ClickBeta 5: Don't Break Your Toy
Another playlist for 3 idiots talking markets.
Every month Jason Buck, Matt Ziegler and I sit down and try to make sense of an increasingly senseless world. There's no promise that any of this makes sense, but the idea is to give you an insight into what three market commentators talk about when they don't have a script and aren't even talking in their own wheelhouse.
Every month, I then take the episode and curate a playlist of new and classic indie tracks to echo the themes of the month. If you want to skip the discussion and just listen to 9 great tunes, I got you:
But by all means, please watch the entire hour and seven minutes of insanity. Here were my big takeaways and the indie songs they brought to mind.
“We have — through our collective bodies — decided we don't want to pay for the things that we want." – Dave
🎶 Song: “Been Caught Stealin’” – Jane’s Addiction
I’m not saying any of us has the magic answer, but I do think it’s worth remembering that this is really the nut of American politics since 9/11: we want low taxes, we want strong economic growth, we want to take care of (insert your personal belief system). But perhaps we are a selfish nation, and don’t deserve nice things.
Ben Hunt’s absolute banger of a piece today put a fine point on this: if it is now common knowledge that the U.S. fiscal situation is intractable, well, that sets us up for bad things. As he says: “The risk is a steady, long-term melt-down in the value of the US dollar and a steady, long-term melt-up in inflation and interest rates.”
And I don’t care if Dave Navarro and Perry Ferrell can’t get along. Jane’s Addiction is still one of the greats.
"Doesn't this just turn into: don't break the toy. Don't break the toy. Because when the toy breaks, you're gonna cry about it." – Matt
🎶 Song: “Broken Toy’” – Veronica Falls
The analogy of a child and a toy poignantly illustrates the perceived recklessness in economic policy. There's a sense of impending consequence, a fragile system being pushed too far, with an underlying frustration that warnings go unheeded until the inevitable breakdown occurs.
Veronica Falls is one of those “whatever happened to…” bands from the lost decade of the 2000s. Apparently their drummer passed away before the pandemic, and the URL has disappeared, so: let me introduce you to a great album from a great band.
"To reduce the government deficit, then that inherently causes austerity to the private sector, to individuals, and I'm not sure people are willing to take that pain." – Jason
🎶 Song: “Bovine Excision’” – Samia
Here lies the uncomfortable truth of the now: we aren’t going to get what we want, and (whether you’re rooting for it or not), there will be suffering. I’m not smart enough to know the exact right thing the entire country is supposed to do, and I’m certainly not in charge. But I can mourn, and lament the American wound.
Samia’s new album, Bloodless, is full of this tension, no song more-so than the breakout (for an indie darling) with the uncomfortable name: Bovine Excision.
"There have to be implications for spending money you don't have over and over and over again." – Dave
🎶 Song: “Harsh Love’” – Blue Foundation
Does the future matter? I mean ultimately that’s the question. I’m not sure we’re going to ever come to an agreement — that’s kind of the point of Ben Hunt’s banger of a piece this week talking about the common-knowledge shift that the U.S. debt issuis intractable.
We spent a lot of this episode dancing around the edges of modern monetary theory: can a country that mints its own scrip really go bankrupt? The answer of course is “eventually” and the challenge is having clear enough eyes — as a country — to “pull up” when the MMT-fighter jet is diving towards the canyon floor (runaway inflation).
Dropped just this week, “Harsh Love” by shoegaze specialists Blue Foundation has the too-apropos-to-skip lyric: I don’t Want, Tough Love, Tough Love, Tough Love.
"Peter Atwater said FX is a sentiment gauge for all policy decisions right now. If you wanna see how policy is actually being viewed on the global stage for resetting cost of capital, just watch FX on the announcement." – Matt
🎶 Song: “American Food’” – They Are Gutting a Body of Water (TAGABOW)
A lot of what’s going on geopolitically can be summed up as “retrenching from globalization.” It’s not just conceding the soft-power politics to China (and that won’t be easily reversed), and it’s not just the tariff insanity. There’s a very clear, real, and vocal group of Americans who genuinely think we can pull up the ladders around the U.S. and let the world take care of itself. And, as Atwater is saying here, the rest of the world gets to decide what that means, largely in F/X.
