If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck – The Duck Test For the past six months, the stock market has traded in a tight range where sell-offs mysteriously lead to short-squeezes before they can pick up momentum. I’ve been observing this […]
The tipping point is the magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spread like wildfire – Malcolm Gladwell Prior to 1979, Iran had a strong secular society with deep roots and traditions dating back to the Persian Empire. Based on what I’ve read about expats and people still […]
Risk is the sort of word that is easy to discuss upfront but tough to handle when it comes time to pay the piper – Nathan Myhrvold Data center growth and artificial intelligence have combined to make Microsoft, Google, Nvidia, Amazon, Meta, ASML, Tesla, TSM, Micron, and Apple insanely over-valued. They were given a ten-year […]
The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without – Dwight D. Eisenhower China is a feudal society much like it was at the end of the Qing dynasty (1911). Instead of aristocrats and land owners, Red princelings are the nobility today, […]
Geology is the study of time and pressure. That’s all it takes, really, pressure, and time. Stephen King (Shawshank Redemption) The global economy, led by China, is headed for a major decline and no amount of positive thinking will change this fact. Plenty of investors have come to this conclusion but constant intervention has been […]
The way to cut the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation – Vladimir Lenin Twenty years ago, I worked under the assumption that inflation was purely a monetary phenomenon like Milton Friedman told us in his books and that Gresham’s Law, where bad money drives out good, would prevail. […]
Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong – Ayn Rand The question of inflation, deflation, and re-sets is being discussed ad nauseum in the media, in research reports, and even in many social interactions yet I rarely […]
Trust not the horse, O Trojans. Be it what it may, I fear the Greeks when they offer gifts – Virgil The deeper I dig into Artificial Intelligence, the less I see commercial utility and the more I see it as the Trojan Horse full of hackers, bad actors, and controlling bureaucrats. Large Language Models, […]
The first panacea of a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists – Ernest Hemingway Emmanuel Macron of France and Keir Starmer of Britain are both anxious for war with Russia. Why? Neither has the dominating […]
