HALF-FULL REPORT 09/04/26
The Global Model Breaks
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The world is rediscovering physical reality. The Strait of Hormuz has reminded markets and governments alike that geography can still dictate outcomes, while disruptions in Nepal have laid bare the dependence of modern economies on functioning infrastructure. Germany’s industrial base has exposed the fragility of complex production systems under stress, the Falklands have returned questions of sovereignty over resources to the fore, and Canada has demonstrated that even the most integrated trading relationships remain subject to the hard constraints of borders. The particulars vary, yet the underlying message does not: control of physical systems is once again a strategic imperative.
The deeper story is one of models that no longer fit the evidence. For a generation, the prevailing assumptions of globalization treated trade as reliably frictionless, energy as abundantly available, and geography as largely irrelevant. Parallel confidence has taken root in institutions that rely on sophisticated models of human behavior, technological progress and risk. Recent events have repeatedly collided with those assumptions. Karl Popper’s insistence on respecting evidence that can falsify a theory, and the Bayesian discipline of continually updating beliefs as new information arrives, both point find that reality is generating data faster than many institutions appear willing to process it.
Nations will consequently place greater weight on production and resilience. Companies will rediscover the strategic value of tangible assets. Financial markets will, in time, price the shift. Artificial intelligence will accelerate the adjustment, if only because the digital economy itself rests on vast physical foundations. The world is entering an era in which physicality matter sagain. The physical world never vanished; the models simply stopped accounting for it.
Come on over to this week’s HFR where the world makes sense.
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[Today’s Archive was originally in TTP on January 18, 2021, two days before the traitorous installation of a thief as Ersatz President. Now this November we face the theft of the Senate and House unleashing another Hate-America nightmare. Many TTPers told me when this was first written how helpful it was to them. May this be helpful to TTPers now and in the coming days.] 
Canada is furious about “Lake America.”
[TTP: Because we are now entering “flu season,” we’ll shift to viruses and immunity support for a bit.]
Capitalism is under attack from classrooms to town halls to voting booths.
I took my son Brandon on our Indian Tibet expedition when he was 10 years old in 1993. Here we are about to whitewater run the Zanskar River right through the Himalayas. Look at that smile – now there’s an ecstatically happy boy. Wouldn’t you like to see a smile like that on your child or grandchild?
NEW YORK, NY — Governor Kathy Hochul desperately tried to warn New Yorkers that Republicans were taking away women's rights, but no one in the room could hear her because her mouth was covered by a hijab.
