Category: Other

Adjudication Day: The Supreme Court Tackles Trump’s Tariffs

Adjudication Day President Trump dubbed April 2nd of this year “Liberation Day” when announcing sweeping and dramatic tariff increases.  A baseline tariff of 10% was imposed across the board with far higher tariffs implemented for the perceived worst offenders: countries with significant trading surpluses with the U.S.  After several legal setbacks, on September 3rd the […]

How GDP Metrics Distort Our View of the Economy

05/15/2015 Christopher P. Casey GDP purports to measure economic activity while largely divorcing itself from the quality, profitability, depth, breadth, improvement, advancement, and rationalization of goods and services provided. For example, even if a ship — built at great expense — cruised without passengers, fished without success, or ferried without cargo; it nevertheless contributed to […]

Donald Trump’s Whig is Showing

This article was originally published by the Mises Institute on March 21, 2017 On February 28th, while addressing a joint session of Congress, President Trump quoted Abraham Lincoln and praised his economic philosophy: The first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, warned that the “abandonment of the protective policy by the American Government [will] produce want and […]

Our Economic Views

We are economic thought leaders following the free-market oriented Austrian economics, whereas most advisors follow Keynsian Economics and tout the merits of money printing and government intervention. Global central banks have printed tens of trillions of dollars out of thin air as global debts exploded. Yet most advisory firms act like this is just another “normal” investment environment and allocate capital the way they’ve always done so. In our opinion, this is not a normal environment and requires an acute understanding that the pillars of the world are now built on a mirage of bubbles with serious consequences for growing and protecting wealth.

In an attempt to offset continued economic weakness, governments are reacting with spending, debt issuance, and intervention in the economy on a scale without precedent in modern history. Although these policies may buy time, they cannot solve the underlying issues. Ultimately, governments will repay debt with their last remaining option – printing more money. As money floods the system, this will drive inflation higher despite continued weakness in the economy.

Under these circumstances, the current conventional model of a static bond and stock mix will fail. It will fail investors in realizing reasonable returns. It will fail investors in preserving their purchasing power after inflation. And it will fail investors in protecting their capital and securing their retirement.

The conventional experts do not foresee such risks. But these same experts missed the prior 2000 tech bubble and 2008 housing and stock bubble.  Today they are missing the bubble in government debt and the ramifications of unbridled money creation. WindRock understands these issues and positions clients to not only minimize their risk associated with these dangers, but to profit from them.