I live in the USA and I am concerned about the future. I created this blog to share my thoughts on the economy and anything else that might catch my attention.
This is the End and a New Beginning
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I've been thinking about this for some time.
After 21 years of writing this blog almost daily, I've decided to stop
writing the daily updates on the blog.
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Silver Deep Dive
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Silver had a memorable year (+148%). Some of this can be explained by a
decline in the dollar. I decided to do some ML analysis to look for other
insights....
Exposures in the derivatives contracts remained highly concentrated, with the largest five banks continuing to account for 97 percent of overall exposure and 86 percent of net credit exposure, the OCC said.
JPMorgan, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley (MS.N) had the largest derivative exposures of all holding companies, at $76.89 trillion, $71.16 trillion, $49.14 trillion, $42.31 trillion and $40.73 trillion, respectively.
Repeated good outcomes provide us with confirming evidence that our strategy is good and everything is fine. This illusion lulls us into an unwarranted sense of confidence and sets us up for a surprise (usually negative).
In most day-to-day decisions, cause and effect are pretty clear. If you do X, then Y will happen. But in decisions that involve systems with many interacting parts, causal links are frequently unclear. For example, what will happen with climate change? Where will terrorists strike next? When will a new technology emerge? Remember what Warren Buffett said: “Virtually all surprises are unpleasant.” So considering the worst-case scenarios is vital and generally overlooked in prosperous times.
At 6:00am this morning I opened this gift from my mom. After playing around with it for a few minutes I realized that the puzzle was not at all easy. At about 6:10am I started thinking that perhaps randomly placing the pieces together just wasn't going to work. I needed a plan.
There are 9 pieces. I had no idea which piece was even supposed to be the middle piece. I decided that I'd start with each one as the middle piece in turn and work from there. I could see the hours piling up. The combinations and permutations seemed nearly endless. It was especially daunting because all the pieces look so much alike. It was going to be difficult just keeping track of them.
I chose the first piece at random and put it in the center. I then put a piece above it that fit and a piece below it. I then moved to the upper left and put a piece there and then one just below it.
At one point, I swapped two pieces but other than that everything just sort of fell into place. Puzzle solved at 6:15am.
I've never believed in luck, but if you can believe the packaging ("Perhaps the World's Most Challenging Puzzle!") then this was pretty much a Christmas miracle.
There was certainly no skill. I think I could have claimed that after a few hours perhaps, but it never actually got to that point.
The lucky person passes for a genius. - Euripides
That's certainly the risk you run in reading this blog!
Luckis what happens when preparation meetsopportunity. - Seneca
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