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Wasteland Capital
$AEO FUUK YEAH! Massive beat as expected (Aerie SSS accelerated to +11%), but the Q4 guide of +8-9% total SSS and operating income at $155-160m (vs $130m cons) looks absolutely insane.
Simply flabbergasted. I’m just undefeated in retail & brand investing.
Sydney, call me 🤙 https://t.co/NxHhtFbrwh
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$AEO FUUK YEAH! Massive beat as expected (Aerie SSS accelerated to +11%), but the Q4 guide of +8-9% total SSS and operating income at $155-160m (vs $130m cons) looks absolutely insane.
Simply flabbergasted. I’m just undefeated in retail & brand investing.
Sydney, call me 🤙 https://t.co/NxHhtFbrwh
Sydney Sweeney doing the fall campaign at $AEO.
Consensus EPS next year is $1.23 (Feb-27), which implies 8.5x P/E at the $10.50 price. Stock’s beaten down due to poor (-3%) Q1 SSS & tariff-induced margin pressure.
I think they can do $1.60 in EPS, which would be $24 @ 15x P/E. https://t.co/SiNGjPetF8 tweet
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EndGame Macro
RT @onechancefreedm: (1/2) Empire’s Workshop, Crude Interventions, and the New Struggle for Venezuela: U.S., China, Russia, and the Fight to Lock Down the Hemisphere
Greg Grandin’s Empire’s Workshop argued that Latin America was the testing ground where Washington refined the tools of modern empire with sanctions, covert wars, regime destabilization, and the ability to fold raw power into the language of democracy. Garry Leech’s Crude Interventions showed how U.S. foreign policy cannot be separated from oil, with military campaigns and financial pressure used to guarantee access to hydrocarbons and maintain the global dollar order. When read together, these books describe with eerie precision the storm now unfolding around Venezuela.
The U.S. is not treating Venezuela as a peripheral crisis but as a hinge point for the Western Hemisphere. Washington knows that in a Fourth Turning moment, when institutional and monetary systems globally are under stress, it cannot afford to let rivals exploit instability in its own backyard. This is why the narrative of a drug war has given way to a broader strategic frame: cartels as shadow sovereigns, controlling not only narcotics but also ports, trucking fleets, pipelines, minerals, and even migration flows. By designating them as terrorist entities, sanctioning their banks, and targeting their logistics networks, the U.S. is asserting that migration, minerals, and energy corridors fall under national security, not law enforcement.
Here Grandin’s thesis is alive: Latin America once again becomes the workshop where imperial methods are refined. But Leech’s oil centric warning is also central: this is not ultimately about law enforcement, it is about restructuring energy and financial flows to ensure they remain under U.S. command. Guyana’s new oil reserves, Venezuelan offshore rigs, and cartel linked extortion of refineries are treated as strategic arteries of the global economy. Washington’s military patrols in the Caribbean, sanctions on narco linked banks, and crackdowns on illicit shipping are less about Maduro than about guaranteeing that adversaries cannot disrupt or capture these arteries.
China and Russia complicate this picture. Beijing has become Venezuela’s primary creditor and economic lifeline, providing billions in loans, supplying oil and goods to circumvent U.S. sanctions, and securing new deals to develop oil fields that could generate over $1 billion in investment by 2026. Beyond Venezuela, China is now the leading trading partner for much of South America, backing infrastructure projects from Brazilian ports to Chilean energy grids. Its strategy is patient, embedding influence through debt, trade, and long term supply chains.
Russia, by contrast, plays a narrower but sharper role. Its influence rests on military and security cooperation. In 2025, Moscow and Caracas signed a new strategic partnership, followed by the opening of a Kalashnikov ammunition factory in Venezuela. Russia also positions itself as lender of last resort, offering oil swaps and financial lifelines despite sanctions. On the information front, it aligns with Maduro’s worldview, using state media to amplify narratives of resistance against U.S. imperialism. Its objective is less about economic penetration than about ensuring the U.S. faces constant friction in its own hemisphere. Continued on page 2…..
