Month: September 2025

Many have observed that the Shiller PE Ratio indicator is is close to record highs, at 39 as of writing this, signifying that the stock market (specifically the S&P 500) is overvalued and possibly portending to a crash, as seen in 1999-2000 when the indicator crossed 40: It’s worth to keep in mind that even… Continue reading Why higher stock market valuations are sustainable

The big story is Trump yesterday (9/19/2025) signed an executive order imposing a $100,000 fee for H-1B visas. Many are celebrating this as a win against ‘big tech’. Reuters described it as a “blow to tech”. The Washington Post called it a “clampdown on legal immigration”. One might expect tech stocks to have reacted negatively… Continue reading Why Trump’s H-1B Fee is Not That Big of a Deal

Warning: lots of finance jargon ahead. The idea behind a hedging strategy is that by trading (e.g shorting or going long) a linear combination of uncorrelated assets of different percentage weightings, that superior risk-adjusted returns or other objective can be attained. A popular strategy is 60% bonds and 40% stocks, with bonds helping to hedge… Continue reading Shorting Bitcoin as the Perfect Hedge

I saw this going viral “Humanity will shrink, far sooner than you think.” Although the issue is often described in alarmist language, the evidence shows that population decline remains very gradual. Japan, the posterchild of low fertility, has only seen its population fall a tiny bit since peaking, from 127 million in 2000 to presently… Continue reading Population crisis and social arbitrage

People continue to be taken aback by Richard Hanania’s success: I don't understand how Hanania is a thing. He has never written anything compelling, never said anything that was interesting. His takes always seem to be mediocre lukewarm slop. What is the appeal? https://t.co/vPBAZeEGOP — PoIiMath (@politicalmath) September 14, 2025 The ‘Richard Hanania phenomenon’ is… Continue reading Explaining the ‘Richard Hanania phenomenon’

The week following Charlie Kirk’s death has seen an abrupt change in the state of discourse on Twitter/X. As expected, The Right is much more energized and united. But notably, accounts and topics unrelated to national politics have been pushed to the periphery, such as AI. It’s as if that entire part of Twitter, which… Continue reading The New State of Discourse: AI Risk Pushed to the Periphery

On August 22nd, 2025, a Ukrainian refugee, Iryna Zarutska, was slain on a light rail train in Charlotte, North Carolina. A week later shocking live footage of the incident went viral on social media that showed her being stabbed in the neck by a black male, Decarlos Brown, as onlookers did nothing. And on September… Continue reading The Murders of Iryna Zarutska and Charlie Kirk and the Failure of Law Enforcement

Popular conservative commentator Charlie Kirk was fatally shot yesterday during a speaking event at a Utah campus. The details don’t need recapitulation, and words alone cannot do justice at expressing the horror witnessed that day. The point is, violence is the new normal, and it’s going to get worse. The assassination attempt of Donald Trump… Continue reading The Assassination of Charlie Kirk

Interesting article, which went viral: The Straussian Path. The theme of the article is maximizing one’s own convexity at life. To recap, the term ‘convexity’ and the related neologism ‘optionality’ have become popular in recent years, especially on social media, to describe an investment or other strategy that has a high potential upside and a… Continue reading Why convexity/optionality are overrated

Nine months into the first year of Trump’s second term, here are some thoughts. Right now we’re in the slowdown or lull phase of the second term of Trump’s presidency, similar to his first term at this time. It was not until 2020 during the crisis that was Covid was Trump forced to take a… Continue reading Some thoughts on Trump’s second term: Tech’s ascent