By John De Goey, CFP, CIM

Special to Financial Independence Hub

The four words ‘this time its different’ were made famous by Sir John Templeton as an admonition against the overzealous embrace of new paradigms.

To him, there is nothing new under the sun regarding the interplay of valuations and emotions in the emergence of investing bulls and bears. The thing is, sometimes the world changes in such a fundamental way that there really are no antecedents.

 For example, where is the precedent for having the gangster in the White House? As a thought exercise, imagine if Al Capone could have become President in the 1930s. Here’s a man who managed to avoid being brought to justice (sound familiar?), who ran his empire using violence and the threat of violence, and who, for a time, was wildly popular among those who knew him. He was petulant and reactive; not strategic and thoughtful (again, does that sound familiar?)

As of mid March, the U.S. has surrendered its status as a constitutional democracy, as the President has effectively put himself above the law by ignoring a court order. This is unprecedented. Nothing like it has ever happened before. It’s different. The United States is no longer a country of laws, it is a country of unbridled power for the person at the top. To paraphrase a recent article in Time magazine:

“… a court that cannot enforce its rulings is not a court – it is a suggestion box…. and a presidency that can ignore the courts without consequence is no longer constrained by law – it is an untouchable executive”.

No more wind in our sales from Bond Bull market

There are other things that are different in 2025, too. For starters, the world is dealing with an existential crisis – climate change – the likes of which has never been seen before. Then there are the challenges that, while not unprecedented in history, have not been encountered in our lifetimes. Debt levels, both private and public, are at their highest level since World War II. A bull market in bonds that lasted over 40 years ended a few years ago due to the normalization of rates coming out of COVID. There will be no more wind in our economic sails, as has been the case throughout the entirety of the investing lifetimes of everyone reading this.

The peace dividend has been paid out. Everywhere throughout the world, countries are rearming because of geopolitical instability that has arisen out of autocratic powers that seem determined to acquire new territory at all costs. Not only is this destabilizing geopolitically, it also diverts expenditure into military pursuits that would have otherwise gone toward expanding the economy and/or some element of improved social justice.

Deglobalization is very much part of this new reality, too. Tariff barriers are being erected by the gangster madman, and countries around the world feel they have no meaningful recourse other than to reciprocate in retaliation, thereby exacerbating the needless self-inflicted harm. Continue Reading…