Lessons from Financial Survival Under Authoritarian Regimes
In the autumn of 1933, Max Warburg sat in his mahogany-paneled office at M.M. Warburg & Co., the bank his family had operated in Hamburg since 1798. Outside, Nazi brownshirts marched through the streets, but inside the bank, Warburg clung to a belief that would ultimately cost him dearly: This too shall pass.
Five years later, in August 1938, he would finally flee Germany after the forced sale of his family's bank to "Aryan" associates. His American cousins, who had begun moving assets abroad when Hitler first rose to power, preserved much of their wealth. The difference between partial and total loss? The courage to act on early warnings rather than wait for certainty.
This pattern—the gradual tightening of financial controls, the windows of opportunity that slowly close, the devastating cost of optimism—repeats across history with remarkable consistency....
A traveler came upon two merchants selling magical lamps at a crossroads.
The first merchant proclaimed: "My lamp contains a perfect genie! It will deduce your deepest desires from watching your every action - how you spend your gold, where you walk, what makes you smile. Without you speaking a single wish, it will fulfill what you truly want!"
Continue reading "The Two Merchants"Why are AI stocks rising so quickly?
Maybe it's because AI investors (and CEOs etc) are the ones who talk with ChatGPT all day. And ChatGPT has convinced them all that their investment ideas are all genius.
Spooky!
Happy Halloween.