Macroeconomics on Ryan Orban

War and Industrial Policy

me@ryanorban.com (Ryan Orban) — Sat, 27 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Summary

Written by Zoltan Pozsar at Credit Suisse in August 2022, this note argues that the simultaneous collapse of two geo-economic partnerships — Chimerica (US-China) and Eurussia (Europe-Russia) — marks the end of a three-decade lowflation regime. Pozsar draws on Dale Copeland’s theory of trade expectations: when great powers lose positive expectations about future trade, they initiate crises to protect commercial interests. With trust gone on both fronts, de-globalization is structurally locked in.

Adapting to Endure (Sequoia Capital, May 2022)

me@ryanorban.com (Ryan Orban) — Wed, 25 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Summary

Sequoia Capital’s May 2022 all-hands presentation to portfolio founders, delivered by Roelof Botha, Doug Leone, Alfred Lin, and Carl Eschenbach, addresses the sharp macroeconomic shift underway as the Federal Reserve raised interest rates to combat inflation after a two-year zero-rate era. The opening framing by Botha references his experience as CFO of PayPal in March 2000 — when Sequoia’s Michael Moritz counseled the team to recognize the moment, extend runway, and become a real business. PayPal had 7 months of runway; they cut costs, introduced fees in June 2000, and reached $250M revenue and profitability by 2002.

The Fraying of the US Global Currency Reserve System

me@ryanorban.com (Ryan Orban) — Sun, 13 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Summary

Lyn Alden’s essay traces the history and current stress points of the petrodollar system — the arrangement that has underpinned dollar dominance since Nixon took the US off the gold standard in 1971. The deal: the US provides military security to oil-producing nations (especially Saudi Arabia), and in exchange, oil is priced and settled in dollars globally. This created structural demand for dollars that reinforced the US dollar’s reserve currency status independent of US trade balances or debt levels.