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EndGame Macro
What the Haas Paper Really Says About Demographics, Power, and the Timing of War
The core argument isn’t that demographics cause war. It’s that demographics quietly reshape the incentives and constraints around it.
There are two main channels. The first is capacity. As societies age, growth slows and a larger share of public money gets locked into pensions and healthcare. That squeezes what’s left for long term power projection. It doesn’t make countries peaceful by default, but it does tighten the balance sheet and shorten the runway for big strategic bets.
The second channel is behavioral and political. Older populations can become more risk averse and more sensitive to casualties, which can dampen appetite for long wars. But that same pressure can also push leaders in the opposite direction. When domestic growth is weak, debt is high, and legitimacy feels fragile, the temptation rises to reach for external conflict as a way to redirect attention or lock in gains while the window is still open. The point isn’t that aging guarantees conflict. It’s that it can compress decision timelines and make near term moves feel more urgent.
Are incentives for conflict rising right now?
If you just look at the global backdrop, the answer is yes in a very specific way. The world is already operating with an unusually high number of active conflicts, proxy wars, and unresolved flashpoints. That raises the odds of overlap, spillover, and miscalculation even if no one is actively seeking a global war.
What aging does here is subtle. Countries with shrinking or soon to shrink workforces are less likely to want long, grinding wars of attrition. But they may be more willing to take limited, fast, asymmetric actions that don’t require mass mobilization. Think gray zone pressure, blockades, cyber operations, proxy forces, or tightly scoped conventional strikes. These are cheaper, politically easier to sell, and easier to stop short of calling a war.
That’s the real demographic tension. It doesn’t scream expansionism. It whispers urgency.
So what about another world war?
I wouldn’t say it’s the base case. But it’s also not something you can wave away the way people did in the 2010s. The risk has risen because there are more live theaters, tighter alliance commitments, and more economic fragility layered on top of each other.
The most plausible path isn’t that multiple powers suddenly decide to conquer the world. It’s escalation through miscalculation. One major flashpoint gets hotter than expected, markets and energy flows react, alliances harden, and leaders feel boxed in by domestic and fiscal constraints. At that point, backing down can look more dangerous than pushing forward.
The uncomfortable insight is aging societies don’t necessarily become peaceful. They become more sensitive to time, credibility, and control. And in a world where conflict can start below the threshold of formal war, that combination raises the chance that something meant to be limited doesn’t stay that way.
tweet
What the Haas Paper Really Says About Demographics, Power, and the Timing of War
The core argument isn’t that demographics cause war. It’s that demographics quietly reshape the incentives and constraints around it.
There are two main channels. The first is capacity. As societies age, growth slows and a larger share of public money gets locked into pensions and healthcare. That squeezes what’s left for long term power projection. It doesn’t make countries peaceful by default, but it does tighten the balance sheet and shorten the runway for big strategic bets.
The second channel is behavioral and political. Older populations can become more risk averse and more sensitive to casualties, which can dampen appetite for long wars. But that same pressure can also push leaders in the opposite direction. When domestic growth is weak, debt is high, and legitimacy feels fragile, the temptation rises to reach for external conflict as a way to redirect attention or lock in gains while the window is still open. The point isn’t that aging guarantees conflict. It’s that it can compress decision timelines and make near term moves feel more urgent.
Are incentives for conflict rising right now?
If you just look at the global backdrop, the answer is yes in a very specific way. The world is already operating with an unusually high number of active conflicts, proxy wars, and unresolved flashpoints. That raises the odds of overlap, spillover, and miscalculation even if no one is actively seeking a global war.
What aging does here is subtle. Countries with shrinking or soon to shrink workforces are less likely to want long, grinding wars of attrition. But they may be more willing to take limited, fast, asymmetric actions that don’t require mass mobilization. Think gray zone pressure, blockades, cyber operations, proxy forces, or tightly scoped conventional strikes. These are cheaper, politically easier to sell, and easier to stop short of calling a war.
That’s the real demographic tension. It doesn’t scream expansionism. It whispers urgency.
So what about another world war?
I wouldn’t say it’s the base case. But it’s also not something you can wave away the way people did in the 2010s. The risk has risen because there are more live theaters, tighter alliance commitments, and more economic fragility layered on top of each other.
The most plausible path isn’t that multiple powers suddenly decide to conquer the world. It’s escalation through miscalculation. One major flashpoint gets hotter than expected, markets and energy flows react, alliances harden, and leaders feel boxed in by domestic and fiscal constraints. At that point, backing down can look more dangerous than pushing forward.
