The Grant Williams Podcast Grant Williams
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- Business
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Join Grant Williams and his guests for a series of random walks around the fringes of finance and gain a better understanding of how the economic sands are shifting beneath our feet.
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The Grant Williams Podcast Ep. 78 - Travis Kling FULL EPISODE
My guest on this edition of The Grant Williams Podcast is Travis Kling of Ikigai Asset Management, who joins me to explore a concept gaining increasing traction in today’s market environment – financial nihilism. Along the way, we also discuss the delicate balance between keeping interest rates low and inflating our way out of debt, the challenges faced by central banks in managing monetary policy to support economic growth while preventing excessive inflation and the potential impact of technological innovation on inflation as well as the possibility of a great wealth transfer from older generations to younger ones. Of course, we couldn’t end without a discussion around the role of cryptocurrencies in this changing economic landscape, so there’s that as well…
Every episode of the Grant Williams podcast, including This Week In Doom, The End Game, The Super Terrific Happy Hour, The Narrative Game, Kaos Theory and Shifts Happen, is available to Copper, Silver and Gold Tier subscribers at my website www.Grant-Williams.com.
Copper Tier subscribers get access to all podcasts, while members of the Silver Tier get both the podcasts and my monthly newsletter, Things That Make You Go Hmmm… Gold Tier subscribers have access to my new series of in-depth video conversations, About Time.
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The Grant Williams Podcast Ep. 77 - Brent Johnson
Joining me on this episode of The Grant Williams Podcast is my great friend Brent Johnson of Santiago Capital, for a discussion about global markets and, of course, The Milkshake Theory.
Brent explains how he uses the Theory as a framework to help him understand how a sovereign debt and currency crisis might play out and how, though he’s been uncertain about markets recently, this framework has helped him navigate the volatility.
Brent emphasizes the importance of remaining objective and questioning one’s own beliefs, as well as the need to be prepared for drawdowns in asset prices as we discusses the extraordinary bull market in certainty and the importance of diversification. There’s also time for a look at the current political situation in the US and its potential impact on the markets with Brent arguing that, while the US may be facing political and economic turmoil, the rest of the world still relies heavily on the US dollar, and a divided US would be a disaster for the global economy. Something for everyone in here…
Every episode of the Grant Williams podcast, including This Week In Doom, The End Game, The Super Terrific Happy Hour, The Narrative Game, Kaos Theory and Shifts Happen, is available to Copper, Silver and Gold Tier subscribers at my website www.Grant-Williams.com.
Copper Tier subscribers get access to all podcasts, while members of the Silver Tier get both the podcasts and my monthly newsletter, Things That Make You Go Hmmm… Gold Tier subscribers have access to my new series of in-depth video conversations, About Time. -
The Grant Williams Podcast Ep. 76 - Michael Howell
Returning to the podcast this time out is Michael Howell of CrossBorder Capital, and what a return it is as we discuss the continuing (some would say escalating) importance of liquidity in global markets. Michael explains how central banks have been the main source of liquidity since the 2008 financial crisis, with their primary goal being to preserve the integrity of sovereign debt markets and ensure a smooth refinancing environment for some $350 trillion of debt. He also highlights the British gilt crisis in September 2022 as a wake-up call for policymakers, signaling that markets are no longer robust and are, in fact, remarkably fragile. We also discuss how the path of least resistance for central banks is to continue kicking the can down the road and monetize the deficit, leading to higher structural inflation rates.
Every episode of the Grant Williams podcast, including This Week In Doom, The End Game, The Super Terrific Happy Hour, The Narrative Game, Kaos Theory and Shifts Happen, is available to Copper, Silver and Gold Tier subscribers at my website www.Grant-Williams.com.
Copper Tier subscribers get access to all podcasts, while members of the Silver Tier get both the podcasts and my monthly newsletter, Things That Make You Go Hmmm… Gold Tier subscribers have access to my new series of in-depth video conversations, About Time. -
The Grant Williams Podcast Ep. 75 - Remi Tetot
Remi Tetot, the man behind The Mad King, joins me for a discussion around three of his most recent pieces of research. We discuss Remi’s observations around the Bitcoin ETFs and his views on the current up-cycle in crypto before switching to the growth potential of India, during which we discover a fascinating opportunity as India’s GDP expands with inevitable consequences for its defence sector. Finally, we switch our attention to the Magnificent 7… sorry, Magnificent 6, as Remi picks apart the fascination with NVIDIA, AI and data centres, drawing parallels to the broadband ‘revolution’ of the late-1990s.
Every episode of the Grant Williams podcast, including This Week In Doom, The End Game, The Super Terrific Happy Hour, The Narrative Game, Kaos Theory and Shifts Happen, is available to Copper, Silver and Gold Tier subscribers at my website www.Grant-Williams.com.
Copper Tier subscribers get access to all podcasts, while members of the Silver Tier get both the podcasts and my monthly newsletter, Things That Make You Go Hmmm… Gold Tier subscribers have access to my new series of in-depth video conversations, About Time. -
This Week In Doom Ep. 18: Something For Everyone PREVIEW
Join Doomberg and I as we discuss several topics sure to stir even the most languid of blood including the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the changing nature of warfare with the rise of drone technology, and the concept of peak cheap oil. Doomberg’s argument that peak cheap oil is a fallacy and that human ingenuity will always find ways to extract and produce more hydrocarbons has garnered plenty of attention (and pushback) in recent weeks so here’s another chance to understand why and to hear about the backlash they received for their views on the matter. Finally, just when you think we’ve run out of controversial subjects, the conversation turns to an upcoming piece on the assault on climate denialism and the labeling of certain views as hate speech…
Every episode of the Grant Williams podcast, including This Week In Doom, The End Game, The Super Terrific Happy Hour, The Narrative Game, Kaos Theory and Shifts Happen, is available to Copper, Silver and Gold Tier subscribers at my website www.Grant-Williams.com.
