“It’s so much nonsense that I can’t believe anybody really believes it,” announced Cheniere Energy’s CEO. And of course, he’s right. Everything’s nonsense. In Cheniere’s case, the CEO responded to claims that US natural gas will loosen Putin’s tightening grip on Europe. Cheniere’s Louisiana LNG terminal will export its first cargo in late 2015. It’ll ship 2.2bln cubic feet/day (Europe consumes 40-50bln). Anyhow, havi

“The Fed created a wall of money,” said the revolutionary, an intellectual, who as a young man, battled political suppression, oppression. Rose against Apartheid. Bravely. Non-violently. “As that money flowed to emerging markets, many cried foul, and now that it is leaving, they are crying again,” continued the central banker, his voice calm, confident, his eyes dry. “We are genuinely concerned about the effect of ca

Hope all goes well… “I discover my obsessions when I step back from screens,” admitted one of London’s top CIOs, fresh from some time off. “Used to be the Aussie dollar; that obsession consumed me back in 2012,” he continued, confessing his fatal attractions, bringing a fresh pot of water to a vigorous boil. “Only reason to take on this next one is that there’s no real reason to take it on,” he said, excited by his o

“I didn’t really think Tesla would be successful,” confessed Elon Musk on 60 Minutes, “but if something’s important enough, you should try, even if the probable outcome is failure.” Like most great entrepreneurs, Elon’s better at defying odds than handicapping them; Tesla now worth $26bln. His company SpaceX is still private, worth $6bln, perhaps much more. Traders are handicappers, and recalling Eike Batista’s infam

Hope all goes well… “My…legs…don’t…work,” groaned Osama bin Charlie, in a tone that fell a few pitches short of emergency. Mara and I sat up, puzzled. You see it was Spring Break in Santa Barbara. So we’d hit the mountains. To carve turns with the older three. Ditching our little man all day long, to terrorize ski school; six grueling hours of snow-plow. The groans grew closer, as he elbowed his limp torso toward our

Week-in-Review: Mon: Chinese PMI 48.1 (8mth low), Hamada hints at more BOJ easing, PMI’s; EU 53.2 (2mth low), German 53.8 (4mth low), France 51.9 (3yr high), Fed’s Williams “neutral FF rate fell sharply in recent yrs – approx 0% in 2013,” Russia kicked out of G8, S&P -0.5%; Tue: Egyptian court sentences 529 Brotherhoods to death, NSA spies on China’s Huawei Corp, Weidmann “negative rates more appropriate to curb

Hope all goes well… “For the first time in 10yrs, CNN ratings have blown through the roof,” said the TV personality. Naturally, given my passion for news, I no longer watch. “You know why?” he asked. I had a couple guesses, but kept quiet. “Every story since they wrote the Bible has a beginning, middle and end.” So now, if a story has no ending, people get trapped, stuck, and don’t know how to move on. “CNN knows thi

The drought broke, the floods flashed, the land slid. So naturally, we headed for the hills. Parked at the trailhead, and our Suburban flew open. Out spilled four kids, my loyal golden. Rattlesnake Creek roared below. We raced to its bank. Wolfie leapt into the gurgling waters, plunged beneath the surface, proudly retrieved a large stone, dropping it at my muddy feet, tail wagging; his kind heart bigger than his brai

“This is huge, as big as it gets,” said the brilliant scientist. It is indeed. You see, we’ve discovered a signal from the universe when it was just a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second old; back 13.8bln years ago, when a mysterious atom-sized point of energy went Big Bang! This primordial signal confirms the theory of cosmic inflation. Which we now know is woven into our very fabric, and means th

Bleep… Bleep… Bleep… Technicians tracked the secret course. It landed softly, quietly, at an undisclosed location, on Kazakhstan’s desolate steppes. Military trucks raced to the snowy scene. Gently lifted the brave crew from the craft; two Russians, one American. They’d returned after 166 isolated days of working together, in mankind’s noble symbol of cooperation, exploration, progress; the International Space Statio