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Anecdote: “China’s inward turn will still allow for years of 2-4% growth,” said the CIO from HK. “Each year the Party will forecast better times ahead. They’ll say we’re weaning ourselves off bad habits.” Perpetual propaganda. “What’s interesting is that countries across Asia are now waking up to this problem and becoming more dynamic,” he said. “Having tried everything else for 35yrs of stagnation, Japan appears wil

Hope all goes well… “Unless it’s a one-point game I tune out the score,” said Jackson, taking off his lacrosse jersey, angry welts all over. I’d asked what he was thinking at the end of the first quarter, with #7 ranked John’s Hopkins ahead of Navy 6-1. The battle looked lost at that moment; the ESPN announcers had written them off. “Maybe I should be more aware, maybe it’s a weakness, but I stay in the moment and co

Anecdote: “The last time the debt as a share of GDP was this large was in 1945-1946, at the end of World War II,” wrote Daniel Wilson and Brigid Meisenbacherat from the Economic Research Department at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. I was grinding through my stack, piled high with white papers. “Over the following three decades, the debt-to-GDP ratio steadily fell, reaching roughly 25% by 1975,” continued

Hope all goes well… “Not sure how many years I got left in me,” he said, climbing our way up “25 Short”, its summit at 9,975 feet, Grand Teton towering above us. “I’d like my kids to be old enough to see the work I do, to understand what mountain rescue really is, to appreciate my commitment to service,” he said, twenty years my junior. The two of us sharing stories, the sun hot, air cold. He told me about a good fri

Anecdote: My first trade ever was in the corn pit. 1989. Don’t remember if I bought or sold, but I lost money on the trade. Losing on trade #1 was supposed to be good luck, and that’s probably right. If you learn to take a loss right out of the gate, you’ve at least got a shot. Lots of people say markets go up because there are more buyers than sellers, and vice versa, but that’s not right. There are always the exact

Hope all goes well… “It’s subtle, you’ll feel it,” said my guide, backcountry, Wilson Wyoming. “Just a thin layer of crust, eight inches down, it’s not much, but could spark a slide.” We pushed the handle of our poles gently into the snow. She was teaching me the science of avalanches. I was recounting my case for digital assets, a thought piece from early 2021 [see here]. Taking turns talking, cold air, thin. “Somet

Anecdote: “I’m going to tell you about the worst day of my life,” said the Master Sergeant, an Army Ranger, enlisted at 17 years old, three Iraq/Afghanistan tours under his belt, standing on stage. My son Teddy and his four thousand fellow cadets hanging on every word. “I’m lying in hospital, and the WiFi didn’t work, so I got no legs, and now I got no WiFi?” he said, the hall erupted. Master Sergeant was there to di

Hope all goes well… Interstate 15. Headed north from Salt Lake to Wyoming. A truck stop in Idaho. Poverty, poor education, meth, opioids, lack of opportunity, hopelessness, who knows. Walking human wrecks. The old store manager mostly deaf. A kind kid with dead eyes relayed my order, yelling into her ear. Hi skinny arms, homemade tattoos, blurry blue ink. The same thing you see in northeast Vermont, rural New Hampshi

Hope all goes well… Dusted off an anecdote from 2014 about life’s ten superpowers (see below). Enjoy President’s Day weekend. Back next Sunday with full wknd notes. All the very best, E Week-in-Review: Mon: Chinese Lunar New Year holiday begins = quiet markets, ECB’s Panetta says the reversal of policy is fast approaching, RBNZ gov Orr pushed back against recent bank calls for more hikes, Moody’s downgrades Israel /

Anecdote: “This is a thinking job,” said Lone Star. “It’s not a doing job,” continued one of America’s best-performing endowment CIOs. “It’s a job for people who pull on strings to see where they lead.” I smiled. “We screen for people with a natural curiosity and an interest in puzzles,” he explained. “Because, this game is a puzzle that’s always changing.” When I started One River in 2013, Lone Star had taken the re