and the globalist machinery behind it — can keep pace with the cold logic of markets. So far, it has. We’re now approaching COP30… each one is specifically designed to put money in the coffers of those who peddle climate apocalypse narratives.
Remember, Remember
And so on Guy Fawkes Day, it feels right to remember what happens when idealists and zealots get hold of gunpowder.
In 1605, Fawkes failed to blow up Parliament; in 2025, voters seem happy to hand the dynamite to people like Mamdani and call it democracy.
New York’s new mayor vows that “there is no problem too large for government to solve.” (Cringe).
Investors, however, might recall that the government tends to run out of other people’s money before it runs out of ideas.
The Financial Times captured the day’s mood thus: “America’s left has found its champion, Wall Street its hangover, and Washington its paralysis. Markets [will likely] recover faster than voters.”
If they can.
“Remember, remember the Fifth of November” when history rhymed with irony. And here, as if we needed it, is another exhibit: a second solid gold toilet — “yes, real sound money shaped like plumbing,” writes Zero Hedge — is headed to auction after the first one was stolen.
(Source: ZeroHedge)
In an era defined by fiat excess and central-bank alchemy, nothing captures the surreal gap between hard assets and paper promises quite like this 18-karat commode.
Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan originally crafted three golden toilets in 2016. More than 100,000 people sat on the first when it was installed at the Guggenheim before it moved to Blenheim Palace, where thieves ripped it from the floor and disappeared with £4.8 million in gleaming evidence.
Now, the BBC confirms that a second version has surfaced and will soon be put up for auction at Sotheby’s in New York.
The auction house describes it as “a cultural phenomenon” and “an incisive commentary on the collision of artistic production and commodity value.”
One suspects Cattelan’s creation says more about monetary policy than modern art — after all, even criminals know what holds value when the system starts to swirl.
Heh.
~Addison
P.S.: Tomorrow on Grey Swan Live! — Harry Dent joins us to dissect how demographics, AI, and debt cycles collide into what he calls The Great Deflation of Illusions. Tune in for insights before the next bubble bursts.
Harry pulls no punches – come prepared for what’s likely to be one of the liveliest conversations of 2025.
If you have any questions for us about the market, send them our way now to: feedback@greyswanfraternity.
