Here's a great thread that you freaks should read while sitting down at some point today. (There is a lot more to read beyond the four tweets below.)

In it, Raoul Pal walks us through the current state of the world's currency markets and the banking system. Both of which seem to be approaching a boiling point. As fiat currencies around the world plummet against the Dollar, traditional safe-haven assets like gold and silver are rallying alongside Bitcoin, which is proving to be a solid uncorrelated asset to have in one's portfolio throughout this recent bout of volatility in traditional markets. Raoul has been tweeting about the warning signs throughout the Summer and we've been doing our best to track this theme here at the Ƀent as well.

I know it is extremely dumb to try to time/call markets, but after reflecting on the Summer that's been and reading through Raoul's thread, it is hard to deny that it certainly seems like the Fat Lady is taking the stage to put on her first performance since 2008. Is the "everything bubble" in the midst of popping? I would not be surprised.

When you look out on the horizon and see the (rapidly increasing) amount of negative-yielding debt floating around, warships gathering to enforce embargoes and sanctions as well as to show force, authoritarian regimes clamping down on protesting subjects, and the retreat back to rate-cutting and money printing being exhibited by Central Banks; it is hard not to feel like we are in the middle of some shit.

The lingering question that sits on the top of my mind as all of this goes down. IF this is the popping of the "everything bubble", is will people continue to put their trust in the politicians, bankers, and economists who obviously did a poor job of creating long-term stability post-2008? A lot of people like to pontificate about the belief that "this can continue to go on longer than we can imagine", but I'm not so sure in a world with a populace that has leveled up with the Internet over the last decade. Taking advantage of social media and more access to information, being more exposed to the incompetence and hypocrisy of the status quo than ever before in history. Individuals equipped with the tools and knowledge to call out bullshit that may have otherwise been shrouded behind a lack of access to information and an inability to spread ideas as easily as we can today.

Last time around, people reacted by joining movements like Occupy Wall Street. This time around, the tools to enable meaningful protest against a system that many feel exploited by exist in the form of robust social networks and Bitcoin. Will individuals speak up, take action and claim their dignity or will they allocate the problem solving to the people who architected this mess in the first place? How many more extreme boom and bust cycles are we willing to suffer through?

Final thought...

It wasn't until after publishing yesterday "ode to the difficulty adjustment" that I realized it wasn't an ode at all. My bad, that's on me. Not much of a poet tbh.