The election is over. I am left with two very contradictory feelings. First is the one of appreciation – every four years we peacefully replace our government. I remember my parents in the late 1970s discussing Soviet politics at our house with their close friend. Their friend said something anti-Soviet. I vividly remember the fear [...]
I am traveling this weekend to our nation’s capital with my almost-10-year-old son, Jonah. I’m giving a speech on Monday at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab (the presentation will be across the street from the Pentagon; you can register here). The following weekend I am taking my wife to Kansas City, where we’ll [...]
Of course, there are many critics of the Fed who say the second round of quantitative easing is wrong and even harmful. “The failure of QE2 doesn’t worry me. It’s the success that worries me,” says Vitaliy Katsenelson of Investment Management Associates. “I think it’s criminal,” he tells Aaron in the accompanying clip. “They’re forcing [...]
I am a Capitalist Pig, and proud of it, thus you would not expect me to support government interference and more strenuous regulation of financial institutions – after all, capitalism (free markets) and tight regulation don’t mix well. Well, at the risk of been kicked out of the Capitalistic Pig Party, I am in support [...]
My writing is a byproduct of my investment process, I think through writing. I don’t do movie reviews and don’t watch Michael Moore’s movies. A Denver Post reporter invited me to a private showing of Moore’s latest flick last Monday Capitalism: a Love Story, it stirred up a lot of memories and I recently finished [...]
I spent my youth in Murmansk, a city in the northwest part of Russia, located right above the Arctic Circle. Murmansk owes its existence to the port that, due to the warm Gulf Stream, doesn’t freeze during the long winters, providing unique access to Russia from the north. During the Cold War, Murmansk’s coordinates must [...]
I never write about politics. First of all, it bores me. Second, its guaranteed to upset about 53% of my readers, which normally I would not mind, but since I won’t be able to change their mind why bother. Third, and most importantly, my writing is a byproduct of my investment process – I am an [...]
Government intervention in the financial system via the Troubled Asset Relief Program made me sick to my stomach, but without it, there is a real possibility that our economy would have come to a screeching halt as trust in the financial system was strained to the point of breaking. Confidence among depositors and banks alike [...]
Don’t compound them with bailout for mortgage ‘victims’ The housing bubble that was fueled by multidecade low interest rates priced many people out of their dream homes. But instead of settling for less or renting, people went after their American dream with a vengeance – taking out adjustable-rate, interest-only or, even worse, negative-amortization loans. Good [...]
We live in the society where, to our detriment, being politically correct is often more important than being correct. So I am going to come out and make a politically incorrect statement – social investing is an oxymoron. There is nothing social about investing. Investing is not about making popular, socially approved choices. It is [...]
Royal Dutch Shell‘s $7.5 billion sale to Gazprom may have been coerced by the Russian government. Vitaliy Katsenelson looks at the Sakhalin-2 sale and examines the long-term implications if Russia disregards Western investment. [I had a different title in mind for that article Russia: Screw the West, We Don’t Need Them Anymore, but my editor [...]