Thread by @BambroughKevin

One huge macro driver for higher sustained #inflation and much higher #commodity prices is that prices will surely have to rise to make it profitable for both Europe and North America to actually return to mining and general self sufficiency.

Emerging market / 3rd world commodity (mining) production accounts of a huge percentages of production of many key minerals. Add in China and Russia’s production and then look at who’s producing and who’s consuming and you’ll see that change is surely coming

Key countries like Chile, Brazil, Peru in South America as well as many parts of the African continent have their mining work suffering greatly from inflation. The worlds mining giants have taken advantage of low cost workers and weak environmental standards for many decades

In many parts of the world #miners basically work for the #food and #energy that they consume each year to take care of their families. Labour costs will not only need to rise to more than their cost of living as political change will be demanded or we will see revolutions

Unfortunately it often takes extreme unliveable conditions to create enough desperation that the masses are willing to risk their lives for change. The days of running massive trade deficits and sending freshly printing money over seas will be coming to an end.

I see a wave of inflation cascading around the world as higher core inflation leads to higher wage demands, which leads to more core inflation and further wage demands. Volatility in currencies and political unrest.

Strikes, conflict, supply disruptions, trade wars, increased tariffs & taxation, export quota limits, and so on.

Europe in particular is going to be in for a rude awakening. They embraced strong environmental policies that are going to lead to more difficult economic future

Europe has been lead by a breed of politicians that focused on polling and fantasy. They pretended to go ‘green’ not buy altering their consumption habits much or methods of producing, but by outsourcing the ‘dirty work’ to the rest of the world.

They consume huge amounts of rare earths and minerals while producing little to none. The west should be looking at improving mining operations and making them cleaner and more efficient and leading the world in this fashion. But instead we just look to exploit.

Whenever I rant on this subject I can help but point to the wealth and culture extremes we now have similar to the ‘let them eat cake’ French revolutionary time. @elonmusk has lead teams of talented people and created some fantastic companies. But….

There is just such a stark divide between his sense of self worth and the levels of compensation and wealth he and his execs should enjoy vs those around the world that slave away in mines producing materials for his manufactured goods.

It’s like a a tragic comedy when people of his wealth bitch about the price of something like lithium. Just consider how these two very different cultural segments of our society live
Fine dining vs food basics
Jets, yachts, mansions, multi homes…

Vs impoverished housing conditions, and often no vehicular ownership. Even in the 1st world it’s a pick up truck and likely a basic home that still requires two parent incomes to just get by. It’s so extreme it’s ridiculous. I just wish there was more wealthy people advocating

For positive change… the path we are on even here in North America is going to just lead to a greater cultural divide and before you know it, inflation will make the middle class poor and the poor desperate. The result of that will be a revolution in one form or another

Anyhow. Stagflation ahead at best… strong/hyperinflation in the worst case… either way. Precious metals will emerge as one of the best stores of value. And ya’ll know I love my #uranium in a can. $sput

Just have to add. Do the people at the top really have so much skill and work ethic that they deserve so much vs the people at the bottom of our economic structure? Or are most of us just lucky to be born and have access to higher education and opportunities.

Access to capital and a network to build upon. I think the latter makes such a huge difference and many those at the top are content with this and help perpetuate a greater divide to develop. The cost of a first home, cost of education, admission bias, nepotism, and so on

Capital gains tax inequality, (especially letting some hedge and private equity guys get ‘carried interest’ and only pay cap gains for what is clearly performance based income that should be taxed as straight income tax) is just such fraud on society

But obviously that crowd has done a great job of buying off politicians and keep the fact that they have unfairly rigged the tax off the front page… anyhow. You can all go back to what bull shit is trending now…