A backwards bunnyhop won real street at Rincon, over the rail, down the big drop. Fucking wow.
I learned backwards bunnyhops in 1988, because I was a dork, and knew I couldn't hang in flatland anymore, once the locomotive and whiplash were invented. And by "hang" I mean place in the middle of the pack, in a class of fifty 17& over intermediates, in flatland at an AFA Masters comp.
So I started trying a bunch of weird bunnyhop tricks, just seeing what was possible. Since I rode with skateboarders every weekend at the Huntington Beach Pier, I learned a few skate tricks on my bike, like half-Cabs (roolback to 180 bunnyhop) and no complys (footplant to 180 on flat), backside bonelesses (can-can footplant on a bank), and nollies (nosewheelie into a speed bump to hop).
In the freestyle world at the time, those weren't even tricks. Pretty much no one else did them. Eddie Roman did footplants to 360's, along with dozens of other weird, hard, and innovative tricks. So goofing around on my own, I got to where I could do 6-7 foot backwards bunnyhops on flat, 6-7 foot half-Cabs (on a freewheel, not freecoaster, so I could launch farther) and full Cabs (rollback to 360 bunnyhop, only landed a few). I tried a bunch of other bunnyhop tricks, and famously spent years trying to pull a bunnyhop tailwhop, but never landed a single one. None of those things were even considered tricks at the time.
Then, 15-20 years later, with stronger bikes, and when street riding had progressed a lot, riders discovered those old skate-inspired tricks, and took them to gaps, drops, ledges, and banks. They kept pushing them to new levels. So as a complete dork of a rider from the 80's and 90's, I'm stoked to see an completely fucking insane, HUGE backwards bunnyhop win Real Street at the X-Games. I never even dreamed something like that would be possible. Mad props to Colin Varanyak, and all these riders.
My favorite part of all the X-Games footage I've seen was the cutaway shot during the dirt jumping comp. The camera panned over to Cory Nastazio, standing near a pole, watching the action, and just goes, "Wow." Yeah... Wow.
I'm doing a lot of my writing on Substack these days, check it out:
First of all, Google maps has to add a new mountain range to their map every time there's a BMX dirt contest now. The size of the jumps is just ridiculous at this point. Second, everything the riders are doing, and almost doing, is fucking incredible these days. But I'm sharing this for one reason, the guy you see comment at 11:06. Wow.
Here's the Real Street Best Trick... at Rincon... BMX and skate.
Just about everyone, individuals, businesses, and governments, have way to much debt today, more than ever in history. In this video, Joe fromHeresy FinancialYouTube channel gives a lot of great advice on how to get out of debt, as quickly as possible. This is one of the best things Americans can focus on right now, heading into a major recession.
My best educated guess now is that we see the coming stock crash in September. That will lead to big downturns in asset prices, and the visible stock crash is when most everyday people finally look up and say, "Oh crap, I think we're in a recession." That's when it gets real, for the vast majority of people. That's when home prices begin to drop in more cities, and that's when a lot more layoffs happen, outside the tech world. Again, this is my educated guess, but as you'll read below, I've been writing about this recession for about four years now. It's coming at us, but it's been slow, like a glacier. Slow but sure, but it'll get here.
Some of you, who have been following my blogs for years, know that I've been harping on about this "big recession that's coming," since early 2019, maybe earlier. Why? Because it is a part of some ultra long term, and mid term, cycles that I've been watching, for 30 years. I won't go into all the details, I've written about them many times online (Welcome to Dystopia: The Future is Now). I've been writing about this for so long because multiple trends and cycles point to a major recession, or possibly a depression, in 2020, or in the years after soon after. That recession will also usher in all kinds of other changes already happening in our world. The main one is that we are still leaving the old, Industrial Age, and still moving into the emerging Information Age. But we're not fully there yet.
Now I know most people have been hearing people talk about a possible recession for a year or more. It's getting old. But there's a big difference between 2023 and 2007, leading into the Great Recession. For one, YouTube is now mainstream, and social media has allowed people to connect more than ever in human history. There are a lot of really intelligent people in macro economics on YouTube, giving their own take on what's happening, and where things are heading. There is also a ton of bad information on YouTube, social media, and across the web, on the chances of a coming recession.
