Long or Short Capital

It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It was always my sitting. Got that? My sitting tight!
Edwin Lefevre

Past Quotes Entirely Relevant to Investing

Building on the phenomenal success of the European Chunnel, government planners are coming up with more ways to inventively throw citizens’ money at a hole in the earth. In addition to the Turkish “chunnel” known as Marmamray, we have this development:

In recent months [the] governments of Morocco and Spain have taken significant steps to move forward with plans to bore a railroad under the muddy bottom of the Strait of Gibraltar. If built, the project would rank among the world’s most ambitious and complex civil engineering feats, alongside the Panama Canal and the Channel Tunnel between Britain and France.

Consider some of the benefits of the proposed Spain-Morocco chunnel :

• The Spain-Morocco project is more ambitious than the Chunnel, which was famously delayed, over-budget, and ended up on the verge of bankruptcy. To paraphrase analrapist Tobias Funke: “These huge public works tunnels that cost tens of billions never work. I mean, these people somehow delude themselves into thinking it might, but…. but it might work for us!
• The tunnel will connect a Muslim nation to a Christian continent, making it easier for religious dissidence to spread explosively. It’s REreconquista time!
• Relatedly, this project will greatly increase the demand for TSA types who will be needed to inspect the cars, buses, and camels who travel through the tunnels.
• Private investors who lost money on the Chunnel project will have their chance to recoup Chunnel losses and hit it big in the underwater tunnel investment market.

Recommendation: Long planes, Short chunnels, especially those linking Turkey to anything but mashed potatoes and gravy.

God.

You think you are so much WORSE than I am.

Just because I make all this money and have more flat screen displays on my desk than you have months in this country, you have this righteous feeling of inferiority, that you somehow get to stand below me. Well, I’m onto it and quite sick of it. El juego is up my dear and I will now fight back.

I have taken to deliberately throwing actual trash into the recycling bin below my desk. Non-confidential recycleables go into the shredding bin. Oh yes, your lovely order is completely messed up. You were so smug in your inferiority, slicing me with your covetous glances as you strolled in, and I strolled out. Now I strike down those furtive glares with my knowing insolence.

You may have noticed sometimes I put papers directly in between all three bins. This is no mistake. I know the panic it sets off in your core.

“Which bin¿” you whisper to yourself, very spanishly. That is a good question. Which bin, indeed.

These heroes of finance are like beads on a string; when one slips off, all the rest follow.
Henrik Ibsen

Past Quotes Entirely Relevant to Investing