Chris Cubitt retweeted
My wife mentioned a nice private school over dinner this week
She said the campus was beautiful
I asked what's the tuition
She said we should look at it as an investment in him not a cost
I made a note
She said don't make a note
I said I always make notes
She said this isn't a deal
I said everything is a deal
She closed her eyes
She said we'd discuss it Saturday
I agreed
Saturday 7:02am
She came downstairs in her Saturday robe
Coffee in hand
I had my cargo shorts on
The dining room had been cleared
The projector was on
The analyst was at the head of the table
Quarter zip on, three iced coffees, a legal pad, and two laptops
He had been there since 6:44am
I texted him at 11:14pm Friday
The text said dining room 6:45am bring the model
He sent a thumbs up
My wife stopped in the doorway
She said what is this
I said you said you wanted to discuss it
She said this is not a discussion
I did not respond
She sat down anyway
The analyst stood
He said good morning ma'am
She did not respond
He sat back down
A printed deck in front of each seat
A fourth copy in case
Slide 1 Tuition Schedule
$38,500 per year
Thirteen years
$500,500 nominal
Before escalators
The school has raised tuition 4.2% per year for a decade
With escalators $648,000
My wife said okay
I said I'm not done
Slide 2 Opportunity Cost
Even before escalators
$38,500 invested annually
10% nominal return
S&P long-run average since 1928
By his eighteenth birthday $944,000
My wife said we can afford it
I said I know that's not the slide
Slide 3 Terminal Value at Age 65
$83 million
She was quiet
The analyst slid the sensitivity tables across the table
8% return $31 million
10% return $83 million
12% return $222 million
She did not look
She said this isn't about money
I said it's always about money
She said no it isn't
I said then what is it about
She did not answer
She said you can't put a dollar value on his teachers his classmates his environment
I said I can the analyst already did slide 6
He flipped to slide 6
She did not look
She said the school is the best in the city
I said best is a feeling
She said it produces the best students
I said the students were already the best before they got there
She said our son deserves it
I said our son deserves $83 million
My son walked in
He is five
Dinosaur pajamas
He looked at the projector
He looked at the open deck on the table
He looked at slide 3
He said are we modeling pre-tax or after-tax
The analyst opened a new tab
My wife looked at the ceiling
He said what's the discount rate
The analyst set down his pen
She closed her eyes
He said is this the same return assumption from the 529 conversation
The analyst stopped typing
He looked at me
I did not say anything
She stood up
Sat back down
He said dad can I help
I said yes
He pulled up a chair
The analyst handed him a printout
He started reading
My wife watched him read
She watched him for a long time
She said his name
He looked up
She said do you like school
He said the work is too easy and the kids don't ask questions
She did not respond
She looked at the ceiling
She walked out of the room
The analyst started packing up
He said should I follow up Monday sir
I said no follow up needed
He'll be fine
Sent from my iPhone
Chris Cubitt retweeted
🚨There are 28.5 times more White Americans with a 130 IQ than in all of India
There are only 222 million White Americans and 8 million of them are over 130 IQ
India has over 1.4 billion people and only 280k people over 130 IQ
America doesn't need H1B invaders.
Chris Cubitt retweeted
"I see so many ghosts. They're already dead. They don't even know it."
A 45-year Wall Street veteran just said that about the current generation of finance professionals to me.
George Robertson started at Salomon Brothers in 1981 when bond yields were 14%. He's survived every blow-up from Long-Term Capital to 2008 to COVID.
And he's convinced a massive reset is coming that will produce RUIN for people who don't see it.
I just interviewed him, and let me walk you through the one thing most people in this space fail to understand:
The stock market has effectively become a single instrument.
Every major quant fund is staffed by the same MIT graduates running the same models through the same filters arriving at the same conclusions. There are maybe 4 or 5 ideas being expressed across the entire systematic trading universe at any given time. The diversity that makes markets function as a price discovery mechanism is GONE.
Jane Street just reported $16.1 billion in trading revenue in a SINGLE QUARTER. One firm. 3,500 employees. More trading revenue than JPMorgan or Goldman Sachs. Full year 2025 was $39.6 billion.
Lever that capital 10 to 1 across all the major quant players and you're looking at trillions in gross exposure approaching the monthly GDP of the United States. Until something overwhelms that kind of firepower, these firms effectively dictate market behavior.
The rest of us are passengers.
And that's why markets look so deceptively calm right now. Tight ranges, suppressed volatility, weeks and months where nothing seems to move.
But the calm IS the danger.
All the mispricing that should be correcting incrementally through normal price discovery is instead building up like pressure in a sealed system. And when it finally releases, it won't be a normal correction where you have weeks to adjust your positioning...
It will be years of stored mispricing detonating in DAYS.
We've seen the same thing before:
In the 1990s, Long-Term Capital Management was so dominant in fixed income that it killed price discovery across the entire asset class. Danish mortgages, basis trades, risk arbitrage, nothing functioned properly while LTCM existed. Normal pricing only returned after they literally collapsed.
Now apply that dynamic to the ENTIRE equity market.
And the agencies that were supposed to protect investors from exactly this kind of concentration have been gutted. Sherman Act enforcement is effectively dead. The AI industry operates as an informal trust, 3 or 4 companies integrated vertically and horizontally in ways we haven't seen since Carnegie and Rockefeller.
