I read “Overstory,” a few weeks ago because Chat suggested it as a comp for my novel. I immediately became depressed, but finished it and then started “Playground,” which didn’t cheer me up whatsover because all I could think was Why do I even try? As a writer, it is humbling to read something done so well that you yourself want to do. Powers did with the Ocean in “Playground” that he did with Trees in “Overstory,” giving each a mystical, all-knowing presence that has been there since the begining and will be there until the end.
It was further humbling that I had no longer finished the first paragraphs of what I thought my next novel would be when I turned to the first page of “Playground.” Yes. It was an actual book, and I read about the begining of time. My first paragraphs summarized the Big Bang. Richard had beat me to it. Not only beat me to it, but rubbed my face in his eloquence in a most cruel fashion. It did little for my affection for him. At the end of “Playground,” he placed Proverbs 8:22-31. The same passage I ended my first self-published book with, the difference of course being few people read mine.
So, maybe Chat wasn’t too far off base suggesting his work as a comp, now that I consider more carefully those two coincidences, Mr. Powers beating me on the first, my preceeding him, with no particular significance in the second. Of course, I felt similarly with other books of excellence, but is clear that many others are not so afflicted by their own mediocrity that they sit around feeling sorry for their light not shining as so brightly as others such that they might sit on a completed, fully edited manuscript that took four years from then to now and cost some thousands of dollars, like I’m doing now.
“Playground” was easy to read. Fast. Engrossing. Skipping words and occaisional sentences because you knew what they were saying before they even hit the cortex, then slowing so as to not miss the emotion. Faster. Slower. Finding a rythm so that the whole thing seemed more like a song. I got the message about the beauty and mystery of the ocean and how inticrately tied to life they are, like trees. And I got the scary power of AI and not knowing for sure where it would lead, but then discovering towards the end it was a story, for real. When you’re in a story it is real, then…Well. I don’t want to spoil it.
I can’t remember exactly why I started reading Anna Karenina because it was so long ago, but I am somewhat confident it was a reference to C.S. Lewis’s book about love or maybe the one about grief. It was my hard book. I try to read two books at the same time, an easy one and a hard one; it’s just that I read at least three easy books in the time it took for this hard one, but it wasn’t hard to read, just long.
It was interesting, the structure of pre-revolutionary Russia, with the nobility, the peasants, and the building sense that something wicked this way was coming, not only culturally, but in the novel itself. Naturally, my favorite story line was the happy one, Levin’s story line, with Kitty, and how he was in love with her, but she in love with Vronsky, or at least thinking so, then the way Levin ran into her like 300 pages later, in the carriage, under a moon, still in love with her, and how that interaction was described. My impression is that Tolstoy was Levin, in his philosophizing and internal debate relative to the existence of God, and his struggle with faith, and figuring it out finally, in the end of course.
DH Lawrence, Tolstoy is not, as evidenced by Alexei Karenin having Anna come to his room. Everyone knows what they did, so, okay, I suppose, and a hundred, or was it two hundred pages later, when Anna did what she had wanted to do all along with Vronsky was modestly more descriptive, at least emotionally. And Levin and Kitty getting married—I’m pretty sure they consummated their marriage, but I couldn’t be positive other than there was a child.
I appreciated the humor of Levin getting married in the Russian Orthodox church, not that far apart from Catholic, and how Kitty was a believer, as most women were, and how he had to talk to the priest about his belief, but not wanting to lie about it. I liked those passages. And when his son was born.
And amidst the silence, as the indubitable reply to the mother’s question, a voice was heard, quite different from all the subdued voices speaking in the room. It was the bold, brazen cry, not intent on understanding anything, of a new human being who had appeared incomprehensibly from somewhere.
Tolstoy, Leo. Anna Karenina (Oprah’s Book Club): (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (p. 656). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
And when Anna did it. So beautifully done.
‘Where am I? What am I doing? Why?’ She wanted to rise, to throw herself back, but something huge and implacable pushed at her head and dragged over her. ‘Lord, forgive me for everything!’ she said, feeling the impossibility of any struggle. A little muzhik, muttering to himself, was working over some iron. And the candle by the light of which she had been reading that book filled with anxieties, deceptions, grief and evil, flared up brighter than ever, lit up for her all that had once been in darkness, sputtered, grew dim, and went out for ever.
Tolstoy, Leo. Anna Karenina (Oprah’s Book Club): (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (p. 701). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
And a metaphysical passage of Levin’s doubt.
‘In infinite time, in the infinity of matter, in infinite space, a bubble-organism separates itself, and that bubble holds out for a while and then bursts, and that bubble is – me.’ This was a tormenting untruth, but it was the sole, the latest result of age-long labours of human thought in that direction. This was the latest belief on which all researches of the human mind in almost all fields were built. This was the reigning conviction, and out of all other explanations it was precisely this one that Levin, himself not knowing when or how, had involuntarily adopted as being at any rate the most clear.
Tolstoy, Leo. Anna Karenina (Oprah’s Book Club): (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (pp. 721-722). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Then, he starts to “get it.”
Lying on his back, he was now looking at the high, cloudless sky. ‘Don’t I know that it is infinite space and not a round vault? But no matter how I squint and strain my sight, I cannot help seeing it as round and limited, and despite my knowledge of infinite space, I am undoubtedly right when I see a firm blue vault, more right than when I strain to see beyond it.’ Levin had stopped thinking and was as if only listening to the mysterious voices that spoke joyfully and anxiously about something among themselves. ‘Can this be faith?’ he wondered, afraid to believe his happiness. ‘My God, thank you!’ he said, choking back the rising sobs and with both hands wiping away the tears that filled his eyes.