The uncomfortable insight is aging societies don’t necessarily become peaceful. They become more sensitive to time, credibility, and control. And in a world where conflict can start below the threshold of formal war, that combination raises the chance that something meant to be limited doesn’t stay that way.
tweet
Offshore
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EndGame Macro
If I only get one trade, I’m taking B, mostly because it’s doing more of the work for me. In B you can see a real change in behavior where the price stops going down, spends time going nowhere while the moving averages catch up, and then breaks higher with volume that actually means something. That tells me new money is stepping in, not just shorts covering or price drifting on low participation. After the breakout, it doesn’t collapse back into the range, it holds near the highs, which is usually the market checking whether it’s comfortable at these levels. That’s the part I trust. In A, the moves are choppier, the averages are tangled, and price keeps pushing into areas where earlier buyers might want out. You can trade that, but it’s a faster, more active game and easier to get chopped if you’re even a little early or late. B gives me a clearer line where I’m wrong and a cleaner path if I’m right. If it’s already stretched, I don’t chase it. I wait for price to come back toward the breakout area or the rising averages, because the best trades don’t need urgency. They tend to make themselves obvious, and B is closer to that than A.
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If I only get one trade, I’m taking B, mostly because it’s doing more of the work for me. In B you can see a real change in behavior where the price stops going down, spends time going nowhere while the moving averages catch up, and then breaks higher with volume that actually means something. That tells me new money is stepping in, not just shorts covering or price drifting on low participation. After the breakout, it doesn’t collapse back into the range, it holds near the highs, which is usually the market checking whether it’s comfortable at these levels. That’s the part I trust. In A, the moves are choppier, the averages are tangled, and price keeps pushing into areas where earlier buyers might want out. You can trade that, but it’s a faster, more active game and easier to get chopped if you’re even a little early or late. B gives me a clearer line where I’m wrong and a cleaner path if I’m right. If it’s already stretched, I don’t chase it. I wait for price to come back toward the breakout area or the rising averages, because the best trades don’t need urgency. They tend to make themselves obvious, and B is closer to that than A.
QUIZ TIME 🎯
You have two charts in front of you.
The market conditions are Good for trading.
You are allowed to open ONLY ONE position.
Question:
Which chart are you more likely to trade Setup A or Setup B ? & Why ?
(Assume both are liquid and meet your risk rules.)
Answer Below 👇 tweet
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This his last tweet btw https://t.co/LyOpzn5NwM
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This his last tweet btw https://t.co/LyOpzn5NwM
Been coughing all morning today lol tweet
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EndGame Macro
This Is What a Demand Slowdown Looks Like Before It’s Obvious
When I step back and look at all of this together, it doesn’t feel like an inflation problem anymore. It feels like a demand problem that just hasn’t fully shown itself yet. Oil hanging in the high 50s is usually what you see when the marginal buyer disappears. People travel a little less, companies slow orders, freight eases, and suddenly pricing power gets thinner. The oil volatility staying calm at the same time matters too. This isn’t fear or a supply shock. It’s more like a quiet acceptance that growth is cooling and nobody needs to hedge chaos.
Now layer in rates. The front end is doing what the Fed tells it to do, but the middle of the curve is where expectations live, and that part looks like it’s leaning toward more slowing ahead. If inflation were truly about to reignite, the whole curve would be fighting that idea. Instead, it’s saying the pressure is on growth, not prices. And when you combine that with rising delinquencies, shaky commercial real estate, and layoffs creeping higher, it starts to look familiar. This is how cycles usually turn…not with a bang, but with a long stretch where things feel fine right up until unemployment becomes the headline.
If we were to assume unemployment keeps moving up and the inflation story is mostly psychology around tariffs rather than real demand driven pressure, then the message here is pretty clear to me. The economy is losing momentum faster than people want to admit. Disinflation is doing its job, but it’s also setting the stage for something colder. The risk is that once the labor market weakens enough, demand drops out all at once and the narrative has to catch up after the fact. That’s usually when everyone realizes the cycle already turned.
tweet
This Is What a Demand Slowdown Looks Like Before It’s Obvious
When I step back and look at all of this together, it doesn’t feel like an inflation problem anymore. It feels like a demand problem that just hasn’t fully shown itself yet. Oil hanging in the high 50s is usually what you see when the marginal buyer disappears. People travel a little less, companies slow orders, freight eases, and suddenly pricing power gets thinner. The oil volatility staying calm at the same time matters too. This isn’t fear or a supply shock. It’s more like a quiet acceptance that growth is cooling and nobody needs to hedge chaos.