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RT @onechancefreedm: (1/2) Empire’s Workshop, Crude Interventions, and the New Struggle for Venezuela: U.S., China, Russia, and the Fight to Lock Down the Hemisphere
Greg Grandin’s Empire’s Workshop argued that Latin America was the testing ground where Washington refined the tools of modern empire with sanctions, covert wars, regime destabilization, and the ability to fold raw power into the language of democracy. Garry Leech’s Crude Interventions showed how U.S. foreign policy cannot be separated from oil, with military campaigns and financial pressure used to guarantee access to hydrocarbons and maintain the global dollar order. When read together, these books describe with eerie precision the storm now unfolding around Venezuela.
The U.S. is not treating Venezuela as a peripheral crisis but as a hinge point for the Western Hemisphere. Washington knows that in a Fourth Turning moment, when institutional and monetary systems globally are under stress, it cannot afford to let rivals exploit instability in its own backyard. This is why the narrative of a drug war has given way to a broader strategic frame: cartels as shadow sovereigns, controlling not only narcotics but also ports, trucking fleets, pipelines, minerals, and even migration flows. By designating them as terrorist entities, sanctioning their banks, and targeting their logistics networks, the U.S. is asserting that migration, minerals, and energy corridors fall under national security, not law enforcement.
Here Grandin’s thesis is alive: Latin America once again becomes the workshop where imperial methods are refined. But Leech’s oil centric warning is also central: this is not ultimately about law enforcement, it is about restructuring energy and financial flows to ensure they remain under U.S. command. Guyana’s new oil reserves, Venezuelan offshore rigs, and cartel linked extortion of refineries are treated as strategic arteries of the global economy. Washington’s military patrols in the Caribbean, sanctions on narco linked banks, and crackdowns on illicit shipping are less about Maduro than about guaranteeing that adversaries cannot disrupt or capture these arteries.
China and Russia complicate this picture. Beijing has become Venezuela’s primary creditor and economic lifeline, providing billions in loans, supplying oil and goods to circumvent U.S. sanctions, and securing new deals to develop oil fields that could generate over $1 billion in investment by 2026. Beyond Venezuela, China is now the leading trading partner for much of South America, backing infrastructure projects from Brazilian ports to Chilean energy grids. Its strategy is patient, embedding influence through debt, trade, and long term supply chains.
Russia, by contrast, plays a narrower but sharper role. Its influence rests on military and security cooperation. In 2025, Moscow and Caracas signed a new strategic partnership, followed by the opening of a Kalashnikov ammunition factory in Venezuela. Russia also positions itself as lender of last resort, offering oil swaps and financial lifelines despite sanctions. On the information front, it aligns with Maduro’s worldview, using state media to amplify narratives of resistance against U.S. imperialism. Its objective is less about economic penetration than about ensuring the U.S. faces constant friction in its own hemisphere. Continued on page 2…..
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App Economy Insights
$MDB MongoDB just surged +22%.
Everyone is focused on chips.
But there is a lot of alpha moving up the stack.
The market is finally separating the AI enablers from the AI victims.
Here is the breakdown. 👇
https://t.co/aAb7VakJHR
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$MDB MongoDB just surged +22%.
Everyone is focused on chips.
But there is a lot of alpha moving up the stack.
The market is finally separating the AI enablers from the AI victims.
Here is the breakdown. 👇
https://t.co/aAb7VakJHR
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Quiver Quantitative
BREAKING: Representative Greg Steube will be signing Rep. Luna's discharge petition to force a vote on a congressional stock trading ban. https://t.co/f62aH1SRXu
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BREAKING: Representative Greg Steube will be signing Rep. Luna's discharge petition to force a vote on a congressional stock trading ban. https://t.co/f62aH1SRXu
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Dimitry Nakhla | Babylon Capital®
RT @SahilBloom: Everyone should read this story…
One day, a young warrior was walking to his training when he spotted his teacher, a master warrior, tending to plants in the garden.
He approached cautiously and stood quietly, not wanting to disturb the man from whom he had learned so much.
“What is it you want?” Asked the master warrior, without breaking focus from the plants.
The student replied, “Why do we train for war? Would it not be more tranquil and serene to be a gardener and tend the plants?"
The master paused, turned to the student, and smiled.
“Tending the garden is a relaxing pastime, but it does not prepare one for the inevitable battles of life. It’s easy to be calm in such a serene setting. It’s hard to be calm when under attack.”
