Hello and happy Friday, Subscribers:
Last week, we were privileged and happy to share with you an excerpted work from the mind of Sir Steven Wilkinson, a work originally posted in the February 2025 edition of Grant Williams’ Things That Make You Go Hmmm… newsletter. This week, we have decided to re-publish further material from that special brain-trust compendium edition of TTMYGH, another entry highly deserving of a close read.
That is particularly the case considering this installment is focused on Japan and, as most readers are aware, we’ve long had a controversially bullish view of the deeply undervalued yen. You may have noticed that with the U.S. stock market under pressure lately, the yen has been performing its usual “port in the storm” role. It is now up about 7% in 2025 which is, coincidentally, almost exactly what the formerly hyper-performing NASDAQ is down.
The essay shared below was contributed to the February TTMYGH edition by an investor named Andrew McDermott, a man in whose economic/high-finance knowledge Grant places considerable trust. As he states in his own introduction:
I called Andrew McDermott, a man who, in the relatively short time I’ve known him, has proven to be another invaluable sounding board, especially as he draws upon his experiences in Japan to help me envision a future that might look like another past.
Andrew’s level-headed, thoughtful, diligent approach to investing has attracted the likes of Warren Buffet, and I’ve found those same attributes increasingly valuable in a world untethered from any kind of anchor.
If there’s a better reason to hear out Mr. McDermott, we can’t imagine what it might be.
At its core, McDermott’s work focuses on reorienting our economic systems to closely and conscientiously align them with the socio-civilizational values we recognize as sustaining, worthwhile, and fundamental to deep-rooted prosperity. Identifying such an example brought McDermott to a place with which he is personally familiar, a place whose social merits are evidenced by geo-economic attributes from which all nations might learn a thing or two. As McDermott’s essay title suggests, the Japanese example might serve well as our guide.
The Haymaker Team
