Svi stavovi ovdje izneseni su moji osobni. Nulta tolerancija na govor mržnje i slične ispade.
Zagreb
Joined October 2008
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Krešimir Macan retweeted
Razbuđena energija želje za životom u slobodnom društvu u Srbiji je dovela do impresivne pobjede Studentske liste nad Aleksandrom Vučićem i njegovom partijom (SNS). To je odlična vijest za Srbiju i za demokraciju - i primjer kako se pruža otpor autoritarnom sistemu vlasti, korupciji, ponižavanju građana i njihova zdravog razuma. Velike čestitke pobjednicima. Za Srbiju, ali i za demokraciju općenito, ovo je velik događaj, koji vraća smisao aktivnom građanstvu i daje nadu da je promjena moguća.
Za šire analize bit će vremena - sada pažljivo pratimo način prelaska vlasti u ruke pobjednicima, te detaljnije oblikovanje politika kojima će SL na vlasti upravljati zemljom. Pratimo i što će se događati sa SNS-om, koji je i dalje najveća partija u zemlji - jer Studentska lista nije partija, a ostale su stranke postale izvan-parlamentarne. Paradoksalno je da ni SNS (makar formalno gledano) nema svoju listu u parlamentu: to je personalizirana lista pod imenom svog predvodnika, dok se ime partije ne spominje. Slijedi li nam neki nepartijski sistem, ili će se partije obnoviti, a SL pretvoriti u jednu od njih? Ili će se rastvoriti na više partija? Ili biti neka de facto partija koja se ne naziva tako (stari trik iz socijalističkog perioda). Ovaj slučaj otvara i pitanje: trebaju li nam partije ili je bolje bez njih.
Tko će biti vlast - tko je, zapravo, pobijedio: to ostaje da se vidi. Najjednostavniji odgovor je: "narod" ili "studenti" - no, kako će se dalje iskazivati u politici? Referendumima? Protestima? Klasičnom politikom? Revolucijom, jer SL liči na neki "narodno-oslobodilački pokret", s prilično konspirativnim metodama unutarnjeg upravljanja? Delegiranjem upravljanja vladi, uz zadržavanje "veto-moći" u svojim rukama?
Ta su pitanja - i brojna druga - pred nama - ali za njih sada ima vremena. Velika je pobjeda postignuta, narod se pokazao (čak i kad je na prvi pogled bio nepolitičan i naizgled antipolitičan) kao moćan akter - što ne znači ni izbliza da je homogen, niti bi bilo dobro (ni moguće) da jest. Sretno, narode Srbije.
Krešimir Macan retweeted
Claude Code found every photo i "permanently deleted" from my iPhone.
almost 4 years of photos and videos sitting in a hidden cache on my
device. any app with file access can read them.
plugged my iPhone into my MacBook for a backup. had Claude Code running
a security scan from my last post. it flagged something i never asked
it to check. a directory called PhotoData/Thumbnails with over 152,000
files. photos, videos, screenshots. all stuff i deleted.
2022. 2023. 2024. 2025. photos i deleted within a second of taking them.
photos i went into Recently Deleted and cleared manually. photos i
deleted twice because i didn't trust the first time. all still there.
what was sitting in that cache:
a passport photo for a visa application in 2023
bank app screenshots with full account numbers visible
private photos i sent someone and deleted the same night after a breakup
a crypto seed phrase screenshot i took "for a minute" in 2022
my ID and credit card side by side, deleted 10 seconds later
my ex's private instagram stories i saved and "permanently deleted"
in 2024
152,417 files. some at full resolution. all organized by date going
back to 2021.
when you delete a photo on iPhone, iOS removes it from your camera roll
and your Recently Deleted folder. but it keeps a compressed copy in a
Spotlight search index cache. that's how your phone finds photos when
you type a word in search. Apple never clears it. not after 30 days.
not after a year. they told you it was permanently deleted. it wasn't.
checked which apps on my phone had Files and Folders access. 19 apps.
weather apps. QR scanners. PDF readers. a flashlight app from 2021.
any of them could've been reading every photo i ever "deleted" this
whole time.
went from 19 apps to 3 in about a minute.
full step by step is below. takes 2 minutes. bookmark it so you don't
lose it and send it to anyone with an iPhone.
