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 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 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
Andy Redleaf: Warren Buffett is an above-average investor, but an elite borrower
“And I've always thought that Warren Buffett is not a great investor. He's a, he's an above average good investor. He's good on the asset side. He's the world record holder. He's the absolute best borrower in the world. And had sort of a unique model, and that'…”
Redleaf: Commission deregulation forced Wall Street to trade against customers
“In fact, the established firms moved from commission business to trading businesses, trading against their customers, really. The prop desks became established. And then subsequently, as volume exploded, as, in fact, commission business could work. The prop tr…”
Andy Redleaf: Stock index futures only enabled destructive home day trading
“From an investment, from an, you know, investor point of view, there was absolutely no use for the product. It enabled pajama boys, you know, people to trade at home the market on a, you know, 10 minute, five minute, 10 minute hourly basis, which, you know, is…”
Redleaf: Originate-to-distribute and misaligned incentives did not cause the 2008 crisis
“People and regulators and so forth talk about the originating to distribute as the problem of the financial crisis. I think that that's completely wrong. It's not the case that incentives were misaligned. I mean, all of Lehman's employees Had the bulk of their…”
Redleaf: Corporate America is the only remaining arbitrageur for orphaned securities
“I see there being more permanently orphaned securities, and, you know, I mean, really, The only people to, ah, to be the effective arbitrageurs or to close differences is, is corporate America, and corporate America is sort of slower.”
Andy Redleaf: Outperforming an index mathematically requires leverage, concentration, or turnover
“Returns above an index have to, mathematically, they have, the possible sources are leverage, concentration, or turnover.”
Redleaf: Black-box funds rarely have proprietary secrets too complex or valuable to reveal
“And the thing about a Black, the Black Box, I always thought the Black Box firms, you're telling people, That either our system is so complicated, so detailed, so computationally intense, or what have you, that there's no point in opening it up, because it jus…”
Redleaf: A bank charter's value comes from mispriced deposit insurance and forbearance
“The advantage of a bank charter, the value of a bank charter is access to mispriced deposit insurance and some bankruptcy insolvency forbearance. You know, you generally If you're insolvent, you won't be shut down immediately. You know, they'll have a memorand…”
Redleaf: Decentralized market allocation is dead in favor of state-directed capital
“I think the very central idea that, you know, like sort of markets are better than markets, individuals better than institutions, et cetera. You know, I do, I think that's dead, and I think the world really wants institutional, wants to go back to sort of inst…”
Andy Redleaf shared a three-person Gruntal prop desk with Steve Cohen
“The prop desk at Gruntel was three people. My boss, Ron Acer, a kid six months older than I am, who you may have heard of, Steve Cohen, and me. Gruntel, at the time, had capital of eight million dollars. We used a little more than two, and really the rest of t…”
Redleaf: I could always borrow more money than was prudent
“One of the things that's sort of remarkable is for all of my career, I've been able to borrow more money than was prudent.”
Redleaf: Structured derivatives bypassed institutional restrictions on direct option writing
“There were lots of sort of institutions that could own a single security that was a covered call, but they couldn't own the stock and write a call. So it was an option product to be marketed to institutional investors, opposed to, you know, sort of the standar…”