“His promises are as worthless as a Trump University degree. He’s playing members of the American public for suckers: He gets a free ride to the White House, and all we get is a lousy hat,” announced Romney, telling Americans what to do, while trying to be funny. One 90 year old white guy laughed. “Do not come to Europe. Do not believe the smugglers. Do not risk your lives and your money. It’s all f

Anecdote: Iran’s hardliners were savaged. Reformers and moderates dominated elections. The theocratic revolution ageing, tiring, falling victim to time. Yielding to youth. Unleashing Persia’s potential, promise. The pendulum. Mao’s revolution in reverse, comrades stealing from comrades on a scale unimaginable. Chinese communists arrested 9,000 fraudsters; another week, another roundup. Beijing desperate to restore ci

“I reckon a poor man who’s about to become less poor is generally happier than a rich man who’s about to get less rich,” mused the CIO. I smiled, hearing a hint of Charles Dickens, who remarked, “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds, nineteen shillings and six pence, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six pence, result misery.” Australi

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” wrote Charles Dickens. Long ago. A breakthrough exposed pancreatic cancer’s Achilles heel; another week, another technological triumph. Extending lives. Boston Dynamics revealed its life-sized humanoid, capable of resisting attempts to topple it, or stop it. Advancing far more rapidly than imagined, robots will solve our needs, replacing our jobs (google it

Hope all goes well… “Bottom line is we basically accept things are gonna get tougher,” said the CIO, Down Under. “Hence the pessimism,” he continued, surveying the distant horizon from a superannuation summit. The world’s great fortunes have all been built by unabashed bulls. Australia’s no exception. “As you know, necessity is the mother of invention and we’ll ultimately pull through with flying colors.” Despite tod

Hope all goes well… “So here’s the question,” said the CIO, “Is pouring over balance sheets, or knowing when to pour over balance sheets, the most important thing?” I considered the profound struggle of so many legendary stock pickers that began just as the age of central bank omnipotence drew to a close. “It’s the latter,” he said, uninstalling Excel, waiting patiently for dislocations to buy, short-covering rallies

“One of my guiding lights is the notion that macro is aggregated micro,” said the CIO. A collage of micro images yields a macro picture. “It’s not a philosophy, it’s the truth.” US consumers hold $100trln of assets, $69trln of which are financial assets, much of which now yield nothing or negative. The rest yield little and GDP growth is slow, even after six years of unprecedented stimulus that pulled future demand (

“A marketing decision!” cried the FBI, furious with America’s greatest marketer. Of course the Bureau’s right. Apple’s decision to withhold an encryption key is all about pushing product. Tim Cook doesn’t love terrorists, he just hates missing sales forecasts. He knows we all hate being spied on, even though we love feeling safe. So we distrust those who protect us, up until we face a crisis. When it all reverses, an

Week-in-Review: Mon: China closed for week, China FX reserves fall $99bln (better than exp), India Q4 GDP +7.3% (Q1 estimate +7.6%), Turkey IP +4.5%, Spain industrial output +3.7%, Russia vehicle sales -29%, EU financials under severe pressure, US labor mkt conditions 0.4 (exp 0.2), S&P -1.4%; Tue: HK food vendor riots, Japan machine tool orders -17.2% (prev -25.7%), Japan M3 +2.5%, JGB 10yr yields turn negative

Hope all goes well… “Do we now know?” asked Yoda, high in the Rockies. “Is this where QE leads?” he whispered, gazing at distant peaks, summit winds lifting their white, painting the blue. Then vanishing. “Is folly not beautiful too?” he asked, closing his eyes, growing quiet. I considered this historic ascent, led upward by so much central banking novelty. But with European stocks now 28% below their highs (17% belo