Month of Apr 2025
Paris and Vibe Building
//AI generated with Sora combining two of my favorite paintings
Theme of the Month - Paris and Vibe Building
The questions/thoughts that led me to the posts for Apr 2025 were:
How will AGI manifest itself?
What can you do today to protect yourself from tariff impacts?
Where have I traveled to?
How was Paris?
How has the American dream changed with the advent of tech?
What gifts would I buy someone post-covid? (posted in Oct 2020)
Not to be a downer, but I think the US economy and especially the US dollar is in trouble. All retirement accounts give you investment options diversified across stocks, bonds, and cash. Of course, these funds are locked up until you're in your late 60s anyways, but it's a large chunk of money. If there is a recession, most people just look at the blended s&p500 with heavy tech stock (mag7) influence. Certain sectors like commodities, energy, and Costco should be more resilient than others. The problem I see is more in fixed income and bonds. If other countries like China continue sell pressure of our debt then your diversification away from stocks to bonds doesn’t look good either. Some may say cash is king, but if our dollar depreciates in FX value during high inflation creeping up again, then that's not great either. So, in any investment strategy, you either lose on stocks, lose on bonds, or lose on inflation.
To hedge, you could buy gold and bitcoin or exchange your money into Chinese yuan or Swiss Francs, but you better have an international bank account or exchange set up already. You could also buy your SQQQ and medium term puts, but options premiums have been so high and it seems the market is just under full manipulation. Your index is probably shifting some of its strategy to international stocks, so maybe that's an option for safe haven?
Trump will likely ask the FED to lower interest rates to 0 while keeping inflation to our 2% targets, but that's just not how things work. Plus, if he fires Powell and replaces him with some rinky-dink ass-kisser, we're pretty much screwed. Any hint of economic instability in some of these manipulated and delayed economic reports will probably lead to more volatility. … or he’ll just say “psyche” and things will go back to up-only.
Anyway… Paris was fun. Rolled my way home.
AI is blowing my mind daily. Now is the time to build. I’ve got no shortage of non-screen-time things to do.
The blogposts I’ve published this month were:
AGI will happen slowly as humans lose our ability to reason (just like we’ve lost our ability to memorize phone numbers in our contacts). Let's all become house cats finding different distractions and places to sleep around our habitat. It doesn't sound that bad…
General market uncertainty means you need to revisit your budget planning and make sure you get that rainy day fund handy.
![[Travel Advice] Clemens' Travels](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_140,h_140,c_fill,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe715d0b4-ad56-4a2b-a3b5-895ce29ee316_1179x646.png)
Travel makes me happy. I still got the bug except now I experience it in a shamelessly bougie way through crypto conferences.
![[Travel Advice] Paris solo](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_140,h_140,c_fill,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Feb4728d6-615e-40e4-ac96-9d56929a28d2_4000x1848.jpeg)
Paris is a great walking city with no shortage of hidden gems.
My American dream has mostly been fulfilled. I guess we just needed the tech to take over.
These post-COVID gifts are still pretty relevant. I think it was a reaction to being way too digital and secluded for too long.
Some ideas for May 2025?
30 Things that Won’t Change in the next 5 years - Think about the things that will stay constant.
My Clembot AI Journey - A journey through articles I’ve written about AI for the since Dec 2022.
30 More AI Buzzwords - Latest buzzwords from reading some different research papers and looking at headlines.
30 New AI Careers - Rethinking our post-labor economic jobs. Let’s all switch to the gig economy.
40 Under 40 Action Plan - Asked ChatGPT to help me plan towards completing my goals.
30 Digital Ad Tactics - This is basically what I see as ads all day long. I wonder how much money I’d have to pay to remove all ads in my life.
30 Future Decade Goals - We split the next 30 years into goals per decade as mapped out by Evie’s age. This was a great activity in long term planning for her ages 6-16, 16-26, and 26-36.
Kicking off “Her Life in Lists of 30” - I think I have enough material from my monthly lists of 30s to cover this and launch it in 2024. Maybe I’ll find a publisher for this book? I think I’ll be happy with more substack subscribers than a single book defining a decade. If it’s popular, maybe I’ll do a book tour!
Thank you for reading and I hope everyone stays safe! See y’all in the new year!
Please suggest a list of 30 and I’ll write it! I’ve written 300+ lists of 30 and only publish ones that I think other people would enjoy. It’s my fun brainstorming routine.
—
