Business Advice Memoir
On the Waterfront
In 2011, while I was trying to launch a hedge fund that would have bought defaulted mortgages from the FHA at levels attractive for them and, we thought, very attractive for us. We had an enlightened plan to fix a lot of the broken mortgages that were the detritus of the subprime collapse. It seemed both noble and profitable and our story was compelling enough to attract $1.5 billion in capital from one of the…
Memoir
Caledonian Christmas Run
Yesterday we arrived in London, direct from San Diego (I am still in awe of that direct connection) to a cold, but uncommonly sunny city. We chose to bypass the tube and splurge on a London Taxi ride since it was midday, mid-week and traffic was light and the weather pleasant. It was so easy at Heathrow that I wondered why JFK could not make the same accommodation for weary travelers? All I could think…
Love Memoir
Giving Thanks Again
My friends who read these stories will all be waking up this morning of Thanksgiving and probably turning on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade spectacle with all the attendant celebrity hosts and various musical numbers from all the latest Broadway hits, performed in the cold and wet of the day on the street in front of Macy’s flagship store on Herald Square. They will be spending their morning preparing for whatever Thanksgiving dinner plans they…
Love Memoir
Christmas Countdown
We recently went to dinner with our good friends Terry & Paula, who are in the process of buying a house in San Clemente since they plan to relocate out this way, I think more or less permanently. They are a few years older than we are, but are very young-spirited and in apparently fine shape. We are very pleased that they are heading this way since we very much enjoy their company and they…
Love
Live and Let Live
I don’t know whether its the world we live in these days or the specific circumstances we find ourselves in on our hilltop and in our semi-retired states, but both Kim and I find ourselves increasingly at philosophical odds with people we want to maintain relationships with. This is happening at the personal level (both friends and family to varying degrees) and at the institutional level with the organizations we have been trying to either…
Politics
The Fascist and the Communist
Yesterday, Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani met face-to-face in the Oval Office of the White House. This was characterized by many as a timeless contrast of the fascist and the communist. Fascism is a far-right authoritarian political ideology characterized by dictatorial leadership (concentrated power in a single leader or party), forcible suppression of opposition (elimination of political pluralism and dissent), extreme nationalism (often with racial or ethnic superiority themes), militarism (glorification of military strength and…
Business Advice Memoir Politics
Reloading Latin America
In 1985 I was running the largest merchant banking unit in my bank, something called the New York City Division. It was what all my peers aspired to do, but I found it sort of boring to be doing things like helping ITT do its next acquisition or helping Ron Perlman at Revlon reshape his juggernaut. I was asked to go up to talk to our Vice Chairman, who said the Management Committee wanted to…
Fiction/Humor Memoir
Coat Bonanza
We all have our quirks. One of my quirks has always been that when I order something, I rarely, if ever, return it. If it doesn’t fit, I stuff it in a lower drawer or just put it in the give-away bin. This is completely contrary to Kim’s way of life with regard to online shopping. The number of packages she gets is only slightly greater than the number of packages she returns. Our Amex…
Business Advice Love Memoir
Sweating Equity
My dear friend Frank is the guy who mentored me in the handling of private equity investment. He was a venture capitalist long before it was even known how cool it was to be a venture capitalist. Frank is a Marshall Scholar who attended the London School of Economics just when America was entering the 1960s. He did a stint in the Army like any good red-blooded American male did in those days, but luckily…