Tolstoy, Leo. Anna Karenina (Oprah’s Book Club): (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (p. 732). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
And at the end, when he “get’s it,” he’s with Kitty, and she’s looking at him and he sees she understands, but then asks him to do something:
‘Very well, I’ll make sure,’ said Levin, getting up and kissing her. ‘No, I won’t tell her,’ he thought, as she walked on ahead of him. ‘It’s a secret that’s necessary and important for me alone and inexpressible in words. ‘This new feeling hasn’t changed me, hasn’t made me happy or suddenly enlightened, as I dreamed – just like the feeling for my son. Nor was there any surprise. And faith or not faith – I don’t know what it is – but this feeling has entered into me just as imperceptibly through suffering and has firmly lodged itself in my soul. ‘I’ll get angry in the same way with the coachman Ivan, argue in the same way, speak my mind inappropriately, there will be the same wall between my soul’s holy of holies and other people, even my wife, I’ll accuse her in the same way of my own fear and then regret it, I’ll fail in the same way to understand with my reason why I pray, and yet I will pray – but my life now, my whole life, regardless of all that may happen to me, every minute of it, is not only not meaningless, as it was before, but has the unquestionable meaning of the good which it is in my power to put into it!’
Tolstoy, Leo. Anna Karenina (Oprah’s Book Club): (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (p. 747). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
This is what I found most interesting—Levin’s struggle with faith. During his crisis of faith, he experienced significant suicidal ideations, as did Anna Karenina, not over faith, but over her hopeless situation, with the other difference being that she followed through on it.
That’s always the question, the meaning of life thing. Everyone is focused on their wants and desires, and that takes so much energy and time and effort that you lose sight of what really matters, which is what Levin figured out at the end.
My last financial post on 25 March Connecting the Dots could have been construed as a timing call, which wouldn’t be too far off base. As for myself, I’m over 26% YTD, but that post then (as clearly stated) was not to be considered financial advice then, and what follows is not to be considered similarly now; but, I had a thought. What if there was a sure thing, a low-risk strategy to at least not lose money, and at best, make money in these uncertain times.
Firstly, in the spirit of Euclid, let’s gather some knowns, or at least almost knowns, perhaps, most likely knowns. We can grade these 1-3, with 1 being true, and 3 being less than true. Additionally, let’s gather some information supporting certain assumptions.
Par value of bonds are inversely correlated to interest rate (1) : When interest rate go up, bond value goes down, and vice versa.
The Federal Reserve only directly controls the short end of the yield curve (2): When the Central Bank “cuts/raises” rates, that is the overnight rate between banks lend to each other. This is most acutely felt on short-term US Treasuries.
BIL=SPDR 1-3mo T-bill ETF: Current yield=4.59%
ZROZ=PIMCO 25+Yr US Treas ETF: Current yield=4.85%
Historically, when the Fed cuts rates, rates fall across the board (3), until now. Why?
Current US federal debt=36.2T (1)
2025 US federal deficit=1.36T (1)
Current projections are that the federal deficit will increase (2)
Foreign creditors (Japan, China, UK biggest) are decreasing their positions of US debt, collectively, while their central banks are increasing position in gold. (2)
US credit downgraded in 2011 (S&P), in 2023 (Fitch), and in 5/2025 (Moody). (1)
The Fed cut interest rates x3 in 2024. (1)
Value of BIL one year ago (20240613)=91.57 (All=1)
Value of BIL today (20250613)=91.58
Value of ZROZ one year ago=77.96
Value of ZROZ today=64.96 (-17%)
If you sell an asset at a loss, say ZROZ in the above example, you lose 17% value. (1)
If you hold a losing asset, the loss remains an unrealized loss “on paper.” (1)
In the above, a logical assumption would be that there is a loss of faith in the long-term solvency of US debt, which makes further acquisition riskier and thereby demands a higher rate. Additionally, a net decrease in US debt increases supply, thereby decreasing demand.
Whereas short-term (ST) debt (BIL) has maintained value, while paying 4.59% interest, long-term (LT) debt (ZROZ) has lost 17% of value while paying 4.85% in the past year. So, in the case of ZROZ you realize a net income of 4.85-17%= (-12.5%), which is a very bad deal.
In light of the above, who would own LT debt? An idiot, that’s who, which is why there are a lot of bond bears; but, keep reading…
What does Bond King, Jeffrey Gundlach say? Last week, he said “A reckoning is coming.” It’s only 27 minutes, and JG is a personable guy; but, the most important thing I took from it was:
The Fed will not accept 10-Yr rates above 5% (A different source, not JG, suggests a trigger of 6%); and the Fed will institute QE (buying LT Treasuries with helicopter money).
LT Treasuries will become desirable right at that moment. Preferably, the day before, JG qualified with a chuckle, like, that’s impossible. Or is it?
More Knowns (per ChatGPT):
For every 0.5% increase in LT (10yr) interest rate, ZROZ value will decrease by 12.5%.
The inverse is true as well, for every 0.5% decrease, value will increase by 12.5%.
Key Takeaways: summary of QE effects on LT rates.
Immediate market response to QE announcements usually caused sharp short-term drops in long-term rates.
Magnitude of impact ranged from 0.5% to 1.0% lower yields during initial QE phases.
Tapering or unwinding QE (e.g., 2013 and 2022–2023) often caused more dramatic rate increases than QE lowered them.
QE works partly by signaling future Fed policy and shaping expectations more than just by bond supply/demand.
So, it is not a given that LT rates will drop with QE, but BOND KING JG seems to believe that since the goal of this round of QE is to drive down LT rates to refinance US debt, it will most likely happen. The sharpest drop historically was after QE1, a 1.7T of funny money. This round would be considered QE1, and most likely in line with QE1 last time, plus the Fed will make it large enough to have the desired effect long enough to refinance the debt they want to.
In 2008, with the Fed rate cut, ZROZ increased about 50%, and during the covid swoon/spending, it increased about 40%.
Therefore, it is most likely JG is right, and owning LT US debt the day before would be a good thing.
So…Finally. The sure thing, or as sure as you could be, if this were actually investment advice, which it isn’t.
Let’s say you were stupid and bought LT treasury ETFs like EDV or ZROZ, or 10-20yr TLT. Let’s say you were convinced that rates would fall with the fed cuts, like they have forever, and you load up on EDV to be a hero and walk off into the sunset fat, happy and rich; but then the unthinkable happened. Rates on the long end went up. I mean, WTF? What now?
There are three possibilities, going forward:
Trump and Bessent are right. GDP exceeds 3%, more DOGE cuts, and deficit decreases.
