anecdotes

“Think hard about what you would like from your new coach and what you are prepared to give him,” I told Jackson (15). He’d requested a meeting with Darien’s head coach, a lacrosse legend. “Imagine two young people walk into my office,” I continued. “Person A says: I’d like you to help me build a great career. I’m really ambitious. Please help me.” Jackson nodded. “Person B says: It’s such a privilege to have this op

“Imagine you and I built a hotel 40yrs ago,” said the CIO. “We knew it’d be hard. Hotels need lots of workers. There’s constant wear and tear.” Rooms need remodeling. “We hired 25yr old’s, trained them well. Those early years were dynamite. The place hummed.” Our workers formed unions. “They had a monopoly position against us, that’s basically what we call democracy.” It worked fine. “We agreed to pension plans. Room

“Oh dear,” said the CIO, from Tokyo. “No sooner have we declared that Japan is no longer experiencing deflation than we are looking to pre-empt inflation.” We were discussing Kuroda, who in a recent speech quoted Ralph Hawtrey, pioneer in the field of central bank expectations management. “In his book ‘Monetary Reconstruction’ published in 1923, Hawtrey stated that “it is not the past rise in prices but the future ri

“Picketty took 400 pages to prove something that is glaringly obvious and he under-proved it,” said The Dealer, shuffling. “Ninety-five percent of the poker room loses money to five percent of the players,” he explained, relaxed, chatting. “Redistributing ten percent of the winner’s gains after every month of play wouldn’t change that outcome.” I picked up each card, deliberately, as if it was a blessing. “But would

“They took everyone to the cleaners, they were everywhere,” said Lithium, handsfree on Highway One. “They were vertically integrating, they had economies of scale, the ability to pressure people politically, change local ordinances, extract tax breaks,” he continued, downshifting from ludicrous gear. “They abused workers, they had welfare recipients working in their stores, who turned around and spent their paychecks

“Subservience to capital is embodied in the austerity of modern political parties,” said the CIO, leaning left. We were discussing the ebb and flow of history, politics, economics. Eyes squinted, history appears as an inexorable rise of humanity, productivity, prosperity – periodically interrupted by catastrophe. Woven into this rising thread is an eternal struggle between capital and labor for society’s economic spo

“Money illusions,” said The Magician, waving his wand. Crisp dollar bills rained down on the cheering crowd, each one of them seemingly richer. “We feel good when we’re doing nominally better,” he bellowed, strutting the stage. The Americans cried for more. And on it rained, poured. “A weak dollar policy works its magic in so many mysterious ways.” The Magician called a child onto the stage, blinking into the blindin

“They made the bet,” said the Valley Boy. “We all saw the opportunity,” he said, pointing to the sky. “Pretty hard to miss.” Mankind’s energy usage from all combined sources is equivalent to 0.0125% of the 120,000 terawatts of solar energy hitting earth daily. Since Lucy roamed Africa 3.2mm years ago, we’ve consumed the equivalent of just 2.6 days of sunshine. “When people started talking peak oil, solar soared.” Chi

“No one has a model for this,” said the CIO. “Everyone buying assets today is building somewhat plausible arguments, but they’re really all just geared to decisions made in Beijing.” The most crowded trade in the world is cognitive dissonance on China. “We need persistent increases in debt relative to GDP for the world economy to function. And since 2011, 100% of global non-financial private-sector net credit creatio