Kevin Duffy on the perversion of success

The federal government’s tentacles are everywhere: in education, science, journalism, economics, finance, business, sports, even religion. One of the more pernicious effects is that success has been turned on its head. Cream doesn’t always rise; sometimes the worst get on top.

~ Kevin Duffy, "The Trouble with Conformity," p. 3, The Coffee Can Portfolio, November 2, 2020

Barron's: Moody's expects higher economic growth under Biden than Trump

An analysis by Moody’s Analytics finds that if Biden wins and Democrats win a majority in both the Senate and the House and enact his plans, average annual economic growth would be 2.9% and average annual wage growth would be 0.9% through 2030. 

[...]

In contrast, if President Donald Trump wins the election and Republicans win the majority in both houses of Congress, the economic picture dims: 10-year economic growth would average 2.4%, wages would grow by 0.7% over a decade, 11.2 million jobs would be created over four years, and full employment would be reached in 2024.

~ Barron's, "Which Party Would Be Better for the Economy? Here’s How Biden and Trump’s Plans Stack Up.," by Karen Hube, October 24, 2020

World Bank: Covid pandemic expected to push 100 million people into extreme poverty

The COVID-19 pandemic is estimated to push an additional 88 million to 115 million people into extreme poverty this year, with the total rising to as many as 150 million by 2021, depending on the severity of the economic contraction.

~ World Bank, "COVID-19 to Add as Many as 150 Million Extreme Poor by 2021," October 7, 2020

The pandemic and global recession may cause over 1.4% of the world’s population to fall into extreme poverty.

~ David Malpass, World Bank Group President

Ronald Stöferle et al. on Nassim Taleb and why economists are prone to making poor forecasts

In [Nassim] Taleb's opinion, economists are susceptible to erroneous assessments, as soon as they ascribe excessive precision to statistical methods.  He provides inter alia two major reasons for this.  First of all, they often fall prey to the fallacious assumption that extensive amounts of historical observations permit conclusions about the future, and secondly, that future events are subject to a bell-shaped probability distribution.  In other words: they do not assume that past correlations may be subject to randomness as well.

~ Rahim Taghnizadegan, Ronald Stöferle, Mark Valek and Heinz Blasnik, Austrian School for Investors (2015), p. 74

Ronald Stöferle et al. on intuition and investing

No amount of studies can make up for a lack of intution, including the study of the Austrian School. An artisan may gain a deeper understanding of his own work, gain self-confidence, and perhaps occasionally a good idea by the study of the history of art, but it can never replace talent and craftsmanship. Books as a medium stand in the great occidental tradition of theoria, but practical books about economic topics are as a rule of little value.

This is so because economy means change.  Entrepreneurial success means doing something different than has been done hitherto.  It is similar with investment success: it requires seeing things others do not see.  This ability to see is primarily a talent, secondly down to practice, and only thirdly accessible to rational conception.  Many banks prefer not to hire academics for their trading operations, as they think too much and do not have enough intuition.

~ Rahim Taghnizadegan, Ronald Stöferle, Mark Valek and Heinz Blasnik, Austrian School for Investors (2015), p. 71

Ronald Stöferle et al. on speculators, political connections and Warren Buffett

Good economists are rarely good speculators.  Much more dangerous is, however, the popular notion that a good speculator has to be a good economist...

Speculation is largely a question of timing, and decisions regarding proper timing are a rather intuitive affair...

However, it is quite possible that the conscious manipulation of trends is already a predominant factor these days.  Attempts to control the economy are increasing as well.  With that, the character of speculation has an especially good ear for the scheming of politicians or even enjoyes good political connections.  This is true of most famous speculators, especially the number one: Warren Buffett.  A large proportion of this wealth comes from taxpayer funds.  Rolfe Winkler summarized this for Reuters as follows:

Were it not for government bailouts, for which Buffett lobbied hard, many of his company's stock holdings would have been wiped out.  Berkshire Hathaway, in which Buffett owns 27%... has more than $26 billion invested in eight financial companies that have received bailout money. [...] The federal deposit insurance corporation (FDIC) backs more than $130 billion of their debt.

~ Rahim Taghnizadegan, Ronald Stöferle, Mark Valek and Heinz Blasnik, Austrian School for Investors (2015), p. 68

Buffett with Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein

Jimmy Kimmel on Dr. Fauci: "He delivers the truth"

Dr. Fauci doesn’t sugarcoat his words and refuses to be pressured by politicians.  He delivers the truth, as difficult as it may be to hear, earnestly and with one goal: to save lives.

~ Jimmy Kimmel, "The 100 Most Influential People of  2020," Time, September 22, 2020