I have a good friend named Frank, who I've known for more than 20 years now. I first met him during the summer before going to college. I joined a research program and he was my mentor, having joined the phD program shortly before.

Talking to him, he became a great influence on the way I thought about things, especially on the subject of economics. He taught me about P.E. ratios and what was really going on during the housing boom and bust as it was unfolding in 2008. He was also the first person who taught me to treasure experiences more than possessions, though we were both collectors, bordering on hoarding.

One thing we both discovered throughout our friendship was the enjoyment of food. When I first met Frank, he would microwave a bowl of frozen peas everyday for lunch. He had discovered that it was the most efficient way to get the most nutritious and healthy diet. As for me, my go-to would be noodles, topped with mixed vegetables and an egg in a broth of soy sauce, salt, and Thai chili peppers. I would never eat out, believing it to be a waste of money.

One day, Frank took me to La Madeleine, a local French bakery chain. We both ordered a cup of coffee and snacked on the free bread. Frank explained to me that he measured his success by how far down there menu he could order, and at that point, we were both ordering the cheapest item. Eventually, hopefully we would get to the most expensive at some point. Those were simpler times back then.

To commemorate our 20 years of knowing each other, which for me was more than half my life, I invited him along with another older gentleman who I've known for even longer (he watched me grow up), by the name of Yiuman, to a 15 course Omakaze dinner. This was the Pinnacle of Luxury, a term that Frank coined, used to describe the various points of our lives where we experienced what we believed to be things that were as good as they get.

However, this may actually be it. At the conclusion of our dinner, we reflected on the current political situation and the end of globalization. It took us 20 years to go from ordering a cup of coffee to eating premium fresh raw fish flown in from around the world, prepared with various precious garnishes, sauces, and techniques. It may be that in 20 more years, we will be once again ordering a cup of coffee and reflecting on the good old days. We may be describing to the youth of that day, a situation that seems so alien as to appear impossible.

The world's fish stocks are overfished and are gradually disappearing. It seems the heyday of tech jobs may be behind us, at least for another economic cycle, as the effects of AI and higher interest rates take hold. The decades long global arrangement may be reaching the end of the road, as the American public, the consumer of the world, is tapped out of any means of financing their elevated lifestyles, while contributing little to productivity with the out of whack distribution of job roles concentrating in administrative, managerial, and customer service work while coming up short on both physical manufacturing and technological scientific breakthroughs.

We may look back on this time fondly, as a time when it was expensive to eat raw fish from the other side of the world, but at least it was possible. Or things may be even better in the future. However, I think things need to be rebalanced and that means pain in the interim.