Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff.
Frank Zappa
Never explain - your friends do not need it and your
enemies will not believe you anyway.
Elbert Hubbard
ALITALIA BRACED FOR BANKRUPTCY THREE YEARS AFTER ETIHAD
FLEW TO ITS RESCUE
From the FT
For all the sound and Fury, the president
is governing like a traditional Republican
Martin Wolf, FT
Canada and Australia led a relatively
charmed life through the great financial crisis of 2007-8, with their banking
systems proving more robust than most. Yet it is possible that they may have a
delayed reaction thanks to overheated property markets in some of their biggest
cities.
John Plender FT
PS My big thesis as become It doesn’t matter! It
doesn’t matter if Trump is elected, he can’t change a lot, it doesn’t matter Brexit
etc…. why because people have their lives freed a bit by the internet. The inefficient
players go bankrupt the bubbles pop, prices
of everything come down, people live longer with better quality, violence is
going down for 200 years etc… It doesn’t matter as long as commerce and trade are kind of free.
I don't see inflation and interest rates going up.
PS 2 Difficult to make money doing stuff!
Disturbing New Facts About American
Capitalism
When winners are taking all, it's often time to buy the
winners
JASON ZWEIG
Mar 3, 2017 8:41 am ET
“Let
your winners run” is one of the oldest adages in investing. One of the newest
ideas is that the winners may be running away with everything.
Modern capitalism is built on the idea that as companies get big, they
become fat and happy, opening themselves up to lean and hungry competitors who
can underprice and overtake them. That cycle of creative destruction may
be changing in ways that help explain the seemingly unstoppable rise of the
stock market.
New research by
economists Gustavo Grullon of Rice University, Yelena Larkin of York University
and Roni Michaely of Cornell University argues that U.S. companies are moving
toward a winner-take-all system in which giants get stronger, not weaker, as
they grow.
That’s the latest among several recent studies by economists working
independently, all arriving at similar findings: A few “superstar firms” have
grown to dominate their industries, crowding out competitors and controlling
markets to a degree not seen in many decades.
Let’s look beyond such obvious winner-take-all examples as Apple or Alphabet, the parent of Google.
Consider real-estate services. In 1997, according to Profs. Grullon,
Larkin and Michaely, that sector had 42 publicly traded companies; the four
largest generated 49% of the group’s total revenues. By 2014, only 20 public
firms were left, and the top four — CBRE Group, Jones Lang LaSalle, Realogy Holdings and Wyndham Worldwide — commanded 78% of
the group’s combined revenues.
A friend from São Paulo called my attention to this nice piece from Jason Zweig in the WSJ. Yes in the last 5 years Big get Bigger has been the main trend. USA and Germany have been the big winners for the simple reason that they already dominated many spaces.
Economies of scale have always been a sure way to profits. easier than R&D. if the big guys also invest wisely in R&D they become unstoppable. On the marketing side economies of scale were always huge. Santander can advertise worldwide because they are almost a global brand. For a local company why advertise worldwide?
From today Bloomberg
Peugeot Maker PSA Agrees to Buy GM’s European Brands in $2.3 Billion Deal
PSA Group is betting that size is the answer in Europe’s saturated car market as it buys General Motors Co.’s ailing regional division despite years of losses.
The maker of Peugeot and Citroen cars will pay 1.8 billion euros ($1.9 billion) for GM’s Opel unit and its U.K. sister brand Vauxhall, as the French manufacturer bolsters its defenses in a peaking market that’s being transformed by technology, new competitors and Brexit. GM, which is taking a charge of between $4 billion and $4.5 billion, will retain a toehold in the area by continuing to sell Chevrolets in small volumes.
Ask for British residency!
From the FT
“There are 85 pages to fill in and they ask the same thing over and over again but in a way you never know what the right answer is,” complained Marta Grabinska, who has been waiting six months for a reply. Ms Jozefkowicz, who estimated she spends about two weeks preparing each application, agreed it was “quite confusing”, adding: “For somebody who speaks little English it’s impossible.”
..............
Applicants must, for example, document every time they have left the UK — a record no longer included in many passports because of the EU’s free movement of people. The Home Office also requests a variety of documents spread evenly across the five years to prove employment, including payslips, letters from employers, employment contracts and the like.
They didn't fill the paper properly and have to redo but only in 2019 ! What a country let them leave for good. They should be expelled for good. Nothing good can come from a country that has no courage to say no and hides behind a form impossible to fill! Applicants have to to document every time they left the UK in the last 5 years! This is simply impossible
I watched the movie I Daniel Blake and i thought it was an exaggeration but now I know it's true! UK doesn't belong in Europe. It's soviet Union all over again. The paperwork is the most important thing.
You don’t “succeed”
because you have no weakness; you succeed because you find your unique
strengths and focus on developing habits around them.
Tim Ferris
In the end, winning is sleeping better
Jodie Foster
Fasting before chemotherapy is definitely something that should be implemented in our oncology wards......Fasting essentially slows (sometime stops) rapidly dividing cells and triggers an 'energetic crisis' that makes cancer cells selectively vulnerable to chemo and radiation
Dom D'Agostino
Globalization is an inherently deflationary force. In a globalized world, if a country experiences an idiosyncratic shock which raises domestic demand, this can be met with more imports rather than higher prices.
Peter Berezin, BCA
“People are so
worried about what they eat between Christmas and the New Year, but they really
should be worried about what they eat between the New Year and Christmas.”
A. Nonymous
Notes from me:
What are the big trends that the world is facing in the last 30 years?
faster discoveries and new inventions. A new scientist starts his carrier with a huge knowledge that a scientist 50 years ago didn't have.
Doing more with less
we don't need everybody to work
Deflation
specialization
less & less crime
less wars
less poverty
longer lives
a lot of free time
a more & more clean world.
lack of purpose, some people do't contribute at all
If trade is not impaired the world will continue to march forward. That is my visium.
Today’s “best practices”
lead to dead ends; the best paths are new and untried
Peter Thiel
In his excellent book Zero to One, Thiel says there are two ways to improve
Copy something that
works somewhere and do it everywhere— Globalization
Inventing something new,
create a new path a better solution – Technology
In the last 10 years
who has done better countries that copy best practices or the ones where people
are engaged in inventing the future?
In the last 10 years Nasdaq is up 119% in USD, S&P up 53,77%, German Dax up 44% in USD and for example the mexico Index IPC is up 14% in USD. My country Portugal the stock index is down 62% in the last 10 years.
These numbers are without dividends but i don't think it changes the picture a lot.
What is the conclusion? If you can build a new path. It pays. Do it
Science is the belief
in the ignorance of experts
Richard Feynman
The are two ways to tell the story of the twentieth century,” writes Matt Ridley, a self-proclaimed rational optimist. “You can describe a series of wars, revolutions, crises, epidemics, financial calamities. Or you can point to the gentle but inexorable rise in the quality of life of almost everybody on the planet: the swelling of income, the conquest of disease, the disappearance of parasites, the retreat of want, the increasing persistence of peace, the lengthening of life, the advances in technology.
Yes life is getting better in almost all fields, yes all. It's a process, it's evolution it's getting faster. Everyday we invest, improve and trough trial and error the world goes forward bit by bit.
Top down inventions, and government programs are responsible for an amazing few improvements in our world. where do progress comes from? bottom up granular research and experiments.
yes the future will be even better.Violence & crime are going down everywhere (Countries that engage in trade) for 200 years.
the struggle for survival is getting less acute. People have more options, travel is not an adventure anymore.
As Matt Ridley says very clearly the good old days were never good!
