Wisdom in fragments

We are in the process of destroying an entire society. It is as simple and terrifying as that....

UN Humanitarian Coordinator; led Iraq sanctions criticism in 1998

The inconvenient-truth of this situation is that however many observers and commentators espouse rhetoric about solutions for this crisis, without buy-in from the individuals who are responsible for our economy? those words are in vain.

You cannot govern a 21st century globalised business with the management style of an 18th century trading firm. In the same way, the modes (and rationale) of governance must be brought up-to-speed with the nature of the citizens they are responsible for.

Policy-makers will have to do the two things which, more than anything, they avoid at all costs. Firstly Accept responsibility and be secondly… be honest…

When politicians refer to 'our nation's best interest' they must realise our economy is globalised.. this means that their nation's best interest is inextricably linked to the best interest of their neighbours- and nations further afield.

People play Farmville, they don't play Zynga! In the same sense, people don't go to Paramount movies, they go to see Mission Impossible.

I've been doing this a long time and have very rarely seen a company with sustainable competitive advantage like Amazon has.

For the iPad it's game over in terms of market-share… Apple has won! It's a preposterously cheap stock…

I think Apple is preposterously undervalued. Apple has this mind-boggling margin structure, phenomenal consumer brand, and is accumulating mountains of cash. I joked on television that they should lever up and buy Greece! They have something like 7x cash-flow.

The principal problem with Groupon, in my opinion, is that they have a bad business model. It basically eats by selling their customers crack cocaine- telling them to cut their prices 50% for a selected number of people. If you do that enough? You wont have a business.

If you look historically at the historical contours of wealth- it's primarily created through private ownership. That's always been the case- and I believe it always be.

These individuals are looking for a global liquid multi-asset portfolio that is highly correlated around risk management strategies. They don't want you taking risk! they're going to do that.. and they can do it better than you can because they're now worth hundreds of millions or billions!

In all the politics that's going on… everyone says that small business are the driver for growth. The truth is, it's not just small businesses… it's NEW businesses. They are the ones that consume the largest number of jobs in an economy and lead to economic growth.

The Chinese government has realised that to fuel capitalism, an atheistic, communistic, civil-religion will never propel growth. They realise that their system, frankly, will not support the growth or creativity to create the new technologies and companies that are necessary.

The money didn't just drop-in… it arrived through creation and building! These individuals are always going to be about growth….

Hedge funds give less transparency than almost anything that people invest money in... Since investors have accepted much less transparency and much less attractive terms in liquidity and information rights, they have not been able to pick apart the sources of return.