Not-so-safe assumptions. One of those simple but clever old sayings goes, “You know what happens when you assume: You make an ass out of you and me.” Despite that admonition, we all continually make assumptions every day. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in the oft-intersecting worlds of investments and economics.

For example,

Not-so-safe assumptions. One of those simple but clever old sayings goes, “You know what happens when you assume: You make an ass out of you and me.” Despite that admonition, we all continually make assumptions every day. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in the oft-intersecting worlds of investments and economics.

For example,

We can’t help it. Charles Gave inspires us so routinely that his musings are, once again, the highlight of this month’s Guest EVA. I had an immediate and visceral reaction to his April 10th published essay How Indexation Killed Growth. As you’ll see, he calls index investing stupid and compares it to Socialism—and that’s just the first paragraph!

Two nays and a yea. There’s little doubt that the two most important developments in the financial markets over the last six months have been the stunning rise in the US dollar and the equally shocking collapse by oil prices. In this month’s edition of the Evergreen Exchange, we are taking a closer look at the former and debating whether the buck’s bolt might be coming to an end.

25 years in Sibera. In the late 1980s, I became convinced the Japanese stock and real estate markets were engulfed in one of the biggest speculative manias in world history. It was the first time I started using the B-word—as in “bubble”—in my conversations with clients. Some readers may remember that the most egregious example of that era’s insanity was the alleged valuation of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo being worth more than all the property in California.