Copper Tier subscribers get access to all podcasts, while members of the Silver Tier get both the podcasts and my monthly newsletter, Things That Make You Go Hmmm… Gold Tier subscribers have access to my new series of in-depth video conversations, About Time. -
The Grant Williams Podcast: Shifts Happen - Episode Seven FULL EPISODE
A long-overdue episode seven of Shifts Happen sees Luke Gromen return to discuss the pace at which three things are happening: the acceleration of the US fiscal crisis and debt spiral, the Fed’s policy mistake of not letting inflation run hot enough, and the de-dollarization of global oil markets.
Luke explains that China needs to de-dollarize its oil imports and commodity imports to avoid a currency crisis, which is driving the de-dollarization of global oil markets and also highlights the importance of gold in this process, as China needs gold to work in order to improve its standards of living and avoid a crisis.
Luke believes gold will continue to rise in price, and that the pace of events is accelerating towards a US fiscal crisis. He explains the US is facing a fiscal crisis due to its high debt and deficits, and the lack of price-sensitive buyers for its treasuries and that the Fed’s choice is not inflation or deflation, but rather how it wants to lose the long end of the yield curve
Plenty of food for thought here with Luke on fine form.
Every episode of the Grant Williams podcast, including This Week In Doom, The End Game, The Super Terrific Happy Hour, The Narrative Game, Kaos Theory and Shifts Happen, is available to Copper, Silver and Gold Tier subscribers at my website www.Grant-Williams.com.
Copper Tier subscribers get access to all podcasts, while members of the Silver Tier get both the podcasts and my monthly newsletter, Things That Make You Go Hmmm… Gold Tier subscribers have access to my new series of in-depth video conversations, About Time.
Customer Reviews
Ridiculously good podcast, nothing compares
The only thing is that you guys should change for me is stop apologising for your guests stomping on Bitcoin.
There are some valid criticisms, and as a Bitcoiner, I like to hear them.
However instead of apologising you should get a serious but honest Bitcoiner on the Podcast, to discuss the various criticisms on Bitcoin.
Most of the criticisms are shallow and will be shot down on sight, but some are valid and should be talked about.
For example the point that Fred Hickey made about Bitcoin, that Altcoins have diluted Bitcoin is just not correct, I mean they did, but not really, once people understand how this market works, only Bitcoin will be seen as Hard Money, everything else will be ... something else.
Furthermore, in theory, Bitcoin can do all the stuff the other Coins do, it is just that for now, the focus has been on creating the Hardest Money in the history of Humanity.
About the Altcoins, there are few Altcoins in the same Universe as Bitcoin. These are the more serious Proof of Work coins with some decentralisation, which try to be Money, these are Monero, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash.
Bitcoin Cash is falling apart as we speak, with a second fork splitting their network in 3. Their initial ideology was that Merchant adoption and Medium of Exchange was more important than Store of Value, Decentralisation and Censorship Resistance. While Bitcoin values all Monetary aspects equally, with a focus on decentralisation, because if we don’t focus on that it will become an easy target for adversaries (central banks, governments, corporations...).
Litecoin is basically the lite version of Bitcoin, the only upside there is that they can implement innovations faster than Bitcoin. Most of these innovations come from Bitcoin developers (like Segwit and Lightning). But because Litecoin is much less decentralised they can implement them before Bitcoin.
Still it is not the hard asset Bitcoin is, and most likely never will be, they can never get the number of Nodes, Miners and Quality Devs that Bitcoin has, not even talking about the Network Effect.
Finally there is Monero. Which is an honest project focusing on Privacy, which is very important, however, because of their focus they gave up large parts of auditability, Bitcoin will only have 21 million coins, with Monero we can’t be sure.
Next problem with Monero is centralisation and network effect, they only have a fraction of the users of Bitcoin, therefore if you use Monero, you automatically become a target. Finally Bitcoin is implementing Privacy features as we speak, and does have Privacy features already.
Bitcoin just doesn’t sacrifice the 21 million for Privacy.
So to conclude the list of Proof of Work, Hard Money coins, Bitcoin is the most decentralised, balanced Coin with the largest Network Effect by a very large, unsurmountable margin, compared to the other Proof of Work coins. Hard Money is a winner takes all race, where Bitcoin is for far ahead it is hard to see anything else catching up. It is like saying Silver will be the new Gold ... it just won't happen. Gold and Bitcoin will live next to eachother for a long time, but that is different discussion.
Everything else on CoinMarketCap are not Hard Money focused coins.
Ethereum is more like a corporation, and they are moving towards proof of stake. If they succeed, that would be good, because then it is clear they will never even have the smallest chance of competing with Bitcoin. They may do interesting things, but they behave like a stock on the Nasdaq.
Ripple/ XRP is not even a cryptocurrency it is a completely centralised company with a database, with unlimited supply of coins that they dump on the market on a regular basis. May they ever do something interesting? Perhaps, but iis a Company, not a decentralised Cryptocurrency.
Everything else down the list is hardly worth talking about and their properties and decentralization range between those of Ethereum and XRP. Can some of them be a good trade? Sure,in the short term but if you are a long term investor, not much so, it is a gamble, like in the Dotcom bubble.
End Game
Deep insights. Good humor and good manners. And people who do not take themselves all too seriously. Great stuff!
Great series of podcasts
It's great to hear Grant to speak to his friends about finance, politics and social events. Actual relevant and in-depth conversations, not 'trade ideas' and stuff like that.