The International Energy Agency recently reported that shifting to clean energy will create between 13 and 26 million jobs by 2030. They present this as a benefit, but that’s misleading: jobs are not a benefit, but a cost. That might sound counterintuitive, but it’s easy to understand. Say you need to do repairs on your home and […]
Originally published February 2021. The word of this extraordinary winter in Paris has been couvre-feu. The very expression is still heavy with associations from the 1940s occupation, even if the order to “cover your fires!” was originally intended to protect medieval wooden cities from burning down. The mid-January tightening of France’s latest couvre-feu – to […]
Knowing what to ask is the trick to getting the right answer. In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a supercomputer called Deep Thought is asked to answer the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe and Everything. After 7.5 million years, Deep Thought reports back that the answer is 42. When questioned, Deep Thought points out that […]
Spoiler: No, they’re not. However much we love our homes and the dollar figures that realtors assign to them, those values are not ours until the day we sell. But let’s start with the pizzas. Say you run a pizzeria in your town. You sell good pizzas and make a decent living. You’re too small […]
There are no two ways about it: the French are mad. As a Francophile I feel comfortable in asserting this. Their country is beautiful, they’re deliciously un-PC and their food and drink is the best in world. No debate. It just is. But they are bonkers. A couple of months ago they were threatening to turn Jersey’s electricity off […]
Originally published April 2021. When thinking about successful emerging market investing, the following quote comes to mind: “In an unfamiliar culture, it is wise to offer no innovations, no suggestions, or lessons.” (Maya Angelou, American poet and civil rights activist). The notion to watch and learn before arriving at conclusions is particularly important in rather […]
A decade to be optimistic? Somewhere amid the carnage of the retail sector, the existential navel-gazing of the office sector and the irrational exuberance of sheds, meds and beds (where investment yields are vanishing as quickly as the chances of Arsenal ever winning the Premier League again in my lifetime), there lies an uncomfortable truth: […]
The founder of modern economics, Adam Smith, was no fan of the merchants of his time. He regarded them as among the most responsible for how “the mercantile system”, as Smith called it, accorded legal privileges to politically connected producers over the interests of consumers. Nor did Milton Friedman have a particularly sympathetic view of […]
In 1929, Ludwig von Mises rejected a job offer for a high position at the Austrian bank Kreditanstalt. He believed that a great crash was coming and didn’t want his name associated with it. Since then, economists of the Austrian school have successfully managed to avoid association with any economic crash. To prevent association with […]
Originally published July 2021. The biggest risk a business faces is having bad management. That’s according to Warren Buffett in his latest shareholder meeting. I agree. Assessing company management is one of the most important jobs an investor faces, but it’s far from easy and is more an art than a science. Buffett’s business partner, […]
