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Archives for November 2020

The Man Behind Milton Friedman’s Classic Free to Choose TV Series

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Milton Friedman's Free to Choose TV series is, perhaps, the best explanation of the value of free and open economies. Friedman explains the concept of open markets and freedom in a way that every man and woman can relate to. But behind Friedman's appearance was a brave TV station manager from Eire, PA named Bob Chitester. Chitester put Friedman on the air and caused a phenomenon. William McGurn tells the story in The Wall Street Journal: In the era of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, champions of the free-market capitalism may feel beleaguered. Those of a certain age thought … [Read more...]

Increased Scrutiny and DOJ Lawsuits Temper Tech M&A

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In the Financial Times, Tom Braithwaite reports on how lawsuits and a changing climate in Washington D.C. are affecting Big Tech's interest in acquisitions. He writes: Today’s tech giants were built on innovation — just not always their own. At key moments in their history, Google and Facebook made savvy acquisitions of smaller companies that supercharged their growth or snuffed out future competition. Now that strategy has big obstacles. The latest sign came this month when the US Department of Justice sued to halt Visa’s $5.3bn acquisition of fintech group Plaid. The deal “must be … [Read more...]

Is Your Cash Safe? Probably not This Safe

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How well are you securing your cash and valuables? Do you have a safe at home? A safe is an obvious choice for convenience, but unless you have serious security, you wouldn't want to leave major wealth sitting unattended while you're at the office or on vacation. You need a better option. The most obvious choice for most is a safe deposit box. That is the route an increasing number of the world's wealthiest are taking. Disasters like the wildfires and hurricanes that have hit the United States in recent years have made securing wealth an urgent endeavor in the minds of many. Benjamin … [Read more...]

Why I Work for You, and Not the Other Way Around

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If you’re a client, you know you matter. We have a relationship. We talk about our families. You matter. In an industry where mega-investment-firms are acquiring medium-sized firms, what tends to get lost in the churn is you, the client—the one making it all work. Integration of your needs into a bigger firm’s desires is like a chicken processing plant, where there’s not much to talk about afterward because the relationship died long ago, and you’re there for the pickin’. Bringing in a new client takes time. It shouldn’t happen with a takeover deal. It takes care. It takes several … [Read more...]

Why Your Next Diamond Might Be Grown in a Lab

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In The New York Times, Victoria Gomelsky reports on how the closure of the Argyle Mine in Western Australia will change the way the diamond industry sources its gems. She writes: After mining more than 865 million carats of rough diamonds since opening in 1983, the Argyle Mine in the remote East Kimberley region of Western Australia brought the last truck of diamond-bearing ore to the surface on Nov. 3. The owner, the Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto, had announced in 2018 that, by the end of this year, it would no longer be economical to keep digging. Argyle was famed for … [Read more...]

This Rivals the Dotcom Mania

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The most famous book on the history of financial bubbles was written by Charles Kindleberger. He called it, Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises. Kindleberger wrote manias are first enabled through an expansion of money and credit. “Speculative manias gather speed through expansion of money and credit. Most expansions of money and credit do not lead to a mania; there are many more economic expansions than there are manias. But every mania has been associated with the expansion of credit.” We have an expansion of money and credit, thanks to a central bank that views … [Read more...]

How to Hire Investment Counsel: This is the Way

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Real quick. You’re interested in hiring a financial advisor—one who’s held to a fiduciary standard by law, not some silly suitability one. You know you need help, but you just can’t make it happen because there’s resistance: No time, no real interest in digging into it, or you don’t know enough to explain to a loved one why you need it. “We’re fine, aren’t we?” She might ask. OK, here are summaries of two calls I had yesterday with prospective clients that will help you gain some perspective. The first one was with a prospective client whom was referred to me by a client I’ve been … [Read more...]

Will Work PCs Become a Thing of the Past?

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ComputerWorld's Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols outlines the future of PCs as he sees it, writing: Ready or not, here comes Windows as a Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) for all users in the forthcoming Microsoft Cloud PC offering. I've been predicting that many of us would soon be using Desktop-as-a-Service for a long time now. I can give you an approximate date now. By May 2021, most of you will be able to run Windows from Microsoft's Azure cloud using Cloud PC. Of course, you've long been able to run Windows remotely. Citrix Systems , after all, starting back in 1989 made a multi-billion dollar … [Read more...]

Steering One of the World’s Largest Food Suppliers Through a Pandemic

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Jacob Bunge of The Wall Street Journal tells us how David MacLennan of Cargill Inc. steered on of the world's largest food suppliers through Covid-19's world-wide spread. MacLennan is bracing for another surge, Bunge writes (abridged): David MacLennan steered one of the world’s biggest food suppliers through Covid-19’s world-wide spread in the spring. Now he is bracing for another surge. Cargill Inc., a 155-year-old company with 155,000 employees in 70 countries, straddles the global food- and agriculture-supply chains, processing farmers’ crops, packing meat and distributing sugar, salt, … [Read more...]