Barrel

None, and that’s the point. The sovereign bond market was originally developed by Rothschilds as a way to have portable wealth and a checks and balance on sovereigns. When investors would lose faith on the decisions made by sovereigns, they would sell the bonds, driving up yields, and imposing restraint on the mistakes being made by the state. Before this invention, people mostly just took it from sovereigns. Yes there is always gold, but traveling with it has always been a difficult task. It’s the foundation for why the Knights Templars grew rich. Sovereigns and the aristocracy hated the bond market that was developed as a way for people to vote with their money on if the state was being a good steward or bad. They called the sovereign bond market fake wealth, built on clouds, since everyone knew land was real wealth. What has followed has been two hundred years of sovereigns trying to reimpose absolute power over this portable wealth invention as central banks were invented, bearer bonds went away, until now, the U.S. seems totally unconstrained by the original restraints and we’ve gone from the elite calling them fake wealth to the asset by which all other assets are measured. While this is the reality we live in, it is certainly nothing to celebrate since the flip side of this safe asset is that my friend and I are once again sent to a war to defend the U.S.’s hegemony over this system since exerting power over dollar chokepoints for the last decade plus, which was supposed to be the kinder gentler way to kill a country after the Iraq oil embargo failed for the U.S. The U.S. own arrogance will defeat it. If I could tell the stories of what I’ve seen from this conflict I would. Perhaps when I am done in a few years. I have no doubt the U.S. will continue to be ever more ruthless. Because of this, when this system finally fails, much like the Barbarians that sacked Rome, they will not be hailed as invaders by the people in the countryside that were continuously taxed by the capital but as liberators. This isn’t an anti-America post, it’s an anti-American empire post. None of this is good for us or the next generation. I wish people would be as willing to take being down 50% in their 401ks as eagerly as they are to keep sending us but they aren’t, and since they aren’t and politicians love power more than our lives they keep doing what gets them elected. If only my country loved us as much as they loved the treasury market. Brent, none of this is directed at you, I enjoy your work and your point about the path mattering for most people is well taken. Just a comment that your point is correct and that actually isn’t a good thing for the sovereign bond market as it was designed. Your point on the path matters for most was actually an important factor for me in deciding to never stop working and to add different streams of cashflow so the path did not matter to me and I could make volatility work for me. I have no edge on determining direction. This conflict has actually only reinforced that for me and I’m at the ground level.