The April Fools of the US equity market in the Year of our Lord, 2025

 I don't give investment advice to friends. I don't care about the outcome enough to stay engaged, the personal payoff structure is asymmetrical. Family is different. Them, I try to keep out of the ditch, if they ask. 

The market fell off sharply as our President has become enamored with a tax called a tariff. Markets will tolerate a modest hike in taxes, but not on the scale he is proposing. 

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, badly. Never sell out of US stocks. Never. Never. Never. 

Buy when the market is rising, buy when it is falling, buy when it is flat. Never, never sell. Buy when a President is healthy, buy when one is assassinated. Buy when oil is plentiful, buy when there is a shortage. Buy when there is no cure for a terrible virus. Buy when a vaccine is developed. Buy when you love the President, buy when you don't. Buy when you're sober, buy when you're not. Buy when there is war, when there is rumor of war, when there is peace. Buy when your dog dies, when your cat dies (especially), when your Uncle Wayne dies.

Granted there are times when one should sell everything, go to cash, wait for clarity. Ask CNBC or Fox Business they see it all the time. Having been born in 1956 I have yet to see such a day. 

What so many people fail to realize is our emotions act in an opposite fashion of real things. 

When the market falls we percieve (feel) that risks are going up, we feel this is bad. In reality the risks are going down. The opposite is true when stocks are rising. 

This was true in 1929 and will still be true in 2029. True in 1974, will be true in 2074. 

In case I am all wrong. Keep a few cartons of Marlboros and some bottles of Jack Daniels in your basement. I think I have about four of each. When the social order completely breaks down, when the gas pumps are dry and the shelves are bare at Food Lion, these two things will always have value and can be exchanged for passage across the border into Canada or Mexico. 

The best two sentences in "A Gentleman in Moscow"

 "...just remember that unlike adults, children want to be happy. So they still have the ability to take the greatest pleasure in the simplest thing. "

from the chapter "Ascending, Alighting", page 253. 

Bookends of Life

 I am a hospice volunteer and I am a Grandfather. Thus, I spend a lot of time with the very young and the very old. The struggles of their lives seem at times similar, though that is not real.  

I want that glass of water that I see across the room. How do I get it?

I understand what you just said to me. I want to reply but I don't know the words. Or, I know the words but cannot make my mouth say them. 

I should go to the bathroom. Too late. I am embarrassed or ashamed to tell you. 

I miss that person who comes to my room. Where is he? Will she be back today? 

I wait in my room until someone takes me somewhere and tells me what to do. Sometimes I do it. Sometimes I don't. 

It seems to you quite boring that I spend so much time staring out the window. I am learning, retaining, not retaining, thinking. thinking. 

The single best sentence in Anna Karenina

 "Then it was that he first clearly understood what he did not realize when leading her out of the church after the wedding: that she was not only very close to him but that he could not now tell where she ended and he began." Volume II, Part V, Chapter XIV.

I suppose that after 20 or so years of marriage I would have understood this line. But after forty six years I can begin to relate to it. Begin. Deeper than understanding. 

It was well worth a thousand pages of this great novel to find this little jewel of prose.  

The neck tells no lies

 A conversation with my four year old grandson, Ben. Christmas 2024. 

Ben: Grandad, why do you have that turkey thing on your neck. 

Me: That's because I'm getting old. 

Ben: You ARE old. 

Me: Yes I am, I guess. 

Ben: Why do you have that turkey thing on your neck?

Me: When you get old your skin gets loose. 

Ben: But why do you have it?

Ben: You're old. 

Me: Someday you'll have one and maybe your grandson will ask you why. 

Ben: (laughs) Un Uh!

The Cities of 2024

 Not a long list, but a fun one. A very good year for travel. Below is any city where I  spent the  night. 

Victoria, MN
Webster Groves, MO
Minneapolis, MN
Quincy, IL
Amsterdam, NL
Cologne, DE
Miltenburg, DE
Regensburg, DE
Vienna, AT
Budapest, HU
Duluth, MN
Steubenville, OH
Omaha, NE
Bloomington, IL
Nashville, TN
Roan Mountain, TN
Mount Pleasant, SC

Kissimee, FL

The Books I read in 2024

 Below are the books I read in 2024. Those with an asterisk were excellent and I would read again.  

Perhaps the most surprising book of the year was the memoirs of General Sherman. I did not expect the prose of a Civil War general, written 150 years ago, to be so clear and meaningful.  

The biggest waste of time was the Time Chain series by Decker. I kept thinking it would get better but it never did. Time travel paradox, etc etc. Imagine you're 19, in love, and traveled into the future. You meet the one you love, who is now 70ish.Would you still  be in love? Hardly. Yet it happens here. Waste of time. 

The Graham mysteries were very nice though only the Brits can take a whole page to describe a handful of flowers along a sidewalk. Nice murder plots but skip the gardening minutae. . 

Villians of the Early Church: And How they made us better Christians - Aquilina
The Killings at Badger's Drift - Graham
Calming the Storm - Murray/Montagna
The Death of a Hollow Man - Graham
The Dogma of Hell - Schowppe
A Church in Crisis: Pathways Forward - Martin
A Place of Safety - Graham
Charles Taylor and Liberia - Waugh
Witness - Chambers*
Clement of Rome & The Didache: A New Translation and Theological Commentary - Howell
Ghost in the Machine - Graham
Death in Disquise - Graham
Faithful unto Death - Graham
Facing Ali: 15 Fighters, 15 Stories - Brunt*
The Last Don - Puzo
The Wright Brothers - McCullough*
The Racketeer - Grisham
The Big Short (4th reading) - Lewis
Sparring Partners - Grisham
The Razor's Edge - Maugham*
White Fragility (4th Reading) - DiAngelo
Defenders of the West: Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam - Ibrahim
Time Chain - Decker
The Balance of Time - Decker
Addicted to Time - Decker
The Road - McCarthy
American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House - Meacham
Deadly Declarations - Wade
The Habsburgs: The Rise and Fall of a World Power - Rady
Will to Murder: The Crimes and Trials Surrounding the Glensheen Murders - Feichtinger
Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death with J. F. Kennedy, C. S. Lewis and A. Huxley - Kreeft*
The Laws of Brainjo: The Art and Science of molding a musical mind - Turknett (Second Reading)
Genesis: A Bible Study Guide and Commentary - Ray*
The Eucharist Foretold: The Lost Prophecy of Malachi - Aquilina
The Holy Bible (13th or so reading): NRSVCE*
Too Pretty to LIve: The Catfishing Murders of East Tennessee - Brooks
A Pope and A President: John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, and the Extraordinary Untold Story of the 20th Century - Kengor*
Big Cat: The Life of Baseball Hall of Famer Johnny Mize - Grillo
With the Old Breed - Sledge*
The Scarlet Pimpernel - Orczy
Memoirs of General William Tecumseh Sherman - Sherman*