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Turns out (1) University of California gets to gamble with – presumably students’? – money, and (2) Blackstone casually “guarantees” an 11.25% annualized return on investment for 6 years

CategoriesIssue Jan'23, Site Updates & News., World Finance News_

The value of the deal is $4B with a B, US dollars. And it has been publicized today, Jan 3rd 2023.

A few questions arise. Firstly, where did the $4B come from? ucod.edu says:

Each of the ten UC campuses has an associated Campus Foundation that is a separately incorporated California non-profit public benefit corporation.
So a non-profit entity accumulated $4B, okay. Then they decided to gamble with it, rather than reducing costs for participants or improving equipment or funding research. Maybe I didn’t read a footnote in the definition of 501(c)(3) that said, the meaning of “non-profit” is that you have to be creative about withdrawing or using the accumulated funds.
Secondly, the risk-free rate right now is about 4.4% and every money market fund is putting funds into shorter term instruments. Compare and contrast that with Blackstone’s “guarantee” of a 11.25% annualized return for 6(!) years. Compare and contrast that with average stock market return for all of history: ~ 12%.
Thirdly, since we are in the beginning of a real-estate de-valuation and/or bubble pop, the timing of the deal raises no suspicion. The capital injection goes into Blackstone’s REITs, which is real estate. California real estate is already 10% down from recent highs and positioned to go lower. It’s only natural to negotiate a little capital injection from a non-profit into a real estate asset manager.

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Some Book recommendations

CategoriesIssue Jan'23, Site Updates & News.

Folks occasionally ask me to recommend books to help them in their professional career.I can usually think of a couple recommendations in the moment, but always feel like I’m forgetting far more good book than I’m recommending. In the hope of providing a better answer going forward, I’ve written up some of the general purpose, leadership and management books I’ve read.

Not all of these are classically great books, some are even a bit dull to read, but they’ve changed how I think in a meaningful way. They’re roughly sorted from those I found most valuable to least:

  1. Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Donella Meadows. For me, systems thinking has been the most effective universal tool for reasoning through complex problems, and this book is a readable, powerful introduction.
  2. Don’t Think of An Elephant! Know Your Values and Frame the Debate by George Lakoff. While written from a political perspective that some might find challenging, this book completely changed how I think about presenting ideas. You may be tempted to instead read his more academic writing, but I’d recommend reading this first as it’s much briefer and more readable.
  3. Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams by DeMarco and Lister. The book that has given generations of developers permissions to speak on the challenges of space planning and open offices. Particularly powerful in grounding the discussion in data.
  4. Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency by Tom DeMarco. Documents a compelling case for middle managers as the critical layer where organizational memory rests and learning occurs. A meditation on the gap between efficiency and effectiveness.
  5. The Mythical Man-Month by Frederick Brooks. The first professional book I ever read, opening my eyes to the wealth of software engineering literature waiting out there.

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Shorting and FDT’ing on Bonds and T-bills is the most direct way to extract wealth from population, by increasing money supply and inflation

CategoriesGamestop., Issue Dec'22, Issue Jan'23, Site updates, World Finance News_

Nowadays, 8% of shorts in bonds market fail settlement.

Shoring T-bills and bonds is a monetary policy tool used by governments and central banks to raise capital and manage their debts. It involves the sale of government securities, such as T-bills (short-term debt obligations) and bonds (long-term debt obligations), to investors in exchange for cash. The cash raised through the sale of these securities is then used to finance government operations and pay off outstanding debts.

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Bilderberg – the Movie (2014)

CategoriesIssue Jan'23, World Governance

I’m actually not sure of the year the movie was released – I think it was 2014, but I see resources that say 2016 and 2017 as well.

A very good movie! It’s a documentary that is not boring, because it has good, interesting visuals. Additionally, and much more importantly, it addresses some issues that are important, to the point of being critical. Is the world really run by a handful of super-wealthy persons? Watch this movie to have another perspective on the topic!

I like the ending, as well. Even in technology and (separately) in corporate aggression, the goal is never the goal, whatever it might be. The eventual outcome of a process is not all that important – even when chasing the eventual outcome of the said process (but perhaps this is a topic for a different, much lengthier, discussion).

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