My stories are organized into six categories that I designate after I’ve written the story and am posting it to my site. I recognize that while I’ve written across all six categories and find that some stories fit neatly into those buckets, I suspect that if I were to redo the blog, i would change and probably expand the categories to better conform with what I actually write about the most. Without trying to construct…
Snake Plissken is the iconic fictional antihero from John Carpenter’s Escape from New York (1981), played by Kurt Russell. He’s a former Special Forces soldier turned criminal, distinguished by his eye patch, gruff demeanor, and complete contempt for authority. The story drops him into a dystopian 1997 Manhattan that’s been walled off as a maximum-security prison, tasked with rescuing the President. Escape from New York is set in a near-future America (that would be the…
In 1983 I was asked to launch a futures and options subsidiary for my bank, Bankers Trust. Don’t stop reading because you think I am using this as a launchpad for another boring discussion of derivative products and how I was the Robert Oppenheimer of banking who helped create the atomic bomb of the financial world. This little futures and options subsidiary was intentionally a separate legal entity that would have its own subsidiaries to…
We have all spent a lot of time over the past year watching the Ellison Dynasty exert its influence over global media. I managed to keep my thoughts to myself during the Warner Brothers / Discovery wars between Paramount and Netflix, not knowing who would inflict more change/harm on the things I cared about in the movie and media universe. But then Pete Hegseth had to step to the podium this weekend doing what all…
The other day, my colleague Damiano, who runs the expert witness business with which I have chosen to affiliate, called me from London. He had just attended some sort of gathering of litigation professionals and had come away with a distinct impression that there is a crisis blossoming in the arena of private credit that will be leading to a substantial wave of litigation. It’s Damiano’s job to stay tuned into the financial markets and…
Last week when I gathered with my old motorcycle buddies, one of them, a guy who makes his living managing money for others, brought a copy of Andrew Ross Sorkin’s newest book, 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History and How It Shattered a Nation. Sorkin is an interesting writer. He is the NYC-raised son of a playwright and Wall Street lawyer. He has a BS in communication from Cornell University, my Alma…
The United States has always had a special advantage against its global competitors and that’s it’s isolation in the Western Hemisphere. This is a geopolitical and historical point of differentiation that cuts across geography, economics, military history, and political development. The advantage has been enormous, though with some important nuances. In terms of the geographic advantage, the U.S. sits in what strategists sometimes call a “geopolitical paradise.” It is bounded by two vast oceans, two…
I don’t think there would be too much debate among Americans and Europeans about who constitutes the Axis of Evil in today’s world. The hit parade would clearly consist of Russia and Iran with a bit more debate about China as the U.S. has trashed its longstanding alliances in favor of Trump’s latest tariff and power-grab whims. The lesser evils like North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba or Belarus SW1W not really on par with these bigger…
Will wonders never cease…the Supreme Court actually did something right for almost the first time since the Roberts court came into session. In addition to the three liberal justices, Sotomayor, Kaplan and Ketanji Brown, those in favor of restricting Trump from using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) as justification for using tariffs as a cudgel against other countries, were Roberts, Gorsuch and Coney Barrett. The voting patterns of SCOTUS make the Roberts and…
Have you noticed how many of the rich and powerful elite of the world are getting mowed down by the Epstein Files? This story is the gift the keeps on giving in almost every direction and in almost every language except one. Teflon Trump continues to evade accountability for what is certainly now proven to be the deepest and most enduring close relationship with the pedophile that exists. The prolific mentions of Trump in those…