flâneur

Spencer Ng

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on the atlas — 42

highlights — 133

  • Sometimes, to get through more hours, what was needed was an ice cream and sometimes it was multiple ice creams. The goo d news was that ice cream was pretty cheap. So even though other skaters had millions of euros going into their careers, I was able to skate faster than all of them, because I had found a way to enhance my performance with ice cream. To me the challenge wa s not about suffering, but finding a way to endure hardships with ease.
    e11bfe_b783631375f543248e271f440bcd45c5.pdf
  • Discipline is the difference between what you want and what you want most and what you really, really want. . . . I think people often don’t bring that kind of rigor to whatever it is, if it’s important. Because they’d rather make lots of little tiny decisions than a few big ones.” With that, Hinkie finishes, letting the sentiment hang in the air. The students sit and stare. And in that moment The Process makes a lot more sense.
    Sam Hinkie: After The Process - Sports Illustrated
  • Instead of preserving competition and protecting consumers, we are imposing the preferences of the regulators onto the masses in a way that may be contrary to maximizing efficiency and welfare.
    Antitrust Is 40 Years Behind Contemporary Economics
  • The correct response is to question whether the institution is doing what it claims to do. Hayek’s deepest concern about administrative discretion was precisely this: that the gap between stated purpose and actual operation may be filled by the preferences of the administrators. Looking at the two cases together—the circular market definitions, the untested entry barriers, the absent welfare analyses, the expert who designed the theory before conducting the inquiry—it is difficult to argue that the gap has been filled with anything more rigorous than the personal ambition of those bringing for…
    Antitrust Is 40 Years Behind Contemporary Economics
  • Both cases share a deficit that goes deeper than any individual methodological failure: neither even attempted to measure consumer harm.
    Antitrust Is 40 Years Behind Contemporary Economics
  • What we have instead is an enforcement apparatus that deploys antitrust against the kinds of competitive successes economists admire—rapidly innovating firms that built dominant positions by being superior at satisfying their customers—while doing so using analytical tools that hardly any graduate economists will find adequate, on behalf of a consumer welfare standard that is often abandoned.
    Antitrust Is 40 Years Behind Contemporary Economics
  • A recurring theme I discovered in researching antitrust is that measuring consumer harm and constructing counterfactuals are treated as peripheral rather than central, when invoked at all. While the credibility revolution in broader economics has moved the entire field toward more rigorous counterfactual identification[13], antitrust litigation relies on wordcel economists doing sociological handwaving about "power" and sometimes even “democracy.”
    Antitrust Is 40 Years Behind Contemporary Economics
  • The then frontier of tests for market power: a formal SSNIP test (the "small but significant non-transitory increase in price" hypothetical monopolist test, the standard tool in the DOJ/FTC merger guidelines[10]) was NOT applied[11]. NO Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (a 'how much of this market is dominated by a few firms?' scale) was computed
    Antitrust Is 40 Years Behind Contemporary Economics
  • 7. Never sell the public short. Do not mistake the fears of politicians for ignorance, lack of guts or lack of realism on the part of the voting public. Successful structural reform does not become possible until you trust, respect and inform the elec­ tors. You have to put them in a position to make sound judgements about what is going on. Ordinary people may not understand the situation in all its technical detail, but they know when key questions are being evaded. They can sense when they are being patronised or conned, and do not like it. They respect people who front up honestly to their …
    1.pdf
  • You have to break the pattern of the past dramatically enough to convince the community that, this time, somebody really does mean business. As the reform program rolls forward, a lot of people start hurting. Their confidence depends on maintaining the con­ viction that the government will drive reform to a successful conclusion. Speed, momentum, the avoidance of ad hoc decisions, and an unwavering consistency in serving medium-term objectives are the crucial ingredients in establishing the govern­ ment’s credibility.
    1.pdf
  • Stop the rot before it begins. Re­ move privilege even-handedly across the board and give all groups a more constructive role in a better society.
    1.pdf
  • Don’t stop until you have completed the program. Opponents’ fire is much less accurate if they have to shoot at a rapidly moving target. If you take your next decision while they are still struggling to mobi­ lise against the last one, you will continually capture the high ground of national interest and force them to fight uphill.
    1.pdf
  • We live in an investment world, populated not by those who must be logically persuaded to believe, but by the hopeful, credulous and greedy, grasping for an excuse to believe.