The student nodded and turned away, satisfied with the answer, but the master wasn’t finished.
“It is far better to be a warrior tending his garden than a gardener at war.”
I think about that story almost every day.
Because here’s the truth we all know: Life is hard. Chaos, uncertainty, failure, struggle, pain, loss. All of those things are a natural part of being alive. They’re not good or bad. They just are.
And most of the time, you don’t get to choose the battles that come to your doorstep. You don’t get to pick the adversaries you prefer. You can’t negotiate the timing or the terms. There’s no “timeout” if you’re not ready. There’s no holding period if you don’t like what you see.
The simple truth is that you meet life‘s inevitable battles at precisely the level of your preparation.
That preparation is built upon the hard things you chose when you didn’t have to choose them:
• The early mornings you endured.
• The focus you engaged.
• The boundaries you held.
• The commitments you honored.
• The difficult conversations you initiated.
Every single time you embrace voluntary struggle, you prepare yourself for the involuntary struggle that will inevitably come.
You don’t become invincible. You become capable.
Capable of staying calm when others panic. Capable of thinking clearly when things fall apart. Capable of leading, serving, protecting, and persisting when the moment calls your name.
Because one day, it will.
A loss. A setback. A betrayal. An unexpected blow.
And when that day comes, you will not meet the moment at the level of your hopes. You will meet it at the level of your preparation.
So, choose the hard things today. Choose the habits, the disciplines, the conversations, the commitments. Choose the voluntary struggles.
This is how you face the chaos of war with an internal calm.
This is how you become, as Marcus Aurelius once wrote, “like the rock that the waves keep crashing over...unmoved and the raging of the sea falls still around it.”
This is how you stand ready when the battle arrives at your door.
Remember: It’s better to be a warrior in the garden than a gardener at war.
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RT @SahilBloom: Everyone should read this story…
One day, a young warrior was walking to his training when he spotted his teacher, a master warrior, tending to plants in the garden.
He approached cautiously and stood quietly, not wanting to disturb the man from whom he had learned so much.
“What is it you want?” Asked the master warrior, without breaking focus from the plants.
The student replied, “Why do we train for war? Would it not be more tranquil and serene to be a gardener and tend the plants?"
The master paused, turned to the student, and smiled.
“Tending the garden is a relaxing pastime, but it does not prepare one for the inevitable battles of life. It’s easy to be calm in such a serene setting. It’s hard to be calm when under attack.”
The student nodded and turned away, satisfied with the answer, but the master wasn’t finished.
“It is far better to be a warrior tending his garden than a gardener at war.”
I think about that story almost every day.
Because here’s the truth we all know: Life is hard. Chaos, uncertainty, failure, struggle, pain, loss. All of those things are a natural part of being alive. They’re not good or bad. They just are.
And most of the time, you don’t get to choose the battles that come to your doorstep. You don’t get to pick the adversaries you prefer. You can’t negotiate the timing or the terms. There’s no “timeout” if you’re not ready. There’s no holding period if you don’t like what you see.
The simple truth is that you meet life‘s inevitable battles at precisely the level of your preparation.
That preparation is built upon the hard things you chose when you didn’t have to choose them:
• The early mornings you endured.
• The focus you engaged.
• The boundaries you held.
• The commitments you honored.
• The difficult conversations you initiated.
Every single time you embrace voluntary struggle, you prepare yourself for the involuntary struggle that will inevitably come.
You don’t become invincible. You become capable.
Capable of staying calm when others panic. Capable of thinking clearly when things fall apart. Capable of leading, serving, protecting, and persisting when the moment calls your name.
Because one day, it will.
A loss. A setback. A betrayal. An unexpected blow.
And when that day comes, you will not meet the moment at the level of your hopes. You will meet it at the level of your preparation.
So, choose the hard things today. Choose the habits, the disciplines, the conversations, the commitments. Choose the voluntary struggles.
This is how you face the chaos of war with an internal calm.
This is how you become, as Marcus Aurelius once wrote, “like the rock that the waves keep crashing over...unmoved and the raging of the sea falls still around it.”
This is how you stand ready when the battle arrives at your door.
Remember: It’s better to be a warrior in the garden than a gardener at war.
