Semion Lipner

“It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.” Building @stepbalance | Investor | Global citizen

[Marcos Galperin @marcos_galperin]

Sacándole el 100% del patrimonio a todos los más ricos, no se pagan ni 6 meses del presupuesto de un año del Estado. La batalla ricos vs pobres la inventaron los zurdos para hacerse del control del Estado y convertirse en mega ricos y perpetuarse en el poder. Saben que por sus capacidades, en el sector privado, no podrían manejar ni un kiosco. Zapatero es la última muestra de esto.

[Ethan Brooks @alt_w_v_g]

My wife mentioned a nice private school over dinner this week
She said the campus was beautiful
I asked what's the tuition
She said we should look at it as an investment in him not a cost
I made a note
She said don't make a note
I said I always make notes
She said this isn't a deal
I said everything is a deal
She closed her eyes

She said we'd discuss it Saturday
I agreed

Saturday 7:02am
She came downstairs in her Saturday robe
Coffee in hand
I had my cargo shorts on

The dining room had been cleared
The projector was on
The analyst was at the head of the table
Quarter zip on, three iced coffees, a legal pad, and two laptops
He had been there since 6:44am

I texted him at 11:14pm Friday
The text said dining room 6:45am bring the model
He sent a thumbs up

My wife stopped in the doorway
She said what is this
I said you said you wanted to discuss it
She said this is not a discussion
I did not respond
She sat down anyway

The analyst stood
He said good morning ma'am
She did not respond
He sat back down
A printed deck in front of each seat
A fourth copy in case

Slide 1 Tuition Schedule
$38,500 per year
Thirteen years
$500,500 nominal
Before escalators
The school has raised tuition 4.2% per year for a decade
With escalators $648,000
My wife said okay
I said I'm not done

Slide 2 Opportunity Cost
Even before escalators
$38,500 invested annually
10% nominal return
S&P long-run average since 1928
By his eighteenth birthday $944,000
My wife said we can afford it
I said I know that's not the slide

Slide 3 Terminal Value at Age 65
$83 million
She was quiet

The analyst slid the sensitivity tables across the table
8% return $31 million
10% return $83 million
12% return $222 million
She did not look

She said this isn't about money
I said it's always about money
She said no it isn't
I said then what is it about
She did not answer

She said you can't put a dollar value on his teachers his classmates his environment
I said I can the analyst already did slide 6
He flipped to slide 6
She did not look

She said the school is the best in the city
I said best is a feeling
She said it produces the best students
I said the students were already the best before they got there

She said our son deserves it
I said our son deserves $83 million

My son walked in
He is five
Dinosaur pajamas
He looked at the projector
He looked at the open deck on the table
He looked at slide 3
He said are we modeling pre-tax or after-tax
The analyst opened a new tab
My wife looked at the ceiling

He said what's the discount rate
The analyst set down his pen
She closed her eyes

He said is this the same return assumption from the 529 conversation
The analyst stopped typing
He looked at me
I did not say anything

She stood up
Sat back down

He said dad can I help
I said yes
He pulled up a chair
The analyst handed him a printout
He started reading

My wife watched him read
She watched him for a long time

She said his name
He looked up
She said do you like school
He said the work is too easy and the kids don't ask questions

She did not respond
She looked at the ceiling
She walked out of the room

The analyst started packing up
He said should I follow up Monday sir
I said no follow up needed

He'll be fine

Sent from my iPhone

[Simón Levy @SimonLevyMx]

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero será extraditado a Estados Unidos y
no era solamente un expresidente español.

Era uno de los grandes operadores políticos de la izquierda internacional y pieza clave en la red de protección del chavismo.

Hoy enfrenta acusaciones por organización criminal, tráfico de influencias y falsedad documental, con una posible condena de hasta 16 años de prisión.

Pero el verdadero fondo de esto está en el hilo conductor que une a Zapatero, Alex Saab, Maduro y López Obrador.