I CHECK EVERY AIRBNB WIFI WITH CLAUDE CODE NOW
takes 2 minutes and it's kind of addictive
check into a place, join the wifi, open claude code and ask "list every device on this network and what each one is"
most of it is boring. the tv, a couple of smart plugs, the router. but you see the whole list, and the one box that doesn't belong stands out fast
last trip one device was from a company that only makes ip cameras. didn't love that
how to do it yourself
1. join the wifi, open claude code, paste the prompt in the first reply
2. it lists every device and flags anything that looks like a camera or a mic
3. if something looks off, lights out and run your phone flashlight over the smoke detectors, clocks and chargers. a lens glints back
you won't remember this at 1am in a strange room. bookmark it now
this only sees your own network, nothing else. just a traveler checking the room they rented
ever found something weird in a rental? what did you use to check
Krešimir Macan retweeted
This Forbes investigation is a must-read.
Donald Trump pulled in roughly $1.4 billion from crypto in 2025, plus more than $200 million from real estate, and faced a projected tax bill north of $500 million. So his company donated the "development rights" to his Jupiter, Florida golf course to a land trust, argued the course was a natural habitat worth protecting, and kept right on running the club. Forbes estimates the write-off could land around $825 million.
He has done this at least five times since 2005. New York's attorney general alleged two of those appraisals were inflated. In Doral, he claimed a deduction of up to $323 million, more than double what he paid for the entire resort.
A month after the Jupiter deal, he sued the IRS. The settlement his own Justice Department signed bars claims against him over matters that "could be pending," language that appears broad enough to cover this year's taxes. A federal judge found the case was brought to manipulate the judicial process. And the man now running the IRS, who took the job as this deal was being assembled, has a home backing onto those same Jupiter fairways.
This is absolutely ridiculous. Nobody should be able to use the presidency to write his own tax bill.
forbes.com/sites/danalexande…
Krešimir Macan retweeted
US energy company execs have resigned in disgust as the Trump family is caught secretly expediting the funneling of $25 billion from a sanctioned Russian energy giant in exchange for allowing Russians to obtain a natural gas project in Alaska.
According to investigations by The New York Times and Financial Times, Russia's Novatek allegedly concealed its financial involvement in the American project through a UAE-linked intermediary.
Gentry Beach, a longtime Trump ally and close friend of Donald Trump Jr., signed an agreement with Novatek to pursue natural gas development in Alaska. Reuters documented the arrangement in February.
Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin discussed this cooperation on the Alaska energy project with Trump's representatives, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, during negotiations involving Russia and Ukraine.
The controversy deepened when Polar Train LNG's CEO, Joel Riddle, raised concerns about concealed Russian financing and possible sanctions violations. He departed in September, followed by other senior executives.
The Financial Times also described discussions about a potential arrangement under which Novatek would provide technology for the Alaska project in exchange for sanctions relief benefiting its Arctic LNG 2 development in Siberia.
According to The New York Times, Riddle and two other departing executives warned the Trump administration about the Russian financing and urged officials to investigate.
The White House maintains that the project was mentioned only briefly and that no detailed discussions took place. There is no established evidence that Kushner or Witkoff knew about the allegedly concealed financing. Polar Train LNG denies wrongdoing.
The central question is how a sanctioned Russian energy company became involved in a major American energy venture while Putin was discussing potential economic cooperation with Trump's representatives and a longtime Trump family associate was pursuing a separate agreement with the same Russian company.
Selling Alaska to the Russians or selling Ukraine to the Russians - to the Trump family it's all the same.
ft.com/content/e9cfbfbb-e65a…
Krešimir Macan retweeted
S Toninom Piculom, Krešimirom Macanom i Davorom Ivom Stierom jutros sam govorio o izbornoj kampanji u Srbiji - na prvom programu Hrvatskog radija.
