Part 2 of a multi-part series that seeks to enhance readers’ deployment of both human and financial capital through the exploration of parallels between money management and professional baseball.
“Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”
Your time horizon is not infinite. Your institution’s time horizon is not infinite.
The purpose of Meme and Narrative is getting us to sit down and shut up. In the investment committee room, no kind of meme does this more effectively – and more counterproductively, than the risk meme.
Your autonomy of mind and spirit cannot be taken away by the State, the Oligarchy or the Mob. But you can give it away. Don’t.
I wrote “Finest Worksong” in September, 2014 (reprinted below). Here’s the money quote: At some point in the not so distant future there will be…
Responding to a reader query about the relationship between risk and return, and whether its theoretical foundation is still solid.
A cat may look on a king, ye know! — Proverbs and Epigrams of John Heywood (1562) Ben’s note: I wrote The Red King in…
On October 4, 2018, Bloomberg BusinessWeek published a story claiming that Chinese hackers were able to “infiltrate America’s top companies” by planting a spy microchip…
Whenever something is surprisingly geometric, it’s probably a good idea to take a step back and ask why. And even when we find some supporting truths, it’s a good idea to keep asking.