2023-01-04

What’s a down round?

I’ve recently got interested in venture capital. I just finished “The Power Law” by Sebastian Mallaby, which is all about the history of venture capital, and why it worked so well in Silicon Valley and why it has been so hard to transplant …

There are comments.

2023-01-03

ATMs

Read this. It’s about how ATMs work, by Patrick McKenzie. It’s fascinating, in that it explains, in a highly readable way, how one boring, mundane, piece of our financial infrastructure works. But set aside a bit of time, because it is insanely complicated.

If you think …

There are comments.

2023-01-02

The future of interest rates

“The Fed is gonna pivot!” Yeah, well it will eventually, but J Powell wants to be Volker’s second coming, not the hapless Arthur Burns. Even though, at the time, citizens were burning effigies of Volker, he has ascended to the pantheon of central …

There are comments.

2023-01-01

Happy New Year

I don’t know who is reading this, but I had one Christmas card from someone who has notice that I am writing something, so there must be a non-zero chance that he, and others will read this. Thanks, Chris!

Oil

ever since. In periods of …

There are comments.

2022-12-18

The escalating cost of interest on government debt

https://www.mcoscillator.com/learning_center/weekly_chart/federal_government_not_ready_for_high_rates/?mc_cid=793a116649&mc_eid=a3bd2f3664

All governments promise to ‘fix’ the deficit, but no government dares to cut spending or raise taxes. The various factors that have sent rates to zero have allowed this unsustainable …

There are comments.

2022-12-17

Drill, baby drill!

This abridged report tries to make sense of why, even though energy prices have been so high recently, oil companies still seem very slow to invest in production. The argument is subtle. I will attempt to summarize it: - investors are still refusing to value exploration companies …

There are comments.

2022-12-14

Matt Levine is worth reading for the laughs

This is called a “pump-and-dump.” I don’t know why people keep falling for it? I guess the pictures of the Ferraris. Also a desire for investing to be easy, for it to be a trick that you can learn from …

There are comments.

2022-12-12

Inflation

The annual inflation rate in the US slowed for a fifth straight month to 7.1% in November of 2022, the lowest since December last year, and below forecasts of 7.3%. It follows a reading of 7.7% in October. Energy cost increased 13.1%, below 17 …

There are comments.

2022-12-08

Covid Conspiracy

This post argues that gain-of-function research played a role in the origins of Covid-19. It’s by Dan Sirotkin, who might or might not have attended Harvard, but who did spend time in prison, but is a join author of some serious-looking academic papers (e.g. this …

There are comments.

2022-12-07

Dad Joke

Q: Why are bakers always broke? A: Because they always knead (need) dough.

OK, I apologize. I was reminded of that joke from my infancy when I saw that wheat, a crop that is heavily dependent on artificial fertilizers, is cheaper now than it was a year …

There are comments.