Na pitanje - je li Studentska lista suviše heterogena da bi vladala - rekao sam otprilike ovako: "Ona jest heterogena po svim pitanjima, osim po najvažnijem - a to je da Vučić (mora da) ode. 'Lijte kiše, hladne vode, Vučić ode, Vučić ode', to je njihova glavna pjesma ovih dana. Sve drugo je manje važno, i rješavat će se kad i ako oni postignu prvi i jedini cilj oko kojeg su ujedinjeni. Zbog toga se nisu htjeli izjašnjavati o tim drugim pitanjima. I vladajuća strana - sve stavlja na to pitanje, samo s drugim očekivanjem: da Vučić ostane, da ga 'niko ne rastavi' od vlasti, da parafraziram njihovu omiljenu pjesmu u kampanji - 'Ruzmarin'. Zato su personalizirali kampanju, znajući da je on na predsjedničkim izborima 2022. dobio 450 tisuća glasova više nego što je njegova koalicija dobila na parlamentarnim izborima 2023. (Na završnom jučerašnjem mitingu, govorio je samo AV, a i lista se ne zove uopće SNS nego AV - Ujedinjena Srbija, kao što se i ranije nazivala njegovim imenom a ne imenom stranke).
Drugo, na pitanje mogu li vladati ako su tako heterogeni - ne znam, to zavisi i od onoga što uslijedi nakon izbora i od snage i aktivnosti eventualne nove opozicije, ali: a) nisam siguran da žele vladati - žele smijeniti vlast i uspostaviti prostor za demokratsko odlučivanje, pri čemu se pojavljuju razne ideje o tome kako to učiniti - partijski, nepartijski, ovako ili onako, b) ovdje se biraju članovi parlamenta, a svi znamo da članovi parlamenta nisu oni koji vladaju. Vlada vlada. A u vladi mogu biti neki sasvim drugi ljudi, ne ovi koji su sada na listi. I treće, da li su oni doista tako heterogeni i različiti da ne bi mogli iznjedriti novu vladu? Vidite, ti ljudi već mjesecima opstaju, održavaju se kao neka vrsta 'demokratskog pokreta otpora', na način koji nije uopće transparentan - nego vrlo zatvoren za bilo koga izvan toga kruga. Ali, s plenuma ne cure informacije u javnost ni u medije. Dakle, tu očigledno postoji visok stupanj discipliniranosti i koordiniranosti, bez obzira na razlike u svim drugim pitanjima, osim u ovom prvom. Pokazali su da su ipak jedinstveni i uporni". Dodao bih - da su se suzdržavali od nasilja, posebno ako te proteste usporedimo s onima drugdje, npr. u Francuskoj ovih dana.
Istaknuo sam i da masovnost i organiziranost, energija tog pokreta, dovodi u pitanje važnost prisustva na televiziji i radiju. Oni su i bez prisustva u klasičnim medijima postigli to što su postigli. I to što nisu imali oficijelne platforme s kojih bi mogli djelovati pokazalo se glavnim motivom da stvore alternativne platforme i da osvoje ulice.
Razgovarali smo i o tome tko je odgovoran za dugotrajnu podršku koju (je) Aleksandar Vučić ima(o) u EU i pojedinim važnim zemljama. Također, kada je počela pogrešna politika Europske unije prema zemljama u regiji? (Tonino Picula kaže - od Angele Merkel, a ja ipak mislim da je bilo od 2000. godine). EU je imala u Srbiji i Đinđića, i Koštunicu i Tadića - ali im nije ponudila članstvo u EU. Nije podržala one koji su isporučili Ratka Mladića, Slobodana Miloševića, koji su očekivali (za Srbiju) bar nešto nakon 2000., pa onda opet nakon 2008. Kad ne podržiš one koji su provodili hrabre pro-europske politike - npr. politike pomirenja i normalizacije sa susjedima - onda dobiješ ovo što sad imaš.
