Category: Quotes

Why are Muslims powerless?

Because we aren’t producing knowledge.

 

Why are Muslims powerless?
Because we aren’t diffusing knowledge.

 

Why are Muslims powerless?
Because we aren’t applying knowledge.

 

And, the future belongs to knowledge-based societies.

Interestingly, the combined annual GDP of 57 OIC-countries is under $2 trillion. America, just by herself, produces goods and services worth $12 trillion; China – $8 trillion, Japan – $3.8 trillion and Germany – $2.4 trillion (purchasing power parity basis).

Oil rich Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait and Qatar collectively produce goods and services (mostly oil) worth $500 billion; Spain alone produces goods and services worth over $1 trillion; Catholic Poland – $489 billion and Buddhist Thailand – $545 billion. Muslim GDP, as a percentage of worlds GDP, is fast declining.

 

So, why are Muslims so powerless?

Answer: Lack of education!

All we do is shouting to Allah the whole day and blame everyone else for our multiple failures

–wrote Dr. Farrukh Saleem in the Bangladeshi weekly Blitz

Everybody wants an “absolute returns” strategy until the market rallies.

Everybody wants to “focus on risk management” until the market rallies.

Everybody believes in asset class diversification until the market rallies.

Everybody wants to “be tactical” until the market rallies.

Everybody wants to “keep some powder dry” until the market rallies.

Everybody wants to be risk-averse and flexible until the market rallies.

Everybody prioritizes return OF capital rather than return ON capital until the market rallies.

Everybody “sticks with quality” until the market rallies.

Everybody is happy earning an appropriate rate of return regardless of the index benchmark until the market rallies.

And then, when it does rally, whether for 3 months or 2 years, everybody is revealed to be full of shit.

Everybody is unmasked and shown for what they truly are: Performance-chasing children who grow resentful at the thought of anyone’s portfolio outpacing theirs, no matter how much risk is being assumed.  Screaming chimpanzees rattling the bars of their cages when the colors and lights start flashing.

“I know I said I wanted to treat this capital responsibly and tune out the noise – but why the hell don’t I own those hot stocks that keep going up everyday?”

Portfolio stewardship is great but that’s not what you want when the market rallies.  What you want is to beat that goddamn index when it goes up.  What you want is an ego stroke, you want bragging rights and you want to be in the game, not watching it.  It’s only partially about the money, it’s more about being right.

 

Do you need a 25% return in any given year?  No but if the market rallies 25% you damn well better get it.  If you don’t, the despondency sets in – and then you’re going to do something really stupid.

And that’s exactly how trends are taken that last step too far.

It’s how a rally amidst horrible news can feed on itself and be utterly detached from reality.

It’s how market participants learn the power of panic buying, the pain of short squeezes, the capriciousness of rebalancing impact and institutional window-dressing.

Because everybody is calm and responsible and prudent and logical.

Until the market rallies.

 

-Josh Brown wrote in The Reformed Broker

“Big price changes occur when market participants are forced to reevaluate their prejudices, not necessarily because the world changes that much.”
– Hedge fund manager Colm O’Shea as quoted in Hedge Fund Market Wizards

“What is the most common mistake of investors? It is believing that things that worked in the past will continue to work and leveraging up to be on it. Nowadays, with the computer, it is easy to identify what would have worked and, with financial engineering, to create overoptimized strategies. We are entering a period that will not be consistent with the back-testing, and problems will arise. When that dynamic exists and there’s close to zero interest rate, we knew that the ability of the central bank to ease monetary policy is limited.” – said Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates – “The Alpha Masters”

Conversation between a journalist and Sri Lankan Defence Minister Gotabaya Rajapaksa

J: I have decided to hold the story but I want you to know that I am not doing so because you threatened me yesterday…

GR: Yes I threatened you. Your type of journalists are pigs who eat shit! Pigs who eat shit! Shit, Shit Shit journalists!!! Ninety percent of the people in this country hate you! They hate you!!! You come for a function where I am and I will tell people this is the Editor of The Sunday Leader and ninety percent there will show that they hate you.

 

J: I don’t think so.

GR:  You don’t? That is your ego!! You are a shit, shit journalist. A f…..g shit. A pig who eats shit! I will go to courts!!! I will not withdraw the case on the MIG deal – this is how you wrote…

 

J: I had nothing to do with that story so I cannot comment.

GR: But I will put you in jail! You shit journalist trying to split this country – trying to show otherwise from true Sinhala Buddhists!! You are helped by the US Ambassador, NGOs and Paikiasothy – they pay you!!!

 

J: I wish.

GR: You pig that eats shit!!! You shit shit dirty f…..g journalist!!!

 

J: I hope you can hear yourself Mr. Rajapaksa.

GR: People will kill you!!!  People hate you!!! They will kill you!!!

 

J: On your directive?

GR: What?? No. Not mine. But they will kill you – you dirty f…..g shit journalist.