About
I have been fascinated by the stock and bond markets since my father first showed me his Value Line reports. As a teenager I would look for the new sections in the mail, spread them out on the living room floor, study them and file them for my father into the big, black 3-ring binder.
This blog is about my interest in the markets, investing in them and making them work for us as they should, investing in old and new instruments in old and new settings. For individuals, foundations and trusts: how should we invest for college, retirement and to satisfy our fiduciary responsibilities to ourselves, our families and our institutions? What are the enduring asset classes? How should we allocate assets? What are the best values in the market today?
I am also interested in the public policy questions, such as should real money event or prediction markets be legalized? How should they be used? Through their ability to aggregate knowledge can they help us allocate our assets as individuals and as country?
From the end of World War II until recently American based capital markets sat atop the world, making the US economy the envy of the rest of the world. And then what happened? We seem to have forgotten or taken for granted the essentials of sound market design.
All markets should be predictive. Only well designed markets are predictive. Poorly designed markets give off misleading signals, and may be worse than having no market at all. Can well designed markets accomplish new and valuable tasks inside and outside our institutions? How do we know when we have a well designed market? And how do we get better markets, financial and otherwise?