Thanks for indulging us. Thankyou for indulging yourself. It’s inspirational and thought provoking.
The demand for consistency seems to be coming to an end along with the American dream, that epitome of consistency- the same right to work, to live in the single dwelling house, the right to autonomy while enjoying the same coffee and burger on the daily. More and more the dependency on systems to maintain this dream, the consistent guarantied lifestyle, more and more it becomes on how heavily dependent we are in systems completely beyond our control and prevalent to all kinds of motivations that we might not want to be aligned with.
Fundamentally needing large industry in place, ( which requires a hell of a lot of people all able to work together in agreement) and in place consistently to provide our health, nutrition, housing, sustenance and emotional well being is ultimately unsustainable. As we can all feel and see.
The demand that we can remain autonomous within this nest of agreements has led to a large amount of cognitive dissonance that you talk about.
And we are witnessing the breakdown. As Don Juan said, the way of the warrior is to behave impeccably in any given situation. How do we dance within the change? I would say that Erin Reese
How do we want to be in this our most beautiful world and incredible life. And who do we want to be in agreement with to support ourselves in live and in grief?
I personally love reading these. One thing I think is missing from the mainstream media that you've consistently commented on is the supply issues in the energy and housing markets. I think a lot of the more mainstream news sources for economic news fail to highlight the supply issue.
Instead, they focus on the Fed and act like the Fed is the end all be all of what the economy does. To be fair, since the financial crisis and through the pandemic this has largely been true. However, now we are facing a different reality where supply is the issue not demand. Still, many of the experts and pundits seem to feel the Fed can somehow fix this with rates. Instead, I think the solutions here will need to come from Congress, the President, and business. As you've stated consistently, the Fed can't increase supply, it can only stimulate/dampen demand--but if the demand is for non-discretionary goods like energy and food, well we have a problem the Fed can't fix. I hope you continue to shed light on these issues, though I am pessimistic we will see a solution in the next 12-24 months.
Love your work. One item i will flag as a long time energy spectator/participant: “ You cannot have green energy policy without green energy investment.” this might be better framed as “ You cannot have green energy policy without a thorough understanding of what is and is not possible for a given timeframe.” A lot of people want change and need change and listen to people who promise the ability to deliver quickly.
It is heartbreaking to watch the existing energy system be consciously dismantled (Divest fossil fuels!) before a new one is ready. The west will survive (mostly) but the other 7 billion…
One way I think about the conundrum Jason talked about in the tweet, and you wrote about. is to think of an economy where everyone's convinced they're working on the right ideas for progress, but thinks everyone else is working on the wrong ideas. This would mean they're cautious since the entire economy is on shaky footing (unemployment low, wages high but not growing, low sentiment) but think *they themselves* are doing ok. It's a weird mental space for the economic egregore.
"You cannot have green energy policy without green energy investment."
The irony is that you cannot have "green" energy policy without fossil fuel and nuclear energy investment, in addition to "green" energy investment.
Energy transition to "green" (solar, wind) energy requires fossil fuel investment to keep fossil fuels affordable, and sufficient nuclear so that the energy density produced by nuclear and "green" energy is greater than the energy density of fossil fuels. Affordable fossil fuels are necessary to build out the nuclear capacity to create a positive feedback loop where "green" energy (plus nuclear) can replace fossil fuels.
The way energy transition is currently conceived is a doom loop, where the absence of affordable fossil fuels to build out the transition to nuclear and "green" energy, leads to a rapidly escalating cost of energy and a rapidly decreasing supply of energy. Instead of going "green", the world is forced back to coal.
Life is order amidst the chaos. Energy is required to produce order in a universe where the direction of entropy is to always increasing disorder. Energy is life. More life requires more energy. Life beyond subsistence requires energy abundance, abundance so one has plentiful energy to create ever more intricate order. What is comes down to is that life is the ability to utilize/waste every greater amounts of energy, to push upstream against the river of entropy. Arguably, any life will ultimately be ephemeral, because entropy will always win in the end.
"By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” Genesis 3:19
Aside: I put quotes around green, because "green" is not really green. All forms of energy have environmental trade-offs. Many of the advocates of "green" energy do not know or intentionally obscure the environmental trade-offs with regard to "green" energy. The fundamental fact is that is impossible to replace fossil fuels without nuclear energy being the biggest part of the alternative.
