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Ten months after Europe's Crisis of Competence, one of the most listened-to episodes of Hypernormal Investing, I caught up again with Brawlster, author of The Brawl Street Journal, to ask what has changed. The answer is not much, and most of it for the worse.

We discuss:

• EU regulation hitting reality. The LNG methane rules carry fines of up to 20% of global turnover, and Brussels is already telling member states not to enforce them. The packaging regulation is pushing small businesses out of cross-border trade.
• German energy policy. Economy Minister Katherina Reiche offers a small glimmer of hope, but there's no route back to nuclear.
• German politics. Chancellor Merz is polling around 15% and pressing charges against people online who call him a liar, in a coalition where sensible reform dies at the hands of the SPD.
• Europe's energy dependency. Europe swapped Russian gas for US LNG, and a short US export halt could empty European storage by mid-January.
• Nord Stream. A US-owned "freedom gas" pipeline and a reverse-Nixon strategy towards Russia.
• Sovereign stress. French 10-year yields are at their highest since 2008, Germany's AAA rating is at risk, and Germany can no longer afford to backstop France.
• Defence spending. Rheinmetall and Volkswagen's pivot to defence, and why spending on tanks is fiscal expansion, not productive capital.
• German industry. Volkswagen is cutting 100,000 jobs, and Chinese EVs are filling the affordable mid-market.
• Italy's gold. Italy has reclassified its gold as belonging to "the people", with implications for TARGET2 balances and EU solidarity.
• Political shifts. The AfD's rise, the Saxony-Anhalt election and France's 2027 elections.
• Ukraine. The escalation risk of Ukraine's drone campaign, and what a pre-midterm US peace deal would mean for Europe's leaders.

Europe economy, EU regulation, German politics, Friedrich Merz, AfD, European gas crisis, US LNG, Nord Stream, French bond yields, German debt, euro crisis, TARGET2, Italy gold, de-dollarisation, Volkswagen, Rheinmetall, defence spending, Ukraine war, macro investing, Hypernormal Investing

This podcast explores stocks, markets, and capital, examines the role of gold in finance, unpacks tax policy and economics, discusses pathways to financial freedom and retirement, explains how interest rates affect investing, features insights from financial advisers, analyzes inflation, recession, and market volatility, covers the actions of central banks, evaluates different assets, addresses inheritance planning, reviews portfolio construction with bonds and an isa, assesses long-term returns and allocation strategies, explores macro trends, and helps listeners understand risk and pensions.

John Polomy of Actionable Intelligence Alert returns for a wide-ranging conversation on US fiscal decline, the fracturing global order, and how to protect and grow capital through it. We cover the parallels between today's West and the late Soviet Union, how asymmetric warfare exposed the limits of US power projection in Iran, and why the world is splitting into three competing spheres of influence. From there, John lays out his own investment playbook: internationalising capital, holding gold, silver, and Bitcoin as insurance against debasement, building a modern "permanent portfolio" of liquid hard assets, and why he believes uranium offers the best supply-demand setup in commodities today.

Topics Covered:

• Parallels between the modern US and the late-stage Soviet Union
• The "establishment" as a self-preserving organism
• Asymmetric warfare, drones, and the limits of US military power post-Iran
• The trifurcation of the world into US, China/Asia, and Eurasian blocs
• Scott Bessent, the bond market, and the fight to defend the dollar vs. the debt
• Why John believes the US won't survive as an intact political entity within a generation
• Internationalizing capital: banking, residency, and jurisdictional diversification
• Gold, silver, platinum, and Bitcoin as protection against currency debasement
• Building a modern permanent portfolio: timber, land, water rights, and liquid hard-asset plays
• The uranium bull case and how to get exposure (Sprott Physical Uranium Trust, Yellowcake, Cameco)
• Investing like a multi-generational wealthy family: preserve first, compound second

Guest: John Polomy — Actionable Intelligence Alert (Substack), YouTube

Keywords/Tags: dollar debasement, US debt crisis, bond market, de-dollarization, gold and silver, Bitcoin as an asset class, uranium investing, permanent portfolio, capital internationalization, geopolitics and investing, de-globalization, macro investing podcast

This podcast explores stocks, markets, and capital, examines the role of gold in finance, unpacks tax policy and economics, discusses pathways to financial freedom and retirement, explains how interest rates affect investing, features insights from financial advisers, analyzes inflation, recession, and market volatility, covers the actions of central banks, evaluates different assets, addresses inheritance planning, reviews portfolio construction with bonds and an isa, assesses long-term returns and allocation strategies, explores macro trends, and helps listeners understand risk and pensions.