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EndGame Macro
The Chart That Quietly Explains America’s Next 20 Years
If you strip this thing down, it’s a simple story of a country that used to add workers every decade… and now mostly adds retirees and debt.
From the 1960s through about 2000, the U.S. grows by piling in millions of new people into the workforce. You can see it in the tall blue bars…huge gains in the 15–64 population and, more importantly, huge gains in actual employees. That’s the demographic engine that made 3–4% real growth feel normal.
The gray bars…the 65+ population are small. Retirees are steady, manageable, predictable.
And the red bars…marketable federal debt, barely move. We’re talking rounding error increases compared to today.
Then the chart flips. Starting in the 2000s, worker growth flattens. By the 2010s, it collapses. Meanwhile the 65+ population surges and the debt explodes upward. And the black line, the average Fed funds rate, sinks decade after decade. It’s not hard to see the connection…fewer workers, more retirees, more debt… and a central bank forced to keep rates lower just to keep the system moving.
What That Means Going Forward
This is the part people don’t always want to say out loud.
A country that isn’t adding many new workers can’t count on old school, momentum driven growth anymore. Trend growth slows. Productivity has to do more of the heavy lifting. Immigration matters more. And fiscal policy fills the gap, usually with borrowing, because politically that’s easier than asking anyone to sacrifice.
But that’s how you get to the right side of the chart…an aging population, a shrinking share of workers, and trillions of new debt layered on top. That’s not a temporary imbalance; it’s the new baseline.
And it tells you a lot about the future…
Rates will drift lower over time because the system can’t tolerate high ones for long.
Fiscal fights will get louder because the math gets harder. Growth will be more start and stop, with short bursts followed by long plateaus. And the U.S. economy will depend more on policy support than it did in the past.
This means a different era, one where demographics and debt shape the boundaries of what’s possible, and the old normal doesn’t come back just because we want it to.
That’s the message sitting inside this chart.
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The Chart That Quietly Explains America’s Next 20 Years
If you strip this thing down, it’s a simple story of a country that used to add workers every decade… and now mostly adds retirees and debt.
From the 1960s through about 2000, the U.S. grows by piling in millions of new people into the workforce. You can see it in the tall blue bars…huge gains in the 15–64 population and, more importantly, huge gains in actual employees. That’s the demographic engine that made 3–4% real growth feel normal.
The gray bars…the 65+ population are small. Retirees are steady, manageable, predictable.
And the red bars…marketable federal debt, barely move. We’re talking rounding error increases compared to today.
Then the chart flips. Starting in the 2000s, worker growth flattens. By the 2010s, it collapses. Meanwhile the 65+ population surges and the debt explodes upward. And the black line, the average Fed funds rate, sinks decade after decade. It’s not hard to see the connection…fewer workers, more retirees, more debt… and a central bank forced to keep rates lower just to keep the system moving.
What That Means Going Forward
This is the part people don’t always want to say out loud.
A country that isn’t adding many new workers can’t count on old school, momentum driven growth anymore. Trend growth slows. Productivity has to do more of the heavy lifting. Immigration matters more. And fiscal policy fills the gap, usually with borrowing, because politically that’s easier than asking anyone to sacrifice.
But that’s how you get to the right side of the chart…an aging population, a shrinking share of workers, and trillions of new debt layered on top. That’s not a temporary imbalance; it’s the new baseline.
And it tells you a lot about the future…
Rates will drift lower over time because the system can’t tolerate high ones for long.
Fiscal fights will get louder because the math gets harder. Growth will be more start and stop, with short bursts followed by long plateaus. And the U.S. economy will depend more on policy support than it did in the past.
This means a different era, one where demographics and debt shape the boundaries of what’s possible, and the old normal doesn’t come back just because we want it to.
That’s the message sitting inside this chart.
America is F'd. Why you ask? In a system premised on perpetual growth in a finite world, somethings got to give (keep in mind the lack of growth...let alone decline...is a recession).
For each colored component, check chart below:
light blue=change per decade, 15 to 64yr/old population.
dark blue=change per decade, 15 to 64yr/old employees
(15 to 64yr/olds have about a 75% LFP rate and are at "full employment" presently...or for every 4 additional 15 to 64yr/olds, there are generally 3 net new employees).
grey=change per decade, 65+yr/old population.
white=change per decade, 65+yr/old employees
(65+yr/olds have about a 20% LFP rate and are at "full employment"...or for every 5 new 65+yr/olds, one net new employee).
