My issue with global macro is that, broadly, everyone is looking at the same inputs. Yes, there is still asymmetry, and people who do the extra work instead of being macro tourists can find idiosyncratic opportunities.

But macro is not physics. It is a soft science. There is no real methodological rigour, no clean lab conditions, and a lot comes down to interpretation. That is where people get into trouble, and where the best opportunities usually hide.
In 2008, people had access to the same housing and labour data. What differed was the interpretation. The perma-optimists, shaped by a Pavlovian “buy the dip” mindset after years of markets grinding higher, kept finding reasons to defend the status quo. "Late cycle, maybe some softness, but nothing to worry about." That is usually how it works. People justify their book. They anchor to what has been working. They fall asleep at the wheel and grow comfortable and complacent.
I am all for first-principles optimism, but doing the extra homework is what exposes the cracks in consensus. Burry was not lucky. He went tape by tape while everyone else shrugged.
In crypto, you can see the same split in how people read Saylor, MSTR, and now STRC. Some see structural support for BTC, others see fragility hiding behind financial engineering. Nobody really knows yet. We are all interpreting it in real time.
More broadly, this moment feels similar. Consensus is splitting around AI and data centre capex, private credit leverage and covenant-lite erosion, sticky inflation, and a labour market that looks softer under the surface than the headlines suggest. Feels like one of those periods where opinions continue to bifurcate and the truth is closer than what is being priced.