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Kevin Muir has spent thirty-five years making — and cataloguing — mistakes in markets, first as an equity derivatives trader on RBC Capital Markets' Toronto desk through the dot-com era, and for the last twenty-five years trading his own capital independently. Along the way, he built The Macro Tourist into one of the most widely read independent macro newsletters, and co-founded The Market Huddle podcast with Patrick Ceresna.

In this conversation, Kevin lays out his current framework for markets: why being right about a call and making a good investment are two different things, how his own conversion on Modern Monetary Theory reshaped the way he reads fiscal and monetary policy, and why he thinks the US is losing the structural advantage that made it the best-performing stock market on earth for the better part of two decades. We get into his read on Kevin Warsh's Federal Reserve, his currency trade expressing a long-yen view, and his scepticism of the AI capex boom — not because the technology won't matter, but because of how the earnings behind it are being built.

Keywords / Tags: Kevin Muir, The Macro Tourist, Market Huddle podcast, macro investing, Kevin Warsh, Federal Reserve, US dollar, US stock market outlook, Japanese yen trade, Swiss franc, AI bubble, earnings bubble, gold, Modern Monetary Theory, fiscal dominance, US midterm elections 2026, hedge fund psychology, trading discipline

This podcast explores stocks, markets, and capital, examines the role of gold in finance, unpacks tax policy and economics, discusses pathways to financial freedom and retirement, explains how interest rates affect investing, features insights from financial advisers, analyzes inflation, recession, and market volatility, covers the actions of central banks, evaluates different assets, addresses inheritance planning, reviews portfolio construction with bonds and an isa, assesses long-term returns and allocation strategies, explores macro trends, and helps listeners understand risk and pensions.

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Damian Pudner — monetary economist, founder of the Great British Think Tank (GBTT), former Head of Rate Sales for EMEA at UBS.

A 25-year rates trader turned monetary economist explains why UK gilts trade at a "moron premium," why he'd scrap the Bank of England's 2% inflation target, and how he's actually positioning his own portfolio in bonds, equities and gold.

Damian explains why he's a "broad money" monetarist, why the Bank of England's 2% inflation target should be scrapped in favour of nominal GDP targeting, and why the Monetary Policy Committee needs more practitioners and fewer career academics. He unpacks the UK's persistent gilt-market "moron premium," lays out what a modern-day version of the 1976 IMF crisis could look like, and shares how he personally allocates across equities, short-duration bonds, gold and, notably, not Bitcoin. The conversation also covers Gary Stevenson's wealth-inequality argument, the real economic impact of AI, and why Damian believes Britain needs a Thatcher-, Reagan-, or Milei-style reset before the next election cycle.

UK gilts, Bank of England, monetary policy, inflation target, nominal GDP targeting, broad money, M4X, monetarism, moron premium, UK debt crisis, gold investing, Bitcoin vs gold, Gary Stevenson, quantitative easing, fiscal dominance, UK economy, bond investing, portfolio strategy, Great British Think Tank

This podcast explores stocks, markets, and capital, examines the role of gold in finance, unpacks tax policy and economics, discusses pathways to financial freedom and retirement, explains how interest rates affect investing, features insights from financial advisers, analyzes inflation, recession, and market volatility, covers the actions of central banks, evaluates different assets, addresses inheritance planning, reviews portfolio construction with bonds and an isa, assesses long-term returns and allocation strategies, explores macro trends, and helps listeners understand risk and pensions.

