Some people criticize the injection of politics into economic discussions.

But economic historians tell us that economists used to understand and accept that economics is wholly interrelated with politics, and that politics affects our economy.

They note that modern economists have artificially tried to somehow separate the two like Descartes tried to separate the mind from the body.

Indeed, the father of modern economics – Adam Smith – talked a lot about politics in relation to economics.

For More: Can we separate Economics and Politics?

Thank You,

I am afraid America makes less sense every day.

Little children are randomly slaughtered in their schoolrooms. Predator drones roam the skies over foreign countries exterminating bad guys, along with innocent women and children (collateral damage when it occurs in a foreign country). Drugged up mentally ill kids with no hope and no future live lives of secluded quiet desperation until they snap. Ignorant, government educated, welfare dependent drones with no self respect or respect for others, assault, kill and rob within their government created urban ghettoes.

Sociopaths who committed the largest financial crime in world history walk free and continue to occupy executive suites in luxury office towers in downtown NYC, collecting millions in bonuses as compensation for crushing the American middle class. Academics, whose theories have been thoroughly disproven, continue to steer our economy into an iceberg while accelerating the money printing and debt issuance that will sink our ship of state. Corrupt, bought off politicians pander to the lowest common denominator as their votes are only dependent upon who contributed the most to their election campaigns, which never end. Delusional, materialistic, narcissistic, math challenged consumers (formerly known as citizens – live for today, enslave themselves in debt, vote themselves more entitlements, and care not for future generations.

For More: America Tear down the wall before it’s too late

Thank You.

I am often asked what is it to be wealthy that most people don’t know much about.

Well here are some facts that may surprise you and that you may or may not have imagined along with some tips as to how to best deal with it.

1. Being wealthy is an incredibly isolating experience. What I mean by that is you can’t really complain about your problems except within your small circle of rich friends. Otherwise, you will sound like an asshole. Even if you do, non-rich people can’t really empathize with you.

There are a few other problems associated with being rich such as family/friends asking for money, unexpected jealous reaction from friends/family, pressure to deal with more complex tax, estate planning and investment planning, etc… The joy of “set for life” doesn’t seem to offset the anxiety from hoarding the huge sum of money. In addition, when you don’t work because you are rich but can’t hang out with your friends who have to work during the week, you feel like an outcast of society. Best way to deal with it? Stay focused, keep working at what you do best – Work is healthy – and enjoy what you have with people you carefully selected and feel comfortable with.

For More: Things about being wealthy

I talk to and meet close to 500 entrepreneurs a year – from the true maverick game changers to the guys as arrogant and dumb as can be –

I believe what differentiates a killer serial entrepreneur from the rest of the crowd is frankly how they operate – no matter what product they are offering.

With around 30 year experience on Wall Street backing over 125 companies worth in aggregate over 10 billion dollars during the time period, I thought I’d share with you some of my thoughts in this regard.

For More: How Killer Serial Entrepreneurs Operate

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In just a matter of years, we’ve seen the digital revolution transform business, politics, media and society right across the world.

The Davos fest early this year only confirms the trend where this revolution is clearly driving a shift from ‘old’ to ‘new’ power in the world.

A new power’ world characterized by a shift away from unthinking consumption to people being ever more involved in creating, sharing, funding and owning products, services and ideas.

Where old power business models are defined by what one company has that others haven’t, new power models are renewable because they are driven by the passions and energies of the many.

Take a close look at Bitpay and Blockchain, both shaking up the banking industry by giving more people access to a new currency in a secure way, without the permission of governments and institutions…. Along with Sidecar with their true marketplace experience challenging Uber and Lyft to get people moving.

For More: My Personal Reflections on Davos 2015

Thank You,

I get a lot of questions about how to get rich, and my answer is very simple.

Don’t spend too much. Mostly save. Always invest.

Yet so many people do the exact opposite—invest poorly, spend way too much, save almost nothing, and remain willfully ignorant about their finances.

Why? Because they don’t understand their relationship to money.

So how do you develop the good habit of turning you situation around, get out of your hole, get on the right track and stay on it?

The first step in changing money habits is taking a cold hard look at your financial input and output by adding up all your earnings and subtracting all your expenditures over three months. If your number is positive you’re one of the few people taking in more money than you spend. If your number is negative, and like the majority of men and women, you spend more than you make.

For More: So you wanna get and stay rich?

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Suspicions among white-collar professionals that the recovery is an illusion, or at least has left them behind, are validated by official government data buried in the monthly employment reports, based on household surveys, which few bother to actually read.

Even more worrisome is the continuation of a decade-long decline in the number of self-employed, a category which includes many of these same professionals.

While even the seasonally-adjusted employment data show an uptick in five of the six unemployment measures (Table A-15 of the January 2015 jobs report, available at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm), the unadjusted numbers in the same table show a measurable increase in unemployment.

However, that is not news to the white-collar workforce which has not fully recovered and which may never recover. Remember that the official data, if anything, paints a rosier picture than reality, because it is based on methodologies which strain to overstate employment and understate unemployment.

Thank You,

I have often asked myself this question and I am sure the same applies to you.

My view on this is that you should go with your gut feeling when you have a threshold level of relevant experience.

In my opinion, gut calls are usually very little if any helpful when it comes to looking at deals or similar investment opportunities requiring quantitative analysis and much more important but still not enough when it comes to picking or relying on people.

It is a fact that when I am looking at deals, I always look at the hard cold numbers. I rarely rely on gut feelings. Why? Let’s say for example you don’t know much about investing, and you’re debating whether to buy shares in Google or Amazon at the current stock price, your gut reaction whether to pull the trigger is almost certainly meaningless.

For More: Going for your gut feeling – Yes or No?

Thank You.

I personally believe ISIS will never become a serious and credible state in the world.

They have made it clear that they don’t care much for international diplomacy or law  and that only Sharia can be used to govern their new state.

A fanatical force like this does well at first; they carry out brutal acts, capture swathes of land, steal, murder, rape, perform forced conversions to Islam and run a well oiled recruiting machine but this can only last for a while because sooner or later their resources are depleted and the circus over.

So you wanna crush ISIS? Better act fast and swift… Here’s a short list of their Achilles’ heal.

1. ISIS is militarily overextended and hopelessly ineffective against a trained and well equipped army. Although they’re led by a few savage Chechen’s and some Arab militants who answer to a mysterious bearded man who calls himself “Abu Bakr Al-Bagdadi”, it will take only one crushing defeat to completely demoralize their forces, who so far have only shown their prowess in gunning down heretics (Shia, Ezidi, Christians and some ethnic Turkmen), beheading children and foreigners and stealing some old military equipment left behind by the US and Russia.

For More: Want to crush ISIS? No way but boots on the ground

There are lots of things I know now that I wish I had known when I was 22.

I would have loved to have known for example that the Middle East was going to turn the way it did and would have capitalized on the opportunities accordingly – both politically and business wise.

In retrospect, I think the “game changer” move that changed the whole Middle East map was triggered under Former President Jimmy Carter and the Shah of Iran. If the Shah had ignored Carter’s advice back in 1977, there wouldn’t be this problem in Afghanistan, nor would there have been the Iran-Iraq war.

Iraq would never have dared to even send a plane over Iran. In fact, the Gulf War wouldn’t have happened, nor the clash between East and West nor any of the problems of the past 30 years, including the exporting of religious fanaticism and the eternal problems my homeland Lebanon was and still experiencing over the time period.

For More: If I were 22.There is no Substitute for Intelligence gathering & Absorption