anecdotes

“We’re trapped in an unstable equilibrium,” said Simplicity. “The Fed gets hawkish, the dollar rallies, stocks fall, the Fed gets dovish, the dollar falls, stocks rally, and the Fed gets hawkish,” he continued, dizzy, walking Occam’s razor edge. “This year’s money will be made when the cycle breaks.” A stubbornly hawkish Fed could break the cycle, raising rates in a determined fashion, enduring a dollar rally, weaker

“Someone once asked, ‘Are there any deals that got away from you that you wished you’d done?’” said the private equity managing partner. “Truth is, I wish I’d done every single deal that has crossed my desk over the course of my entire career,” he said, laughing, running his fingers through a greying mane. “It’s that simple. I would have lost money on plenty, but I’d have made so much more on the winners.” Would his

Opened the hatch and he bolted. A dead run. Off I jogged, in steady pursuit. The two of us on a rainy morning, deep into the woods, sublime spring glory. Shackleton’s a golden, a generous spirit, nine months old. Meaning he’s equal part heaven and hellion. Barking, bolting. Chewing, humping. He loves rabbits, deep mud, and dreams of going Guantanamo on the squirrels that terrorize his long days, confined to our yard

“Fear is a great motivator,” said the plumber, returning from Washington. “So before presenting my thoughts on market liquidity, I did an 8,000 page literature review,” he continued, hiking his belt, concealing crack. “The SEC wrote an amazing 1987 post mortem. There had been an ecosystem change they hadn’t understood.” New derivative insurance products had proliferated, and were poorly thought through. “When the S&a

“Central banks were created to be the banks for banks,” said the CIO. “They were structured to influence the economy by increasing or decreasing the attractiveness of lending money.” If central banks wanted to spur banks to lend to the real economy, they reduced the interest rate they could earn from parking their money at the central bank. If they wanted to reduce bank lending, they increased the attractiveness of m

“Best day of my life,” said Jackson, my oldest, fresh off the field, eyes ablaze. I smiled, seeing something new, asked him to explain what happened out there. “It’s hard to describe,” he quickly replied, then went quiet, considering, processing. “Coach Coleman told me to stop waiting for perfect shots, and start taking imperfect ones. Which didn’t make much sense, and made me nervous because I didn’t want to screw u

“Tell me what price means,” instructed Yoda, high in the Rockies. I sat quietly. “It means both nothing and everything,” he whispered. “Price means nothing if you must sell or buy.” And I considered the rising tide of global capital chasing diminishing returns, the crowding of positions, the scarcity of transactional liquidity. “But price means everything if you want to understand what is real in the world.” The majo

“People work in order to convert their time into a unit of account,” he said. “We call that money, and it’s an invention that allows us to store time.” Most people have stored little or none. So when they receive money, they quickly purchase necessities; food, shelter, health care. “People who are able to save money inevitably purchase real estate, stocks, bonds – all of which are alternative vehicles for storing tim

“I think about it all the time,” said the Dean of Technology. We were discussing the future, and what it means to be human. He’s building New York’s most ambitious institution for graduate education. Gotham’s swipe at Stanford. And as our great universities partner with government and business, concentrating technology and human intelligence, societal change accelerates. We live in one of humanity’s great periods of