They Are Gutting a Body of Water (unfortunately often shortened to “TAGABOW”) is an incredible experimental Philly band who’s 2022 release, “S”, blew my mind. This new single track from them is more approachable shoegaze with reversed-and-burried lyrics that eviscerate modern America. Enjoy.
"Eventually, every 50, 100, 150 years, you have to have some sort of jubilee where we burn the tally sticks." – Jason
🎶 Song: “The Catastrophe’” – Car Seat Headrest
Jason has a historical but also fairly depressing and radical perspective to the debt cycle. He’s suggesting that some form of a “great reset” is inevitable — that is, a time when we forgive debts (or burn them), and reset the economic system (or burn it down and see what happens next). I am NOT that much of a pessimist, but I do think there’s a lot of “find out” to come.
Car Seat Headrest is one of those bands with a sound, and this new track slaps.
If you think you’re unworthy of life
If you’re tired of just playing nice
If you’re looking for one light of hope
Inside the last days of Rome
Well, you can come with us tonight
Maybe you can recognize
There’s still some life inside
These bones, dry bones, in American towns.
Heck yeah.
"If you're gonna put us through all this pain, please let us actually get some result from it." – Dave
🎶 Song: “Sweet Danger’” – Obongjayar
I have never been more aware of my utter powerlessness than the last few months. I know, I know, we all have all sorts of things we can do to react to insanity, but when my heart is all shriveled up and black, my silent prayer is for there to at least be some good that comes from the chaos.
Like, if you’re Steve Martin as the Dentist in Little Shop of Horrors, the audience all knows you’re going to cause an enormous amount of pain. But at least get the root canal done. Don’t make all the screaming for naught.
Nigerian singer Obongjayar dropped his first album a few years ago, and his latest, Paradise Now, is fantastic and worth a whole headphones-on listen. He jumps in and out of genres, falsettos, lyricism and electronic experimentalism, but Sweet Danger is for sure the break out approachable track.
"Who needs traditional banking when you have private credit?" – Matt
🎶 Song: “Safeandsound’” – Parcels
A tongue-slightly-in-cheek that points to the uncomfortable reality that the U.S. has likely created it’s own shadow banking system which is, itself, too big to fail. Add in the private-investment-banking world known as Private Equity and a rather large part of the countries capitalism no longer happens in daylight. Personally, I think that’s a problem. I think well-regulated public market capitalism has incredible societal superpowers. We’re way, way far away from that.
Smooth-Indie masters Parcels dropped Safeandsound a month or so ago, and while the music is delightful, the words nailed it for me:
Who is to say
They know what they’re doing?
They probably are just faking.
"The tipping culture's gotten outta control in this country, right?" – Jason
🎶 Song: “Tell me I never knew that’” – caroline, Caroline Polachek
I don’t think I’m alone in thinking the whole “no tax on tips” thing is mostly a popular idea that doesn’t really help many folks at all. It incentivizes employers to push tips up and wages down, which seems bad. I suppose it means marginally more reporting of tips, but if some waiter is already underreporting their cash tips, I don’t think you’re going to start reporting more tips because you won’t get taxed.
It also seems like bizarre forced economic interaction. I’m not all that neurotypical, it’s already hard for me to understand the social dynamics of a retail transaction. The insane rise of “tipped everything” in the last 5 years is, at a minimum, a source of anxiety. Please just let me pay the amount I’m supposed to based on someone else’s social convention algebra so I don’t have to figure it out?
Caroline Polachek is indie-pop-dance royalty for good reason. This surprise collab with the band caroline (who reminds me of Sigur Ros in the best way) is just too good to miss. Sure, I can stretch it to the theme of the quote, but mostly, it’s about not knowing what to do. A feeling I think we can all relate to.