TL;DR: My name is Samson Jagoras. I am an investor, entrepreneur, real estate guy, a person that genuinely loves the game of business, a guy that loves people and leading towards a common goal. If you are an entrepreneur, investor, or business professional and you are trying to navigate these crazy times, I’d love for you to subscribe.

Each week I will attempt to gather my thoughts, share my research, and impart some of my knowledge as an investor, and entrepreneur. I spend a lot of time thinking about the macro.

Most certainly some people will disagree, which is fine, and highly encouraged.

Thoughtful discourse helps us all have a better grasp on the future. There is no expectation for anything in return.

Writing about this stuff is cathartic. Therefore, my only hope is that it will be helpful to those of you who are trying to navigate what lies ahead. Who knows where this thing goes? But each week I will share my thoughts on investing, real estate, property technology, leading people, building teams, building a business, and self-development. READ THE REST

TL;DR

This week's newsletter is too important to let you not read it.

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In the chart above, the great investor and billionaire Hedge fund manager Ray Dalio has laid out 18 stages in the rise and decline of economic powers. Although I try not to place all my faith in anyone heuristic, I would say that Ray’s outline is sound. Ray made his entire career on simplifying the complexity of the economy, through easy-to-understand models. If you have not watched his video on, “The Economic Machine” I strongly suggest you watch it.

As you study the graph above, you can easily see how it mirrors what is happening in the US and Global economy today. Something is off! And at the crux of almost everything that is wrong in our society today, is excessive money printing.

Unpegged fiat currencies, manipulated by governments, have failed at every stage in history. The problem is 99% of the population doesn’t study history. In fact, about every 80-100 years we tend to make the same stupid mistakes that we made previously. Why? Because the entire generation has come and gone, and the same utopian ideology permeates our society until the next cataclysmic event.

There were 3 outcomes possible from last week's important FOMC:

1. No change to interest rates, which would be clear and certain, but a poor response to the current inflation.
2. Unclear, uncertain, and weak action implied (dovish) and a take it as it comes mentality.
3. A clear, certain, and aggressive path to raising rates (hawkish), which is the outcome we received.

Here is the summary from the federal reserve website:

• The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System voted unanimously to maintain the interest rate paid on reserve balances at 0.15 percent, effective January 27, 2022.
• As part of its policy decision, the Federal Open Market Committee voted to authorize and direct the Open Market Desk at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, until instructed otherwise, to execute transactions in the System Open Market Account in accordance with the following domestic policy directive:
• "Effective January 27, 2022, the Federal Open Market Committee directs the Desk to:
• Undertake open market operations as necessary to maintain the federal funds rate in a target range of 0 to 1/4 percent.
• Complete the increase in System Open Market Account (SOMA) holdings of Treasury securities by $40 billion and of agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS) by $20 billion, as indicated in the monthly purchase plans released in mid-January.
• Increase the SOMA holdings of Treasury securities by $20 billion and of agency MBS by $10 billion, during the monthly purchase period beginning in mid-February.
• Increase holdings of Treasury securities and agency MBS by additional amounts as needed to sustain smooth functioning of markets for these securities.
• Conduct overnight repurchase agreement operations with a minimum bid rate of 0.25 percent and with an aggregate operation limit of $500 billion; the aggregate operation limit can be temporarily increased at the discretion of the Chair.
• Conduct overnight reverse repurchase agreement operations at an offering rate of 0.05 percent and with a per-counterparty limit of $160 billion per day; the per-counterparty limit can be temporarily increased at the discretion of the Chair.
• Rollover at the auction all principal payments from the Federal Reserve's holdings of Treasury securities and reinvest all principal payments from the Federal Reserve's holdings of agency debt and agency MBS in agency MBS.
• Allow modest deviations from stated amounts for purchases and reinvestments, if needed for operational reasons.
• Engage in dollar roll and coupon swap transactions as necessary to facilitate settlement of the Federal Reserve's agency MBS transactions."
• In a related action, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System voted unanimously to approve the establishment of the primary credit rate at the existing level of 0.25 percent. READ THE REST

This week’s issue is a little bit different than the previous three, however, it is very relevant to all future-proof entrepreneurs. This week we are talking about Leadership which is imperative in today’s decentralized, work-from-home world.

How can we be great leaders under the new normal?

In the pages below, I will lay out my system which was developed over 14 years, and sourced from a number of great leaders and systems. I will give you my simple 5 step framework that I designed and use today. Although I feel like it is never complete, it's rooted in a lot of experience, and an iterative framework that will likely keep getting better.

Knowledge + Experience = Confidence

In the absence of experience, we all need a playbook/system that we can start from. My hope is that this helps you move the needle. Thankfully, I had this framework in place before 2020 turned us upside down.

How did we get here?

A very wise friend, and business development guy once told me, “Don’t confuse motion with progress. It's incredibly easy to do a bunch of stuff because it feels good to move, but it ultimately doesn’t matter.”