The Road Ahead

More questions than answers for 2025 and beyond...

(The “boulevard” entrance to our friend’s campo, about 5 hours west of Buenos Aires. Photo: Dear Wifey)

“Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.”

~ Proverbs, 16:18

Joel Bowman with today’s Note From the End of the World: Buenos Aires, Argentina...

Welcome to 2025, dear reader! We begin the new year on the firmest, most familiar footing we know; which is to say, in doubt.

Looking out from our far-flung post, down at the End of the World, we notice signs of hope and optimism, still in the blush of youth. A nascent liberty movement here in Argentina, barely a year old, inspires a cautious sense of belief in the future, the curious notion that things might really be different this time, at least for a while...

And yet, every silver lining bears a dark and pregnant cloud. Many are the black swans circling overhead; many the questions that remain unanswered, here as elsewhere.

In quiet preparation for the unknown road ahead, we passed the holiday week out in the campo with our dear amigos, reminding ourselves what is truly important in the here and now: Family and friends, real food and good cheer, and tall tales told around the fire of an evening...

(Tall tales after the asado… and happy cows at sunset. Photos: Dear Wifey)

Back to Reality

Returning late this afternoon to the hum and hubbub of the city, we open the papers and peruse the sturm und drang in the popular press. War and politics... money and power... lies, damned lies and propaganda... and always the parade of rascals, rogues and reprobates, pulling the strings behind the curtain.

And yet, for every answer, assurance and assertion proffered by the mainstream “experts” – almost all of whom were reliably wrong about practically everything over the year just gone – a hundred questions rise to meet them.

Beginning at the other end of the Americas, in the Great White North...

Is the Castro-Trudeau reign finally drawing to its dramatic denouement?

Online betting site, Polymarket – which trumped all the pollsters in the US presidential election – has Pierre Poiliviere at an 87% chance of winning Canada’s top job. (The man who’s definitely not Fidel’s son is in third place, at 4%.)

Meanwhile, south of the 49th parallel...

Will the US debt bomb – currently cresting $36 trillion... and rising by $3 billion per day – finally blow up in the Fed’s face? Or will “chainsaw economics” make its way north of the Rio Grande, just in the nick of time?

Will Trump and Team DOGE be able to slay the American Leviathan with a million paper cuts? Or will the swamp creatures have their revenge?

As to those foreign entanglements...

Will the bloody war on the Eurasian Steppe end in a whimper...or a bang? In a peaceful negotiation... or nuclear annihilation?

And what of the biblical destruction in the Levant? Will we see peace in our time over in the Holy Lands?

Africa, too, is entering a new “era of war,” according to an article in the Wall Street Journal. With armed conflicts breaking out in Mali, on the western edge, to Somalia, on the continent’s eastern horn... radical Islamic uprisings in northern Nigeria and militia warfare in the eastern Congo... along with armed struggles between militarized elites in Ethiopia and the Sudan (two of Africa’s largest and most populous nations)... there will be plenty for woke college kids and press toadies to turn their blind eyes from in 2025 as they focus instead on their wars of choice elsewhere...

Money, Money, Money

Then, of course, there’s the grubby world of mammon...

Will we see Dow 50,000 before Gold $3,000?

Will crypto go “to the moon”... or merely to Mars?

Will last year’s winners be this year’s losers, and vice-versa?

And over in the tech space, what new gizmos, gadgets and whizzbang technological breakthroughs will deliver us from the insipid tedium of our daily lives, so that we may finally realize our true human potential: staring vacantly into the black abyss in our palms, that bottomless digital portal through which we jettison reality in favor of cat videos, Instagram trends and Dante’s lesser-known 10th Circle of Hell: Celebrity gossip?

Meanwhile, from storm clouds to silver linings, down here at the other End of the World, we’ll continue following along with the Greatest Political Experiment of Our Age. This time last year, inflation was peaking... poverty was rising... and a newly elected president, Javier Milei, was doing something nobody thought humanly possible: telling voters the truth!

Of course, the designation of “most honest politician” is a bit like being the “soberest Aussie and the Boxing Day test match.” While not substantial in absolute terms, the comparative departure from the norm is certainly striking.

Telling hopeful, teary-eyed voters that there is no money (“No hay plata!”)... that things will get worse – much worse – before they improve... that the government is not their solution, but in reality the very source of their problems... takes a measure of fortitude uncommon in the gene pool which tends to produce public servants.

Promises Kept

One year on, with inflation crushed from 25.5% per month to 2.4%... with poverty rates starting to fall... with economic growth returning (the country officially exited recession, posting 3.9% growth – not annualized – in Q3, 2024)... with budgets balanced, deficits eliminated, monetary emissions quelled... with stability returned, wages (in dollar terms) up 250% and country risk plummeting 2,100 points (lower risk signals more foreign investment)...

… one gets the feeling that the story from the End of the World is only just beginning.

Stay tuned for more Notes From the End of the World...

Cheers,

Joel Bowman

P.S. As previously undercapitalized markets are finally opening up here in Argentina, there stands a wealth of opportunity for those who have been following along with the story down at the End of the World.

Not being a “money man” himself, but nevertheless recognizing that many people seem to like having, earning and growing it, your editor has assembled a cracking team of investors and big picture thinkers for next week’s inaugural event, titled:

Investing in the End of the World Virtual Summit

Rick Rule, Eric Fry and Byron King will join us for a live event, scheduled for Wednesday, January 8, between 2-4pm Eastern Time.

If you haven’t already done so, you can still register here:

Nota Bene: We have taken the liberty of pre-reserving seats for our paying Notes Members (who need only claim them via registration), but space is limited for non-members who would still like to join us live.

So if you wish to guarantee a seat on the day – and qualify for a complete audio-video recording of the event, including a full transcript – consider becoming a full Notes Member today. We have plenty more in store for you this year, including Members-only events and resources. Join Here to avoid missing out: