We all have them. All our lives. Those moments. Click. It clicks. It is when two things come together and what was once two questions instantly becomes one answer. The ever elusive and cool…. Aha. Instant. Insight. The aha moment. The dots just connected. The deduction has now been deduced. Everyone sees the edge, I see between the edges. Epiphany. Click. I get it now. I understand. Aha moments become ever more important when your lifestyle is volatilistic.
My aha moment with volatility happened at work some years ago. 1993 that is. I was reading the pages of a very famous book about dinosaurs. But it wasn’t about dinosaurs at all. It was all about volatility. It was the problem and the inverse of the problem all at once. It was a sword fight between the taker and the undertaker. The iterator and the re-iterator were dancing and I saw who was who. It was the counterparty and the party all in the same room. They were arguing profusely about who really held the risk. The solution is still elusive.
It was in those pages that I made friends with Ian Malcolm. I had an aha moment with Ian. I still consult with him at times. Ian gets it. Who are you? Do you get it? Read on.
In my meetings with Ian, he presented me with a series of drawings. The drawings describe very well what is happening in the Financials right now.
Allow me now to re-iterate what I have already iterated. There is no financial company - or any company for that matter - that is immune to what is happening right now. The tree has tipped. Timber is being yelled. Bailouts are nothing but band aids on broken bones. Any ‘rescue’ or ‘bailout’ that you read about in the papers is nothing but Public relations. The gains were for a few and now the losses and the risks are being shifted to the masses.
Do not read into this PR blitz any other way. If no one will claim who is at the party and who is at the counter party, their common stock CANNOT be owned. After all is said and done the words ‘common stock’ will have a whole new meaning. Right now those words float like a butterfly. Soon, they’ll sting like a bee.
The next shoe to fall from the sky is the commercial reit sector. Everyone will still be running around saying, “HOW COULD WE HAVE SEEN THIS COMING!”.
First off, you can’t see it coming if you don’t look. Second, now that it came you won’t ’see it coming’. Why? Because it is here.
Thank you Ian, for helping me with this. To you I dedicate this post. I am witnessing and documenting another seventh iteration.
“Increasingly, the mathematics will demand the courage to face it’s implications.”
-Ian Malcolm
Jeff
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“At the earliest drawings of the fractal curve, few clues to the underlying mathematical structure will be seen.”
-Ian Malcolm
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“With subsequent drawings of the fractal curve, sudden changes may appear.”
-Ian Malcolm
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“Details emerge more clearly as the fractal curve is redrawn.”
-Ian Malcolm
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“Inevitably, underlying instabilities begin to appear.”
-Ian Malcolm
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“Flaws in the system will now become severe.”
-Ian Malcolm
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“System recovery may prove impossible.”
-Ian Malcolm
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“Increasingly, the mathematics will demand the courage to face it’s implications.”
-Ian Malcolm
Saturday, April 4, 2026 
