Economic Commentary – Julie Fredrickson

I’m sure most of the world will be fixated on various financial corrections in global markets but I spent a chunk of my day dealing with currency changes (that will be 7% of your withdrawal thank you) that reflect nonsense from monetary arbitrages, regulatory graft and foreign exchange transactions so I’m in absolutely no mood.

Then I went to what counts as the diplomat and foreign money mall and got Pizza Hut, frozen yogurt and Korean skincare. I don’t even like Pizza Hut but I was so sick of managing dislocations and figured I’d rather send it back to America. My patriotic consumption for the day.

I don’t know if it’s an urban legend that our military can deploy food franchises in twenty four hours in a conflict zone but we sure seem to figured out emerging markets.

It’s a shame we won’t let some markets emerge and be shaped by pressures. The vape kiosk was doing a brisk business and I was frustrated to see the owner of the favored electric vape was based in Shenzen. What an opportunity lost for American brands.

I’d say half the parking lot was Mercedes and the other half was BYD if that counts for anything. I haven’t seen an abundance of American cars and I think we all know why.

But then my savior was found in a brightly colored kiosk with no customers at all. A swath of Korean skincare brands that proved to be authentic. Blessedly many global K beauty brands have adopted QR codes to manage the misuse.

I am adapt at spotting packaging dupes and frauds thanks to the de minimus years importers of fakes flooded Amazon, eBay and other retailers with third party resellers.

Everything was half off as at their full retail price they were still not moving. I scooped up $30 bucks of masks from brands like Mishha and Some By Mi. My skin was fully irritated by smog, stress, and wider disappointment. The globalization era is in full swing in plenty of markets but everyone gets their cut. If a brand doesn’t command a local market then an enterprising consumer can enjoy a temporary mispricing. Sometimes this mispricing last for far too long.

Incumbents have strange advantages they are loathe to give up. I came out angrier at banks than usual, as angry at central banks as ever, and very pleased that the local consumer base wasn’t yet wise to the benefits of a product that commands a premium elsewhere. I might go get more.

We’ve had a couple of market trading days to adjust to the new world order being “absolutely no order” and it mostly seems fine. American can capture cartel leaders/heads of state that she dislikes. Weird but so far fine.

The only metaphors are crude puns (see what I did there) and Marco Rubio does every job memes. From the Golden Era of Iran-Contra to Manuel Noriega, it’s never been a better time to have an opinion on the Monroe Doctrine or a LatAm portfolio. Did you know Ollie North married his former secretary this summer? Fun!

I myself have none of this knowledge so the best I can do is imitate Mickey Rooney’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s character saying, “Donroe Doctrine.” Not very funny I know.

Yellow face being racist, perverting the Monroe Doctrine into a pan-Asian accent inflected Capote character is definitely cancel worthy but if you can’t imagine it I’m sure generative AI would oblige.

What’s worse is that my stupid inner monologue mimicry made me I wonder if Xi Jinping has enough of an accent when speaking English for Donroe Doctrine to be amusing. Americans never know these things. Neither does Reddit

Being profoundly American, this is all upsetting except where it is amusing, because the chaos era is firmly here and it’s hard to make any predictions, first derivative included.

That the world is chaos is now such common knowledge that it’s the stuff of moderate Substack consensus intellectuals.

I used to do more victory laps about how my own investment thesis is predicated on increasing chaos. Now I’m just reminded of how much I didn’t want to be right about my own thesis when I started.

Hopefully that hasn’t affected my capacity to stay ahead of the game. The numbers look good but the final score remains to be seen.Because as they say, “hate the game, not the player.” I’m playing to win.

As if we don’t win at making better technologies that stabilize our world then we all lose. I am a progressive when it comes to investing in new technologies that improve material conditions.

We won’t look at Uncle Yud as fondly as Uncle Ted when it’s time for eulogies. We will conclude that Chesterton’s Fence included a bit too much in the enclosure even if strong fences make for good neighbors.

Being a reluctant conservative makes it worse that I love being first. I am a hipster in an era without use for hipsters except the knowledge of what is about to make money. Hipsters are a useless bunch except as fashion editors or as capital stewards.

I happen to own the domain chaotic.capital. You’d think this would be proof positive of being a progenitor or originator of this investment thesis, but it’s such a common sense worldview now it’s about as useful as an NFT after the 2022 crashes.

I have bragging rights and my own metrics page inside AngelList. Which isn’t nearly as much fun as I expected it to be. It’s not bad having some financial flexibility from making good calls, but my primary problems remain health not talent so it’s less enjoyable than I presumed. Thankfully that means I will continue at it based on my own pace and instincts. Good luck out there!