Oct 1, 2026

Around 155 BC, Athens sent the philosopher Carneades to Rome to plead for a fine to be lifted. He delivered a brilliant speech and swayed the audience. The next day he returned to the same square and delivered an equally impassioned speech making the opposite point, and swayed them all over again. Cato the Elder was in...

Sep 24, 2026

On August 30, 2026 we gained a daughter. My son Jonah married Molly after eight years and one week of dating, and the Wedding Politburo gave me exactly three minutes for a speech. (I kept it to 40.)

This episode is the speech I gave at Jonah and Molly's wedding, along with the story of the rabbi who married them and...

Sep 17, 2026

The US is running a 6% budget deficit in peacetime. Peacetime is now over. Interest on our debt now costs more than defense. It crossed in 2024 and has stayed there.

This is the second half of my letter to IMA clients, and it argues for an asset I spent most of my career politely ignoring: gold. The fact that I am...

Sep 9, 2026

In mid-August 2026, the 30-year Treasury yield hit its highest level in 19 years, above 5.3%, and the 10-year touched 4.75%. What happened next did not shock me, but it worries me: the US Treasury bought back its own long bonds to push yields down, financing the purchase by issuing short-term Treasuries. Yields fell for...

Aug 21, 2026

A client of mine left $100 million to his wife and two grown kids after cancer took him at 66. He was Yale-educated, second-generation American, ran the family business his Russian immigrant father started, and worked 16-hour days, seven days a week, in the basement. His son, days away from becoming a father himself,...