Lots of weird startups. Maybe because the stockmarket is weak. Maybe because bonds are yield-less. Maybe because the world economy is a sorry place.
Most startups don’t make it for the investors. Worse, you and I don’t see the best ones. The family gets first shot. Silicon Valley gets second shot. And we get sloppy thirds.
I used to think the BIG thing I’d look for was scale-ability — the startup can grow and grow and grow. And become a household name.
Now I think, How am I going to get my money back and then some?
The professionals call it a “liquidity event.” Personally a check would do just fine.
But entrepreneurs want to grow their company, not grow my investment. They want to keep my money for their growth.
So, I say NO a lot.
My recent thrust has been towards syndicated residential (and to a lesser extent commercial) real estate. But Susan is afraid we may have too much…
Hence my new emphasis on stocks. My “new strategy” will be to sell covered calls on some of them — the ones I want to own, like Google, Honeywell and Verizon. Maybe I’ll find some more.
I eye the S&P 500. Not impressive for the past year:
But impressive for the past ten years:
Then I look at gold. Here’s a myth busted. Gold has done far better than the S&P 500 over the past ten years. Gold is pink.
Henry Kissinger’s book World Order is really good. I keep reading and reading it.
Here’s his first two paragraphs on his chapter on Islam:
Islamism and the Middle East: A World in Disorder
THE MIDDLE EAST has been the chrysalis of three of the world’s great religions. From its stern landscape have issued conquerors and prophets holding aloft banners of universal aspirations. Across its seemingly limitless horizons, empires have been established and fallen; absolute rulers have proclaimed themselves the embodiment of all power, only to disappear as if they had been mirages. Here every form of domestic and international order has existed, and been rejected, at one time or another.
The world has become accustomed to calls from the Middle East urging the overthrow of regional and world order in the service of a universal vision. A profusion of prophetic absolutisms has been the hallmark of a region suspended between a dream of its former glory and its contemporary inability to unify around common principles of domestic or international legitimacy. Nowhere is the challenge of international order more complex- in terms of both organizing regional order and ensuring the compatibility of that order with peace and stability in the rest of the world. In our own time, the Middle East seems destined to experiment with all of its historical experiences simultaneously- empire, holy war, foreign domination, a sectarian war of all against all- before it arrives (if it ever does) at a settled concept of international order. Until it does so, the region will remain pulled alternately toward joining the world community and struggling against it.
Buy the book here.
Trump slings insults. Some are brilliant. Some are spot on. Some you wish you’d said.
The New York Times just ran a complete list, called “The 199 People, Places and Things Donald Trump Has Insulted on Twitter.“
My favorites.
Jeb Bush: “low energy.”
ISIS Terrorist group: “low-level degenerates” “thugs” “losers”
John McCain United States senator: “has done nothing” “All he does is go on television is talk, talk, talk” “doing a lousy job in taking care of our Vets” “graduated last in his class”
Barack Obama President of the United States: “spends so much time speaking of the so-called Carbon footprint, and yet he flies all the way to Hawaii on a massive old 747” “Is our president insane?”
George W. Bush Former president of the United States: “the WTC (World Trade Center) came down during his watch, 9/11” “(he) wants $120,000 to make a boring speech” “not nice!”
The Government of the United States: “too much staff being paid way too much money”
Fortune Magazine: “few people know that Fortune Magazine is still in business”
Washington, D.C. United States capital: “such a mess” “nothing works”
Britain country: “trying hard to disguise their massive Muslim problem”
Mitt Romney Former Massachusetts governor: “blew an election that should have never been lost”
Marco Marco Rubio United States senator: “a lightweight choker” “couldn’t even respond properly to President Obama’s State of the Union Speech without pouring sweat & chugging water”
Bernie Sanders United States senator: “he would be so easy to beat!” “wacko” “a disaster”
Rand Paul United States senator: “reminds me of a spoiled brat without a properly functioning brain”
Saudi Arabia Country: “without us, gone!”
Carly Fiorina Former business executive: “if you listen to Carly Fiorina for more than ten minutes straight, you develop a massive headache”
Ben Carson Retired neurosurgeon: “Pyramids built for grain storage – don’t people get it?”
The Obama administration: “incompetence of our current administration is beyond comprehension”
You can read the full collection here.
Harry Newton, who just landed on a Red Eye from the west coast. Red Eyes are for young’ens. It’s amazing how easy it is to get “service dogs” on planes these days — and how welcoming the planes are, especially if the dog is small like Rosie. Look how JetBlue tagged Rosie this morning. Cute?
My investments in gold have always been in gold held by my bank, never in stocks. I have made a few thousand in the past, never invested over 50k and have none at present…I still much prefer rental real estate.
Re quote for Kisses’ book…
What would that region look like were it not for western intervention and Zionism? Maybe Muslims, Jews and Christians would have figured it out on their own. Meddling from outsiders drives people to extremes.