GM01: The COVID-19 Fallout ft. Julian Brigden

Our guest in todays episode is Julian Brigden, co-founder of MI2 partners. Julian has decades experience in investment banking on both sides of the Atlantic, and is a true original thinker. We had a highly enjoyable conversation with Julian, who has a unique knack of explaining his frequently controversial views in a thoroughly entertaining fashion. He has a wide knowledge of topics as varied as silver and shale oil, and his historical references ranged from the 2008 crash all the way back to the Black Death in the middle ages. Topics Discussed in this Episode The consistency of the US dollar cycle The COVID related March funding squeeze US current and capital account deficit Why Risk Parity strategies might be a bad idea going forward The many visible signs of ‘the Fourth Turning’ and why global markets are at an inflection point Unemployment "The U.S. just hit post Second World War highs (for unemployment), and if you don’t, post Great Depression highs. The point is that we are starting in an economic hole which is, arguably, much, much deeper than many of our peers. And that is in virtue of the fact that we have a super flexible labor market" Why recent Federal Reserve liquidity injections into the market may not have been part of Quantitive Easing (QE), which could still be yet to come “As the economy starts to recover, that’s when we will come out with old fashioned QE." I’m like, “Jesus, what’s that? Is that another 80 billion a month, trillion a year?” And the answer is, “Almost certainly.” Yield curve control The independence of the Fed The case for Systematic Trend Following commodity funds Why Bitcoin may be a dangerous long-term investment "(That) is the day that you are presented with the option of handing your bitcoin over in the same way that you did with gold in the ‘30s or trying to keep hold of it and if you’re caught ending up in a big dark hole with a bloke called Bubba who calls you Shirley" Financial repression Why government bond yields may struggle to rise again The history of global pandemics "There was this little bloke called Martin Luther who hung around as all the Catholic priests fled out to their country properties when we had the black death, who stayed and helped. Guess what? That was the cycle high of Catholicism. That was a relatively big turning point in History. Pandemics kind of do that" Commodity markets The case for Silver against the US dollar How market cycles tend to repeat themselves The importance of central bank policies when trying to gauge markets Links Catch up with Julian Brigden and learn more about his macroeconomic research firm, MI2Partners Julian Brigden MI2Partners Follow Niels, Moritz, & Rob on Twitter: Niels Kaastrup-Larsen Moritz Seibert Rob Carver Subscribe on: Full Transcript The following is a full detailed transcript of this conversion. Subscribe to the podcast to get access to all of our transcripts as eBook downloads! Julian Here's my big problem: once, when I worked at Medley Advisors, we were on a phone call with a Senator from Texas and it was around the time of Enron’s collapse. We were talking about executives at Enron and what was going to happen. My boss was talking away and we were listening in and this Senator just stopped, at one point, and said, “You don’t understand. I don’t care what happens to Skilling and all these boys I just want them to end up in a big dark hole with a boy called Bubba who calls them Shirley.” At that point, it just underlined one thing to me and that is the ultimate power of government to dictate your behavior because I’ve loved saying to people in the bitcoin space, “Look, I think it’s a great trade.