July 4, 2020. What a strange year thus far. I checked my Facebook and Twitter feeds yesterday morning. There were numerous references to Frederick Douglass’ speech, “What to the slave is the 4th of July.” I don’t remember thinking about the issues raised within this speech as a younger man. How is that possible? My …
I remember times in grammar school when we discussed time capsules. I remember thinking the idea of putting aside contemporary “artifacts” was clever, but I never became excited about them. I wish I could remember the years we engaged in the exercise of choosing the items; Maybe I was in the fifth grade (1989). I …
I have been making efforts to periodically, throughout the week, choose an occasion to listen to a webcast on a topic different from my day to day business. This week, Penn State’s Smeal College of Business’ Institute for Real Estate Studies hosted a panel discussion on capital markets in the real estate business with some …
Last year I noticed an article on @WSJ about a possible change to the treatment of rebates from drug manufacturers attributable to government accounts of pharmacy benefit managers (PBM). I posted about it on Twitter when I saw it, as I have been interested in the apparent influence of this source of revenue within the …
It is 5:43pm on Saturday, May 16, 2020. COVID-19 continues to be the topic du jour. My personal objectives today included eating breakfast, power-washing our deck, helping Holger with elementary reading, and attempting to develop some insights on the structure of the pharmaceutical industry. Introductory and meandering thoughts I have been working in the insurance …
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.” Groucho Marx I wonder if there is a more applicable case of Marx’s quote in 2020 than the topic of corporate stock buybacks within the US political echo-chamber. Here is an interesting article from 2019 on …
There is an idea that the value of a brand is measured in the extent to which the consumer associates a relationship with the product or service. There are some distinctly Northern European brands that I feel like I have a relationship with, including Royal Copenhagen, Skovby, Georg Jensen, and Bang & Olufsen (B&O). Notably …
I started working in the insurance business in 1998. I was a twenty year old student at Penn State University, where I studied economics and business administration, and I attended a career fair seeking a “real life experience”. I spent the prior summertime working as a licensed real estate agent in Bethlehem, PA and felt …
In thinking about the can of worms I opened about this topic, I started jotting notes on directions I might take next. There are so many possilbities. As a matter of inquiry, I found and perused an old copy of Keynes’ General Theory, looked at old international finance lecture notes from Professor Stanley Zin, and …
I developed an interest in distressed finance during my time at NYU-Stern, in part due to a very interesting professor, @restructurings, as well as some very cool and smart classmates, with whom I am blessed to remain connected. I have been rereading @elerianm’s The Only Game In Town over the past week and I have …