Worldview Investing - Ruminations on the World Economy

The Declaration of Independence -  by John Trumbull, 1819 A Humble Beginning     Following several failed attempts, the first permanent English settlers arrived on the northeast bank of the James River  in 1607. The site was then known as James Fort and is now known as Jamestown, Virginia.  The motivations for these people to give up their homes, jobs, neighbors, and comforts to eke out an existence in an unknown, undeveloped, foreign land were many, including: the promise of vast cheap land, economic opportunity, religious and political freedoms.         Only 60 of the 214 settlers survived the bitter winter of  1609-1610, known as the "Starving Time". But by 1612 West Indies tobacco was being successfully grown, leading to an economic boom for the colony. That location served for the first of many legislative assemblies in the "New World" - new to the settlers but well known to the indigenous Paspahegh people. Over the following ...

Credit: Gemini     We have written at length about the many ways the United States has strayed from its founding as a limited-government republic - a nation where political power resides in the people - and steadily trod the path to socialism where power increasingly resides in a small coterie of government officials who find endless ways to drain wealth from the working people and transfer it to themselves and their cronies. This never ends in a socialist workers' paradise, but in poverty and despair for the working classes with recent examples being Cuba and Venezuela.  Sadly, the great nation of England is speeding down the road to big government socialism. Following fourteen years of incompetent governance by the Tories, the Labour party was swept into office two years ago. It quickly proved to be utterly clueless about how to revive the over-taxed, over-regulated English economy. Labour's leader, Prime Minister Keir Starmer, is about to be ejected from Number 10 by h...

Credit: Gemini        "Private credit" (PC) is a  euphemism for businesses known as "Non-Bank Financial Institutions" (NBFI). These include funds run by Blackstone, Apollo, Blue Owl, and many others. They make loans to businesses that are unable to obtain loans from banks due to their small size and/or higher credit (default) risk.      P rivate credit lenders take in money from many sources including ordinary investors, pension funds, college endowment funds, and wealthy investors all of whom are looking for higher yields than are available in the bond markets. The borrowers are typically not listed on any stock exchange so they have not filed audited financial statements with the SEC that investors can review. Furthermore, their credit risk has not been rated by any of the established credit rating firms.       When you invest money in a private credit vehicle, you have no way to know much of anything about the borrowers or a...

  Credit: Gemini     Many readers will be unfamiliar with US folktales about "Uncle Remus" including his story about Brer Fox, Br'er Rabbit and the Tar Baby. The wily fox tricks the rabbit into hitting a "tar baby" that would not respond to his cheerful greeting. The harder the rabbit fought to get loose, the more he became entangled. Some have suggested that the wily Benjamin Netanyahu tricked the US into striking the Iran tar baby, hoping to advance Israel's interests. We do not know if Trump was gamed by Bibi or was independently keen for another dramatic military action.       The outcome of the conflict is unknown. We do not opine on the wisdom or folly of Trump's special military operation because we are not privy to any of the facts that were said to have supported it. Assessing whether Iran should be allowed to develop atomic weapons is also beyond our job description. Clearly, it is not in Israels' interest for its implacable foe to have acc...