Nažalost, ako bi se u nedjelju i dogodila pobjeda Studentske liste, nisam sasvim siguran da bi EU odmah priskočila i rekla: u redu, evo, idemo sada brzo prema Uniji. (Zato mi se čini da npr. HDZ-u odgovara više Vučić nego Studentska lista, unatoč propagandi koja studentsku listu povezuje s Hrvatskom. Tko pažljivo posluša ovu emisiju vidjet će kakvu poziciju po tom pitanju ima D. I. Stier!). A nisam ni siguran da bi se politika vojne neutralnosti i četiri stuba promijenila u samoj Srbiji - obje su oblikovane prije Vučića, ne za vrijeme njega.
Međutim, za kraj: kakvu će politiku voditi demokratski izabrana vlast u nekoj zemlji, to nije na nama iz drugih zemalja da kažemo niti čak da predlažemo. To je suvereno pravo građana te zemlje. Narod narodu ne propisuje zakone, da parafraziram izreku regnum regno non praescribit leges. O tome se i radi ovdje: o konstituiranju demosa kroz aktivno građanstvo u procesu aktivnog samoodređenja - koje uvijek iznova stvara narod kao političku činjenicu (a ne kao "zamišljenu zajednicu", premda svaka čast B. Andersonu), nasuprot onima koji narodu zatvaraju usta i onemogućuju da govori sam za sebe.
Sretno, narode Srbije, u nedjelju!
Emisija je u cijelosti dostupna ovdje:
radio.hrt.hr/slusaonica/poli…
Krešimir Macan retweeted
A concerning moment for freedom of the press in Serbia, right before elections. A free and independent press should be non-negotiable in any democracy.
10 journalists from Serbia's N1 resigned today. The channel was for a long time the only TV channel that issued reports critical of the government. In May, its parent company was sold to to Luxembourg-based European Future Media Investments, managed by Alpac Capital. (After Alpac bought Euronews in 2022, reporters from Direkt36 and Le Monde showed that the acquisition was partly financed by Hungarian state capital and companies connected to the political network of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.)
But back to the resignations. Here's an excerpt of the letter the 10 journalists sent to their management, which was shared with me:
"Under the new management, we have witnessed falsehoods, manipulation, insidious censorship, the public discrediting of colleagues, their professional marginalisation, insults and humiliation, changes to programme editors, and a refusal to engage in open
discussions about the problems.
While genuine dialogue within the newsroom has been eliminated, the illusion of dialogue is being created on air. We do not want to take part in misleading our audience through the simulation of debates, the forced presentation of opposing political actors as equivalent, and the staging of normality while disregarding the authorities’ long-standing and well-documented treatment of N1, as well as the broader social and political context in which we live and work.
Precisely because Serbia is facing the most unpredictable elections since N1 was established, we refuse, under these circumstances, to lend legitimacy to an editorial policy we cannot stand behind. The new management has restricted our scope for action to such an extent that our remaining at N1 would have no impact on what its programming looks like in the days ahead."
Krešimir Macan retweeted
Special shout out to Zagreb. I’ve never played Croatia or even visited, but I’ve only heard good things about the country and the people. Hope you get a ticket and enjoy the show. Can’t wait!
Krešimir Macan retweeted
beautiful explanation. this is 100% happening. xitter.cf/sotak/status/211179423…
Krešimir Macan retweeted
A smile worth a thousand words:
Sky News: Trump is facing pretty difficult midterm elections. Do you think you are being treated as a scapegoat for his own problems?
Zelenskyy [smiling]: “This is my answer.”
Couldn't imagine a better answer. 👏
Krešimir Macan retweeted
Vidim da nam je iz Srbije stigla prosvjedna nota, a kao dokaz „brutalnog miješanja“ navode 6.282 objave hrvatskih medija o Aleksandru Vučiću.
