Stuff That Interests Me

Bitcoin is off on one its runs, it seems. Congratulations to all who bought and held. It is now trading at all-time highs in 30 different currencies around the world, currencies representing more than 60% of the world’s population. How about that for a thought?From China and India to Congo and Sudan, it’s like a Noel Coward song.In US dollars, we are flirting with $60,000, still roughly 15% from the peak of US$69,000, the all-time high back in late 2021.In British pounds, the all-time high was around £48,000. We are touching that now.Meanwhile, Microstrategy (NDX.MSTR), which we suggested as a means to play bitcoin via a traditional broker, and avoid the FCA-created headaches of buying and investing bitcoin in the UK, is going great guns. $960 now. It was $350 when we first recommended it in the summer. Is it too late to buy?No. I haven’t been asked on TV to talk about it yet. See me on the box, then you can start getting concerned that the top is near. (Here’s one from BBC Daily Politics towards the end of a

You might have seen in the news a couple of days back that, to make Britain’s unaffordable housing affordable, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and the Treasury are considering a scheme whereby people can buy homes with a deposit of just 1% and get a 99% mortgage.Thus, in theory, you could buy a one million pound home with just a ten-grand deposit.(I expect they will cap it below that level, but you get the point).It has become a cliché of the internet, but we say it anyway: “what could possibly go wrong?” It’s good to see the lessons from 2008 have been learned.Who would guarantee these loans should the buyer default? You would. You probably didn’t know this, but you’re already guaranteeing £4 billion under the existing mortgage guarantee scheme. You could soon be guaranteeing a whole lot more.Remember how they used taxpayer money to bail out the banks in 2008 and it was called “socialism for the rich”? This is the same thing, except this time they are bailing out the housing market. The Tories have this annoying (and

The self-improvement industry is just enormous. It’s worth $41 billion worldwide says this report, but, by the time you factor in everything from health and diet to training and education to media, I think it’s much, much bigger than that. We are almost all of us looking to improve ourselves in some way. We might spend fortunes and hours getting fit, strong or supple. We might spend ages making ourselves look beautiful. It never ceases to amaze me how long my eldest daughter can spend getting herself ready for work. She’s only going to work! We might spend hours reading or listening podcasts about how we can improve our performance, our habits or our psychology. Of Amazon’s best selling books last year three of the top ten can be filed under self-improvement (Atomic Habits by James Clear and two Nathan Anthony books on healthy eating). But there is one thing we don’t seem to spend any time trying to improve, and that is how we speak Occasionally, clips of people being interviewed way back when appear on Twi

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comRussia has been buying military drones from Iran and it has been paying for them with gold. This story seems to have gone largely unnoticed, but for those of us interested in the developing narrative that is de-dollarisation, this story has ramifications. A quick word about gold and national currenciesWe all know gold retains its role as store of value - otherwise central banks would no longer keep it, nor would ETFs be a thing. This is never going to change, by the way. Gold has always been and will always be used as a store and display of value. But gold has never been much of a medium of exchange, except for high value transactions. This role usually fell to silver and other metals. Under the classical gold standards of the 19th century gold did find some use. The old pound coin - aka the sovereign - was 22 carat gold, for example, and national currencies were supposed to be interchangeable with gold. But any role gold had

In his book Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves, Matt Ridley argues that Homo sapiens overtook the stronger Neanderthals and, indeed, the rest of the animal kingdom, to become the dominant species on earth, by doing something no other animal does – by exchanging things. “There was a point in human pre-history,” he says, when “people for the first time began to exchange things with each other, and that once they started doing so, culture suddenly became cumulative, and the great headlong experiment of human economic “progress” began. Exchange is to cultural evolution as sex is to biological evolution.”This applies not just to the exchange of objects, but the exchange of ideas, knowledge and information, of skills and services – just about anything. “If I catch the food, you cook it” means that I could specialize in catching – and become better at it – while you specialize in cooking and become better at that. With my superior catching and your superior cooking we both now enjoy considerably better life

I’ve had it beaten into me from an early age how important it is to write clearly and simply. My father, himself a writer, drilled it into me. In my teenage years and into my 20s, we used to work together like mad on things I had written, trimming them down, rephrasing, editing, and he would always talk about the importance of clarity, as he taught me the craft of writing. “Make it easy for the reader,” he would say.As I’ve said many times, the discipline of comedy also forces clarity. If the audience doesn’t understand, they don’t laugh and you die.But in academia and across the financial world, and probably elsewhere, no such discipline applies. In fact, it often pays not to be clear. In the case of finance, if you can obfuscate a little, you are less likely to be caught out or have things thrown back at you. Former Chair of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, who could speak in total gobbledygook if he needed, called what he did “purposeful obfuscation”. How right was George Orwell, another clear speech a

