Seeking Alpha by Adding Beta

Exactly 18 months back in depths of COVID induced panic, Crude oil fell to -37 US $ per barrel....yes you read it right. It was minus..means someone was ready to pay $37 to take one barrel of oil off their hands...weird but it did happened albeit for very short time....That was then..and now same barrel of oil has reached $80 - highest since 2014. Oil price is just one of the very widely tracked indicators which reflect multiple factors. Let's look at some other trends Oil at 7 years high Natural gas at multi year highs crossing $6 per BTU Power cuts in China due to coal shortage. Even in most progressive country priding itself to transition to green power Germany also having potential power cuts due to coal shortage UK citizens are living in their 70s with long lines at gas stations to refill their cars.  Avg time to ship holiday goods from Asia to America has gone to 80 days - twice of pre-pandemic days and prices have gone up multi-fold Labor shortages all across - UK is having ...

One would think that leader of capitalism USA and only large communist nation (which matters) China would have very different problems. However if you pay closer attention to what's happening in Washington and Beijing and reasons behind it, you would wonder if both systems have created similar societies and trying to address the problem with only slight variations in their approach, Last 3 decades saw explosive growth in economies and corresponding wealth creation. After financial crisis of 2008-09 it has increased the wealth gap significantly. By some accounts, top 1% of population has 15 times more wealth than bottom 50% . Unicorns (startups valued at more than billion $) are being created every day. Even in China wealth at top has been very concentrated. President Xi is determined to address this with force of regulations as well as policies. In US, progressives are putting pressure on President Biden to enact $3.5 trillion "social contract" bill (and they are willing ...