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Located in Mediterranean Sea about halfway between Greece and Turkey is the island of Crete… which has attracted human civilization for more than 100,000 years. Today roughly 600,000 people call the island home. But millions of tourists also visit the popular vacation spot each year. It’s known for it’s beaches, wine, and olive
[Editor’s Note: Today’s article was written by a colleague who recently traveled to Russia. These are his observations about the current situation on the ground.] Today in Russia, there is unmistakable tension in the air. You definitely don’t want to speak out against the war or the current regime— it’s an almost guaranteed
On November 5, 1605 Guy Fawkes was caught in the cellars of the Parliament building in London in what became known as the Gunpowder Plot— a conspiracy to assassinate King James I and restore a Catholic monarch to the English throne. Guy Fawkes was arrested, tortured, and executed. And his name, ‘Guy’, became
Dwight Eisenhower had a huge problem in 1948. After winning the war in Europe and defeating the Nazis, “Ike” was one of the most popular and recognizable men in the world… and publishing houses were falling all over themselves for his memoirs. Doubleday, a New York based publisher, won the bid by paying
If you saw Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster Oppenheimer, you might remember the scene in which Dr. Oppenheimer travels to Chicago to meet with physicist Enrico Fermi, who had just achieved the world’s first ever self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. This really happened– it was December 2, 1942, and Enrico Fermi’s experiment was a massive scientific
At 3:15 in the morning on May 10, 1774, King Louis XV of France passed away after a grueling, two-week battle with smallpox. Upon hearing the news, his heir and grandson– 19-year old Louis XVI, reportedly cried out, “God protect us, I am too young to rule. . . I have learned nothing
Carolyn Maloney must be furious. This career politician with five decades of experience, as I wrote in at the very beginning of the year, was the chief architect of a completely ridiculous law known as the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) which went into effect on January 1st. The CTA was one of the
It’s hard to say with a straight face that an asset hovering near its all-time high could be a “contrarian” investment. But I’m going to say it anyhow– I think gold may be a contrarian play right now. Now, it would be easy to assume that gold is near its all-time high because
In the year 1218 on the great plains of central Eurasia, a Mongolian trade caravan was on a long expedition across the Silk Road when it reached the city of Otrar in the Khwarazmian Empire (modern day Kazakhstan). The governor of the local province– a career politician named Inalchuq– was suspicious of the
Almost one year ago to the day– on February 24, 2023– Silicon Valley Bank released its 2022 annual report. And senior executives must have been pretty nervous since the report showed that the bank was nearly insolvent. The bank had acquired a massive portfolio of more than $100 billion of US government bonds–
Early in the spring of 1956, only weeks after Elvis Presley released his debut studio album, and actress Norma Jean Mortenson had her name legally changed to Marilyn Monroe, a budding 25-year-old businessman from the American Midwest fatefully registered his first-ever company. His name, of course, was Warren Buffett. And the company he
It’s not exactly as if the world is swimming in a sea of tranquility these days. War in Gaza has been raging for months. War in Ukraine has been raging for years. And Russia has even threatened using nuclear weapons. Terrorist groups brazenly attack American shipping vessels. Iran keeps stirring the pot by
On January 16, 1917– at the peak of World War I, the imperial German Foreign Minister, Arthur Zimmerman, sent an encoded telegram destined for the President of Mexico. Zimmerman wanted to form an alliance with Mexico, in the hopes that the United States would be too distracted with potential conflict at their southern
The ink was barely dry on the Treaty of Paris in the year 1763 when the financial panic set in. Government ministers across Europe began taking stock of their disastrous finances… and the picture was gruesome. The world had been at war with itself for nearly a decade. And though the conflict became
On September 18, 1928, at the peak of the ‘Roaring 20s’, an American investor by the name of Evelyn Gregory was sitting on a fat capital gain totaling over $133,000– worth more than $12 million in today’s money. The top federal tax rate back then was 25%… but Evelyn wasn’t inclined to fork