I have been in California - Riverside, LA and Palm Springs - for the last month, helping out with a family issue over there. I wanted to share a couple of thoughts I had about the golden state, where, as wealth and poverty collide, there are two very different realities.My first wake up call was in the supermarket - Stater Bros. Just how expensive has the US has become, especially for a European with weak currency. I used to think America was cheap. You think food prices in the UK are bad. I’d say they are twice as expensive in California, if not more. $4.99 for four large onions and they weren’t even organic onions. Fruit, veg, fish, meat. Name your staple. The US ain’t cheap any more. Obviously, exchange rates are a factor and the pound, at $1.27, is not exactly strong, if one thinks back to the heady days north o f two bucks. But currency aside, ordinary living is getting very expensive for our transatlantic cousins. (Houses are no longer cheap either, for what it’s worth).Fuel, on the other hand, is aroun

(If you prefer, you can watch this article in video form here)The youngster setting out on life in the west has a major problem. We live in a society that penalises hard work. Punitively and relentlessly.As Daylight Robbery readers will know, over the course of a life, half of everything a typical worker earns will be taken from him by the government. More if you factor in inflation. People think a house is the most expensive purchase you will ever make. It isn’t. It is, by far and away, your government. And it’s a forced purchase as well.Not only is the produce of your labour confiscated, it is spent on things on which you may often be philosophically opposed: wars, waste, masks, rainbow road crossings, corruption, human rights lawyers, Stonewall. I could go on.But that is the bind in which the western citizen finds himself. It is the price he must pay for a civilised society.So the typical worker finds himself working hour upon hour merely to stay afloat, his produce confiscated, week in week out. We can’t

If you prefer to read this piece, you can do that here. Live shows coming upIf you have not seen my lecture with funny bits about gold, we have two more dates in London lined up for Feb 14 and 15. Please come.And I am taking my musical comedy show, An Evening of Curious Songs, on a mini tour in the spring with dates in London, Somerset, Hampshire, Surrey and Essex. This is a really fun show.Here are the dates and places.* London, Crazy Coqs, W1. Wednesday March 20th. On sale now.* Bordon, Hampshire. Saturday March 23. On sale now.* Guildford, Surrey. Friday April 5. On sale now.  * Bath, Somerset. Saturday April 6. On sale now.* Southend, Essex . Sunday April 14. On sale now.Buying gold?Interested in protecting your wealth in these extraordinary times? Then be sure to own some gold bullion. I use The Pure Gold Company, whether you are taking delivery or storing online. Premiums are low, quality of service is high, you can deal with a human being. I have an affiliation deal with them. This is a public episode.

If you prefer, you can read or listen to this piece here.Live shows coming upIf you have not seen my lecture with funny bits about gold, we have two more dates in London lined up for Feb 14 and 15. Please come.And I am taking my musical comedy show, An Evening of Curious Songs, on a mini tour in the spring with dates in London, Somerset, Hampshire, Surrey and Essex. This is a really fun show.Here are the dates and places.* London, Crazy Coqs, W1. Wednesday March 20th. On sale now.* Bordon, Hampshire. Saturday March 23. On sale now.* Guildford, Surrey. Friday April 5. On sale now.  * Bath, Somerset. Saturday April 6. On sale now.* Southend, Essex . Sunday April 14. On sale now.Buying gold?Interested in protecting your wealth in these extraordinary times? Then be sure to own some gold bullion. I use The Pure Gold Company, whether you are taking delivery or storing online. Premiums are low, quality of service is high, you can deal with a human being. I have an affiliation deal with them. This is a public episode

It’s that time of year again. Time to get out the crystal ball and tell you precisely what is going to happen in the next 12 months. Here are 15 predictions for 2024.Remember the rules of the game: I score 2 points for a direct hit, 1 for a good call, zero for a miss and minus one for a “David Lammy on Mastermind” fail. As I do every year, I shall come back and mark my homework next December.New years are fairly arbitrary things. January 1st rarely marks an actual turning point. Trends that were trends in the autumn and winter tend to continue into January, February and beyond, until they dissipate and run out of steam. There are occasional dramatic events, but life is mostly a gradual process. It’s only when you jump back or forward 12 months that things look so different. This time last year the S&P500 was struggling to the point that many saw a meltdown coming. We got no such thing - in fact, quite the opposite. The stock market rose 25% in one of its best years ever. 20 years ago, if you could step fo

Shortly after my father died, I remember saying to my eldest daughter: where do thoughts go? What happens to them?My father was a writer, so many of the thoughts he had he wrote down and preserved in some way. But what happened to all the ones he didn’t record over the course of his life? Is that it - they are just gone?Studies suggest a typical person has 7,000 thoughts a day. Others put that number ten times higher at 70-80,000. That seems a lot to me. (Some people, from what I can see, don’t even reach double figures). 80,000 thoughts/day would work out at close to one thought per second. It depends how you define what a thought is, I guess. Many thoughts are repetitive: we have the same thought over, often because we forget we have had it. But whether 7,000 or 70,000, we have a lot of thoughts. So …Of those many thoughts you have each day, how many do you actually recognise or acknowledge? A tiny percentage. Of those thoughts you do recognise, how many do you then articulate or speak aloud in some way? Ag

