May 23, 2022
Good morning!
We enjoyed a delightful baroque chamber music event Saturday night.
There were fewer than 25 people in a stunning venue large enough to have seated ten times that many.
There are probably thousands of similar customs and traditions on the wane, but it seems such a shame to lose something as wonderful as a cello, a violin, a well-trained voice, and a harpsichord making whimsical and magical sounds together.
What will take its place?
A lute, perhaps?
- Though it’s been an unusually cold spring, more and more hundts are getting hiked in the neighborhood.
- There are no known data to support this, but I’m guessing there are five times (+400%) as many hundts getting hiked in May as in January… just guessing.
- I visited with my favourite friend from Colombia the other morning and she now has TWO hundts to hike, both of them crazy (perros loco), according to her…
- … and they certainly appear that way to me.
- Flights of the bumblebee camouflaged as hundts on a leash.
- Fascinating that each hundt hiker has a different style, a different cadence, a different affect on display.
- Try this: When someone wants your phone number, change the formatting of the numbers.
- For example, instead of XXX-XXX-XXXX, try 32-02-2444-92.
- My research thus far would seem to indicate fewer than ten percent (<10%) of people can accurately process the different format — even after three attempts.
- Good or bad; right or wrong, or doesn’t it matter?
- CEOs are being compensated at record levels as the gap between the highest-paid people in the U.S. and the regular ordinary people widens.
- Who won the U.S. vs China trade war?
- According to Davis and Wei, it was almost a tie, but the U.S. lost from a strategic perspective.
- Between 2018 and today, whenever the U.S. made a move to increase a tariff, the Chinese made a slightly bigger move.
- Tariff barriers and trade costs moved from ~3% four years ago to >20% today.
- What’s that old saying about not getting into a contest?
- The big winners? Vietnam and Taiwan; they were ready.
Climate Change and Human Migration to Cities
- We promised you a peek into the presentation provided recently by Beurie.
- David Beurie is the CEO of Future IQ (don’t know how much he’s paid).
- He opines on some of the basics, such as food, water, climate, and human populations.
- Worldwide, 50,000 people per day are migrating from rural to urban areas.
- In his opinion, the 2020s will be like the 1960s in terms of rapid societal change, turbulence, triumph, challenges.
- Fresh water is a big one, a huge one, and we’re seeing that now in the desert Southwest of the U.S., and in other parts of the world.
- His suggested response has less to do with morality and more to do with the practical adjustments related to macro economic opportunities for those interested in solutions:
- Challenges with a finite resource base;
- Uneven impacts of climate change; e.g., northern areas will suffer less than areas closer to the equator;
- Potential for unexpected trends;
- Global disconnect between where food can be grown and where it will be consumed.
- (Vertical Gardens? More on that fascinating agri-science in a future edition.)
- Wanna be more like Warren?
- Of course, it’s always too late to chase the latest gold rush, but you can always live vicariously while maybe catching the next wave.
- Warren has been bullish on Chevron, Activision Blizzard, HP, Citigroup, Ally Financial, Apple, and others…
- Out of favour? Wells Fargo
- Where Warren and I agree? Dairy Queen. And I do like trains.
- Speaking of the stock market — and who isn’t these days?
- Because of the weighted average method of tracking the Dow and other indices, a few stocks can — and do — account for most of the movement.
- For example, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon alone account for 4.21% of the total ~18% decline of the S & P 500. (WSJ)
