For real.

Of course the world is more “fragile” now haven’t you seen all the crazy stuff that’s happened?

What crazy stuff has happened?

From a U.S. perspective, recently there have been no major wars, no major terrorist attacks, no stock market crashes. Crime is on the decline. Unemployment is low. I define recent as the past 5 years or so....

zomg Donald Trump is in office and nothing is any different now than if Hillary were elected.

The only thing significant about Obama's 8 years was Obamacare. Other than that that, things were relatively mundane.

The political news channels are talking about the most mundate, trivial, sjw bs these days. In the 2000's you has 9/11, Iraq/Afghan war, dot com bubble, housing market/ stock market crash, social media exploding, smart phones exploding.

World is boring as hell these days. You've got the crypto bubble and the whole AI thing to keep an eye on. China/US trade war is same wishy washy all talk bs going on for years. Same with N Korea.

Ray Dalio (founder of Bridgewater) discusses historical debt crises. Brings up not only financial indicators (long periods of growth, cheap debt, shadow lending, higher levered companies, etc) of a correction, but also social/political dynamics that preceded downtowns (growth leads to higher returns for rentier class -> greater wealth inequality -> leading to more of an appetite for redistribution increasing political tension -> the rise of nationalism/protectionism -> international conflict). And even worse, in this particular cycle, the fed doesn't have as many tools to stabilize markets given extended periods of low rates.

https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts...r-65UHx_gvfDL/

There is some research out there that basically shows the world getting more stable and boring with every passing decade/century. Fewer and fewer people die in Wars, we simply don't have big fights any more. The gap between the poor and rich might be as wide as ever, but today's poor have a much more comfortable base. 50 years ago, massive world famines were a real concern in a lot of countries. Today, it's very small and isolated pockets of problems.

AI? This is just a fantasy for now. Use any helpline chatbot/etc and it's mind numbingly stupid. So is Alexa/etc for any decent question. We already use "AI" in a lot of things and it's very tiny steps each year. The disruption has been happening since the 50s, slowly, and it will continue to happen, slowly.

I think the biggest known unknown right now is China. Autocratic systems can do amazing things and China has done amazing things. What Xi Jinping is doing right now may lead to massive problems internally. And if China stumbles, the world stumbles too.

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It made sense, but didn't happen. There was some meeting between the US and China in some Pacific country, like APEC or something? It didn't go well.

That is the way this **** works. It was setting up to look like that, no guarantee it happens....

The volatility is high and the both sides are on edge, but bears are definitely in control. Positive news between the US and China could put bears off balance and see some kind of rally.

We are back at the lows, new lows from here or chop? IDK if there is much of an edge. But it sure seems like we are falling apart. G20 is just around the corner.

Im thinking down into the summit and then well see what the news is.

There is always research out there...for both sides. Its almost as much BS as statistics.

AI is very really and we are very much going to disrupt jobs and the social order in the coming decades. It is very unclear what will happen. Social revolution, UBI? IDK its going to make things worse between the "greedy capitalists" and the "proletariat."

But yes, in the short term, the risk centers around China / US -- China relations. However, it does not seem to me that anyone is really out of the woods. EU has Brexit and constant banking problems.

Australia is beholden to US -- China relations. Brazil is ****ed. ME is ****ed. Maybe Switzerland and Norway can weather the storm? IDK Russia is beholden to energy prices.

Kind of curious what crypto collapse could do to defaults in your typical household. Can't help if a lot of the coins were owned by fewer sharps on the way up, only to be pawned off on Joe Public on the way down.

On the Canada side, I know some folks in dep of finance, and they were tasked with years of work to stress test the banks here. They came to the conclusion that Canada can't see a Bear Stearns type scenario. Some weakness in the maritimes as it relates to debt, but apparently they're pretty satisfied with the measures in place. And that's even with the oil patch self destructing. That said I'll have to ask them about the lowest barrel price they accounted for, honestly didn't ask.

One thing that I can't fully wrap my head around is the retirement of the baby boomers. They've been retiring for 7 years now, and I guess the rest of them will retire over the next 11 years. Seems to me like getting work won't really be a huge issue, but I'm just guessing.