The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 13,421 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 112 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Papic: US asset outperformance driven by post-2020 fiscal spending is over
“It's the fiscal gravy train that gave us exceptionalism of the U.S. Asset flows from 20 20 to 20 25. That's over.”
Gave: US supply disruptions from tariffs will be as bad as COVID-19
“We saw this kind of discrepancy during COVID, and it took the economies a year to get back on their footing. This time, it's going to be just as bad. I don't see how the economy doesn't grind to a standstill. These strict discrepancies are going to be very uni…”
Papic: Trump will likely moderate tariffs to 5-10% rather than 40%
“I think the response is going to be President Trump saying, I was actually going for five to 10% across the board of tariffs, not 40%. Once the market sniffs that out, I think it's very dangerous to be overly bearish on risk assets.”
Gave: US-China negotiations will result in China leaving the Americas and US leaving Asia
“This, I think, will end up being the negotiations with China. China, you get out of the Americas, and we'll get out of Asia. That is a trade that Xi Jinping will be very happy to make.”
Gave: China does not need a currency devaluation
“China doesn't need a devaluation. China's problem is first and foremost that consumer and business confidence has been crushed.”
Papic: The U.S. Is Starting to Trade Like an Emerging Market
“What's happening right now in the U.S., and I don't want to be too facetious or critical, but the U.S. Is starting to trade in many ways like an emerging market.”
Gave: Chinese competition will eliminate profitability across the AI sector
“We also know that when China enters the room, profits walk out, so there's not going to be any profit in AI forever.”
Papic: Europe Will See a Tsunami of LNG Supply Disproving Deindustrialization
“Europe is going to be absolutely drowned in its tsunami wave of LNG supply that will crash on its shores over the next two years. This whole deindustrialization debate is wrong.”
Howard Marks: SEC doesn't scrutinize private credit valuations and LPs prefer it
“And by the way, the SEC doesn't look at these things, because these are private investments, so they don't require accuracy. And the investors in the fund are mostly happy without accuracy, because as I said, they don't have to report problems to their higher …”
Green: VCs holding stock in 2021 cost LPs hundreds of billions
“I think the amount of money that private equity Growth equity, venture firms cost their investors by not selling in mid to late 21 is in the tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars.”
Bessent: Marine Le Pen will become president of France in 18-24 months
“I would predict that in the next 18 or 24 months, Marine Le Pen
The bête noire of European politics is going to be president of France, and she's going to be president of France because the alternative on the left is worse than she is.”
Bessent: 2024 election is last chance to outgrow US debt burden
“And I think we can through deregulation, energy, independence, and dominance in the U.S., and a growth mindset. We can get back to growth. I feel very strongly that this is the last chance to grow our way out of this.”
Miller: Overcapitalized renewables will likely destroy multiples of shale capital losses
“I see renewables as just a massively overcapitalized space. It will likely torch capital on multiples of what happened to shale.”
Miller: 100% battery backup for Germany's grid would cost $270T
“And the back of the envelope math says, well, in order for Germany to be a hundred percent renewables plus a hundred percent battery, the battery piece of that equation was 270 trillion dollars.”
Miller: Coal-to-gas shift delivers 2.5x the environmental benefit of gas-to-renewables
“And when you look at the delta between, if I move from a coal plant to a natural gas plant, and a natural gas plant to a renewables plant, That first step has 2.5 times the environmental impact.”
Nesbitt: Only about a dozen hedge funds really matter today
“And I don't know, there are, at least in my opinion, maybe a dozen hedge funds that really matter today.”
Salem: The prudent allocation to Chinese-domiciled company stocks is zero
“And that is one important reason, among many others, why I continue to maintain that I think from a tactical and a strategic point of view, but most emphatically from a policy point of view, the prudent allocation to stocks of companies domiciled in China is z…”
Salem: Asset managers cannot rigorously prioritize ESG while maintaining fiduciary duties
“I think there are some very conspicuous, visible actors running some of the largest asset management firms in the world that a few years ago Started to exalt and extol the virtues of ESG to an extent that even at the time, some of us could say, wait a minute, …”
India, not the US, will be the dominant market in the 2020s
“And I don't think the U S is going to be the dominant market in this decade. At this point, it's probably going to be India.”
Assaf: S&P 500 passive funds will likely lag good active managers over 5-10 years
“It probably won't do as well, relatively speaking, over the next five to 10 years as it did over the last five to 10 years relative to good active managers. We believe that. We'll see.”
Connaughton: Investment banks are probably the worst talent pool for PE
“And the rest of the industry was hiring from investment banks, which I think are principles at one level, but at the same time, they're really about getting fees for transactions, not for making returns on investment. So it's probably the worst possible place …”
Hunt: Financial Markets Are Entirely Driven By Narratives Over Fundamentals
“I am today a strong form narrativist. I think it's all stories all the way down, and that includes the stories we tell ourselves about value, about growth.”
Hunt: Private Credit Reinsurance Structures Recreate Pre-2008 Citigroup SIV Risks
“My strong belief is that we've shifted around a lot of risk into the insurance, particularly the offshore reinsurance world, where leverage ratio is incredibly high, increasingly invested with affiliates. And we all know what that means, but it's, the reason I…”
High-attribute young talent placed in senior roles quickly eclipses experienced executives
“I think to have a returns that are different, you have to have a belief that's different at the core. And our belief is that we can put a low experience, but high attribute person who's very young into an incredibly high senior leadership role. And in a short …”
Asness: Social media and ubiquitous data make market inefficiencies longer-lasting
“I think the ubiquity of data, social media, maybe indexing, these things have added up to a market where inefficiencies are bigger and last longer.”
