The End Of The World As We Have Known It, or Navel Gazing Amid “The Chaos

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”

— Aristotle

March 27, 2025 – Today, we leave the markets and your money for a minute and respond to a lengthy email from a frequent critic of our writing process and business agenda.

You may recall that we’ve reprinted some of Scott P.’s comments regarding Trump or the Fed. Today’s e-mail represents a different kind of critique. And prompted a “come to Jesus” moment and some introspection we thought might be worth your time.

If not, no matter.

Below is exhibit A of the critique often levied at philosophy students: “navel gazing” amid the sturm and drang of modern life.

Forgive the intrusion if you’re not interested in philosophizing today… simply jump to today’s P.S. We do have a program announcement there you’ll want to read.

“Dear Addison,” Scott P. begins cordially enough, “I just read your notes preceding Frank Holmes’ piece on tariffs. Your thoughtful, often witty middle-ground critiques offer refreshing insights amidst polarized discourse. You illuminate economic follies while championing the virtues of sound money—a concept increasingly distant since Nixon severed the final ties to the gold standard in 1971.

“Yet,” and here it comes…

Our moment demands more than clever commentary from a safe distance. Trump and his billionaire cartel are not merely misguided actors but deliberate architects systematically dismantling America’s foundations. Recognizing our political system’s pervasive corruption is essential but insufficient without principled clarity and courage. Criticizing is easy. Presenting a vision for a better future is hard.

Principles are key.

You might reflexively counter, “Whose principles?” Yet, the answer lies plainly in historical fact and moral accountability. Sound money isn’t merely an economic preference; it’s a moral anchor ensuring stability, honesty, and fairness. At its core, money is a social agreement built on trust. Decades of drifting away from foundational principles have brought America to the precipice of an existential crisis reminiscent of Rome’s final days.

You may laugh off my claim of ‘final days’ as mere hyperbole or overreaction. You are misreading what is happening right before your eyes.

Your voice, anchored in integrity and reason, could profoundly limit the confusion and chaos we’re hurtling towards. Clever neutrality may maximize profitability but serves little purpose when facing genuine societal collapse. Now, more than ever, is the time for clarity, courage, and steadfast advocacy for sound, moral economic principles.

After all, economics originated from philosophy, which evolved to moral philosophy, then to political economy, and finally to the disciplines of politics and economics. While the distinct categories may be convenient for academics, in the real world, it all comes down to people getting along.

The stakes are high. Calling balls and strikes is no longer enough in a fundamentally corrupt game. I am asking for more from you. Weighing in with courageous clarity would provide a critical voice to guide Americans through the growing turbulence.

I realize this is a big ask.

I’m ever hopeful,

Scott F.

Here’s my response:

Response re: Honesty, Courage and Moral Clarity

Dear Scott,

Thank you for your thoughtful letter. I appreciate the flattery — rare as it is to be accused of “clever neutrality” when most days I feel like a broke lighthouse keeper yelling warnings to drunken sailors steering a battleship made of debt.

You write with urgency. And rightly so. You speak of principles, of courage, of collapsing foundations. You draw a moral line in the sand and ask me to step over it. Not as a critic but as a crusader.

Tempting, but honestly? Not really. Like you, I’ve been staring at this mess long enough to know that shouting at the tide won’t hold back the flood.

You’re right: money ought to be a moral anchor. A measure of value, not a hallucination conjured by central bankers on caffeine. But sound money hasn’t had a seat at the grown-ups’ table since Tricky Dick took the dollar off gold in ’71 and let it wander off like a dog without a leash.

What we’ve had ever since is not money but “currency” — a fine distinction the average voter has been trained not to notice… until their grocery bill starts looking like a Weimar bar tab.

You accuse Trump & Co. of tearing down the house. Maybe so. But let’s not forget: the rot was already in the beams when they moved in.

Democrats blow out the budget with social programs. Republicans bloat it with war machines and tax cuts funded by the Magic Money Tree. Together, they represent the Washington “Uniparty.” Meanwhile, no one seems able to do math anymore — just vibes and voter bribes. It’s not a partisan failure. It’s a systemic one.

As for clarity and vision, well, I’ve written whole books full of it — Empire of Debt, The Demise of the Dollar, Financial Reckoning Day. Spoiler alert: they didn’t end with a national redemption arc. They ended with the warning that the American Empire, like all empires before it, would stumble not from lack of power but from too much of it.