Moram ih ispraviti. Prema našoj analizi bilo ih je 8.862. A prema našem „dogovoru s medijima“ trebali smo nagurati barem do 9.452. Očito netko nije ispunio kvotu.
Još mi je fascinantnije da broj novinskih tekstova i spominjanja tumače kao miješanje države u izbore. Po toj logici, Srbija se već godinama svakodnevno miješa u hrvatsku politiku, naše brojke kažu u prosjeku 1.743 puta spominjanja ustaša prije doručka.
Besplatnu korekciju brojki ovaj put šaljemo bez prosvjedne note, molimo srbijansko Ministarstvo vanjskih poslova i povezana društva poput Informera da provjere metodologiju.
P. S. U jednoj drugoj susjednoj zemlji godinama su brojili objave, kontrolirali naslovnice i uređivali dnevnike. Na kraju su zaboravili prebrojati birače.
Krešimir Macan retweeted
I spent 15+ years investigating Russian secret services and organized crime. I know people who served with Putin in the KGB and sat in on his deals with St. Petersburg crime bosses. So let me explain the "diesel deal" the way they would — in gangster slang. Because that's the language Putin actually thinks in.
First, the facts.
Putin just raised Russia's 2027 military budget by 27% to a record 17.1 trillion rubles — about $203 billion. Who budgets that kind of money for a war they're about to end?
The FT reported yesterday that Western intelligence has warned the heads of European defense companies that Russia is plotting to assassinate them.
Since September, Tusk, Macron and the intelligence services of Poland, Czechia, Latvia, Belgium, France and Denmark have all warned that Russian hybrid attacks — including drone and missile strikes — will intensify in the coming months.
None of this looks like a country preparing for peace.
Who actually benefits?
🇺🇸 What the US gets: Every serious analysis I've read says the announced volumes won't move American diesel prices. This is a PR move for Trump before the midterms — a story about prices that will "very, very soon" come down once his friend Vladimir's tankers reach US shores, plus the chance to claim he ended another war (I've lost count). The only US "benefit" is Trump's rating.
🇷🇺 What Russia gets: billions of dollars to keep funding its genocidal war against Ukrainians. Sanctions relief. A demonstration of power to the rest of the world. A deeper rift between the US and its European allies. And a real chance to disrupt US weapons and intelligence flowing to Ukraine.
So what is Putin's actual goal?
Trump's disapproval is at record highs and polls show his party will most likely loose midterm elections. In less than a month his power will be badly weakened. Why would Putin sign a long-term peace deal with a lame duck whose signature will soon be scrutinized at best and annulled at worst?
He wouldn't. And here's where the slang comes in.
In the eyes of Putin and his siloviki, Trump is a baryga — a greedy, unscrupulous businessman who puts profit above law and principle. Gangsters despise barygas, but they love using them. The goal is always to turn a baryga into a lokh — a mark, an outsider who doesn't understand the rules of the underworld and gets played to serve the gang's interests.
By signing the diesel deal, Putin plays two scenarios at once:
A) The deal miraculously helps his lokh keep power — great.
B) The deal changes nothing, the baryga loses the midterms — but by then it has already done its job: inflamed US political tensions and acted as arson inside the American system.
Putin knows that the majority of Americans support Ukraine. He knows that by signing, Trump draws unprecedented criticism, including from his own party. And he knows a baryga won't give up power easily, because he will have to answer for everything he did in office — this deal included. That's classic gangster/secret-service method: tie a man to your organization, make him a partner in your crimes, so he can't walk away.
Pouring more oil — diesel, in this case — onto the most explosive fault lines of American politics, raising the stakes for Trump and pushing him past the point of no return serves Putin far better than a peace deal that could be voided within months.
Remember: Putin's goal in the West is chaos, not peace.
Krešimir Macan retweeted
Iza nas su burni tjedni na političkoj sceni od Maksimira i Poljuda, Gospića, pa sve do štrajka u Zagrebu. O tome tko je izašao podignute, a tko pognute glave u Intervjuu Media servisa razgovarali smo s komunikacijskim stručnjakom Krešimirom Macanom. 👇youtu.be/sFryzkispUs
Krešimir Macan retweeted
The war the world forgot is back.
