Nice to see Glennnon's book mentioned. I liked it. And it always bothered me when in the original Star Trek. Kirk: How long will it take to fix the engines? Scottie: An hour, Sir. Kirk: Make it thirty minutes!
I like your stuff but jeez, maybe lay off the poor a little. They don’t just make $3k less and suddenly get free everything. Even your numbers are off; it’s not $30k it’s closer to $19k-$23k and that’s for a family trying to raise kids.
It would be refreshing if, in the spirit of Christianity you profess, if you would advocate that the richest country in the world do more for more instead of arguing the least get even less.
If you think I’m poor-bashing, I’m doing a terrible job here. You can take up with Mike any errors you think he made, but I liked his explanation of the ordeal the middle-class goes through. I can related to when I was 15 and working at a liquor store for $2 an hour. People would come in and buy liquor and cigs with cash and use food stamps for milk. I had to pay cash.
Consider that maybe your experience is anecdotal. I have a hard time hearing any of it from people who haven’t worked their way through both classes.
I can say watching the general public vote against their own interests (the racket/money pit that are insurance companies) or advocate for everything getting more expensive over perceived self-enrichment (home ownership) has made me very apathetic towards the market and current economic system because, as you generally point out, it has never been intended to serve us.
We aren’t here because society needs a basic safety net, we’re here because our society is full low-information people.
Thank you for collecting all these items. What I would really like is for someone to tell me, a US retail investor, is how to buy positive un-correlated ETFs for my kid's retirement accounts that the Dredge interview talks about.
Thank you. I have put them in small gold, GDX, SLV, SPPP, exposure. Commodities through CTA and HARD. PFIX for i rates, but he talks of the leverage from owning options.
The silver lining is no one gets to walk away from whatever's coming. Even the super-doopers who've got bunkers or estates on islands haven't done a serious neighborhood flip side RE risk analysis (ex. if Jamaicans or Haitians decide to become boat people and go island hoping).
Given hindsight is 20-20 and we've seen the trail of breadcrumbs from 2008-2019, whatever happens next will be a same same but different variation. So for instance, credit liquidity will expand faster than diluting value, but as your sacks of trash meme suggests, compared to what? Europeans will buy American trash and vice-versa, so far do good. The shit test will be when China won't accept either. Arnaud Bertrand (good int relations analyst) here on substack had an interesting observation today on how Xi requested a phone call with DJT, that it's the first time since 2001 that China has initiated contact with the USA, topic being reframing the historicity of the relationship based on peer-level victors of WW2. So something is changing and positioning has already moved to a different dynamic, we just don't see it yet at the surface. Because China has the double currency regime, their internal market is at least partially insulated, and the payments processing in Renminbi has already been experimented with and is functioning (more with Russia, but also India and the Saudis). So I'd say the chessboard is set. So back to the call. The call is an invitation to the USA to ditch Japan, or at least to muscle out Japan. But China knows the USA won't ditch Japan, and Japan has just announced it would go full hard-on over Taiwan. I think the play could be something like China trying to get Japan to rediscover fear and do something stupid or instigate homegrown nationalism, perhaps triggering capital repatriation to fund investment, which would indirectly hit the value of the USD.
The negotiations over Ukraine, especially this latest salvo of the 28 ducks, big picture, confirms the unreliability of the West. Even if a negotiated agreement is reached, what happens after the next election cycle? How many more Venezuela's could happen? Nexperia kinda confirmed what everyone thought would happen if cat eats mouse. Blame the Europeans for not holding their nerve.
Why fight a war if your opponent disintegrates without you ever having to fire a shot?
I read the book about the Theranos fraud but never actually heard Elizabeth Holmes until I clicked the clip. Man, she's got a deep voice. That's enough to make me suspicious.
The worst part about having made any financial or economic forecasts is that if you happen live long enough to be proven wrong, you might have to explain the reasons why you were off by a mile or ten.
Krugman and many of his ilk are still happily explaining away to anyone who'd listen.
The El Faro story reminds me of the scene in Stripes when Captain Stillman (John Larroquette's character) tells the private to fire a missile on the range, and the private asks, "What coordinates, Sir?" and Stillman goes off about how the army has trained him to do his job and he should shut up and fire. So he does, and the missile goes way off the range and knocks Sargent "Our Big Toe" Hulka out of the tower.
Your AGI cheeseburger is a good one. It reminds me of a subreddit I came across recently dedicated to recreating John Frusciante's pedal board, as if having his exact gear is somehow going to magically turn these bedroom players into him. As someone who has been playing in bands for over 30 years, I can tell you the idea of having the best gear has caught on in a way I never would have imagined, even in underground music. When I started you bought whatever you could afford, and you made the best of it, maybe traded up as you got better and figured out what you liked. Now new bands that barely have enough songs to make a record (and I just mean in length, not that they are any good) show up at tiny venues with thousands of dollars of equipment for each of them.
"Many people are not able to refuse an illegal or dangerous order because they can not live below their means and build up a surplus that would sustain them while being in between jobs or making a transition to entrepreneurship."
You always need to have FU money. So you can say yeah, FU, I'm outta here.
So glad you posted Michael Green's post. I read it last Sunday and it's haunted me since.
Nice to see Glennnon's book mentioned. I liked it. And it always bothered me when in the original Star Trek. Kirk: How long will it take to fix the engines? Scottie: An hour, Sir. Kirk: Make it thirty minutes!
Happy Thanksgiving Rudy! Thanks for keeping watch on everything.
The Huckle & Bearer sides of the Faro table:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFMm-jNv-fw
Not just Econ. Not just Finance, either. “…everything they were teaching … was wrong.”