They are wrong, tariffs suck, deficit increases, 10-yr rates exceed 5%.
The US defaults.
The most likely outcome is #2. It’d be great if it were #1. In either of those cases, the long-end rates fall because US debt becomes less risky, or because the Fed decreases the supply (by buying massive amounts), and EDV/ZROZ take off like a rocket.
The last possibility will eventually happen, but not at this time. Funny money will work until it doesn’t, but that’s at least a few years off.
So, getting back to our stupid investor friend of a friend sitting on a shitload of LT ETFs at a 20% loss. WTF?
The long end will fall. It has to because of #1 or #2. It might be three months or three years, but the long end will come down whether market-driven or forced, and the value of EDV/ZROZ will increase significantly (20-60% from the lows). And the Bond King will be a buyer, or will have (most likely) already bought, because he’s the king.
Our stupid investor is no king, so what’s the best he (not saying it’s a he) could theoretically do? (Since this is not advice)
Sell all current LT US debt ETFs, and immediately buy a similar ETF, but dissimilar enough to trigger a wash sale. EDV/ZROZ is a good swap-pair as duration is slightly different.
This locks in paper loss while maintaining total position size. Below are several dissimilar ETFs, other than the bolded ital.
ETF
Issuer
Index
Ex Dividend
Expense
Duration
TLT
I-SHARES
ICE US TREAS 20+
1 OR 2 OF MO
0.15%
20+
VGLT
VANGUARD
BLOOMBERG LT TREAS
1 OR 2 OF MO
0.03%
10+
SPTL
SPDR
BLOOMBERG LT TREAS
1 OR 2 OF MO
0.03%
10+
TLH
I-SHARES
ICE US TREAS 10-20
1 OR 2 OF MO
0.15%
10-20
EDV
VANGUARD
STRIPS (0-COUPON)
1 OR 2 OF MO
0.05%
20-30
ZROZ
PIMCO
STIPS-BASED
APR/1ST OF MO
0.15%
25+
Every 30 days, if still on the wrong side of the trade, rates are rising, and bond value decreasing, swap ETFs to realize paper loss while maintaining full position, and add to position as able.
When rates do come down and ETFs spike, begin liquidating, understanding that it doesn’t all happen in one day. It took about 3 mo in 2021 to peak, and stayed there another 3 mo. They will be extremely volatile, up 10% one day or week, down 10% the next, then back up. The goal is to at least sell to recover all of paper loss, ideally, historically, it should be much more than that. When this is happening, most likely, things are not good and all other asset classes, except gold probably, are falling. If the reason for fall in rates is QE, then cash long-term is not a good asset. But, that’s another post.
Examples: $100,000 EDV:
Our stupid investor sitting on a 15% losing position, been wrong for a year. a. Sell EDV/BuyZROC: $15k loss: collecting monthly dividends, and averaging down. b. Wrong for another year, rates up to 5.5%, harvested about 5K in dividends, but value down another %15. c. The Bond King is right six months later. It’s Bloody Tuesday, QE1 declared, rates fall a percent, and ZROZ overshoots to 50% gain in next few months: i. 18mo of dividends reinvested into position brings total to 108,000 ii. 40% increase=$151,200, offset by over 30k in losses for a taxable gain of 51,200-30+k, or about 20k taxable gain.
Say we have a non-stupid investor who doesn’t even have a losing position, but starts accumulating now. All the above applies other than the initial losing position, and results would be 15k to the positive.
I loved this book. It’s the first one I’ve read by Mr. Backman, but not the last. That’s for sure. It’s like John Irving, Wally Lamb, David Mitchel, Jennifer Egan, Michael Chabon, Hernan Diaz–if I see them on a shelf, I buy them. Which reminds me of “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” by Junot Diaz, and I excitedly looked it up as that would be a good comp, but it was from 2007. Bummer.
Unfortunately, I found My Friends mildly depressing, pretty much from the beginning, because it was so fucking good and I was envious, which is a sin. I know, and I tried to not be that way, and to just enjoy it, but it’s like, Shit! That idea’s gone. Or Can’t write that now. And Why couldn’t I have thought of that? Time after time, after time. It was exhausting. The Envy.
There was so much that was cool about this book, I don’t even know where to start. Maybe, the structure, the play with time and how many chapters started with something like, “25 years later,” or “25 years before,” and how the story advanced as a story told by Ted to the main character, Luisa, on a train, traveling to the ocean. I loved how chapters would be chopped in half and you’re thinking WTF and then there’s a chapter of why this was that way, and then you get back to the WTF happened answer. I mean, aren’t there rules against that?
Obviously, no, there aren’t. So, this was a good lesson. It doesn’t necessarily need to be linear, although this largely was as both storylines advanced linearly, in parallel, kind of. This is my favorite kind of book. The kind that make you laugh and cry. Several times. The humor at times was so subtle that it was funnier than if it had not been. Sly, witty, tricky humor, it was. And the way the secondary character, the reason for the story, “the artist,” was only known as “the artist,” throughout, except at the end. Every time a scene came up with “the artist,” it made me smile because it was “the artist.” How funny is that?
Enduring friendship. This is a good comp for Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and I think, might be for me, other than it’s too good/he’s too big, which can be a bad thing in a query letter. Let’s see; 17yo girl (check), road trip (check–kind of–train trip), underlying theme of platonic love/friendship (amen, brother), makes you laugh and cry (hopefully), two stories in two different time periods (double-check), mildly erotic and use of foul language (imagine annoying buzzer/not really). So, five out of six. I’d better keep reading because of #6.
The third thing I like. Is it the third? Well, whatever, what I liked, and what I tried to do in The Song of Songs is connecting a lot of things, some little, some big, to other parts of the story all the way through to the end. Pretty much like “Chekov’s gun.” Like, a phone number written down that doesn’t seem important, until it is, or a phone call answered 25 years later. It’s all so beautiful, and the ending isn’t what’s being sold all through the telling of it, which isn’t a bad thing. It’s a surprise, and who doesn’t like suprises? A freak. That’s who.
