Sklaverei war legal. Kolonialismus war legal. Der Holocaust war legal. Jim Crow war legal. Apartheid war legal. Legalität ist eine Frage der Macht, NICHT der Gerechtigkeit.

Investing has the same trap: every additional “opportunity” creates another reason to hesitate. The more assets, themes and scenarios you keep on the table, the easier it becomes to confuse diversification with a complete lack of conviction. At some point, the hardest investment decision is deciding what to remove.

Charlie Munger thought McDonald's did a better job educating people than Harvard. Well, McDonald’s may indeed be an excellent institution for teaching people how to arrive on time, follow procedures, serve customers, accept hierarchy and perform repetitive tasks reliably. Those are useful skills. But calling that “education” while comparing it with Harvard mixes two completely different functions. Harvard’s purpose, at least in principle, is to teach people how to think, question assumptions, develop specialised knowledge and eventually make decisions that affect institutions. McDonald’s teaches people how to function inside an institution that has already made most of the decisions for them. There is also an obvious conflict of interest worth remembering: Munger and Buffett were among the most sophisticated owners of businesses built on exactly this kind of organisational discipline, including McDonald’s and Coca-Cola. That doesn't make their observation false, but it should make us ask what they meant by “education.” So what’s the take? Maybe Munger was accidentally describing exactly what capitalism actually needs from most people: not independent thinkers, but reliable operators who show up on time, follow the system, accept the hierarchy and execute low-information tasks without needing to understand who designed the system or why it works that way. And if that is what Munger meant by “education”, then McDonald’s really might be one of America’s greatest educational institutions.

India is projected to grow 7.5% a year over the next decade. Germany? Roughly 1%. So why are Indians moving to Germany? Because growth and prosperity are two different things: India is growing from a much lower income base, while Germany starts with decades of accumulated wealth, capital, infrastructure and social security. A highly skilled Indian worker can therefore earn far more by moving to Germany, even while the Indian economy around him grows several times faster. And that creates a fascinating paradox: Germany needs Indian workers because Germany is slowing down. India supplies them because India is growing up. Today, migration flows from the high-growth economy to the slow-growth economy. If India's growth compounds for another 20 years, will that still be true?

Guten Morgen! Habt ihr auch so ein Gefühl, dass hier etwas schief läuft?

"The fact is that, after reading books, an educated person becomes a worse consumer: they buy fewer washing machines and cars, preferring Shakespeare or theorems instead. This harms the consumer society's economy and, above all, the incomes of those in power. Hence, they strive to prevent culture and education, which, moreover, hinder them from manipulating the population like an unintelligent herd." Vladimir Arnold, one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century.

“You can’t print molecules, you can’t print calories, you can’t print atoms … Buy the entire complex: own energy, own gold, own silver, own grains, own copper, own every single one of these markets right now because they are underinvested and there are disruptions all over the world.” - Carlyle Advisor and former head of commodity research at Goldman Sachs Jeffrey Currie