Trevor Milton rolled a truck down a hill, called it technology, and got pardoned. Crime pays. So who stops the next guy?
Meanwhile capital markets have grown to roughly 4x GDP. When I started in this business they were roughly the SAME size. So when the repricing comes, the damage to the real economy will be multiples of anything we've experienced.
Nobody has a clean answer for what to do about this. Not me. Not Robertson. Not anyone being honest with you.
But after 45 years doing this myself I know this much:
The correction WILL come.
Price discovery WILL return.
The only question is whether you survive it or whether you're one of the ghosts who never saw it coming.
Chris Cubitt retweeted
I’ve coached some of the best private traders in the world. None of them had an easy journey.
In the "eat what you kill" world of private traders, they all faced "starvation" cycles where the market gave them nothing for long periods.
In trading, you don't just learn to trade—you learn to survive.
Chris Cubitt retweeted
Democracy has always led to defeat or failure. Empires who valued the opinion of the people are historically the quickest to fail.
Athens was the longest lasting democracy in history, 186 years total with some brief interruptions. By contrast, the Venetian Republic under the governance of noble families (more of an oligarchy) lasted over a thousand years.
Democracy killed illegally Socrates because his ideas were unfamiliar to them, the people voted to ignore his legal protections. The Sicilian expedition was a catastrophic failure thanks to the uninformed votes of the people.
The Athenian victory in the Peloponnesian war was followed by the execution of the generals who won the war because they did not save enough soldiers during a storm that arose after the battle. The people decided this was reason to kill their best generals, a mistake that made them lose the war to Sparta. Grief demanded they lose the war.
Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides, Polybius, etc all took lessons from these historical failures. The founding fathers knew these stories intimately and tried to prevent the Athenization of America.
Democracy simply doesn't work, and it has never worked. The commoner is not fit to rule, because the commoner is retarded. When did we forget this
Chris Cubitt retweeted
Introverts can stay inside for days and weeks. No plans. No people. No drama. No nothing. Just chilling alone. Reading. Meditating. Listening music. Staring at walls. Watching movies. Snacking. Napping. Thinking about life and all. And trust me, they regret nothing.
Chris Cubitt retweeted
Ladies and gentlemens, it’s that time of the day again—the weekend is nearly here.
A recap of why mining is vital around the globe. 🌍
Thanks for listening.
Enjoy.
Chris Cubitt retweeted
Our Profession.
You come to realize one of the market’s great paradoxes: absorbing a loss under fire is an almost mechanical act, a quiet surrender to the inevitable.
The true crucible of character, however, is found in choosing to walk away from the table when the cards are falling in your favor, especially as the bets grow wilder and the intoxicating pull of the final, collective wager tempts everyone to go all in.
And the truth, much like in Poker, is that the table is not designed for everyone to win. By its very nature, the market funnels the winnings into the hands of a disciplined few. To find yourself moving in unison with the crowd, feeling the comfort of shared conviction, is often the final assurance that you are no longer the hunter, but the prey.
The discipline to rein in risk during a market crescendo requires a quiet courage that is rarely celebrated. The world will always cheer louder for the gambler who goes all-in and wins than for the strategist who loses less than everyone else.
This path demands a solitary mind. You must stand firm in your own logic when the only seemingly rational choice is to surrender to the street's roar.
It’s the loneliest job in the world, yet it’s also the most clarifying.
After enough seasons have passed, after 90% of the voices you once knew have fallen silent, you realize the market is a relentless mirror.
In the end, it shows you exactly what you're made of.
Chris Cubitt retweeted
If you take the best text in economics by Mankiw, he says intelligent people make decisions based on opportunity costs - in other words, it's your alternatives that matter.
That's how we make all of our decisions.
Chris Cubitt retweeted
the secret to life is deceptively simple: it's having something to look forward to, always, doesn't even matter how small or mundane
Chris Cubitt retweeted
The highest ROI money you’ll spend:
1) Cooling bed + Black out curtains
2) House cleaner
3) Laundry service
4) Meal prep
5) Landscaper
6) Driver/Uber
7) Semi-private flying
1-5 buys the avg American ~100 hours per month back and cost ~$1500/mo, no matter how much u make per hr.
Chris Cubitt retweeted
⚡️The saddest truth about life…
You will be forgotten.
Not just by the world.
Not just by history.
But eventually, even by those you love.
The deepest love fades into silence.
The most brilliant work is buried by time.
Every joy, every victory, every heartbreak reduced to dust by the machinery of entropy.
And here’s the cruel part:
You’ll know it’s happening before you’re gone.
You’ll watch the people you carried drift.
You’ll see the moments that defined you mean nothing to others.
You’ll ache for permanence in a system designed for erasure.
And yet
you will still crave meaning.
Still love.
Still hope.
Still reach.
That’s the paradox of being human.
We are wired for immortality, trapped in a body destined to vanish.
So the real tragedy isn’t that life ends.
It’s that we’re built to matter,
in a universe that doesn’t care.
The only way through it?
To create anyway.
To love anyway.
To fight anyway.
Because even if it fades,
you were here and that mattered for a moment that only you could hold.
Chris Cubitt retweeted
Indeed. IQ measures processing power not wisdom, timing, or guts. The world isn’t short on intellect. It’s starving for clarity and courage.
