A primer for Morgan Stanley clients invested in the firm’s North Haven Private Income Fund — where “semi-liquid” can quickly become “virtually dry.”
Business
Corporate BS and the Science of Sucking Up
A peer-reviewed study by a Cornell cognitive psychologist suggests employees who embrace corporate buzzwords don’t make the best employees but might be destined for the corner office.
Private Credit’s “Smartest Guys in the Room”
The history of Wall Street is rife with people who believed they were smarter by half and could engineer risk to near zero. In my lifetime there was Long-Term Capital Management, the hedge fund that employed Nobel Prize–winning economists who believed their mathematical models had tamed market volatility. For a…
Jamie Dimon’s Looming Cockroaches
JPMorganChase’s Jamie Dimon noted this week that today’s credit environment echoes what preceded the 2008 crash.
He wasn’t exaggerating.
The Web of Jeffrey Epstein’s Lawyers and Bankers
Jeffrey Epstein destroyed lives.
He also did business with some of the most powerful lawyers and banks in America.
Careers fell. Institutions didn’t.
When the World Talks Like Donald J. Trump
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. President Trump can take pride that leading political and business figures mimic his rhetoric and tone.
His critics should consider the implications.
The Davos Elite vs. GM’s Detroit Factory Zero
The Davos elite and GM’s Factory Zero workers in Detroit live in parallel universes.
One gets fawning corporate media coverage, access, and spectacle. The other gets layoffs, uncertainty, and attention only from a socialist website.
China’s EVs Expose the Lost American Dream
After driving a Chinese EV for several weeks, Wall Street Journal technology columnist Joanna Stern wrote that she would prefer never to buy an American-made vehicle again.
If middle-class Americans fully understood why their counterparts in China can buy far more technologically advanced vehicles for considerably less, the reaction here would be anything but complacent.
The Powerhouse Lawyers Defending GM and Ford
At General Motors and Ford, litigation is no longer a side effect of doing business. It is a core business function.
The résumés of the lawyers running point at both automakers reflect how central legal strategy has become.
Ponzi Schemes & Wall Street’s Dumb Money
Bulls make money. Bears make money. Pigs get slaughtered.
Some thoughts on Ponzi schemes, perfectly legal Wall Street products that burn retail investors, and why doctors and small business owners are often the easiest targets.