Growth of working age has decelerated to very little while growth of elderly still accelerating...both at full employment but resulting employment growth will be pathetic based primarily on growth of elderly.
black=Average Federal Funds interest rate per decade
red=change per decade in marketable federal debt
(as potential growth in working age and working age employee's tanks, Federal Reserve drops interest rates to incentive higher governmental, corporate, and consumer debt to maintain the appearance of growth amid fast decelerating organic demand). Only question is how long the Fed Res and Fed Gov can get decelerating organic growth to keep accelerating synthetic, debt fueled consumption? tweet
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EndGame Macro
Retail Momentum Is Narrowing to a Knife’s Edge
This is basically the retail momentum trade splitting apart. A month ago, all these names were moving like one big swarm, high beta stocks feeding off the same flows, the same options activity, the same mood. Then the correlation breaks.
You can see it clearly where Carvana and Reddit shoot off in their own direction, HIMS hangs in there, and the rest like PLTR, OKLO, SMCI start drifting or rolling over. The group stops behaving like a single trade and turns into a handful of individual stories.
That’s what a real divergence looks like. It’s less about fundamentals and more about which names still have enough attention, liquidity, and narrative to keep drawing buyers.
What It’s Actually Signaling
To me, this usually shows up late in a cycle, not early. When a broad momentum basket starts to fracture like this, it means risk appetite is narrowing. There’s still money willing to speculate, but it’s crowding into a couple of the loudest or cleanest setups while everything else gets ignored or sold to fund those runs.
And that’s when the trade gets fragile. When momentum hinges on two or three names instead of the whole basket, it only takes one macro scare or one headline to snap the whole thing back into sync, usually to the downside.
So the message is there’s still juice in the system, but fewer stocks are benefitting from it and that’s a sign the steam is running out. That’s the deeper signal beneath the divergence.
tweet
Retail Momentum Is Narrowing to a Knife’s Edge
This is basically the retail momentum trade splitting apart. A month ago, all these names were moving like one big swarm, high beta stocks feeding off the same flows, the same options activity, the same mood. Then the correlation breaks.
You can see it clearly where Carvana and Reddit shoot off in their own direction, HIMS hangs in there, and the rest like PLTR, OKLO, SMCI start drifting or rolling over. The group stops behaving like a single trade and turns into a handful of individual stories.
That’s what a real divergence looks like. It’s less about fundamentals and more about which names still have enough attention, liquidity, and narrative to keep drawing buyers.
What It’s Actually Signaling
To me, this usually shows up late in a cycle, not early. When a broad momentum basket starts to fracture like this, it means risk appetite is narrowing. There’s still money willing to speculate, but it’s crowding into a couple of the loudest or cleanest setups while everything else gets ignored or sold to fund those runs.
And that’s when the trade gets fragile. When momentum hinges on two or three names instead of the whole basket, it only takes one macro scare or one headline to snap the whole thing back into sync, usually to the downside.
So the message is there’s still juice in the system, but fewer stocks are benefitting from it and that’s a sign the steam is running out. That’s the deeper signal beneath the divergence.
Significant divergence within Goldman's retail momentum basket https://t.co/TSEiTCPAZX tweet
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EndGame Macro
$8 Trillion Doesn’t Say Bull Market It Says Brace Yourself
Money market fund assets crossing $8 trillion isn’t a bullish signal. It’s the opposite. It’s people choosing the safest, simplest place they can put their money at a time when the economic picture feels cloudy. And the timing matters. The Fed has already cut rates four times since late 2024, a full percentage point of easing and another cut is coming next week. In a normal cycle, you’d expect lower yields to pull money out of cash. Here, it’s not happening at all. In fact, inflows are still rising. That tells you people aren’t chasing returns. They’re protecting themselves.
How Money Moves When the Economy Turns
There’s always a temptation to look at a big cash pile and think, “When this comes off the sidelines, stocks and crypto will rip.” But that’s not how downturns usually work. When the economy starts to weaken, money doesn’t jump from safety into risk, it moves deeper into the safest places it can find. That was true in 2000. It was true in 2008. It was true in March 2020. The instinct during stress is always the same: get liquid, get safe, wait things out. In those moments, money market funds become the holding pen while everyone waits to see how bad the slowdown really is.
