The Network State Podcast #27 - Luke Gromen
33 snips
Jan 14, 2026 
Luke Gromen, a macroeconomic analyst and founder of Forest for the Trees, shares insights from his 30 years in finance. He discusses how stocks drive consumer spending and the implications of the Fed’s interventions on market stability. Gromen emphasizes the strategic shift of BRICS away from the dollar towards gold and the yuan. The duo explores China's manufacturing dominance, its impact on U.S. military supply chains, and the consequences of potential de-dollarization, painting a vivid picture of today’s global economic landscape.
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Hunting Economic Bottlenecks
- Luke Gromen hunts for developing economic bottlenecks by reading broadly and connecting disparate signals over long periods.
- He uses a mental “cutting room” to save anomalies until patterns emerge and create investable themes.
BRICS Reaction After 2008
- Post-2008 U.S. monetary policy convinced BRICS that dollar inflation would repeat past crises, prompting de-dollarization moves.
- China and others moved toward gold and yuan clearing to avoid exported dollar inflation draining their FX reserves.
Stocks As The U.S. Economy
- Stocks are effectively the U.S. economy on the margin because equity-linked income drives consumer spending and tax receipts.
- That dependence forces policymakers to prop equities to avoid deficit and treasury-market crises.
