Gregory Curtis is the founder and Chairman of Greycourt & Co., Inc., a wealth management firm. He is the author of three investment books, including his most recent, Family Capital. He can be reached at gcurtis@greycourt.com. Please note that this post is intended to provide interested persons with an insight on the capital markets and is not intended to promote any manager or firm, nor does it intend to advertise their performance. All opinions expressed are those of Gregory Curtis and do not necessarily represent the views of Greycourt & Co., Inc., the wealth management firm with which he is associated. The information in this report is not intended to address the needs of any particular investor.
Ignoring What We Knew
“One who excels at sending forth the unorthodox [army] is as inexhaustible as heaven.” –Sun Tzu, “The Art of War,” Chapter 5 In the case of Vietnam, we don’t need to speculate about how Gen. Sun Tzu would have conducted the war, for the simple reason that the U.S. military already knew how to conduct …
How We “Lost” Vietnam
Happy New Year! After all the stupidity, all the lies, all the inflated body counts, all the unnecessary deaths, in spite of it all, by 1968 an American victory in Vietnam was within easy grasp. Even Westmoreland could have managed it. Why? Because the enemy had made a spectacular and unforced error: the Tet Offensive. …
“True, but Irrelevant”
Speaking of peace, Merry Christmas! As noted last week, some aspects of the domino theory were correct. Following the defeat of the Nationalists in China, South Korea would certainly have become Communist absent U.S. intervention. The same can be said for South Vietnam, although in that case the Communist takeover was only delayed (albeit by …
The Unknown History of Vietnam
“No country ever profited from protracted warfare.” –Sun Tzu, “The Art of War,” Chapter 2 Now that we’ve Sun Tzu-ized Korea, let’s take a look at America’s most destructive proxy war since World War II—indeed, more destructive than all the proxy wars in American history put together. Vietnam Since the beginning of the American Republic, …
A Different Outcome in North Korea
“The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy not coming, but on our readiness to receive him.” –Sun Tzu, “The Art of War,” Chapter 8 Let’s suppose that President Truman hadn’t had the good sense to put Sun Tzu in charge of Korea until almost too late—after the …
Matthew Ridgway Turns the Tide
“War is the greatest affair of state, the basis of life and death, the way to survival or extinction.” —Sun Tzu, “The Art of War,” Chapter 1 When we last left the U.S. Army in Korea, it was in a shambles. The sudden and unexpected entrance into the war by the Chinese had shredded the …
The Art of Peace, Part III: The Korean War
Let’s begin our exploration of the art of peace by applying the lessons of “The Art of War” to America’s many, and mostly disastrous, proxy wars since World War II. Maybe we can identify ideas that will help make future proxy wars—given that they seem to be unavoidable—less ruinous. Korea Following World War II and …
An Idea Whose Time Has Come
One reason why people haven’t bothered to write “The Art of Peace,” at least in recent decades, might be because, well, who needs it? Why attack the problem of peace intellectually when we’ve already—very successfully—achieved peace by simply muddling through? By “peace” I don’t mean “the total absence of armed conflict”—good luck with that. I …
The Art of Peace
More than 25 centuries ago, a fellow known as Sun Tzu (an honorific rather than a name—it means something like “Master Sun”) wrote a long treatise on military strategy and tactics that has come to be called “The Art of War.” “The Art of War” is only one of the Seven Military Classics assembled during the Sung …
Taming Your Investment Committee
“Desperate times call for desperate measures.” —Hippocrates, writing almost 2,500 years ago About a million years ago—in 2003, to be exact—I wrote a long white paper called “Reinvigorating the Investment Committee” (available nowhere). In that paper I discussed the origin of the family investment committee and described a long and discouraging list of problems with …
Proust’s Longest Sentence
Gilbert de Botton died in the late summer of 2000, only 65 years old. At the end of his life, he was pursuing yet another of his passions. In addition to investing money for rich people and collecting modern art, Gilbert was, amazingly, attempting to recreate Montaigne’s private library, which had been broken up and …
Trying to Launch the Warhol Museum
When Ms. X and I arrived at GAM in London, Gilbert didn’t meet with us in his private office, where he and I had always met in the past. Instead, apparently in honor of Ms. X’s presence, he ushered us into his conference room. “We just finished rebuilding the conference room,” Gilbert told us proudly. …
The Mysterious Party
A few years after the events described in last week’s post, something happened that, at first, seemed to have nothing to do with Gilbert de Botton. I was sitting at my desk idly sorting through my mail when I came across an impossibly elegant invitation to a “garden party” being hosted by a very well-known …
Gilbert
In my entire life I’ve attended one cocktail party in Paris, and on that occasion—this being some years ago—I met a fellow named Gilbert de Botton. (Gilbert, by the way, is pronounced “zhil-BEAR.”) Our first meeting didn’t start out well. The fellow who introduced me to Gilbert did so by saying, “Greg, please meet M. …
The Fed is Poisoning the Economy
“The Fed can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.” –What Keynes should have said. Last week I made two related points: The agonizingly slow economic growth and rapid increase in inequality the United States has experienced over the past decade aren’t the cause of constant Fed intervention; they are a direct consequence of …
It’s Different This Time
“The four most dangerous words in investing are: It’s different this time.” —Sir John Templeton “The 12 most dangerous words in investing are, ‘The four most dangerous words in investing are: It’s different this time.’ ” —Michael Batnick Whatever, read my lips: It’s different this time. From the time the United States was organized as …
The Merciful End of My Blogcast
Suppose you are determined to convert your written blog into an audio blog—what I think of as a “blogcast.” Suppose, on top of that, you are an incompetent reader of blogcasts. Finally, suppose you aren’t about to spring for a $500,000 text-to-speech synthesizer. What to do? I consulted a profession closely allied to that of …
What’s a Blogcast?
As some of my loyal readers know, I launched this blog more than seven years ago—on January 1, 2013, to be precise. Since the blog comes out every Friday morning, you can do the math and figure out that there must be about 400 posts by now. And you would be right. This post is …
America 2.0, Part 16: The Final Installment
For readers who missed early parts of this series of posts, I am summarizing a novel written almost forty years ago. We are listening in as a young woman journalist interviews a very old man about the changes in America occasioned by the switch from voting to selecting public officials by lot. Journalist: Good morning, …
When Weirdos Get Elected
For readers who missed part 1 of this series of posts, I am summarizing a fictional novel written almost forty years ago. Let’s be flies on the wall as a young woman journalist interviews a very old man about the changes that occurred in the United States as a result of abandoning the ballot and …
A New Way of Governing
For readers who missed part 1 of this series of posts, I am summarizing a fictional novel written almost forty years ago. Since only 2 percent of Americans had “Capability Quotients” above 130, that meant that 98 percent of citizens would never hold public office. And that meant, in turn, that Grace Atkinson’s selection-by-lot idea …
Only the Top Two Percent
For readers who missed part 1 of this series of posts, I am summarizing a fictional novel written almost forty years ago. Two days after receiving Grace Atkinson’s posthumous note, George and Jenny Leader found themselves in the Roosevelt Room across from the Oval Office listening intently as Dr. Michael Solomon discussed the issue of …