Too many promises, too much debt, too little humility.

You’re right again: it’s all collapsing. Not in one big bang, but in slow motion, like a three-legged elephant dancing on a trampoline. The dollar’s decline, the metastasizing debt, the endless wars funded by bonds bought with conjured digits… it’s not a conspiracy. It’s policy.

You ask for courage. I offer chronic cynicism, shot through with stubborn optimism for the individual — if not the system. I’ve never pretended to save the world. I just try to help a few folks avoid getting flattened when it falls over.

The real hope, if there is any, lies not in reforming Washington. That temple’s already burning. The hope is in people learning to live outside the official narrative — to hold gold, to own productive assets (good luck with a traditional job in the age of AI and increasingly advanced robotics), to understand cycles, to see through the illusion that money grows on spreadsheets and that safety comes from obedience.

I’ll keep writing. Mostly because I like to. And it helps organize our investment thesis. But it’s very unlikely I’ll join the collective and “revolt” because historical revolutions are hijacked. It’s more entertaining to stay here on the edge, where the bourbon’s cheap and the metaphors are better.

Regards,

Addison Wiggin,
Grey Swan

P.S. If you think these are the final days of the American experiment, I won’t argue. Under the Trump administration, it’s “the end of the world as we have known it” (EOTWASWHKI).

Maybe Trump’s version of shrinking the role of government in the media and our private lives – including our investment decisions — is just what the American Republic needs.

Maybe not. Maybe he is just the evil orange devil that 30% of the electorate wants you to believe he is.

Either way, Rome’s collapse took centuries. We’re only still early in the drama. There’s still plenty of time for you to stack some gold and plant a garden. And for the next generation to do the same.

P.P.S. Because of the blistering pace of change in the financial news cycle, we’re making a much-needed format change.

As such, the more tactical brains in the Grey Swan publishing team have suggested we upgrade this free daily e-letter to include a news round-up of items relating to the Grey Swan events we’re tracking on an ongoing basis…

And small factoids “that make you go hmmm…” — provocative ideas, data and charts that aren’t large enough to be economic or investment trends on their own… but are still worth considering.

Tomorrow, in the Grey Swan daily, we’ll include some more comments from the in-box and details on the program, which we expect to roll out on Monday.

‘Til then, please send your own response to Mr. P right here: addison@greyswanfraternity.com.

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”

— Aristotle

March 27, 2025 – Today, we leave the markets and your money for a minute and respond to a lengthy email from a frequent critic of our writing process and business agenda.

If not, no matter.

Below is exhibit A of the critique often levied at philosophy students: “navel gazing” amid the sturm and drang of modern life.

Forgive the intrusion if you’re not interested in philosophizing today… simply jump to today’s P.S. We do have a program announcement there you’ll want to read.

“Yet,” and here it comes…

Our moment demands more than clever commentary from a safe distance. Trump and his billionaire cartel are not merely misguided actors but deliberate architects systematically dismantling America’s foundations. Recognizing our political system’s pervasive corruption is essential but insufficient without principled clarity and courage. Criticizing is easy. Presenting a vision for a better future is hard.

Principles are key.

You might reflexively counter, “Whose principles?” Yet, the answer lies plainly in historical fact and moral accountability. Sound money isn’t merely an economic preference; it’s a moral anchor ensuring stability, honesty, and fairness. At its core, money is a social agreement built on trust. Decades of drifting away from foundational principles have brought America to the precipice of an existential crisis reminiscent of Rome’s final days.

You may laugh off my claim of ‘final days’ as mere hyperbole or overreaction. You are misreading what is happening right before your eyes.

Your voice, anchored in integrity and reason, could profoundly limit the confusion and chaos we’re hurtling towards. Clever neutrality may maximize profitability but serves little purpose when facing genuine societal collapse. Now, more than ever, is the time for clarity, courage, and steadfast advocacy for sound, moral economic principles.

After all, economics originated from philosophy, which evolved to moral philosophy, then to political economy, and finally to the disciplines of politics and economics. While the distinct categories may be convenient for academics, in the real world, it all comes down to people getting along.

