Macro & Cycles
Every idea in Doomscholar on macro & cycles. Open any one to read it in layers, with its sources.
- 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization CollapsedEric H. ClineThe Late Bronze Age's interconnected civilizations — Egypt, the Hittites, Mycenaean Greece, and others — collapsed within a few decades not from any single cause but from a cluster of simultaneous shocks (drought, earthquakes, invasion, trade collapse) hitting a system too interdependent to absorb them all at once.
- Adapting to EndureSequoia CapitalThe era of free capital is over; founders must pivot to profitability as rates rise and multiples compress.
- Asabiyyah: The Cyclical Rise and Fall of CivilizationsIbn KhaldunDynasties rise on group solidarity forged by hardship and collapse within three to four generations as comfort dissolves the very bond that built them.
- Bretton Woods IIIZoltan PozsarWeaponized reserves after Russia's invasion usher in a new monetary order backed by commodities, not fiat.
- Buy American. I Am.Warren BuffettAmid GFC panic, US stocks are cheap; be greedy when others are fearful.
- Guns, Germs, and SteelJared DiamondWhich civilizations ended up conquering others was driven overwhelmingly by geographic and environmental accident — access to domesticable plants and animals, and an east-west continental axis that let farming spread easily — not by any difference in the people themselves.
- Lindy EffectNassim TalebThe longer an idea or object has survived, the longer it is likely to keep surviving.
- Principles for Navigating Big Debt CrisesRay DalioDebt crises follow a repeating, mechanical template of leveraging and deleveraging that can be navigated.
- Reinvesting When TerrifiedJeremy GranthamIn a crash the real danger is not buying too early but freezing entirely; the cure is a reinvestment plan decided in advance.
- RIP Good TimesSequoia CapitalThe 2008 crash is structural, not cyclical; cut burn, extend runway, get to cash-flow positive.
- Sapiens: The Cognitive RevolutionYuval Noah HarariWhat let Homo sapiens outcompete every other human species and build large-scale civilization wasn't tool use or intelligence alone — it was the unique ability to believe in, and coordinate around, shared fictions like money, nations, and religions that don't physically exist.
- Sea ChangeHoward MarksA generational shift from falling to elevated rates ends the 40-year tailwind; credit and value are the new winners.
- The Changing World OrderRay DalioLong-term debt, currency, and empire cycles explain the relative decline of the US and rise of China.
- The Decline and Fall of the Roman EmpireEdward GibbonRome didn't fall to a single blow — it decayed from internal causes over centuries, with external invasion delivering the final push, not the root cause.
- The Fraying of the US Global Currency Reserve SystemLyn AldenStructural imbalances in the dollar reserve system are straining and will drive a long-term monetary shift.
- The Memory Supercycle: When Demand Outruns What Physics Can BuildSK hynix (Chey Tae-won); TSMC; ASMLAI demand for compute and memory is compounding faster than physical fabrication capacity can be built, because building a new chip fab takes five-plus years no matter how much capital is thrown at it — creating a structural, multi-year supply gap that no amount of urgent spending can close early.
- The Race to the BottomHoward MarksInvestors competing to accept ever-worse terms and lower returns are sowing the seeds of the next crisis.
- The Rise and Fall of the Great PowersPaul KennedyGreat powers decline for a consistent structural reason across five centuries of history — military commitments grow to exceed the economic base that funds them, a pattern Kennedy called 'imperial overstretch.'
- The Silk RoadsPeter FrankopanWorld history looks fundamentally different when told from the perspective of Central Asia's trade networks instead of Western Europe — the region connecting East and West, not the Atlantic seaboard, was the actual center of global exchange, wealth, and power for most of recorded history.
- The Structure of Scientific RevolutionsThomas KuhnScience doesn't progress through smooth, cumulative accumulation of facts — it alternates between long periods of stable 'normal science' within an accepted paradigm and rare, disruptive 'paradigm shifts' where the entire framework for interpreting evidence is replaced.
- The Superinvestors of Graham-and-DoddsvilleWarren BuffettThe concentrated success of value investors from a shared intellectual 'village' refutes efficient markets.
- Waiting for the Last DanceJeremy GranthamUS equities are in a full-blown epic bubble that will end badly, comparable to 1929 and 2000.
- Why Nations FailDaron Acemoglu & James A. RobinsonNations grow rich or stay poor mainly because of their political and economic institutions — whether they're 'inclusive' (broadly distributing power and property rights) or 'extractive' (concentrating both in a narrow elite) — not because of geography, culture, or the knowledge available to their leaders.
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