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Lyn Alden Profile picture
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28 Jun, 4 tweets, 2 min read
My latest public article discusses the global energy market, including an overview of why it's rather difficult to replace fossil fuels in practice.
lynalden.com/oil-and-gas/
When we think about new energy sources, we often envision pervious ones being replaced. Like this chart, that shows the percentage of total energy consumption that each energy type is responsible for:
However, in absolute terms, new energy sources tend to be additive to previous energy sources.

The world as a whole has never previously phased out primary energy sources in absolute terms, or downgraded the energy density of its primary energy sources. So, that's not trivial.
Timely update on deep geothermal, which was mentioned in the energy article: wsj.com/articles/drill…

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More from @LynAldenContact

Lyn Alden Profile picture
20 Jun
This results in an interesting question. For folks who act differently online vs offline, which one is their "true self"?

I would say a bit of both.
On one hand, people let out thoughts or aggressions online that they would be less prone to do in person. It helps get a feel for what people "really" think.

On the other hand, people are social animals with instincts and bonds. Online diminishes those, leaving the rough side.
Folks develop "internet enemies" that if they were to meet in person and get to know each other a bit, might be more respectful even if they naturally disagree.

Internet enemies have all the natural disagreements, without the million years of empathy instincts as social animals.
Read 7 tweets
Lyn Alden Profile picture
6 May
Broad money growth generally occurs in one of two ways: either banks lend and create deposits (and thus increase the money multiplier, M2/MB) or when bank lending seizes up, governments run large deficits and go around the bank lending channel.

A thread. Image
Looking at 140 years of data, we see periods where loan growth fueled broad money growth (late 1800s, 1920s, 1950s, etc), periods where fiscal deficits fueled broad money growth (1940s), and periods like the 1970s/1980s where both lending and deficits fueled broad money growth. Image
The 1940s are interesting because they are most analogous to the 2020s. After a large private debt bubble partial deleveraging (1930s and 2010s), a period of economic stagnation and external catalyst eventually resulted in a massive fiscal response (1940s and 2020s). Image
Read 8 tweets
Lyn Alden Profile picture
26 Apr
Broadly since the 1970s, but especially since the 1990s, the US ran structural trade deficits, which displaced part of the industrial sector.

The imbalance isn't only with China, but with Europe and other developed countries as well.
The foreign sector took those dollar surpluses, and reinvested them initially into Treasuries, but then increasingly into US stocks and real estate.

The foreign sector now owns $10+ trillion in US equity, and the US has a deeply negative net international investment position.
Whether this "financialization" was good or not depends on what one does.

If you work in finance, education, healthcare, government, or tech, you get most of the benefits and your assets go up.

If you want to make things or don't have a lot of equities, it's been rough.
Read 5 tweets
Lyn Alden Profile picture
17 Apr
Over the past couple decades, US labor share of GDP has decreased to being well below trend (left chart), while US corporate profits as a percentage of GDP have increased to being above-trend (right chart).

A thread.
In addition to being partly due to technology/automation, another part of this is due to structural US trade deficits.

The US exported large portions of our supply chains overseas, and foreigners took those dollars and reinvested them back into US equities.
Since the top 1% own 53% of US equities, and the bottom 50% own less than 1% of US equities (and many of them had jobs/wages impacted by offshoring/automation), this trend of declining labor and increasing profits/valuations has favored wealth concentration.
Read 8 tweets
Lyn Alden Profile picture
10 Apr
In April and May, there will be various easy comps from low base effects that will make some year-over-year numbers look quite high.

Official CPI for example is likely to hit over 3% year over year:
The producer price index for March is already over 4% year-over-year, and could very well hit over 7% in April or May thanks to low base effects and fiscal-driven reflation:
These unusual base effects already occurred for March 2020 vs March 2021 for asset prices, since asset prices bottomed before economic indicators.

For example, the Wilshire 5000 had its best year-over-year increase ever:
Read 7 tweets
Lyn Alden Profile picture
3 Apr
The next few years are going to test how much deflationary capacity there is in the US and global economy from technology, debt, and demographics to absorb the inflationary increase in broad money.

A thread.
In terms of overall fiscal and monetary policy, including the wartime-like fiscal response that we’ve seen over the past year, the 2020s so far have structural similarities to the 1940s.

Here’s the long-term debt cycle, for example:
During the 1930s, monetary policy hit the limit of what it can do against the prospect of a private debt bubble, and so it was then a massive fiscal response in the 1940s, forced by external factors (the war), that pumped inflation:
Read 15 tweets

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