I like your stuff but jeez, maybe lay off the poor a little. They don’t just make $3k less and suddenly get free everything. Even your numbers are off; it’s not $30k it’s closer to $19k-$23k and that’s for a family trying to raise kids.
It would be refreshing if, in the spirit of Christianity you profess, if you would advocate that the richest country in the world do more for more instead of arguing the least get even less.
If you think I’m poor-bashing, I’m doing a terrible job here. You can take up with Mike any errors you think he made, but I liked his explanation of the ordeal the middle-class goes through. I can related to when I was 15 and working at a liquor store for $2 an hour. People would come in and buy liquor and cigs with cash and use food stamps for milk. I had to pay cash.
Consider that maybe your experience is anecdotal. I have a hard time hearing any of it from people who haven’t worked their way through both classes.
I can say watching the general public vote against their own interests (the racket/money pit that are insurance companies) or advocate for everything getting more expensive over perceived self-enrichment (home ownership) has made me very apathetic towards the market and current economic system because, as you generally point out, it has never been intended to serve us.
We aren’t here because society needs a basic safety net, we’re here because our society is full low-information people.
You’re probably more right than wrong ✌️
Consider that you misunderstand me.i started working in 6th grade.
Thank you for collecting all these items. What I would really like is for someone to tell me, a US retail investor, is how to buy positive un-correlated ETFs for my kid's retirement accounts that the Dredge interview talks about.
Thank you. I have put them in small gold, GDX, SLV, SPPP, exposure. Commodities through CTA and HARD. PFIX for i rates, but he talks of the leverage from owning options.
I am mostly ignorant on options, intentionally. I probably should’ve put the time in, but I’ve done ok.
Closest I can tell for a plain vanilla retail guy like me is via options. I’ll ask him to put something in a paragraph for neanderthals like me.
The silver lining is no one gets to walk away from whatever's coming. Even the super-doopers who've got bunkers or estates on islands haven't done a serious neighborhood flip side RE risk analysis (ex. if Jamaicans or Haitians decide to become boat people and go island hoping).
Given hindsight is 20-20 and we've seen the trail of breadcrumbs from 2008-2019, whatever happens next will be a same same but different variation. So for instance, credit liquidity will expand faster than diluting value, but as your sacks of trash meme suggests, compared to what? Europeans will buy American trash and vice-versa, so far do good. The shit test will be when China won't accept either. Arnaud Bertrand (good int relations analyst) here on substack had an interesting observation today on how Xi requested a phone call with DJT, that it's the first time since 2001 that China has initiated contact with the USA, topic being reframing the historicity of the relationship based on peer-level victors of WW2. So something is changing and positioning has already moved to a different dynamic, we just don't see it yet at the surface. Because China has the double currency regime, their internal market is at least partially insulated, and the payments processing in Renminbi has already been experimented with and is functioning (more with Russia, but also India and the Saudis). So I'd say the chessboard is set. So back to the call. The call is an invitation to the USA to ditch Japan, or at least to muscle out Japan. But China knows the USA won't ditch Japan, and Japan has just announced it would go full hard-on over Taiwan. I think the play could be something like China trying to get Japan to rediscover fear and do something stupid or instigate homegrown nationalism, perhaps triggering capital repatriation to fund investment, which would indirectly hit the value of the USD.
The negotiations over Ukraine, especially this latest salvo of the 28 ducks, big picture, confirms the unreliability of the West. Even if a negotiated agreement is reached, what happens after the next election cycle? How many more Venezuela's could happen? Nexperia kinda confirmed what everyone thought would happen if cat eats mouse. Blame the Europeans for not holding their nerve.
Why fight a war if your opponent disintegrates without you ever having to fire a shot?
I read the book about the Theranos fraud but never actually heard Elizabeth Holmes until I clicked the clip. Man, she's got a deep voice. That's enough to make me suspicious.
The worst part about having made any financial or economic forecasts is that if you happen live long enough to be proven wrong, you might have to explain the reasons why you were off by a mile or ten.
Krugman and many of his ilk are still happily explaining away to anyone who'd listen.
The El Faro story reminds me of the scene in Stripes when Captain Stillman (John Larroquette's character) tells the private to fire a missile on the range, and the private asks, "What coordinates, Sir?" and Stillman goes off about how the army has trained him to do his job and he should shut up and fire. So he does, and the missile goes way off the range and knocks Sargent "Our Big Toe" Hulka out of the tower.
Your AGI cheeseburger is a good one. It reminds me of a subreddit I came across recently dedicated to recreating John Frusciante's pedal board, as if having his exact gear is somehow going to magically turn these bedroom players into him. As someone who has been playing in bands for over 30 years, I can tell you the idea of having the best gear has caught on in a way I never would have imagined, even in underground music. When I started you bought whatever you could afford, and you made the best of it, maybe traded up as you got better and figured out what you liked. Now new bands that barely have enough songs to make a record (and I just mean in length, not that they are any good) show up at tiny venues with thousands of dollars of equipment for each of them.
Everybody told me you can’t get far on 37 dollars and a Jap guitar…..
It’s hard to make predictions, especially about the future. Yogi.
“History alone is a very poor measure of risk, because it only tells you what did happen, not what could have happened.” Gag me with a spoon.
Q: Has John Williams ever had a callous?
thanks yet again
time for a new political party devoted to punching the assholes and scammers and pedos in the face.
"Many people are not able to refuse an illegal or dangerous order because they can not live below their means and build up a surplus that would sustain them while being in between jobs or making a transition to entrepreneurship."
You always need to have FU money. So you can say yeah, FU, I'm outta here.
Three Dog Night!
https://youtu.be/SlWrMpV1vy0?si=VwRmg6qd6kLjsUtC