I love Mr. Backman, and I’m not gay, which isn’t a bad thing, it’s just that it’s hard to not read a book anymore without a dominant gay person in it, which isn’t a bad thing either, it’s just that my book doesn’t have one, even if there is technically a sexual scene involving two cisgender females, so perhaps I should emphasise that in my query letter, like…
Dear Ms agent (most are women)
The Song of Songs is a 100k novell (used to be 160k) about enduring friendship that will make you laugh and cry, uses the word “fuck” a lot, is mildly erotic without being pornographic, but mainly, it contains a scene with two women and a bathtub.
As usual, looking for a good comp for The Song of Songs. At first I was excited, because it was a road trip and the protagonist was a 60+ year-old guy, and there was a whiff of magical realism with a sentient cat and a few other things, and it’s funny. But. But it’s not at all like my manuscript (that’s what I’m to call it in query letters because “novel” is too presumptious maybe?) . Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is still better. But I need a second. I could use this in a pinch, I suppose.
There is the similarity of the first chapter and the last, which really has nothing to do with the story so much, but it starts and ends with a cat, so, that’s cool. I loved the main character/PJ’s daughter, Sophie, best, and the Irish twins next, especially Luna, the precocious, pissed off 11yo (I think–it wasn’t the last book I read). PJ always left me a little wanting, persistently failing to meet expectations until the VERY end, so his character arc was mostly flat, with mild positive movement just past the middle and then going parabolic in the last ten pages, or was it five?
My favorite thing about it were the surprises revealed, the endless humor, and how it started. It had me from the beginning. The sex, not that it was racy (at all) was so casual as to almost be like scratching an itch, which I suppose it is for some people, mentioned mostly as an oh, by the way, PJ had sex with the hotel manager, but we never knew what kind of sex, like Sophie in the back of the van with a fry cook after she finished a seven mile run. Yummy.
So, this doesn’t work because the sex isn’t treated like the best thing since sliced bread, which is pretty much all there is when you’re 17, and a virgin, and it’s all you can think of.
Bummer. Not the book. I loved it. Bummer it’s not a good comp.
I read this at least a month ago. It was part of my unending search for comp titles. I read it because of the speculative fiction aspect and magical realism, and it was a love story, as most books are, but I can’t use it. At least I could read it, and I liked the fantasy elements and, even at 63, amazed at the power of the suspension of disbelief I still have, and I think it’s getting better. Of course, I’ve not read as much the last 30 years of life (until more recently) as I did the first 30. The whole business of work, etc.
I also enjoyed the foray into the asian culture and foods. Who doesn’t like Ramen noodles? A freak. That’s who. And, of course, who doesn’t like a pretty girl, or a tall handsome man? More freaks. So, I’m a sucker for the predictable, not that this was, but I mean, the usual, which there seems to be a relative paucity of these days. I know this isn’t much about the book, but it was over a month ago so, read the jacket cover. It’s about a pretty girl who works in a magical pawnshop that captures memories, and she has to find her father who disappeared and just then, a drop-dead gorgeous guy (paraphrasing) walks into her pawn shop that he thought was a Ramen noodle restaurant, and, well, they fall in love pretty much instantly but it takes like 300 pages to kiss, and that’s pretty much all they do.
In the moments before he died, Mathias Thompson suddenly understood, with a cerulean certainty of the sky being blue on a cloudless summer day, that there was a God. An immense sadness expanded within him, and he recalled the time his mother took him to walk the Via Dolorosa in the old city of Jerusalem when he was thirteen years old. It had long been his mother’s wish, indeed, her prayer, that Mathias would embrace the faith he had been raised in. At first, it seemed preordained: Baptism, First Communion, Reconciliation, then Confirmation, all within the chaste environment of a rural town in Wisconsin and a prayerful start in the local parochial school. During the daily masses at St. Mary’s Church, from midway down the second pew on the right, there was little doubt in young Mathias’s mind that God existed and that He was good.
The first crack in Mathias’s conviction was the day his father died. The fact that he died on Easter Sunday would seem to have been significant; however, this was negated by the other fact that he had killed himself, with the car, in the garage, and that Matthias had found him upon exiting the school bus that had dropped him at the corner, half a block from the duplex in which he lived. His mother, a medical transcriptionist, wouldn’t be home for another hour. He stood before the garage door, exhaust leaking from where the seal was broken on the bottom, knowing that something bad was on the other side and that his life was about to change. It was an accident, his mother said. He must have fainted, or maybe it was his heart. There was a family history of that, she said, but whether true or not, the final fact was that Mathias could discern no divine purpose in his father’s passing. And in that moment, sitting next to his father in the car, Mathias experienced doubt.
The second crack in Mathias’s conviction followed the first a month later when he entered the public school system and encountered Cindy. It’s not that he was not familiar with girls before—it’s just that they had never seemed to be impediments to his future in the Jesuits, like Father Ryan used to be, until he met Cindy in the seventh grade. Blond-haired, blue-eyed, and with a face that could launch a thousand ships like in that story he read, Mathias instantly knew he would never be a priest.
Sensing the emotional distance developing in her son, Mathias’s mother prayed fervently for him to find his way back to God, as well as for her own salvation for the sin she had committed. Despite repeated appearances in dark confessional booths across northeast Wisconsin, confessing the same sin to multiple priests, she was unable to accept God’s forgiveness, which she remembered from Father Ryan’s sermon as being the worst sin of all.
Desperate, and newly rich, Mary Thompson took her son on a Pilgrimage to the Holy Land with a group from the parish of her parents who did not know her and led by a priest she had managed to not confess to. It was the fourth day of the Pilgrimage when she and Mathias walked the Via Dolorosa, the fourteen stations of the cross, singing over and over the words of the good thief who was crucified on Jesus’s right, spoken before he died. Those were the words that came into Mathias’s mind in the moments before he died.