    WARREN E
  • In 1967 this condition intensified. Many investment organizations performed substantially better than BPL, with gains ranging to over 100%. Because of these spectacular results, money, talent and energy are converging in a maximum effort for the achievement of large and quick stock market profits. It looks to me like greatly intensified speculation with concomitant risks -but many of the advocates insist otherwise. My mentor, Ben Graham, used to say. “Speculation is neither illegal, immoral nor fattening (financially).” During the past year, it was possible to become fiscally flabby through a …
    WARREN E
  • On the table lay a stack of small letters, each placed there by others outside his secluded chamber during his period of seclusion. Dazed, he picked one up, which read, "When will Ximing emerge from seclusion? The family's stock of thirteen types of medicinal pills requires sorting and distribution. If you have any free time, please come to see me." The handwriting was firm, deliberate, suggesting careful thought. It was signed by his father, Li Yuanping, roughly six months earlier. He pulled out another letter, "If Ximing emerges from seclusion, please come see me." This letter was more recen…
    The Mirror Legacy - Chapter 547: Seizing The Light, Capturing The Flame - Novel Fire
  • "The second is composure."
    The Mirror Legacy - Chapter 190: Xu Gongming - Novel Fire
  • "If you want to join the army, that really is a good path. I do not know much about military formations or cultivation, but I can only teach you two words," he said. "The first is loyalty."
    The Mirror Legacy - Chapter 190: Xu Gongming - Novel Fire
  • On one point, however, I am clear. I will not abandon a previous approach whose logic I understand (although I find it difficult to apply) even though it may mean foregoing large and apparently easy, profits to embrace an approach which I don’t fully understand, have not practiced successfully and which, possibly, could lead to substantial permanent loss of capital.
    WARREN E
  • Interestingly enough, although I consider myself to be primarily in the quantitative school (and as I write this no one has come back from recess - I may be the only one left in the class), the really sensational ideas I have had over the years have been heavily weighted toward the qualitative side where I have had a "high-probability insight". This is what causes the cash register to really sing.
    WARREN E
  • after the Dow declined from 995 at the peak in February to about 865 in May, I received a few calls from partners suggesting that they thought stocks were going a lot lower. This always raises two questions in my mind: (1) if they knew in February that the Dow was going to 865 in May, why didn't they let me in on it then; and, (2) if they didn't know what was going to happen during the ensuing three months back in February, how do they know in May?
    WARREN E
  • We like good management - we like a decent industry - we like a certain amount of “ferment” in a previously dormant management or stockholder group. But, we demand value.
    WARREN E
  • Through the valley flowed a Mississippi of humiliated Americans.
    Slaughterhouse 5 - Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut Jr_.pdf
  • We derive no comfort because important people, vocal people, or great numbers of people agree with us. Nor do we derive comfort if they don't. A public opinion poll is no substitute for thought. When we really sit back with a smile on our face is when we run into a situation we can understand, where the facts are ascertainable and clear, and the course of action obvious. In that case - whether other conventional or unconventional - whether others agree or disagree - we feel - we are progressing in a conservative manner.
    WARREN E
  • However, Sun Lingtong knew that if it was the Ning Zhuo who had just left the Fire Persimmon Immortal City encountering such matters, he would only have a slight upturn of his lips, secretly pleased that such changes would help in resurrecting his mother. And there would never be such a cheerful smile. “You are only sixteen; this is the smile a youth should have.” “Just continue venturing on like this.” “Go and witness all the ugliness and beauty, go and experience all kinds of thrills and interesting things.” “Life inherently has infinite possibilities, with countless different ways to live.”…
    Mysteries Of Immortal Puppet Master - Chapter 529: If Fate Brings You Harm
  • You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: it is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival.
    Blood, toil, tears and sweat - Wikipedia
  • In 1969, Rogers testified before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Communications, which was chaired by Democratic Senator John Pastore of Rhode Island. U.S. President Lyndon Johnson had proposed a $20 million bill for the creation of PBS before he left office, but his successor, Richard Nixon, wanted to cut the funding to $10 million.[70] Even though Rogers was not yet nationally known, he was chosen to testify because of his ability to make persuasive arguments and to connect emotionally with his audience. The clip of Rogers' testimony, which was televised and has since been viewed by millions…
    Fred Rogers - Wikipedia
  • I would consider a year in which we were down 15% and the Dow declined 25% to be much superior to a year when both the partnership and the Dow advanced 20%.
    WARREN E
  • True conservatism is only possible through knowledge and reason.
    WARREN E
  • There is nothing at all conservative, in my opinion, about speculating as to just how high a multiplier a greedy and capricious public will put on earnings. You will not be right simply because a large number of people momentarily agree with you. You will not be right simply because important people agree with you. In many quarters the simultaneous occurrence of the two above factors is enough to make a course of action meet the test of conservatism.
    WARREN E
  • My own record of investing such huge sums of money, with restrictions on the degree of activity I might take in companies where we had investments, would be no better, if as good.
    WARREN E
  • however, I would rather sustain the penalties resulting from over-conservatism than face the consequences of error, perhaps with permanent capital loss, resulting from the adoption of a "New Era" philosophy where trees really do grow to the sky.
