As far as yearly accounts go, summarizing what we've done in a given time period is a nice, healthy practice. Looks back, lets us assess whether we're on the right path or there's some direction in which we need to change things for the next year

It's been a weird year, with writing not at all being at the forefront for me: there's been plenty of other work, personal and professional things capturing my attention. Nevertheless, I counted 35 articles published (plus another 9 book reviews in Print for Bitcoin Magazine that haven't gone online...
and let's be generous to my SN patrons (= you guys!) and add in the MONEY CLASS posts here, most of which were in January of 2025. That gets me to a nice 50-ish written/published pieces for the year, and I'll summarize the best ones/the ones I'm most proud of here:

1. "Fancy Houses, Wealth Inequality, and a Lesson in Humility" (Mises.org), #946539
   In this wonderfully reflective and soul-searching piece, I took a recent experience of out-of-my-league wealth and realized that it didn't appeal much to me. I desire life and adventures, meaning and freedom and commitments, and while wealth (#929023) can get you some of that, most of what the top-10%-ish people use their wealth don't hold much power over me. Nice houses are nice, but I'd rather have a hundred other things.
2. "The Re-Emergence and Death Knell of Century Bonds" (MoneyMetals.com), #945143
   As part of my fellowship for the Sound Money Defense League, I revisited the phenomenon of century bonds -- debt contracts with a maturity of 100 years off -- and the extreme havocs that shifts in interest rates wreck with that. My efforts to outline the monetary unpredictability of fiat fits nicely with the mean-reverting price levels that the gold standard offers/offered and thus appeal to the goldbugs at moneymetals.

Mid-pandemic, Austria even returned to the yield-hungry bond markets and placed another century bond at 0.85%, in a move that was fiscally ingenuous but morally almost criminal.

There's an even weirder FT development to this story that I somehow forgot to post about (extra credit for the ~econ nerds to dive into the funny world of duration)

3. "Returns to College Investments: Requiem for a Financial Dream" (The Daily Economy, AIER), #994746
   Here I delve down into the logic of student debt, and how they can make sense when used as a financial-engineering tool and speculative attack on the dollar. While my situation isn't as great as it was back when I wrote this in the spring, it's still pretty excellent: holding debt at negative real returns is wonderful.
4. "But Lagarde, Europe Is a Museum!" (The Daily Economy, AIER), #1020250.
   A wonderful rant at the pathetic laggard Europe and what I honestly (fore)see about my continent of birth. It's pretty sad and, bar some anti-green backlash miracle (#1366670, #1399039), I doubt it'll improve much. Europe is so far behind on everything that there's no way to save it. Let's pray for a European Milei.

"All Europe has to offer the world is professional soccer and nursing homes; centuries-old architecture and over-regulated, tourist-infested beaches.""All Europe has to offer the world is professional soccer and nursing homes; centuries-old architecture and over-regulated, tourist-infested beaches."

To believe that the euro will play a larger role in international monetary affairs is laughable."

5. "The End of Paper Bitcoin Summer" (Bitcoin Magazine), #1217842.
   I got progressively more black-pilled as the financialization/bitcoin treasury company nonsense went on. I was early to shitting on them, and by late-August/early September I was an outright hostile skeptic. I guess I deserve some credit for having been right? Shitting on them has lately been much less interesting, since nothing I say can hurt more than the pain the stock market inflicts on bagholders of these companies (#1356919).

When you — the retail bagholder — are buying a security instead of real bitcoin, you’re typically doing so at a premium (e.g., an mNAV above 1). Perversely, this is both verifiably insane — why buy a dollar for more than a dollar…? — and the very force that animates these bitcoin treasury companies.

Here’s a bold prediction: In a year’s time, bitcoin treasury companies won’t be a thing. Most of the lower-tiered ones won’t survive, and will instead spit out the coins they so gluttonously and recklessly gobbled up. The ones with serious moat and competent management teams, like Strategy or Metaplanet, will survive, but see their mNAV shrink to a sliver above zero, where they logically belong.

Clock's ticking on that prediction, so we'll see. At least NAKA is at all-time low, and most (all?) of the treasury companies are around or below mNAV 1. I only made a pittance shorting these monstrosities via Predyx contracts.

50 articles in a year, or roughly one piece a week, is a decent number. Nothing compared to the 120-150 I used to churn out back in 2019-2021 when writing was my sole focus, but pretty OK compared to 2022-24 when I only managed perhaps 20-30 a year while spending most of my professional time editing text instead of producing it.

I'm KIND OF ok with this performance. Not bad, but there's room for improvement. Onwards and upwards

Thank you for your support, Schtackers!

P.S., last-minute addition: @Undisciplined reports that my Money Illusion piece with BTCChick (#1264166) was the top-ranked ~econ post for the year! wooohooo! THANK YOU STACKERS!

ART COURTESY TO CHATGPT, one of the things the "AI"s really excel at, with a nice illustration of what's taken up my time (#933248, etc).