Alex Saab fue el operador financiero del régimen venezolano: el hombre que movió dinero, trianguló negocios, construyó redes de lavado y conectó intereses entre gobiernos, empresarios y estructuras políticas en distintos países. Y Zapatero fue durante años uno de los principales protectores políticos internacionales de ese sistema, legitimándolo ante Europa y vendiéndolo como “diálogo democrático”.

Ahí es donde también se comienza a cerrar la pinza sobre AMLO y su entorno político. Porque la relación entre López Obrador y Zapatero nunca fue casual: compartieron agenda, narrativa, protección regional y vínculos con el eje bolivariano.

La caída de Zapatero no es solamente un escándalo español.

Es el posible derrumbe de una red internacional de poder político, financiero e ideológico que operó durante años entre España, Venezuela, Cuba y América Latina.

Muchos todavía no alcanzan a dimensionar la magnitud de lo que está ocurriendo.

[Alice Smith @TheAliceSmith]

Capitalism isn’t about money.

It’s about liberty, progress and personal responsibility.

[Semion Lipner @Lipners]

Strategic reserve is called “strategic” for a reason. It’s the insurance policy in a world of uncertainty. Should and could have been built for a long time period of historically very low oil prices.

[Javier Blas @JavierBlas]

CHART OF THE DAY: The size of the 🇨🇳 Chinese strategic petroleum reserve is mind blowing: larger than 🇺🇸 US + 🇯🇵 Japan + the whole of 🇪🇺 Western Europe combined.

Via @EIAgov — more: https://t.co/bZVjzOHL7Z

[Semion Lipner @Lipners]

This is your life and it’s ending one minute at a time.

[Nilson Marcelo | @TopGrafx @TopGrafx]

6 coisas que os filhos fazem só por um tempo... e depois desaparecem para sempre 😞

1. Um dia eles param de correr até você assim que acordam.
Aquele barulho de pezinhos no corredor, o abraço na cama... aos poucos dá lugar ao silêncio e à porta fechada do quarto.

2. Eles param de dizer: "Mamãe, papai, olha!"
Já não correm mais para te mostrar cada pedrinha ou cada desenho.
Pouco a pouco, o mundo deles fica mais silencioso... e mais deles.

3. Um dia eles param de segurar sua mão enquanto caminham.
E de repente você sente o vazio.
Não porque o amor acabou... mas porque eles estão crescendo.

4. Um dia eles param de dormir nos seus braços.
Aquele apoio no seu ombro, a respiração ficando calma...
são momentos que, sem aviso, acabam.

5. Em algum momento, eles deixam de acreditar que o seu beijo resolve tudo.
Antes bastava um curativo.
Depois, as feridas mais profundas começam a se esconder na música e no silêncio... não mais nos seus braços.

6. Eles param de te trazer seus "tesouros".
Folhas, papéis, pequenas descobertas.
Aquele amor puro e espontâneo... simplesmente diminui.

A infância não é um ensaio. Acontece agora e, enquanto ainda pedem colo e chamam você o dia inteiro, aproveite cada momento. ❤️

[Claude @claudeai]

Introducing Claude Design by Anthropic Labs: make prototypes, slides, and one-pagers by talking to Claude.

Powered by Claude Opus 4.7, our most capable vision model. Available in research preview on the Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise plans, rolling out throughout the day.

[The Kobeissi Letter @KobeissiLetter]

BREAKING: US oil prices crash to $83/barrel as Iran officially reopens the Strait of Hormuz for the remainder of the ceasefire.

[Semion Lipner @Lipners]

@Polymarket UK is slowly sliding into irrelevance. Time for a change.

[Hedgeye @Hedgeye]

🚨 Fertilizer Prices Rise +87% YTD, Pushing Above $720 a Tonne

[Alex Recouso @recouso]

Malta is not allowed to run a citizenship by investment program because Eurocrats in Brussels think it’s a “security risk.”

But they’re okay with Spain giving away hundreds of thousands of passports to illegal immigrants.

The entire EU project doesn’t make any sense. I predict freedom of mobility within member states will end soon.

[Kirk Lubimov @KirkLubimov]

A whole convoy of empty oil tankers on the way to the US to fill up.

