US Dollar, Psychedelics, and Gambling

Actionable Information:

US Dollar

People commonly misunderstand value, especially in regard to currencies and assets. I have tongue-in-cheek written that ‘in the inverted world, markets crash upwards.’ One meaning of this, is that when one asset decreases in value, its relative pair, whatever it is being denominated in, increases in value. So when people ask, why are stock prices so high, or why are cryptocurrency prices so expensive, you have to understand that the prices of the assets are denominated in dollars. Are asset prices actually increasing, or is the value of the dollar just decreasing? The truth is that both effects are probably occurring simultaneously, exacerbating each other. The actionable part about this effect is that from a geopolitical angle, a dollar plunge is necessary to facilitate the desired path of globalism, as pursued by the Biden administration. A strong USD actually hurts the ability for emerging market companies to access financing, as it becomes more expensive to access US capital in their relative currency. I expect a weaker USD to be an explicit policy goal of the current administration.

COMPASS Pathways

Thiel-backed (8% stake) COMPASS Pathways (CMPS), is a British Phase 2 biotech firm that is developing a proprietary formulation of psilocybin known as COMP360, to be used in conjunction with psychological support in the treatment of patients with Treatment-Resistant-Depression. Of course, TRD is not 'real' and is merely a Big Pharma-defined category created in order to patent and market drugs to people who are depressed and can't figure out why, but unfortunately, this is irrelevant. The efficacy of psychedelics is no surprise as psilocybin mushrooms have been used effectively in Shamanic ceremonies across the world for thousands of years, as researched and observed by Eliade and countless others. I can personally attest to the effects of these, and confirm that it is without a doubt one of the most incredible and life-changing technologies that man has figured out how to use. Naturally, it will be deconstructed and deployed in typical materialist fashion, by a doctor in a lab coat in a sterile environment, but I expect it will still be effective, and psychedelic treatment centers will become ubiquitous across the West. MindMed (MMEDF) is a similar company working on a chemical derivative of ibogaine, which is traditionally used in Central African Shamanic ceremonies, but repurposed in the West to treat opiate addiction. There is a budding industry of ibogaine treatment centers in Mexico to capitalize on opiate-addicted Americans. Both of these companies seem likely takeover targets of Big Pharma, and MMEDF a possible takeover target of CMPS.

Sports Gambling

As sports devolve in the United States into little more than social engineering, and the romanticism associated with sport wanes in the face of liberalism, Draftkings (DKNG) and Penn National Gaming (PENN) stand to capitalize on the fundamental market shift occurring within the gambling industry. The sports book has become one of the most popular areas of the casino as more states have recently legalized sports gambling. The sports gambling culture in the US is on a fast-track to resemble markets in Europe and Asia. PENN is of particular interest to me, as they have intelligently aligned themselves with Dave Portnoy, who understands the vital role that social media and memes play in the modern economy.

Narrative Reconstruction:

Podcast

A few weeks ago we relaunched The Cartography Podcast, and released our first episode about the concept of Scale. Going forward, we will be analyzing a single concept in depth, and work to relate it to resiliency and natural processes. The next episode covering Externalities will be released this week.

Vitruvian Man

While doing some research on the company Restoration Hardware (RH), I noticed that they have a picture of Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man right on their main page. This inspired my short on Logos and Nature, which explains how scale is intrinsically linked to the human form, and that the pursuit of an idealized order naturally yields positive externalities.

Regards,
J.