This breakdown focuses on what is discussed and how the evidence is framed, not on evaluating the individuals involved.
In this episode of The Journey Man, Raoul Pal sits down with Julien Bittel to lay out what they call “The Everything Code” a macro framework built around one dominant driver: global liquidity.
Their central claim is simple but aggressive: most investing debates are noise, because liquidity is the tide that lifts and drops almost everything. In that regime, they argue diversification stops being protection and starts becoming slow-motion underperformance.
Key Takeaways
- Liquidity is framed as the main market driver, expanding globally at roughly ~8% per year in their model.
- They argue this creates a “hurdle rate” investors must beat just to avoid becoming poorer in real terms.
- “The Everything Code” maps markets through a four-season macro cycle: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, linked to growth + inflation regimes.
- They claim diversification is “dead” because most assets fail to beat debasement; outperformance concentrates in tech and crypto adoption.
- Their cycle call is specific: a projected liquidity/market peak around June 2025, with a meaningful cooling “Winter” phase later in 2025.
- Their positioning protocol is basically: stay long high-beta until liquidity rolls over.
The Newsdesk Lead
Raoul Pal and Julien Bittel present “The Everything Code” as a master macro lens that reduces markets to one key variable: liquidity.
Their verdict is that the old balanced portfolio struggles in an era of persistent debasement. In their framing, the only reliable way to outperform the system is to concentrate in the assets most levered to liquidity and exponential adoption primarily technology and crypto.
The Deep Dive
Liquidity as the “hidden boss level”
Their argument starts with a blunt premise: policy makers can’t tolerate debt deflation, so when collateral values wobble, the response is almost always more liquidity. In their model, that repeated intervention removes the traditional crash dynamic and replaces it with a cycle of reflation.
So instead of asking “Is the economy strong?” they ask: How much liquidity is being added, and where does excess liquidity flow?
The Four Seasons framework
They map growth and inflation into four phases:
- Spring: disinflationary boom
- Summer: inflationary boom
- Fall: inflationary bust
- Winter: disinflationary bust
The power of this section isn’t the labels, it’s the claim that regimes repeat often enough that you can treat them like a weather system.
The “hurdle rate” logic
They push a psychological reframe: if liquidity is expanding ~8% annually (in their model) and inflation is still a factor, then your “safe” returns may actually be stealth losses.
This is where their diversification argument comes from: if most assets fail to clear the hurdle, then spreading across them doesn’t reduce risk it just locks in mediocre real returns.
Concentration in secular winners
Their conclusion is intentionally narrow: if you want to beat debasement, you need to be positioned in the assets that historically absorb excess liquidity and ride adoption curves.
In their telling, that shortlist is basically:
- Technology (NASDAQ / growth duration)
- Crypto (especially Bitcoin as liquidity beta)
Whether you agree or not, the structure of their thesis is consistent: liquidity → regime → winners → positioning.
“Liquidity is everything. It is increasing on a globalized level at 8% a year. This is the global hurdle to all investments that you make. Anything that doesn’t beat this is actually making your future self poorer… you’ve got a 12% hurdle rate that is staggeringly difficult to beat.”
Why This Episode Matters
This episode matters because it’s not vague macro commentary it’s a framework with a clock on it.
They don’t just describe markets. They name the driver (liquidity), define the regime model (four seasons), and make a time-bound projection (mid-2025 peak). That makes the episode unusually valuable for serious viewers because it’s falsifiable: you can revisit the call and judge the model by what happened.
Even if you reject the conclusions, this is still a clean example of how a macro thesis is constructed and how easily investors can get pulled into narratives that feel mathematically inevitable.
What Viewers Are Saying
“The most comprehensive macro cycle breakdown I’ve ever seen – mandatory viewing” – @Matthew-sg3ew (132 likes)
“Possible one of the most important investment videos on the internet right now.” – @10discophil (142 likes)
Worth Watching If
Worth Watching If…
- You want the full “Everything Code” model explained slowly, not clipped into slogans.
- You’re trying to understand how liquidity cycles map onto tech and crypto risk.
- You like regime frameworks (growth/inflation) more than headline reactions.
Skip If:
- You want actionable personal finance steps or quick trading tactics this is macro structure, not a step-by-step money plan.
🎥 WATCH THE FULL EPISODE ON YOUTUBE
About the Creator
Raoul Pal is a macro investor and media founder best known for Real Vision and long-form macro frameworks aimed at cycle-based investing.
Julien Bittel is a macro researcher known for cycle and liquidity-led analysis, often presented through regime models and leading indicator frameworks.
Video Intelligence
Views: 259,118
Engagement: 10K likes, 615 comments
Runtime: 2 hours 15 minutes
Premiered: May 24, 2024
Viewer posture it rewards: patient, framework-minded, comfortable with macro abstractions
Core risk to note: correlation-heavy narratives can feel “inevitable” in hindsight; treat the charts as inputs to judgment, not substitutes for it.
This article is part of Creator Daily’s Money Desk, where we weigh long-form finance ideas and the trade-offs behind them.