Only after the recession runs its course, after the Fed cuts aggressively, after the job market stabilizes, after credit spreads calm down do investors start creeping back out of cash. And even then, they don’t leap straight into speculation. They move gradually…first into short duration bonds, then into broad equity exposure, then into high quality large caps. The more aggressive stuff only gets attention once confidence is restored.
Where This Likely Goes Next
Given where the economy is right now with slowing data, softer earnings, and growing signs of stress this $8 trillion doesn’t look like fuel for a new risk on wave. It looks like a market that still doesn’t trust the landscape. My read is that money probably stays parked here for a while, maybe even grows if the slowdown deepens. And if the downturn becomes obvious to everyone, the flows won’t head into stocks, they’ll rotate into longer Treasuries and high quality debt as people try to lock in yields and ride the rate cuts.
The cash coming into risk phase doesn’t happen in the middle of a downturn. It happens after the damage is done. And this chart is telling you we’re not there yet.
tweet
$8 Trillion Doesn’t Say Bull Market It Says Brace Yourself
Money market fund assets crossing $8 trillion isn’t a bullish signal. It’s the opposite. It’s people choosing the safest, simplest place they can put their money at a time when the economic picture feels cloudy. And the timing matters. The Fed has already cut rates four times since late 2024, a full percentage point of easing and another cut is coming next week. In a normal cycle, you’d expect lower yields to pull money out of cash. Here, it’s not happening at all. In fact, inflows are still rising. That tells you people aren’t chasing returns. They’re protecting themselves.
How Money Moves When the Economy Turns
There’s always a temptation to look at a big cash pile and think, “When this comes off the sidelines, stocks and crypto will rip.” But that’s not how downturns usually work. When the economy starts to weaken, money doesn’t jump from safety into risk, it moves deeper into the safest places it can find. That was true in 2000. It was true in 2008. It was true in March 2020. The instinct during stress is always the same: get liquid, get safe, wait things out. In those moments, money market funds become the holding pen while everyone waits to see how bad the slowdown really is.
Only after the recession runs its course, after the Fed cuts aggressively, after the job market stabilizes, after credit spreads calm down do investors start creeping back out of cash. And even then, they don’t leap straight into speculation. They move gradually…first into short duration bonds, then into broad equity exposure, then into high quality large caps. The more aggressive stuff only gets attention once confidence is restored.
Where This Likely Goes Next
Given where the economy is right now with slowing data, softer earnings, and growing signs of stress this $8 trillion doesn’t look like fuel for a new risk on wave. It looks like a market that still doesn’t trust the landscape. My read is that money probably stays parked here for a while, maybe even grows if the slowdown deepens. And if the downturn becomes obvious to everyone, the flows won’t head into stocks, they’ll rotate into longer Treasuries and high quality debt as people try to lock in yields and ride the rate cuts.
The cash coming into risk phase doesn’t happen in the middle of a downturn. It happens after the damage is done. And this chart is telling you we’re not there yet.
Assets in money market funds have crossed above $8 trillion for the first time. Inflows have continued despite 150 bps in Fed rate cuts since September 2024 with another 25 bps cut coming next week. https://t.co/KFExCHXWWf tweet
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EndGame Macro
The Curve That Explains the Century We’re Walking Into
When you strip away the lines and labels, this old Limits to Growth curve is telling a simple story…a system that grows quickly, pushes past its natural limits, and then loses momentum because the very things that fueled the boom start working against it.
The red population curve climbs through the 20th century, peaks somewhere around mid century, and then starts drifting down. Industrial output rises even faster, peaks earlier, and falls harder. Food follows a similar arc. Pollution rises, peaks, and then collapses, not because we fix it, but because industrial activity itself collapses. Resources trend downward the whole time as the system burns through its easy inputs.
It’s not predicting a Hollywood style apocalypse. It’s showing a world where growth overshoots, the feedback loops hit late, and the correction feels sudden even though it’s been building for decades.
