Sunday Thoughts

A few observations floated through my head as I swam in Long Island Sound this morning.

What’s Next

Yet something alerted him; he pricked up his ears and stopped, rooted to the spot, feeling a vague sense of unease.

• Geopolitics

Europe Held Hostage

“The EU faces structurally higher energy and raw material costs.”

• Geopolitics

The Downdraft

Have you always been crazy?

• Geopolitics
• Investing

The Global Scan

My desire to reconcile my family’s communist background with my own capitalist ambitions had brought me to Russia, but, naively, I never imagined that this pursuit would result in a human tragedy.

• Geopolitics
• Investing

The Coming Shifts

The blood-dimmed tide is loosened, and everywhere/The ceremony of innocence is drowned.

• Investing

Weighing the Tails

A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.

• Investing

The Big Forces

So compelling is the evidence of our own eyes and ears, so swift is your mind to assume your own version of the story, that one of the hardest things in this world is to understand there’s another way of seeing things.

• Investing

Notes on the Market Action

I talk to myself, as many of us do, for much of the day—admonishing myself (“Your fool!, Where did you leave your glasses?”), encouraging myself (“You can do it!”), complaining (“Why is that car in my lane?”), and, more rarely, congratulating myself (“It’s done!”).

• Investing

Politics and Pricing

A declaration of war by Japan could not be reconciled with reason. I felt sure she would be ruined for a generation by such a plunge, and this proved true. But Governments and peoples do not always take rational decisions.

• Investing