It’s Time to Build… Assets?

One of the main reasons for the decline in goods and services in the United States, and to a lesser extent, the world, is the financialization of our economies by excessive money printing.

Let's break that down into simpler language.

The quality of the things and services you buy has gotten worse because the people making those things and doing those services are worse today, generally, than the ones who were doing it 10-20 years ago.

Why?

Because there is no money in it.

Why is there no money it?

Because all the money is in creating assets, not in creating goods and services.

Why is all money in creating assets?

Because there is an enormous demand for assets because all the governments of the world are constantly creating new money and people want to protect their savings.

Their savings are not protected in cash. They will become worth less and less every year. So, they invest in assets, because assets trade at a multiple of what they earn, which is constantly rising because new money is created and then prices change.

So, concretely, a smart person who otherwise would have run a manufacturing business making glassware, instead buys a bunch of glassware manufacturing businesses using debt to take advantage of the new money creation which is constantly driving the prices of these businesses up.

Instead of thinking about how to make better glassware, that person thinks about how to raise more money, how to sell these businesses in another party which is doing the same thing.

The focus goes from making a good product, to making an asset which is traded.

Why?

Because you can make so much more money buying a 5 million dollar glassware company and selling it for 10 million dollars than you can actually selling glassware.

Further, since 2008, there has been no downside to this trade because every time there is an economic weakness on the horizon, governments, fearing loss of power, chaos, or hardship, just print more money so that there isn't any specter of job loss.

So the only reason why you would make goods and services instead of assets is because you do it for the love of the game, because you get a much better reward and minimal risk from building assets because nothing is allowed to fail!

There are a couple of reasons why this problem is particularly bad (yes it's bad that goods and services are in decline) in the United States:

1. It's tax advantaged. Selling glassware has a tax rate of about 35%. Selling assets has a tax rate of about 20%.

2. The United States has the "deepest capital markets", meaning its the easiest place to get the loans that are integral to this game

3. It's become part of the culture. While someone in France may say "absolutely not, I am not buying up bakeries, I am building baguettes", in the United States, we have a culture that celebrates this. We think it's the pinnacle of capitalism, when it's not even capitalism. The Federal Reserve is a unelected body of people who are nominated and then serve out a full term and decide how much new money to create. It's central planning, which is the opposite of capitalism. But, hey, look at that cool guy on wall street in the 1980s with his satellite phone, so cool, so capitalism.

This is also why the new industrialization drive is 100% government driven. Whether it's the Chips Act or the venture-funded companies which will sell to the US government.

There's no money in making this stuff unless the government comes in and pays a stupidly high price which is, once again, only possible because of excessive money printing.

Unless they're just doing it for the love of the game, the only way you can get someone to make physical stuff instead of making assets (which they're kind of doing anyways) is by paying them the market rate, which has to compete with working in finance.

This is why Zoomers have no motivation to work normal salaried jobs. Because, why would you work when you could trade crypto or stocks? The income potential is so much higher, which again comes from all the new money that is constantly printed.

So when someone says "it's time to build!" and they're in the financial industry (I'm speaking generally, I have no personal issue with someone who does that), just laugh because it's not real.

What they mean, is that it's time to build assets, not real goods and services, because that's a lot harder and, with the current system, from taxes to the way the government funds itself and saves the economy, it's a bad way to make a living (even if it's spiritually fulfilling).