Fighting that killed hundreds of thousands of people is reigniting in Ethiopia, and it’s all happening in one of the world’s most volatile regions, near the Red Sea :
Krešimir Macan retweeted
That towel move is a real physical therapy technique called a self SNAG, and the speed of the relief tells you something most people never learn about their own neck. Muscle tissue takes weeks of loading to actually lengthen. So when stiffness vanishes in a few seconds, the muscle was never what changed.
What changed is the signal your brain was sending to it.
The small facet joints stacked down the back of your neck sit at roughly a 45 degree angle. When one of them gets irritated or stops gliding smoothly, your brain protects it by clamping down the surrounding muscles. That clamp is the stiffness you feel. The tissue underneath is usually fine, it's just being held under orders.
The towel edge hooks under one vertebra. When you pull forward and up along that 45 degree joint plane while turning your head, you glide the joint through the exact motion it was refusing, with support the whole way. Your brain gets live evidence the movement is safe and drops the clamp. Physical therapists do the same glide with their thumbs and call it a SNAG, short for sustained natural apophyseal glide. Brian Mulligan, the New Zealand physio who developed the method in the 1980s, designed the towel version specifically so patients could run it on themselves at home.
Which is why years of stretching can lose to thirty seconds with a towel. A stretch tries to overpower the brain's grip. A glide convinces it to let go.
Krešimir Macan retweeted
Ukrainian National Guard troops from the Bolharychi special-purpose UAV unit of the 11th Brigade carried out a unique rescue operation in Russian-occupied Oleshky, evacuating six cats that had been left without owners and risked dying from hunger.
With help from local residents, the cats were placed in a specially designed cage and airlifted for more than 10 km beneath a heavy bomber drone, across the Dnipro River to Ukrainian-controlled territory.
All six landed safely. The operation was codenamed “Tigers,” and the cats will now be placed in new homes.
Krešimir Macan retweeted
Reakcije javnosti, navijača i svih koji su se posljednjih dana uključili u raspravu o novom Maksimiru potaknule su nas da detaljnije pogledamo ne samo pobjednički projekt, nego i cijeli postupak njegova odabira.
I, moram priznati, imali smo što vidjeti.
.@Mingo je danas iskoristio svoju zakonsku ovlast i podnio službenu žalbu DKOM-u na odluku o rezultatima natječaja za novi Maksimir i SRC Svetice.
Ne želimo ulaziti u raspravu o tome je li nekome stadion lijep ili ružan. O arhitekturi treba govoriti arhitektonska struka i u tome je potpuno u pravu.
Ja ću pak nastupiti kao pravnik i ministar nadležan za politiku javne nabave. I pravo je struka. Zato o ovom postupku DKOM-u moramo postaviti nekoliko vrlo jednostavnih pitanja.
Naša analiza pokazala je ozbiljne indicije da ista pravila nisu vrijedila za svih 88 natjecatelja. Pravna ocjena Ministarstva je da postoje elementi koji upućuju na to da pobjedničko rješenje odstupa od bitnih uvjeta natječaja, kao i od službenih odgovora koje su natjecatelji tijekom postupka dobivali.
Ako smo od drugih tražili da se drže pravila, onda ista pravila moraju vrijediti i za pobjednika.
Žalba otvara i dodatna pitanja o načinu na koji su prije donošenja odluke provjereni stručni, tehnički i financijski elementi pojedinih rješenja.
Ne prejudiciram odluku DKOM-a. Upravo zato postoji neovisno tijelo koje će o našim argumentima odlučiti.
Ali kada se radi o investiciji većoj od 200 milijuna eura javnog novca, naša je zakonska dužnost reagirati kada za to postoje ozbiljni pravni razlozi.