Read the daily notes at the Hypernormal Times on Substack. Subscribe, review, and share. Brought to you by Progressive Equity. Commentary and information only — not investment advice.

"Governments defending prices against fundamentals always lose." Stanley Druckenmiller's warning to his old protégé, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, is the thread through a remarkable week. Bessent's "economic D-Day" on Iran and the dollar-as-weapon problem; the Black Wednesday irony of a man who broke the Bank of England now defending the bond price; Warsh's money-supply gauge flashing as M2 runs hot and the Treasury floods liquidity; Nvidia's blowout that answered demand — never the real doubt — while margins compress and a hot PCE print fully prices a December Fed hike; and Warsh's first Jackson Hole, where a frozen market waited on a chairman who refuses to give guidance. Plus the AI-vs-Middle East tug of war, gold and Bitcoin as the debasement scorecard, and a US move to lease Venezuela's oilfields. Essential listening for active investors on markets, capital and the cost of money.

investing, markets, macro, capital, stocks, bonds, Treasury yields, fiscal dominance, Scott Bessent, Stanley Druckenmiller, Kevin Warsh, Federal Reserve, Jackson Hole, M2 money supply, PCE inflation, rate hike, Nvidia, AI bubble, gold, Bitcoin, debasement trade, Iran sanctions, Venezuela, OPEC

This podcast explores stocks, markets, and capital, examines the role of gold in finance, unpacks tax policy and economics, discusses pathways to financial freedom and retirement, explains how interest rates affect investing, features insights from financial advisers, analyzes inflation, recession, and market volatility, covers the actions of central banks, evaluates different assets, addresses inheritance planning, reviews portfolio construction with bonds and an isa, assesses long-term returns and allocation strategies, explores macro trends, and helps listeners understand risk and pensions.

Read the daily market notes at the Hypernormal Times on Substack. Subscribe, review, and share at Hypernormal Times on Substack.

The global financial system is running a fever, and this week the authorities declared war on the thermometer. Jeremy McKeown separates the signal from the theatre: why the surge in long-term Treasury, gilt and bund yields is a real-yield repricing of sovereign risk, not an inflation scare. Why Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's surprise bond buyback moved markets for twelve hours and then failed. A put is a bluff with no printing press behind it. Why the AI chip sell-off was a discount-rate shift, not demand cracking. Why Japan and the yen carry trade are where the margin call sits. And why gold, now joined by Bitcoin, is voting no confidence in fiscal sanity. Essential listening for active investors trying to protect capital amid fiscal dominance, rising rates and the AI capex boom.

investing, markets, macro, stocks, capital, bonds, bond vigilantes, Treasury yields, fiscal dominance, Scott Bessent, bond buyback, Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh, inflation, gold, Bitcoin, AI bubble, Nvidia, Anthropic, yen carry trade, Bank of Japan, Jackson Hole

This podcast explores stocks, markets, and capital, examines the role of gold in finance, unpacks tax policy and economics, discusses pathways to financial freedom and retirement, explains how interest rates affect investing, features insights from financial advisers, analyzes inflation, recession, and market volatility, covers the actions of central banks, evaluates different assets, addresses inheritance planning, reviews portfolio construction with bonds and an isa, assesses long-term returns and allocation strategies, explores macro trends, and helps listeners understand risk and pensions.

Why isn't oil at $200 with the Strait of Hormuz restricted? Rupert Mitchell — "The Blind Squirrel" — argues China has become a monopsony: the swing buyer of crude, putting an effective floor and ceiling on oil prices using storage tanks instead of quotas. He calls it the China Collar, and he thinks it will permanently re-rate energy equities.

We also cover why he's buying UK domestic mid-caps "on the bond floor", what replaces bonds now the 60/40 portfolio has stopped working, and the Monte Carlo runs where OpenAI and Anthropic are worth nothing.

A 25-year capital markets banker turned independent macro writer, Rupert publishes his own portfolio, losses included.

