Interview: Urgent Global Macro Developments
Posted May 15, 2026
I recently spoke with Kirk Chisholm on the Money Tree Investing podcast about the most important macroeconomic and geopolitical developments now impacting the financial markets.
We began by discussing the conflict between the United States and Iran and the consequences of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. I explained how a disruption to oil shipments through the Strait will sharply increase energy prices, drive up inflation globally, and force interest rates higher at a time when the world economy and financial markets are already extremely vulnerable.
We also discussed the rapid emergence of artificial intelligence and why I believe AI is likely to transform society and the global economy over the next 10 years from top to bottom. In the interview, I described how AI could eventually create an entirely new economic system — one no longer driven primarily by capital or credit expansion, but instead by an exponential increase in cognition and intelligence. I have coined the term “Cognitism” to describe this possible new system.
In addition, I explained my long-term macro framework and how the global economy evolved from traditional capitalism into a system driven primarily by credit expansion after the collapse of the Bretton Woods monetary system. Since the 2008 Financial Crisis, government borrowing and Federal Reserve money creation have increasingly replaced private-sector credit growth as the primary engine supporting economic growth and asset prices.
Finally, when asked about the greatest threat facing financial markets and the global economy that most people do not understand, I explained that it is the danger that total credit in the United States begins to contract, because a sustained contraction in credit would trigger a severe global depression similar to the Great Depression of the 1930s.
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