U žalbi tražimo poništenje odluke i zakonit ponovljeni pregled i ocjenu. Ako se ravnopravnost svih natjecatelja više ne može uspostaviti, tražimo poništenje natječaja. Do odluke o žalbi tražimo i zaustavljanje daljnjeg ugovaranja projekta.
Novi Maksimir čekamo desetljećima. Nekoliko tjedana pravne provjere neće ga ugroziti.
Puno bi ga više ugrozilo da projekt vrijedan više od 200 milijuna eura započnemo bez odgovora na pitanje jesu li svi igrali po istim pravilima.
Struka mora imati zadnju riječ. Arhitektonska kada govorimo o arhitekturi, a pravna kada govorimo o zakonitosti postupka.
P.S. Quod ab initio vitiosum est, non potest tractu temporis convalescere.
Što je u početku nevaljano, ne može se tijekom vremena ojačati.
Krešimir Macan retweeted
The hedge fund manager who taught Michael Burry to pick stocks accidentally destroyed the mutual fund industry in a free Talks at Google lecture on the two-line formula that turned $10,000 into $8.3 million.
His fund charged 2 and 20. He gave the strategy away in a $12 book.
Almost no one paying a financial advisor 1 percent of their retirement has finished the lecture.
His name is Joel Greenblatt. He founded Gotham Capital in 1985 and compounded roughly 40 percent a year for twenty consecutive years. He returned all outside capital in 1994 because his edge was too crowded to scale.
He has been teaching value investing at Columbia Business School every year since 1996. Michael Burry - the doctor who shorted the housing bubble in "The Big Short" - learned to pick stocks from Greenblatt's 1997 book.
The 55-minute clip in this video is Greenblatt at Google in 2017 walking a room of engineers through his Magic Formula.
The whole framework fits on one napkin. Rank every stock in the S&P 500 by return on invested capital, highest first. Then rank every stock by earnings yield, highest first. Sum the two rankings. Buy the top twenty. Hold for one year. Sell. Repeat.
That single formula would have beaten the S&P 500 by roughly 14 percent a year over the last three decades if any retail investor had actually followed it.
"Cheap and good beats expensive and average. Every time."
That is Joel Greenblatt at Google in 2017. He has repeated the sentence in every public talk since. Almost no retail investor buying Nvidia at $140 has heard it.
Every hedge fund on Wall Street pays $500,000-a-year analysts to backtest more sophisticated versions of the same equation. Every financial advisor in America charges you 1 percent of your account per year to underperform it.
The Talks at Google video is free on YouTube. "The Little Book That Beats the Market" is twelve dollars on Amazon.
Almost none of the millions who watched have ever run the two-line formula on their own portfolio.
The framework is free. The willingness to actually run it before your next stock pick, retirement rebalance, or brokerage transfer is the entire edge.
Krešimir Macan retweeted
Third question on AI.
A question that also remains unasked is whether the AI boom can continue without leading to a massive increase in inequality.
A recent paper by Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh runs the numbers on how much revenue the AI industry needs to generate to recover its massive investment (summary and a link to the paper can be found here: brookings.edu/articles/finan…).
Van Nieuwerburgh’s arithmetic should make us more concerned. AI investments will average about 3.6% of GDP annually between 2025 and 2032. Van Nieuwerburgh calculates that, using a 10% rate of return, the industry would need to generate annual revenues of about $3.7 trillion by 2032 to recover these costs (growing from its current levels of about $200 billion or so). That is significantly more than 10% of current US national income, and will likely remain around 10% of national income by 2032, even if GDP growth rose from its current level.
A large fraction of this revenue will go to capital income. That means a massive increase in the share of capital in national income, which has already risen substantially over the last 25 years or so – now standing at an all-time high of about 47% (bls.gov/news.release/pdf/pro…).
Capital income is much more unequally distributed than labor income, so a massive increase in the capital share of national income will translate into a very sizable surge in inequality.
