“Their option expires after April’s new Moon,” announced one of America’s top middle-eastern military advisors. You see, without a lunar lamp, Israeli F-18’s, are harder to down. “US and Israel have different Red Lines,” he said. America’s committed to preventing Iran from acquiring a nuke. Israel’s committed to preventing Mullah’s from acquiring the capacity to build one. “It’ll take 5-6mths to make 1 bomb, but they

Rat-a-tat-tat. What’s that? Rat-a-tat-tat. You hear that? Nope, me neither. But someone did, went all a twitter. Now the blogoshpere’s afire. With rumors, of a failed coup. In Beijing. Folks say they heard tanks rumble by. Planes in the sky. Oh my. But why? Well, power and money rarely shift hands without a hitch. A hanging chad. Ooops, I mean Chen. Or Chang. So, after Bo Xilai lost a power struggle, did his ally, Zh

Hope all goes well. Can you blame him? Me neither. I mean, any good trader thinks about it. Every. Single. Day. Particularly when you got a really bad portfolio (or a great one). So if Mitt wants to be CIO he’d better shake it up. Grab all 72,536 pages of our tax code. Remind America it was 400 pages 100yrs ago. Wipe that slate clean. Shake up our infinitely complex electoral district map. Our tangled entitlements to

The utterly corrupt leader. Of the hopelessly bankrupt nation. Addressed his angry people. And should’ve demanded an exit. But couldn’t. You see, there isn’t one. For now anyway. The incident shows “great oppression and cruelty” toward the Afghan people, said Karzai, hidden within his fortress. Of course, in due time, the oppressed rise up. And revolt. That’s the exit. It’s Mankind’s unending cycle. Hey, private Gree

Hope all goes well. Dear NY Times, got a confession. To be great at this sport, you gotta love making money – in the short, medium, and long term. I do. And been at this for 23yrs. Played by the rules. There aren’t many. Every day we fight to take as much money as possible from mkts, counterparties, competitors. That’s the game. Our only true teammates are investors, we’re their fiduciaries. At Lehman, in the e

I take smarter risks now. Relative to my early twenties. You see, back then I did crazy stuff. Like free climbing the Whitestone Bridge. Yeah, watched the sunrise light up NYC. Dangling my feet off the tower. Or racing superbikes, through Chicago, on hot summer nights. And once you rip it up on a rice rocket, well, sports cars are, quite frankly, pretty boring. Relatively speaking. Now I drive Jeeps. They’re kind of

Vladimir stood tall. In the cold. The crowd, weary from a long bus ride, cheered. Had little choice. And from deep within, something stirred. Something foreign. A tear. And as it welled up, in Putin’s icy blue eyes, he focused that finely tuned KGB muscle, on suppressing it. “Think happy thoughts,” he told himself. Indeed, it’d been a good week. A Tibetan mother of four, suffocating under Chinese re

Hope all goes well. She pulled her knees in real close. Tight. Hugging herself. And stared out the windshield. Sobbing. “Will Iris go to heaven Daddy,” Olivia, my 8yr old, asked. Now, I got no idea. Never been there. And gun to my head, I’d say no, that landlord doesn’t allow kittens – just Lions. But truth is, even in a great year, I get it right maybe 65% of the time. And I know a cheap option when I see one

Rome’s smartest mathematicians scanned the night sky. Back in 46BC. Searched the moon. The planets. Stars too. Crunched numbers. Built models, spun ’em round and round. Looking for the missing piece of a puzzle. But some problems are eternal. Defy solutions. And in the end, Julius Caesar’s boys agreed. “F’it,” they said, “just add a leap day every 4yrs, and be done with it.” Of course, Italian’s have fudged their num

Hope all goes well. Love big families. Kids. Cats. Dogs. Frogs. Chaos is comfort. But I’ve drawn the line. Stopped the madness. Unlike the ECB boys. Yeah, they’re really rolling the dice now. Playing with fire. Unprotected. Prolific. Yeah, imagine their crowded Christmas cards this yr. Just look at all those baby Euro’s. So many noisy, naughty zeros. Overall: Rome’s smartest mathematicians scanned the night sky. Back