outcomes belong to god
a page on noticing the signs while the world rearranges itself. sit with it. 6 min.
what’s playing: dad’s r&b and morning energy. — kenny lattimore, mary j. blige, larry june, smooth grooves.
a lot happened this week. and somewhere in the middle of it, i realized i’m different now.
i went back to my old stomping grounds. walked the campus. met with students. faculty. saw old faces. they made it feel like home. but i wasn’t the same person who used to walk those paths. something had shifted in me.
i traded futures with my cousins. we hadn’t had a moment like that in a minute. not as kids, as adults. talking positions, risk, life. it hit different.
i bought myself flowers. just because.
i had a hard 1:1. the kind that sits in your chest after. the kind you want to run from. i didn’t run.
the loneliness has been loud. yearning for a hug. a kiss. something. i don’t have answers. but i’m sitting with it now. not running. that’s new.
and then pastor mike’s sermon landed all of it:
“i’m not giving up. i’m growing up.”
“surrender is not passive. it’s disciplined.”
“outcomes belong to god. reactions belong to us.”
“god doesn’t force. he forms you.” see becoming happens through proximity that shapes you, process that stretches you, and practice that seals you.
i’ve been holding those words. turning them over. that’s what this week was. formation. not chaos. shaping.
and then i looked at the world and saw the same thing happening.
rearranging.
what is actually happening.
trust is leaving the system. you can feel it even if you can’t name it.
this week the department of justice served the federal reserve with a criminal investigation. the official reason was cost overruns on a building renovation.
the way i’m reading it, this is about pressure.
trump needs lower interest rates. now.
here’s what most people miss. the US owes more than our entire economy produces in a year. nine trillion dollars of that debt is coming due in 2026. most of it was issued when rates were near zero. now it has to be refinanced at four or five percent. that’s like refinancing your mortgage at double the rate.
interest payments on the national debt already exceed what we spend on defense.
trump needs lower rates. but if he pressures the fed too hard, investors lose trust, rates go up, and the problem gets worse.
powell said it plainly: “this unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration’s threats.”
and regular people are feeling the squeeze too.
american workers are now taking home their smallest share of the economy since 1947. that’s almost eighty years. the pie is growing, but workers are getting a smaller slice.
from 2000 to 2022, median household income rose seventy-eight percent. home prices rose one hundred seventy percent.
flat wages plus unaffordable housing means most people can’t move up. if you don’t already own a home or have family wealth, breaking in is nearly impossible. your starting position determines your ceiling.
he announced plans to cap credit card interest rates at ten percent and ban large investors from buying single-family homes. americans owe 1.23 trillion dollars in credit card debt at around twenty percent interest. cutting that in half could save tens of billions a year.
banks are pushing back. their stocks dropped. JPMorgan hinted at lawsuits. their argument is if rates are capped, they’ll stop lending to people with bad credit. and the perks you’re used to like travel points, cash back, sign-up bonuses could shrink or disappear.
whether these policies work is another question. but the fact that a president is intervening this directly tells you how broken the math has become.
and here’s what most people aren’t paying attention to.
the old system locks people out of wealth. the new system is trying to build a way back in.
right now, when you send money through a bank, it takes days to settle. the bank earns interest on your deposits. you get almost nothing.
that’s starting to change. stablecoins are digital currencies backed by dollars. and they’re growing fast. the companies that issue them earn interest on the reserves. and now there’s a fight in congress about whether they can pass that interest to you.
the ceo of coinbase pulled support for a bill this week because it would ban that. banks are lobbying hard to stop it. the ceo of bank of america warned that if stablecoins can pay interest, six trillion dollars could leave traditional banks.
six trillion times three and a half percent is two hundred ten billion dollars a year. that could flow to regular people instead of bank profits.
the old pipes are cracking. new pipes are being built. most people are still arguing about the faucets.
what i noticed.
countries and companies are buying gold, silver, and copper. not because they’re scared. because they’re positioning for a future that looks different than the past.
gold is protection. when you don’t trust governments or currencies, you buy gold. central banks have been stockpiling it for years. china and russia especially.
silver is protection plus demand. it’s in everything being built. solar panels, electric vehicles, electronics. not just fear. real use.
copper is in everything. every wire, motor, data center, EV, drone. AI infrastructure alone is adding massive demand.
the financial cracking and the physical scarcity are the same story. countries see it. companies see it. the question is whether regular people see it in time.
how i’m seeing it.
i don’t know where this goes. the old anchors are slipping.
near term, the doj investigation looks like leverage, not prosecution. the real target is rates. but the pressure itself is the signal. if the fed can be pushed around, the dollar’s credibility takes a hit.
medium term, whoever controls the new pipes wins. stablecoins, digital money, the ability to move value without middlemen. and whoever controls the physical stuff like copper, rare earths, energy has leverage in a world where trust in paper promises is fading.
i learned something this week about what i can and can’t control.
i made three thousand dollars trading copper and gold. good setups. patience. discipline. then i got greedy on a gold trade. no stop loss. no protection. things turned against me fast. six thousand two hundred dollars gone in minutes.
the thesis was right. the execution was wrong.
i wanted to control the outcome. i couldn’t. all i could control was my reaction. my process. my positioning.
the sermon and the markets taught me the same thing this week. you can't control the messiness of rearranging. only how you move through it.
that’s the lesson for markets. maybe it’s the lesson for everything right now.
some lingering thoughts.
what actually helps someone without capital, without family wealth, without a head start?
if the fed loses its independence, what happens to foreign holders of US debt? do they sell? does that push rates up, the opposite of what trump wants?
if stablecoins win the fight in congress, what happens to community banks? do they survive? does credit dry up for small businesses and homebuyers?
if countries keep buying gold and moving away from the dollar, where does that money go?
what do i want to be true?
the scene: pursuit of happyness. chris gardner on the bathroom floor. holding his son. someone knocking. nothing left to control but how he holds what matters.
the read: none of us are easy to be with. sometimes the hardest person to be with is yourself.
the question i can’t shake: what do you do when everything is rearranging?
the world rearranged itself. and somehow, so am i.
i’m different. the world is different. i don’t know what comes next.
but i’m not running. i’m trusting the process.
it’s okay that everything is changing. i can handle it.
i am right where i need to be.
outcomes belong to god. reactions belong to me.
— b.