Blog Archives

O(y) IL VEY

oil vey

Yet again we have witnessed something unprecedented. As the following two charts show, we have never had negative oil prices until last week. Oil has never been cheaper on an inflation-adjusted basis than it is today.

Cost of a barrel of oil in nominal terms 1870 - 2020

Cost of a barrel of oil in real USD terms 1870 - 2020

Source: Marketwatch

And while under “normal” circumstances this would be great for the consumer,

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Are We Missing the Importance of Risk Layering?

Risk Layering

Risk comes in all forms and fashions and it’s a real talent to identify risk. Howard Marks, Chairman of Oaktree Capital Management and who was kind enough to write a testimonial for my book, is perhaps the foremost expert at identifying different types of risk and assessing it.

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Ghosts of Inverted Yield Curve Past

Yield Curve inverted

And all the roads we have to walk are winding

And all the lights that lead us there are blinding

-Wonderwall by Noel Gallagher (for Oasis)

I saw a double bill of Noel Gallagher (formerly of Oasis) and Smashing Pumpkins last week.

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Global Warming - Then and Now

global warming climate change

The impassioned plea that took place recently from teen climate activist Greta Thunberg at the U.N. understandably caught the attention of much of the developed world. At the risk of being controversial/politically incorrect I decided to do a couple of searches on www.newspaperarchive.com on “Climate Change” and “Global Warming” and restrict the years to between 1919 and 1965 to see if these were topics covered by newspapers back then and,

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Built To Last - Finite vs. Infinite Games

Finite and Infinite Games

I had the pleasure of seeing Crazy Rich Asians last week. It was quite enjoyable and I very much recommend it. There is a scene in the movie that represents the clash of values between generations and cultures (Chinese and Chinese American) in which the matriarch criticizes her son’s Chinese American girlfriend for being fixated on the American obsession of happiness and wanting to be happy.

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The Power of No - When to Use It

The-Power-of-No

One of the hallmarks of very successful people is the ability to say “No”. Of course, there are those people who say no because they don’t want to do the work or they are obstinate and sometimes don’t like being told what to do. I’m not talking about those types of individuals.

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Scars & Unhealthy Risk Avoidance of Skyrocketing Interest Rates

Risk Avoidance Interest-Rate

“The spectacular rise in interest rates during the 1970’s and early 1980’s pushed many long-term market rates on prime credits up to levels never before approached, much less reached, in modern history. A long view, provided by this history, shows that recent peak yields were far above the highest prime long-term rates reported in the United States since 1800,

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See and Wait

See and Wait

Not surprisingly, the Fed pulled the trigger and raised short-term interest rates by 0.25% for the first time since last December. I thought I would convey what I think are the most pertinent variables to be monitoring in the wake of the Fed tightening. I’m calling this blog post “See and Wait” as I will be showing many charts and opine on some of the ramifications but we will have to wait to see how it unfolds in the real economy.

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Safe Space - Can We Watch Things Unfold from a Safe Distance?

Safe Space - Gary Carmell

I recently read about Tesla’s autopilot software update being able to look one and two cars ahead to determine if they are safe or at risk of an accident and, if so, this would then trigger the Tesla to slow down to avoid it.

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Revisiting the Spanish Flu: What Can a Dire Pandemic Look Like?

Pandemics

I’m admittedly obsessed by pandemics. I’ve been listening to the course on the Black Death via the Great Courses, I was in China at the tail end of SARS in 2003 and was intensely focused on what life was like during that time there, and of course,

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