It was inside the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, at the 12th station, Jesus dies on the cross, where Mary finally found her salvation, on her knees, her arm in the small opening beneath the altar placed there by the Greek Orthodox Church. When she touched the rock of Calvary, she again began singing the words of the good thief, even though everyone else had already stopped outside the church. Her voice lifted up from beneath the altar, filling the entirety of the space above. She was crying and singing both, like a most beautiful Gregorian Chant in a strange language, yet still understood by everyone there. Mathias, standing in line behind his mother, was embarrassed by the attention she was drawing, so he bent over and, taking care to keep her from bumping her head on the altar, he gently helped her stand. Further embarrassed by the hot tears on his own face, he led her away, forgetting to touch the rock of Calvary himself.
The third and final crack in Mathias’s diminishing conviction occurred years later during an elective at Oxford with Richard Dawkins in his sophomore year. This was perhaps the most severe insult to his impressionable young mind, for the attraction of the intellectual argument presented by such a respected personage as the good professor. The three cracks that had accumulated over time in the soul that was Mathias Thompson coalesced into a cavernous fault, such that any remaining conviction fell away. All that was left was doubt, a required feature of faith, but then that residue of doubt quickly underwent a transfiguration, not even into an absence of belief, but rather into a belief in the absence of God. Mathias had become an atheist.
This was Mathias’s state of spirituality, or rather, his absence of spirituality, when he boarded the 737, fatigued from a licentious night of adulterous behavior. However, he remembered to text Cindy, between taking his aisle seat in the last row of First Class and the stewardess bringing him a Manhattan.
Geese don’t fly at 36,000 feet, so it is difficult to say what destroyed the portside engine. The flames and smoke were clearly visible to Mathias in the formerly bland blue oval of the window as he stood in the galley, visiting with the stewardess before her mandatory trip down the aisle to deliver beverages, cookies, and pretzels to the proletariat in the back of the plane. Regardless, the sudden lurch, followed by the weightlessness of a jet plane dropping at 32ft/sec/sec, made it abundantly clear to Mathias, as he fell up to the ceiling, that he was going to die. His mind expanded with the memory of the Via Dolorosa, his mother’s song, and he understood that God existed. There was a complete absence of doubt. It became the central truth in his mind, the flaming engine outside the window becoming Mathias’s burning bush.
The plane landed on a farm field in Michigan between Baldwin and Ludington. The left wing snapped in half, then the right. The fuselage broke into two as the plane carved a black furrow in the earth before coming to a rest. There was only one death in the forward section, the sole unrestrained passenger. In the back, from the 10th to the 30th row, all lived. The airline credited the relatively positive outcome to seat restraints and the pilot and crew, but the survivors knew it was because of who they described as the man in front. Every passenger in the rear section described him as looking at them, as if each were the only one.
The video shot on an iPhone by the woman in 11C at a 0.5 wide angle went viral, becoming the most viewed TikTok video of all time, replayed over and over and over again. From the air, drone footage revealed the burned husk of the plane in the shape of a cross, and in a cerulean sky on the day of the accident, clouds in the shapes of angels. The Michigan Miracle, as it came to be known, was recognized by the Archbishop of Detroit, which meant that Mathias, theoretically, had the requisite one miracle required for beatification.
In the video, amidst the screams and cries of passengers and the metal-rending roar of a jet engine dying, a man falls from the ceiling in the aisle of the ninth row. He lands on his feet and stands, his arms outstretched, hands braced against the luggage bins on either side. He does not appear fearful. He is not screaming. Instead, his eyes are filled with sadness. Tears are on his cheeks. Then, he begins to sing.
“Jesus, remember me, when You come into Your kingdom.”
With the plane in a steep dive, he continues. One by one, the passengers join in until, up and down the entire cabin, the air is filled with song that overcomes the terror and harsh roar of engines. “Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom,” they sing.
Just before the plane strikes the ground and splits in two, the nose lifts, and the passengers are thrust back in their seats with a sudden, inexplicable, and gentle deceleration. The video’s last shaking, unsteady image is of Mathias with his arms outstretched, his head lifted, his face filled with a grace and peace not previously there.
“Jesus, remember me,” he sings, before disappearing in a brilliant flash of light.
None of what follows should be construed as financial advice. I’m not advising you to do anything. I am only sharing what I think, and if past performance is any reflection on future, I’d suggest you consider doing the opposite, if I were giving advice, which I definitely am not.
My thoughts are a combination of what I’ve read, past experiences, greed, and fear. I am not a financial advisor. My only subscriptions are to the Wall Street Journal and a daily newsletter, Jared Dillian’s the daily dirtnap. I also read John Mauldin’s free weekly, Thoughts from the Frontline, and Steve Blumenthal’s On My Radar. Of course, I read a ton of other stuff, mostly fiction, but the above is the minimum. I rarely take any action from any of the above, except for Mr. Dillion, who pushed me into a significant gold position three years ago, as well as some Argentina trades before Milei was elected, and a few other things. Sadly, I sold about half of the gold (GLD ETF) gradually, at each new high until I felt stupid selling any more and started to buy some back.
Mr. Blumenthal has been saying a similar thing for the past couple of years, high valuations, etc. etc. and sharing charts with red circles and yellow highlights, saying “We are here” at the top of some chart, and another red arrow, or circle maybe, saying “We’d be better off here,” at the bottom of the same chart. I believe that the time has come where we will get to Mr. Blumenthal’s red circle at the bottom of the chart. Mr. Mauldin had a guest poster for the past two weeks, Danielle DiMartino Booth. Of everyone I’ve been reading, it is she I believe the most, insofar as my overall impression that something wicked this way comes, which is something Ray Bradbury said once, but seems to fit here as well.
Why there will be a recession:
The general consensus is that there will not be one or that we are in a soft-landing scenario. This was recently reinforced by J. Powell last Wednesday. The general sense is that there may be some short-term pain or volatility, but all will be well, and the strategy of “buying the dip” remains alive and well.
I should note that there is a counterview. There always is. In investing, the investor is tasked with identifying the view they choose to believe, because there is an argument for every one.
Jeffrey Gundlach said that the risk of a recession is 60% in a recent webcast.
Mr. Blumenthal, Mr. Mauldin, Mr. Dillian, and Ms. Booth, especially Ms. Booth, are increasingly cautious; however, most of the mainstream media is in the general consensus.
