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Tren Griffin @trengriffin
, 3 tweets, 1 min read Read on Twitter
One life lesson I learned vicariously when the Internet and telecom bubbles popped in 2000-2001 was about the downside of margin loans. It was like watching other people pee on an electric fence. Even though it was vicarious, the experience was memorable and the lessons clear.
"Leverage magnifies outcomes, but doesn’t add value.” Howard Marks. Add volatility and margin loans are a portfolio extinction event for muppets. oaktreecapital.com/docs/default-s…
Even very smart investors can find margin loans to be a financial disaster. "Mohnish Pabrai once said Warren Buffett told him that 'Rick Guerin was just as smart as us, but he was in a hurry.' Levered with margin loans, Rick's ambition was his downfall. google.com/amp/s/www.fool…
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"According to the survey results, the median pay for full-time writers was $20,300 in 2017, and that number decreased to $6,080 when part-time writers were considered. The latter figure reflects a 42 percent drop since 2009, when the median was $10,500."
In my blog post on writing books I wrote: "6. Don’t expect to earn more than the minimum wage and be thrilled if you earn more." google.com/amp/s/25iq.com…
"In Mémoires (1759), Voltaire recalled how in his youth he had come across so many writers who were “penniless and held in contempt” that “he had decided not to add to their number.” laphamsquarterly.org/luck/voltaires… "Thanks to his fortune he was free to pursue his writerly life."
Read 3 tweets
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"Companies can lose a lot of money in their early years but be wonderful businesses if they are acquiring customers with long lives and strong variable margins."

But some businesses just do the losing money part. A critical skill is knowing the difference between the two types.
Customer-based corporate valuation (CBCV) = valuing a business on a "bottoms up" basis by valuing the customers. In a subscription business especially, this is an essential process if you want to understand if real value is being created despite a lack of current GAAP earnings.
"CBCV isn’t about being profitable from day one. It’s about variable profitability in net present value terms (while still being mindful of fixed cost overhead of course!)" Determining whether a specific business is a delicious cheesecake or a turd requires detective work.
Read 6 tweets
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“The Fasten Seat Belt sign is now illuminated. If you haven’t already done so, please check your cash and cash equivalent balances. Please lower your burn rate and make sure your defensive investments are in their full upright position.”
“If you find yourself needing an emergency exit from illiquid investments, please read carefully the special instructions card. Cash is more king than ever. If you can’t handle the haircut you are about to experience, please ask someone to do the selling to raise cash for you.”
“We remind you this remains an uncertain and no sympathy correction. No one knows anything for sure as is usual. Crying and whining is prohibited, including in the lavatories. Tampering with, disabling or destroying your brokerage statements is pointless and prohibited by law.”
Read 5 tweets

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One thing I find interesting is Dia de Murtos (Day of the Dead). It was a holiday few ppl cared about, there were no parades, face painting, etc. Until international started being paid to it and now there's parade in Mexico City, etc. It's one of the clearest phenomenons of--
'fabricating' culture that I've ever seen. So basically it was the foreign gaze which has shaped this holiday for people's consumption. The same thing happened with casinos and hotels in Mexico in the 1920s around the border zone.
You have ads inviting people to experience 'authentic Mexico' in the 1920s and it's like flamenco dancers and the 'idea' of Mexico in the foreign mind. The casino at Agua Caliente was this blend of architecture styles and it visually represents that in a stunning way.
Read 19 tweets
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One thing I’m grateful to God for with our political/democratic experience since 2015 is that Nigerians can now hopefully see that certain political behavioural patterns are not unique to PDP politicians but inherently human, regardless of which party they belong to.
These are things the PDP was once condemned for and its good to see those who used to point fingers from outside now engaging in all sorts of intellectual acrobatics and gymnastics in order to make excuses for those they admire.

The saga of the NGF in 2013 comes to mind.
In June 2013, the Nigerian Governors Forum was about to (s)elect a new chairman and the position was zoned to the North from PDP which at the time had majority of the Governors, with ethnic permutations coming into play.

The Northern State Governors Forum held a mini-primaries.
Read 35 tweets
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Watching "Jason Bourne" for the first time. Five minutes in, at some kind of sooper-seekrit hacker facility in Reykjavik, someone says: "Use SQL to corrupt their databases." I don't even know where to begin.
In fairness, it was subtitles; perhaps it was translated by Irina Nistor.
Someone just typed "run predictive algorithm" into a terminal window. FFS.
Read 109 tweets
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While riding early morning from Narsipatnam to Lambasingi I stopped at a village for breakfast. There was a table set out outside a hut along the village road and an old man was making tea. I asked for a cup of tea and something to eat.
The old man pointed to the tea and then said something in his local language that I didn't understand. I made the sign for food and he turned to his wife who was standing close by. She pointed me to a bench outside their hut, asked me to sit down and went inside the hut.
After a few moments she emerged with a place of idlis and chutney which I enjoyed along with the tea.

After I was done I asked the old man how much I owed him and he replied with "5 rupees".
Read 10 tweets
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I have a lot to say about this recent story by @cbcErica @cbcgopublic on #Telecom @contracts & #SalesPractices, as a #lawprof working in #ConsumerRights & #DisputeResolution & not as a director of CCTS (disclaimer: views my own, based on my research & publicly available info) 1/8
My work (with funding from Forum of Canadian Ombudsman) on industry ombuds in 🇨🇦🇦🇺🇬🇧, commonlaw.uottawa.ca/en/news/prof-p…, found that these schemes do provide access to justice by providing quick dispute resolution for consumers. But...they do have two major drawbacks 2/8
Industry ombuds schemes, like @CCTS_CPRST, resolve individual disputes but can't do independent investigations and also don't have powers to change industry practices. While resolution may be good for individual consumers, it compartmentalizes systemic issues. 3/8
Read 8 tweets
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It's weird that despite supposedly being in the unassailable, privileged position, ever since the first moment I achieved anything in esports and became "someone" there's always been people trying to take it away from me. It's been this way since 2005 if you can believe it.
Back then I was a blogger, doing work on a now defunct site. I started producing the first 3000+ word articles that Counter-Strike had written about it as well as starting the first "gossip column" about the scene. As you can imagine I was called an "outsider" and a hack.
Death threats were a lot more common back then, being on forums and such... There were no consequences really. I had to go to small events where people would come up to me and threaten me to my face all because some new guy had written about their team without having "played pro"
Read 80 tweets

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