[QUICK THREAD: PERSPECTIVE]
1/11
Make no mistake, I abhor that prancing peacock, I really do. Just not for your reasons. His financial corruption doesn't bother me. His Islamophobia does, but only so much. His lies, again, only to an extent.

[QT: INDIA, THE GOLD STANDARD OF CLASS]
1/28
Some time last week, an American shared this on LinkedIn. A neutral (note the 3rd-person verbiage) observation of the goings-on in our capital with a legit @AP thumbnail. Of course India had to descend on him like an avalanche of poop.

2/28
This is a quick thread of some of the worst responses out there, just to illustrate the obvious, which in one way makes the exercise pointless. At the same time, such loss of a demography's class must never be out of the spotlight. So am doing it anyway.

3/28
Just before we start, here's a small bummer: I've redacted all identifying information even though it's all in public domain. This is to avoid any inadvertent code violation; Twitter doesn't seem to like doxing and neither do I.

So here we go.

4/28
1. Corporate affairs general manager at a Japanese auto heavyweight.
2. DB architect with a Silicon Valley giant. Sum total of his argument? Farmer leaders lean Left. Interestingly, also disses the IAC shindig the biggest benefactor of which was the party in power today.

5/28
Here's another, this time no less than the COO of one of the biggest electronics retail chains in India. From his English, to his demeanor, to his self-entitlement, tweet naming one thing that isn't oozing class.

Lemme share a poem with you. It’s titled Ram and was originally composed in Urdu by a controversial Indian figure about 114 years ago. There’s 6 verses, am sharing each of them along with an English translation.

Verse 1:
[U]
labrez hai sharāb-e-haqīqat se jām-e-hind
sab falsafī haiñ ḳhitta-e-maġhrib ke rām-e-hind

[EN]
Overflowing with the wine of Truth is the cup of India
All philosophers of the Western world have acknowledged India

Verse 2:
[U]
ye hindiyoñ kī fikr-e-falak-ras kā hai asar
rifat meñ āsmāñ se bhī ūñchā hai bām-e-hind

[EN]
It is the result of the elegant thinking of Indians
That higher than the sky is the position of India

Verse 3:
[U]
is des meñ hue haiñ hazāroñ malak-sarisht
mashhūr jin ke dam se hai duniyā meñ nām-e-hind

[EN]
This country has had many people of angelic disposition
On whose account world renowned is the name of India

Verse 4:
[U]
hai raam ke vajūd pe hindostāñ ko naaz
ahl-e-nazar samajhte haiñ is ko imām-e-hind

[EN]
India is proud of the existence of Rama
Spiritual people consider him prelate of India

[THREAD: HISTORY OF THE HINDU TEMPLE]
1/102
Four hours south of Aswan in Lower Nubia, right by the Nile, is a region dotted with temple complexes built more than 3,000 years ago. Some like the temples of Amada, Derr, and Beit el-Wali go as far back as 1500 BC.

2/102
A little further south, not far from the border with Sudan, is another complex dedicated to Ramses II, Hathor, and Nefertari in the village of Ipsambul, better known locally as Abu Sunbul and internationally as Abu Simbel. These go back to the 13th century BC.

3/102
Djeser-Djeseru, also known as the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut in Upper Egypt also dates to 1400 BC. Over 500 years older is the nearby Mentuhotep II, also a mortuary temple. Both were dedicated to the cult of Amun Ra, besides their respective pharaohs.

4/102
Far older is the Ġgantija complex of Malta. Going as far back as 3600 BC, this one comprises of two temples entirely made of stone and enclosed in a stone wall. From the figures therein, it's understood to be a site of some kind of a fertility cult worship.

5/102
Dating from the same period are the limestone megaliths of Ħaġar Qim and Mnajdra, both said to have once hosted ritualistic sacrifices as part of the same fertility cult worship as found in the Ġgantija complex. Malta has some of the oldest temple complexes in Europe.

[THREAD: WHEN GREECE RULED INDIA]
1/89
Some time in the 7th century AD, Sanskrit writer Bāṇabhaṭṭa did a biography on his patron, emperor Harshavardhana. It was titled Harṣacarīta and is said to be the first biographical work from the subcontinent.

2/89
Besides abundant references to the Greeks (as Yavanas, derived from Ionians), the book recounts a curious incident of king Vatsapati being ambushed by soldiers emerging from "the belly of a sham elephant."

This section may or may not have been lifted from an earlier work.

[QUICK THREAD: AMSTERDAM'S XXX]
1/11
Most European cities date back to the Middle Ages if not Antiquity, and have an imperial coat of arms. This one's Amsterdam's. What you see in the middle column are not 3 letters but 3 crosses, Saint Andrew's Crosses or saltiers to be precise.

2/11
The reason St. Andrew's Cross looks like that is because the saint was martyred on an X-shaped cross, instead of the more familiar + kind. He was one of the apostles of early Christianity and was crucified by the Romans for heresy.