The rise in inequality may not stop with the capital share. My work with Pascual Restrepo documents that (automation-driven) increases in the capital share of national income are typically associated with rising labor income inequality as well (see, for example, economics.mit.edu/sites/defa…). The same may happen in the next several years, boosting inequality further.
What is missing from our current debate is any discussion of a fundamental dilemma these numbers pose: can the AI boom avoid both an economically costly crash and a huge increase in inequality?
If the industry reaches these revenues, inequality surges. If the industry does not become profitable, a crash, with substantial costs in terms of lost output and jobs, becomes likely.
My assessment would be that the industry is unlikely to reach levels of revenue Van Nieuwerburgh calculates. First, diffusion has been and will likely continue to be slow. Second, competition from open-weight models, which are getting better, will limit how much proprietary models can charge. Third, despite important advances, I still believe that AI models will not be able to automate entire occupations anytime soon, thus limiting their value to businesses as cost-saving devices.
Whether this leads to a crash or not is more complicated and will depend on whether various AI companies are bailed out and what kind of support they receive.
Nevertheless, even if revenues fall short of these gargantuan amounts and we avoid a dramatic surge in inequality, I expect that the diffusion of AI will push up inequality between capital and labor and within labor.
If inequality does surge, a further question becomes central: can our democracy survive such astronomical levels of inequality?
Krešimir Macan retweeted
My iPhone got stolen. The thief plugged it in to charge.
That second, the front camera took a photo and emailed it to me with the exact GPS location.
Not a third-party app. A built-in automation I set up in 5 minutes using the Shortcuts app that comes on every iPhone.
The thief's face. The address where my phone was charging. In my inbox. Before the thief even unlocked the screen.
I showed the photo and location to the police. They recovered the phone the same day.
A cybersecurity consultant who sets up this automation for every client said: "This is the most effective anti-theft setup on any smartphone and 99% of iPhone users have never configured it. It takes 5 minutes. It uses the Shortcuts app that's already on your iPhone. It runs silently. And it catches the one thing every thief eventually does: plug the phone in to charge."
He showed me 9 more iPhone anti-theft features most people never activate Stolen Device Protection, Find My network tracking, Activation Lock, Lost Mode, a trigger-word automation that works from any phone, and 4 other settings that make a stolen iPhone nearly useless to a thief and nearly guaranteed to come back to you.
"Every iPhone has a $1,000+ anti-theft security system built in. Most owners have configured zero of it. They lose the phone. They panic. They wish they'd spent the 15 minutes it takes to set everything up. Don't be that person."
Here's the complete anti-theft setup step by step 🧵
Krešimir Macan retweeted
At 108 years old, a man was still riding the train to his Wall Street office three times a week. He had started there in 1928 and learned to invest sitting beside the man who invented the entire method. In 2005 he sat with a room of students and taught it.
For free.
No bank and no fund has ever made you watch this recording.
His name is Irving Kahn. He was Benjamin Graham's teaching assistant at Columbia, riding the subway uptown with Graham after the market closed to sit in on his class. In 1929, as a young clerk, he put $300 into a bet against a copper stock. Four months later the market fell apart, and his money tripled while Wall Street was ruined around him.
The lecture is not a stock tip or a screener. It is a man who saw everything, from 1929 to the year he gave this talk, explaining that the method never changed. Buy a business for less than it is worth, demand a margin of safety, and let time do the work. He never needed a computer or a forecast. He needed the patience most people do not have.
The uncomfortable part is how boring the answer is. No system, no leverage, no edge to sell. He founded his own firm in his seventies and ran it for decades on the same simple rules. The industry that charges you for complexity has no use for a 108 year old saying the whole thing fits on one page.
He worked until the year he turned 108 and lived to 109, which tells you something on its own. The men who chase the market burn out. The man who bought value and waited outlived almost everyone who ever doubted him.
He learned the method from the man who wrote the book, used it for 70 years, and handed it to a room of students on camera. The recording has been public since 2005. The people charging you to manage your money have known these rules for a century. They just never sent you the tape.