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…
It is hard these days not feeling like the world is getting changed from underneath us. I’m sure every generation feels this to some degree, but I am equally sure that some eras involve more of this feeling than others. The more change we are confronted with, the more we look for ways to grapple with the change and understand what’s going on or what’s driving it. I have noticed lately that lots of people…
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…
When I was in college in Ithaca New York, I experienced my first energy crisis. The 1970s energy crisis was actually two overlapping crises, each triggered by geopolitical upheaval in the Middle East. The first oil shock (1973–1974) began in October 1973, when Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Israel, starting the Yom Kippur War. The U.S. airlifted weapons to Israel to prevent its defeat. In retaliation, the Arab members of OPEC (the…
As I have said more times than I can count, I hate the tropics. The reason for it is probably mostly about humidity and comfort, but it has mostly to do with my heritage. I was born in Fort Lauderdale while my mother was on home leave from her life in Venezuela. I like telling the story that she told her friends at the time that she knew she was having a boy and she…
Because we are flying to Key West on Wednesday, someone suggested that we should watch the movie True Lies because the ending scenes are shot in the Florida Keys. True Lies is a 1994 film directed by James Cameron and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jamie Lee Curtis and Tom Arnold. It’s basically a spy comedy about Iranian terrorists trying to extract retaliation from the United States. While I had seen the movie years ago. I had…
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…
Back in business school at Cornell, the most notable professor was a guy by the name of Hal Bierman. Hal taught finance. I had the unique experience of taking finance from Hal while his son was also taking finance. That’s a strange experience, but I’m sure it was more strange for both him and his son. Hal was a serious guy who tried hard to be pleasant and avuncular, but who always seemed more serious…