In the GMO 2Q16 Letter Ben Inker offers a discussion about short-duration risk assets and their potential to offer decent returns over time with less vulnerability to rising discount rates. These assets, generally lumped together under the “alternatives” title, are generally out of favor today given their disappointing performance since the financial crisis, but the characteristics that made them disappoint may well prove a blessing if discount rates start to rise.Jeff Bezos Beautifully Explains Innovation and Consumer Sovereignty (LINK)
Information asymmetry: Secrets and agents (LINK)
George Akerlof’s 1970 paper, “The Market for Lemons”, is a foundation stone of information economics.Episode 07 of Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History podcast (LINK)
In 1984, Elvis Costello released what he would say later was his worst record: Goodbye Cruel World. Among the most discordant songs on the album was the forgettable “The Deportees Club.” But then, years later, Costello went back and re-recorded it as “Deportee,” and today it stands as one of his most sublime achievements.
“Hallelujah” is about the role that time and iteration play in the production of genius, and how some of the most memorable works of art had modest and undistinguished births.
Book of the day: Minding the Store - By Stanley Marcus