Last week, Lars Schall interviewed Jesse of the Cafe Americain. Here's the beginning:
“We Are Seeing An All-out Defense of the Status Quo”
On behalf of Matterhorn Asset Management, financial journalist Lars Schall talked with Jesse, the host of the popular financial web site Jesse’s Café Américain, about, inter alia: his interest in precious metals; why he thinks the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission decided to take no action regarding complaints about manipulation of the silver market; the future of the so called “currency wars;” and last but not least why he believes that the Federal Reserve is laying the groundwork for its own demise.
By Lars Schall
Jesse’s web site Jesse’s Café Américain can be found here.
Lars Schall: Jesse, tell us at the beginning a bit about your background, please. For example, what motivates you to run your web site and comment on a daily basis on the financial markets?
Jesse: I had a long career in engineering, computers, and communications that was based on a good foundation, a classical education in the arts and natural sciences. As you might expect there was a significant amount of post graduate study in specialized and developing areas of computer science and networking. Fortunately I had a good mind for math, and a talent for music, which makes for a good encoder and algorithm developer.
Our minds and our time are the two resources that are most within our control. I naturally loved to learn, but it was coupled with a sense of ‘obligation for use’ that is embodied in the parable of the talents: with advantages come obligations.
This is not to say that I always used what I have been given well and wisely, but I have always made the attempt, even while falling. One learns, and learns to forgive, first others and then themselves. None is perfect in this world.
My corporate career ended at age 50, leaving it in order to spend more time at home, and especially with my young son. I had been working very long hours and spending a significant amount of time away from home for too many years, and did not wish to lose any more of that precious gift of family. Calculations showed that given our savings, and naturally modest lifestyle, we could get by on what I could make from trading in markets and some other investments. And so this has been the way it has been for the past twelve years.
Solitary work lacks the camaraderie of the workplace, and I also knew that without the impedance of producing something ‘on paper’ and subjecting it to objective evaluation and criticism, that it was all too easy to be fooled into self-indulgence and the subtle misapprehensions of self-reinforcing thought. And a person is not fully alive unless they are changing and creating something.
Voila, Le Café.
Keep reading: We Are Seeing An All-out Defense of the Status Quo – Jesse.