I LOVE your newsletters...thank you for sharing your insights! I have a BA in Economics & Business and I teach meditation & yoga...the threads you are weaving are brilliant!
My 8 year old son helps me gather the carts and return them to the store/coop. Never fails that one of the older employees or shoppers tells him how we need more youth like him and how the small things are important ✨...
Fascinated by what goes through your mind and your ability to articulate it in a way that leaves us with little to do in the form of unscramble. Always enjoy you indulging so thanks
what an amazing piece, Kyla! really loved consuming so good words, i wonder how you can talk about the economy and link it with so profoundness & that's your magic! you make things exciting, optimistic, and amazing to read.
my two cents:
world was always a bizarre place, it's just becoming more bizarre with every passing day, these differentials play a dominant role in it. as you beautifully said "we all are experiencing the derivative of the same thing but means differently for all", that's just life, isn't it?
what we feel is largely the same root cause but express or experience it differently at different times. hopefully things come back to normal but they won't right, once the system changes, it never adjusts to normalcy & makes a *new* equilibrium, this is the only constant we all need to love with pain, easier said than done.
i wish you all the very best, Kyla! keep writing & indulging us along with yourself
Brilliant. A very different but accurate take on what's happening. Humanising the endless data streams we get and translating to how we think and feel.
So I think what is signals is a different American experience of being Middle Class. Inflation means lower wage growth, housing affordability issues, rent increases and making American Capitalism generally less affordable increasing wealth inequality.
This is not sentiment, it's real. And it only increases America's mental health, civil unrest and other Healthcare issues, like ignoring B.A. 5 variant, American keeps putting politics over the economy and this is part of the problem.
An energy crisis, stagflation, higher dollar and higher interest rates crushes outlook and squeezes free cash. That's not sentiment, it's just gravity. This bear market rally is making little sense. Earnings are not great, outlook is worse than cloudy.
Thanks for indulging us. Thankyou for indulging yourself. It’s inspirational and thought provoking.
The demand for consistency seems to be coming to an end along with the American dream, that epitome of consistency- the same right to work, to live in the single dwelling house, the right to autonomy while enjoying the same coffee and burger on the daily. More and more the dependency on systems to maintain this dream, the consistent guarantied lifestyle, more and more it becomes on how heavily dependent we are in systems completely beyond our control and prevalent to all kinds of motivations that we might not want to be aligned with.
Fundamentally needing large industry in place, ( which requires a hell of a lot of people all able to work together in agreement) and in place consistently to provide our health, nutrition, housing, sustenance and emotional well being is ultimately unsustainable. As we can all feel and see.
The demand that we can remain autonomous within this nest of agreements has led to a large amount of cognitive dissonance that you talk about.
And we are witnessing the breakdown. As Don Juan said, the way of the warrior is to behave impeccably in any given situation. How do we dance within the change? I would say that Erin Reese
https://erinreese.substack.com/p/full-moon-in-capricorn-the-heart?r=o9fyu&utm_medium=ios
captures it beautifully this month.
How do we want to be in this our most beautiful world and incredible life. And who do we want to be in agreement with to support ourselves in live and in grief?
I personally love reading these. One thing I think is missing from the mainstream media that you've consistently commented on is the supply issues in the energy and housing markets. I think a lot of the more mainstream news sources for economic news fail to highlight the supply issue.
Instead, they focus on the Fed and act like the Fed is the end all be all of what the economy does. To be fair, since the financial crisis and through the pandemic this has largely been true. However, now we are facing a different reality where supply is the issue not demand. Still, many of the experts and pundits seem to feel the Fed can somehow fix this with rates. Instead, I think the solutions here will need to come from Congress, the President, and business. As you've stated consistently, the Fed can't increase supply, it can only stimulate/dampen demand--but if the demand is for non-discretionary goods like energy and food, well we have a problem the Fed can't fix. I hope you continue to shed light on these issues, though I am pessimistic we will see a solution in the next 12-24 months.
Thank you for being here :) Lots to think about in this post. Thank you.