The Blind Squirrel Macro: https://www.blindsquirrelmacro.com/

Hypernormal Times: https://jeremymckeown.substack.com/

In this episode:

An accidental banker: Barings, 1994 — five months before Leeson

Hong Kong ECM, and why the syndicate desk beat the prospectus

Inside a Chinese EV startup: "capitalism is a full-body contact sport in China"

BYD, Alibaba, Tencent — great company vs. great stock

Why a blind squirrel: strong convictions, loosely held

Leopold Aschenbrenner: the leverage lesson, not the fraud lesson

Is AI inflationary or deflationary? Both — and that's the problem

Valuing OpenAI and Anthropic when 20–45% of scenarios are zeros

The China Collar: monopsony, storage, and the swing buyer of crude

Why energy should be 2.5x its current S&P weight

The UK on its bond floor: FTSE 250, 12x earnings, battle-hardened managers

Investment trusts: getting paid twice when private equity bids

Life after 60/40: CTAs, long-dated crude, gold — and why not Bitcoin

EM local currency debt and 40% African exposure

The new Fed chair's straitjacket, and moving the 2% goalposts

Dollar/yen, the 30-year JGB, and the Forrest Gump of global macro

china collar, oil price, monopsony, crude oil, energy equities, opec, strait of hormuz, uk equities, ftse 250, investment trusts, closed-end funds, nav discount, 60/40 portfolio, portfolio diversification, cta, managed futures, trend following, gold, emerging market debt, macro investing, rupert mitchell, blind squirrel macro, openai valuation, anthropic valuation, ai bubble, federal reserve, dollar yen, jgb, byd, tencent, china state capitalism.

This podcast explores stocks, markets, and capital, examines the role of gold in finance, unpacks tax policy and economics, discusses pathways to financial freedom and retirement, explains how interest rates affect investing, features insights from financial advisers, analyzes inflation, recession, and market volatility, covers the actions of central banks, evaluates different assets, addresses inheritance planning, reviews portfolio construction with bonds and an isa, assesses long-term returns and allocation strategies, explores macro trends, and helps listeners understand risk and pensions.

This week's easing was cyclical. The things that hardened were structural. That's the week in a sentence.

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Markets spent five days exhaling — a soft CPI, a softer PPI, the AI trade roaring back — while quietly signing up for an indefinite oil siege, a $2 trillion deficit funded at the worst prices since before the financial crisis, and a boom in structured credit that rhymes uncomfortably with 2008. This week: the stagflation trap the Fed can't lever its way out of; Nvidia becoming "the bank of mum and dad" for the AI industry as Wall Street securitises the boom; why the market celebrated a number the Fed doesn't even target; fiscal dominance on the tape; and Japan's cheap-money anchor starting to drag. Plus the cheque-writers vs the cheque-cashers, and a British silly-season coda.

Commentary and information for serious active investors — not advice. Do your own due diligence.

Keywords: stocks, markets, capital, investing, macro, stagflation, fiscal dominance, AI bubble, Nvidia, credit spreads, core PCE, Federal Reserve, Treasury yields, Bank of Japan, oil, Strait of Hormuz.

This podcast explores stocks, markets, and capital, examines the role of gold in finance, unpacks tax policy and economics, discusses pathways to financial freedom and retirement, explains how interest rates affect investing, features insights from financial advisers, analyzes inflation, recession, and market volatility, covers the actions of central banks, evaluates different assets, addresses inheritance planning, reviews portfolio construction with bonds and an isa, assesses long-term returns and allocation strategies, explores macro trends, and helps listeners understand risk and pensions.

Subscribe to Hypernormal Times on Substack.

High Ground founder and CIO Edgar Allen joins to explain the investment philosophy behind one of Europe's fastest-growing long/short equity funds — now running roughly $3bn, up from $10m at launch in 2019.

Edgar traces his path from teenage stock-picker in Suffolk, working through FT-ordered annual reports in the school holidays, to Fidelity during the dot-com boom, shorting technology at Avocet, risk and European equities at BlackRock, six years at Chris Hohn's TCI, and the number-two seat at Naya — and how each stop shaped High Ground's approach.

