CategoryFinance and Economics

• This year has been a gift, with many opportunities for growth and learning.
• Three quotes that summarize the year:
– “It is easier to fool a man than to convince him he has be fooled” – Mark Twain
– “Panics do not destroy capital. They merely reveal the extent to which it has been previously destroyed by its betrayal into hopelessly unproductive works” -John Mills
– “One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” – Carl Sagan
• Crypto: The web3 spectacle was far removed from reality, and the land war in Europe and worries over food and energy resources caused the crypto world to come crumbling down.
• Commodities: Tech is the new FAANG, and as resources get cheaper, we find progressively dumber uses of them.
• The Federal Reserve: Expectations are all that matter, and the Fed is facing the verifiable metrics slowing inflation contrasted against the heavy burden of Ego.
• Venture Capital: The incentives are misaligned, and the focus is on venture funds and founders, not on building enduring companies.
• Housing: Mortgage rates have skyrocketed, and private equity firms are nosing their way into mobile home parks, nursing homes, and student housing. Housing is in a deep recession, and weakness i1n housing is a core part of recessions.
• 2022 was a year of economic and human behavior changes.
• The economy was in flux, with bonds and stocks moving together, market fundamentalism becoming dominant, and an over-reliance on tech and finance layoffs.
• Human behavior was characterized by anger, doomerism, and a lack of cooperation.
• There was a sense of fragmentation, with a monoculture emerging and a focus on profit and growth over creativity and expression.
• People were degraded to the status of mere consumers, and there was a deep sense of nihilism in Gen Z.
• The article calls for reconnection and understanding, and for people to recognize their passions and create a living world.

Published December 22, 2022. Visit Kyla’s Newsletter to read kyla scanlon’s original post.