Blog Archives

The Compounding of Intelligence - Is Wealth The Key?

intelligence

One of the conventional narratives in our capitalist society is that the wealthy and most successful people are often the brightest and hard-working. I think what this fails to take into consideration is the nature versus nurture debate. People often think of intelligence as being innate and not very changeable.

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Rust Never Sleeps

Tennis Rust

It’s been five weeks since my back surgery and I’ve been doing my best to follow instructions from my doctor and physical therapist to lay off tennis and other strenuous activities for at least six weeks. And while I have generally adhered to their advice,

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Mixed Signals and Another Powell Pivot

Mixed Signals and Another Powell Pivot

There’s an old joke about economists that asks what happens when you put 10 economists in a room. You get 10 opinions. Well, in predicting whether the Fed would cut the Federal Funds Rate by 25 basis points or 50 basis points, they were virtually unanimous in their opinion,

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Housing Shock Therapy

Housing Shock Therapy

It’s been a challenging couple of years for apartment owners, but, as I have been writing about over the past year or so, there is definitely light at the end of the tunnel. This is because apartment construction while having been at historically high levels,

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Capping off a Good Week

Rate Cap

After the chaos in Japan led to a pretty massive unwind of the yen carry trade, which spilled over to stock market losses and Treasury market gains (yields dropping), last week reversed some of that carnage. The stock market rebounded sharply, and bond yields went up,

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Gradually ---> Suddenly (Yet Again)

Gradually Suddenly

I think this headline last Friday from CNBC tells us much of what we need to know about the economy. 

August 2, 2024 Dow tumbles 800 points, Nasdaq enters correction territory

Up until recently disappointing economic news was generally good for the stock market because it has led to lower interest rates and more pressure on the Fed to cut rates.

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It Is Time

Interest Rates It is Time

In The Lion King there comes a pivotal moment when Simba has to claim his rightful place on the throne and confront Scar. His mentor/guardian Rafiki reacts to this crossing of the threshold by Simba with the line “It is time!”. This is how I feel about Jay Powell and the Fed in terms of cutting interest rates.

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A Tale of Two Surveys

Tale of two surveys Household Survey

Now, I go down to Speaker’s Corner, I’m thunderstruck

They got free speech tourists, police in trucks

Two men say they’re Jesus, one of them must be wrong

Industrial Disease by Dire Straits

Interest rates came down quite a bit and then shot up after the non-farm payroll report was released on Friday,

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A Healthy Heart During Trying Times

CPI

Last week I had my annual cardiologist appointment which involves having an echocardiogram and EEG. I have been doing this for a number of years because I had mitral valve prolapse and a corresponding leaky valve which required annual monitoring. For many years the situation was stable until 2020 when the valve started leaking much more than it had been and was starting to enlarge the heart. 

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What 'The Eleven' Has to Do With Interest Rates?

The Eleven

The Grateful Dead have a song called The Eleven. In many ways the lyrics are unintelligible. It was written during their psychedelic phase so the lack of comprehension makes some sense as their senses were non-sensical.

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