Berkshire's cash soars to $325B, Buffett sells Apple, Bank of America

A large number of structural changes were made that fundamentally make the entire monetary system unsound, and these were largely silent changes (Basel III modified, no longer fractional banking reserve/overunity).

I've still got my copies of Benjamin Graham's Intelligent Investor, and Security Analysis by Graham Dodd sitting on my shelf, but nearly everything in those two books is no longer relevant with these changes, I'll still keep them as historical reference though their utility is now gone.

Other changes include preferential treatment of assets/synthetic shares/contracts during clearing for certain parties in the market (paper printing via commodities contracts/options).

Banking in general is in a deflationary concentration super-cycle. New banks can't enter the market, and the liabilities exceed assets for GSIBs/SIFIs. As time progresses, each will collapse chaotically, and when that bubble bursts it takes the markets with it into full deflation.

The petrodollar agreement being abandoned by the Saudi's is what is driving this to occur more rapidly. All the money printed and held by countries abroad is now returning to compete for the same goods. The demand for that pool of currency is much lower now.

The dynamics/indicators are flip-flopping between hyper-inflation Weimar, and great depression (for a couple months now).

This potentially might be a new big debt crises archetype. It appears that inflationary and deflationary pressures are spiking chaotically, labor statistics are being constantly revised (horribly inaccurate), and since action is based on lagging indicators eventually hysteresis results in a misstep hard landing.

You have a chaotic and narrowing safe path that eventually ends, which some argue describes the economic calculation problem.

Ponzi's always exact an unreasonable price. If you are interested in these archetypes, Ray Dalio's Bridgewater Report on Big Debt Crises is useful, though in my opinion he neglects a basic fact that reserve currencies can collapse without a replacement being on-hand and so a beautiful deleveraging is a matter of chance.

The collapse can be slow though, and evidenced by the shrinking number of producers in the market (those not backed by preferential loans/printing press).

Adam Smith's requirement; producers must make a profit in purchasing power or they leave the market. No real market can exist when entities cooperate, and are sustained by a printing press.