Now layer in rates. The front end is doing what the Fed tells it to do, but the middle of the curve is where expectations live, and that part looks like it’s leaning toward more slowing ahead. If inflation were truly about to reignite, the whole curve would be fighting that idea. Instead, it’s saying the pressure is on growth, not prices. And when you combine that with rising delinquencies, shaky commercial real estate, and layoffs creeping higher, it starts to look familiar. This is how cycles usually turn…not with a bang, but with a long stretch where things feel fine right up until unemployment becomes the headline.
If we were to assume unemployment keeps moving up and the inflation story is mostly psychology around tariffs rather than real demand driven pressure, then the message here is pretty clear to me. The economy is losing momentum faster than people want to admit. Disinflation is doing its job, but it’s also setting the stage for something colder. The risk is that once the labor market weakens enough, demand drops out all at once and the narrative has to catch up after the fact. That’s usually when everyone realizes the cycle already turned.
Oil volatility in two time frames looks like it’s heavy. He wants to go lower and I don’t see how oil stays elevated so I don’t see how the two your note doesn’t go back below 3% which will force the fence to cut every meeting because if they don’t until your note fall until it rises and it sucks the volatility out of the much much much much much much smaller bond volatility, market, and that causes mortgage rates to meltdown and that helps Main Street and that’s exactly what the Fed is trying to stop. They wanna make sure Main Street is miserable with higher prices higher energy, higher inflation expectations through November of next year and the Fed is not gonna succeed because the system is designed to react to the inputs and the administration introduced tariffs which caused lunatics and
TDS trump dearrangement syndrome. People to think it means higher inflation when of course, it means lower inflation. tweet
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When you realize that John Cena also retired from WWE, but you're still out there trying to survive and losing money in crypto every day https://t.co/ybDcvRuxBy
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When you realize that John Cena also retired from WWE, but you're still out there trying to survive and losing money in crypto every day https://t.co/ybDcvRuxBy
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EndGame Macro
Leverage Makes the Climb Look Easy Until It Doesn’t
What jumps out here isn’t just that stocks are high. It’s how they’re high. Market value and margin debt have been rising together, almost in lockstep. That tells you a meaningful chunk of this move isn’t just fresh savings or long term capital rotating in. It’s borrowed money leaning into the trade. That always feels fine when prices are rising because leverage is invisible on the way up. It only shows itself when something forces people to step back.
Why That Matters Right Now
Context is everything. Unemployment is quietly moving higher and inflation is fading more because demand is cooling than because policy won, then the economy underneath this market is getting softer, not stronger. In that environment, debt gets heavier to carry in real terms. That’s the part people tend to miss. Leverage works best when growth is accelerating and cash flows are expanding. It works worst when the economy slows and confidence thins out.
My View
The shaded bear market bands on this chart are the reminder of how this usually resolves. Margin debt doesn’t unwind gently. It unwinds because it has to. When prices stall or slip, lenders tighten, calls get made, and selling becomes mechanical instead of thoughtful. You don’t need a dramatic shock for that to start, just a market that stops rewarding risk the way it has been. My strongest takeaway is that this rally is being held together by confidence plus leverage at a moment when the macro backdrop is quietly deteriorating. That doesn’t mean an immediate collapse. It means the margin for error is thin, and when confidence finally wobbles, it tends to wobble all at once.
tweet
Leverage Makes the Climb Look Easy Until It Doesn’t
What jumps out here isn’t just that stocks are high. It’s how they’re high. Market value and margin debt have been rising together, almost in lockstep. That tells you a meaningful chunk of this move isn’t just fresh savings or long term capital rotating in. It’s borrowed money leaning into the trade. That always feels fine when prices are rising because leverage is invisible on the way up. It only shows itself when something forces people to step back.
Why That Matters Right Now
Context is everything. Unemployment is quietly moving higher and inflation is fading more because demand is cooling than because policy won, then the economy underneath this market is getting softer, not stronger. In that environment, debt gets heavier to carry in real terms. That’s the part people tend to miss. Leverage works best when growth is accelerating and cash flows are expanding. It works worst when the economy slows and confidence thins out.
My View
The shaded bear market bands on this chart are the reminder of how this usually resolves. Margin debt doesn’t unwind gently. It unwinds because it has to. When prices stall or slip, lenders tighten, calls get made, and selling becomes mechanical instead of thoughtful. You don’t need a dramatic shock for that to start, just a market that stops rewarding risk the way it has been. My strongest takeaway is that this rally is being held together by confidence plus leverage at a moment when the macro backdrop is quietly deteriorating. That doesn’t mean an immediate collapse. It means the margin for error is thin, and when confidence finally wobbles, it tends to wobble all at once.
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