For CoinDesk’s 2020 Year in Review, a collection of op-eds, essays and interviews about the year in crypto and beyond, Emfarsis Director Leah Callon-Butler wrote an opinion piece about the economic researcher Harry Dent, who predicted an impending economic crash in his 2017 book, “Zero Hour: Turn the Greatest Political and Financial Upheaval in Modern History to Your Advantage.”
With a career built on bold predictions, Harry established himself as a prominent figure in investment through his popular newsletters. He later relocated to Puerto Rico, attracted to its proactive approach to crisis management that did not rely on money printing to mask problems. This then led Harry to find kinship among the thriving crypto community on the island. He even delivered a keynote speech at the CoinAgenda conference, which was organized by legendary crypto investor and PR specialist Michael Terpin, who shares the same vision for the future of money.
In Leah’s CoinDesk piece, titled “The Pandemic Was Just the Catalyst,” she described how reading Harry’s provocative book three years after it was published felt as though Harry was commentating world events in real time. Harry seemed to have foreseen everything, with his book detailing a collapse resulting from the culmination of unsustainable technological progress and growth in the developed world, with central banks resorting to printing more money as a futile measure to stave off the inevitable downturn.
While his book does not specifically mention a pandemic, during a Zoom interview with Leah in December 2020, Harry outlined a series of calamitous events scheduled for decades. Reflecting on current global crises, he stated that COVID-19 acted as a catalyst for the convergence of various demographic and geopolitical cycles projected for 2020. He argued that recessions, depressions, booms, and busts are natural and necessary for efficiency, but their natural course had been disrupted by central banks’ interference and their top-down economic management through excessive stimulus and quantitative easing.
Despite facing criticism from skeptics like economic researcher and wealth adviser Larry Swedroe, who challenged the accuracy of his predictions, Harry remained undeterred. He saw such opposition as a typical reaction faced by disruptors and innovators, comparing it to being greeted with bullets and A-bombs. While his bearish outlook on Bitcoin and the prospect of a significant correction contradicted the prevailing sentiment at the time, Harry viewed the current phase as an early-stage S-shaped adoption curve, with blockchain technology still at around 1% penetration and poised for exponential growth.
Read the full article here:
“The Pandemic Was Just the Catalyst” by Leah Callon-Butler
Published January 6, 2021 on CoinDesk
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