The hottest Financial Crises Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
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Lessons from History: The Great Railroad Buildout

Mule’s Musings • 661 implied HN points • 17 Dec 25
💾 History Financial Crises
  1. Infrastructure booms follow a capital cycle: rapid buildout driven by easy money, speculative overbuilding, a painful crash, and then consolidation and regulation.
  2. How projects are financed and how much the government supports them determines the scale and risk; big land grants, foreign credit, or big public programs can accelerate growth but also amplify failures when funding dries up.
  3. Watch prices, capacity utilization, and total capital deployed — falling prices, empty capacity, and rising leverage are clear signals that supply is outpacing demand and an overbuild may be underway.

Land, Debt, and Crises

In My Tribe • 850 implied HN points • 29 Nov 25
💰 Finance Financial Crises
  1. Home ownership in the U.S. has faced many challenges over time. Policies have changed, but finding a solution everyone agrees on is still tough.
  2. During the Great Depression, many farmers couldn't pay back their mortgages, leading to important reforms like the introduction of 30-year amortized loans that helped stabilize home financing.
  3. Past regulatory changes meant to prevent financial crises often backfired, leading to more issues. Reducing reliance on debt and promoting savings for down payments could help make finance more stable.

Imminent Yield Curve Uninversion

The Bitcoin Layer • 412 implied HN points • 26 Jan 24
💰 Finance Financial Crises
  1. The Fed made minor adjustments to monetary policy recently, ending certain borrowing and investing practices in banks.
  2. The Fed is preparing banks for potential crises by encouraging them to use existing facilities like the discount window.
  3. Financial stability is a concern due to leveraged banks and risky lenders of last resort, indicating underlying instability in the financial system.

It’s a Mixed Credit-Fiat World

Building a New Economics • 196 implied HN points • 01 Feb 24
💰 Finance Financial Crises
  1. Mainstream economics' focus on minimizing government debt while ignoring private debt may not be effective in understanding the full picture of the financial system.
  2. Government debt and deficits can actually play a vital role in creating money and increasing the net financial worth of the private sector.
  3. A government running surpluses while the private sector accumulates debt can lead to economic imbalances and potentially trigger financial crises.

The Real Mission of the Fed

In My Tribe • 607 implied HN points • 11 Nov 24
💰 Finance Financial Crises
  1. The main job of the Federal Reserve is to help the government borrow money easily and cheaply. This allows the government to spend on various programs, including wars and welfare.
  2. Despite originating to stabilize the banking system, the Fed has faced criticism for not preventing financial crises. Even after its creation, the U.S. has experienced repeated financial problems.
  3. Quantitative Easing, a method the Fed uses to handle money and loans, may need to end. This would help limit government debt and potentially benefit everyday Americans in the long run.
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Top Links 541 US profits have a long way to fall. Africa's new gold rush. Laos' fx reserves running low & the crisis in the Sahel.

Chartbook • 343 implied HN points • 25 Oct 24
💰 Finance Financial Crises
  1. US corporate profits are expected to decline significantly in the future. This could impact the economy and stock markets.
  2. Africa is experiencing a new wave of interest in gold mining. This could bring economic growth to the region.
  3. Laos is facing a shortage of foreign exchange reserves, which may lead to a financial crisis. Additionally, the Sahel region is experiencing ongoing challenges and instability.

Can America Escape the Triffin Dilemma?

European Straits • 11 implied HN points • 27 Jul 25
💰 Finance Financial Crises
  1. America's economic strength comes with a downside. To keep the dollar strong globally, the US has to run trade deficits, which hurts its own manufacturing base.
  2. The Bretton Woods Agreement in 1944 established the dollar as the world's main currency, but it created a system that eventually led to financial instability when the dollar outgrew its gold reserves.
  3. The 2008 financial crisis showed the flaws in the system as banks struggled without dollar funding, while America's focus on financial markets over manufacturing deepened the problem.

Against Cassandras

Klement on Investing • 6 implied HN points • 21 Jun 23
💰 Finance Financial Crises
  1. Many independent forecasters make doom-and-gloom predictions to stand out.
  2. Doom-and-gloom events historically have occurred about once every 40 years.
  3. People tend to forget that major catastrophes are rare and dramatic behavioral changes often precede them.

One year later: The lessons from the crisis

Musings on Markets • 0 implied HN points • 13 Sep 09
💰 Finance Financial Crises
  1. Lehman's failure might have been necessary for Wall Street to recover. Allowing it to collapse helped the government take bigger steps to save other companies like AIG.
  2. Wall Street hasn't really changed after the crisis. They've gone back to risky practices and high bonuses, as if nothing happened.
  3. There’s a pattern of forgetting past mistakes on Wall Street. People there focus more on making deals than learning from what went wrong before.