3/11
The reason this particular cross features on the city's coat of arms is because the apostle in question was a fisherman. And Amsterdam was founded as a fishing village back in 1505. St. Andrew is the most natural patron saint of fishermen around the world.

4/11
Being the official municipal herald, this coat of arms appears all over Amsterdam. Take the city hall building (officially, the Stopera), for instance.

5/11
Or this heritage building, certainly older than 1947 as it didn't include the motto (Heldhaftig, Vastberaden, Barmhartig). The motto was added only in 1947 by Queen Wilhelmina to honor the bravery and compassion shown by the city during the General Strike of 1941.

A children's book explanation of what's happening:

1. If you are "smart money" you are allowed to take your $1 and leverage it up to $15+

2. You can now buy $15 of stock AND if you promise to short companies, you can short $15 of stock as well

3. In finance language, this means that you are $30 "gross" ($15 of longs + $15 of shorts) but $0 net (+$15 of longs -$15 of shorts). This makes everyone feel good because it feels like you are taking zero risk...but in reality, your $1 is exposed to $30 of risk.

4. Now you go around and tell your friends about both your longs and your shorts and when you do it at a restaurant vs on Reddit, its called an "ideas dinner".

5. You also publish your longs on a quarterly lag via an SEC rule. You don't have to tell anyone about your shorts.

6. Now the less cool people who weren't invited to the ideas dinners, start copying your longs based on your report.

7. You realize that publicizing your shorts is also a good idea so instead of only selling stocks, you also BUY options (puts) which has to be reported.

8. Now everyone can see both your longs and your shorts and if you have a hot hand, you can likely predict that the cool people from the dinner as well as the less cool people monitoring your filings will copy you.

9. But then an outsider notices that the math is way off!

Wiley buys Hindawi -- a $298 million acquisition for GBP 25 million in annual APC revenues -- in bid to expand open-access platforms @pbasken

I'm really fascinated by several things about this acquisition. 1. One could posit that APC business models in structural decline as they are replaced by transformative agreements. Will Hindawi titles be folded into Wiley TA's or offered as a separate "pure publish" model?

2. Seems that there is little concern about geopolitical risk: "Wiley…saw value in Hindawi’s strong position in Asia, the world’s largest and fastest growing academic publishing market…“Hindawi’s significant footprint in in China is a major benefit from that perspective”"

3. It seems some in the academic community continue to be "alarmed" when, after taking advantage of private capital to fund commercial start-ups for open access services (bepress; SSRN; now Hindawi), that capital looks to sell in search of returns. As if this is a surprise!

4. Most interesting will be to see how this expansion of Wiley's OA portfolio and platforms/workflows/services can connect with its important businesses in support of society publishing.

1/11) Introducing https://t.co/dDuU0rsw1Y.

We are building a new #DeFi asset management protocol.

Ccommunity owned and community managed funds.

DeFi meets Wall Street Bets.

It's time to decentralize and democratize investment

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TLDR 👇

2/11)

The investment landscape has changed forever.

We are finally at zero interest rates. End of the road.

Traditional asset classes like bonds or equities don't have risk/adjusted positive outlooks anymore.

Inflation looms 💸💸

What can we do about it?

3/11

As @RaoulGMI says, only one asset class has outperformed this increase in the money supply.

#Bitcoin, and crypto assets are just getting started.

Asset Management TAM is > $100T while DeFi is just $40B and all crypto is ~$1T.

Huge opportunity ahead 🚀🚀

4/11

We want to give everyone access to this one-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Accreditation rules, access to secret deals and local jurisdiction have kept the best opportunities private.

@balajis said many times that Web 3.0 is going to turn the world into investors. We agree.

5/11
We need to give everyone a chance to participate.

Robinhood has made everyone aware of the risk of centralized platforms.

If you are not paying to use a platform, you are the product.

Thanks to #Ethereum and #DeFi, we can offer asset management that is trustless and open.

Ten MF mistakes I recommend you avoid...

1. Too much love

A fund does well. You fall in love with the fund house. You have a large mid and small cap scheme from them. They all tank together! Diversify. And remember being good at one thing doesn’t make you good at the other.

2. One for all

Applying the same metrics to judge different asset classes. What matters to equity funds doesn’t matter to debt funds. Arb funds are fully hedged - the individual stocks don’t matter, they do in equities. Understand what matters for each asset class.

3. Perils of passive

Assuming all passive funds are good because they are cheap. There are terrible passive funds out there too. They track bad indices. Or they track good ones but have a lot of tracking error. Passive requires its own set of research.

4. Apples and kiwis 🍎 🥝

We have categories in MF but sadly all funds in a category are not comparable. Just because a website compares them doesn’t mean you should look beneath. BAF categories have funds that are static, dynamic bond funds have rolldowns. Just an example.