It could have been Canada but we have land acknowledgments to do and carbon tax instead.

[Melissa Chen @MsMelChen]

Let’s be real here. Europe has spent decades freeloading on American security. Even now, with every NATO member finally hitting the 2% GDP target in 2025.

But beyond the financial contributions, the real rupture is philosophical and the Iran crisis has shown a spotlight on it.

Europe worships process. Endless committees, consultations, and “predictability.” Macron actually calls it a virtue. For Trump, this is paralysis as his style is to articulate a threat, fix a target, and act. The Americans are men of conviction and purpose. Europe on the other hand lives by bureaucratic liturgy and in high-minded abstractions.

Sure, Americans might make mistakes when acting. But Europe never considers what the costs of not acting actually are.

Just look at how their nations are doing on various fronts, especially on the border crisis, and you see the same cancerous rot that undergirds their foreign policy approach play out domestically. It's the same problem on a different scale.

Iran is currently holding the Strait of Hormuz hostage, choking 20% of global oil and spiking prices past $100 a barrel. Meanwhile, the regime is bleeding from strikes, its nuclear ambitions are still alive despite degraded capability, and its proxies are firing missiles at allies and oil tankers. If this isn’t a clear and present danger to the global economy - of which Europe is a part - then I don’t know what is.

Yet when Washington asked to use European bases to finish the job - bases the US has defended for generations, the response was hesitation and hand-wringing. The US did strike from RAF Fairford, but only after warnings that British soil could become a “legitimate target.”

If you cannot agree that a theocratic regime with eschatological ambitions who have shown no restraint in hitting out at Gulf countries and threatening the world’s energy jugular is an enemy worth confronting, then what, exactly, are we allies about?

Europe loves to preen about being tough on Russia. They issue condemnations and speeches and slap sanctions that hardly work to cripple the Russian economy.

Now here was a chance to do something concrete: let the Americans use the bases they already pay for, help clear the Strait, and actually degrade the Iranian war machine that arms Moscow’s proxies. Turmp didn’t ask for boots on the ground or any kind of more offensive action. All he wanted was permission to operate from the infrastructure America has underwritten for decades.

They couldn’t even manage that.

So can you blame the Americans for seeing NATO for what it is? A paper-tiger alliance that expects Washington to bleed and pay while Brussels and London convenes and deliberates.

If Europe refuses to treat Iran as the threat it is while happily letting American power keep the Strait open and the lights on, then the alliance is already dead. Trump is simply stating the obvious and the Americans are becoming very reluctant to subsidize the European delusion any longer.

[The Kobeissi Letter @KobeissiLetter]

Fertilizer prices are skyrocketing:

New Orleans granular urea prices, the most widely used nitrogen fertilizer, are up +89% since December, to $660 per short ton, the highest since September 2022.

By comparison, the 2022 peak during the Russia-Ukraine war was $910 per short ton.

This comes as the Strait of Hormuz shutdown has effectively halted fertilizer shipments from the Middle East.

Furthermore, top exporters China and Russia are also curbing crop nutrient sales, tightening supply further at the worst possible time, right before the spring planting season.

Higher fertilizer costs directly translate to higher food prices, threatening to reignite agricultural inflation as seen in 2022.

Food is set to get even more expensive.

[Semion Lipner @Lipners]

“Guaranteed” never ends well. Timing also could not be worse. This bag of private credit poop is flying dangerously close to the fan.

[Otavio (Tavi) Costa @TaviCosta]

Not good.

[The Spectator Index @spectatorindex]

BREAKING: Trump announces halt to any plans for strikes on Iranian power plants

[Benjamin Netanyahu - בנימין נתניהו @netanyahu]

Sara and I were deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Chuck Norris, a great friend of Israel and a close personal friend.

Chuck brought martial arts and the warmth of his character to millions around the world.

May his memory be a blessing.

