Sigh, oil prices plunged 21% at the open today. Historically, the final surge in oil prices has always been the beginning of a major stock market crash in the US. High oil prices > high inflation > inability to cut interest rates, or even need to raise them to control inflation > squeezed corporate profits > layoffs > worsening economy > but because of high inflation, interest rate cuts cannot be made to save the economy. The Federal Reserve has two missions: 1. To ensure maximum sustainable employment (controlling the unemployment rate) 2. To ensure price stability (controlling inflation) When neither of these can be controlled, it's stagflation. The last time the US truly experienced stagflation was in the late 1970s and early 1980s, also due to the revolution in Iran causing oil prices to soar, ending in a severe recession in the US. Then-Federal Reserve Chairman Volcker used years of extremely tight monetary policy to pull the US out of stagflation (at its peak, the federal funds rate was 20%). Sigh, so worrying. Why can't Ethereum, which is called digital oil, rise along with it? 🤡