Blake Hampton

I would also recommend reading the first 20 pages or so of Night. The book is only around 120 pages long, and it's very good. Link: Night by Elie Wiesel WW2 in general, to me at least, is probably one of the most interesting periods in history. A lot of what happened was deeply political, tragic, tough, I mean almost everything there is to being human. And the handful of men who were largely responsible for it could be counted on two hands.

I've read a lot about the Holocaust, and I strongly recommend others do the same. These are among some of the best books ever written: Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl If This Is a Man by Primo Levi Night by Elie Wiesel I feel like if the victims of the Holocaust could see what's happening in Gaza right now, many of them would be ashamed of Israel.

As a younger person, I've never understood older people's fascination with this stuff. Please someone fill me in. (I also don't want your china.)

"The complexity of markets is dizzying, and in complex situations even the iron laws of physics can produce surprising, unstable results (think of aeroplane turbulence). More important still, finance is ultimately driven by people, not particles, and they do not always respond to similar stimuli in similar ways. They look at what happened last time, try to do better, anticipate what other traders will do and seek to outfox them. The absence of fundamental laws in markets is frustrating, disorientating—and what makes them so interesting." The Economist: Why investors lack a theory of everything

Sick burn: "A simultaneous hatred of trade deficits and embrace of government borrowing is utterly contradictory—perfectly normal, in other words, for Trumponomics." The Economist: Trump thinks Americans consume too much. He has a point

“I have no idea what these next seven days are going to be, but the next seven years I’m very confident in.” - Larry Fink

I’ve thought about homes quite a bit, and it’s definitely an interesting subject. I think over the long-term, that real estate is almost always a good bet if bought at modest prices and you know that you can keep making that mortgage payment in a severe downturn. However, I’m not sure whether real estate is necessarily the best place to be right now. The government basically owns 80% of all the outstanding mortgage debt in this country. Screwed up credit markets, combined with lots of job losses, could make for an interesting period. It is not a healthy market.

^ I recommend listening. It’s pretty good.

Add Fink to the list: Edit: I do not agree with everything this man says, but I do think that most of what he says is important. He’s certainly not stupid.

Thanks, this is good advice. I just fear that our system is badly broken in a way that is creating deep generational divides and wealth disparity. Of course, the people who will inherit all of this wealth are probably over the moon.

But let’s cut taxes for asset owners and social security recipients.

WSJ comment: ”It has been often said that power corrupts. But it is perhaps equally important to realize that weakness, too, corrupts." "Wealth and power corrupt the few, but envy and resentment corrupt the many." "Those who would sacrifice a generation to realize an ideal are the enemies of mankind." – Eric Hoffer. My response: As a 23 year old, it seems to me that the older generations are currently sacrificing the younger ones through broken entitlement systems and debt issuance. And of course Trump now only makes the problem worse. Vote yourself the wealth, and let cost of living increases eat the rest of us alive.

Lol:

I agree. But beware of @Parsad.

Paul Volcker Jimmy Carter: The man who beat inflation

One of the most underrated presidents of all time. Basically gave Reagan a layup, and turned him into the average republican's god.

I disagree. And no one can tell you when it'll happen, just that it will.

Berkshire Hathaway: 2025 First Quarter Report Buffett has basically zero fixed-income, the largest amount of cash relative to total assets in Berkshire's history, and is sounding alarms alongside other financial greats. His ultimate concern is runaway inflation. That's his long-term perspective. However, it's very difficult for him to transition quickly in a crisis. While he belittles cash in his letter, saying that "the great majority of your money remains in equities," I'm almost certain he would hold significantly more if he were managing less capital. He'd simply have more flexibility in deploying it quickly. I understand the idea of being fully invested, and long-term, it should work well if you're invested in the right stuff. But I deeply believe there will be a time where you're sitting on huge principal losses while the market is offering up unbelievable opportunities. It's not every day that the global reserve currency faces a debt crisis.

"Russ Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said on X that the bill actually would reduce budget deficits by $1.4 trillion."

This is what they do. They write in sunset clauses to make deficits look smaller on a decade basis, so they're easier to sell. "President Trump’s tax-and-spending megabill would increase budget deficits by $2.4 trillion over the next decade, compared with doing nothing, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate released Wednesday." Bullshit. The bill will add $500 billion to the deficit annually, each year, over the next three. WSJ: Trump Megabill Would Expand Deficits by $2.4 Trillion, CBO Estimates

I'm stupid: =

Trump better hope that these inflation enumerators are bad at their job lol.

Classic MAGA thinking: whine that the government’s broken, then vote for an orange man who sets it on fire. I believe Munger would call this sort of behavior dementia. WSJ: Economists Raise Questions About Quality of U.S. Inflation Data