[Semion Lipner @Lipners]

@ninavars @martinvars Muchas felicidades y muy feliz cumpleaños 🎂 Hasta los 120 años y más allá. 🥂

[Apple Lamps @lamps_apple]

"Spain. Beautiful country. Tremendous country. Incredible history, incredible people. Great golf, by the way... some of the most beautiful courses anywhere in the world. And I've seen them all. But right now, under Pedro Sánchez... a socialist, by the way. People don't know that. He's an actual socialist. The head of the Socialist Workers' Party. That's the real name. Socialist Workers' Party. Sounds like something from the Soviet Union. And it basically is. And under this man, Spain is a failing nation. Totally failing. And the people know it. Everybody knows.

Because that's what socialism does. Every time. Every single time. You look at Venezuela... destroyed. Cuba... destroyed. Argentina was destroyed until Milei came in and did a fantastic job, tremendous job ripping it all out. And now Spain. They're going down the same road. The exact same road. And nobody in the fake news wants to talk about it because they love socialism. They think it's wonderful. It's not wonderful. It's a disaster. Always has been, always will be.

We protect Spain. We provide the security. We give them the umbrella... the big, beautiful nuclear umbrella... and they rely on us for their very existence, frankly. Without us, they have nothing. And at the NATO summit, we said, very clearly, very strongly, "You have to pay 5%." Which is still nothing compared to what we spend. Much less than nothing, actually. Trillions and trillions of dollars we spend keeping the world safe. And Pedro Sánchez says no. He says 2.1%. And when I say 2.1%, it's actually less than 2.1% if you look at the real numbers. Much less. He told the world... and think about this... he said that paying for his own defense would ruin his welfare state. Think of that. Think of that for a second. He actually admitted it! He said the quiet part out loud. We pay for their military so they can give away free everything. Free healthcare, free college, free this, free that. The whole socialist dream... paid for by the American taxpayer. Our hardworking people are subsidizing European socialism. And the socialists over there, they laugh about it. They think we're stupid. We're not stupid anymore.

And then you have the Iran situation. Iran. Terror state. Terrible, terrible regime. And by the way, also socialist. People forget that. The Ayatollahs and the socialists... they always find each other. Always. Birds of a feather. So we have a joint operation. Highly classified, beautiful operation. I probably shouldn't talk about it, but I will. Our incredible pilots... and these are the finest pilots anywhere in the world, nobody close... they are sitting on the tarmac at Rota Naval Base in Spain. Engines running. Fuel loaded. Ready to go. Ready to protect civilization, essentially. And Pedro Sánchez calls and says, "You can't fly." He blocks the planes! Our planes! He embargoes the fuel. The pilots... brave, incredible young men and women... they have to shut down the engines, pack everything up, and fly all the way to Germany just to do their jobs. Just to do what they were trained to do. Why? Because Pedro wanted to protect the Ayatollahs. Socialists protect socialists. That's what they do. They stick together. And by the way, the Supreme Leader... not so supreme anymore, is he? Not so supreme. He died like a dog. A total coward. I wasn't sure if I should say that... but it's true. He's dead. And Pedro tried to protect him. Tried to shield him. It's a disgrace. It really is. A total, complete disgrace.

Foreign leaders... and I won't tell you who, I never do... they called me. The biggest leaders in the world. Very powerful people. And they're saying, "Sir, what is going on with Spain? The socialists are ruining everything." They can't believe it. Nobody can believe it. So they sidelined him. Completely sidelined. They threw Sánchez right out of the Washington Group. Just threw him out. "Get out." Gone. I've never seen anything like it. Nobody has.

Because while he's undermining our security... Western security, which is the strongest security apparatus in the history of the world, by far... he's running around making deals with China. Communist China. Horrible deals. Because that's who socialists align with. They don't align with us. They don't align with freedom. They align with the communists and the dictators. And he was protecting Maduro! The socialist dictator of Venezuela. Pedro loved him. Of course he did. Same ideology. Same playbook. Maduro destroyed the richest country in South America... the richest!... with socialism. Turned it into a hellhole. People eating out of garbage cans. And Pedro looked at that and said, "That's my guy." He was protecting him. Shielding him.

