Videos Of The Week
A Wild World Series Game Last Night, Why The US Is In A Revolutionary Period & Different Perspectives On Oil And Gas
I don’t know how many Dodgers fans are out there, but Game 7 last night didn’t disappoint. Congratulations if you’re from LA, and we will see if they can go for the threepeat next year. I didn’t have a dog in the fight, and I was still on the edge of my seat last night. On markets, we got the interest rate cut that many were expecting, and we saw yields on the long end rising. I have a podcast guest lined up for later this week, and I’m sure we will get into that, along with several other topics. I also will be experimenting with a post with a new format in the next couple days, so keep an eye out for that. The videos this week cover a couple important topics. The first hits on the path of the US, wealth inequality, and societal breakdown, and the second looks at different perspectives on oil.
Thoughtful Money w/ Peter Turchin
This was my favorite video of the week, and I had a subscriber mention this one to me yesterday. Turchin’s book, End Times, has been recommended to me on a podcast, and I’m definitely looking forward to reading it in the future. This video will be a bit of a preview, but he explains why he thinks the US is in a revolutionary period. There is a new counter elite coming to power, and they are trying to replace the existing power structure and change the culture of the society. He explains why he thinks Trump’s second term is more important than Democrat or Republican, because he’s going against the existing bureaucracy. They cover some of the main drivers of instability for a society, elite surplus, wealth inequality (which he thinks has been at a tipping point since 2016), and immiseration.
He points out that mass migration has a very strong effect on immiseration, and if you oversupply labor, it drives down wages. It also has an impact on culture, and if government cares more about immigration than workers, that impacts the legitimacy of the state in the eyes of the population. He thinks US is a more dire state than France, Japan (not enough young people), or the UK. None of the trends he saw starting in 2010 are reversing, and he thinks turbulent times are coming if the trends continue. He talks about some of the potential fixes for these trends, but he thinks that violence is the most likely outcome from here. This one doesn’t focus directly on markets, but it covers some interesting topics to think about for investors.
The ZeroHedge Oil Debate
For anyone looking for multiple different perspectives on the oil and energy markets, this one is for you. I’ll summarize each guest’s view briefly, but their views definitely provide food for thought. Arjun Murti thinks we are in the bottoming phase for oil and that the worst is behind us. That doesn’t mean we won’t see another 5-10 bucks on the downside, but he doesn’t agree with the massive oversupply that the EIA is projecting. He thinks the setup is more for super volatility, not a super cycle, but he thinks the best days for shale are behind us, and OPEC has brought most of their spare capacity back online.
Paul Sankey pointed that we recently hit an all time high on oil demand, and he is expecting a low in Q1 of 2026, and he is bullish after that. He thinks that the equities have more than discounted the risks in the oil price, and that the US is out of inventory that looks attractive at $60 a barrel. He does point out that Trump wants lower oil, but calls for $40 a barrel are like $30 a barrel in 2016, and extremely bearish arguments on oil will struggle against inflation. Mike McGlone is more bearish, and he is still expecting that we will visit $40 as the low price cure. I’m not sure if Bloomberg is allowed to be bullish on oil, but it is still in a downtrend, and McGlone pointed out that oil has bottomed near $40 three times in the last couple decades. They also talked about natural gas, LNG, nuclear energy, and other topics related to energy, but it’s definitely worth a watch for anyone thinking about the energy sector.