The core of the conversation is duration. Equities are very long-duration assets, but the average company lives about six years. Edgar argues that discounted cash flow quietly assumes cash flows into perpetuity, and that the gap between that assumption and reality is the largest single inefficiency in the market.

His answer is to hunt for long-cycle industries where the supply response is slow and the competitive set in twenty years is already knowable: Airbus and the A320 family, Knorr-Bremse and train braking systems, city-centre property, even death care — the US industry with the lowest bankruptcy rate.

Edgar put it that:

"One thing that we know for sure about all the companies that we invest in is that they're all going to get wiped out. They're all trending to zero. It's just a matter of time."

On the short side, Edgar looks for businesses that will be worse businesses in three years than they are today, and for accounting evidence of it: widening profit-to-free-cash-flow gaps, adjusted EBITDA creep, factoring and reverse factoring, shifting LTIP goals, and margin decline masked by cuts to R&D and marketing. Consumer staples have been a fertile hunting ground as the barriers to entry that once protected big food brands have collapsed.

The conversation also covers a strong 2025 (25 positions up more than 20%, 18 down more than 20% — all of them shorts), the outlook for the UK and Europe versus an expensive US market, why China sits outside the mandate on rule-of-law grounds, declining trust and happiness as macro risks, and the case that AI — like bicycles, railways and airlines — could transform the world while destroying more shareholder value than it creates.

A fascinating conversation, from an original investment thinker and practitioner.

long/short equity, High Ground, Edgar Allen, terminal value, discounted cash flow, business duration, long-cycle industries, return on capital, quality investing, accounting risk, short selling, adjusted EBITDA, free cash flow, earnings quality, TCI, Chris Hohn, Fidelity, BlackRock, Naya, hedge fund, UK equities, European equities, US valuations, China rule of law, AI bubble, data centres, LLMs, consumer staples, Diageo, Airbus, Knorr-Bremse, Zulu principle, PEG ratio, investor psychology

This podcast explores stocks, markets, and capital, examines the role of gold in finance, unpacks tax policy and economics, discusses pathways to financial freedom and retirement, explains how interest rates affect investing, features insights from financial advisers, analyzes inflation, recession, and market volatility, covers the actions of central banks, evaluates different assets, addresses inheritance planning, reviews portfolio construction with bonds and an isa, assesses long-term returns and allocation strategies, explores macro trends, and helps listeners understand risk and pensions.

Three of the most powerful men in the global economy asked the markets to believe them, and the markets declined. On protecting capital when money, promises, and forward guidance are being printed, and gold, copper, and diesel are the only honest voices left.

Hypernormal Times on Substack.

This week, a president's peace, a Fed chairman's credibility and a currency's floor all turned out to be things you can print a promise about but cannot manufacture. Trump called off "the biggest strike since WWII," then announced talks Iran said weren't happening, before the Hormuz "deal" morphed into a surrender document. The US Treasury raided a Fed facility to print dollars so Japan could buy yen, fiscal dominance, in plain sight, while the president phoned Chairman Warsh and Warsh apologised through anonymous friends.

Meanwhile the honest voices spoke: gold to $4,300, copper to a record, and a refining shock (it's the fuel, not the crude) that a ceasefire can fix.

We cover the AI sorting. Situational Awareness, the model that escaped its box, SpaceX's cheque-writer earnings and the take-forward into next week: jobs, the BoJ, Hormuz and the AI supply tide.

The takeaway suggestion for serious active investors is to own the unprintable. Not investment advice, natch.

If only Kev had levers that printed oil refineries and copper wire. He doesn't. Nobody does.

This podcast explores stocks, markets, and capital, examines the role of gold in finance, unpacks tax policy and economics, discusses pathways to financial freedom and retirement, explains how interest rates affect investing, features insights from financial advisers, analyzes inflation, recession, and market volatility, covers the actions of central banks, evaluates different assets, addresses inheritance planning, reviews portfolio construction with bonds and an isa, assesses long-term returns and allocation strategies, explores macro trends, and helps listeners understand risk and pensions.