So we have the normal mainstream business media telling people everything is wonderful in the economic world, because that's their job, to keep you happy, in an attempt to keep a recession from happening. So we have far more people available to listen to or watch, on economic issues and business news these days, than ever before. We have the broadest, and best, and worst, information leading up to this recession, of any recession in history. You can do research yourself, and compare different sources, and see what makes sense. That's why this recession feels old already, even though it probably hasn't officially started yet. There's far more information out there, and far more people talking about it, than any other time in history.
This recession tried to happen in late 2018, when the stock markets in the final months of the year. But The Fed lowered interest rates in the following months, to buy some time. Then this recession tried to happen again in early 2020, sparked by the unexpected pandemic that we're all trying to forget. But that was followed by The Fed creating about $6 trillion in new money, basically out of thin air. That's how fiat currencies work... near the end of a long cycle. Yeah, we were all Hood Rich for a while, and a lot of people bought stupid stuff with much of that money from PUA, PPP and other programs. Then, in 2021, the inevitable inflation wave from that huge jump in new money began, and surged upward, and didn't go away. Many months later, The Fed, who created the inflation to begin with, started raising interest rates, faster than ever in history, to fight inflation. Interest sensitive parts of the economy, like real estate, hit the brakes soon after, in the booming areas.
Now I'm a macro economics and futurist geek, and I actually enjoy trying to figure out long term trends. Most of you aren't, I get that. Here's where I see things headed (most likely) in a nutshell. All kinds of economic indicators (yield curve inversions in the bond market, among them, are flashing red. There is a major recession coming, there's not a doubt in my mind of that. We've seen real estate slow down in many places already, interest rates have soared, it's much harder to get loans now, for many businesses and individuals. We've seen tens of thousands of layoffs in the tech sector in recent months? Why have there been so many layoffs in tech? Because those are the smart people. They know something dark is coming, and they laid off people early on, rather than waiting six months or a year, like many other businesses have.
We've been through recessions before, what's the big deal about this one? There are several, much deeper issues happening in society now (see "Dystopia" link above), and this recession (possibly a depression) will dramatically change nearly everyone's lives. There's a lot of change that's going to happen outside the financial world, as well. That's why I think this one is a big deal.
I could ramble on for hours here, but I'll keep it somewhat short and sweet. I think we have about three months before things really hit the visible downward spiral. For most of you out there, getting out of as much debt as you can, is one of the smartest moves right now. If you've kept debt to a minimum, and have a pretty recession proof job, hey, more power to you, carry on. But if you're like most Americans, you probably have a bunch of debt that's gotten harder to pay as interest rates went up. Listen to the video above, it's about 15 minutes. Look at your situation, and see if any of his ideas make sense.
Here are some of my favorite YouTube channels for financial information. If you're interest, check them out, they all have lots of videos, and a ton of information on different aspects of the economic world, personal and business finances, and investing. Check them out if you want, see if they have some info helpful for your situation.
There are no paid links in this post. I don't agree with everything all of these people say, but I've found all of these channels to be pretty solid information, over all, depending what you are interest in.
I've started a new blog, about side gigs, and ideas and info for small businesses. Check it out.
Nick Gerli, of Reventure Consulting, is a financial YouTuber I found last summer, looking for more info on wear real estate was heading. He's been calling things ahead of time, trend by trend, by looking at the actual real time data, and just using common sense. Which should be called "uncommon sense" since so few people seem to use it. This video explains where we are now, mid-April 2023, and where things appear to be heading, better than any of the 30 or 40 videos I've watched recently about the economy.
I've been blogging about "the next Great Recession" (or depression) since 2018-2019. Looking at obscure ultra long term trends that most people either have never heard of, or simply dismiss, it looked like we were heading for either a bigger Great Recession,or a full on Great Depression (a recession for 5+ years), starting in 2019-2020. The recession tried to begin in December of 2018, but The Fed dropped interest rates and calmed things down. Then the pandemic hit in 2020, tossing the economy off a cliff into the recession. But The Fed responded by creating $5 to $6 trillion in "helicopter money," throwing money at banks, Wall Street, corporate America, near bankrupt states, cities, and towns, and eventually to us lowly, average citizens. That was like buying 5 kegs of beer at 2 am at a high school or college party. "Hey! More beer (free money) keep the party going!" The new money propped things up from late 2020 into early 2022.
