GM97: Why Isn’t Anything Breaking? ft. Steen Jakobsen
Top Traders Unplugged
Niels Kaastrup-Larsen
4.8 • 712 Ratings
🗓️ 18 February 2026
⏱️ 53 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The global order is shifting in plain sight. In this Global Macro conversation, Steen Jakobsen, inventor of the Outrages Predictions, joins Niels Kaastrup-Larsen and Alan Dunne to examine the slow grind reshaping productivity, debt, currencies, and political stability. From dollar regime risk to state capitalism, from market concentration to commodity repricing, the discussion moves beyond headlines to structural fault lines. Is gold signaling debasement? Can the U.S. sustain its debt path? Does AI lift productivity or hollow it out? Rather than predict collapse, Jakobsen outlines a drawn-out transition where capital reallocates, volatility hides beneath the surface, and political systems are tested long before markets finally react.
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Episode TimeStamps:
01:38 - Introducing Steen Jakobsen
03:45 - From trading floors to outrageous predictions
06:32 - Dollar hedging and regime shift signals
08:06 - Davos as a macro catalyst
12:11 - The K shaped U.S. economy
14:50 - State capitalism and fiscal dominance
17:30 - What could invalidate the bearish dollar view
21:37 - Fed independence and policy credibility
24:49 - AI productivity or structural disinflation
27:56 - The modern Soviet analogy
31:21 - Democracy, debt and slow breakdown
33:18 - What could finally trigger market stress
37:08 - Commodities and tangible asset repricing
47:02 - Gold as a debasement signal
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I think it leads to a breakdown of the system, both and most importantly the political one. |
| 0:11.6 | And I understand why we're getting right-wing government. |
| 0:14.2 | I understand why we're getting populist politicians. |
| 0:17.7 | The contract with the voters is not working anywhere in the world. |
| 0:23.6 | But we need to understand that this is a slow-moving sort of grind towards lower productivity, |
| 0:29.6 | lowest disposable income and a debt issue that is unresolved |
| 0:34.6 | because the politician is not willing to take that political bet that they need to deal |
| 0:39.6 | with this outstanding debt. Imagine spending an hour with the world's greatest traders. Imagine learning |
| 0:47.7 | from their experiences, their successes, and their failures. Imagine no more. Welcome to Top Traders Unplugged, |
| 0:55.8 | the place where you can learn from the best hedge fund managers in the world, |
| 0:59.4 | so you can take your manager, due diligence, or investment career to the next level. |
| 1:04.1 | Before we begin today's conversation, |
| 1:06.1 | remember to keep two things in mind. |
| 1:08.1 | All the discussion we'll have about investment performance is about the past, |
| 1:11.8 | and past performance does not guarantee or even infer anything about future performance. Also understand |
| 1:17.5 | that there's a significant risk of financial loss with all investment strategies, and you need to |
| 1:22.0 | request and understand the specific risks from the investment manager about their product |
| 1:26.5 | before you make investment |
| 1:27.8 | decisions. |
| 1:28.9 | Here's your host, veteran hedge fund manager, Niels Kostrup Larson. |
| 1:38.4 | A new world order is becoming clearer by the day. |
| 1:41.9 | And in our global macro series, I, along with my co-host, Alan Dunn, want to dig deep into |
... |
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