Dixon: Interest rates and macro factors are irrelevant to early-stage VC
“People talk about interest rates. I don't think it's relevant to early stage venture capital, because again, it's like any exit would be 10 years away. And fundamentally to get there, it's just so much more Driven by the quality of the team and the ideas than …”
Tepper calls TransDigm's price-tripling aerospace model 'slightly parasitic'
“You have some like Transdime, for example, which relies on FAA certification and are pretty open about they triple the pricing when they purchase a little part, and they raise prices over six percent per year, regardless of what the underlying cost of producin…”
Tepper: Replicate expensive quality funds for 15bps using XLP, XLK, and XLV
“You can basically buy XLP, XLK, and XLV at 15 bibs and replicate with about 95% correlation a lot of these quality funds.”
Sandler: Wall Street establishment targeted Milken after Drexel enabled hostile takeovers
“So Mike was an attractive target because he really wasn't liked by a lot of people in the business round table and in the established firms. He was getting a lot of publicity. He was very successful. And so people complained to the SEC, they complained to Cong…”
Sandler: Prosecutors threatened to destroy Princeton Newport unless it aided Milken prosecution
“The prosecutors at the time had told the principals and the lawyers for Princeton Newport that they're going to run over them. They're going to destroy them unless they help them against Michael Milken and another Case that was under investigation at the time,…”
Sernovitz: GP stakes funds bet on excess management fees over outperformance
“If you talk to some of the guys in the GP stakes funds, It's a bet on the excess management fees rather than outperformance.”
Tangen: Climate change is a financial risk as apolitical as gravity
“The climate is a financial risk, and when people politicize and say that climate is a political question, I just don't get it. To me, climate is as political as gravity.”
Tangen: Exploiting oil and gas resources is not unethical
“I don't think it's unethical to exploit your oil and gas resources. Not at all. It's a very important part of what makes the world tick.”
Corre: UK CMA was doing US bidding on Activision deal before reversing
“I think in hindsight, we recognize now that there was more dialogue between the U.S. And the U.K. Than we had appreciated, and they were probably doing the U.S.'s bidding in a certain way, which is Surprising, but then they really reversed course when the U.S.…”
NAV Loan Dividend Recaps Are a Gimmick to Juice IRR
“The dividend recap of a private equity portfolio seems like a gimmick to juice distributions and IRR so the GP can ask for a commitment to its next fund. In fact, NAV lenders are pitching this concept to GPs as part of the value proposition for accepting a loa…”
NAV Loans Signal the End of the Private Equity Boom
“NAV loans strike me as a canary in the coal mine signaling the end of the private equity boom.”
NAV Loans Resemble Pre-2008 Subprime AAA CDO Tranches
“In many ways, NAV loans resembled the AAA tranches of subprime CDOs 15 years ago.”
Kuruvilla: Philip Morris rates higher in ESG databases than lung cancer drugmakers
“So we have often marveled that Philip Morris, which is a widely known provisioner of cigarettes and tobacco, rates more highly on many of these databases than on companies that are actually trying to treat lung cancer.”
Swensen: Private Equity Fee Burden Almost Guarantees Disappointing Returns
“He said, while illiquid markets provide a much greater range of mispriced assets, private investors fare little better than their marketable security counterparts, as the extraordinary fee burden typical of private equity funds almost guarantees delivery of di…”
Seides: Buyouts underperform public equities after risk and illiquidity adjustments
“He said, in aggregate, buyout investments failed to match public market alternatives. After adjusting for the higher level of risk and the greater degree of illiquidity in buyout transactions, publicly traded equity securities gain a clear advantage.”
Seides: Aggregate venture capital returns fail to compensate for risk
“Over reasonably long periods of time, aggregate venture returns more or less match marketable equity returns, indicating the providers of capital fail to receive compensation for the substantial risk inherent in startup investing.”
The average private equity firm created zero real value over a decade
“The average private equity firm over the last 10 years earned 15% net. Seven and a half percent of that was from multiple expansion, which is basically referencing the public equity markets, multiples, and those companies get valued in line with those, and so …”
Multi-manager hedge fund platforms consume 80% of their gross alpha in fees
“The EROC is terrible. And another way to think about it is, of the total gross alpha, how much do they keep? It's about 80%. We get 20% of the alpha. The alpha's huge. Absolutely huge. But we could never get comfortable with only getting 20%.”
Natural resource fund managers fail to hedge commodity risk despite their claims
“And all our due diligence had us being convinced by these managers saying that they hedge the commodity risk. They don't.”
Ballou: Legal rules shift private equity incentives away from workers and customers
“Lawyers like me have created a series of rules and regulations that have changed the incentives for investors that often works for the private equity firms, but may not necessarily work for workers, for customers, even for other investors.”
Ballou: Carlyle Escaped ManorCare Wrongful Death Suit Through Fund Shell Structure
“When the family of that resident sued for wrongful death, Carlisle was able to get the case against it dismissed, saying that it was not the technical owner of the nursing home chain, but rather merely advised a series of funds whose limited partners through s…”
Ballou: Blackstone recouped Apria Healthcare DOJ settlement costs via dividend recaps
“One of the examples that I was looking at was Blackstone's acquisition of Apria Healthcare, which ultimately had to enter into a deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department because of allegedly selling medical devices that were never actually us…”