But that eventually caused inflation, which soared, finally forcing The Fed to raise interest rates faster then ever in history, to fight the inflation they caused with all the newly created money. Now a bunch of factors are pulling money out of the economy, and the financial roller coaster is headed back down into recession. A BIG recession. Nick explains the mess in this video above far better than I can. So just watch the video to get a good idea where things are headed economically this year.
Bridges, like most things humans make, are built to withstand much more stress than what they will endure on a day to day basis. Time wears down the steel, concrete, and components slowly. Accidents can damage to them. Extreme levels of wind and water can create higher levels of stress than usual. Still, by and large, bridges just stand there, most of us use one of more of them daily, but we never think of them. Bridges just stand there and do their job. Until they don't. Sometimes it's a visible event, a massive flood, high winds, or maybe a landslide nearby, that leads to a collapse. Other times, they look fine, but years of wear finally hit a breaking point, and they just collapse, unexpextedly. Everything I see in the economy points to a "bridge-style collapse" at some point this year, in 2023. Things look normal, and then some unseen event pushes it to the breaking point.
As I wrote in the last post, 2022 was a pretty easy year to make economic predictions for, there were big moves (inflation, interest rates, stock market, crypto, real estate) getting ready to happen. I could see the pressure building for these, as did several other people. Then they happened. Inflation was going up. After basically ignoring it for months, the Federal Reserve (aka The Fed) raised interest rates to slow down the economy, and eventually help lower inflation (that they caused by creating too much money in 2020-2021). The Fed also stopped buying "assets," which decreases the total money supply, which also helps slow down the economy. Stocks and crypto went down dramatically last summer and fall, and real estate topped out, and began its descent to slowing sales and lower prices in places. Investors didn't know where to put money, it seemed everything was losing ground. For a bunch of reasons I won't get into, we are now in a financial Never Never Land, unlike most any time in memory.
Now we are in the barrage of the ripple effects of the fastest interest rate increases in U.S. history. The thing about these kinds of actions, like The Fed raising interest rates, generally, they take 12-18 months to really show up in the everyday economy, and the economic data. The Fed dramatically increased the money supply, creating $5-$6 trillion out of thin air in 2020 and 2021. That money went to major banks first, then bailouts of the banking system, major corporations, cities and towns, and eventually us everyday people, through stimulus checks and PUA, PPP, and similar programs. We all got high on The Fed's supply... of free money.
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Then in March 2021, close to a year after the first wave of newly created money, inflation began to go up. That new money spread through the economy, and began to drive prices up. Increasing the money supply devalues every dollar (or euro, yen, kronor, yuan, etc.), making them worth less buying power. Eventually prices rise to compensate for the lower buying power of each dollar. But it happens in different places, bit by bit, unevenly, not all at once. So while stocks, crypto, and real estate values have gone down quite a bit, rebounding somewhat, overall, inflation is still high. It's officially over 6% per year. Unofficially, it's probably still around10% per year, overall.
The Fed started raising interest rates in March of 2022, to fight inflation. That began to affect new home loans very quickly. But most other effects happen under the radar, slowly. We should see the first big effects of the interest rate increases in May-June-July of 2023, about a year after the first large interest rate hikes. Those effects will keep getting stronger as the year goes on, as people, businesses, and local and state governments, start paying much higher interest rates, as they roll over, or refinance their debt. The big problem is, there is more debt than everat all levels... in human history. Paying back debt, all kinds, has been getting more expensive, for everyone, for almost a year. Interest rates are still being raised by The Fed, as of their last meeting. So lots of payments, at all levels, are being missed now, everyone's personal, business, and government debt is getting harder and harder to pay. The pressure is building, minute by minute, day by day, like the pressure on those bridges in the video above.
Something, somewhere in the system, will reach the breaking point, and that collapse, of some major corporation, some non-bank lender (mortgage or auto loan companies), a foreign bank (Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank are being watched closely by many investors), the junk bond market, or perhaps a small country, will not be able to pay its debt. Something big will go bankrupt. That collapse will seem to come out of nowhere, it will be in something we don't expect, and it will spread quickly. At this point, there's far too much debt to be paid back in tough times, and now too much pressure, for a collapse not to happen. Something big, economically, will break this year. Then we won't be wondering "are we in a recession?" It will be obvious.