    WARREN E
  • Our performance, relatively, is likely to be better in a bear market than in a bull market so that deductions made from the above results should be tempered by the fact that it was the type of year when we should have done relatively well. In a year when the general market had a substantial advance I would be well satisfied to match the advance of the Averages.
    WARREN E
  • There’s a wonderful description of Johnson stand- ing at his desk in the Senate. David Broder was there, and he reminded me that Johnson used to direct the votes. If he wanted the votes to go faster he’d put his arm up over his head at the majority leader, and go like this, and the clerk would call the roll faster.
    th_white_2003_caro.pdf
  • They are: “A civil rights bill had to be passed. And a civil rights bill was going to be passed.” What I do over and over again: Johnson comes to some obstacle erected by the Southern senators that seems insurmountable, and he retreats back to his ranch on the Peder- nales, and what he does down there is think. And after I describe this obstacle that the South has erected, and its seeming insurmountability, I end by saying, to show the depths of Lyndon Johnson’s determination: “But a civil rights bill had to be passed. And a civil rights bill was going to be passed.”
    th_white_2003_caro.pdf
  • You could, I suppose, say, that that is merely an example of Lyndon Johnson always trying to do the best job he could, no matter what job he had, and that was indeed a characteristic of Johnson. But the reason I always felt that I knew he tr uly wanted to help was that he didn’t just teach the chil- dren, he taught the janitor.
    th_white_2003_caro.pdf
  • "I've been searching for a way to honor them," he said, and then he doodled some more.He passed the drawing to Poole. "There, Corch," he said. It was a rough draft of the star jersey, with the five stars across the breast for the five boys who didn't get out in '45. Bull Cyclone would live another 25 years, changing the autumns and the lives of Scooba football players he didn't run off in the summers.
    The Toughest Coach There Ever Was - Sports Illustrated Vault | SI.com
  • The pleasure of Path to Power and Means of Ascent does not, by and large, come from the craftsmanship of the writing. As a prose stylist, Caro is not in the same class as Garry Wills, Norman Mailer, Gay Talese, Robert Hughes, or Marshall Frady.
    Caro’s Way - Columbia Journalism Review
  • To be anything pure requires an arrogance he did not have, and a selfishness he could not bring himself to assume. He was a man intensely disappointed in himself. And I think he liked the complete ruthlessness of my design to be a writer in spite of mother and hell.
    ALGREN.qrk
  • A good writer always works at the impossible.
    ALGREN.qrk
  • The craft or art of writing is the clumsy attempt to find symbols for the wordlessness. In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable.
    ALGREN.qrk
  • As an exercise we were to try reducing the meat of a story to one sentence, for only then could we know it well enough to enlar ge it to thr ee or six or ten thousand words.
    ALGREN.qrk
  • He bristles at the word obsessive, his eyes flashing through his thick, dark glasses. "That implies it's something strange," he says. "This is reporting. This is what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to turn every page."
    Robert Caro Fourth Volume - The Big Book, by Chris Jones
  • "Every step of that story is by all ordinary standards insane," Gottlieb says today. "But he didn't say any of it as though it were remarkable. We're dealing with an incredibly productive, wonderful mania."
    Robert Caro Fourth Volume - The Big Book, by Chris Jones
  • Rey’s (2013) appraisal of the past decades is that U.S. monetary policy overwhelmingly determined the monetary policy of countries that allowed partial financial integration —irrespective of their exchange- rate re gimes — thereby reducing the trilemma to a dilemma.
    Aizenman Econ Modelling_3_2018.pdf
  • a growing share of EM s countries converged to “ in-between ” regimes —managed exchange -rate flexibility, controlled financial integration, and limited but viable monetary autonomy
    Aizenman Econ Modelling_3_2018.pdf
  • They find that partial capital controls do not generally allow for greater monetary control more than open capital accounts, unless capital controls are quite extensive. However, a moderate amount of exchange rate flexibility does allow for some degree of monetary aut onomy, especially in emerging and developing economies. Empirically, they observe that while some countries have long -standing, pervasive capital controls, a substantial subset of countries use limited controls on an episodic basis.
    Aizenman Econ Modelling_3_2018.pdf
  • What Sun Tzu is trying to avoid, if at all possible, is being forced into fighting a set piece battle in which he might have an equal to or greater than chance of losing.
    Sun Tzu’s Fighting Words
  • Well, what's at stake is, you really are pretty unhappy with what you wrote.
    How Robert Caro Writes About Power and the Powerless, Ep. 266 | The New York Public Library
  • And if not having that story, there is no way to recognize how significant government can be
    How Robert Caro Writes About Power and the Powerless, Ep. 266 | The New York Public Library
  • But they turn the powerless largely into abstractions, or statistics, or data, largely because most writers don't know the powerless, or at least don't know them in that way.
    How Robert Caro Writes About Power and the Powerless, Ep. 266 | The New York Public Library