Love your work. One item i will flag as a long time energy spectator/participant: “ You cannot have green energy policy without green energy investment.” this might be better framed as “ You cannot have green energy policy without a thorough understanding of what is and is not possible for a given timeframe.” A lot of people want change and need change and listen to people who promise the ability to deliver quickly.
It is heartbreaking to watch the existing energy system be consciously dismantled (Divest fossil fuels!) before a new one is ready. The west will survive (mostly) but the other 7 billion…
One way I think about the conundrum Jason talked about in the tweet, and you wrote about. is to think of an economy where everyone's convinced they're working on the right ideas for progress, but thinks everyone else is working on the wrong ideas. This would mean they're cautious since the entire economy is on shaky footing (unemployment low, wages high but not growing, low sentiment) but think *they themselves* are doing ok. It's a weird mental space for the economic egregore.
Very thoughtful, I really like this! Well, actually, the subject matter is depressing but you've made a very compelling case!
"You cannot have green energy policy without green energy investment."
The irony is that you cannot have "green" energy policy without fossil fuel and nuclear energy investment, in addition to "green" energy investment.
Energy transition to "green" (solar, wind) energy requires fossil fuel investment to keep fossil fuels affordable, and sufficient nuclear so that the energy density produced by nuclear and "green" energy is greater than the energy density of fossil fuels. Affordable fossil fuels are necessary to build out the nuclear capacity to create a positive feedback loop where "green" energy (plus nuclear) can replace fossil fuels.
The way energy transition is currently conceived is a doom loop, where the absence of affordable fossil fuels to build out the transition to nuclear and "green" energy, leads to a rapidly escalating cost of energy and a rapidly decreasing supply of energy. Instead of going "green", the world is forced back to coal.
Life is order amidst the chaos. Energy is required to produce order in a universe where the direction of entropy is to always increasing disorder. Energy is life. More life requires more energy. Life beyond subsistence requires energy abundance, abundance so one has plentiful energy to create ever more intricate order. What is comes down to is that life is the ability to utilize/waste every greater amounts of energy, to push upstream against the river of entropy. Arguably, any life will ultimately be ephemeral, because entropy will always win in the end.
"By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” Genesis 3:19
Aside: I put quotes around green, because "green" is not really green. All forms of energy have environmental trade-offs. Many of the advocates of "green" energy do not know or intentionally obscure the environmental trade-offs with regard to "green" energy. The fundamental fact is that is impossible to replace fossil fuels without nuclear energy being the biggest part of the alternative.
I LOVE your newsletters...thank you for sharing your insights! I have a BA in Economics & Business and I teach meditation & yoga...the threads you are weaving are brilliant!
My 8 year old son helps me gather the carts and return them to the store/coop. Never fails that one of the older employees or shoppers tells him how we need more youth like him and how the small things are important ✨...
Fascinated by what goes through your mind and your ability to articulate it in a way that leaves us with little to do in the form of unscramble. Always enjoy you indulging so thanks
what an amazing piece, Kyla! really loved consuming so good words, i wonder how you can talk about the economy and link it with so profoundness & that's your magic! you make things exciting, optimistic, and amazing to read.
my two cents:
world was always a bizarre place, it's just becoming more bizarre with every passing day, these differentials play a dominant role in it. as you beautifully said "we all are experiencing the derivative of the same thing but means differently for all", that's just life, isn't it?
what we feel is largely the same root cause but express or experience it differently at different times. hopefully things come back to normal but they won't right, once the system changes, it never adjusts to normalcy & makes a *new* equilibrium, this is the only constant we all need to love with pain, easier said than done.
i wish you all the very best, Kyla! keep writing & indulging us along with yourself
Brilliant. A very different but accurate take on what's happening. Humanising the endless data streams we get and translating to how we think and feel.
Please keep posting.
So I think what is signals is a different American experience of being Middle Class. Inflation means lower wage growth, housing affordability issues, rent increases and making American Capitalism generally less affordable increasing wealth inequality.
This is not sentiment, it's real. And it only increases America's mental health, civil unrest and other Healthcare issues, like ignoring B.A. 5 variant, American keeps putting politics over the economy and this is part of the problem.
An energy crisis, stagflation, higher dollar and higher interest rates crushes outlook and squeezes free cash. That's not sentiment, it's just gravity. This bear market rally is making little sense. Earnings are not great, outlook is worse than cloudy.