President Trump, Elon Musk, and Scott Bessent told us there would be some transition, maybe a little pain. Of course, they wouldn’t say outright that we’re headed for a recession. They can’t. There would be panic in the streets. The equity market would fall off a cliff. No, we have to discover it gradually, painfully, then all at once, like it always is.
The federal government is a major employer, and federal spending contributes significantly to the GDP.
If DOGE’s efforts to rein in spending and decrease the size of government come to fruition, the GDP will be proportionately diminished—the more successful they are, the greater the pain.
They know this. That’s why they said, Elon, perhaps the most emphatically, that the USA is headed for bankruptcy if nothing is done. There is no other option.
As the Fed has been cutting interest rates, the long-end, 10yr. rates rose. Normally, they fall. Why is that? Is that because the National debt and unfunded liabilities are so great that they (the buyers of the debt) think the US will default and that 10, 20 30yr paper will be worthless? Regardless, that can’t be good.
Warren Buffett’s cash position has doubled in the past year to 334 billion, which is about 30%, and the highest it’s been in the company’s history.
As above, this always happens gradually, painfully, then all at once. The all-at-once part is typically precipitated by a catalyst, such as the subprime mortgage crisis or a worldwide pandemic, as was the case last time. I think I know what the catalyst will be this time, or at least one of them—the 1.7 trillion student loan debt.
A week ago, President Trump moved student loan debt to the Small Business Administration.
Who is going to service that debt better, more efficiently? The DOE or the SBA. Is there going to be billions of debt forgiveness as with the last administration? You know the answers.
All the students have been in forbearance for the last five years under the CARES Act. Payments will start coming due. This will further stress the system, car delinquencies, spending patterns, etc.
The current media culture will primarily emphasize the negatives and suppress the positives because, well, the Orange Man Bad sort of thing.
Some percentage less than half of the population thinks the sky is falling and things are really bad; inflation is coming back because of tariffs, their stocks are losing value, DOGE is going to ruin everything and take from the poor to give to the rich, etc.
The other roughly half think things are on the cusp of a golden age, other than there might be a little pain, a hiccup, a transition, but then off to the races.Some folks think deflation is coming, not inflation. Truflation is lower than the CPI print the Fed has been responding to. What if the Fed has to cut rates bigly? What about all the retired folks who own 40% of stocks? They’ll have to sell some because they won’t have enough interest income, and that’s only one example. The student loan debt, car delinquencies, credit cards, are all short-term insults to be shouted from the mountain tops of 60 Minutes, Face the Nation, and all the rest.This amplification of bad news will cause a mass psychotic negative feedback loop, creating panic and capitulation, which isn’t that unusual. It happens nearly every time, but instead of the market having a sensible 30% retracement to fair value, it may overshoot to 50% or more, which is a potential outcome. This is specific to the Trump administration because he makes people crazy. The people who hate him, if they haven’t sold everything by now, will sell, sell, sell. This is the bottom, and it will be lower than if they didn’t hate him.
The golden age coming, for those who survive the culling, may yet arrive, if the trillions of promised investments in the US in the first months of the new administration come to fruition, and those promises are kept. Foxconn in WI didn’t work out as billed, and even that took 5 years, so they are not a sure thing. But, if they do happen, they are 1 (maybe), 2, 3 years away. Maybe those effects will start to manifest late in the third year of Trump’s second term, similar to what happened with Reagan and the recession in the early eighties.
Everybody is buying gold. Many governments are building on their gold reserves. It’s like they know something bad is coming, and if it is, only precious metals are a practical store of value, not BTC.
Maybe I’m wrong, but that is the picture I see with the dots. If it does happen, you get a puke day or days or week or weeks, maybe there’s a waterfall down, correlation goes to one across most asset classes, so it’s hard to sell something high to buy something low. The only thing liquid enough to work is cash, because there’s no guarantee that your gold or bond position will move counter to the general market although they’d likely recover quicker. For once, I’d like to not be one of those running off the cliff.
Who isn’t interested in love? Who doesn’t spend a lifetime failing or succeeding in one of life’s primary endeavors? Who doesn’t enjoy the physiological aspects of love, or approaching those aspects by the reading or watching of it at some point in their lives, perhaps, at times, going full immersion beyond what might be considered morally just or even physiologically healthy? Even St. Augustine could not say, “Not me,” which gives me the spiritual cover to add, “Not me either.”
In fact, I’ve been thinking of nothing less for the past two-plus years during the writing of a novel titled appropriately, if poorly, The Song of Songs. True to form, I wrote it as though an expert, as though I knew all about love, as though I had the pedigree to tackle such an epic design. My defense is that it’s fiction; still, in fiction lives truth and a potential for emotional growth.
I wish I had read C.S. Lewis’s The Four Loves first, not because I missed the mark entirely, but rather that perhaps I would have approached the mark differently. As I read it, I found myself wondering if there would be a way for one to assign an objective mathematical value to love based on standardized questions and use that to derive a function, something more complex than a quadratic equation, perhaps more akin to Schrodinger’s wave equation by which you could answer the question I am a good lover? Or How could I be a better lover? As I am not a mathematician I dare not start there. Instead, I must start with C.S. Lewis, henceforth known as CSL.
A main tenet of the Christian faith, as illustrated in John 4:8, is that God is love; however, this is not particularly helpful, as we don’t know what God is beyond being ineffable, which means we’ll never fully comprehend the whole of it. CSL was quite clear in that while God is love, love is not God. If you worship love and love becomes your God, it becomes your demon. CSL categorized love into four types such that we might, in some infinitely small measure, comprehend the parts of it better.
The first type of love CSL defines is storge, or affection, which you might think of as the humblest and most pervasive form of love, encompassing small things and large, and to qualify it as humble or small is not to diminish its beauty or significance. You might feel affection for anything from chocolate to your Siamese cat to your firstborn.
CSL begins his treatise with the two broader definitions of Gift-love and Need-love. The love/affection of a mother for a child is both Gift-love in that she is giving life, giving nourishment, giving safety; however, it is also Need-love in that she must give birth or die; breastfeed, or suffer; provide safety and life, or genetically perish.
