Do we have the capability to eliminate booms and busts in economic activity? The answer in my judgment is no, because there is no tool to change human nature. Too often people are prone to recurring bouts of optimism and pessimism.
November 11, 2013
As I came up out of the subway in New York City, I realized I was at the beginning of Wall Street. Looking up the street I was absolutely awed to see the lineup of limousines. In Boston at the time there were no limousines. There –on Wall Street- they seemingly were everywhere! To a poor Irish kid from Boston the cars, and their...
October 21, 2013
The other night I entered a Cheesecake Factory restaurant and found myself smiling to no one in particular as my mind drifted back to over twenty years ago. I recalled sitting at the Prime Rib in Baltimore with David Overton, founder of The Cheesecake Factory restaurant chain, and his Chief Financial Officer Bill Kling. We had a large...
May 24, 2013
An attractive woman in her early 40s walked right up to us and gushed to my companion, “Aren’t you …?” It wasn’t the first time I saw that happen. But usually it’s an older male in the financial business. Such is the power of being a “Rock Star“ portfolio manager. You become a celebrity. To qualify as a Rock Star, I submit, you have to have...
April 22, 2013
A two-hour college lecture can seem extraordinarily long when you’re in your early 50s, even with a ten-minute break! But there I was sitting in Massachusetts Hall in Harvard Yard –surrounded by over a hundred “kids”- listening to Professor David Dressler talk about the life cycle of scientific breakthroughs. And I had brought this tedium on...
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