weekend notes

Hope all goes well… “Our model – which uses known data on 121 variables, from recorded deaths to demography – suggests that COVID-19 has claimed 7.1mm-12.7mm lives,” wrote The Economist. “Our central estimate is the real tally of ‘excess deaths’ is over three times the official count,” continued the publication, proceeding to explore the enormity of risks facing the developing world. T

“What are you thinking about markets here?” asked the entrepreneur, wedging the question into our conversation, but working hard to sound barely interested. I laughed, unable to contain it. “Oh, so you really called to ask about bitcoin,” I said, smelling his quiet panic. “Well, you know, yeah basically, I mean what do think about all this stuff going on?” he asked, not wanting anything other than

“The coaches called us into the office one by one,” said my oldest, finishing plebe year, his team having failed to make quarterfinals. “They told each of us exactly what we need to work on if we hope to ever see the field,” he continued. “They said I have almost everything except for consistency, but without that, I’m useless to them. If a human doesn’t drink water every day they die, and if I do

Hope all goes well… “We’re hopeful it will land in a place where it won’t harm anyone,” said Lloyd Austin. “Hopefully in the ocean, or someplace like that,” added the US Defense Secretary, drifting off, thinking about Elon Musk’s Saturday Night Live debut like everyone else, and Dogecoin’s recent 1,000% stratospheric rise in anticipation of tonight’s show. And somewhere high above, China’s 18-ton

How this inflation plays out will be different from anything that has come before it. It is always so. Naturally, some aspects will resemble the past. This inflation will inevitably be volatile, such periods of price changes typically are. And in the early stages, nearly everyone will persuade themselves that it is transitory. In the late stages, those same people will conclude that it is permanen

Hope all goes well… “No one has really traded inflation,” bellowed Biggie Too, chief global strategist for one of Wall Street’s mightiest Too Big To Fail affairs. “We don’t know the psychological impact on macro policy and the markets of a genuine inflation.” Behind Biggie, so many screens, flashing futures. “Copper, iron ore, tin, steel,” barked Biggie. “Lumber, corn, soybeans,” he said, lifting

Hope all goes well… “So let me tell you how this goes,” said the senior mid-fielder to Jackson the night before the Army/Navy lacrosse game. “The first ten minutes is not lacrosse, it’s not even football, it’s just this insanely intense period with everyone trying to take one another out,” he continued, mentoring my son. “Ten minutes in, one team calls a timeout, both coaches calm everyone down, a

“By shining light on this, we’ll draw people’s focus,” said Marcel, my head of research. “More accurate electricity generation and consumption data will naturally come to us – you’ll see. And with clean data, industry will push for faster progress.” His idea was sparked when I shared info from my network about a Brazilian company that pioneered private carbon-offset-credit tokenization. We w

Hope all goes well… “What happened with Dogecoin Dad?” asked Jackson on FaceTime. I smiled. Dogecoin jumped from $0.06 to $0.47 – a 7.8x weekly jump to a $60bln+ market cap. “It’s totally insane,” he said Friday night, back from lacrosse practice, sitting down to study, life as a plebe. “Are your buddies trading crypto now?” I asked. “One supposedly made a million on Dogecoin with his stimul