February 18, 2026 | Newsletters
Born to Run: Evergreen Private Markets Funds
Semi-liquid private markets funds offering retail investors access to private equity and private credit are foundational components of the effort to ‘democratize’ these markets. But history reveals critical flaws, rendering them vulnerable to bank-run like runs.
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February 04, 2026 | Articles
American Adolescence: Growth Without Guardrails in the Gilded Age
Learn how the Gilded Age was characterized by corruption and innovation, but how corruption proved to be unsustainable.
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January 07, 2026 | Newsletters
Incentives Are Dangerously Aligned in Private Markets
Explains the speculative supply chain—consisting of allocators, consultants, fund managers, trade media, and academics—that has led to a massive oversupply of capital in private markets.
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October 14, 2025 | Newsletters
The Forsaken Playbooks of the Federal Reserve
The Federal Reserve has discounted the lessons of the 1919-1920 and 1965-1982 inflations, thereby repeating the same errors that produced them.
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September 07, 2025 | Articles
Wall Street Journal: History of the New York Stock Exchange
This article is part of the Wall Street Journal’s USA 250 special series, which commemorates the 250-year history of the United States.
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August 19, 2025 | Newsletters
The Gilded Age Circus is Back in Town
This newsletter explains the structural instability of evergreen private markets funds and why individual investors should be wary of Wall Street’s push to democratize private markets.
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July 11, 2025 | Newsletters
Americans Must Resurrect the Spirit of Alexander Hamilton
This newsletter explains why Alexander Hamilton repaired the U.S. credit in 1790, why Americans abandoned these principles after World War II, and why it is essential to reinstate them.
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July 03, 2025 | Articles
Buyers Beware: 7 Red Flags That Signal a Private Market Reckoning
This article identifies multiple red flags in private markets, especially evergreen and semi-liquid funds as part of democratization efforts. Examples include a siloed supply chain, stealthy exit of smart money, and a shared, foundational belief that is likely flawed.
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May 19, 2025 | Articles
Vices, Virtues, and a Little Humor: 30 Quotes from Financial History
Why do smart investors repeat the same mistakes generation after generation? Because financial instincts — like fear, envy, and over…
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May 19, 2025 | Articles
US Public Debt and Money Creation
This article summarizes a presentation given to the Brandes Center Advisory Board at Rady School of Management at UC San Diego. The presentation explains the history behind the use of the public debt, and why the U.S. abandoned discipline after World War II.
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May 06, 2025 | Articles
Short-Term Gains and Long-Term Pain: The History of US Entitlements
This article recounts the history of entitlement spending over the past two centuries and explains why the U.S. abandoned Hamiltonian principles during the post-World War II era.
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April 15, 2025 | Newsletters
A Dark Comedy of Errors in Washington
This newsletter recounts the series of errors emerging from Washington, including monetary policy errors, abandonment of fiscal restraint, and the dangerous initiation of tariffs.
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February 27, 2025 | Newsletters
Celebrating One Year of Investing in U.S. Financial History
Investing in U.S. Financial History: Understanding the Past to Forecast the Future was published exactly one year ago today. Th…
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February 04, 2025 | Articles
Rediscovering an American Treasure: The True Legacy of Hetty Green
Hetty Green was vilified during her time, but her true life story was quite different than the way it was portrayed. This article explains the essence of Hetty Green by linking her values to those of the beneficiaries of her wealth.
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January 31, 2025 | Newsletters
Rebuilding the Wealth of the American Empire
This article explains the conditions underlying the election of Donald Trump. It explains how the steady erosion of U.S. wealth during the post-World War II era may be a crucial driver of discontent.
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December 20, 2024 | Newsletters
Inflation Persisted Because the Fed Relented
This newsletter explains why inflation persisted after the Federal Reserve began prematurely easing policy in late 2024 despite knowing that their predecessors committed the very same error in the late 1960s.
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October 24, 2024 | Articles
A 45-Year Flood: The History of Alternative Asset Classes
Efforts to ‘democratize’ private markets assume that a alternative asset cycle is just beginning. But history demonstrates convincingly that a 45-year cycle is in a dangerous late phase.
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October 24, 2024 | Articles
Wall Street’s Latest Flood: Private Credit
This article identified the early warning signs of excess capital in private credit by the end of 2024. The continued flood has only raised these concerns further.
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July 05, 2024 | Articles
Denying the Odds: The History of Active Management in US Securities Markets
Recounts the history of active management in the United States and explains the merits of index funds. The case study of the Nevada Public Employees’ Retirement System provides a compelling case study.
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February 15, 2024 | Articles
An Unexpected Legacy of a Prudent Man
The article traces the origins of the Prudent Investor Rule, and why current conditions may warrant a revision.
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January 25, 2024 | Articles
Investment Consulting: The Unspoken Conflict of Interest
This article describes the structural conflict of interest that creates incentives for investment consulting firms to recommend complex and expensive funds.
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November 01, 2023 | Articles
A Whale of a Tale: The History of Venture Investing in the United States
This article explores a more than 200-year history of venture investing in the US. It begins with whaling in the 1800s, and ends with the rise of Silicon Valley. The article strongly suggest that venture investing has reached its peak, signaling declining rewards in the decades to come.
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October 31, 2023 | Articles
The Siren Song of a Soft Landing is Getting Louder
This newsletter warned about the emergence of a “soft landing” narrative by Fed President Austan Goolsbee. It cautioned that such an approach would likely compromise the Fed’s effort to extinguish post-COVID inflation.
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August 15, 2023 | Articles
The First Real Estate Bubble and Three Lessons from the Mount Tambora Eruption
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July 15, 2023 | Articles
The Panic of 1819, Silicon Valley Bank and the Danger of Bank Runs
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December 01, 2022 | Articles
The Six Stages of Asset Bubbles
Countless asset bubbles have inflated and burst over the course of history and it is an absolute certainty that more will come. Bub…
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November 17, 2022 | Articles
The Alchemist’s Paradox, Central Bank Sovereignty and the Fate of Crypto
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October 15, 2022 | Articles
The Story of Hetty Green: America’s First Value Investor
Recounts the extraordinary life and investment virtues of Hetty Green, who conquered the treacherous markets of the Gilded Age. Her principles of thrift, skepticism, persistence, patience remain just as relevant today as they were more than a century ago.
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September 22, 2022 | Articles
The Inflation Game: War, Peace and the Perils of Central Banking
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June 23, 2022 | Articles
The Fed Isn’t Bluffing: The Real Threat of an Upside Down Depression
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May 19, 2022 | Articles
The Financial Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic Are not Unprecedented: Multiple Historical Events Help Contextualize the Crisis
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April 26, 2022 | Articles
One Hundred Years of Separation: The Inflation of 1919 and COVID-19
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March 30, 2022 | Articles
The Federal Reserve’s Dovish Days are Suspended: Investors Should Brace Hard for the Hawk
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February 15, 2022 | Articles
A History of Central Banking in the United States
Recounts the history of central banking in the U.S. from the formation of the First Bank of the United States by Alexander Hamilton in 1791 to the struggle with post-COVID inflation in the 2020s.
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February 11, 2022 | Articles
America’s First Funded Pension Plan
This was once a chapter in Investing in U.S. Financial History, but it was eliminated due to space constraints. It recounts the formation of the nation’s first public pension, which was literally funded by acts similar to piracy on the high seas.
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December 13, 2021 | Articles
Investors Can Temper Their Inflation Fears: Post-COVID Inflation is Unlikely to Resemble the Great Inflation of 1968 to 1982
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