The second type of love is philia, or friendship that arises from shared interests or a common view, causing two or more individuals to come together in such a way that they are no longer a part of the main. You can have an affection for chocolate, but it cannot be a friend. You may have a great deal of affection for your fourteen-year-old daughter or son, but they are not necessarily your friends and may never be. It may be easier to have an emotionally healthy friendship with Tinkerbell or Bruno than your progeny, but your affection for your progeny, if not a Gift-love, is at least a Need-love because, without them, your family line will be no more. This may sound trite or melodramatic now, but in the beginning, it meant the survival of the species.
The third type of love is eros, and now things become interesting because this includes that. CSL refers to that as Venus, the portion of eros that is the physical sexuality, as opposed to the other portion representing a deep emotional attachment and desire for the beloved. It is the latter portion that is specific to humanity in the sense of being made in his image. There is certainly Venus in a pride of lions, several times a day, I understand, but there is not the capacity for that other, more sublime part. Only man can appreciate it on the elevated plane it deserves. Only man can reason on it, draw inferences from it, paint pictures on cave walls of it, and carve representations thereof from blocks of stone. The lion does not do that.
Eros is primarily a Need-love, especially in the beginning. It may progress to an elevated, more angelic phase of Gift-love, or it may not, which is not a bad thing as there is always philia, which is typically a strong accompaniment to eros and a necessary adjunct in a long-term, loving relationship. It is the relationship between these two loves that commands my attention for the purpose of mathematical application.
CSL describes eros as two lovers facing one another and philia as two lovers facing forward toward a shared purpose. While eros is typically between two, friendship is commonly not. There is no specific limit on the number of friends, and having more than one offers safety, a safety that is particularly evident when one member of a group of three or more is lost. With a denominator of 2, the loss of one is severe, whereas with a denominator of 3 or more, the loss of one is shared and less severe.
The final and perhaps highest love is agape, or charity. It is purely Gift-love, a self-sacrificing love. The supreme illustration is Christ dying on the cross, or to humanize it further, St. Theresa working in the slums of Calcutta. There are small acts and large, with the only limit being your devotion, conviction, faith, resolve, or capacity to give anything in any measure. It is perhaps not the most common love in most people’s lives most of the time, but its potential is always there.
There. Now that’s out of the way, I can discuss what I really wanted, namely love not between lions, but between any two creatures made in his image, which is to say—us. Between any two people in love, at least one of the four types of love—storge, philia, eros, or agape—must exist, or it cannot be love, by definition. Most likely, the love between two is not one type of love in isolation; rather, it is an amalgam of two or three or even four with varying fractions over time, not that that is terribly important other than too much of one or too little of another, or a gross asymmetry of the portions between the two lovers might manifest destructively.
Consider two complete strangers in Daytona Beach on a Spring Break vacation. Their eyes meet from other sides of a volleyball court on a beach. One espies the softness of a barely covered unbound breast through the haze of a webbed black net, while the other appreciates the broadness of shoulders above a narrow washboard-like waist. The emotion is perfectly symmetrical. Eros spikes. There is no storge, much less philia, for the simple reason that one does not know the other. There is no agape. It is all need; burning, obsessive, unrelenting, painful, wanting desire, a fire reaching to heaven that can only be wholly extinguished under the firehose of Venus. Oftentimes, on spring break, I suspect it is extinguished; however, I further suspect that the respective proportions of eros are rarely so perfect, so evenly matched. Most of the time, I imagine, it is decidedly a one-way passion in which the one consumed by eros is not extinguished, and if so, it is at the cost of the other doing so out of a warped act of charity in a Venusian act of mercy towards the other.
Regardless as to whether eros is mostly one-way or experienced in more equitable portions, one thing is certain: It is a mathematical impossibility that it would ever be perfectly, evenly matched. One will always experience it more than the other, but that’s not the important part. The important part is whether or not the other types of love, of any duration, come of it. If not, it is the equivalent of a one-night stand. All eros and not much else. It is brief, hot, passionate, or not. It could be a disappointment and potentially destructive because one always needs/wants more than the other. There is too much room for jealousy, anger, spiritual or emotional harm, or even hate in the cavernous space left by the absence of philia, charity, and affection.
Consider two people who meet for the first time on either side of a twelve-inch reflector scope at midnight to view the rings of Saturn on a moonless night during a meeting of the local astronomy club. It’s dark out but for the ambient glow of a weak red light. They don’t see each other, but they talk. One discovers that the other writes poetry and recites a favorite line, “The stars are not wanted now; put out every one, Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.” And the other replies, “Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood; For nothing now can ever come to any good.” At that precise moment, at the completion of WH Auden’s Funeral Blues, they become friends, joined by a mutual philia.
They talk through the night, and at dawn’s first light, they see each other for the first time. Eros spikes, or maybe not. Maybe one is twenty and the other sixty. Maybe one is comely and the other homely. If that is the case, perhaps eros sleeps undisturbed, but what if? What if there is any reasonable approximation in age and mutual attraction? Perhaps eros awakes. Perhaps eros spikes. Perhaps they rip off their clothes and fall, wanton, gasping, breathless to the ground, and become one flesh, but probably not, because they are not lions. More likely, they will exercise reason, restraint, and delay of gratification if there is to be any Venusian gratification at all. Two months pass. They discover one cannot live without the other. They become the closest of friends, the most passionate of lovers. There is nothing one would not do for the other. They get married. Each is entirely within the other. Everything is perfect.
If you haven’t already surmised, the above considerations between two people approximate the extremes, the flattest and most attenuated beginning and end of love’s bell curve. One could begin at one extreme and still end up at the other. Love takes effort, as all good things do. There is much pain and suffering between here and there, and ultimately, there is always the ultimate loss, as beautifully expressed in another of CSL’s works, A Grief Observed, which I read immediately after The Four Loves.
