Latest memo from Howard Marks: Economic Reality

If you buy for $50 and sell for $40, you won’t make money . . . period (or stay in business long). That reminds me of a joke I used in “bubble.com” in January 2000, one my father told me roughly 60 years ago:


“I lose money on everything I sell.”

“Then how do you stay in business?”

“I make it up on volume.”


For those of us in the business world, economics defines reality. (You may think you’ve heard me poke at it, but what I deride is economic forecasting, not economics. There’s a big difference.) The realities of economics are the subject of this memo. My primary methodology will be to describe ways in which people (and especially politicians) tend to propose things that conflict with economic reality, and explain why they’re unlikely to work.

https://www.oaktreecapital.com/insights/howard-marks-memos