When that happens, we will see big drops in stocks, crypto, and lower quality bonds, very quickly. Gold and treasury bonds will be where major investors head for safety, for a while, during the turmoil. Central banks and smart investors have been buying up a lot of gold in the last few years. When there's a big enough collapse, The Fed will have to pivot, and begin to lower interest rates again. That's what they usually do when we are heading into a recession. Raising rates into a likely recession, like they've doing for almost a year, is very unusual, and part of why we're in a Financial Never Never Land, unlike previous downturns.
The Fed has said several times in recent months that it plans to keep interest rates high, and not lower them at all, in 2023. If there's one thing we can count on these days, it's The Fed changing its mind.
I believe they will pivot, and begin to lower interest rates, in 2023. If it's a really extreme crisis that makes this necessary, they will soon begin to create more new money, to bailout the banking system and corporate America. Since we have a Decomcratic White House, and a Republican House and Senate, they probably won't pass major stimulus money for us regular people. They'll throw money at Banks and Big Business, but don't expect stimulus checks this time around. They'll argue about it, but it won't happen, most likely.
Then the real, gnarly part of this recession hits us, and it hits hard. There tens of thousands of more layoffs, more small, medium, and large business bankruptcies, and some major troubles for many countries (already struggling in many cases, because of a strong dollar), and local and state governments across the U.S., particularly in rural, small town, and small city America. It will probably be something like the Lehman Brothers collapse in 2008, but worse, overall, in the beginnings.
So everything, investment-wise, should tank, right? Not necessarily. The stock markets are looking for any reason to rise, yearning for another late 2020/2021 boom to happen again. I think we will see a big stock drop, in mid to late 2023. But the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq may not go lower than last years lows. The Dow might drop lower than the 2022, but it's a tough call. Because the coming bailout will mean more money in the financial system, and lowering interest rates. Stocks will drop, but they will want to rise back up very quickly afterwards, because the bailouts will mean more new money into the economy. This will push inflation to begin rising again, before long. Then we will have a crazy recession, and a rising stock market, like after March 2009. Except, there will be much more new oney being created, and inflation already, so stocks will go up much faster than in 2009. It will be choppy, but when The Fed begins creating new money, stocks will start climbing, overall. This could be late 2023, or early 2024.
I think crypto has seen its bottoms, in late 2022, the major cryptos, anyhow, like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and the top 10 or so most popular coins. Unlike the stock market, crypto is a major new technology realm, and it is innovating, and has incredbile organic growth potential, while most large, major corporations are now either low growth, or full on "zombie corporations" at this point. I think the big gains in the next 2-5 years will be in the blockchain/crypto/Web 3/DeFi/NFT world. We're heading into recession right now, but crypto and NFT's are innovating, and trending up again. This current trend will stall, but there will be a solid rebound after the big crash.
Normally, in a major recession/depression, people flock to gold and silver. Gold has kept its value over pretty damn steady for over 5,000 years. It's said that an ounce of gold would buy a top quality men's suit of clothes in ancient Rome, and in 1800 or 1900, and that's true today. But the ancient world, or even in the 1930's Great Depression, didn't have Millennials and Gen Z digital natives, and we didn't have crypto and MMORP games and multiple emerging metaverses.
Here's what the economists, policy makers, and big players in today's economy don't see. Digital assets DO HAVE INTRINSIC V ALUEto people under about 30-35 years old. Millennials and Gen Z adults and teens won't buy a bunch of gold when the recession hits, they'll be betting on crypto, mem stocks, NFT's and online gaming, and cool metaverses. Like I said in the last post, we are heading into the Information Age people, these technolgies are today, in 2023, what the internet was in 2001.
