The US dollar has lost nearly 25% of its purchasing power since January 2020 according to inflation measures.

Adam Tagert and Mike Preston plan to release a video featuring Mike and his partner John Loer discussing foundational strategies for hedging portfolios, to be released on June 23rd, to address audience demand for more detailed hedging education

People without professional help making investment decisions should work with a professional financial adviser, and advisers should take macro considerations (like geopolitical risks and system-level dynamics) and risk management techniques (like hedging) into account when constructing portfolios.

Fiscal dominance—where sovereign spending becomes the primary driver of growth and inflation, overwhelming monetary policy—is now the reality in the US and many other countries.

Mercantilism, where governments pick economic winners and losers based on national priorities rather than free market signals, is how the world operated for centuries and is the historical norm; the globalized free market is a recent and potentially temporary exception.

The shift from globalization to nationalism and mercantilism means that countries will now have different strategic priorities than before, affecting everything from trade to investment to corporate strategy in ways that were not relevant in the globalized era.

The US government has recognized that accumulated deficit spending, national debt, and unfunded liabilities have become an existential problem requiring immediate attention.

Richard Russell, a well-known market observer who died recently, was warning about potential societal disruption and currency devaluation (e.g., refugees sewing gemstones into clothing) at least 10 years ago; this suggests that the risks Grant is articulating are not new, and even astute observers were concerned about them over a decade ago.

Even if structural change brings challenges, successful navigation creates opportunity; the outcome of a fourth turning is not only damage mitigation but potential to prosper if positioned correctly, as illustrated by those with dry powder and purchasing power when others are desperate.

Valuation-based models (like John Hussman's work) are predicting flat to negative annual returns for the next 12 years based on current market valuations, independent of any fourth turning or macro cycle concerns.

The market tail now wags the economy dog, rather than the economy wagging the market tail, showing the inversion of normal relationships where market wealth effects drive economic behavior.

This is a lifetime event, not a 20-year event, and people need to be educated and really try to understand what's going on because it might be quite different than what the history books of people's lives have shown.

Multiple expansion (pulling tomorrow's value into today) creates a temporary boost but must reverse, and we've had three consecutive double-digit years in stocks, creating inevitable mean reversion ahead

For retirees and near-retirees who have benefited from the market rally, the prudent move is to rebalance, lock in gains for spending needs, and de-risk because they don't have decades to recover from a major correction

Highest percentage of investors' portfolio exposure to stocks is occurring at the same time the cohort approaching/in retirement is most heavily invested in stocks, creating demographic risk timing mismatch

If stable coins increase in adoption and buy more treasuries, they could pull down long-term yields, which would further support asset prices and crypto valuations, creating a self-reinforcing cycle aligned with crypto-friendly policy goals.

Adam Tagert proposes the concept of a lowercase 'i'-shaped economy where a tiny elite has advantages totally removed from everyone else, versus the K-shaped economy analogy which implies two balanced groups

Three back-to-back double-digit years in stock market (2023, 2024, and tracking for 2025) is extremely rare, and having achieved this requires a reversion to mean valuations, not immediately but eventually, and markets must underperform to rebalance

Data shows investors have the highest stock allocation in their portfolios ever, with the cohort at retirement age having the greatest exposure to stocks—exactly the wrong demographic to be taking maximum equity risk

For retirees and those near retirement: recent years have provided a tremendous gift of asset appreciation; the focus should be on protecting those gains rather than maximizing further gains, given the high probability of correction and the limited time to recover