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Molson Hart

@Molson_Hart

28 Sep

I’m starting to really freak out now about inflation more than ever.

I thought inflation was coming because a) we printed money and gave it to people which is different from QE b) shipping costs were exploding c) I saw some wage pressures in the usa

But what I didn’t see

1/2

Was raw material spikes in China. We saw them in the USA but they mostly could be explained by weird covid supply shocks like mills and meat plants not being able to operate because of social distancing.

Now we are seeing raw materials spike in China.

2/3

Three different suppliers have not only complained about this but are really bearish about the future.

One also has not had power for 3 days…

When you throw raw material increases on top of everything else, it gets bad.

If people and businesses start buying ahead of time

3/4

Read 4 tweets

Molson Hart

@Molson_Hart

27 Sep

It still feels to me that people are really underestimating the price increases and shortages they are going to see on imported consumer goods.

People are saying “they’ll just buy software and gift cards instead.”

1/2

I don’t think people will trust gift cards amidst rising prices. I mean…would you? We’re going to see big price increases online and empty shelves online. “Oh well, here’s a gift card that won’t be usable for months and when it is usable it’ll be worth less”.

2/3

I don’t see that happening. The people who hoard toilet paper whenever there’s a shortage ain’t going to trust gift cards.

And as for software, grandma has no idea how to gift that. Neither do your parents.

Very interesting time to be alive.

3/3

Read 7 tweets

Molson Hart

@Molson_Hart

26 Sep

If this tweet gets 100 likes I’ll start a new company which makes nuclear powered merchant ships.

I read a book on nuclear power with the idea that I could someday do something in the space and reached the conclusion that nuclear powered merchant ships are actually genius.

1/n

Here’s why nuclear powered merchant ships work as a big but doable entrepreneurial idea:

1) fossil fuel powered ships account for ~5% of all greenhouse gas emissions and electrifying these boats is too hard.

2) nuclear powered ships would be faster than their alternatives

2/n

3) you can use ocean water for cooling which makes it very convenient.

4) the technology already exists for submarines and smaller boats

5) there are big returns to scale in nuclear power and few things are bigger than a cargo ship

3/n

Read 5 tweets

Molson Hart

@Molson_Hart

26 Sep

Why I think the era of low import taxes and no tariffs is coming to an end:

1) The US, post ww2, adopted a free trade ideology because it benefited us at the time. We were the most powerful country economically in the world and we wanted to sell our goods tariff free.

2) We remained mostly unchallenged economically until the rise of Japan in the 1980s. Japan is demographically less than 1/10th size of China but they are pretty damn good at making cars. The supply chain for cars remains strong in the United States. Why? Because it’s tariffed.

I don’t know exactly what happened but basically between duties on their cars, our soldiers on their land, and them not being as big of an economic threat to China, USA free trade marched on as a bunch of other small countries followed Japans footsteps (SK, Taiwan, HK).

Read 11 tweets

Molson Hart

@Molson_Hart

24 Sep

The most interesting graphs from the IATA's monthly air cargo report.

1/n
iata.org/en/iata-reposi…

Looks like Europe's demand for air shipping was way lower than the United States', consistent with our money printing, imho.

2/n

CTKs = Cargo Tonne Kilometers for air shipping

This is the better report from the IATA: iata.org/en/iata-reposi…

Read 9 tweets

Molson Hart

@Molson_Hart

23 Sep

Found a homeless guy on my lawn today.

I ended up going outside and having a 20 minute long conversation with him.

My takeaways:

1) it’s a lot easier to have a policy for homelessness if you never have to have a face to face conversation with them as people.

1/n

2) Austin and Texas banned public camping and he told me this has been a problem for him but that he had a solution.

3) His solution is move farther out. I told him “well what about coming in to get food etc?”. He said that’ll be a problem but he can solve with a battery

2/n

(I was halfway thorough writing this thread and my kid had explosive diarrhea)

3) (continued) he needed a battery for his electric razor scooter. His backup was to live by a river where there are fish. To me this sounds impossible and that he’s not going to be able to camp.

3/n

Read 11 tweets

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