I am very happily surprised by the success this Substack, the Flying Frisby, is having, and by the way it is growing.I’d like to say it’s all down to you. A lot of it really is: for reading and supporting this letter. Thank you.A lot of it is down to me too for writing it. Aren’t I wonderful?But a lot of it is down to the platform itself. I think Substack is great. I have encountered some of the most brilliant writing on here, stuff I don’t think I ever would found otherwise - either because it would have been in too remote a corner of the internet for me to have ever come across it, or because, without this platform, it might never have got written in the first place. In a virtuous loop, this centre of good writing is leading to more good writing. Free thought is leading to more free thought. Everywhere blossoms. It has become the most fertile platform for philosophy, commentary and the arts. It has created a virtuous circle. Hobbies are becoming livelihoods. Isn’t that great? With free everything, the inter

Here are all the links mentioned in the vid:* An Evening of Curious Songs on Tour* Show about gold in London Feb 14/15* Buy gold - Pure Gold Co* Bitcoin guide. If you prefer to read this article, you can do that here: This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com/subscribe

As long-time readers/sufferers will know, at the beginning of the new year I like to make some predictions for the 12 months ahead. The bolder the prediction, the more entertaining the copy, though the less likely it is to actually happen. Herein lies the eternal conflict at the heart of so much market commentary. What is more important: getting lots of eyeballs or being right? Today we mark our own homework. We look back at last year’s effort and we count up the points. The scoring system: 2 points for a direct hit, 1 point for a nearly right, 0 for a fail and minus 1, if the prediction is David-Lammy-on-Mastermind-level bad. (For those readers not familiar with David Lammy, he is a UK politician from the “everyone who does not agree with me is a Nazi” school of philosophy, who appeared on one of the UK’s flagship quizzes and was really, really bad). I like this exercise because it demonstrates just how much perspective can change over time. While we can change strategy as events develop, the copy from last

I was having a coffee with an Anglo-Italian friend of mine the other day, and he began telling me about his grand-parents. They were “contadini”, which translates literally as “peasants”, though the term peasant does not have such pejorative connotations in Italy as it does here. They called themselves “mezzadri” or “sharecroppers”. A landowner allowed them to work his land, in exchange for half of everything they produced on it. The other half they got to keep. Selling that half of the produce was how they got money. My friend’s family had been doing this for generations, never actually breaking above that status to become landowners themselves.There are many parallels to the mediaeval serf, who had to work the land of his lord in exchange for his subsistence and protection. Just as the serf was the descendent of the Roman slave, so was the contadino the descendent of the serf, though contadini were not as subjugated, except by their circumstances.It is not so different to the plight of the young western wor

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comThis piece started out as an introduction to bitcoin, which a publication asked me to write. They then jerked me around, so I am posting it here instead. Ah! The beauty of owning the means of production. It will be old hat to some of you, but hopefully you will enjoy it nonetheless.Before we start, let me just flag:* Sunday’s thought piece - Why So Many Bad Decisions - got a great response from readers, but I messed up the email, so not everybody saw it. (The dangers owning the means of production). But check it out, if you haven’t already.* If you’re looking for Christmas pressies, we have some fun stocking fillers in the form of my new album, It’s ALL True, old albums and tickets to live shows in the spring. More info here. In particular, as always, I recommend Kisses on a Postcard.Right. Off we go.It is now almost 15 years since Satoshi Nakamoto announced his new invention, bitcoin, to the world. Since then it has grown an

Good Sunday morning to you,Today’s piece is all about decision-making and the decline of family in the west.Before I crack on, I just wanted to flag a couple of things.Wearing my comedy hat, I’m taking An Evening of Curious Songs on a mini tour in the spring - shows in London (Crazy Coqs), Somerset, Surrey, Essex and Hampshire. Tickets make great Christmas pressies, so please take a look.And my new album, It’s ALL True, is out. CDs also make great Christmas pressies for errant uncles, so check that out too in the DF shop.So to today’s piece - Why so many bad decisions?I’ve recently been looking at my family tree on one of those ancestry websites, and I was amazed to see just how big some of the families were in 19th and early 20th Century England. Having nine or 10 brothers and sisters was not unusual.Today, families are much smaller. All sorts of reasons have been proffered for that. Matt Ridley argues that families get smaller as people grow wealthier and live longer. In poorer countries, you might have lot

This post now in video form This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com/subscribe

This post in video form This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com/subscribe