Why Parts of This Feel Uncomfortably Familiar
You don’t have to treat the timing literally to notice how much of the shape fits the world we’re walking into. Demographics are the clearest example. Fertility rates in the developed world aren’t just low, they’re structurally below replacement. Even countries that once powered global population growth are rolling over. The red line bending is no longer theoretical.
The same thing is happening on the resource side. We’re not running out, but we’re running out of the cheap stuff, the easy oil, the easy minerals, the easy farmland. Every new unit of production takes more energy, more capital, and more complexity. Growth hasn’t stopped, but it’s heavier and more brittle than it used to be.
And then there’s the environmental feedback. Whether it’s climate disruptions, biodiversity collapse, or water stress, we’re reaching the point where nature itself is pushing back. Not all at once, but in a steady drip of friction in crop volatility, supply chain shocks, infrastructure breakdowns. These aren’t catastrophic events, but they slow the machine.
My Take on What It’s Pointing Toward
I think the world unravels unevenly, in waves. Some regions weaken fast, others adapt, and the long decline feels more like a slow grinding down of growth, stability, and resilience rather than a single dramatic fall.
But the broad direction feels right. The 20th century’s growth boom was built on young populations, cheap energy, and a forgiving environment. Those tailwinds are now turning into headwinds. The future is a long plateau with more volatility, slower growth, and societies that feel like they’re constantly managing scarcity, scarcity of labor, scarcity of resources, and eventually scarcity of stability.
So when I look at that curve, I see the end of a phase of history where expansion came easy, and the beginning of one where the world has to work a lot harder just to stay in place.
tweet
The Curve That Explains the Century We’re Walking Into
When you strip away the lines and labels, this old Limits to Growth curve is telling a simple story…a system that grows quickly, pushes past its natural limits, and then loses momentum because the very things that fueled the boom start working against it.
The red population curve climbs through the 20th century, peaks somewhere around mid century, and then starts drifting down. Industrial output rises even faster, peaks earlier, and falls harder. Food follows a similar arc. Pollution rises, peaks, and then collapses, not because we fix it, but because industrial activity itself collapses. Resources trend downward the whole time as the system burns through its easy inputs.
It’s not predicting a Hollywood style apocalypse. It’s showing a world where growth overshoots, the feedback loops hit late, and the correction feels sudden even though it’s been building for decades.
Why Parts of This Feel Uncomfortably Familiar
You don’t have to treat the timing literally to notice how much of the shape fits the world we’re walking into. Demographics are the clearest example. Fertility rates in the developed world aren’t just low, they’re structurally below replacement. Even countries that once powered global population growth are rolling over. The red line bending is no longer theoretical.
The same thing is happening on the resource side. We’re not running out, but we’re running out of the cheap stuff, the easy oil, the easy minerals, the easy farmland. Every new unit of production takes more energy, more capital, and more complexity. Growth hasn’t stopped, but it’s heavier and more brittle than it used to be.
And then there’s the environmental feedback. Whether it’s climate disruptions, biodiversity collapse, or water stress, we’re reaching the point where nature itself is pushing back. Not all at once, but in a steady drip of friction in crop volatility, supply chain shocks, infrastructure breakdowns. These aren’t catastrophic events, but they slow the machine.
My Take on What It’s Pointing Toward
I think the world unravels unevenly, in waves. Some regions weaken fast, others adapt, and the long decline feels more like a slow grinding down of growth, stability, and resilience rather than a single dramatic fall.
But the broad direction feels right. The 20th century’s growth boom was built on young populations, cheap energy, and a forgiving environment. Those tailwinds are now turning into headwinds. The future is a long plateau with more volatility, slower growth, and societies that feel like they’re constantly managing scarcity, scarcity of labor, scarcity of resources, and eventually scarcity of stability.
So when I look at that curve, I see the end of a phase of history where expansion came easy, and the beginning of one where the world has to work a lot harder just to stay in place.
Despite shady origins (Rockefeller), Limits to Growth studies remain accurate. Today, limits are being reached by industrial pollution: toxic food, water & air leading to fertility rates well below 2.
Look at Germany, Japan, China, Italy, USA. Even in India, fertility rate is 1.9.
The higher is the industrial production, the less populated is the next generation.
Hence collapse of population and therefore the economies (deflation) is written in stone; it is just imperceptibly slow for now. tweet