When one says, “It was love at first sight,” what do you think that is? It has to be eros because you are at time zero. There was no time for philia or affection, much less charity. If both are so afflicted, then you have the beginning of perfection, but it never remains so because, well. Life. One will not feel eros to the same extent as the other, perhaps not at all, perhaps the thought doesn’t occur to them for whatever reason—maybe an age discrepancy that, at 16, seems more significant than at 35; maybe a marriage stands in the way. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is, at the minimum, there must be storge, affection, and whether philia will develop. If it does, anything is possible.
It may be days. It may be weeks or years later before eros is disturbed between two connected by friendship. It might happen so gradually that you are surprised one morning by the appearance of an aching need that wants extinguishing that wasn’t there the night before. Or it may happen abruptly at a wedding celebration when a bridesmaid dances with her groomsman, or on a chilly night under a full moon when two share a trembling, tremulous New Year’s Eve kiss and Eros awakens. Then it begins.
Some of what follows is sourced from Jason Zweig’s excellent article in The Wall Street Journal form March 14th, 2025.
Daniel Kahneman was a psychologist, a Nobel Prize winner in economics, and in reasonably good health at the age of 90 when he flew to Switzerland in March of 2024 to commit suicide with medical assistance.
Mr. Zweig artfully shared snippets of Dr. Kahneman’s last email, interspersed throughout his article, which added to the poignancy of his seemingly logical determination to end his life. The second to last snippet was the following:
I discovered after making the decision that I am not afraid of not existing, and that I think of death as going to sleep and not waking up. The last period has truly not been hard, except for witnessing the pain I caused others. So if you were inclined to be sorry for me, don’t be.
Given the intellectual giant Mr. Kahneman was, I can’t help but think he drew this morsel from Plato. I am fond of that portion of Plato’s Apology myself, not that I am as equally an intellectual giant as Mr. Kahneman. Still, I am a reader and have a memory, even if a poor one. So, let me share some additional morsels from the Apology (The Center for Hellenic Studies):
Let us think about it this way: there is plenty of reason to hope that death is something good [agathon]. I say this because death is one of two things: either it is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness for the person who has died, or, according to the sayings [legomena], there is some kind of a change [meta-bolē] that happens—a relocation [met-oikēsis] for the soul [psūkhē] from this place [topos] to another place [topos]. Now if you suppose that there is no consciousness, |40d but a sleep like the sleep of someone who sees nothing even in a dream, death will be a wondrous gain [kerdos]. For if a person were to select the night in which he slept without seeing anything even in a dream, and if he were to compare with this the other days and nights of his life, and then were to tell us how many days and nights he had passed in the course of his life in a better and more pleasant way than this one, I think that any person—I will not say a private individual [idiōtēs], but even the great king— |40e will not find many such days or nights, when compared with the others. Now if death is like this, I say that to die is a gain [kerdos]; for the sum total of time is then only a single night. But if death is the journey [apo-dēmiā] to another place [topos], and, if the sayings [legomena] are true [alēthē], that all the dead are over there [ekeî], then what good [agathon], O jurors, [dikastai], can be greater than this? |41a If, when someone arrives in the world of Hādēs, he is freed from those who call themselves jurors [dikastai] here, and finds the true [alētheîs] judges [dikastai] who are said to give judgment [dikazein] over there [ekeî]—Minos and Rhadamanthus and Aiakos and Triptolemos, and other demigods [hēmi-theoi] who were righteous [dikaioi] in their own life—that would not be a bad journey [apo-dēmiā], now would it? To make contact with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer—who of you would not welcome such a great opportunity? Why, if these things are true [alēthē], let me die again and again.
…But let me interrupt. You see, the hour [hōrā] of departure has already arrived. So, now, we all go our ways—I to die, and you to live. And the question is, which one of us on either side is going toward something that is better? It is not clear, except to the god.
It is reported that Dr. Kahneman, born into the Jewish faith, lost his faith while still in religious school and described the moment as a sudden insight, and further stated that he didn’t believe in an afterlife, reincarnation, or anything mystical. From this, one would infer that Dr. Kahneman was an agnostic. It is also possible he was an atheist, which is as much a religion as anything else as it requires a belief in the absence of God. Perhaps, perhaps due to his advanced age and own faulty memory, he forgot Plato’s second option—a relocation of the soul from body and soul as one, incarnate, here, to the immaterial soul somewhere else.
Even polytheistic Plato believed in God, or more aptly perhaps, Gods, and I question whether or not Plato’s interpretation of death would be as sanguine in the case of suicide, which is a rejection of the gift of life from the Gods, or more aptly perhaps, God. Furthermore, such a logical, cold calculation of the reasonableness of death, as opposed to the impulsive passionate leap off a bridge or pulling of a trigger or swallowing of a handful of pills to end physical or psychological pain, strikes me as an even more severe rejection of God’s gift.
Atheism is something I find irritating for the reason that it requires belief. It strikes me as hubristic for one to actively profess belief in the non-existence of something that a majority of humanity believes so profoundly in. Why not just be agnostic and not believe in anything, and not profess that God does not exist? Who knows what Mr. Kahneman believed or not? From an interview with Max Raskin March 1,2022, Kahneman said:
“I was walking home, and I had the insight that maybe I could believe in God, but I could not believe in a God that cared whether or not I masturbate. That was a very sudden insight. That if I can’t imagine God caring about me, then we were irrelevant to each other, and it really didn’t matter whether he existed or not. And that was the end of the religion for me.”
The above reads more agnostic than atheistic, and I don’t know if Dr. Kahneman read Plato’s Apology, but ChatGPT says it is “quite likely that he was familiar with Apology or at least its central themes.”
It is his reference to death as going to sleep and his equanimity relative to it (similar to Plato) that causes me to think he erred by not accounting for Plato’s belief in a higher power, or by not considering the possibility that he (Kahneman) was wrong. What if there is a God, and how would He respond to the rejection of His gift? Is being a good person and doing good works good enough for an agnostic to enter the Heavenly Kingdom? Does an atheist, in professing disbelief in God, gain entrance? I don’t know, but if it is enough, I wouldn’t think the Heavenly Kingdom would be available to those rejecting even the potential thereof in such a fashion as Mr. Kahneman has done. I would think rather that they would end up somewhere else if there is a God, even if Zeus and all the rest.
