Service business update 7
Service business update 7
Focus: Stay on the course
Well, my last update was super doomerish 12.6.2024: This was also an idiotic take, but gladly, I got this so wrong.
The autumn has been surprisingly strong! There was no rug pull. Why good autumn? I honestly have zero idea.
The consumer has been extra doomerish - enough is enough eventually. I even wrote a new “blueprint” after being depressed for a few years…
✅ Despite lingering pessimism, consumers are finding reasons to celebrate, dine out, socialize, and engage in leisure activities. Even those who feel particularly gloomy reach a point where they decide to say fuck this shit. The prevailing sentiment is, "Enough is enough. If the world is going to end, let's live fully now." As a result, the spending has been surprisingly good.
✅ If you're wealthy and most of your assets are in hard assets like Bitcoin or Gold, you're in a good spot. You're not tied down by investments in Finnish companies or burdened with massive mortgages in Finland, especially since asset prices are hitting all-time highs. That's a story for another time: what to do when hard assets are at their ATH prices and the S&P 500 is too…
💡The top will get even wealthier, diversify/focus more on these people.
✅ Well, the mortgage people are also celebrating small victories too EURIBOR 12M, almost 2.5% (Econ 101 reminder:) Rates will go down and will stay down = BAD
💡The Middle-class will continue to struggle, and purchasing power will continue to evaporate, cut cost, offer shittier/cheaper services… Sorry, but that’s the truth.
When will it get better, clown man? Next year, it will be a massive turnaround! How many times have you heard this? Is it working?
I really don’t like to get political or pretend to be an economist. As a businessman who employs three people, I should only focus on growing my business, making money, growing the common pie, and making Finland Great Again. Drive to thrive.
Structural weaknesses in Europe will continue. The only “change” in Finland that has happened is to raise VAT from 24 to 25.5% (more uncertainty and less investments for Finland). The “bottom is certainly not in”. Once the idiotic economist and policymakers start to understand that they fucked up big time, we are at the bottom.
Accepting the realities.
I lived in Russia in the past. St Petersburg is my favorite city on the planet. 140 million Russians ate onion soup back in the day and will eat it tomorrow... I am a businessman trying to survive and an armchair economist. PEOPLE = PEOPLE, fuck the governments...
Europe will also soon be eating onion soup if this continues. Europe is losing the economic war.
Russia = Cheap commodities and Cheap energy for Europe. Well, that's over now. Do the sanctions work? Are European economies growing? Are we prospering?
Europe's industrial base is eroding. Combine this with all our other structural problems and...
Unpredictability continues
Yes, you can laugh at how wrong I was in the last update. How wrong did the big corporations or policymakers get it?
I have watched a little bit of the Helsinki stock market results in the past few weeks. Compare the guidance from early 2024 to this date? Oops, yeah, 200 million here and there. Some give positive warnings! Oops, let’s fix that to negative! Well, competency nowadays is extremely low. It is enough to be mediocre to make a profit.
Anyways how do you think if Billion dollar companies can't predict jack shit, how the rest of the 500k companies in Finland can predict anything? Maybe I get orders, or maybe I don’t?
What is the bullish case? For Finland, it is zero growth with more debt. (This has stayed the same since the last update.)
The bottom is when Europe wakes up and starts to do the necessary reforms.
Less taxing
More innovation
More free trade
Common sense will win, but how long will it take? Currently, they offer the same medicine (more debt). How can the debt burden problem be fixed?
Lower interest rates
Inflation is ok above 2%
More debt
With more regulation and capital controls, the EU may be mocked for creating these idiotic “bottle cap” solutions and all the regulation memes, but the consequences could become serious once everyone realizes and starts to ask why. Okay, WTF, this is not fun anymore?
Governments and especially the EU is not on the side of people and small companies. They will continue to suck even more in the future and make life more miserable.
Financial repression and Stagflation.
The rich will get richer (own real assets, no, not a fucking 30y mortgage, it's not an asset, especially if it's in the EU).
The middle class will get poorer.
Well, keep on the good fighting.
We support local businesses, real jobs, real skills, and real communities while avoiding the pitfalls of big chains, quick fixes, and bullshit metrics. Drive to thrive.
People = People - and in the end, people will win.
Time = Scarce.
Quality = Sustainable.
Cash = Freedom.
Bitcoin = Future.
That's the way.
Stay hard, and keep pushing forward.
