james22

Thanks for the correction.

That's Ferguson's point, actually: The trouble is that the Davos consensus is nearly always wrong. I still remember the way it was five years ago. It was clear to me—and I told everyone who would listen—that a global pandemic was underway. But what was the dominant topic on the agenda of the World Economic Forum? That’s right: climate change and how morally superior Greta Thunberg was to wicked Donald Trump. So, if Davos Man is, despite his qualms, long America and short Europe, that might be your cue to take the other side of the trade. But I believe they've got it right (for once).

And that it's much harder to find an advantage than you think. Better to begin with the assumption the market is right than wrong.

Sure, I'm just saying you'd need be aware of it. The risk doesn't show in any metric.

True, the WEF propaganda remains fixated on Environmental, Social, and Governance issues, and, of course, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion—the familiar, woke-globalist acronyms ESG and DEI, now supplemented with AI. The corporate billboards still burble their word salads about resilience and sustainability. But talk to the chief executives and a very different picture emerges. Almost everyone at Davos is long U.S., short EU. The new Davos consensus is that Europe cannot get its economic act together and never will, whereas America is rocking and rolling, and if you don’t own the big U.S. tech stocks, then the FOMO may kill you. Börje Ekholm, the CEO of Swedish telecom firm Ericsson, told one interviewer that he was fed up with Europe’s “regulatory-first approach.” I heard the same thing again and again. “Europe is always lagging behind,” complained Zurich Insurance Group CEO Mario Greco. Vasant Narasimhan, who runs the Swiss pharmaceutical firm Novartis, agreed. https://www.thefp.com/p/niall-ferguson-always-bet-against-the-davos-man-donald-trump-elon-musk?hide_intro_popup=true

Perfect example. Do you know Biden's FDA would likely have banned menthol? https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5105771-trump-fda-menthol-cigarettes-ban/ That's not captured in any metric.

Informational advantage is the only advantage an investor has. Not the application of value metrics available to anyone. (And applying without company/sector expertise likely misses more than it reveals.) If you don't have any informational advantage, diversify (indices, BRK).

Huh.

Investing is speculation, Blake.

Or we can do 10X the work.

The GSE Vibe Shift Meets John Carney A Long-Time GSE Antagonist Throws a Breitbart Bomb https://ruleoflawguy.substack.com/p/the-gse-vibe-shift-meets-john-carney

Not even wrong.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/9870563457

Outlandish? Implausible? One down, the second officially under consideration (and coming), and the third set in motion (by the second).

Two days ago:

I'll bet you BTC hits $200k before the EO is reversed. Up for it?

Sec. 3. Revocation of Executive Order 14067 (Biden’s EO that authorized the US to explore a CBDC and authorized a whole-of-government crackdown on crypto.)

Full text: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/strengthening-american-leadership-in-digital-financial-technology/

The Executive Order prohibits agencies from undertaking any action to establish, issue, or promote central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

The GSE Vibe Shift Continues: Part III Sheila Bair now says "It's Time" https://archive.ph/wip/hnV28

TALKING to Europeans (particularly non-Brits) about things like health care and welfare programmes is a treat. Most of the Europeans I meet seem to believe that huge numbers of Americans get no health care at all, while the rich few wallow in luxury. In fact, the biggest problems uninsured Americans face are not doctors refusing to treat them, but the fact that they use the incredibly inconvenient emergency room for most of their care, and that a really bad illness could force them into bankruptcy. (Some also believe that it reduces quality of care for chronic illnesses like diabetes, but this is much less clear). Not admirable, by any means, but a far cry from the tortured visions of poor Americans dying at the hospital’s door, their pleas for care unheeded. Americans on the other hand, the overwhelming majority of whom are insured, seem to believe that millions of Europeans die each year from lack of treatment. The reality is much less grim; a fair number of Europeans go without hip replacements and other quality of life treatments, and some do die on waiting lists, but many of those people would have died anyway, because they have nasty diseases with life expectancies measured in months. America caters, expensively, to their desire to live a few extra weeks or months; Europe does not. http://www.economist.com/debate/freeexchange/2007/01/crosscountry_perceptions.cfm