Or at least he was. Until we went in. Middle of the night. Pitch black. The helicopters come down at a steep angle... big, powerful, beautiful helicopters... no lights, total silence. The guys go in. Boom. They grab him right out of his bed. Maduro didn't even know what hit him. And now he's sitting in a cold jail cell in New York City. Think of that. Rotting. In New York. Pedro couldn't save him. Nobody could save him. They said it couldn't be done. Most didn't even try, actually. But we did it. Beautiful. One less socialist dictator.

And while Sánchez is posturing on the world stage, pretending to be important, his own government is the most corrupt in the history of Europe, by far. And isn't that always the way with socialists? They tell you they're for the people... "the workers"... and then they steal everything that isn't nailed down. The Koldo Case... Envelopes stuffed with cash. Tens of thousands of euros, just handed over. 100 million, 200 million, 500 million euros... gone. Stolen. During the pandemic, while the Spanish people were locked inside their homes, terrified, these socialist politicians were buying luxury real estate. Living like kings. That's socialism. The people suffer, and the leaders get rich. Every single time. His own wife, Begoña... under investigation. His brother... under investigation. The whole family! And what does Pedro do? He tries to destroy the police. He deployed his political thugs... and that's what they are, thugs... to go after the anti-corruption prosecutors. It's what socialists do. They take over the institutions. The courts, the police, the media. It's third-world stuff. Third-world.

He couldn't even win his own election. Think of that. The people of Spain voted, and he lost. So what did he do? He made a deal... a filthy, disgusting deal... with the Catalan separatists and the communists. Actual communists in his coalition. Podemos. People who had pictures of Che Guevara on their walls. He gave the separatists amnesty. Just tore up the constitution. Ripped it to shreds. That's what socialists think about constitutions. Nothing. They mean nothing to them. Rules are for other people. You talk to the hardworking business owners in Madrid, in Barcelona... people who built something, who took risks, who created jobs... and they have tears pouring down their faces. Grown men crying. They say, "Our country is being given away to communists and criminals." Because the socialists punish success. They punish the people who actually produce. Can you believe that? These people are crazy

And the borders. We're finally getting our border secure... strongest and most secure in American history, by far... but Spain? Wide open. Totally open. Sánchez bypassed his own parliament... didn't even ask... and legalized 500,000 illegal migrants with the stroke of a pen. Just signed a royal decree. 500,000. The real number? Probably 800,000. Maybe a million. Nobody knows. And why? Because socialists need a permanent underclass. They need people dependent on the government. That's how the whole scam works. You bring them in, you give them benefits, you make them dependent, and then they vote for more socialism. It's a machine. Crime going up 300%, 400%, 500% and more. Real unemployment at 14%. Fourteen percent. In a European country. The socialist paradise! That's what they call it.

And if you complain... if you dare speak the truth... Pedro wants to shut you down. He wants to ban your social media. Because that's the other thing about socialists. They hate free speech. They can't survive free speech. The ideas fall apart the second people are allowed to talk. He attacks Elon Musk, who is doing a fantastic job, a tremendous job protecting free speech for the entire world. Pedro wants to silence the Spanish people because he knows they despise him. He knows it. Socialism can only survive behind censorship.

Pedro Sánchez caused that problem. He caused it. Socialism caused it. He betrayed his allies. He betrayed NATO. He betrayed Western civilization, frankly. And most importantly, he betrayed the wonderful, beautiful, strong people of Spain... who are not socialists, by the way. The people are not. The people are hardworking, proud, freedom-loving people who deserve so much better. So much better. The socialism has to stop. And it has to stop now.

You don't get to put American troops in danger... our incredible men and women who are willing to die for your freedom... and then hide behind trade deals that we gave you out of the goodness of our hearts. Pedro Sánchez grounded our planes. He endangered our pilots. He sided with the enemy. And there has to be a price for that. A very big price. And there will be."

[Nuseir Yassin @nasdaily]

Today, I am proud to be Israeli.

Despite all the shaming.
Despite all the UN "resolutions".
Despite all the academics.
Despite all the online pressure.

Israel is cleaning the Middle East from radical religious terrorists. One by one.

They will not thank us for it.
But someone had to do the job.