These are the major topics and ideas we discussed during the 01/20/2023 Office Hours as well as some of the biggest takeaways. If you have something you want to add to the conversation, let us know in the comments and join us next time.
Recent major media stories that feel to us like they’re part of a larger narrative campaign.
The modern American system of higher education – especially its most prominent public and private universities – is less our Superman than our Homelander, a smiley-faced faux superhero who does The Man’s dirty work in exchange for wealth, privilege and … our cheers.
Whether or not Blackstone and Starwood are successful in maintaining the Story of Adequate Liquidity and preserving their private REIT franchises through this storm depends on one thing and one thing only – how bad is the storm going to get? If it’s a “soft landing” or a “mild recession”, then they’ll sail through this fine. But if it’s a bad recession …
Unfortunately for private REIT managers and their LPs, I think the odds of a bad recession in 2023 went up substantially this week.
The craziest thing happens when there’s no audience, when you’re talking with other actual human beings for the right reasons … you not only have actual conversations, you not only move quickly past politics into subjects that are far more interesting and far more relevant to our actual lives than politics, but you make actual friends
Recent major media stories that feel to us like they’re part of a larger narrative campaign.
The Story of Adequate Liquidity doesn’t exist and shift on the margin. Instead, it exists in two states: it is normal, or it is broken. Once the threshold between these states is crossed, it is very hard to tell the old story. Sometimes impossible.
There is almost no price too high to keep that story from jumping over that threshold.
These are the major topics and ideas we discussed during the 01/06/2023 Office Hours as well as some of the biggest takeaways. If you have something you want to add to the conversation, let us know in the comments and join us next time.
Recent major media stories that feel to us like they’re part of a larger narrative campaign.
I expect Wall Street and financial media to trumpet the “soft landing” thesis pretty loudly over the next few weeks. Is this correct? Personally, I don’t think so. Six months from now, will we have a soft landing or a hard landing? Personally, I think it’ll be a hard landing.
But who cares what I think!