David Collum, Cornell Professor and financial critic, provides a sobering study of the 2025 economic landscape. The core idea shows a state of recursive decay where primary systems feed on their own outputs. This process results in a decoupling from reality. This cycle, called recursive slop, appears in artificial intelligence models training on synthetic data. It also appears in passive investment flows driving valuations without regard for fundamentals. The death of signal ensures that price discovery and truth discovery remain absent from modern systems.
The current asset bubble represents a significant moral failure rather than a simple valuation risk. High asset prices function as debt for the next generation. This arrangement forces younger individuals to purchase small slices of a slowly growing global economy at high rates. This systemic arrangement preserves senior portfolios at the expense of generational equity. The everything bubble persists because institutional mechanisms for accountability have been compromised. This status leads to a golden age of propaganda where experts maintain a unified but hollow narrative.
Precious metals demonstrated strong performance in 2025. This growth was driven by central bank buying and industrial deficits. Gold surpassed record highs as the use of the dollar as a weapon forced nations to reconsider the safety of global banking systems. Silver and platinum followed similar paths. These trends suggest a fundamental shift toward tangible assets. Trust in institutional frameworks and paper currency continues to erode.
Institutional collapse is visible across academia, medicine, and governance. The university system faces a state of decay. This decay is marked by falling academic standards and the loss of intellectual sovereignty. Modern institutions prioritize institutional preservation over original mission and witnessed truth. The resulting environment requires individuals to build self-consistent models of reality. This must be done independent of authoritative claims. Intellectual autonomy becomes the primary tool for navigating a technocracy that changes faster than the human capacity to understand information.
The terminal phase of a long career reveals the ultimate depreciation of time. Reclaiming presence and simplicity serves as the final act of resilience in a collapsing framework. The choices available to individuals involve a shift from public digital combat toward private meaning and family preservation. Success in a decaying system is measured by the ability to identify the point of diminishing returns. Resilience emerges from clarity and the recognition that time remains the most valuable asset in any financial or philosophical portfolio.