Today's younger adults grew up playing video games, often huge, online multi-player ones. Building on The Sims, games like World of Warcraft, and Grand Theft Auto, and Minecraft and Roblox, and Fortnite, are the first metaverses. Younger people, now up into their 30's and even 40's, are used to wandering those cyber universes, buying skins, in game weapons, and attributes. So even in the depths of the recession, I think there will be some growth in the blackchain/crypto space, online gaming, and the emerging metaverses, like Sandbox, Decentraland, Minecraft, and Yuga Labs Otherside. Mark Zuckerberg/Meta's metaverse looks like a fucking cyber shopping malls, and shooping malls have been dying in the real world for 20 years. I wouldn't bet on that one, personally. My point here, the Millennials are the largest U.S. generation ever, they're in their high earning years of life, tech savvy, and 72 million strong, edging out the Boomers by 2 1/2 million people, or so. The Millennials, Gen Z, today's smartphone, social media tech, and blockchain/crypto will make this recession much different than previous ones, including the Great Recession of 2007-2009.
Yeah, the governments want to outlaw crypto. They won't be able to, it's already a major part of society, worldwide. When The Fed puts new money into the system, a lot will find its way into crypto, because that's where the huge returns will soon be. There will be lots of losers in crypto, like all other investments, those who ape in and don't do their due diligence. But there will be huge wins as well.
Another thing the older generations haven't figured out about Millennials and Gen Z. They grew up in a world where working traditional jobs for 40 years isn't even a thing, and jobs under $80-$100K a year don't make you a good living. If you're not in tech, making at least $100K+ a year, you're struggling, if not actually poor. These 72 million+ young people are gamblers, the rise in Gamestop, AMC, and other meme stocks in 2020, 2021, showed us that. Lots of young stock and crypto "traders" (gamblers) made a year's income at their old job, in a month or two, from stocks or crypto, in 2021. They remember that. As the economy goes down, millions and millions of people under about 35 will go looking for big scores, like in 2020 and 2021.
If The Fed begins to create new money again, those opportunities will come back. Fed money creation is THE THING that leads to stock market increases (like October 2019- Repo Market "liquidity" led to stocks rising, then the stimulus money later in 2020-2021).
This will be a recession like no other. Real estate will be tanking, new cars and higher value used cars will still be out of price range, because that whole industry got fucked by easy credit and people buying cars they knew they couldn't afford. But the big collapse will lead to a Fed bailout, which will lead to rising stocks (The top Ten of Tech should lead the way), and soaring crypto, soon after stocks take off. NFT's are already rebounding, and it will lead to millions of low wage jobs STILL not being filled. There are millions of jobs in the U.S. that are simply not worth working anymore, even in a recession, because the compensation just won't pay rent and bills. In the 2020 shutdowns, millions of people learned alternative ways to make money. They haven't forgot those, even if they are harder during a big recession.
So... in review. There's a big crash, a "bridge collapse" moment coming. Late Spring to mid Fall 2023, is the most likely timing, in my opinion. There will be a big crash, stocks and crypto will drop. Real estate continue to drop more, and keep dropping. This is starting in the West, Florida, and some Southern cities. Other parts of the country will see smaller drops, or a long period of stagnation.
Then comes the banking and corporate bailout, and lowering interest rates and new money being created by year end, 2023. Stocks will probably be near where they are now by year end, after a big drop, but it's tough to make a solid call. Gold will rise, but I don't think it will spike like in 1980 and 2011. I could see $2,000 or $2,100 an ounce gold, and maybe $35-$40 an ounce silver. But not $3,000 gold and $100 silver. Soon after the crash (2-4 months) stocks begin to seriously rally, after the crash, and then crypto will really take off. Old School investors will dive into Treasury bonds, like Titanic passengers into lifeboats. So bond prices go up, driving yeilds down, early in the crash. All of this will be going on around the later months of 2023, or into early 2024. That's the best call I can make. It'll be nuts, but a different kind of nuts than 2020, 2021, and 2022.
OK, no hard numbers this year, there are too many effects of last years big moves rippling back and forth around the economy. But these thoughts are my best educated guess as to how the economic world will play out for the rest of 2023, and into early 2024. We'll see what happens. Thanks for reading.
Here's one of the best future forecasters out there, whose work I've never read. My mistake, I only learned of him recently. This is a crazy interview with Daniella Cambone, where he goes into economic trends, World War III, the future of democracy, the recession, crypto, politics, crypto, gold, and much more. If any of these things interest you, watch this 42 minute video.
I have a new blog called Adaptive Reuse SoCal, about finding new uses for old, unused, and abandoned buildings, as well as the economy, and commerical real estate in general. Check it out!
