Business & Investing
Sponsored by

Dollar death spiral

1,464 Views | 2 Replies | Last: 8 mo ago by Sims
Algorithmic Epiphany
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Nassim Taleb and Bank of America both recently penned that America is headed to the Dollar Death Spiral imminently.

For this exercise let's assume it's true.

I'm attempting to buy a $2M property and am getting a bank loan. What would be the best strategy to employ if a dollar death spiral is the future we will witness?

Should I buy 10% of the note in bitcoin as a hedge? What other things would make sense?

Quote:

The U.S. national debt is rising by $1 trillion every 100 days," Michael Hartnett, chief strategist of Bank of America, wrote in a note to clients seen by CNBC, adding it's "little wonder 'debt debasement' trades closing in on all-time highs, i.e. gold [at] $2077/oz [and] bitcoin [at] $67,734."


Quote:

Inflows into the new spot bitcoin ETFs have suddenly accelerated over the last two weeks, fueling wild predictions that bitcoin could "steal gold's crown" as the world's "prime store-of-value."

U.S. national debt has skyrocketed in recent years, crossing the $34 trillion mark at the beginning of 2024, as Covid and lockdown stimulus measurestriggering wild predictions last year the bitcoin price could boom to $1 million per bitcoin.

03/04 update: Wharton Business School finance professor Joao Gomes has warned spiraling U.S. debt could plunge the U.S. into a financial crisis as soon as next year.

"It could derail the next administration, frankly," Gomes told Fortune. "If they come up with plans for large tax cuts or another big fiscal stimulus, the markets could rebel, interest rates could just spike right there and we would have a crisis in 2025. It could very well happen. I'm very confident by the end of the decade one way or another, we will be there."

Last month, The Black Swan author Nassim Taleb said he believes the U.S. economy is in a "death spiral ... as long as you have Congress keep extending the debt limit and doing deals because they're afraid of the consequences of doing the right thing, that's the political structure of the political system, eventually you're going to have a debt spiral," Taleb said at an event, it was reported by Bloomberg. "And a debt spiral is like a death spiral."

"This doesn't end well," Genevieve Roch-Decter, a former asset manager who writes the Grit Capital newsletter, posted to X.

jagvocate
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
Conventional wisdom says "Put your dollars into assets that retain value (real estate, fine art, precious metals, $BTC(?), etc.)

Theoretically, debt taken on in the face of a weakening currency will be repaid back with "cheaper" currency in the future, so there may be a temptation to "load up" on the debt BUT

Watch out because if your timing is off you'll be in a huge bind

There's a million factors to something as complex as a currency "death spiral" and I doubt very few will get the timing right
Sims
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
Worth considering that their summation of the US's fiscal/monetary situation can be completely accurate and myopic at the same time. There is outstanding debt outside of the US financial system that is 2x as much as the US debt and it is in dollars.

If other countries say eff it and default, they not only default on their liability but someone else's (not the US) assets. If you see a world in which the rest of the world wipes 70 trillion worth of assets off their books just to get away from the "dollar death spiral" then I would buy more guns than I would houses.

I think the more likely situation is that gold, BTC and the dollar all rise. Sovereign debt is the risk and US sovereign debt is the least risky of that bunch even with our woes.
Refresh
Page 1 of 1
 
×
subscribe Verify your student status
See Subscription Benefits
Trial only available to users who have never subscribed or participated in a previous trial.