The stakes are high. Calling balls and strikes is no longer enough in a fundamentally corrupt game. I am asking for more from you. Weighing in with courageous clarity would provide a critical voice to guide Americans through the growing turbulence.

I realize this is a big ask.

I’m ever hopeful,

Scott F.

Here’s my response:

Response re: Honesty, Courage and Moral Clarity

Dear Scott,

Tempting, but honestly? Not really. Like you, I’ve been staring at this mess long enough to know that shouting at the tide won’t hold back the flood.

What we’ve had ever since is not money but “currency” — a fine distinction the average voter has been trained not to notice… until their grocery bill starts looking like a Weimar bar tab.

You accuse Trump & Co. of tearing down the house. Maybe so. But let’s not forget: the rot was already in the beams when they moved in.

Too many promises, too much debt, too little humility.

Regards,

Addison Wiggin,
Grey Swan

P.S. If you think these are the final days of the American experiment, I won’t argue. Under the Trump administration, it’s “the end of the world as we have known it” (EOTWASWHKI).

Maybe Trump’s version of shrinking the role of government in the media and our private lives – including our investment decisions — is just what the American Republic needs.

Maybe not. Maybe he is just the evil orange devil that 30% of the electorate wants you to believe he is.

P.P.S. Because of the blistering pace of change in the financial news cycle, we’re making a much-needed format change.

Tomorrow, in the Grey Swan daily, we’ll include some more comments from the in-box and details on the program, which we expect to roll out on Monday.

‘Til then, please send your own response to Mr. P right here: addison@greyswanfraternity.com.

For 30 years, Japan was the land where interest rates went to die.

The Bank of Japan used yield-curve control to keep long-term rates sedated. Traders joked that shorting Japanese bonds was the “widow-maker trade.”

Not anymore.

On November 20, 2025, everything changed. Quietly, but decisively.

The Bank of Japan finally pulled the plug on decades of easy money. Negative rates were removed. Yield-curve control was abandoned. The policy rate was lifted to a 17-year high.

Suddenly, global markets had to reprice something they had ignored for years.

What happens when the world’s largest creditor nation stops exporting cheap capital and starts pulling it back home?

The answer came fast. Bond yields in Europe and the United States began climbing. The Japanese yen strengthened sharply. Wall Street faltered.

The rate cut narrative is calcifying into gospel: the Fed must cut to save the consumer.

Bankrate reports that 59% of Americans cannot cover a $1,000 emergency without debt or selling something. And yet stocks are roaring, liquidity junkies are celebrating, and the top 10% now account for half of all consumer spending.

Here’s the plot twist: before 2020, consumer confidence faithfully tracked equity markets. After 2020, that relationship broke. As one analyst put it, “The poor don’t hate stocks going up. They just don’t feel it anymore.”

So when the Fed cuts rates in one of the hottest stock markets in history, who exactly benefits? Not the 59%. Not the middle. Certainly not anyone renting and watching shelter inflation devour their paycheck.

Only the late-stage dot-com fever dreams did better in recent memory — back when analysts were valuing companies by the number of mammals breathing inside the office.

For the moment, stocks appear unsinkable, unslappable, and perhaps uninsurable. But this is what generational technology shifts do: they take a kernel of genuine innovation and inflate a decade of growth into a 36-month highlight reel. We’ve seen this movie. It premiered in 1999 and closed with adults crying into their PalmPilots.

And just as the internet continued reshaping the world long after Pets.com curled up and died, AI will keep marching on whether or not today’s multiples survive a stiff breeze. The technology is real. The valuations, however, will eventually need to stop hyperventilating and sit down with a glass of water.

Wheelbarrows are not chickens. A chicken is a biological production unit. A wheelbarrow is a capital good. A wheelbarrow doesn’t produce work. But it CAN be a productivity multiplier.

And that’s how we have to think of all those GPUs the hyperscalers are spending money on. If their thesis is right, trillion in AI and data center spending now, will translate into a massive burst in productivity and new technologies in the next two decades. That is the only justification for the current valuations/multiples at which these stocks trade now.

The American poet William Carlos Williams wrote, “So much depends, upon a red wheelbarrow, glazed with rainwater, beside the white chickens.”

Today the wheelbarrow is Nvidia Green. And so much of the stock market depends on that wheelbarrow being a big enough productivity multiplier to offset $340 trillion in debt.